A Widow's Guilty Secret (14 page)

He’d kidnapped her sister and her baby.

“You said they’d be safe,” Suzy cried, finally breaking down. “You promised, you promised,” she sobbed, struggling not to crumble to her knees. The feeling of helplessness overwhelmed her.

Nick took her into his arms. She fought him, struggling to get free and then, suddenly utterly drained, she limply collapsed against him.

“We’ll find them,” Nick swore to her. “We’ll find them.”

She had no choice but to believe him. If she didn’t, the hopelessness she felt vibrating within her would swallow her up whole, burying her.

What the hell is wrong with me?
a voice inside her head demanded.

Since when did she fall to pieces like some fragile China doll? Lori and Andy
needed
her. There was no time for self-pity or sobbing. Crying and recriminations weren’t going to save them. Getting her act together and looking for leads, for clues, so that she could come after them,
that
was going to save them.

Nick felt her suddenly straightening in his arms. He could almost
feel
Suzy rising to the occasion like some fictional super heroine rather than just falling to pieces.

What surprised him even more than this unexpected show of spirit and strength was his reaction to it. Not only did he admire this stronger side of Suzy, but he was turned on by the subtle display, as well.

It made him want her even more intensely than he had before.

“This is my family,” she told him as she drew away and stood her ground. “It’s up to me to find them.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “This isn’t your fight.”

“The hell it’s not,” he countered. “We’re in this thing together, and I intend to help find them and bring your sister and your baby back home whether you want my help or not.”

There was a place for independence and for operating alone, but only a fool turned down knowledgeable help and she knew she could definitely use all the help she could get.

“Of course I want you,” she responded with feeling, then realized that a crucial word was missing and corrected herself. “I mean, of course I want your
help
.” And then she tried to salvage the moment—and disarm it as well—by saying, “For one thing, your gun’s bigger.”

But it was too late. Both of them were aware of her slip of the tongue and what it meant: she’d told him she wanted him.

Just as he wanted her.

This, Nick realized, would be one tricky high-wire act to negotiate.

“Let me call this in,” he told her, taking out his cell phone, “and get some of the FBI’s crime scene investigators out here. Maybe whoever did this obligingly left a print somewhere.” He began pressing numbers on the keypad. He was going to have to call for an M.E., as well. Luckily—if that word could be applied to this case—the one sent in from Dallas was still here. “And then I’m getting you out of here.”

She wanted nothing more than to get away, but she couldn’t think about herself right now. There was just too much at stake. “What if they call? I don’t want to miss it,” she emphasized.

“They want what you have,” he reminded her. It had to be the photographs in the safety deposit box. A lot of people were implicated in those photographs. A lot of careers would be ruined and a lot of people going to prison. “They’ll call back. Right now, you need some time to pull yourself together. Some time to get in front of all this,” he added.

So far, he judged, she was doing remarkably well, but that didn’t mean she’d keep on going this way. Like someone who’d been shot and was still walking about, she hadn’t felt the full impact yet and when she did, there was a possibility of complete collapse—far greater than what had almost transpired here.

Suzy fought back angry tears as she looked around the chaotic room. She should have been here to fight off the intruder. If she had been here, she could have kept Lori and the baby safe. For God’s sake, she was stronger than Lori, she thought, upbraiding herself.

Get in front of all this.
That was what Nick had just said.

If they didn’t get Lori and Andy back, safe and unharmed, Suzy didn’t think she would be able to get in front of all this.

Ever.

Chapter 13

A
s
much as she wanted to go out and clear her head, feeling that any second now she would start climbing the walls, waiting for the kidnapper to call, she just couldn’t make herself leave.

She stopped short of the threshold. When Nick looked at her, she shook her head and said, “I can’t.”

Knowing that to prod her might just push her over the edge emotionally, Nick nodded. “All right, I’ll go get us some dinner,” he told her.

She exhaled a breath. “Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” he answered. Calling in a patrolman to stay with Suzy, he left, promising to be back within the half hour.

* * *

The moment she saw Nick coming up the front walk, a little of her anxiety receded. It was as if only good things could happen as long as he was around. She knew it was a completely unrealistic attitude, but comforting nonetheless.

Nick came bearing several packages and was pleased that everything inside was still hot. He’d driven from the diner as if the very forces of hell were after him.

“Eat it while it’s hot,” he urged, depositing the various containers on the kitchen table and then opening them.

“You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” she protested. “I don’t think I can keep anything down.”

“But you’ll give it a good try,” he said in a voice that told her she really had no choice in the matter.

Suzy dutifully sat down once the plates and silverware were out. Nick had ordered two servings of baked ham, mashed potatoes and baby carrots drizzled with brown sugar and honey.

Taking first one bite, then another, Suzy was surprised to discover that not only
could
she eat, she was actually very hungry. One bite followed the other until suddenly there was nothing left on her plate.

Finished, she looked up at Nick with a touch of chagrin. He’d been right. Which meant he knew her better than she knew herself.

“I guess you called it.”

Amused, Nick pretended not to know what she was talking about. “How’s that again?”

He’d read her better than she’d read herself, Suzy thought. He deserved an apology, but she couldn’t bring herself to muster one at the moment. Consequently, this was as close to one as he was going to get.

“When you said I was hungry.” A rueful smile curved her mouth. “I guess I really was.”

Nick had no need to hear an apology—he was just glad he could get her to finally eat something. “Just stands to reason that if you’re going to keep pushing yourself so hard, you’ll need to keep up your strength. Fastest way to do that that I know of is to remember to refuel. Eat,” he told her, reducing the solution to one word.

And she had certainly done that, he thought. There wasn’t so much as a crumb left on her plate. “Want anything else?” he asked. “Dessert? Coffee?” And then he shifted gears by asking, “Or would you like to have a drink?”

Suzy shook her head in response to each suggestion, although she hesitated for a moment when he mentioned the last item.

Part of her wanted to throw back a drink, or three, in order to numb the fear and pain that were so very close to the surface. She was so very afraid for her son’s and sister’s safety. But she knew that aside from it being only a temporary “fix” that actually fixed nothing, a drink, depending on its strength, could render her incapable of thinking clearly. And she needed to remain clearheaded just in case the kidnapper called back tonight—or Nick’s team called with a lead for them.

“No, no drink,” she finally said. “We’ll have one together to celebrate once Lori and Andy are safe again.”

“Sounds good,” he responded, and she believed he meant it.

To her surprise, he helped her clear the plates and load them into the dishwasher. When they went back out into the living room, she couldn’t help looking around, part of her expecting to see Lori there holding her son.

When she didn’t, the pang that rose up within her was all but paralyzing. Tears rose in her eyes.

Nick saw the tears and knew what she was thinking. “We’ll have them home before you know it.” Promises like that were not typical for him, but he sensed she needed to hear the words.

“Home,” Suzy echoed. The word sounded so empty to her.
Felt
so empty, she thought, looking around. “Right now it doesn’t seem very much like home,” she confessed freely. “Not after all that’s happened.”

Nick nodded. “I understand how you feel.”

The words cut across her heart, drawing blood. She looked at Nick sharply as her temper suddenly flashed. Suzy couldn’t keep the words back. “How could you possibly understand?” she asked, struggling not to lash out, not to shout at him for being so condescending as to assume he knew what she was suffering through. She wasn’t being fair to him, but she didn’t want this police detective patting her on the head as if she was a child, giving her platitudes. “My cheating,
dead
husband turns out to be a possible traitor, betraying not just me but his whole country as well and because of him, my sister and my son were kidnapped and who
knows
what else? Are you trying to tell me that happened to you, too?” she demanded hotly.

“No,” Nick replied in a voice that was completely stripped of any emotion. He debated leaving it at that. He was, after all, a private person. But in the face of her pain, he decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and share his experience with her.

“I found out my wife was pregnant a week
after
she’d terminated her pregnancy. She’d swept that little life away without so much as passing thought, despite the fact that she knew I really wanted to have a family. When I called her on it, she told me that if I wanted to have something looking up at me adoringly, I should get a dog.” He paused for a moment to purge the bitterness that always came along with the memory of that confrontation, then said, “I got a divorce instead.”

Once the words were finally out, he realized that they—and the anger that propelled them—had been bottled up inside him all these long years, ever since he’d walked away from Julie that same afternoon he’d found out about what had happened to his unborn child. He’d never looked back. But the anger had lingered. And festered.

He felt almost liberated.

And just like that, her heart ached for him. “I’m sorry,” Suzy whispered, emotion threatening to all but choke her windpipe.

It started to rain outside. The raindrops hitting against the living-room window made for a mournful sound, separating the two of them from the rest of the world.

“I didn’t tell you that to get your sympathy—I told you to let you know that you’re not the only person who’s ever been blindsided by someone they thought they could trust. And if you ever repeat
any
of this,” he warned her, “I’ll deny it.”

So he’d confided something to her that wasn’t common knowledge. She found that comforting somehow, to be sharing a secret with him.

“I won’t,” she promised, then said in a slightly clearer voice, “And I’m still sorry. Sorry you didn’t get a chance to find out what it feels like to hold your baby in your arms. But most of all, I’m sorry that I yelled at you just now. You’re only trying to help me.”

She dragged her hand through her hair, wishing she could organize her thoughts as easily. “I feel like my nerves have been peeled down to the very core, but that’s still no excuse to take out my frustrations on you. You’ve been nothing but good and kind to me and I shouldn’t be repaying you for that by going ballistic on you just like some kind of shrewish harpy—”

Nick held up his right hand for a second, calling a halt to Suzy’s torrent of words. “Don’t go painting wings and a halo on me just yet,” he told her.

Suzy smiled at him, waiting for a second, just until the tears in her throat left so that she could talk. “Too late,” she whispered.

But he heard her, even though he chose to say nothing, and just shook his head. On his
best
day no one would have
ever
accused him of being an angel.

“Well, I guess I’d better be going,” he told her.

Her eyes widened. “You’re leaving?”

“I’m not going very far,” he answered. “If you need anything, I’ll be right outside.” He nodded in the general direction of his car. He intended on keeping vigil a few steps from her front door.

She shook her head, vetoing the idea. “The last policeman who stayed right outside my house didn’t fare too well,” she reminded him. “He wound up dead.”

Her concern touched him even though he tried not to let it.

“I’ve pulled protective duty before,” Nick assured her. “And I obviously lived to tell about it. Now, once I go out, I want you to lock up,” he instructed. “I’ll wait right outside the door until I hear you flip the locks and put the chain on.”

She caught his hand as he turned to leave. He looked at her quizzically. Her eyes held his for a long moment. When she spoke, it was to make a request. “Come inside. Stay the night with me.”

The way she said it, and the plea he saw in her eyes, left him no choice.

“Wait right here,” he told her. Crossing to the door, he flipped first one lock, then the other, testing each individually before finally putting on the chain.

“I’ll camp out on the couch,” he began as he turned around to face her.

He supposed that he wasn’t surprised by what came next. If he was honest with himself, on a subconscious level he’d seen it coming.

Because, on that same level, he’d been aware not just of Suzy’s overwhelming vulnerability, but of his own, as well.

Something about the look in her eyes, the pain she was feeling not only
spoke
to him but also evoked memories of his own pain—the pain he’d thought buried along with all his unspoken hopes and plans for the future and for a family life.

Julie’s heartless, thoughtless betrayal and the callous way she had erased all traces of their unborn child, not even pausing to think of the promise she was also erasing, had wounded his heart. To save himself and to stem the hemorrhaging flow, he’d literally denied his pain and sealed off that area of himself.

Sealed off all possibility of his feeling
anything
except a sense of duty and dedication to keep the citizens he served safe.

That was supposed to be enough.

It
had
been enough.

Until Suzy sealed her mouth to his.

Nick had no weapon at his disposal to try to hold her off. And rather than hold her off, he did the exact opposite. He eagerly sought the comfort, the warmth that she silently offered.

The flicker of momentarily unguarded pain she had seen in Nick’s eyes reached out and touched her, communicated with her own pain and went so much further than merely letting her know that he’d endured hurt the same as she had.

It assured her that she wasn’t alone. That he wasn’t just there for her but he had
been
there—where she was—as well. Reaching out to comfort him temporarily silenced her own pain.

Her own fears.

She desperately wanted something to blot out the overwhelming fear for her baby and her sister that made it hard for her to even breathe.

And then it was no longer about pain, about fear, about the waves of anxiety. It was stripped raw of all its layers and, at bottom, it was about the solace she discovered there, in Nick’s arms, in his touch. In his kiss.

And she was ravenous for it.

Peter hadn’t been a husband to her from the moment he’d learned that she had conceived. In withdrawing not just his attention and sexual contact, but any displays of affection as well, he’d made her feel like half a person, completely undesirable. She’d found herself adrift in loneliness.

More than anything, she now admitted, she’d craved a gentle touch, craved quiet, reassuring affection. Craved knowing that she mattered.

All these needs, wants, desires had seemed to burst to the surface the moment she and Nick walked into the house and closed the door. Unable to cope, to be alone with all these burdens she’d been carrying a second longer, Suzy threw her arms around the only lifeline she had.

Nick.

Every logical bone in his body told him this was wrong. That he couldn’t go through with this. That he needed to separate himself from this woman he was so completely attracted to before he compromised not only her and himself, but his principles.

Nick knew he would regret this—for her sake—but he didn’t care. He’d had regrets before. Better to regret a deed that was done than to regret never having done it at all.

He wanted to feel whole again, for however brief a time. Though it made no sense to him, for some reason, Suzy Burris made him feel whole. He’d sensed it almost from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.

As was the case with everything in his life that didn’t go by the book, he’d tried to bury it.

But it just wouldn’t stay buried, not when she presented herself to him like this, all warm and willing, supple and wanting.

Nick was no match for that.

Nick was no match for her.

He kissed her over and over again, even as his brain ordered him to stop. He couldn’t stop. It was beyond his control, beyond the spectrum of his power.

He needed what she had, what she gave, and a part of him tried to assuage his conscience by telling himself that she needed what he had to offer, as well. Comfort, affection and reaffirmation.

It wasn’t a slow, languid dance the way he would have wanted it to be if it had been in his power to bestow on her. Instead, what was happening between them resembled a charged frenzy, underscored by articles of clothing now littering the floor, marking a path that went from the front door to the sofa several feet away.

And in the interim, as clothes continued to rain down, he kissed, caressed, touched and worshipped every square inch of her that he came in contact with, every single part of her body.

Firm and taut, her skin still felt like cream against his palms. He lost himself in that sensation. His heart raced as every kiss, every pass of his hand and hers bred a desire for more of the same.

No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. He found himself desperately wanting that final thrill yet just as desperately wanting this momentum they’d created to continue forever.