Thank God he’d found her when he had.
Ten rough, jouncing minutes later he finally found the paved road. He stopped, looking at Abby. “Which way to town?”
Her teeth were still chattering, and he knew he had to get her really warm soon. She probably needed fluids, as well. Her head bobbed hard to the left. “The i-interstate is that way. Maybe something at the Micanopy exit-t, the one north of this one.”
“How far?”
“T-ten miles?”
Cade stretched to the vents on her side of the cab and aimed them directly at her. “Are you warmer, at least, Abby?” The blast was making him sweat.
“A l-little.”
“We’ve got to get you warm and dry, real soon now.” He looked to the right. “What’s that way?”
Abby shrugged, a motion that was hard to detect in the dark because of her shivering and the bundle of the quilt. “I can’t r-remember. It’s b-been too long.”
He looked both ways, and at last turned left. At least the interstate would mean he was that much closer to a town or a hospital if it came to that. It might also mean, if Marsh had the cops looking for her by now, that she’d be found, but he decided to take that risk. She’d left voluntarily and she was a grown woman. They couldn’t force her to return against her will. He didn’t have to mention she’d stolen his truck.
It wasn’t ten miles to the interstate, but the storm didn’t let up. The wind clipped small branches and cones from the pines along the road, sending them to the pavement like missiles. The road was half an inch deep in water, sluicing over the surface and forcing him to be cautious or risk hydroplaning. The windshield wipers couldn’t cope with the heavy rain unless he drove much slower than the posted speed. Abby continued to shiver, though Cade thought perhaps the shivers were less frequent.
At the interchange was only a gas station that sold bait, but it was locked and dark. Cade muttered under his breath and paused, trying to decide whether to head south or north. When he turned his head toward Abby, she leaned forward, meeting his eyes in the dim light from the dashboard.
“P-please, Cade. Not s-south. Not yet.”
South meant home for Abby. Home, and Marsh. Cade gritted his teeth and turned north, rewarded by her soft exhale and the barest slump as she relaxed against the seat belt and the door frame.
The interstate was even wetter, if possible, than the back roads had been. More open to the elements. Oncoming headlights seemed exaggerated in the water streaming from the sky, and lightning added to the distraction. The truck’s pace was frustratingly slow, but as they crept along, a highway sign appeared at last, advertising a motel. Cade let out breath between his teeth. “You’d better be open,” he muttered to the sign.
Luck was with him. The next exit ramp led them down a slight slope and curved directly toward a small motel, none of the big chains, just a small old-fashioned vee of a place with two wings of cinder block rooms flanking a central office. Cade pulled up to the office and killed the engine. He pocketed the keys with a significant look at Abby, who smiled sheepishly. “Stay put, or I’ll send Mort to find you. And don’t think he won’t bite you, even if he’s decided he likes you. He does what I say.”
“I know.” She sat there in the light from the dome, rain-darkened hair clinging to her cheeks, her arms still inside the quilt, the fingers of one hand gripping the quilt’s edge and keeping it snug against her neck. Impulsively he reached out and touched her shoulder through the quilt.
“I won’t be long.”
She closed her eyes, nodding.
Inside the motel’s rinky-dink office, Cade leaned on the buzzer to summon someone. From the rooms behind the office, he could hear thuds and a groan. Several moments later a tousled-haired man stumbled into the office, belting a bathrobe.
“Kinda late to be out, bad night like this,” he said with a yawn into Cade’s face. “Need a room?” Then the man blinked, catching sight of Cade’s scarring, and took the slightest step backward.
Cade wondered what the man must think, seeing a monster in his office on such a wild night. “Yes, please. I apologize for the lateness, but the storm got to be too much. I decided to play it safe and pull off the road for a rest.”
The man nodded and rasped his hand over his face, in the same place Cade’s scars were, as if he were feeling for himself his own skin was still intact.
“Industrial accident.” Cade gestured briefly to the scar and tried on a smile. “I know it’s off-putting, but it’s not contagious.” How many times in the past few years had he said those exact same words, apologizing for other people’s misperceptions and superstitious fear? It wasn’t his fault, yet it was his problem. Every single time. It was rare for someone not to mention the scarring, even on brief acquaintance, and the frightened stares of children in grocery stores sometimes made Cade want to leave civilization altogether.
The man shook his head, clearly readjusting his thoughts and assessment of Cade. “I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just startling, middle of the night and all. I guess I’ve seen too many scary shows on the TV. I got two rooms left, one on the far end. Queen bed. Will that do ya?”
Cade knew he ought to ask for a double room. Two beds, not one. They were both exhausted; they should sleep. But the image of Abby held close in his arms crashed over him like an ocean wave, and he nodded. “The one with the queen bed is fine.” He handed over his credit card, signed the slip. The man slid the key over the counter, and Cade tucked it into his shirt pocket, plunging out into the downpour.
Abby was still in the cab, but her shivers had returned while the truck’s engine and heater were off. “It won’t be long now,” Cade promised. He cranked the engine to move the truck the several yards down the parking lot to the room, and Abby burst into tears.
“Oh, for the love of— What is it now?”
“Th-th—”
“What?” He backed the truck into the parking space at the very end.
“Thank you.” Her words were a tortured whisper, and she stared at him with tear-wet eyes.
You wouldn’t thank me if you could see what’s in my head, Abigail McMurray. If you could see how much I want to keep you with me, how I want to peel away that wet cloth and taste your cold skin and—
“Stop. Just—stop. Let’s get you inside. Stay put, let me get the door open and Mort inside and I’ll come right back for you.” He himself was beginning to shiver from his repeated wettings. How much more chilled must she be, even wrapped in the quilt? People had been known to die from hypothermia in the torrid depths of a Florida summer. He jumped out of the truck and went to the back for Mort, who leaped out, ears flattened in the storm, and stayed at his heel while he opened the motel room door and flicked on a light. Cade pointed to an empty spot on the carpeted floor beside the bed—
one bed, just the one bed, just that one, soft, warm bed
—and commanded, “Mort,
platz.
” Mort curled up there, nose on paws, ears pricked and eyes on Cade.
He ducked back into the storm and opened the passenger door. Abby pushed with her feet and shuffled over the bench seat. Cade didn’t wait for her to step out. He slid an arm beneath her knees and his other arm behind her back, and swept her out of the cab. Abby gasped in protest, but he ignored her and hurried with her into the room. He set her on her feet next to the television.
“I’m going to grab some stuff from the truck. Get out of those wet things and into a hot shower, Abby.” He went out once more into the storm, and reached inside the back of the truck for a blanket for Mort to lie on, and the zippered kit containing his gun and other equipment. He grabbed his duffel, tucked it under his arm and secured the truck before hastening indoors, closing the door behind him and fastening every locking mechanism the door possessed.
Abby still stood in the middle of the room, bundled in the quilt. She stared blankly at him. Shudders racked her frame. The quilt was sagging from her shoulders, but she had not made any progress toward the shower. Cade put everything down on the tiny, cheap dresser with a sigh. “Abby, why aren’t you in the shower? You’ve got to get warm, baby.” Her head turned and she tried to speak, but her teeth were once again chattering so hard that Cade was afraid she would bite her tongue. He heard his own words and wanted to cringe, but the endearment had slipped out so naturally that he couldn’t stop it. He went to her and took her gently by the shoulders.
“Here. Sit. Let’s get your shoes off.” He pressed her down to the edge of the bed. She sat, still shaking uncontrollably, and Cade knelt in front of her, lifting each foot and pulling off the sodden sneakers while her legs jerked. He saw the raw spots at her heels and insteps where the shoes had rubbed on her feet. Abby’s eyes were fixed on his, great dark pools of uncertainty, following his every move, dropping to his mouth when he spoke, and occasionally flicking to his hands as if she must always be on watch for every least cue to his next move.
Oh, yes...Marsh had a lot to answer for.
Cade controlled the abrupt movements his hands wanted to make at the thought of what Marsh had done to Abby, how Marsh had changed this vital woman into a trembling, frightened child. He set the shoes aside, tongues pulled high to dry. He rose to his feet and drew Abby up with him. She didn’t seem able to make it to the shower under her own power. He pushed the quilt off her shoulders and draped it over a chair so it might begin to dry out. Then he put his hands on her shoulders again and looked her in the eye.
“You’ve got to get warm, Abby. I’ll help you. We’ll shower together.”
Abby tried to shake her head, and Cade continued. “In our clothes. We both need to get warm, and our clothes are soaked already. It won’t matter.” As he spoke he emptied his pockets of wallet and keys and damp handkerchief, and turned Abby gently so he could fish her wallet out of her back pocket for the second time that day. He toed off his own shoes and stepped close, putting an arm around her to help her into the motel room’s bathroom. Holding her was like holding a wild animal, all wiry trembling and tight muscles and fear. She stumbled as they walked, so Cade pulled her closer and took more of her weight in the bend of his arm.
The bright light of the bathroom made Abby flinch again. Cade settled her next to the wall, where she could lean, and opened the small shower stall’s door. A few quick twists of his hands started the water flowing. He waited for it to warm, then stepped into the shower himself and held out his hand to Abby. The hot water cascading over him felt wonderful, melting the chill, but also soaking his clothing the rest of the way and making his jeans sag on his hips. She stared at him with those huge eyes before she put her hand in his and let him guide her over the short sill. He closed the stall door behind her and moved her carefully into the stream of water.
Chapter 8
T
he spray of deliciously warm water hit Abby in the middle of her back. Cade’s hands were at her hips, steadying her. She was glad of the support, even though she felt a pang of aggravation at herself for her own inadequacies. How stupid of her, really, to creep away in the night in the middle of a thunderstorm. She had known in her soul that he didn’t intend to turn her in for her crime. Had known it, really, from the moment the whole sordid story burst from her and he’d shifted to her side of the picnic table to offer a shoulder and the strength of his arms around her. Maybe even before that, when he uncuffed her hands and allowed her to tend to his head wound.
She really didn’t deserve such consideration. She’d been stupid, selfish and careless and had endangered him—unintentionally, it was true—and his dog. Hot tears filled her eyes, and she turned her face up into the stinging spray to hide them from Cade’s perceptive, incredible blue gaze. She couldn’t keep crying like this, he would think she was a fool.
Well...really, she was. A fool to have slid into the morass that was her relationship with Marsh. A fool not to have seen how each tiny step forward Marsh took was one more step that backed her toward the cliff, until only his grip on her kept her from falling over the edge, completely within his power. She’d encouraged his daily phone calls out of loneliness. She’d allowed him to forward his mail to her house when he took his leave of absence to help her with the day care. When it seemed more reasonable to move him into the guest room rather than pay for a hotel, she’d suggested it. She’d put him on the checking account. She’d even allowed him to tell her what to wear and how to style her hair. She herself had cut off her friends, fearing they would see the telltale marks on her and force her to face what frightened her most: living without a man in her life, even a man like Marsh, to keep the problems at bay. Problems she should have been able to address herself, or with hired help. It didn’t require a life partner to feed lunch to six disabled adults. It didn’t require someone else on the checking account for her to pay the bills. It didn’t require a man to deal with the automobile repair shop.
When Cade had asked her, as they lay in the bed of the pickup, waiting for sleep, “Why didn’t you leave before now, Abby? Why did you wait so long? What stopped you?” she hadn’t responded. Yet some small part of her had glowed into hope.
Because it
could be
that simple. All she had to do, really, was make a few telephone calls. Go through a few official channels to shut down the day care as far as the state was concerned; the clients would find somewhere else eventually, and in the meantime they’d be out of Marsh’s reach, though she didn’t really think he’d take out his ire on them. Close the bank account. Put the house on the market and never go back.
Never.
Go.
Back.
Abby’s heart raced so hard she thought it would burst. She shifted to look at Cade, who stood outside the stream of warm water, ensuring that she stayed in it.
She gazed at him in amazement. His eyes were closed in the spray that splattered from the walls of the small space. After Marsh, how could she trust her own judgment, even when everything inside her shouted that
this
man was good? What else did she have besides intuition, except her wallet and the clothes on her back? Even if Cade wasn’t exactly selfless, he wasn’t destructive. He was strong. He was scarred, but not bitter about the disfigurement that had to have made his life more difficult than it should have been.
Cade must have sensed her scrutiny. His eyes opened. His hands moved from her hips to her shoulders and gripped there, tightly—almost unbearably tightly—and then abruptly released her and floated the barest half inch above her body. She saw the effort it took to control himself—
saw
him control himself, in a way Marsh had never done.
“Cade,” she whispered. She wondered if he could hear her over the pounding water, but in the end it didn’t matter if he could or not. He read his name on her lips, and a moment later his head swooped. Again that iron control snatched him back and his lips hovered...waited.
Abby was the one who tilted her head the minuscule amount that allowed their lips to touch, and it was as if she had flung wide a locked gate. Cade’s mouth came full onto hers, settling with the shocking skill of long familiarity, and her lips parted willingly, eagerly. The shivering had nearly stopped in the heat of the shower, but a new trembling began deep inside her, something born of that small coal of hope. There was a brief moment of wondering if he would touch her as he might touch something delicate and easily broken, but then his hands settled on her shoulders with the same surety of touch with which he had handled her as he handcuffed her, or touched Mort. Firm. Confident. But also gentle. It was welcome, despite the months of Marsh’s angry touch.
His big body moved close and his hands slid around her. She felt him twitch when the shower struck his face, but he never released her mouth. He fed there, nibbling, sucking, stroking. Asking, not demanding. Coaxing, not coercing. Hungering, not devouring.
Abby’s fingers clenched in the wet fabric of his T-shirt. Her bent arms were caught between them, maintaining distance. The water streamed over their faces and down their bodies. When Cade’s hands moved firmly up her back, she felt the drag of wet cloth against wet skin. The intensity of her need to feel his hands on her—without cloth between—made her gasp and turn her face away from his. Cade lifted his head sharply and she knew she’d given him a signal that said stop. His hold slackened and he moved back half a slippery step on the puddled floor of the shower. His scar stood out in harsh relief, raised and stark against the flush of his unscathed skin. Her eyes went to it, sought its radiating edges, and then followed the path down to those blue, blue eyes, now dark with pupils communicating his desire.
But she didn’t want him to stop—far from it. She wanted to finish the dream begun in the heat of the night, before the storm. She wanted to know if the touch of his hand would be as sweet and sure as she imagined it. Abby groped for the shower knob behind her, still gazing into Cade’s eyes.
“Are you warm enough?” His voice was husky.
“Almost.” Her hand shook, but with excitement and not fear or chills, as she tried to turn off the water. Cade reached past her to complete the task.
“You...uh, should get out of those wet clothes.”
“I know.” Her voice was a mere whisper when she added, “Will you help me?”
It was as blatant a request as she dared to make. Abby bit her lip, wondering what he must think of her now.
“Holy hell, Abigail...”
“I know we hardly know each other—I know I stole your truck. You have every reason to say no and I know I—” The rest of her panicky disclaimers faded when Cade’s big hands went to the buttons on her shirt. He fisted the much-washed blue chambray, tugging it from the waistband of her jeans, separating the shirtfronts. Beneath was the practical cotton-lycra fabric of her brassiere. Cade was deft as he rid her of the soaked garment, slipping the straps down her arms before the bra joined her shirt on the shower floor, but then he noticed the dimming sunsets of bruises along her ribs and the sides of her breasts. She saw Cade’s flat belly, clad in the clinging wet T-shirt, suck far under the staves of his ribs with his angry reaction.
“I have a lot of bruises,” she said hastily, clutching at his hands. “They’re healing. They mostly don’t hurt anymore, but I know how they look—”
Cade bent, and pressed his mouth to the dark shadow of a bruise on the softly rising curve of her left breast. “Hush. Hush. I know.” He pulled away from her and met her gaze while he peeled off his shirt. At his collarbones she saw more scars, angry dapples where the corrosive had spattered. Below the strong articulation of bone and tendons was his naked chest, sleek with water and lightly furred with glinting sandy hairs at his sternum.
“There’s something I want to tell you. He... Marsh... We...never
did
it, not like that—other things, but not that. Ever.” Fierce emotion and longing clutched at her heart and her lungs and she stumbled forward to bury her face against him. While she leaned there, breathing hard and feeling water trickle down her body from her soaking hair, his arms came around her again.
“Did you think I’d reject you?” Cade whispered. “Did you?”
Abby didn’t—couldn’t—speak. Instead, flushing darkly, she nodded, but reached for his belt and pushed the end through the buckle. Beneath the fly of his jeans was a prodigious bulge that, when she opened the zip, gave a muscular flex that reminded her of the muscles of his throat working as he swallowed half her bottle of juice earlier in the day. She bit her lip again and closed her eyes when she pushed his jeans over his hips and heard them slap wetly on the shower floor around his ankles.
“Hell.” Cade’s voice was harsh. “Tell me you mean to go through with this, Abigail. Tell me you want what’s going to happen. Tell me I can take these wet clothes off you and carry you to that bed in there and—”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.” On a tiny laugh, she added, “Please.”
From the instant of her acquiescence it was only seconds before the rest of her clothes were heaped on the floor with his. When Cade opened the shower door, cool air rushed over her skin and pebbled her nipples. He breathed another oath and caught her up against himself, arms beneath her buttocks, lifting her so he could take first one nipple in his mouth and then the other. Abby inhaled shakily, her fingers clenching on his shoulders, her head tossing backward. He shifted her in his arms with a small bouncing hop and guided her legs around his narrow waist. She felt the hard length of him pressing against her and snuggled her pelvis close. Nothing mattered now, nothing except sensation, and the slippery wetness of their skin sliding together. Cade stumbled out of the shower with her, fumbling the bathroom door open. In the few steps it took to cross the room to the bed, Abby felt his hips moving against her tender flesh and cried out in pleasure. With a wriggle she sought to position herself so that he was at her entrance. If Cade didn’t enter her soon, sate the terrible demands of the flesh between her legs, she was sure she would die.
He tumbled her onto the bed and turned away to scrabble through the duffel at the side of the bed. “Damn it. Damn it!” Mort raised his head to look at his master.
“Cade—Cade, what’s the matter?”
“Rubbers—I mean, condoms—where the hell did they go?”
Abby heard the urgency in his voice, and felt a wash of happiness heat her skin. She sat back on her heels and watched his lean figure as he tossed one item after another to the floor.
“Take your time.”
“Are you out of your mind, woman? I can’t risk you changing your mind.”
“I won’t.” Abby slithered off the bed and pressed herself against his back, wrapping her arms around his middle and taking his erection in her wet hands, learning the shape of him, the way bone articulated with bone and muscle gave way to the eager evidence of his desire. A few strokes of her palms hardened him even further. She could feel her own eagerness in the trembling of her insides and the throbbing moist nest at the top of her thighs. It had been so long since she had felt desirable, and even longer since she’d
wanted
this way. What most surprised her was the boldness she felt. She was startled by the lack of dread, and even the lack of guilt. She hadn’t had sex since Gary died—the
things
she did with, or rather
for
Marsh didn’t count. There was no emotion involved except fear.
“Don’t...
do
...that...please, Abby. Just get in the bed. Get under the covers. I— Ahhh, your hands feel good. Let me alone long enough to find these damned rubbers.
Condoms.
”
A bubble of laughter broke free of her. The laughter felt honest and wonderful, as if it had torn something dark and sharp away from her and banished it. There was Cade, buck naked in a cheap motel room, worrying about using the polite term for a prophylactic.
He turned on her with a triumphant growl, rending a foil packet in his fingers. “Don’t laugh at me. Just because I seem a little—overeager—that’s no reason to laugh.” The smile on his face belied his words. Abby backed toward the bed, beginning to feel cold again. Though the shower had warmed her considerably, she’d still been chilled to the bone, and when Cade flung back the top covers and sent pillows scattering to the four winds, she was more than willing to scramble over the sheets. Cade joined her and yanked up the sheet and bedspread over them both. His hands were briefly busy at his crotch, and then he reached for her, tangling his hand in her hair. Her wet hair was still draining water freely down her neck and shoulders, transferring to his face and body as he tugged her close.
“I’m soaking wet,” Abby said, looking down at his chest, where rivulets of water had begun to pool on his sternum. Lying down, he didn’t seem so bulky and tall, but his muscularity was still more than apparent in the ease with which he manipulated her, shifting her to pull her leg across him and in the process bringing her entire body to lie atop his.
“Please-God-let-it-be-so,” he breathed.
Abby laughed, out loud and happily. Cade stared at her with an expression akin to wonder. They lay beneath the covers, heedlessly soaking the sheets, until something more intense than humor began to take root. Cade’s hands shifted from her body to cup her cheeks, his fingers pushing past her ears and into her wet hair. He looked for several long moments at her mouth, his eyes growing heavy-lidded. His thumbs brushed across her lower lip.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you I’ve been thinking about this half the day. And almost all night. When I caught up with you on the road I wanted to warm you exactly this way. Bring you into my bed, hold you. Touch you. More than touch you.” There was a catch in Cade’s voice that surprised her with its sweet roughness, its naked honesty.
Abby couldn’t quite tell him about the dream that had wakened her, the dream of Cade making love to her. Instead she turned her lips against his palm and pressed a shaky kiss there. Now that they were out of the steamy intimacy of the shower stall, naked in bed together, virtually at the point of intercourse, she found herself strangely shy. It made no difference that she could feel the hard length of him raised between her thighs, the occasional throb reiterating his arousal. How should she go about asking a stranger to please come inside her body? With Gary she had never needed to ask; he knew her so well. She turned her eyes to Cade’s and met and held his gaze. Please let him read her shyness and take the decision out of her hands.