Identity Crisis (24 page)

He didn’t know how long they lay there together surrounded by the night sounds. A great horned owl hooted somewhere in the trees. There was a very slight rustle of the evergreens in the breeze, and there was the sound of their own breath, in and out, in and out. At long last, he felt her fingers tracing the line his collar against his neck down to where it opened against his breastbone.

‘Are you all right?’ he whispered.

She only nodded, but he felt it, felt the reassuring in and out of her breath, felt the softness of muscles relaxed beneath him.

‘Garrett.’ She breathed his name. ‘Garrett, will you make love to me?’

He felt as though his chest would burst with the relief of it, with the knowing that she wanted him still, that she had come back to him, and to no one else. He forced his words around the tight knot of emotion in his throat. ‘There’s nothing I’d rather do right now, Kendra.’

With hands made unsteady by the catharsis he hadn’t expected, he unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it aside to kiss down her collarbone and onto the swell of her breasts rising and falling above the lace cups of her bra. She arched her back to bring herself closer to his lips. She lay beneath him, open, completely yielding as he had never seen her before. He eased the straps of her bra down, and with it the cups, until he could nurse on her nipples, already raised and tight. She sighed and gave a little grunt as he stroked his way down the flat of her belly, tight with her efforts to breathe. He toyed with her waistband only briefly before he opened her jeans and slipped his hand in to caress her soft curls. The shift and grind of her bottom raised her pubic bone into his caresses, and opened a path to her clit, resting heavy and tight at the apex of her. Another shifting of her hips and he could wriggle fingers down between her velvety folds, warm and slippery and opening to him. Her breath hitched, expanding her chest, pressing the rise of her breasts closer to his mouth. She curled her fingers in his hair and held him to her, held him against the place where her heart felt like the wild flutter of wings. And he was sure that if he listened hard, if he concentrated just a little more, he could hear the racing of the blood in her veins.

‘Please, Garrett,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t wait. I need you inside me. Please.’

He eased her jeans down until she could kick one leg free. She was already shoving his jeans and boxers over his hips. He managed a condom from his pocket and worried himself into it, less gracefully than he’d have liked, his efforts made clumsy by so much more than just arousal, so much more than just need. The vulnerability of the woman in his arms, and the gift of that vulnerability, was sobering. There was nothing he wanted more than to give her something in return, to give her the release she needed, to somehow give her more. Though he didn’t really know how, or what that more might be.

But there was not the time, nor the wit left to dwell on it. She lifted her hips, positioning herself for him, opening herself with one hand while the other took hold of him and guided him into her with a catch of her breath and a flutter of her eyelids. And God, it felt like heaven! It felt like he’d come home as she lifted her legs around his waist and locked her ankles behind his back and thrust up to meet him.

She came before he did, sobbing and convulsing, fisting tight fingers into the back of his shirt, gripping him with all her might until he could hold back no longer, until he came too. And it felt like he would never stop coming, like he wanted to fill her with all he was and make her understand that she wasn’t alone in her dark places.

‘That’s Cygnus, the swan.’ Garrett pointed to the cross of stars above them. ‘The bright star at the head is Deneb. The Big Dipper, you know. And over there, that one that looks like a sideways M, that’s Cassiopeia.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘I never knew the stars could be so bright.’

‘Ellis chose this place because there was no light pollution and the view of the night sky is stunning.’ But it wasn’t the night sky he was looking at.

‘Do you think maybe we could just stay here?’ she said. ‘Right here in this spot on the grass, next to the woods, just stay here until the whole thing with Tess and the press blows over?’

‘It’s supposed to rain tomorrow. That might make the spot a little less pleasant,’ he replied, relishing the fact that he could stare at her endlessly in the dark and she wouldn’t squirm, wouldn’t be uncomfortable. Of course he really couldn’t see her, but he felt her. He felt her like she took up all the space in the field, all the space in the night sky, all the space inside him, and he would have gladly stayed there with her, even in the rain.

She sighed and snuggled closer to him. ‘I suppose so. Too bad, really. I like it here.’

Too bad, indeed, he thought. Any place where he had Kendra Davis’s undivided attention in such a delicious way, he was sure he’d gladly be willing to stay for at least ten or 15 years. He stroked her flank, then cupped her bottom. ‘But then again, if we stayed out here in the rain I might finally get that shower you promised me.’

She nipped his chin and settled a kiss on his throat. ‘That’s your fault. You could have joined me this morning. I wouldn’t have turned you away. The door was unlocked, but you know that, don’t you? I mean, I know you’d already showered and all, but you came right on in. You were standing right there at the bathroom door staring at me. All you had to do was take off your clothes and join me.’

Garrett felt a sudden chill climb his spine and clench at the nerves low in his belly. ‘Kendra, what are you talking about? I was going to join you, but my editor called, ragging on me about
Texas Fire
. I never made it upstairs, and if I had, I’d have done a helluva lot more than stand and stare at you.’

She pushed away from him and sat up quickly, pulling her shirt around her as though she was suddenly cold. ‘Garrett, you were standing right there in the door. I saw you. I asked you to come in and join me and you just stood there and stared. Then when you left, I figured you were mad at me.’

‘Kendra –’ He sat up and took her gently by the shoulders. ‘I swear to you, I didn’t come upstairs at all while you were in the shower. Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive there was someone?’

Suddenly, she was shivering. ‘I’m positive. Jesus, of course I’m positive. I mean, the glass was steamed, yes, but when I heard the door open, I turned and I could see … Well, I thought it was you. There was a man. I could see him, Garrett. I swear he was there. He was your height. I didn’t think … How could it have been anyone else? How?’

He pulled her tight against him and fumbled with his BlackBerry, punching in the number for the head of the security team at his house. ‘Gabe, yes, I need you to do something for me. I need you to check the windows upstairs. I think we might have had a break-in.’

Kendra pulled away and began dressing; he heard her more than saw her in nothing but the light of the BlackBerry. While he waited, he struggled to pull his jeans up with one hand while holding the device with the other. ‘You all right?’ he asked her.

‘Fine.’ Her voice was breathy, like she’d been running. ‘Put it on speaker phone, I need to hear.’ Still, in spite of everything, K. Ryde came to the forefront. K. Ryde, he thought, K. Ryde was just one of the many amazing facets of Kendra Davis. She wasn’t a different person, no matter how hard Kendra tried to keep the two separate, and no matter what she chose to call herself, no matter how tough she pretended to be, he knew better. But he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. He wouldn’t! Ever.

At last the security man’s voice came onto the phone. ‘Mr. Thorne, there’s nothing amiss. There’s no evidence of forced entry, and nothing in the house out of place that we can see.’

‘Did you hear anything else, anything that might have seemed out of the ordinary?’ Garrett asked Kendra.

‘No.’ She chafed her arms. ‘Wait, wait, there was a smell. It didn’t smell like you. It smelled, I don’t know, disturbing. But then, before I had a chance to think about it, the man was gone.’

‘What about Ms. Emerson?’ Gabe asked. ‘Could it have been her you saw?’

‘Of course not,’ Kendra said. ‘This was a man and he was wearing jeans. Look, I know what I saw.’

‘Besides,’ Garrett added, ‘Stacie never left my side while you were in the shower, and even if she had, she would have never barged in on you. And while you were planning with Harris, she was in my study pumping me for more details about the situation. That’s where we both were when you called us down. You got ready in the guest room, for the meeting with the press. Did you notice anything strange then?’

‘Honestly, I wasn’t paying any attention, Garrett. I was too busy thinking about talking to the press.’

‘Fuck!’ Garrett ran a hand through his hair and yanked Kendra close to him, ignoring her little gasp of surprise. He returned his attention to the security man. ‘Both of the bedrooms look out onto the back yard. He must have come in from there.’

‘If there had been someone there,’ the man said, ‘we would have noticed. The back is being patrolled as well as the front. I don’t see how anyone could have sneaked past us. But frankly, that guestroom window’s very vulnerable. Easiest thing in the world to shimmy up that trellis.’

‘And you’re just now thinking about that?’ Garrett lost it. ‘Ellis told me you were the best. Tess could have been kidnapped or killed, and you would have never known the difference.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the man managed before Garrett ploughed on.

‘Fat lot of good that does!’ He was just settling into rant mode when Kendra suddenly grabbed his arm in a bruising grip and shushed him.

‘Shut up, both of you! Listen!’ she hissed. ‘Someone’s out there.’

‘Probably just a deer,’ Garrett said. ‘They come up all the –’

Then he heard it, the crack of a twig, the brush of a limb, and what sounded like soft footfalls. Holding his breath, he squinted into the woods, but it was full night and there was no moonlight. Even the ambient light of the house was blocked out by the steep undulation of the hill leading to the field where they sat.

For a second there was silence. They both held their breath, and Gabe, on the speaker phone, must have been holding his too. Kendra slid back on her bottom and fumbled in the backpack that had contained the blankets and snacks. Carefully, as quietly as she could, she pulled out a flashlight, and when the next crackle of undergrowth broke the silence, she flicked it on. The sound that escaped her throat was one of rage mixed with fear. Adrenaline shot up Garrett’s spine and felt like it would explode through the top of his head.

For a split second, in the periphery of the circle of light, there was something running away, and the woods was suddenly alive with the crackle and crunch of the undergrowth as whatever it was made its escape.

‘Fuck! It was a man! Garrett, it was a man, didn’t you see him?’

Garrett catapulted to his feet, shoving Kendra. ‘Stay here. Don’t move, Kendra. Gabe –’ he yelled back at the device ‘– call Ellis, and get someone down here, now!’

He grabbed the flashlight from her and tore into the woods, undergrowth slapping at his calves and thighs, brambles catching his jeans. He could hear both Gabe and Kendra calling after him to stay put, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He had only seen movement, but something was definitely there. Something, and if some bastard was after Kendra, he just couldn’t sit meekly and do nothing. Suddenly, the sound of escape in front of him was mirrored by the sound of pursuit behind him, and he knew Kendra had ignored him. He would have shouted at her to go back, but that would only give whoever was out there more information. That would only make him aware that Kendra was there, ready for the grabbing. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he shoved forward, nearly tripping over exposed roots and uneven ground. A thin branch thwacked him low on the cheek with the force of a whip and he felt warm blood trickle down his jaw. He ignored it and pushed on. He tried hard to concentrate, to hear the sound of Kendra stumbling through the undergrowth behind him and the sound of whoever it was in front growing fainter and then suddenly stopping. The shiver snaked up his spine. He didn’t know if whoever it was had moved out of the woods or if he had stopped, or if he was waiting, waiting for Kendra. He could be anywhere in the pitch black just outside the spastic slash of vision Garrett’s flashlight afforded. And suddenly he couldn’t hear Kendra either. He stopped dead, listening, struggling to breathe quietly while his lungs felt like they’d burst. But he heard nothing ahead of him and nothing behind him. Goddamn it, why couldn’t the woman ever listen? Why couldn’t she stay safe?

It felt like an eternity that he stood there, his lungs bursting from the need of air, his ears straining for the sound of her, for any sound, for any whisper, but there was nothing. At last he crept forward, trying desperately to keep quiet, but twigs crackled and pine straw schussed beneath his feet. It was high summer and the woods were dry. He was desperate to call for her, desperate to know where she was, desperate to know that she was safe.

Suddenly, from behind him there was the bounce, bounce of multiple flashlight beams, and the undergrowth came alive with the crackle and pop of branches and twigs. There was a hand on his shoulder, and before he could brain the owner with the flashlight, a competent male voice said, ‘Security, Mr. Thorne. Go back out of the woods. We’ll take care of this now.’

‘Kendra,’ he managed. ‘I need to know where Kendra is.’

‘I haven’t seen her, Mr. Thorne.’

He could tell the security man was making an effort to keep his voice calm and to keep the irritation at Garrett from showing. He didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to find Kendra.

The man gestured toward the opening beyond the trees. ‘She’s probably back in the field, Mr. Thorne, where you need to be too, so we can do our job.’

Ignoring the grab of brambles and the slap of overzealous saplings, needing to see her, needing to make sure she was OK, he hurried back into the open, back to where the blankets were spread onto the grass. She wasn’t there!

‘Kendra! Kendra!’ He swung the flashlight wildly, bathing thin strips of woodland in yellow light, light that danced over skeletal branches and hanging moss, light that caught macabre shadows that slunk over tree trunks and burst from behind rhododendrons. In the woods he could hear the security man fanning out, searching. He could see the flicker of their lights.