Desperate for composure, he squared his shoulders and steeled himself against thoughts of her. The horses and cattle needed his attention.
He shoved the lid off a barrel and began scooping the grain into a bucket, enjoying the repetition. Weekends were usually his favorite time, when Skip had time off and he handled the ranch himself. Sometimes he even thought he’d quit his job as sheriff and concentrate on building up the ranch. Right now, the few studs he raised kept the ranch going, and nothing more. With a little extra input the place could really prosper.
What did he need extra money for though? He had no family to care for, no kids or wife to support. No. Better he spent his time protecting others from the kind of loss that had ruined his life.
He dumped the feed into the trowels and ran his hand through his hair. Nothing felt the same with Kirsten on his mind. Everything suddenly seemed so very empty, meaningless.
But it wasn’t. No. He wasn’t missing anything in his life. Things had been fine before she came, and they would be great when she was gone.
He couldn’t wait til Monday.
The sweet melody of birds chirped through the air, their song the sweetest of alarm clocks. Groggy, Kirsten tossed over and moaned. She tried to snuggle deeper, and her nose met wooden planks.
This wasn’t her bed. She snapped upright, flooded by memories of the previous night. Visions of ecstasy danced in her head, and her body responded immediately. Desire tickled at her, and she looked around for Reid.
Disappointment followed. Where had he gone? She ran a hand through her hair and encountered snarls. Lord, she’d probably scared him away. Another shower definitely couldn’t hurt. This time she’d use the conditioner and maybe, if she were lucky, Reid might meet her in there.
She stood, stretched her naked body and reached to gather the blanket. The handcuffs fell out as she lifted it, and she snatched them up. The cold metal burned reality into her. Last night had been her perfect chance. She could have easily handcuffed him in his sleep, stolen the Blazer and run. Instead, she’d cuddled in his arms and slept like a baby. What had she been thinking? Monday she’d be in jail, or worse, if Kurt found her.
Well, tonight she wouldn’t make the same mistake. This time she’d be ready. And Reid wouldn’t be getting these handcuffs back. She balled them up into her clothes and strode inside.
The telephone caught her eye as she passed through the kitchen. Did she dare? Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late to reason with Kurt. If she handled it right, perhaps he’d opt to leave her alone and forget the whole thing.
Somehow she doubted it, but anything was worth a shot at this point. Worse come to worse, she’d be in no stickier of a situation.
On the other hand, if she could get him to drop the charges and leave her be, then she’d be free—in more ways than one. Reid would have to believe her. Then maybe…
No.
Before she could change her mind, she stomped from the room, off to the shower.
Every time she caught a whiff of the soap—its smell of a man, of Reid, of yesterday—it conjured memories of their shower together. Of the way he’d washed her down, paying special attention to all those special areas. The shower sprayer he’d all but tortured her with. Then the way she’d come, so glorious, so explosive.
She cranked the cold nozzle, but not even the icy water could cool her down from thoughts of Reid. Never had anyone heated her as he did.
Or invaded her mind so furiously.
Even after they stayed up past midnight last night, talking and cuddling, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Thoughts of him had kept her from drifting off, and awakened her through the night.
Reid was a feeling she couldn’t shake—and truthfully, didn’t want to. The conditioner massaged through her hair; Kirsten turned the warm water back up and rinsed off.
She knew what she needed to do. Determined, she all but jumped from the shower, and dried off. Towel wrapped around her and tucked in, she made her way to the phone and dialed Kurt’s cell number before she could stop herself.
“Hello?”
“Hello.” Saccharine sweet sarcasm traced her voice. “We need to talk, Kurt.”
“Kirsten, baby. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Don’t baby me, Kurt. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Doing what, baby?” Cool and calm, his voice ate at her nerves. She could just imagine the cocky smile on his face, the confidence in his icy eyes. How she wished it were possible to reach through the phone and give him the slap he deserved.
“You know what! I don’t want to be with you any more, Kurt. I’m sorry, but you have to let me go.”
“You know I can’t do that, baby.”
“You can, Kurt. Please. Just leave me be, and I’ll leave you be. We can forget each other ever existed. It’s just that easy.”
She hated begging. It made her feel like mouse droppings on the floor. But she had no choice. If it took her on her knees to get him to quit, then she’d do it. She just wanted her life back.
“Kirsten, Kirsten. You just don’t understand. I’m not letting you go. Not ever.” A hard edge coated his voice, and sliced right through her.
“Kurt, I swear to you, I won’t tell anyone what I know. I’ll just disappear. After all those years, you owe me this.”
“Kirsten, you were paid quite well, I believe. But a pimp never lets his whore go, you know that. I’m on my way right now. Sit tight, and I’ll be there in no time.”
Try as she might, there wasn’t any holding her rage back. Her calm snapped in two, and twisted her in knots. “How dare you? You…you…”
“Cat got your tongue?”
“You lousy bastard! If you think I’m coming back home with you, I’m not. I hate you. I have for years. You’ll never get me back, despite your money and your connections. No amount of trickery is going to get me back to California.”
A sinister chuckle echoed through the phone. “Now that you are absolutely right about. I never said I wanted you back. Once you leave me, you’re gone forever.”
Eyes narrowed, Reid stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching Kirsten. The one-sided conversation he’d just overheard rang in his ears and beat through his mind.
Kirsten dropped the phone as if it were on fire. Her towel fell along with it, exposing her beautiful curves, still wet and glistening. Wincing, he stood paralyzed as she buried her face in her hands and crumpled to the floor.
The painful sound of sobs filled the room, her heartache reverberating off the walls to punch him in the chest.
My God. Could she have been telling the truth all this time? Was it even possible? He no longer knew what to believe, to think. But he knew seeing her like this cut him into pieces. The unbearable sight of it tore into him, yet he didn’t have a clue what to do.
The phone still dangled, the cord hung over the counter, straining to remain plugged into the jack. He crossed the room, and stepped over Kirsten to grab it. “Hello?”
Silence answered him, but someone remained on the line. He could hear the resonance from their phone. Even the best cell still had an echo.
“Hello? Damn it, answer me! Hello?”
Click.
The line went dead, and he banged it back on the hook. “Shit. Kirsten?”
What should he do? Damn it, she looked so tiny and helpless. He knelt down at her side, unsure as hell how to handle a crying woman. “Hey, hon.”
Cradled in his arms, her tears soaked his chest. He held her tight, desperately trying to think of something smart to say, but his tongue tied up. So he just cuddled her until her sobs slowed.
“Oh, God.” She pushed away from him, and lunged for her towel. He let her go, almost thankful to be freed. Comforting a woman wasn’t his thing. Holding her just made him feel downright helpless. He didn’t know how to fix the problem, but he should, and damn it, he wanted to.
“What was that all about?” He needed to know whatever had her so upset. Strong doubts began to overfill
him as he thought of the story she’d told him at least a hundred times.
She stashed away a few remaining tears as she covered up. “How much did you hear?”
“Not enough.”
“Hah, you mean not enough to believe anything I say, still?” Jade green eyes narrowed at him, golden flecks lighting them afire. “Please, I see the doubt written all over your face.” He started to reach for her, but she jerked away. “No, Reid.”
She smacked his hand away, and he let it fall. What had he done? For once, he’d been trying to listen to her. He wanted to hear her side of things. Yet she looked madder than hell.
Her eyes burned into his, and her wet hair hung in mats around her face. Dampness still coated her reddened cheeks, which tensed and distorted in a furious slant. Almost the look of a madwoman: flamed with passion. Wild. Untamed.
Primal urges pulsed into him, and he found himself conjuring up more than one way he could savor such feral spirit.
If he wanted, he could take her right now.
But he couldn’t. Not like this. Somehow, it didn’t feel the same. Not after he’d seen her cry.
Her tears attested to the truth. He was the biggest, most stubborn jerk in existence. “I—”
“Don’t bother, Reid.” She swung her back to him, a crack in the towel baring just a hint of her creamy white skin. The uncontrollable urge to pull her close and feel her soft body against his pulsed through him. Immediately, he hardened.
Reid bit down hard on his lip, determined. It would be so easy to coax her out of her anger, and put the heat in her to good use. It would also be wrong.
Before it had just been about sex. She’d been his prisoner, a liar and a thief. Someone he could never like.
A lot had changed.
8
Kirsten could stand Reid’s presence no longer. Head hung, she started to back away. Embarrassment burned her cheeks as tears slipped down them, scalding wet trails against the heat of her anger.
She glared at Reid’s concerned face. His deep brows frowned down, furrowing creases across his forehead. The shadowy look, hard and sketched with worry, just plain pissed her off.
She didn’t need his pity.
Or him.
Not if he didn’t believe her. With a whirl she fled the kitchen, holding a tight grip to her towel as she ran. The sound of Reid’s boots pursued her, and she picked up the pace.
“Kirsten, wait! You have to talk to me, please.”
Her wet feet slipped and skidded across the wooden floor, and she fought to keep herself upright. If she were to fall, there wasn’t any doubt as to what would happen.
Her towel would drop. Reid would rush to her side. And they’d be going at it like animals again.
All else would be forgotten, except the searing passion between them. The way he commanded her body to follow his lead was an infuriating magic.
If she were to stop, she simply wouldn’t be able to resist. “No” meant nothing; not to her. Not to him. It was naught but a damned word, an empty one, as meaningless to their bodies as where they did it.
Even now she could just imagine him slamming her against the hall’s paneled wall, her buttocks cupped in his hands as he took her away to a place so sweet…
This time she couldn’t let that happen.
There was entirely too much at risk. Her pride. Her life.
“Kirsten, damn it. Wait a sec, hon,” the soft plead to Reid’s voice beseeched her to stop; so gentle, yet gruff, needy. False.
Kirsten moved faster. “Leave me alone, Reid.”
All she wanted was to be free of his presence, yet with every step, he got closer instead of farther. The never-ending hall just went on and on, as if it had suddenly grown longer in an effort to stall her.
“Not until you talk to me.”
Reid was ready to hear out her story? Hah! Hah! It took crying to get him to decide to listen up?
Well, it was too little, too late. Kurt—he’d been dead serious. She had no doubt of that. Soon he’d show—when they were sleeping, when they least expected it—and he’d kill her dead.
Damned if she’d sit around and patiently wait for it.
Before he could make another protest she slammed the bedroom door in Reid’s face. Its crash reverberated off the walls as she quickly snapped the lock.
She dropped the towel to the floor and set about digging through his closet for clean clothes.
“Kirsten!” Bellows shook the room, and his fists banged at the door. But she didn’t care. Reid could go to hell.
Eventually, his protests dwindled, then disappeared altogether. The quiet expanded around her, it echoed from the walls, it reverberated off her very soul. She slipped on some sweatpants, then a baggy tee shirt, all the while sure Reid would come to the door again.
But he didn’t.
Pacing, Kirsten prowled the room like a caged animal. What had she been thinking anyway? Calling Kurt like that! As if he would care. As if it would make some sort of difference to Reid.
Oh, but it had. He’d quite come around, all ready to hear her out. Until she told him, and then he’d simply accuse her of lying again. Why should what he thought even matter?
She halted in her tracks, her feet nearly skidding to a stop on the oak floor.
It didn’t. No way.
Her fingers ran through her damp, knotted hair, and she sat down on the edge of the bed to work them out.
She’d enjoyed his body and the passion between them. But now it was done.
Right?
A huge snarl caught in her fingers, and try as she might, it wouldn’t tug out. It remained stuck, just like Reid did in her mind.
My God. Could it be? Could she really be falling in love with him? After two days? No. But she did like him. Too much.
All the more reason for her to leave right away, before it was too late. Reid had stolen a little piece of her that she might never get back. A part of her heart would always remember him.
But she was alive, and planned to stay that way. If she didn’t go soon, the chance might never come.
The first second she could, she would take to those fields. Even if she wandered through them for days, at least Kurt wouldn’t find her.
Hungry or tired, thirsty or petrified, she didn’t care. At least she’d still be breathing.
Damn it. Reid stared at the shut door in disbelief and leaned back against the paneled wall.
The little wildcat had slammed the door in his face. Just run away from him and banged a heavy oak door right in his face, nearly smashing his nose.
What had he done so terrible to deserve that? He’d never known anyone to shut him out like that.
Not true. With a pang, he remembered Lisa, and the way she’d turned her back on him. A million times.
Everything in him fought against the urge to bust through the barrier between them. Just kick it flat, and make Kirsten continue the conversation she’d cut all too short. Instead, he crashed into the kitchen and prowled its expanse.
What could he do? What did it even matter?
He didn’t know Kirsten, not at all. Hell, they’d only met yesterday. So they’d had some hot sex together. So what?
It doesn’t matter, he swore to himself. You’re just imagining it. What he needed was a distraction.
Food.
He ceased his pacing and opened the freezer. A mist of icy air gusted out and faded away, revealing row after row of Hungry Man frozen meals.
Silent, he stood, unconsciously counting them. Two. Four. Seven. Twenty-three? Nineteen Salisbury steaks? Four fried chickens?
My God. What was wrong with him? Years of loneliness sank in around him as he traced his fingers through the frost on the boxes that had stapled his life for all too long. With a whirl, he shut the door and turned to the rest of his house. For the first time, he truly saw its emptiness. It hit him like a hard punch to the chest. Dumbfounded, he wandered from room to room, and in each one the realization struck him a little harder. They
were too bare.
Before Kirsten, it had never even occurred to him much. He’d slept here, ate here, functioned. But not lived here.
He hadn’t done in years. Live. The thought of it was too scary—to become attached to something, to love only to have it ripped away. All he had was the house, the ranch, and his job. Nothing could take them away from him.
Kirsten could, his mind echoed. What he’d done with her could ruin everything he had left in the world.
But why even have them if they were going to feel so very empty?
Kirsten could fill them. She can fill your whole life, his mind answered as his heart constricted.
Where had that come from?
With a thump, he fell against the couch and rested his hands on his head. He liked Kirsten. A lot. And he simply could no longer believe she was the monster he’d originally thought her.
To the contrary, he wanted her in his life, at least for a little while. He wanted a chance to get to know the real Kirsten, to enjoy the sound of her chatter filling his house, his heart.
Could he really just turn her in Monday, aware there was something more to her story? Knowing she could be in some sort of danger if she went back? If he did, she would never come back. He’d never hear from her again.
He needed to hear out her story completely. Whatever had happened between her and Kurt, he had to find out. Not let outlandish jealousy deafen him. Not resist the truth because it scared him. Not shut out possibilities when lives depended on them.
Decided, he stood and headed out to his Blazer. He’d give Kirsten a little time to cool it, and meanwhile he’d go pick up some real food. Maybe he’d even grab a cheesecake. Tonight they could cook dinner together as planned. And talk. Really talk.
Kirsten listened to the vroom of the Blazer’s engine turning over and ceased her pacing. The sound of pebbles churned under the vehicle’s tires, the smacks and spatters ricocheting against the wheel well.
A quick look out the window revealed the truck’s tail end as it disappeared down the drive.
Where could Reid be going? And why?
The Cop Page 11