by Zara Keane
She squared her shoulders and nodded. “I’m sorry for whining. This walk was supposed to take my mind off the situation, and all I’ve done is focus on it.”
“Want to drive to our cottage?” His lips curved into a dirty smile. “I can think of several excellent ways to distract you.”
None of those ways were ones he should be contemplating with the ex-wife he was supposed to be protecting, but both his heart and his body had other ideas.
Mindy threw her head back and laughed. “You just want an excuse to strip off the leprechaun outfit.”
He gave her a slow once-over, lingering on her curves. His mouth felt suddenly parched. “I got to admit, the thought had crossed my mind. It’s not the sexiest outfit I’ve seen you in, but I’ve been imagining taking it off you since I first saw you in it.”
Mindy wrapped her arms around his waist and his thoughts of getting her naked intensified. “Are you sure I’m not taking shameless advantage of you?” she teased, sliding a hand under the hem of his butt-ugly T-shirt.
He smiled down at her, and kissed her adorable freckled nose. “I’m very willing to be taken advantage of, as long as it’s by you.” He ran a finger down her neck, lingering at the base of her throat. “But we’re going to have to talk about what’s happening between us. Maybe not today, but soon.”
She snuggled into his chest and her head nestled over his heart. “I know we need to talk, Cash. And after, I want you to make love to me like you used to. I want to forget all the horrible things that have happened over the last three days.”
“I want that, too,” he murmured, and raised her wrist to his mouth. When he kissed it, her eyes clouded with longing, sending a jolt of desire shooting through his body.
“We’d better find our cottage fast,” she whispered, making his heart beat even faster, “or I’ll strip you out of your leprechauns right here and now.”
9
When Cash parked the car outside the small cottage they were to stay in for the next few days, Mindy gasped. “Oh, it’s gorgeous.”
Gorgeous was an understatement. The walls of the cottage were painted white, contrasting nicely with the red shutters and the red door. The thatched roof gave it a quaint, old-fashioned vibe that was reinforced by the wooden gate and low stone wall. Had they arrived under other circumstances, the cottage would have been the perfect location for a romantic weekend.
As if reading her thoughts, Cash leaned over from the driver’s seat and put his arm around her shoulders. “When this is all over, we’ll take a trip together and it’ll be for pleasure, not out of necessity.”
A shiver of anticipation coiled down Mindy’s spine. Was he serious? She wanted Cash with every atom of her being, but she hated feeling vulnerable. Once the stalker was caught, he would go back to America and his new reality, leaving her in Ireland with hers. The distance aside, what future did they have? With or without Barbara’s interference, a lot of water had gone under the bridge. They’d both made mistakes and caused one another grief. Yet despite their rocky past, she couldn’t deny what both her body and her mind told her. Cash was the only man who’d ever managed to capture her heart.
“I want to go straight into that cottage and have sex with you, but we’ve said we need to talk and I think we should get it over with,” she said softly, voicing the thoughts that had been rolling around her head since they’d left Glendalough. “We can’t keep using sex as a way to avoid communicating.”
Cash’s eyes darkened and she read a mixture of raw emotion and burning desire in their blue depths. “I know. We talked plenty before we began sleeping with each other again. It always ended in a fight. I prefer being on good terms with you, hence my reluctance to have this conversation.”
“I prefer us not fighting too, but we’ve got to address the fact we’re sleeping with each other again.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know how you feel, Cash, but this is not just sex for me. I never could separate sex and emotion, at least not where you’re concerned.”
He cupped her face between his palms and stared at her intently, sending a frisson of need coursing through her body. “This isn’t just sex for me either, Mindy. No way would I sleep with a woman I was protecting unless there was a heck of a lot more involved than my libido. I never stopped caring about you, even when we were apart. But if we’re to have a future together, we need to let go of the past and embrace the present.”
“I’m on board with that idea,” she said with a solid determination. “Can you let go of the past?”
He nodded, his expression serious. “Yeah. I own my part in the breakup of our marriage. I’m sorry. I should have confided in you, and I should have told Barbara to take a hike.”
“I’m sorry too. My mother is a pain and she caused a lot of friction between us, but only because we let her. I should have thrown her out.”
Cash dropped a kiss onto her forehead. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda. We’re going around in circles. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring for us, or where our relationship is going, but I’m along for the ride if you are.”
“What about the distance?” Mindy asked with a frown. “Once my stalker is caught—”
“Shh.” Cash silenced her with a kiss so tender her knees began to buckle. When they broke apart he looked into her eyes as if she were the only person in the world. “Don’t look for things to worry about. Let’s take this one day at a time. Can you do that?”
She ran a hand over his closely cropped hair, and felt a surge of happiness. “With you, I can. I care about you, Cash. I want to be with you.”
His handsome face stretched into a smile, banishing the earnest expression of a moment ago. “Hearing you say that makes me a very happy man, Mindy. I’ve missed you so much.”
She ran her hand down his neck and toyed with the collar of his awful leprechaun T-shirt. “I know a way to make you even happier,” she said in a husky tone.
His eyes clouded with longing. “If we want to get naked, I’d better hurry up and check out the house and make sure no one’s lurking.”
“Want me to come with you?”
He shook his head. “Stay in the car and lock the doors. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Given that the only person who’s followed us so far is my mother,” she said dryly, “I think we’ll be fine.”
He winked at her and opened the car door. “All the same,” he said before he climbed out, “I want to be sure. I’m not taking any risks where you’re concerned. Not now and not ever.”
Through the passenger window, Mindy watched him open the gate and saunter up the path to the cottage. A sudden chill hit her, despite the warm glow of happiness lingering after her conversation with Cash. She tugged the light jacket she was wearing tight across the chest of her leprechaun T-shirt and turned up the volume on the radio. A generic pop tune drifted through the car’s speakers, adding a sense of normality to an otherwise surreal situation. In the middle of being stalked by a crazed lunatic, she and Cash had reignited their relationship. Perhaps that was what was making her apprehensive. She shook her head. She was being silly. After three days of having Cash around constantly, it had reached the point where she only felt safe in his presence.
A couple of minutes later, Cash bounded out of the house and opened the car door. “All clear,” he said. “I’ll grab the bags from the trunk and we’ll go inside.”
He opened the gate for her and Mindy paused to admire the flower beds that lined the short path from the gate to the front door. The flowers were in full bloom. The warm summer breeze spread their sweet scent, making Mindy forget for an instant the horrors of the last couple of days. “Do you think the house’s owner would mind if I picked a few flowers for our bedroom?”
“I don’t think so,” Cash said. “Inspector Tobin told us to make ourselves at home.”
He handed her his penknife, and Mindy picked an array of sweet-smelling blooms in pink, white, and butter yellow. Inside the cottage, she found a vase in the kit
chen and filled it with water. The house was as charming on the inside as it was on the outside, filled with polished wood furniture and decorated in soft pastel colors.
“It’s a bit fussy,” Cash said, eyeing the interior with a dubious expression.
“I think it’s perfect.” She blew him a kiss. “I’ll take the flowers into the bedroom and get out of this silly outfit.”
He grinned at her and her heart skipped a beat. “While you’re getting naked,” he said, “I’ll grab the last bag from the trunk.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Humming, Mindy made her way to the small bedroom at the back of the house. As she’d predicted, the flowers looked perfect on the nightstand and added a splash of brightness to the pale yellow and cream decor. She was reaching for the hem of her T-shirt when the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end. The strange sensation she’d experienced in the car was back—a cold shiver of foreboding laced with fear. Mindy took a few deep breaths, and then gave herself a mental scolding. She was getting paranoid. Understandable under the circumstances, but not the way she intended to live her life, stalker or no stalker. She forced her stiff shoulders to relax and started to pull the T-shirt over her head.
A floorboard creaked.
Mindy dropped the hem of her T-shirt and spun around, her heart in her mouth. But before she had time to scream, a large hand clamped over her mouth and cold metal pressed against her throat. A familiar voice said, “Don’t move or I’ll slit your throat.”
10
Mindy’s heart froze, and then performed a sluggish thump and roll. “Why are you doing this?”
She wanted to get her captor talking, needed to be certain of his identity. Because if he was who she suspected he was, it made zero sense. Why would Derek O’Malley, Jason’s new boyfriend, want to stalk her? She barely knew the guy. Apart from throwing up in his car and crashing in his guest bedroom the night before the car bomb, they’d barely had contact since she’d started shooting scenes for Warrior’s Creed. He was just one of the many minor crew members on the set. That she even knew his name was only because he and Jason were hooking up.
The man pressed the blade of the knife into her neck and a wet trickle of blood slithered down her neck and collected at the base of her throat. “Shut up and walk,” he ordered.
Keeping the knife at her throat, he propelled her into motion. He maneuvered them out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, and out the back door. Mindy’s numb legs felt wobbly, but she forced them to cooperate. Any moment now, Cash would return from the car and rescue her. She had to keep calm and have faith. And come up with a plan.
She deliberately stumbled on the steps that led down from the back door to the garden, letting her bracelet drop onto the grass and giving her the chance to loosen her rings. Her captor swore under his breath and broke her fall by gripping her arms tightly with black-gloved hands, allowing her the opportunity to turn her head to get a quick look at her surroundings. What she saw wasn’t promising. Beyond the walled garden of the cottage, rolling green fields stretched before her, skirted by woods—woods that were a long way to reach should she make a break for it and run for cover.
“Watch where you’re going,” Derek snarled, clearly irritated by her feigned clumsiness. “I need you in one piece.”
A wave of relief washed over her. If he needed her in one piece, he didn’t intend to kill her…yet. Her heart thumped in her chest and she dragged air into her lungs. Another question danced before her eyes, hazy at first, then crystallizing into a solid realization. Why did Derek want to keep her alive? Was he going to rape and torture her before killing her? Because a man who held a knife at her throat was not going to let her walk away unscathed. A tremor shook her body and tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away and straightened her shoulders. She wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction of making her cry.
He dragged her across the lawn to a tumbledown shed and pushed her inside, bolting the door behind them. The shed smelled of rotting wood and foliage and was crammed with broken furniture and assorted odds and ends. Was this where Derek had been hiding when they arrived at the cottage? Surely Cash would have checked the shed?
As if reading her thoughts, Derek laughed. “Yeah, Cash did a thorough search of the property, including the shed. But I’ve been here for hours. Plenty of time to find somewhere to hide.”
He put a hand around her throat in a menacing fashion, but didn’t squeeze. “If you scream, you’ll regret it.”
Mindy seized the opportunity to get him talking. “How did you find out we were coming here?”
An emotion she couldn’t pinpoint flickered in his eyes. “I tapped Jason’s phone. I’d intended to go to that fancy spa place you holed up in yesterday, but when I realized your mother had beat me to it, I knew you’d move somewhere else.”
“Did you tap Mom’s phone, too?”
Derek smirked. “Of course. I tapped all your phones. Now shut up and sit.”
He pushed her onto a half-broken chair and bound her hands and feet with rope. He extracted a roll of duct tape from his jacket pocket, presumably with the intention of sealing her mouth.
“Why me?” she asked him while she still could. “Why not another actress? I’m not that special.” The questions echoed through her mind. If she could figure out his motive, maybe she could reason with him.
Derek’s low laugh held no trace of humor. “No, you’re not that special, Mindy, but you’re the only woman I could use to pull this off.”
“Pull what off?” she demanded at the same moment another realization hit her. “You spiked my drink the night before the car bomb, didn’t you? I knew I hadn’t had that much to drink at Alfonso’s birthday dinner, but I was sick as a dog the next morning.”
The man shrugged. “I needed you to stay away from the hotel until after the car bomb went off. Spiking your drink and suggesting to Jason that we take you back to my place was the perfect solution. I had no excuse for taking you, but he was more than happy to play the role of the concerned friend and get laid at the same time.”
He’d wanted the car bomb to go off before Mindy reached the hotel? What on earth was going on? “Did Jason know you’d spiked my drink?” she demanded. “And why did you kill Suzie?”
Derek snorted. “Jason was too busy flirting with me to notice. As for Suzie, she was a means to an end.”
“Poor Suzie. And poor Jason. You were more than happy to use his infatuation with you to your advantage,” she said sourly. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’ve done all of this to me. You don’t even seem to like me, so the idea of you being obsessed with me is hard to swallow.”
Derek leaned in closer and Mindy had to force herself to cower. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?” he said with a low chuckle. “You’re nothing but the bait.”
Confusion creased her brow and his smirk widened. Her gasp caught in her throat as the truth came slamming down on her with the force of falling concrete slabs. “Cash,” she whispered in a strangled voice. “You’re after Cash.”
“Bingo. He’ll come in here looking for you any moment now.” He moved toward her and tore a piece of duct tape from the roll. “Cash won’t want anything to happen to his precious darling. I knew I could use you to lure him to Ireland.”
Mindy’s heart rate quickened and sweat beaded on her forehead. Everything that had happened was part of an elaborate ruse to lure Cash into danger. If Derek wanted to use Mindy as bait, had Suzie’s death been deliberate? They’d all assumed that Mindy was the intended victim, just as they’d assumed she was the stalker’s target. What if they’d been wrong about the motive behind the car bomb? She needed to warn Cash before…
Derek slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth, silencing any words of warning she might have uttered when Cash showed up. She struggled to free herself from her restraints, rocking the wooden chair back and forth, but to no avail.
Her captor revealed very white and even teeth in a grimace. She pleaded
with him with her eyes, but her desperation only amused him. He ran a fingertip over her cheek. “I want to make Cash suffer like he made me suffer. It’s payback time. It’s a shame that I’ll have to kill you, but I want to see his face when I slit your throat.”
“In the meantime—” his smirk stretched wider as he extracted a ringing cell phone from his pocket, “—it’s time for me to answer this call.”
CASH slung the bag onto the floor and locked and bolted the door behind him. “I’d love a cup of joe after the drive,” he called down the hallway. “Any sign of ground coffee or beans in this place?”
Silence was the only response.
“Mindy? Are you okay?” Still no answer. A chill settled between Cash’s shoulder blades and his instincts kicked into gear. He moved from room to room, but there was no sign of her. His breath came in short, sharp bursts. Maybe she’d gone out into the garden, but surely she wouldn’t be so reckless after all that had happened over the last couple of days? Mindy wasn’t stupid. She knew to wait for him before going exploring.
He pulled out his cell phone and hit her number. And swore when he heard it ring in the bedroom. Sliding his firearm from its holster, he entered the kitchen. Through the windows, he could see nothing but rolling green meadows and the woods beyond. Cash hit the number Inspector Tobin had instructed him to add to his speed dial options. One of Tobin’s sergeants answered on the second ring. “Mindy’s missing,” Cash said without preamble. “She’s not in the cottage. I’m about to check the garden.”
“I’ll let the local police know,” the policeman at the other end of the line said. “Inspector Tobin chose your safe house because the next police station is only a fifteen-minute drive away.”
“Okay.” Cash exhaled in a whoosh. “If I find her, I’ll let you know.”
“Be careful,” the other man said. “Wait for backup.”
Wait for backup…yeah, sure. Like Cash was going to hang around for fifteen to twenty minutes while a crazed lunatic held Mindy hostage.