Checkout time 11 a.m.
Marsh stopped chewing.
Eleven. It was nearly four.
If Abigail and her lover were planning to check out, they’d have already done so. That meant the truck would return to the hotel at some point. All Marsh had to do was find a good place from which to watch.
His heart began to beat faster. He chewed rapidly. The bite of burrito went down like a stone, but he didn’t care. Luck had turned his way at last.
Chapter 11
T
he ride back to the motel was short, but even so, it was enough time for Abby to begin questioning herself and her motives. The damage Marsh had done was extensive, subtle and pervasive. She could see it for herself now, but it was still too hard to fight it off every time it surfaced. At the restaurant she had agreed to spend another night with Cade at the little motel. It was selfish and greedy of her to grab for comfort with both hands.
“You know, Cade, if you’d rather, I could get my own room—”
Cade tightened his hands on the wheel and said nothing. The truck moved smoothly through the humid dusk. Above the dark tops of the pines, she could see a few clouds limned in fire from the beginnings of the sunset. The air didn’t feel oppressive or stormy, as it had the night before, though it was steam-bath hot.
Abby tried again, her fingers knotting in her lap. “I don’t want to keep imposing, presuming—”
This time Cade turned his head to glance at her before returning his attention to the road. “All your clothes are in our room,” he said, as if that simple fact settled everything.
Our room.
The phrase jolted Abby, snagged her like a fishhook in her brain.
Cade kept talking. “You used up most of your cash on dinner. All you have left is the credit card, right? You don’t want to use that in case he’s flagged it or closed the account.”
“He can’t close the account. It’s
my
card—” Abby flared.
“I’m glad to hear you getting angry for a change. Honestly, Abby, you’re so innocent. Haven’t you ever thought about how the crooks in the world operate? Hell, not even the crooks—just ordinary, manipulative people. You have to think like them to stay ahead of them. You’re a babe in the woods, you need a minder.”
“And you think you should be that minder, or something?”
Cade’s look was slash-quick, but he said nothing, gripping the wheel even tighter, and scowled. The motel was less than a mile away. Soon enough they’d be in the parking lot and he’d usher her into the stuffy little room, where the rumpled bed would make it all too apparent what had happened there earlier in the day.
As quick as her ire had flared, it burned away. He didn’t deserve sharp words.
“I’m sorry, Cade, I shouldn’t have—”
“Stop apologizing. Now that I’ve helped you decide to take your life back, I can’t complain when you do exactly that.” There was a short, tense silence. Cade pulled the truck into the motel parking lot and slowly edged up to their unit. He turned off the engine and spoke to the windshield. “Look. I know you think you’re ready to make the change. I...guess I’m ready for you to do that, too. But...” Now he turned his head to look at her, the blue gaze burning like a lamp. The truck’s big cab suddenly seemed too small, and oven-hot with the fan turned off. Abby found it hard to breathe, speared by that gaze.
“But?” she prompted, swallowing hard, heart pounding.
“I’ll help you psych yourself up. We’ll talk. Make some plans. I know those plans won’t include a certain...um, ugly Marion County deputy, beyond getting a ride back to Wildwood. We’ll talk, but, Abby—” Cade gritted his teeth, then somehow twisted the look into an uncertain, slightly bitter smile. “Abby...just...give me tonight. Please.”
His plea snatched her breath and left her legs weak, too unsteady to support her if she climbed out of the truck. Her fingers twisted together for a moment, then she reached across the cab and touched his right hand, where it was still clamped on the steering wheel. Like lightning, his hand shifted to catch hers and bring it to his mouth, where his lips all but scorched a hole through her palm.
“Cade.” Her shaken whisper lit a brilliant fire in his eyes. Her fingers trembled, then curved to his jawline.
“Tell me that’s a yes.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Thank you.” He kissed her palm again, then gave a short laugh that was almost a bark. “An ugly guy like me doesn’t get this close to gorgeous women like you very often. I have to enjoy it while I can.”
“Stop that,” Abby said. Cade’s head tilted to the side and his mouth moved to her wrist, where she felt the tip of his tongue and his teeth at the spot where her pulse pounded. “You’re not ugly.”
“Mirrors tell me a different story.”
Abby could hear the rough uncertainty in his voice, even as his lips moved against her skin and roused her nerve endings. “And I’m sure you think the eyes of strangers tell you that same story. But believe me, Cade—” She slid closer on the bench seat. “They just haven’t met you yet. Don’t listen to them. Listen to me instead.”
“Keep talking.” He nibbled at her wrist, then pushed the cuff of the borrowed shirt she was wearing up her arm, baring more skin to the exploration of his lips.
“You make it hard to think straight.” Goose bumps rose over her entire body at the hot sweep of his tongue on the tender flesh of her inner forearm. “I think I ought to get out of this truck before things go too far—”
His gaze flicked up to meet hers. “It’s a bench seat,” he pointed out, voice roughened.
At that, Abby smiled and started to laugh. In the pickup bed, Mort gave a short woof at the sound. Cade let her go, fishing in the pocket of his jeans. He held out the room key on its plastic fob. “Go on in. I’d better walk Mort. Poor dog, he’s not used to sharing me.”
It was on the tip of Abby’s tongue to toss back a lighthearted, “Then he’d better get used to it!” But she realized it wasn’t true, would never be true, and even more than that, it wasn’t right to be flippant about something she suddenly felt so deeply, like a stabbing pain in her body. By this time tomorrow, Cade would be well on his way to continuing his vacation, and she...she’d be somewhere safe, away from Marsh, but she would have begun the tasks necessary to remove him from her life. There was nothing for Mort to get used to. There would just be something for Abby to miss and mourn a little. For a relationship that had started out in such an awkward way, it had swiftly become unexpectedly sweet, something to be cherished during the hard and lonely times looming on her personal horizon.
She took the key, leaning forward to press a kiss on Cade’s mouth. He was surprised, but only for a moment, before his arm snugged around her waist and pulled her torso against his. He deepened the kiss immediately with a soft, swift slide of his tongue. His hand slid to cup her buttock and half lift her into his lap, pulling her thigh across his own. Abby’s knee found the edge of the bench seat, and she balanced there, feeling the bulge in his jeans growing beneath her.
Mort woofed again. This time Cade groaned. He kissed Abby fiercely for a long minute, then pulled away and banged the back of his head hard against the truck’s rear window, repeatedly. “Go on, Abby. Go while I can still get out of the truck and maybe walk that mutt of mine without doing myself permanent injury.”
Abby laughed breathlessly, opening the door on Cade’s side, sliding out over his body, prolonging the moment as much as she dared. She felt exhilarated, brave and free, smiling so widely her cheeks hurt. Cade’s second groan was the icing on the cake. “Have mercy, woman.”
She ruined her sexy exit by bumping the truck’s horn with her elbow as she slid past. The blaring of the horn made both of them jump, then they laughed loud and long. Cade reached out of the cab to touch her face, which was rosy with mingled embarrassment and laughter. “Go on,” he said, when he could speak again. “Before the whole town shows up to see what the fuss is about.”
Abby scampered to the motel room door and let herself in, giving Cade a saucy flip of her hips. He was standing next to the truck watching her. Even from several feet away, she could see desire burning in his eyes and twisting his face into a mask that would have been frightening had she not known it so well.
Thoughtfully, she closed the door and leaned against it, surveying the small, cheaply furnished room. The bed was still rumpled—they’d slept through checkout time earlier that day, and obviously maid service had passed them by. She took the few steps to the bed and flicked up the covers, smoothing out the biggest wrinkles, but not making too much of an effort. She and Cade would only be getting back into it, after all. The thought made her smile even wider, if possible. The white sheet and dull printed bedspread were curiously welcoming—there was a feeling of homecoming, a warm sweetness that spread through her as she looked around the little room. She could hardly believe in such concentrated happiness, and vowed to seize as much as she could in the little time that was left. By this time tomorrow, she was sure she would be at Judy’s house, in the little guest room off the short hallway, making her break from Marsh. Cade would be on the road to somewhere else, and this savagely sweet interlude would end.
Abby shook her head. She could think about all that in a little while. Right now, there was nothing left in the world except this one small room, and the amazing man on the other side of the door. The least she could do was have the room ready when he walked in.
* * *
Mort took his own sweet time. It was as if the shepherd knew Cade was impatient to be back in that motel room with Abby. Cade sauntered along the edge of the motel’s grassy verge that separated it from the roadway. Mort sniffed every weed and blade of grass.
Cade had no doubt Abby was already regretting her decision. She was probably changing back into her own clothing, folding his neatly on the dresser, and would announce in her quiet way she’d reconsidered and thought she’d better get her own room.
Or, hell, maybe she’d tell him she was sure she wanted to be driven back to Wildwood right now, tonight, to implement whatever crazy plan she had in mind for getting rid of Marsh.
Cade shoved his hands into his back pockets, but the motion tightened the already too-snug fit of his jeans where his desire for Abby was still uncomfortably firm. He took them out again and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops.
“Come on, Mort, hurry it up! Do your business and we’ll get you some dinner back in the room.”
The shepherd flicked an ear in Cade’s direction, but did not change his leisurely pace. Instead, he investigated every golden frond of a tall clump of love grass the motel lawnmower had missed. Cade decided to ignore the dog for a minute or two to see if that would work better. He half turned back toward the roadway, looking around him and keeping the dog in the corner of his eye.
There wasn’t much to this part of Micanopy. Just the interstate exchange a couple of dozen yards away, with cars humming past at high speed, and a convenience store across the road. The gas prices at the store were higher than he liked, but it would be an easy stop in the morning when he and Abby headed back to Wildwood, assuming she would wait that long.
As Cade watched, an old VW bus pulled into the store parking lot, and a pack of high-schoolers got out, laughing and punching each other’s arms as they headed inside. A moment or two later a silver Honda sedan just like the one at the restaurant earlier, the car that had triggered Abby’s sudden and devastating reaction, turned into the parking lot.
Cade stiffened, turning to face the store more fully. The Honda slowed and stopped next to the coin-operated air compressor by the phone booth.
No one got out of the Honda.
That sixth sense, the one cops developed over time, tingled its awareness down the back of Cade’s neck. He told himself it was just a silver Honda, the same car millions of people drove, and there was no reason why it, of all those millions, would contain the man who was undoubtedly searching for Abby by now. Abusers like Marsh didn’t just let their women get away without a fight. He couldn’t think of a way Marsh could have tracked her here; she wasn’t using credit cards, she wasn’t driving her own vehicle and she wasn’t even traveling alone. Yet he continued to watch the car, his body taut and alert.
Mort pushed his nose against Cade’s palm. Cade rested his hand on the dog’s head. “Hey, boy. Gimme a minute. Go sniff another bush.”
The office door of the motel opened with a hideous screech, and Mort’s head turned alertly. Cade gave the hand command for Mort to stay. The motel manager, the same man who had rented Cade a room last night, came out onto the concrete walkway in front of the office and lit a cigarette. He looked over at Cade, who lifted his chin and a hand in greeting. The manager nodded back.
It can’t be Marsh,
Cade thought. He’d just been hypersensitized to notice silver Hondas since dinner with Abby.
Still, he waited. The driver didn’t get out of the Honda, and now the daylight driving lights went off, and still the car waited.
The manager was watching the car, too, Cade realized, after a moment. Now Cade was on full alert, and called Mort to heel. The two of them crossed the blacktop, still hot from the day’s baking sunshine, to the manager.
“Evenin’,” said the manager.
“Evenin’.”
“Everything all right with your room?”
“It’s fine.”
“Gonna stay another day? Sorry we didn’t get to the maid service, but you were sleeping, and the maid had to get to her college classes up the road in Gainesville, so we skipped your room.”
“No problem. But I think we’ll check out in the morning. Thanks for your hospitality.”
“Let me know if you need extra towels. We got plenty.”
“Thanks.” Cade waited a beat, then jerked his head toward the car across the street. “Wonder what that guy’s up to. Not really a parking place, but he’s not airing up his tires or making a phone call.”
“Yeah,” the manager said. “He’s been a pain in my ass today, that guy.”
“Yeah?” Cade told himself to keep it light; the best way to get information out of people wasn’t always to interrogate, especially in circumstances where he didn’t have any legitimate involvement.
“He was here earlier, being a jackass, yelling and trying to get me to tell him about my customers.”
Stay casual.
“Must’ve been looking for somebody, huh?”
“Sure was. Thought he ought to show what a big man he was by turning doorknobs and trying to break our poor little ol’ sign over there.” The manager gestured with the cigarette at the Rest-n-Refresh signboard. “I called the sheriff, but he drove off before anyone came. He drove through my parking lot twice after that, ’bout once an hour. And now he’s back again, waiting over there.” A couple of deep drags saw the cigarette sucked down almost to the filter. The manager crushed the butt on the sidewalk’s edge, then picked up the butt and tossed it into the trash container nearby. “I gotta quit those someday.”