Within Range (HQR Intrigue)

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Her smile was crooked. “So is his son.” Pause. “Most of the time.”

  Seth laughed.

  * * *

  HAVING SETH HANGING around all day was unnerving. Of course, if he hadn’t been here, she’d have been so tense she wouldn’t have been able to do anything but listen for every tiny creak, or peer through blinds when cars passed in the street or alley. Instead, a big, sexy man had inserted himself calmly into her home, interacting comfortably with Jacob and talking to her as if they were longtime friends. Or lovers.

  He did take his laptop out off and on, mostly seeming engaged in doing searches. That made her nervous. He’d find plenty about her under her real name, first because of the work she’d done, then because of her marriage to a prominent man. Was he reading about her parents? And what about her sister? He wouldn’t have any reason to track down information about Allie’s health problems, would he? Please, no.

  Of course, Seth would be researching Richard. Robin wished she knew what he was thinking. He looked up frequently, his gaze going straight to her. Clearly, even while he appeared immersed in whatever he was reading or doing, he remained aware of her.

  Well, she was aware of him, too. Painfully so. He looked good slouching, feet stacked on the coffee table, or sitting up bent over the laptop. His long fingers, the sinews and veins in his hands mesmerized her, as did the thickness of his wrists, the strength in tanned forearms below rolled shirtsleeves. No matter what she did, she’d find her gaze straying to him—and, most often, his eyes would already be on her.

  She gave herself lectures. She couldn’t forget that friendship wasn’t what had him spending his Sunday here with her and Jacob. He was keeping an eye on her so she wouldn’t take off. Yes, and guarding them, too; she couldn’t deny that.

  What disturbed her most was that by the time she escaped from Richard, she hadn’t been able to imagine ever letting a man close enough to hurt her again, emotionally or physically. Her several-month stay in the battered-women’s shelter had reinforced her determination. Every woman there was running from a man who’d once promised to love and cherish her but chose instead to use his fists on her—or systematically destroy her confidence. Most had been in damaging relationships much longer than Robin had been, in part because she’d had more confidence to start with and been lucky enough to grow up with parents who were happily married. Her father was often laughing in her memories. He’d had a special glint in his eyes for her mother until the day he died.

  Robin felt ashamed, thinking about her father. With him as an example, how could she not have seen beneath Richard’s charming surface before she married him?

  But she also knew what Dad would say. You got out of it as quick as you could. You’ll for damn sure make sure he never has a chance to hurt your baby. If Dad had still been alive, she suspected she’d have left Richard much sooner—and gone home instead of hiding out in a shelter.

  But Allie hadn’t been sick then; in fact, they hadn’t known that she had only one kidney. Mom hadn’t become worn with worry for both her daughters, the sick one and the one who could so rarely be bothered to call or take time to stop by the house, who invited her mother and sister to dinner at her elegant home only on rare occasions. When, of course, Richard had seen to it that they didn’t have time for private conversation. When he’d been at his warmest, funniest, and they, too, had fallen into that force field.

  Until Robin had called from the shelter to tell them what her marriage had really been like, they’d undoubtedly thought she was glad to leave them behind for a more glamorous life with a wealthy, politically influential man.

  She shook off memories of him when it came time to tuck Jacob in for his nap.

  “I like Seth,” he said sleepily.

  She kissed his still-round cheek and murmured, “I do, too.”

  She eased the door almost closed and stayed facing it for a minute. Why Seth? Why did he feel...trustworthy? Why was her body all too responsive to him, when she hadn’t thought about a man in a sexual way since a year into her marriage?

  With a sigh, she returned to the living room.

  Wouldn’t you know, he looked up immediately, his blue eyes piercing her.

  “Come sit down.” He patted the cushion next to him.

  Her feet quit moving. “Is this going to be another interrogation?”

  His mouth curved. “No.”

  She approached reluctantly, finally sitting beside him. He turned his laptop slightly to allow her to see a photo of Richard engaged in intense conversation with the previous mayor.

  “Handsome man,” Seth said, tone neutral.

  Taken by surprise, Robin couldn’t tear her eyes from that face. Lean, his strength wiry, his face thin with perfect bones, a sensual mouth and extremely dark eyes beneath a slash of dark brows.

  A shudder racked her. “Looking at him makes my skin crawl.”

  Seth slapped the laptop closed. “I’m sorry. God! What was I thinking?”

  “You...you wanted to know more about him.” With each hand, she gripped the opposite forearm, kneading hard.

  “Robin.” Seth took her hands, prying them away from her arms. “Don’t. Please.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been following him on social media and in the news. I wanted to be sure he was in Seattle where he belongs. I’ve seen pictures before. Tonight... I don’t know why it hit me that way.”

  But she did. It was because of what she’d been thinking, comparing Richard to Seth. Richard’s touch, his cold rebukes, had been cast in sharp relief. She hadn’t known she could act until that last year, but she’d hated every minute.

  She shivered.

  With an exclamation, Seth dropped her hands and pulled her into his arms. Without a second thought, she all but burrowed into him, wrapping her arms around his hard torso.

  “I’m sorry,” he said roughly. “I think I wanted—” He swallowed.

  Robin tried to lift her head. “You wanted?”

  “I was being an idiot. Reading about him and thinking—”

  He kept doing that. There was something he’d rather not admit.

  She struggled back and Seth released her. They were left staring at each other.

  “What?” Suddenly mad, she demanded, “What did you think?”

  His mouth twisted. “I feel like a country hick in comparison, that’s what. I know I’m being illogical. I despise every breath the son of a bitch takes, but I didn’t like knowing—” Looking appalled, he closed his mouth and seemed to retreat without seemingly moving a muscle.

  Knowing what? She couldn’t imagine.

  “I can see why he impressed you.” Seth was good at the expressionless thing, except when he almost slipped.

  “No. You don’t understand.” She laid a hand on his arm, which became even more rigid. “I wasn’t attracted to his wealth, or the fact that he seemed to have so much influence on a lot of important people. I detested the entertaining he took for granted we’d do, and his house—” She barely controlled another shiver. “We seemed to have so much in common. He listened to me, acted as if he respected my opinions.” If the curve of her mouth looked bitter, that was because it was. “Until he suddenly didn’t want me working, got mad at any suggestion he wasn’t enough to satisfy me. Oh, and how dare I counter his brilliant ideas? By then I’d started to wonder if political expedience wasn’t his main consideration when he took sides on issues.”

  Seth didn’t say a word, but lines gathered on his forehead.

  “I know you’re just doing your job.” She gestured vaguely, encompassing the sofa where he’d slept last night, the fact that he was still here. “Considering that you must still doubt everything I’ve told you, you’ve been kind and protective. Jacob doesn’t know many men, but he trusted you immediately. And you’re, well...” No way she could finish that sentence.

  One eyeb
row flickered. “Trustworthy. Kind. Sounds like a nice dog you adopted at the local shelter.”

  “It’s not like that.” Seeing his disbelief, she blurted, “He can’t measure up to you in any way.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. Then he rolled his shoulders and said drily, “At least I don’t beat women.”

  Cheeks warm, Robin mumbled, “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  His eyes had never been so blue. Her heartbeat did some gymnastics while they looked at each other. He wouldn’t touch her, she knew he wouldn’t, but Robin was shaken to realize how sure she was that he wanted to.

  And that she was extraordinarily tempted to take the decision out of his hands.

  Chapter Eight

  Seth rose abruptly from his place on the couch. “I’m going to take a look around outside.”

  Sitting in a rocker, Robin had been reading—or pretending to read, just as he’d pretended to be absorbed in the news on his computer. He’d noticed she hurriedly turned a page whenever he glanced her way, and rarely in between. Now she only nodded.

  He stalked through the kitchen and utility room. Neither room was lit, and Robin hadn’t turned on the porch light, either. It was a very dark night he let himself out into. Clouds had moved in earlier; now, a wind gusted through the alley and backyard. He stepped to one side of the door and waited for his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness.

  In town, it was never entirely dark, of course. Halfway down the alley, light poured out of an open garage. Streetlamps stood at corners throughout the neighborhood. But the houses to each side of Robin’s were dark. Seth had sent a patrol officer to bring Iris home from the hospital earlier. She must have already gone to bed.

  He walked up the alley, then back until he reached the cross street, careful not to let his booted feet crunch on the occasional gravel. Once, movement seen out of the corner of his eye had him tensing, until he saw a cat leap over a six-foot fence. His unmarked department car remained inconspicuously tucked up close to Iris’s small, detached garage.

  Moving silently, he circled Iris’s house, then Robin’s rental. Nothing. At nearly nine o’clock, everybody in the neighborhood seemed to be tucked in to stay. He hadn’t heard a car engine since he’d come outside, only a few clangs of metal inside that open garage.

  Still restless, glad for the cool night air and the distance from a woman he hungered for but couldn’t allow himself to touch, Seth wasn’t eager to go back inside. Robin might start to worry if he didn’t reappear, however. He hoped she’d go to bed soon and get some sleep before their planned getaway. Four a.m. There shouldn’t be so much as a mouse astir, and no hint of dawn yet, either.

  He’d quietly let himself in and locked the new dead bolt on the back door when he heard a phone ring. Had to be Robin’s. Strange, when nobody had called all day. The only time she’d been on her phone was to talk to Iris once she was home.

  Not wanting to scare her, he called, “It’s me,” and stopped to pour a glass of cold water from the pitcher in the refrigerator.

  “Seth?” She was suddenly there, clutching her phone. “It’s a strange number.”

  This was probably innocent: a sales call, a family member using a burner. But threats...those might be next. He set the glass down on the counter. “Answer.”

  Eyes locked on his, Robin answered after the fifth ring. “Hello?”

  All Seth could hear was a man’s voice, but her outraged expression told him who this caller was.

  “How did you get my phone number? And what do you want?”

  The man talked. Seth thought she might crack the phone case, the way her hand had tightened. He had to fight the desire to snatch it out of her grip and tell the son of a bitch what he thought about men who terrorized women.

  But she was already talking again. “You’re crazy,” she said scathingly, stunned disbelief showing, too. “Oh, why am I surprised? Of course you are.” The man’s voice cut like a whip, but over the top of it, Robin talked right over him, gaining volume as she went. “The answer is no. I already know you don’t keep promises. More to the point—” she was almost yelling now “—I would never give up my child to anyone, and especially not you.”

  Seth didn’t think he’d ever heard so much loathing in anyone’s voice.

  Apparently having cut the creep off, she dropped the phone onto the table and paced the length of the kitchen and back. “How dare he call me? Did he think for a minute that I’d just hand over Jacob? Or was he only goading me?”

  When she started past him again, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Tell me what he said.”

  “That he’d let me go if I gave him his son. Signed a note conceding custody to him.”

  “That’s brazen.”

  “He thinks he’s untouchable. Who would believe me if I told them what he’d done to me? What he’s really like?”

  “I do,” Seth said simply.

  Her lips parted. She blinked. “I... How can you?”

  A little shocked to have said that—no, to believe in her so absolutely—he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I wish I could have recorded that call, though. He all but admitted he was responsible for the attempted abduction.”

  “Yes.” Her shoulders slumped. “I hate him.”

  “Yeah.” He sounded hoarse to his ears. He wanted to gather her into his arms, as he had for those brief moments on the couch, but knew he needed to keep his distance. She’d passed the point of being a suspect in his eyes, but starting anything with her was highly inappropriate. No matter what, he couldn’t put her in a position of feeling coerced, not when she needed to be able to depend on him. As for him, whatever his gut insisted was truth, he’d be smart to see some proof before he gave Robin Hollis–Helen Boyd–Megan Cobb his entire faith—and maybe the something more that formed a tight knot under his breastbone.

  * * *

  ROBIN’S HEAD KEPT TURNING, although she couldn’t make much out in the dark. Beside her in the alley, Seth carried Jacob, who was still half-asleep. A duffel hung over his opposite shoulder, while she carried a box and one of the big black plastic sacks full of clothes.

  They’d reached his car when she gasped. “His car seat,” she whispered.

  “I got it.” He eased open the back door and gently placed Jacob in the seat, buckling him in with a deftness that told her he’d done this before. “Slipped out earlier,” he murmured. “Brought the potty seat, too. Lucky he didn’t need it.”

  Her lips formed a “thank you.” She didn’t know if he heard it. The bags all went on the seat and floor by Jacob. Seth urged her into the front passenger seat. “Lock. I’ll get the rest.”

  She did as he asked, watching the side mirror as he melted back into the darkness. With her awareness that they were alone, prickles of apprehension crawled up her spine. What if somebody lunged out of the darkness right now? That man in the mask could break the car window with one smash of a hammer, unlock the back door and have Jacob out before she could do much. A bullet could come out of nowhere and she’d be dead. Richard had sworn more than once that he would kill her if she fled. After she’d rejected the “deal” he proffered today, what was to stop him? For all his liberal stances, he owned a sizable collection of guns, from 9 mm handguns to rifles and worse.

  She should have told Seth about Richard’s guns, and that he was an expert marksman. Was Seth armed tonight?

  Nothing moved in the darkness. She swiveled to see that Jacob had sagged sideways in deep sleep again. He’d be up bright and early, but she could probably vacuum around his bed in the middle of the night without waking him.

  Where was Seth? Please hurry.

  As if she’d conjured him, a dark shape materialized behind the car. The trunk lid rose without a sound. Seth set his current load inside and eased the lid back down with barely a click that she felt more than heard. She unlocked the doors to let
him in.

  The minute he was behind the wheel, he locked them in again and started the engine.

  “I’ll bet he’s watching,” she said.

  Driving slowly down the alley, Seth glanced at her. “Round the clock surveillance is expensive.”

  “He’s rich.”

  “And conspicuous in a small town like this. You don’t think any of your neighbors wouldn’t call the police if they saw a guy sitting for hours on end in a car? Or lurking in the alley? Crossing backyards?”

  “Yes, but...”

  A warm hand covered hers where she clutched the seat belt. “Quit worrying.”

  “I forgot to tell you that Richard owns guns. He target shoots a couple of times a week.”

  In a different tone, Seth said, “Does he, now? Did he teach you to shoot?”

  “He tried. It didn’t go well.”

  “Why not?” He sounded genuinely interested. They’d exited the alley and were driving down a deserted street.

  “It freaked me out. The way the gun leaped in my hand.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  “It was a Beretta M9, he said. Kind of tan colored.”

  Seth grunted. “Pricey, which figures. Too big for you. If he’d really wanted to teach you, he’d have started with something with less punch and sized for smaller hands.”

  Had Richard really wanted her to share his hobby? Funny, Robin thought, that she’d never asked herself that question, but in retrospect she thought his goal had been for her to see how deadly he was with a weapon in his hands. Precautionary intimidation. If only she’d guessed as much. She’d have become a crack shot if it killed her, scared him a little.

  Seth drove several blocks before he added, “If somebody were to take a shot at you right about now, he’d be my number one suspect.”

  “He may not know I’ve told you about him. He might think I’m hanging on to my Helen Boyd identity.”