Trust Me (35 page)

"You think she believed you?"

"No, I think she believed him--that I attacked him while I was on drugs. But she knew I was telling the story I thought to be the truth."

David scowled. "I wouldn't want Noah to see you talking to her."

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"I wouldn't want him to see me, either."

"And he has kids, so you can't go to the house."

She toyed with her silverware, wondering how she was ever going to eat. She was too uneasy about Noah's possible involvement and Jane's desperate state. And then there was the baby, always in the back of her mind.

I'm carrying your baby. "Where, then?" she asked.

"Her work, I guess."

"Where does she work?" He had razor stubble covering his jaw, as if he hadn't taken the time to shave this morning, and there were fatigue lines around his eyes. Skye couldn't help noticing--and worrying about him.

"She's a substitute teacher."

"That's going to make it pretty hard to track her down."

The waitress brought their food. "I'll see what I can do and give you a call once I've selected a good time and place."

"Okay." Skye reached for the salt at the same moment David did.

When their hands brushed, she expected him to draw back immediately.

He'd been all business since the fund-raiser, one hundred percent back to his former self. Obviously, he wanted to make sure that what had happened at the Hyatt didn't happen again. But he didn't withdraw. His fingers interlaced with hers and his thumb stroked her palm, a motion that was both erotic and tender.

Skye shivered as sexual awareness skittered through her.

"You are so beautiful," he said.

"Weren't you the one who said this kind of thing isn't going to help?"

she responded. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let go.

"I can't fight it anymore."

Her chest grew tight with anticipation. "What do you mean?"

"I want to spend more time with you."

"What about Lynnette?"

"I've already told her."

She looked at their entwined hands. Would he enjoy the next week or two with her, then go back to his ex-wife? "I don't know, David," she said.

There was so much more at stake now. Skye didn't want a brief affair. She wanted to marry him and settle down.

But a long-lasting relationship had to start somewhere, didn't it?

"Is that a no?" he murmured.

"Do you have Jeremy this weekend?"

"Not this weekend, no."

She met his steady but inquiring gaze. "Then why don't you come over for dinner tonight?"

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He gave her a sexy smile. "What time?"

"Seven?"

"Okay," he said. But when he released her hand and she started her meal, she could've sworn she glimpsed Lynnette standing outside the door, staring at them through the glass.

"What is it?" David asked, following her gaze. But the woman was gone before Skye could get a good look at her.

"Nothing," she said distantly and finished her food.

Noah didn't call her. Jane waited, thinking he must've heard the phone ring last night, heard his wife talk to her. He'd probably been lying in bed right next to Wendy. But if he had heard, he didn't care. Jane finally became so overwrought she could scarcely work. How could Noah tell Wendy about them? That was such a betrayal, so unfair. Now he got to be the repentant one, the one with an opportunity to apologize and try to make it up to her.

And Jane was the slut who'd caused it all, someone to be shunned by both of them.

"What's wrong with you today?" Danielle snapped when Jane dropped her scissors on the floor and had to resterilize them for the third time.

"Nothing," she grumbled. Danielle wouldn't understand. A single mother who'd lost her only living parent last year, she didn't have an easy life. But no one had problems quite like Jane's. Jane had lost her mother long ago, as well as the aunt who'd raised her. She'd never known her father. And that was before she married Oliver Burke.

As soon as Jane finished the haircut she'd been working on, Danielle pulled her aside. "You need to calm down or you're going to end up hurting yourself with your own scissors."

It already looked as if she'd hurt herself. She'd been biting her cuticles so badly she had sores on almost every finger. She had to cover them with Band-Aids when she came to work so she didn't scare the customers.

"I-I'm trying." She craved a cigarette even though she'd had one only twenty minutes earlier.

Danielle's expression softened as she gazed at Jane's bandaged fingers. "Look, why don't you take off early? I don't know how you can cut hair with all those on, anyway. I can manage on my own."

Jane couldn't figure out what to make of this kindness. At the shop, it was pretty much a dog-eat-dog world. They were all too mired in their own difficulties, struggling too hard for survival to do many favors for each other.

"You're sure?" she asked. She knew it'd mean that Danielle would have to stay late, that she'd get less time with her son, which was all she 223

cared about, but Danielle nodded and shoved Jane toward her station.

"I'm sure. Get your purse and go," she said gruffly.

Relief and a little bit of hope surged through Jane. It was early enough that, with any luck, she'd be able to catch Noah at his office. He worked until six on Fridays, trying to wrap up the week.

Grabbing her purse and keys, she nearly ran out of the shop, then drove to his office.

When she arrived, she spotted the bumper of his truck from the side alley--it was in back, where he always parked it--and knew this was her chance. It'll be okay. Don't worry. Calm down.

Judging by the fact that his secretary's car was gone, Jane assumed Noah was alone. This was a perfect opportunity to tell him about the degradation she'd suffered, the doubts that plagued her more than ever, the fear.

Except that the office was locked and she couldn't get him to come to the door.

"Noah? Noah, it's me!" She knocked. "Please answer."

No response. It was only when she continued pounding, refusing to give up, that he finally appeared. Even then, he cracked the door barely a few inches and stood in the opening, as if to bar her entrance.

"I have to talk to you," she said, breathless from the anxiety that had poured through her all day and the exertion of pounding.

Disapproval etched deep lines in his forehead. "I can't let you in, Jane.

I've promised Wendy I won't be alone with you again, and I plan to keep that promise. If you need something, you're going to have to go to your husband."

"You told her," she whispered.

"I had to," he said. "It was the only way to put an end to this, to make sure I wouldn't break down again."

"What about me?" Jane wailed.

"It's best for both of us. This way you'll learn to depend on your husband instead of coming to me. I don't want to stand between you. Who gains from that? No one. Both families lose."

"But--but Oliver hurt me last night, Noah. He's not the same. He's..

.dangerous." Jane knew she was talking too fast, that her agitated state was costing her credibility, but she was desperate for him to believe her.

Noah rolled his eyes. "Stop it. He's having a hard time, like the rest of us. Worse than the rest of us. He has to start all over and he has no idea how he's going to support his family."

"But he did it, Noah. I think he killed those girls and he tried to rape 224

Skye. I believe he'll do it again, given the chance. It's just a matter of time."

He lifted a hand to silence her. "I don't want to hear it. You're acting crazy. He didn't do it, okay? He didn 't do it!"

She glanced around the empty parking lot. What she had to tell him was too private to air out on the street, but Noah had left her no choice. She knew he wouldn't break Wendy's "no being alone together" rule. "Last night Oliver and I made love for the first time."

Noah grimaced. "I don't want to hear about that, either. Just.. .live your life and be happy, okay? Make my brother happy, too." He started to go back in, but she clutched the edge of the door and held on.

"Noah, you have to listen to me. I don't know who else to turn to. I don't know if I'm going nuts or if he's really dangerous, but it feels like he is.

Last night, he insisted on tying me up. He wanted me to be facedown. I had to wear a blindfold. He didn't care that I hated it. He--he liked that I was whimpering and begging. It excited him--"

"Did he hurt you?" he interrupted.

"Yes!"

"How?"

She tried to remember. The physical injuries weren't so bad. It was more the way he'd behaved. His total disregard for her comfort. His self-absorption. "He--he squeezed my breasts."

"He squeezed your breasts," he repeated dismissively.

"Really hard," she added.

He bent to look at her more closely. "That's it? Most men like to squeeze a woman's breasts!"

"He bit me, too." She pulled down the neck of her sweater to reveal the mark on her shoulder, but the impression hadn't been deep enough to last.

When he saw nothing, Noah shook his head. "You need to see a counselor."

"I swear he bit me. Just not hard enough to draw blood."

"I've bitten you before, Jane. And you liked it."

"This was different. This wasn't playful or loving. Love had nothing to do with it. I felt hate. Extreme hate."

"Give me a break. Oliver loves you. When we went out to lunch today, he told me you guys had the best sex of your lives last night, that you're everything he's ever wanted in a woman, a real tiger in bed."

That comment left Jane speechless. Oliver knew she'd talked to Wendy last night. He was doing damage control, trying to undermine anything she might say so that Noah and Wendy, and maybe even his 225

parents, would think they already knew what had occurred and decide it wasn't that bad.

Oliver was so clever. He was smart and dangerous.

"If you won't listen, I'll have to go to your parents." She wheeled around to do just that, but he caught her arm.

"Don't you dare!" Real anger, the kind she'd never seen from Noah, flickered in his eyes as he spun her back to face him. "My parents have suffered enough, do you hear? Whatever you're going through, you'd better tough it out without burdening them. They've mourned what happened to Oliver all these years. They've nearly bankrupted themselves trying to help you both. And now they're getting old. Don't you dump this in their laps."

"But I have to tell them what I think. I need to protect Kate, protect myself."

"From a husband who wants to get in your pants? You let me get in your pants as often as I wanted without any complaints."

She winced at the disgust in his voice. "You wanted to be with me,"

she challenged.

He threw up his hands. "I did. I admit it. But I don't want it anymore, and you won't let go. Don't you get it? It's over."

She couldn't stifle the sob that rose in her throat. What had she done to deserve this? The whole world had turned against her. "But he--he tied me up even though I begged him not to. He--he squeezed my breasts and--and slapped my ass and bit my shoulder. It was horrible."

At last, she saw a flash of the old Noah in his eyes, the one she'd thought loved her. "He used ropes?" he asked, concern in his voice.

"No, sheets."

Noah didn't wait to hear the rest. He waved her away, repeating the word sheets as if he'd never heard anything more ridiculous.

"He tied them really tight," she called after him. "It wasn't normal sex play. You weren't there. You didn't see what he was like."

Pivoting just before the door could close, he caught it and pointed an accusing finger at her. "It's you, Jane. It's not him. You've been cracking up for a while now. You need therapy and probably a good dose of Prozac."

Slamming the door shut, he locked it.

Tears slipped down Jane's cheeks as she watched his retreating back through the glass door. She'd scratched that back, massaged it--slept with him, loved him.

But Noah wasn't hers to love. He never had been, not really. She was married to the psychopath who was waiting for her to come home and make him dinner.

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Knowing he'd be spending the rest of the evening with Skye made it difficult for David to think of anything else. There were so many doubts crowding his brain--and, as always, the nagging guilt over Lynnette and Jeremy. But he didn't see how remarrying Lynnette would work if he didn't really want to be with her, despite her illness and the compassion and sympathy he felt about the diagnosis. He couldn't even touch Lynnette, felt absolutely no desire to do so.

On the other hand, he didn't know where he expected his relationship with Skye to go. He was trying not to think that far down the line, because then he had to consider the prospect of giving his son a stepmother, deciding whether or not he wanted other kids, acknowledging that Lynnette would have it far rougher without him, even if he tried to support her as a friend, and figuring out whether or not he
could
live comfortably with Skye's work putting her in constant danger.

Whenever he confronted all those issues, he felt overwhelmed and wanted to force his life back to its original path, which meant trying to reconcile with Lynnette, and that started the whole confusing cycle over again. So he decided he wouldn't think about the future. He'd take one day at a time--and this day was going to be pretty damn great because, after his last stop, he'd be heading out to the delta to have dinner with Skye. It was nearly six already.

Slowing his police-issue sedan, he read the addresses on the street, trying to figure out which residence belonged to Noah Burke. He'd interviewed Oliver's brother before the trial nearly four years ago, but that interview had taken place at the station.

He frowned as he remembered the twenty minutes he'd spent with Noah, which had been a waste of time. Noah had maintained the family story: Oliver was a joy to be around, he'd never been a troublemaker, he had no dark side and wasn't capable of attempted rape. But David hadn't come to talk about Oliver today.