Dance Away, Danger (6 page)

His guilt slapped across her brain. She clenched her fists and punched Pete. White-hot rage boiled within her. “We trusted you!” She pushed him again.

All hell broke loose.

He gripped her wrists. “Tessa, it’s not what you think. Listen.”

Matt shot forward, but Gerry held him back. Matt fought him, and punches flew.

Tessa struggled. “Let me go, you traitor!”

“Not happening.” Pete’s hold tightened, shooting pain halfway up her arms.

She jerked away from him, but couldn’t break free. “Let go of me!”

He tugged her closer. “You’re not going anywhere unless I say so.”

Tessa Gage answered to no man. “Go to hell!” With as much force as she could gather, she slammed her knee toward his groin.

He tried to deflect the blow. But not soon enough.

“Son of a bitch, Tessa!” Pete grunted, doubled over, and shoved her.

She crashed backward into the door. Her vision blurred for a moment. An ache shot across her skull, but she couldn’t waste time with her pains. Cram it to one side and get the job done.

Pete fisted her sweater. “Get up. Now.”

Like hell she’d let him win. “No!” Gathering her courage, she slapped at him.

Behind him, Gerry collapsed. Matt rushed up to Pete, grabbed him around the neck, and yanked. In an instant, the cop reeled backward, still gripping her sweater. The material ripped under the pressure of his fingers.

Tessa yelped and sank to the floor. She glanced up in time to see Matt throw Pete toward the living room to land with a grunt. Punches flew into hard bodies.

Matt had all those cool Army moves in reserve, didn’t he? He had to win. She couldn’t save her brother without him.

But she could assist him. She scrambled over to Gerry, still unconscious by the oven. Her insides twisted tighter than a leotard. Damn. Was he breathing? At the moment, she didn’t care. Just to be safe, she fumbled for his cuffs and snapped the metal closed around his wrists.

Behind her, another thump.

She spun around. Relief spread through her at the sight of Pete lying still.

Matt crouched beside him. Quiet descended once again except for the jingling of metal and the rush of her breaths.

“Head out to the truck.” Matt tucked a weapon into his waistband, then cinched Pete’s cuffs around the officer’s wrists.

What about Gerry’s gun? Shouldn’t they take that as well? She unsnapped the holster. Her hand shook as she wrapped it around the butt of—

“Tessa.”

She jerked away from the weapon.

“We don’t know how long they’ll be down. Go outside.” Matt grabbed his coat and followed her out, closing the door behind him.

There would be no turning back. Running away would confirm her a target. But she had no choice.

The snowfall had stopped since their attempted escape earlier. Unsteady legs carried her to his vehicle.

“Hurry.” He slid in the driver’s side and laid his jacket across his lap. The engine roared to life. Tessa scrambled into the passenger seat, and they pulled out of the driveway before she’d shut the door. Her fingers shaking, she tried three, four times to fasten her seatbelt.

“Are you all right?”

She remained silent. If she dared open her mouth, a hysterical scream might rush out.

“Tessa?”

Her brain had trouble wrapping around the events of the last few minutes. “I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t. Men who’d always taken care of her had hurt her, threatened her.

Betrayed again, just like when Gavin, who’d promised her love and flowers and dances at the winter formal, had run away while she fought for breath. She thought she’d protected herself from that kind of pain by keeping her relationships uncomplicated. Apparently she should’ve extended her wariness to friendships as well.

Matt flipped on the heat. “Was the sergeant calling?”

“Yeah.” She stared out the window. “Whit was on my phone, which means Gerry and Pete are involved in whatever happened to my brother. If so, it’s a pretty sure bet Dave Walgren is, too, and everything I’ve ever known about the police department is a lie.” She waited for Matt to contradict her, but he said nothing.

His silence was both unnerving and refreshing. Her last few boyfriends had a tendency to tell her what they thought she wanted to hear. No matter what he had had to say, Matt had shared only the truth so far. Granted, his candor was absolutely necessary, but she was pretty sure even in calmer times he wouldn’t slip into the same mold as the other men.

Cold air seeped through the window. Tessa shivered despite her best efforts not to. “Jason’s life holds the risk, not mine.” She rubbed her bruised wrists. She should’ve expected the arrival of some police, planned for it as a logical step in the investigation, instead of wasting precious time swapping stories with Matt. She couldn’t afford to care about. “I wish I could curl up in my warm, comfortable bed and wake up to my normal life.”

Matt picked up his jacket and held it out to her. “Here. Put this on.”

“I’m okay.” She folded her arms and harnessed what heat she could. The man had fought for her. Other than Jason, no man in her life had ever done that. She wasn’t confiscating his coat.

“Tess, I can hear your teeth chattering.” He dropped it in her lap.

Instantly warmth licked her thighs. A shudder coasted up her spine. She tunneled her hands between the material and her jeans and at once her body demanded to be wrapped up in the smell of fresh-cut lumber and Matt’s masculine scent. But.... “Then what are you going to wear?”

****

Matt slid a cautious peek across the truck. After all they’d been through, she was worried about...“Me?”

“Yes, you. I don’t want you freezing because of me.”

For a few seconds, he kept silent, stunned by her concern. Nobody ever worried about him.

“Good grief, Matt.” She rolled those beautiful emerald eyes. “You’re not going to argue and go all macho on me, are you? Because if you do, I’ll have to smack you upside the head. I’ve had a really rough night, so I just might do it.”

He chuckled. “Your brother never warned me about your dark side.”

“Yeah, well there’s a lot to me even he doesn’t know. You’d be surprised.”

Yes, he was beginning to think he would be.

Her concern for him touched off a whole new desire, one with nothing to do with sex and everything to do with secret wishes and Sunday picnics by the shore. “All right, check the back seat. There might be a sweatshirt or something in that mess.”

Tessa twisted around. As she fished through various items behind his seat, her bra skimmed his shoulder. Yes, her bra because Pete had torn her sweater when he’d tried to hurt her. The man had come so close to doing serious damage. Next time those guys came for her, he would be ready.

“Got it.” She shoved the coat toward him, and slid one of his old sweatshirts over her head. “Much better.”

He stole another glance at her. She faced the side window with enough calm to defy explanation. Part of him wanted to praise her for the courage she showed. The sensible part of him wasn’t sure what to do.

“You keep looking at me. Why?”

Because he wanted to park the vehicle, haul her into his arms, and hold her until his insides stopped shaking. She wasn’t the only one freaked out. For years he’d been responsible for one person only, himself, and he’d made a point of staying out of dangerous situations. He was way out of practice protecting people, and the worry he wouldn’t be good enough to get the job done weighed on him every second.

“Matt, you with me?”

He shook his head free of emotional thoughts. The woman was counting on him to keep it together. “You did good back there. Kept your cool, stayed on your toes.”

“It’s all right.” She crossed her arms. “I didn’t think I had it in me either.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but no words he wanted to share came to mind. He hadn’t thought she’d be as independent as she was. He hadn’t expected her to think on her own two feet, and it scared him when she did simply because he wanted to make things right for her. After all, he’d been trained to be in control from the afternoon of his father’s funeral.

He’d spent the next nine years taking care of his mother and sisters and neglecting what was best for him. For the good of everyone else, Matthew Rylan always came last. And with Tessa beside him, he fell right back into the trap.

Yet, it wasn’t the same.

And that was the most terrifying revelation of all.

Enough about Tessa. In a matter of hours, he had become a common criminal to help a man he hadn’t seen in years. He’d assaulted two cops in his house to protect a woman he hardly knew. Yeah, they were dirty cops, but who would believe him? How would he bring things to a satisfactory conclusion so he could return to his quiet, solitary life?

By getting back to basics. He’d accepted a temporary assignment. He couldn’t afford to care. Jason needed help. Tessa needed protection. Once they uncovered the truth, Matt would be able to unload Tessa into her brother’s care and get to his beer, beaches, and babes. The responsible course of action would be to get Tessa feeling safe and then get her talking. After the interaction with the cops, Matt was sure she knew more than she thought she did.

Traffic rolled heavy on 95 North, as morning commuters took to the sanded roads. Snow no longer fell, but the temperature had to be hovering around freezing. Vehicles whizzed by them going generously over the speed limit. To keep from arousing suspicion, Matt kept pace with the pack. A short while later, he pulled into the busy parking lot of a truck stop near the Massachusetts border. Three eighteen-wheelers and four SUVs were parked next to an all-night diner. He pulled in between two of the rigs.

When he cut the engine, Tessa asked, “Why are we here?”

“We’re not safe in either your house or mine.
We need somewhere neutral to figure out what we’re up against and choose our next step.”

While Matt locked the doors, she hopped out and rounded the hood to join him.

Her curls dangled over the green sweatshirt, cheeks glowing pink with the cold. The sleeves of his faded garment drooped well below her fingertips. Possessiveness raged through him and for a minute, he imagined her with nothing on underneath. The image tightened his groin.

Holy hell, he did not need to be thinking of her as a sex kitten. They’d just survived an attack. He balked at responsibility, and taking the woman to bed would be a huge chain around his neck. She was his friend’s little sister.

Yet, he couldn’t draw his mind away from the curves beneath the coarse material. His breath escaped him.
Damn.

“What’s wrong?” Sweet concern laced her words.

He had no objectivity. “You...still look cold.” He started for the diner.

“I am, a little. What about you?”

Nope. Quite the opposite. In fact, he welcomed the frigid air. “I’ll be fine.” When he got his mind back on business and out of her underwear.

They stepped inside, the bell over the door jingling as it closed. Matt wrinkled his nose at the stench of old grease, hoping they didn’t end up with some kind of poisoning. Maybe they should stick with coffee.

“Seat yourselves,” a grizzled old woman shouted over the clashing pans and chatter from the morning news anchor on the TV over the counter. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” A few of the dozen or so patrons glanced their way then returned to their hotcakes and newspapers.

“Thanks,” Tessa answered.

His training kicking in, Matt escorted her to a booth at the rear and settled into the seat against the back wall. He wanted to see everyone coming and going and keep an eye on the early morning news. The aroma of fried eggs and bacon grabbed his stomach, despite his earlier concern. “We should eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.” She clasped her fingers together. “But you’re right. I need to keep my strength up, or I’ll be no good to help you.”

“You don’t have to help me.”

“Of course I do.”

The hint of a hesitant smile on her face touched the darkened recesses of his chest. She actually meant to continue sharing the burden of keeping them both safe.
Cute.

The server poured them coffee, took their orders, and left them alone. The coffee cup shivered between Tessa’s hands. Brown liquid sloshed over the rim and dripped onto the yellow Formica table. She didn’t seem to notice.

For a moment, he wanted to be with her wherever her thoughts had gone. Would she let him in? “What’re you thinking?”

“None of this makes sense. They were my brother’s friends, and Pete...he....” Her gaze locked with his. “He hurt me.”

He closed his fists. Two seconds with Pete was all he would need. “I’m sorry.”

She stared at him, but not like he could save the world anymore.

His chest tightened. A strange desire to slide into her side of the booth and wrap her in his arms accosted him. He itched to caress the back of her head and be the comfort she needed. But was he ready to be that man again? Granted, he wouldn’t have the duty for long. Once Jason came out of hiding, Matt would be off the hook, and Tessa would be her brother’s responsibility just like when they were kids.