Catch a Shadow (25 page)

“I'm in danger if I'm alone.”

“It will be for a few hours. No more. And then I'll take you to target practice.”

“You don't believe that I can shoot.”

“Oh yes, I believe you. I would be afraid not to.” A smile tugged at one side of his lips.

Just then the cab arrived, and he quickly threw their belongings in the trunk. “Airport,” he said. “Any of the car rental offices.” She saw him glance around, and she did the same. Nothing unusual. No men sitting like vultures in a car.

But she was beginning to learn that meant nothing. Nothing at all.

She was silent as they rode to the airport and picked up a rental. She waited outside as he went into the office. While waiting in line, he checked text messages on the phone. One from Sam, saying he was almost to Denver and wanted her to know he was okay. Was she as well? Another was from his friend in Chicago. “Arrest warrant issued for you. Federal marshals all over. Know you're aren't at the cabin. I'm being watched. If you need money, I've made arrangements to get it to you. This phone still safe for text messages.”

He snapped it shut.

Minutes later, they were on the road.

Dawn wasn't far away, and neither of them had gotten any sleep. He drove fifteen miles, found a motel, registered, and went to the room. Two double beds. Good. They both needed sleep, and separate beds reduced the temptation for anything else.

She stood, looking out the window as he dumped their belongings in a chair.

She turned around to face him. “Can you really afford to pay for all this?” she asked suddenly. “Sam's trip. Airplane tickets. Hotels. Phones. Throwaway rental cars. I know you said you inherited some, but …”

He felt a heaviness in his chest. “You're thinking I might have taken some of the cash or diamonds?”

“If I did, I wouldn't be here. I thought you might need help. I have a little saved …”

The heaviness lifted. He should have known better. “I'm fine financially,” he said. “Prior to the South America fiasco, I had a good income as a captain with special duty pay. I invested it, then I inherited money from my father.”

“You said you were married. Wasn't there alimony?”

“We didn't have children, and she earned as much as I did. We had an amicable divorce after my conviction.” He hesitated, then added, “She didn't desert me, if that's what's you're thinking. She'd been ready to go for some time. She hated the long absences and the fact I could never talk about where I'd been or what I'd done.”

“And now?”

“Last I heard she was happily married to a CPA.”

Her gaze never left his. Up until this moment, events had unfolded at dizzying speed, and now, for the first time, they were slowing, and more critical questions were forming in her mind.

He owed her a complete answer. “My father was a colonel. He never wasted a penny and invested regularly. He left me over a half million dollars. That, combined with what I'd saved, gave me a cushion.”

“When did he die?”

“A week after I went into prison. The doctors said it was a heart attack. I knew it was a broken heart. The military was his life. And
his
father's. He got me into West Point. I'm the only blot on an illustrious military history.”

“But he didn't believe the charges?”

Jake shrugged. “No. I don't think so. But it broke his heart anyway. His beloved army prosecuting a son he believed innocent. I think he wanted me to use the money to clear my name.” He paused for a moment, then added, “During the past three years, my accountant has been squirreling funds into various safe-deposit boxes. Nothing illegal. Taxes were paid. But the feds can't track it.

“No brothers or sisters?”

“One older brother who died in Nam.”

Her face didn't change. Her eyes were red-rimmed but alert. It was obvious that the last twenty-four hours had made very clear the danger she'd put herself in.

“How do you get more money if you need it?”

“A friend has power of attorney for several accounts. He can take out money, but I suspect that those accounts are now being monitored. I still have one safe-deposit box I don't think they know about.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I've had a text message. I've been declared a fugitive.”

“What if they find you?”

“I'll go back to prison, possibly for another eight years.”

“But now we know that one of the men who was with you is still alive.”

“You know what I told you,” he said. “There's no proof he is still alive.”

“The DNA from the newspaper?”

He shrugged. “Since no one found Del Cox's fingerprints, I suspect the same thing would happen with Adams's fingerprints and DNA. Someone made them disappear.”

“But still, it should be enough for them to reopen the case.”

“Why should they?” he said bluntly. “Just because I say so? The mission was a bag of snakes. Everyone was running for cover. The case is closed, and no one wants it reopened.”

“I know people who can.”

“Only if we find more than we have up until now.”

She leaned against him, and he folded his arms around her. “Anytime you want out,” he said, “just say the word. You've already done far more than anyone has any right to expect.

“I just want to say that I want to go to bed.”

He led her to the bed and undressed her. Slow and gentle. He felt a tightening in the groin, but he'd felt that far too often in the past few days. Now, though, he wanted only to be next to her. To hear the rhythm of her heart, and feel her skin and breathe in the perfume of woman.

He wanted her to feel safe. He wanted her to
be
safe. He'd done a damn poor job of making her that way.

After he'd finished pulling up a cover over her, he watched as her eyes closed. No longer the reporter of several moments earlier when she'd grilled him. No longer the warrior who had tried to foil someone twice her size. Now she looked vulnerable and wounded.

He'd answered some of her questions, most of them honestly. But not all. Maybe that would come later.

Maybe.

CHAPTER 22

Jake took a shower, first with steaming hot water, then cold. Very, very cold. It didn't help. He still wanted her.

He was in desperate need of sleep. He was also in desperate need of her. But the latter was self-indulgent. He had to have sleep. Carelessness came from its lack, and he'd let it go far too long.

She was already asleep when he finished. Not knowing whether they might need to make a fast exit, he pulled on a clean pair of jeans and slipped between the sheets of the second bed. He wanted to slide in next to her, but he doubted either would get much sleep if he did.

He woke to a cry.

Then another.

Dawn filtered through the heavy dark curtains. A light was on in the bathroom. He'd left it that way in case she woke. He knew the disorientation that people had after a trauma, particularly when waking in a strange place.

He looked at the clock. He'd been asleep three hours.

She cried out again. He slipped out of bed and went over to her.

He touched her shoulder gently, and she jerked.

“It's okay,” he said in a low voice.

She jerked upright, into his arms. “I had a nightmare … I was all alone and …”

“I know,” he said. “I've had some myself.”

She looked startled, then comforted.

If only she knew the times he'd been scared shitless. “Something's wrong with you if you don't get scared or have nightmares. I sure as hell wouldn't want a partner who didn't know honest fear.”

“How do you get through it?”

“Adrenaline while it's happening. Before and after are the bad times.”

“How many bad times have you had?”

“Too many.”

“You never look scared,” she countered.

“It's a skill you learn,” he said. His arms tightened around her. If only she knew. Probably the worst moment he'd had was when he realized how neatly he'd been trapped by someone unknown.

The thought brought back the darkness, the utter despair he'd felt. For the first time in his life, he hadn't been able to fight back.

He was fighting back now, and he was using a woman to help him. Damn his soul.

He started to pull away, but her hand kept a hold on him. “Don't leave,” she said, and he knew she was reading his face. No one else had been able to do that.

He touched her cheek and ran his finger up to the corner of her good eye. The swelling had gone down on the other eye, but the colors were more pronounced. He knew it had to be sore, along with the bullet wound in her arm.

“I won't,” he said, not knowing whether it was a promise he could keep.

She sat and looked at his face with disquieting intensity as if she could read every emotion in him. Her fingers ran down his chest, stopping at an ugly scar on his side, just above his waistline.

“What happened?”

“An explosion.”

Then she touched another on his shoulder. “And this?”

“Compliments of my friend, Mr. Adams, I think,” he said. “Or your Mr. Cable.”

Then her fingers moved upward to the small scar near his hairline. “This, too?”

He nodded.

“And still they accused you?”

“According to the JAG prosecutor, I shot myself. Or had a falling-out with my accomplice, the drug lord. Take your pick.”

“What do you remember?”

“Not much. Our jeep stopped. I got out. So did the others. That's all I remember. I came to—I don't know how long after the shooting—feeling as if all the demons in hell were stabbing me with pitchforks. Chet and Ramos, the other members of our team, were both dead. There was nothing on them. But the two CIA guys accompanying us were gone. So was the plane Del Cox had brought us in on. My first thought was an ambush by the drug lord we were to meet. My second was to get the hell away before someone returned to make sure I was dead.”

“When did you suspect Adams?”

“Not until I saw him on the street when Cox was hit.”

“You'd never considered …?”

“In the past seven years, I considered everything, but there was no indication that Adams or Cox were involved. Maybe I didn't want to believe one of ours could kill his own.”

Her expression was so full of understanding and compassion that his heart slammed into his ribs. Ignoring the voices of warning in his head, he leaned forward and touched his lips to hers.

An instant. A moment to feel again.

But it wasn't an instant. A sound came from deep within her, a sleepy, welcoming sound that aroused him more than any word. His mouth moved to her throat, then back to her lips. Her lips met his with a ravenous need of her own, and the kiss became raw, hungry, desperate.

It's only the aftermath of fear
, he warned himself. The reaction that took hold once the adrenaline faded. The need for human contact, for evidence that she was alive.

He would be an even worse bastard for taking advantage of it. That's what he told himself, but seven years of intense loneliness told him something else. She was offering herself. And he couldn't resist.

The questions in his mind, the reasoning of his brain all disappeared as the sparks between them ignited. He smothered her lips with his mouth, his tongue darting inside with voracious, searching need.

His hand moved up and down her back, and her body shuddered, but not with fear. He regretted the T-shirt that remained between them, but he soon discovered there was nothing else to keep him from exploring her body. Her body reacted to his touch, trembling slightly, then he touched her breasts. They were perfect. They grew taut under his fingers.

“Jake,” she murmured. “Oh, Jake.”

He should stop now, stop until the puzzle was solved, the riddle answered, and he was free. But he no longer had control. He was astonished at the intensity of his feelings, of the aching need he had for her.

His lips went to the pulse in her neck, which he nuzzled, feeling every movement of her body as it reacted to his hands, to his mouth. He wished his own body wasn't reacting in the same fundamental, undisciplined way, then thought,
To hell with that
. It had been so long …

When a soft purr came from her throat, he was undone. All his good intentions fled. Her lips nibbled his, her tongue reached into his mouth, and he was consumed with fire.

He thought about the packet he'd picked up in the men's restroom in a gas station where they'd stopped for gas. It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Hope. Need. Even fear.

“I have something with me,” he whispered. It was a question more than a statement.

She nodded, a tremulous smile curling her lips. He stood and took a small packet from the pocket of the pair of jeans he'd worn earlier. Then he slipped his jeans off, along with his briefs.

He was only too aware of her gaze following him. He sat down again at her side. “Are you sure, Kirke? I have damned little future.”

“Yes,” she said simply and held out her hand to him.

“Your arm …?”

“It's the rest of me that's hurting now.”

He was aware that his lips were curving into a smile. He'd never met a woman with so little guile or pretense. He searched those large hazel eyes that interested him from day one. No doubts. No demands.

He opened the packet and slipped on the condom. Then he very carefully removed her T-shirt and took pleasure in looking at her. Enough curves to make any man sweat. Her nipples were hard, the breasts still tight from his touch.

His hands roamed over her body, memorizing every curve, every one of her shuddering reactions to his touch.

Her body strained toward him. His fingers went to the triangle of hair between her thighs, then to the moist area beneath. He'd never been good at foreplay, but now he wanted to give her as much pleasure as he could.