by Dana Marton
She took a moment to digest that. “Okay. Apology accepted.”
Just like that. “You don’t hold grudges.”
“You do.”
“Just the one.”
A moment of silence passed between them before she asked, “So other than looking for Blackwell, what do you do all day?”
“Look for Blackwell.”
Sympathy filled her eyes. That she could feel sorry for him, the man who’d wanted nothing more for the past weeks than to prove her a murderer’s accomplice, spoke volumes for her heart and character. Not that he wanted anyone’s pity. He was doing exactly what he wanted to be doing.
But she said, “Don’t you see how sad that is? He couldn’t kill you, but you give him your life anyway.”
He didn’t expect her to understand. He rose to go. He shouldn’t have come. He had no right to bring all his darkness here, to her, when she had plenty of her own shadows to struggle with.
“I can put those paintings from my car into your garage, where your daughter won’t see them.” He glanced toward the living room.
Maddie was sprawled on a pillow on the floor, sound asleep.
Ashley walked over there and picked up the kid, kissed her forehead, and lay her on the couch, covering her up.
“She’s tuckered out. We’ve been playing in the snow all afternoon,” she said as she came back to the kitchen. “I’m hoping she can move back home once school is out. I miss her too much when she’s gone. You must think I’m a bad mother for letting someone else raise her.”
“I think you’re as good a mother as they come,” he said sincerely. “You put her needs before yours. You want her with you, but you know it’s better if you wait until you’re fully back on your feet.”
And then she smiled at him, a true, full-on smile. For him. He tried not to think how many of his restless dreams she’d starred in lately.
The need that hit him was a punch to his gut. He cleared his throat and stepped back. “I should get those paintings.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have them back. The FBI was here this morning with a search warrant. What if they come again?”
“They won’t.” He told her about the kidnappings in Jersey. He didn’t like the thought of Agent Hunter and his men in her house, harassing her. Even if he’d done the same before. “They’re moving on.”
“Thank God. I thought they might frame me for it. Just so they have someone in the bag.”
“I’d like to think I would have protested.”
She looked at him as if she only half believed him. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again.
“What is it?”
She glanced down at her hands. “I tried to force a vision. To see him. I thought if I could draw him…”
Everything inside him stilled. He held his breath. “Did you?”
“No. I even went out to the grave the other night. Scared myself silly.”
He grabbed on to the back of his chair. “Don’t do that. Ever. Don’t go back out there, do you hear me?”
“That I can promise.” She tilted her head. “So if Blackwell is in Jersey, why are you here instead of being there?”
“I’ll drive over tomorrow.”
“Why not let the FBI handle it? You could let it go. You’re alive. You won.”
He didn’t want to talk about it. And then he did anyway. He’d never cared before if anyone thought him an obsessed lunatic. He shouldn’t now. But he did.
"I had a sister. Six years older than me. She raised me, pretty much. Breast cancer took our mother in her twenties.”
A dull pain throbbed to life in the middle of his chest. Then came the flood of guilt. "Our father was working the graveyard shift. I was a teenage brat, wanted pizza. We lived too far outside of town. The only pizza shop didn’t deliver that far out. I begged her into it. I stayed home and played video games. She drove out for the pizza. She always tried to make up for the fact that I had to grow up without a mother. I was a spoiled little shit, pretty much.”
“Jack—”
“Anyway, she never came back. They found…” He swallowed hard. “Parts of her, six months later.” He searched her gaze, looking for blame. He didn’t find any. “I grew up then.”
“And followed Blackwell since?”
“I’ll be following him until the day I catch him.”
“Even if it takes the rest of your life?”
He shrugged. “Whatever it takes.”
She came over and laid a slim hand on his arm. Heat shot through his body instantly at the slight touch. She was too close; he’d been holding himself in check for too long. She meant her gesture to be comforting, he was sure, but he wanted another kind of comfort.
She drew a slow breath. He didn’t want to hear what else she had to say. She wanted him to walk away from his vengeance and be a better man. She wanted him to fight against the forces that kept pulling him back to his dark place, like she was fighting. He didn’t want to hear it.
He reached for her and drew her to him. And then he kissed her.
He brushed his lips across hers. Hadn’t meant to do more than that. But he went back for another brush. Still too quick, still too unsatisfactory. She smelled like butterscotch frosting and tasted incredibly sweet. So he let his lips linger, then pressed a little harder, pulling her even closer. And again.
He was in complete control. And then he wasn’t.
Raw need shot through him, so sharp as to be nearly painful. He had to make a conscious effort to gentle his hands, not to hold her too tightly. He pulled back before he could have given in to the urge and crushed her lips under his like he meant it.
She looked at him wide-eyed, stunned. And, God, so beautiful she took his breath away.
He should apologize, some long-buried decency inside him said. He should walk away from her. Instead, he bit back a curse and kissed her again.
Since he was never going to get into heaven, this was the closest thing he was going to get. He lowered his hands to her waist and anchored them there. And then he deepened the kiss.
* * *
She wanted so badly to think, but she couldn’t. Those sculpted lips she’d thought about painting were over hers. Oh wow. The body she’d assessed with an artist’s eye was now pressed against her, suddenly gaining another dimension. So much more interesting, so much better, so much…everything.
As an artist, she kept her subjects at arm’s length. But now Jack was suddenly very, very close, her head reeling. Heat poured off him that threatened to set her on fire.
He was a ball of pain and hard man, a man on the edge, yet there was something heroic at the core of him, and at the same time something incredibly tragic. A complicated subject, layer upon layer, colors bleeding into each other, twisting. How on earth was she supposed to make sense of him?
She couldn’t, not for the moment. Right now all she could do was feel. She hung on to his wide shoulders, because she wasn’t sure how much longer her knees could hold her.
The passion that flared to life between them stunned her. There were parts of her that had been simply dead since the accident, most likely because of the depression and the pills she’d taken at the beginning. But suddenly everything came roaring back to life, passion as a swirl of vibrant colors. For the first time in a long time, she felt like a woman again. The fire was all-consuming, hotter and wilder than she’d ever felt before.
And it was all wrong.
He was the wrong guy for her, a drifter cop who was obsessed with a serial killer. He’d never put her and Maddie first, never.
She needed steady and normal. She wanted that more than anything. He was anything but. Yet she couldn’t pull away. The weak whispers of reason were drowned out by the roaring drums of passion.
Her nipples puckered up under her bra, her breasts pressed against the muscles of his chest. When a soft sound escaped the back of her throat, to her utter embarrassment, he was the one who first pulled away.
&
nbsp; They were both breathing hard, staring at each other.
He looked as stunned as she felt while he cleared his throat. Silence stretched between them as her body and mind still reeled. What on earth had just happened?
But then he pulled himself together and said, “You don’t have to come out into the cold. Just give me the garage-door opener, and I’ll set the paintings in there, cover them up.”
What?
He was moving fast in another direction, while she was still stuck on the kiss, her lips still tingling, her nipples still puckered.
He wanted to talk about paintings?
Of course. The haze in her mind began to clear; the heat enveloping her dissipated. He probably wanted to get out of here. Wanted to get an early start tomorrow to head to Jersey. Anger swept through her swiftly.
She refused to show how much the kiss had shaken her. She kept it together as she marched by him to the front door, grabbed the key to the garage door from the laundry room, and held it out for him.
His gaze caught on the helium tank and the handful of boxes next to the washer as he took the keys. “What’s that?”
“Maddie’s birthday is this weekend. We’re having a party with her little friends.”
His face hardened immediately. “No.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m afraid you don’t get a say in that.”
“What if Blackwell comes back?”
Really? They were back to that? “But you just said Blackwell moved on to Jersey.”
“It’s always smart to exercise caution. You should go and stay with your father tonight. Stay with him for a couple of weeks.”
She stared. “You notice the irony here? When I wanted to go, you told me I couldn’t. Anyway, Agent Hunter wants me to stay put.”
“I’ll clear it with him. Will you go with your father?” His tone turned urgent. “Tonight?”
Her independence was the last thing she had left, and she’d fought hard to be able to keep it. She wasn’t giving that up now. “No.”
His jaw clenched. “At least cancel the party.” His intense gaze held hers. “I think he came back. I felt him back there tonight.”
He was beyond reason, obsessed beyond the point of rational thought. He scared her a little now, which was such a contrast to what the kiss had been just a few seconds before.
A man of so many contrasts, he had some strange ability to set her head spinning. She struggled to understand him. One minute he could be gentle, and the next completely infuriating.
He proved that by saying, “I’m ordering you.”
Her jaw clenched.
He stared her down. “As an officer of the law. No party.”
~~~***~~~
Chapter Eleven
Jack tried not to think of Ashley or their kiss as he walked back to the locker room at the east end of the high school the next day. The team was gathering for a morning huddle about an upcoming game. He wanted to get this over with before he headed off to Jersey. He called out the players he needed, gathering them in the hallway.
“Is this about the bones?” Bobby Adamo asked, gripping a cup of coffee. “You guys took off. Nobody said we were supposed to wait around.”
None of the four looked anything but cocky, feeling safe in numbers and on their home turf.
Jack watched their eyes, looking for the weakest link. Probably Tyler Foster, the councilman’s son. He was the youngest, the one Jack had caught on Ashley’s land before. He’d scared the boy when he’d tackled him.
“Actually, I’m here about a laptop you’re selling online.” Jack looked Bobby in the eye. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it.”
The surprise on the teenager’s face was quickly masked. The others pulled closer to him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jack pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, a printout of the website with the laptop, seller ID on top.
The coach loped up to them, sweatpants and T-shirt in team colors of blue and yellow, a trim man in his fifties, no hair, hard eyes. “Is there a problem here?” He was clearly protective of his players.
“Detective Sullivan, Broslin PD. I’m running down some leads on a couple of stolen items.”
The man bristled. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable with you interrogating these boys without their parents present.”
“It’s not a formal questioning. That would take place down at the station. I’m just asking for their help here,” he said and stayed where he stood.
The coach shot him an aggravated glare, then walked away.
“So about the laptop?” Jack held up the paper.
“That’s not my account,” Bobby said.
“Are you sure? How about you?” He showed the sheet to each of the kids, giving them time to think about it.
The blank looks they gave him were a little too good to be convincing. Almost overdone, really.
He nodded as he put the paper away. “Here’s the thing. Even online service providers have to hand over user data when confronted with a police warrant.”
Tyler Foster twitched.
Jack was about to lean on him a little harder when Principal Adamo came rushing toward them with the coach. Jack knew the man from a teen drunk-driving accident a few months before that he’d handled. The principal hadn’t been happy with him then and looked even more aggravated now.
“What is this about, Detective?” He put himself between Jack and the kids, exuding authority, while the coach headed into the locker room with a last disapproving glance at Jack.
“Following some leads on a stolen laptop and other things.”
“I’m sure these athletes had nothing to do with it,” he said, a tall man with an imposing attitude, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie.
“That’s what I’m here to confirm.”
The man glanced at his son, then the others.
“Dad, it’s complete bullshit,” Bobby complained, sullen and angry.
“Watch your language,” Adamo snapped before turning to Jack. “If you want to talk to them, you’ll have to request a formal meeting with their parents and attorneys present. I’m sorry, Detective. My job is to protect these boys.”
“I understand completely.” Jack nodded without heat. “Tracking down some two-bit thieves is not the highlight of my career, believe me. The sooner it’s over, the better.”
He looked past the principal at the boys. “So here’s the deal. First one who comes clean gets a free ride. Rest of them get a record and go to juvie.” He turned on his heels, then walked away.
He had more important things to do today. In Jersey.
* * *
Ashley blocked in the main areas of light and shadow, then set the brush down for a second as she thought about how she wanted to approach the rest.
And thought about Jack Sullivan.
She bit her lower lip, hating that it should tingle every time she thought of the stupid kiss. God, the man confused her. And turned her on. And infuriated her on a regular schedule.
There was good in him, although she wasn’t sure if he knew it. He was too focused on other things. The past bound him. She could relate.
Worse, she could fall for him.
The whole package of masculine beauty, the edge of danger, the tragic past, the way he kissed… The attraction was there, despite her better judgment. Way too much attraction.
He could be thoughtful—bringing her a shovel, playing with her daughter—then unreasonably bossy, trying to tell her what to do, to move to Philly.
At least he’d left before her father arrived, so she didn’t have to make any explanations why she had a man out at her house so late at night. Her father had been in a rush to get home. She hadn’t mentioned the party cancellation; the time just didn’t seem right. But she’d definitely tell him when they talked on the phone tonight.
She couldn’t believe she was doing this, canceling something again because of Jack Sullivan.
> When the doorbell rang, she was certain it was him and was preparing to give him a piece of her mind as she ran down the stairs. But when she opened the door, she found herself facing the mailman.
“Hey, Pete.”
He gave his widest smile as always. “You got too many magazines to fit into your mailbox. Shouldn’t have to walk all the way out there in this cold anyway.”
“Thanks.”
“Painting today?”
“All morning.”
“You planted the flower bulbs?”
“Haven’t had the time yet. But I will. I promise.” He was such a nice guy, safe, stable. Why couldn’t she feel the same spark now that she’d felt every time Jack came near her?
Pete hesitated on the doorstep. “I found a beaver dam on the creek when I was out hunting last week. Pretty small for now but neat.”
The first thing she thought was how much she would have liked to paint that.
And maybe Pete saw the gleam in her eyes, because he asked, “Would you come out there with me?”
She stared at him for a confused second. Okay. She’d kind of known for a while that Pete was sweet on her, but this was the most forward he’d ever been about it. A date.
And why not? Maybe it would get her mind off Jack, who was nothing but trouble. She didn’t want to like a man whose entire life, first priority, was a murderer.
She wanted normal.
And it didn’t get any more normal than Pete, even if he was maybe a bit old for her.
“Sure.” She’d promised herself she would start getting out of the house more. A walk in the quiet woods with a friend was just the thing.
His face lit up. “Saturday, then?”
“Sorry, I have Maddie’s party on Saturday.” Well, she might. The FBI could catch Blackwell between now and then. She was going to keep her options open until the last minute, she decided suddenly.
“After the party would be perfect. It’s not far from here. And the moonlight on the water around the dam is something to see,” Pete said with enthusiasm.
With anyone else, she would have thought twice about it, but Pete was…Pete. She knew his mother too, pretty well. It wasn’t as if she’d be going with a stranger. She’d been out at the grave in the middle of the night by herself. She could handle the beaver dam with Pete.