Tempting the Devil

by Potter, Patricia;

  “Damn it, Robin. How badly were you injured?”

  “Just some cuts and bruises,” she said. “County deputies are claiming it was my fault.” She realized she wasn’t making much sense. “An SUV forced me off the road. It rammed me. Then someone threatened me …”

  Silence. Then, “I don’t know who’s the bigger fool. You for going, or me for letting you go.”

  “I made the decision,” she replied.

  “Do you need our attorney?”

  “Not now, but I might later.”

  “Give Greene the story tomorrow morning.”

  “I can write it.”

  “No,” he said. “You’ve become part of the story.”

  “They’re going to deny it.”

  “Who?”

  Robin tried to put her thoughts in order. They didn’t want to cooperate. I will not panic.

  “The sheriff’s department. Deputies. They claim I was reckless. Drinking. I wasn’t.” She hated the defensiveness in the statement.

  “You say you’re going home. You have a safe ride?”

  “I … yes.”

  “We’ve hired an agency to watch your house. They should be there now. I’m coming over.”

  “No. I’m fine. Truly I am. I just need to get home.”

  “Tomorrow then. I’ll stop over before going in to the office.”

  She ended the call, returned the phone to Taylor, and tried to think ahead. She didn’t want to think about the last few hours. She didn’t want to relive the terror.

  So many things to do. So much lost. Notes. Transportation—her beloved car. Insurance. Finding another car. Then the thought she’d been avoiding. Someone wanted to kill her. Or was willing to risk killing her in a most unpleasant way to obtain a name from her.

  Taylor was silent, a fact she appreciated. Outside of the comment about her stupidity, which she agreed with, there was no “I told you so.” She needed to think, to process everything that had happened. She was surprised, though, that he didn’t take this opportunity to ask her for the name of her source.

  She suddenly started shaking. She opened her eyes and looked at her hands. Willed them to stop moving. She clasped them to stop it.

  Taylor reached out a hand and put it over hers. Just the touch was enough to stop the shivering. His hand was warm. Strong.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not usually this …” Wobbly? Weak? She didn’t want to admit to either.

  “I don’t know a cop alive that hasn’t had a reaction after an experience like that.”

  “I remembered two years ago when my car went off a cliff. It was happening all over again …” The shaking resumed.

  “Can you give us a sketch of the face?”

  “Yes … I think so. He wore dark glasses, though, and a cap.”

  “I’ll have one of our artists come over in the morning.”

  She wanted to go home. She didn’t want to go home. She wondered whether she would ever feel safe there again.

  She considered blurting out the name that Ben Taylor wanted. That the bad guys wanted. But how could she exchange her life for Sandy’s? She knew now why she’d heard the fear in his voice.

  Ben moved his hand back to the steering wheel as they entered the interstate. He stepped down on the pedal and just that acceleration increased the aching pain in her chest.

  “Why did you call me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  But she did know. She had friends at the paper, but when she had to call someone his was the first name that came to her. She’d felt safe with him last night. She’d desperately wanted to feel safe again.

  He didn’t say anything else until they neared her neighborhood. He stopped at a drive-through pharmacy for the prescriptions. She realized she didn’t have any money—or credit cards—to pay the bill.

  Minor concern, considering she was still alive. And yet worrying about minor things diverted thoughts from bigger ones, about the absolute terror she’d felt just hours ago.

  She’d thought she was going to die when her car had spun out of control and tumbled down the incline. But a malicious attempt to do her harm was far different from her own carelessness.

  They waited in silence until the order was filled and came through the window.

  Then he drove her home. The house looked the same from the outside. A car with two men was parked in front.

  “My editor said he would hire someone to watch the house,” she said.

  Ben parked behind it and took out his gun. “I’m leaving the key in the ignition. If you see anything suspicious, take off for the nearest station.” He didn’t wait for her assent, but got out and went over to the driver’s side of the other car.

  Thank God, it was a bench seat. Easy enough for her to slide if necessary. She watched as he leaned over and talked to the driver. She saw him hand over his credentials and look at others. Then he made a call on his cell phone.

  He returned to her side of the car. “They’re legit. Decent enough agency. Mostly ex-cops.”

  The lights were on next door.

  “I want to get Daisy,” she said. “She’s with Mrs. Jeffers.”

  “I’ll get her after you’re inside.”

  Robin shook her head. “I don’t have a key. It was in the car.”

  “Wait for me here, then, while I get the cat and key.”

  Every muscle in her body ached. Too much to protest.

  He sprinted across her lawn to Mrs. Jeffers’s. The door opened almost immediately, and she knew that Mrs. Jeffers had watched them drive up. In seconds, Ben Taylor returned to the car with a key in hand.

  He opened the car door for her. “Mrs. Jeffers is bringing Daisy and her bed over. I asked her to give us a few minutes to get inside.”

  He offered his hand, and she took it as she stood. Every bone and muscle in her body ached. She forced a step. The next came easier.

  “Stay behind me when we go in,” he said.

  “You don’t think …?”

  “I don’t think anyone is there, but those hired guys didn’t check inside your house. I don’t think you can take anything for granted.”

  She nodded. Her heart pounded even as she yearned to be inside. In her own bed. In the nest she’d created for herself.

  Except it was no longer a sanctuary. No longer invulnerable to the outside.

  The numbing fear lingered. She kept remembering that instant when she’d lost control of the car. The certainty that she would die …

  She waited as he opened the door. “Wait here,” he ordered.

  He went inside, just as she had watched cops in movies do. Pistol in hand. And fast.

  Several minutes—a lifetime—later, he reappeared. The gun was holstered in his belt.

  “It’s clear,” he said, opening the door and moving aside as she walked in.

  The lights were on. Her living room looked the same. She headed for the big overstuffed chair she loved.

  Home.

  Yet she didn’t feel the satisfaction she usually did. She wondered whether she would ever feel it again.

  A knock. Ben peered out the door, then opened it. Mrs. Jeffers appeared, carrying Daisy and a cat bed. Damien followed behind.

  “Oh, my.” Mrs. Jeffers stared at her. “Mr. Taylor said you were hurt, but …”

  “That bad?” Robin said.

  Her silence answered that question eloquently.

  Robin explained the best she could, though she feared her words were running together.

  Mrs. Jeffers hovered over her. “You should be in bed.” She cast a reproachful glance at Ben. “I’ll turn the covers down and make some hot cocoa. It will help you sleep.” She turned on Ben. “How did you let this happen?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. She was on her way down the hall, presumably to Robin’s bedroom.

  Robin tried to stand and couldn’t stifle a groan. She couldn’t remember feeling that kind of pain before. Not even through the long medical journey with her leg.
Then it hurt to laugh when they took a piece of her hip for a bone transplant. Now it hurt to breathe.

  Mrs. Jeffers was back. “You help her into the bedroom while I make some cocoa.”

  Robin was bemused at the way Mrs. Jeffers ordered an FBI agent about, but that thought was quickly replaced by the fact that she would soon be alone tonight with a bum leg and a chest that ached every time she took a breath.

  He obediently helped her stand. His arm stayed around her until they reached the bedroom. The covers were turned down and she sat down on the edge of the bed. “You haven’t asked me about my source.”

  “Would you tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Then it wouldn’t do any good, would it?”

  She studied him through narrowed eyes. “I’m not sure I trust this new, understanding you.”

  “You’ve been hurt. I don’t kick hurt kittens.”

  “I’m not a kitten.”

  “Okay, bad analogy. You’re definitely not a kitten.”

  She started to lean down to unzip the left leg of her slacks. A sharp ache stopped her midway. “I … my ribs …”

  He kneeled on the floor and unzipped the pant leg, then his hands quickly unbuckled the straps of the brace.

  She didn’t want him to do it. The leg was still badly scarred, though the white puffiness was gone. But he finished before she could protest. He placed the brace next to her bed and his fingers massaged her leg.

  Gentle. His fingers were gentle and they felt so good. She leaned down on the pillows, easing some of the strain on her ribs, the stiffness in her leg. She closed her eyes and savored his touch.

  He caressed the leg as if it were a thing of value, even of beauty, not the scarred, ugly limb she saw each morning. She’d thought her leg would repel him.

  Warmth started filling her. Warmth and an odd contentment. The terror of the earlier hours faded.

  “I see you’re in good hands,” Mrs. Jeffers said, and Robin opened her eyes. Her neighbor was carrying a mug and placed it on the night table. “I’ll be on my way.”

  “Those two men in front—”

  “Ben told me all about them,” Mrs. Jeffers said.

  So it was “Ben” now.

  “You need me, you call me,” Mrs. Jeffers said. “No matter when.” She left, casting an approving look at Ben Taylor.

  Robin wasn’t sure she wanted Mrs. Jeffers to go. She was comfortable with Ben Taylor. Entirely too comfortable. There was something else, as well. A raw ache, a rush of heat that burned her body inside out.

  Once Mrs. Jeffers had left, Ben took two bottles from his pocket and took one pill from one and two from the other and handed them to her.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to take them. The one for pain undoubtedly would also help her sleep. She wasn’t sure she wanted sleep.

  “I’ll stay on the couch tonight,” he said as if reading her mind. “Also, I would like to call someone from technical and sweep your apartment for bugs.”

  “You think …”

  “It’s just a precaution. But I need your permission.”

  She nodded her head. The last thing she wanted was for her assailants to listen in on her personal conversations. Dear God, it was overwhelming in its implications. Everything was.

  She nodded and took the pills with a sip of cocoa. She didn’t realize until this morning how much she’d wanted, needed, someone with her.

  “What do you sleep in?” he asked.

  “T-shirt,” she said. “Second drawer.”

  He was back in a second with a large T-shirt, one of several in the drawer, and handed it to her, then sat on the bed next to her. Gently again, very gently, he unbuttoned her shirt and her slacks.

  “I can do the rest,” she said primly. As tired and sore and emotionally sapped as she was, she didn’t want to be dependent. She didn’t want him to see any weakness.

  He already has.

  Yet he’d not taken advantage of it. Not asked questions she knew he wanted to ask. Instead he turned away while she took off her shirt and bra and pulled on the T-shirt. She was sorry then she hadn’t let him help her. How could such a simple thing as removing a shirt hurt so much?

  She couldn’t stifle the cry when she tried to take off her slacks. In seconds he was at her side, gently sliding them down.

  Something shifted inside her. His touch warmed all the cold, frightened places in her. Despite the burns and cuts and pain in her chest, she still reacted to him in ways that astonished her.

  Then he finished. He pulled a sheet over her, his hand lingering at the base of her throat, then her cheek. She made a sound deep in her throat. Or was that Daisy, lying next to her? Now she knew why cats purred.

  She looked up at him. “I’m usually very independent,” she said, knowing she was babbling again. It was the painkiller. Had to be.

  “I know,” he agreed with that half smile that went straight to her heart. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Cabbages and kings,” she said drowsily. “Talk about cabbages and kings.”

  “And a bit more,” he promised.

  She wasn’t sure she liked that “bit more.”

  She was sure she liked the notion of him being there.

  Her eyes closed. As long as he was here, she was safe.

  chapter fifteen

  Ben woke to a moan from inside Robin’s bedroom.

  He sprinted from the couch in the living room. She had a guest room upstairs, but he’d preferred to stay closer. She’d been in shock last evening, and he’d suspected sometime during the night she would need company.

  He’d stayed awake for several hours after she went to sleep. He opened the door to a “sweep team,” which found bugs in the telephones in her office and living room. None in her bedroom. The intruder, or intruders, probably hadn’t had time to do a more comprehensive job. According to Mrs. Jeffers, they hadn’t been inside more than fifteen minutes the night before last.

  Damn it, he should have had the house swept yesterday morning. He should have realized the entry had had more than one purpose. He was slipping. Losing focus. Becoming more concerned about Robin Stuart than his job. The fact that her bedroom wasn’t bugged was one of the few pluses. He hadn’t acted very professionally there.

  Robin hadn’t awakened during the sweep. The painkiller had been strong, and she’d lost blood. After the team left, he’d kicked off his shoes and folded up on the sofa. He’d slept on much worse.

  He’d expected nightmares, a quick awakening. Fear. He’d experienced all after his first shooting.

  He went into her bedroom and turned on the light.

  Robin was thrashing in the bed. No danger other than the demons in her own dreams. He knew, though, how real those could be.

  He sat down on the bed and touched her.

  She shouted, then woke suddenly, flailing her hands.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “A nightmare.”

  Her eyes, when they opened, were wild, frightened. He took her hand and squeezed it. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said.

  She gradually relaxed, then embarrassment flooded her face. “I don’t usually do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Have nightmares.”

  “I think you have reason to have a nightmare.”

  “The crash …” Her voice wavered slightly.

  He was silent.

  “Do you think they knew that I’d had an accident before?”

  “Probably.”

  She shivered. “As soon as I was physically able, I got into a car. It was the hardest thing I’ve done.” She was going back. Remembering. She hadn’t intended to admit it. That was clear in her face. “When that SUV rammed me, it was happening all over again …”

  She shuddered.

  He touched her shoulder. Her body was tense. The smooth skin of her cheek was marred by a small white bandage. There were too many others scattered on her body.

  He wanted to hurt someone for doing tha
t. Hurt them very badly. He could only imagine how she must have felt trapped in a car with someone threatening to light a match.

  He saw the recurring terror in her eyes. He should use it. He should ask questions.

  He couldn’t. Not now.

  “What happened with the first accident?” he asked.

  “I was going home. My mother had had a stroke. I was going too fast, it was raining and the road was slick. I flew off the cliff. Not one of my finer moments.”

  Her wry smile went straight to his heart. Her strength was one of the things he liked about her. Though he’d seen the fear in her last night, she hadn’t allowed it to diminish her. No suggestion she would abandon the story, nor give up her source.

  He admired that strength, and he rued it.

  The strength could be the death of her.

  “What happened exactly?” he asked as he sat on the bed, and she propped herself up on pillows.

  “I was lucky. I was thrown out but my leg was mangled. Some very good doctors did bone grafts and muscle transplants and any number of other doctor tricks. It won’t be as good as new, but can be almost as good as new. I could have lost it, so nothing seemed very bad when I didn’t.”

  “That would have been a tragedy. It’s such a pretty leg.”

  “It’s a mess.”

  “No. It’s damn shapely.”

  He saw the doubt on her face and realized then that she was far more sensitive about it than she wanted anyone to know.

  She struggled to sit and he sat next to her. He started gently massaging her neck.

  “Ummmmm,” she murmured with obvious pleasure.

  “How are your ribs?”

  “Sore.”

  “It’s only five a.m. You should get more sleep. Do you need another pill for pain?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like pills. Had too many of them in the hospital. Started to like them too much.”

  His hand stilled. Shit. Memories hit him like a sledgehammer. Dani had liked them too much, as well. As well as other drugs. Only she hadn’t started in the hospital.

  He closed that door in his mind. “You said something earlier about ‘cabbages and kings.’”

  “Did I?”