by Kristi Lea
Jessica pulled free from Noah’s grip. He let her go immediately, and she nearly stumbled backwards into a display of shampoo bottles. “What is going on, Grayson?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and said through gritted teeth. “That was my question.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything. Not without my lawyer.”
He looked at something over her shoulder, then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her farther into the store and away from the front windows. “Fine. Don’t talk. I don’t care if the man from the alley is your long lost love or a gang banger. But he won’t be happy to see me again, that’s for damned sure.”
She opened her mouth, but he pulled her around behind one of the end caps that held a display of university logo merchandise. He dug through the hangers of shirts.
“Aren’t you going to arrest me?”
Noah shoved a bright red shirt and a baseball cap at her. “Not yet. Let’s go.”
He headed for the cashier carrying a sweatshirt of his own.
Jessica glanced towards the front door. She thought she saw a glimpse of light blue car amble slowly past. Whoever the goon worked for, it wasn’t the FBI. Federal prison might be safer than visiting the ‘boss’. She hurried after Noah.
“That will be twenty-two ninety-six,” said the lady behind the counter. She had kind eyes and enough beard to make a teenage boy jealous.
Noah handed over some cash and shoved a shirt and hat at Jess.
She raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“Those are yours.”
“Um, I’ll pass.”
“Just put them on.” At the door to what looked like a rear parking lot, he quickly removed his jacket.
Jess caught a glimpse of a leather gun holster before he shrugged on a sweatshirt that was far too heavy for the hot day. The sight of the gun made her stomach flutter. She followed suit and put her new shirt and baseball cap on.
Neither of them said a word as she followed him down the street. The crowd was picking up now that church services were done for the day. Jess startled every time she saw a man in khaki pants with a black shirt.
Finally, Noah pulled her close and wrapped a firm arm around her waist, pulling her close against his tall, lean length. The contact sent a thrill of something down her that she didn’t have time to analyze.
“Cut it out.” He whispered down into her ear. His breath was warm and gentle on her neck. It felt like a lovers’ caress, not like the words of a federal agent to a suspect.
“Cut what out?” she said, trying to put space between them.
“Looking over your shoulder like you’re afraid someone is following you.”
“I am afraid someone is following me. Someone attacked me in the alley just now, remember?”
“I was there, remember?”
“Not really. I was too busy running for my life.” She tried to shrug off his arm again, but he kept a firm hold on her.
They turned a corner. The street looked more residential, with Victorian-style homes with round turrets and wide front porches and manicured gardens with tiny gates. It was the kind of neighborhood she had always loved looking at when she was a kid. The houses always looked so clean and happy and welcoming.
He paused in front of one with a Bed and Breakfast sign over arched trellis that led to the front door. He turned to face her “Who was the guy in the alley?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he want?” His voice was flat.
“I don’t know.” His eyes bored into hers until she couldn’t take it any longer. She looked away. “You can let me go now.”
She tried to push past him and bumped him in the arm with her backpack.
He winced and his face paled, and he caught her by the hand, lacing his fingers through hers in a gesture that would be sweet and lover-ly if his grip weren’t as tough as iron. “I can’t do that.”
“I thought you said I’m not under arrest.”
“I said ‘not yet’. I have been looking for you all over the country. All over two of them. Now that I found you, I want answers.”
She lifted her chin a notch higher. “Get a warrant.”
He stared her down. “Would you rather I drove you back to that alley? Maybe your pal there will give me some answers.”
Jessica felt the blood drain from her face.
***
Noah took Jessica by the hand and pulled her into the front parlor of the bed and breakfast. Her fingertips were frigid.
He stopped her in front of a Queen Anne settee upholstered in Pepto Bismo pink velour. “Sit.”
She glanced down at their still-joined hands and extracted her fingers from his before perching warily on the edge of the couch. Jess wrapped her arms around herself and hunched over. She looked thinner and the dark smudges under her eyes were definitely not mascara. With the harsh haircut and the shocking black color, she looked more like a college student than a starlet.
The place seemed deserted now, but he had no idea whether other guests or the owners were lurking about. He wished he had a more private space, but taking her to his room was wrong for all the wrong reasons. He tried to swallow, to wet his parched lips. Must have been the run. “How did you get here? To Asheville?”
Her eyes flashed. “Magic carpet.”
Noah turned and stalked to the lace-draped bay window. He glanced up and down the street, half expecting to see the thugs from the alley cruising by. The only moving creature was a squirrel, jumping from bush to bush under the shade of a large magnolia. The quiet should have relaxed him, but adrenaline still flowed through him.
“I can't help you unless you trust me.”
She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow, and he felt himself drowning in the blue of her eyes. How could anyone see those eyes and not recognize her?
“Does that mean you are offering me a plea deal?” she asked.
“Does that mean you are guilty of a crime?”
She made a small harrumphing noise and stared down at the end table instead.
Irritation shot through him. “Look, Jessica, I need answers. I can't help you until I know what is going on. Did you know that guy in the alley?”
“No.” She picked at a lace doily with ragged fingernails.
He sat on a wing chair covered in some kind of shiny blue and white striped fabric. It reminded him of his grandmother's house, all flowers and stripes and perfect dustlessness. The kind of place where a little boy was expected to sit straight and not wiggle. And sure as hell not get dirt on the carpet.
His only consolation was that Jessica looked equally uncomfortable. He rested his elbows on his knees and tried to catch her gaze. “Did the thugs know you?”
“Shouldn't you be calling for backup or something?”
“I'm off duty.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel more comfortable?”
“I can protect you if you tell me who you're running from.”
Her eyes flashed again. “What if I'm running from you?”
Her words hit him square in the chest and he sat back. She was right. What would he do if she was running from him—from the FBI?
Turn her in.
His conscience had no doubts. His training had no doubts. His sense of duty had no doubts. But his wounded shoulder hurt like hell and Cole’s words haunted him.
“You're right, Jess. You shouldn't trust me. While you were on your 'magic carpet ride', someone tried to break into your house.”
She didn’t look surprised. “I saw it on the news.”
“What were they after?”
She rolled her eyes. “Cash? Electronics? My underwear? What are thieves usually after.”
Was that a quiver in her voice? “What about your jewelry?”
Her hand balled into a fist, pulling the doily off the table and toppling a stack of crystal coasters. They hit the wood floor with a discordant ring, the glass disks sliding across the floor. One stopped a few inches from Noah’s feet.
/> Noah knelt down on the floor to pick it up. The sunlight refracted through the facets, shooting tiny rainbows around the floor as he picked it up. “Lucky they didn’t break.”
He collected two more coasters and the small silver-plated holder. He reached for the fourth coaster, near the toes of Jessica’s dirty sneakers. He winced as he stretched out his arm towards it and pulled up short as she set her foot on top of it.
Noah sat back on his knees and looked up at her, still perched on the sofa.
“You were the cop who was shot, weren’t you?” The words were a whisper and her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated. Fear or surprise? Or something else?
Taking a deep breath, he weighed his options. One call to Cole and the local Feds would be on the doorstep to take her into custody. But unless Cutlass had plugged all the leaking holes in the case against her, she would be released after a few hours. And be on a plane to some country without an extradition treaty.
Jessica held all the keys to the mystery.
“Yeah. That was me. How did you guess?”
“Your shoulder is bleeding.”
Chapter 11
Idiot man.
Jess stared at the wide red splotch oozing through the cotton of Noah’s shirt. “You need a doctor.”
He glanced at the wound and frowned. “Probably just a new bandage. I will take care of it.”
She waited. He tried to reach for her again with his good arm and she recoiled. Then she remembered the coaster still under her shoe. She pulled her foot back towards herself, scooting the crystal. She plunked it back on the side table and cast another look at Noah and the red on his shirt. “So go take care of it.”
He all but growled. “I am fine.”
“Idiot man.” She stood up.
He still sat on his haunches on the floor, looking blankly back up at her. He looked pale around the edges, and she could see the whites of his knuckles on clenched fists. She felt a familiar void at the base of her stomach like that first huge hill of the roller coaster. It sucked her breath down and away. He was in pain and hiding it from her.
“Do you have supplies to change the dressing with you or do we have to go back to Walgreens?”
“In my room. Upstairs. I’m fine.” He stood up quickly. Strongly. But she didn’t miss how he put a hand on the edge of the chair to steady himself.
She forced herself to breathe slowly. There was no reason to panic. Noah Grayson was young and healthy. If he were here, the wound couldn’t be that bad. Nothing to worry about. “Look, I’m coming with you. I won’t run away. Upstairs, right?”
He hesitated for a few more heartbeats, then nodded.
He ushered her in front of him up a wide wooden staircase and down a cream-and-floral wallpapered hall to a tall polished mahogany door. Once upon a time she dreamed about living in a house like this. A stately Victorian, full of chintz and vases of freshly cut flowers, carved furniture and sparkling crystal. A house like Tallie’s.
Inside the room, Noah grabbed a small navy blue duffel bag off of a luggage rack and walked through a door that lead to the bathroom. Jess shut the door to the hall behind her and looked around. In the middle of the room was a massive poster bed, a pair of wing chairs like the ones from the parlor, a small dresser. Both bedding and walls were covered in the same black-and-white fleur-de-lis patterns. The effect was a bit dizzying.
She could hear sounds of a fabric rustling and running water in the next room, and a faint hiss that might have been a sharp intake of breath. She sat in one of the arm chairs and waited. He hadn’t closed the bathroom door all the way, and from here she could see a thin slice of the action through the crack.
Noah’s dark form loomed above a white pedestal sink. He had taken off his shirt and she could see hints of the tanned skin of his back before he turned away. Her pulse quickened and she felt a rush of heat through her belly and to her sex. She forced her eyes down to her hands.
Something hit the bathroom floor with a bang and she heard a stream of unintelligible cursing from Noah.
She jumped up and knocked softly on the cracked door. It swung wide open. Noah sat on the lid of the toilet, shirtless, his face pale and his breathing heavy. His bag lay at his feet, with toothpaste and shampoo and other toiletry bottles spilling out of the open zipper. The exposed wound on his shoulder was bruised black and blue with an ugly black and red slash through the middle probably three inches long. One corner wept tears of red blood where the stitches didn’t hold the edges closed.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer right away.
She bent down to help pick up the fallen bag, expecting another brusque retort. Surprisingly, he stayed where he was. Quickly she stuffed the contents back into the bag and sat back. “Can I help?”
“I will be fine.” His voice was shaky.
“Yeah, right.” She shoved the bag to one corner and stood to wash her hands at the sink, taking time to scrub them thoroughly. He had set out a couple of gauze pads, bandage tape, and a tube of prescription antibiotic on the ledge. She spotted a bottle of Tylenol on the floor and left it there.
Grabbing the supplies, she turned back toward him. “Let me see that arm.”
To her surprise, he turned slightly so she could.
“Hold still.” She began to clean the area around the wound with one of the pads. “What happened? The news report was pretty vague about the whole thing.”
He winced as she got close to where the cut was still tender. “I found a guy sneaking out of your garden. He shot me.”
“Did you catch him?” She squeezed a line of the ointment onto a clean gauze pad. “Who was it?”
“I got shot and hit my head on the concrete. He got away.”
She began cutting strips of tape. “What was he after?”
His eyes flickered from the scissors in her hands to her face and then back. “No one knows. Your security didn’t even know he was there. They were supposed to turn over any surveillance video for us to look at.”
She patted the last of the tape in place and tossed the scraps in the trash. “And?”
He shrugged and then winced. Jess found the dropped bottle of Tylenol on the floor and handed it to him. “Unless you had something else to take care of the pain.”
He lifted his gaze from the bottle. It lingered for a minute on her chest, but by the time his eyes met hers, they were unreadable. “Nope.”
She waited. Raised an eyebrow to his stony expression. “So what did the security tapes show? It is my house. I have a right to know.”
“You probably do.” He stood up and made to walk past her.
It was either climb in the sink to avoid him, or park herself in front of that solid expanse of muscled chest. She parked. And crossed her arms. And tried to ignore the way his abdominal muscles rippled when he breathed. “What did you see on the tapes?”
“You would have to ask an active member of the force. I am on ‘leave pending an internal investigation’.”
The air in her lungs escaped with a whoosh and she folded meekly as he maneuvered around her and back into the bedroom.
Next to the dresser he gingerly slipped a t-shirt over his head then leaned his good arm down on the edge of the bed to rest, still breathing heavier than she liked.
She took a minute to parse his words. Law enforcement agencies launched internal investigations when officers shot suspects, not the other way around. “What happened in the alley? What aren’t you telling me?”
He shot her a withering look. “Funny, that was my question.”
She chanced a glance at his arm. Her bandage job seemed to be holding, but the edges were visible beneath his short sleeve. Unconsciously, she reached up to smooth her short hair down. “I don’t know for sure who the men work for. But I can guess.”
He tugged the shirt down over his waist and waited.
“They told me the ‘boss man’ wanted to talk to me. Around here, that can only mean one person. Senator Wilson.”
He didn’t bother to disguise the sneer in his voice. “Lover’s quarrel?”
The sting of his words went straight to Jessica’s chest.
Tramp. Whore. Worse. She had been called all of it over the years. But Charles had insulated her from so much of it for so long. Of course Noah would know about her so-called affair with the senator. Of course he would believe every word. That was the point. Wasn’t it?
Well, let him believe it. After this morning’s attack, she knew she had little chance of escaping this town without assistance. She had precious little money left. And Tallie hadn't left any money in that precious package at the park.
Noah didn’t have to know the real reason that Wilson would send thugs after her, as long as he could help her escape.
“I need to get out of town. It won’t take Wilson’s men long to track me down. There are only so many hotels…Do I really have to spell out what will happen if he catches me?”
He frowned. “If you were so hell-bent to escape the man, why run straight to his back yard?”
“I didn’t know he would find me. I wasn’t even sure he was looking until today,” she shot back. “Look, I know things about the man. Things I’m sure he doesn’t want the public to hear. Things he would go to great lengths to cover up.”
“Like the fact that he’s a lying, cheating bastard? Who in politics isn’t? Your affair is old news, sweetheart.”
***
Jess’s eyes blazed as she argued with him, and her cheeks flushed. Her chest rose and fell, stretching the fabric of her shirt taut across her breasts. He flexed his wounded shoulder, letting the spikes of pain take his mind off of her body and the effect it was having on his.
None of what she said added up. Maybe the Senator did want to talk to her, and maybe he did send his men to find her. But why threaten her? Why the home invasions, the dead rodent? If the guy were that much of a bastard to want her dead, surely the deed would have been done by now. Jess had been protected back in California, but not that well protected.
Either she was wrong or she was lying through her teeth.
Trouble was, for once he had no idea what the right thing to do was. If Wilson were rich enough and well-connected enough, then putting Jess in local FBI custody would be the same as delivering her on a silver platter.