"The less I'm safe. Damn it, I'm running for my life and you're still on radio silence with me."
"For your own protection."
"Save the runaround, Sam. The time for full disclosure arrived when my detail got gunned down. You owe me the truth."
He shifted forward in his seat. I watched him flip through those damn mental files and I nearly lost patience. "You don't need to get any deeper in a shit pile you didn't create."
"No, that's your job. You'll carry the weight for all of us. Till it drives you into the ground. All-alone-Sam, the perfect one-man army." I stared out the window, watching ugly buildings of run-down towns speed by, less angry about his secrecy than letting myself get caught up in him at the garage, when he was already planning to leave me again. "Just tell me when we reach the state line."
***
We shot past Connecticut, then Massachusetts, then rolled along the New Hampshire border. Which state line he meant, I couldn't guess. We were heading for Canada for all I knew.
Sam pulled off the interstate and followed a country road to the cracked and pitted parking lot of a sleepy no-tell motel. The two-story saltbox was painted highlighter-yellow with bleach-white trim and a neon sign that twitched "Vacancy" in uneven flashes.
"Corporate joints are all hooked in with the Feds," said Sam, parking behind the building, out of sight from the road. "Gotta pick local joints. Folks who can't afford a security system and wouldn't want to, or they'd lose customers."
"So you've stayed here before."
"Not exactly." He peered at the top floor, probably scoping angles for sharpshooters, while I envisioned who'd stayed here, if not Sam, but didn't ask for fear he'd say his ex-wife. "Maybe we'll get a shower and a nap. Or not." He bobbed his eyebrows.
"You've got to be kidding. We need to drive as far away as possible." And I hardly craved intimacy now with a man who was going to ditch me down the road.
"Okay, okay. But I haven't slept in two days. And Malta's Greek lasagna is sitting hard on my stomach." He started the engine, released the brake, and glanced at the rearview mirror. "This is going to be a long trip, Max."
One look at the bags under Sam's eyes and I felt like I weighed a ton. Despite the lingering taste of betrayal, the lies and questions he'd yet to answer, knowing he'd sacrificed his career and his life to save me was all the guilt I needed. Neither of us had been able to sleep at James' with their fight lingering in the room. And we'd be safer running at night, when a black truck blended into the dark. Besides, I needed time to assess my new situation. And Sam's new departure.
I yanked the brake stick. We jerked to a stop.
Sam closed his eyes. "I am a federal agent. I've been beaten, shot, stabbed. I can handle one fickle woman."
"This fickle woman would be happy to change her mind again."
"Nope." Sam set the gear to park and jumped out. He popped the hatch and pointed Max to the big field adjoining the property. "Get your duties done, buddy." To me he said, "You stay put."
"Leave the keys," I said, but he'd already started across the lot.
From my bra I pulled the photo Malta had fetched for me, a photo of Sam and James when they were just skinny boys in cutoff shorts. James' foot sat on a soccer ball, his arm hung over Sam's shoulders. Even then Sam's boyish smile had a wink of devilish intent. I hid the photo when Sam appeared in my mirror, jingling a fish-shaped keychain.
He'd rented a second-floor corner room above the empty field in the back. With windows on each side, the room looked more exposed than seemed prudent.
Sam grabbed his bag, then took my hand and pointed our fingers at the unit. "We can see two approach angles like this. Better visibility, more escape avenues." He tugged my hand and we took the open stairs up the face of the building.
Max bolted through the door, sniffing wildly for every creep and dog whose smells stained the sea-green carpeting and floral bedspread, while Sam whipped the curtains closed, set his Glock on the nightstand, and then dropped onto the cardboard bed with hardly a bounce.
"I could sleep for days," he muttered. From zero, to sixty, to zero again—this man was a machine.
When I opened the bathroom, a waft of mildew hit me. Not the luxury I'd enjoyed at the Waldorf, no tub, no fancy soaps, and no gunshots: in other words, perfect. I threw back the shower curtain. "You can take the first shower if you're tired."
Sam came to my side, examined the three-by-three stall. "First. As in alone. Damn." His warm fingers played at my elbow. "We could both fit, given the right position."
I shrugged out of his octopus arms. "Enough already."
"Hey, you pulled the brake lever—"
"Stop it," I snapped. "Everyone wants a piece of me, and there's not enough to go around. I can't have you coming at me like a jackhammer all the time. I need to think straight. They're out there, and we're trapped in here, and I need to prepare for what I'm going to do when I'm on my own again. Not play house with you."
Sam's face went blank. I expected a catchy comeback or another push to see if I collapsed to his will, which he damn well knew I would. Passion with Sam was explosive; and someone always got hurt. Usually me. But that wasn't what was holding me back. I'd made terrible choices in men, giving myself up to them too easily. Luke, the major, Stone. Already I was losing myself in Sam, thinking terrible thoughts of running away with him, when he'd planned a quickie and then a state-line drop-off. A little reserve on my part was overdue.
Sam withdrew to the bedroom. Soon the television blared commercials for kids' lunch treats. All I could think of was home, family. I no longer had either, which made me achy and clingy—the last feelings I'd admit to a man who needed to believe I could hold my own.
The minute I got under the shower head, the sobs came hard and fast. I wanted to dump them out like old coffee and move on. I hoped the spray and rattling old pipes hid the noise, but a half hour of hot water still couldn't seep the tension from my muscles, nor the visions from my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, Daniels' half-face stared back at me. And when I opened them, she was there. Sam's ex. We'd never truly be alone, Sam and I. Or safe together. Maybe I was wrong to feel betrayed. His chances of survival were better without me. My chances of sanity were better without him.
Standing before the mirror, I touched my red, tender, puffy scar. Infection. I could go one or two days without antibiotics, long enough to get clear of Sam, find a doctor or pharmacist or street dealer. But Sam couldn't know how bad it was, or he'd never let me go. I wrapped the towel around me and entered the bedroom.
The television chattered, the heating fan rumbled. But the bed and room were empty.
CHAPTER 33
I searched the motel room floor for blood, the nightstand for Sam's gun. Nothing.
Max barked. Ducking near the window, I peeked under the curtain. Max jumped back and forth in the empty field below, the parking lot's lamps spotlighting his dance. Play barks.
Below, Sam stood with his coat wide open, his bare chest braving the crisp fall. One hand was tucked into his jeans pocket, the other held a tennis ball in midair. Max stared intently at the ball, backing up in anticipation till Sam lobbed it into the field. Max bounded over the grass tufts like a gazelle, sniffed out his target, and returned to drop the ball at Sam's feet. The scene repeated. My heart leapt with each throw.
Laughing, I pulled Sam's extra dress shirt from his bag, smelled his skin, his sweat—scents I associated with his intensity. His determination that helped him brave a threatening world, while I snuck up to a moldy motel window.
Max skittered backwards as Sam arched his arm, holding the ball in the air. I stood up straight to watch. Catching my movement in the window, Sam looked up. The ball remained suspended in his fingers as he stared at me. I could almost hear his thoughts.
What do I do with her now
?
I let the towel drop. My skin rippled against the crisp air seeping through the glass, my nipples tightening to buds. Then I pulled on his shirt and left the window and waited for him.
But Sam didn't come up right away. Maybe he doubted my intentions. Doubted me. The wait shredded my nerves, what was left of them. That wave of euphoria vanished, and my courage short-circuited. The more time passed, the deeper that dark hole sucked me down.
When Sam finally entered, he hung his coat over the chair and set to unlacing his boot on the bed, ignoring me.
"Where's Max?" I asked finally.
"In the car. He's our alarm system right now if anyone approaches the building."
I fidgeted with the top button on the shirt, pulling the collar closed. "Maybe he could be our alarm system in here."
Sam watched my nervous hands. I tucked them under my arms for warmth.
He went back to work removing his other shoe. "You need to get something off your mind, say it now."
"Nothing. Just... you weren't here when I finished my shower," I said, biting my lip. "But there wasn't any blood, or signs of a struggle, so I shouldn't be so jumpy. Just my nerves. You remember those friends."
"Ah, shit." He dropped his boots to the floor. "Thought I was giving you space, not a panic attack."
I faked a laugh. "You'd think I'd be used to this life and death shit by now. Why can't I be more like you?"
"Because I wouldn't want you to be." He sat on the edge of the bed, thinking.
"Aren't you going to check your gun or the perimeter or something?"
"Not in front of you. That sets you off more." His voice was mellow, even as he reclined with one arm tucked behind his head. "Everything that can be done is done. You're looking to feel safe. Safety is an illusion. What you need now is rest." Sam rolled toward his bag, extracted a water bottle, and tossed it to me. "And you need to flush the toxins. Keep pounding fluids"
"This better be vodka." I wished he'd packed a seltzer and Tums. Between the adrenaline and Malta's cooking, my stomach was rebelling.
But what I really needed was warmth. I sat on the chair and brought my knees to my chest, sipping the cold water. Hours earlier, I'd been ready to take on the world, fight off Troy and James. Now I hovered in the middle of a motel room in Sam's shirt, shivering. And the heater was on full blast.
Sam turned on the television, flipped through a few channels with increasing irritation, then turned it off and tossed the remote aside. I'd taken a bite out of him, and the harm showed.
"My comment in the bathroom... that, that was uncalled for." My teeth were chattering, so speaking my apology sounded even more awkward than how I'd worded it.
"I need to know the truth," he said, not looking at me. "I need to know if something happened between you and Stone."
"Sam." This seemed an odd time to dredge up jealousy, but the air needed clearing, and I was just as concerned about Cameron. I needed closure before I could let him go.
"I need to know." Sam rubbed between his brows.
"You saw me. I was so confused from the alcohol and the drugs." My fingers gripped the bottle as my mind regurgitated the scene: I'd pushed Stone off me, locked myself in my room. But that morning, when I'd awakened to Sam's raid on the suite, there'd been a glass of wine on my nightstand, a cigarette floating inside. My body had ached, head to toe, and the covers had been pushed down to my ankles. But I couldn't process the possibilities at the time, because I'd been so consumed by Sam's entrance and exit. Even now I didn't want that bastard's image to sit between us. "But I stopped him. I swear to you."
"God, when you went to him. Right in front of me." Sam's jaw was as taut as the space between us. "I was so fucking angry with you." He wiped a hand over his face. "He played you. I warned you he would, and still you fell for every bullshit line."
"You're right." I withered, knowing I couldn't take back that slap I'd delivered Sam, the emotional or the physical one. And how cruelly I'd spoken to Sam in the storage room, telling him I'd rather escape alone than be with him. The same message his cheating ex shoved in his gut multiple times. When he most needed to hear that I wanted him. "I didn't get your hidden message till after you'd left. But still, I should never believe a word he says."
"Just not him." Sam closed his eyes. "Not him."
"There's only you, Sam." I gave him an apologetic smile when he rolled his head toward me. "That's my real problem."
His face drawn, he patted the mattress. I eagerly crossed the bed and laid my head on his chest, shivering. I could feel the heat of his body's frustration burning off, his chest rising and falling under me. He pulled the bedspread over me and rolled me tight against him.
Soft lips pressed to my forehead as he ran his fingers through my damp hair. "You always smell good." His bruised knuckles caressed my cheek, his thumb grazed my lips, warming me skin to bone. "Even that first day, you smelled of soap and sunlight. I couldn't stop inhaling you. I'd been so numb, so long. Bunking with twenty sweaty guys in a forest training post. I must've smelled like a dirtbag."
"I think I used the word 'rat'."
"Don't remind me. Practically passed out shaving that beard off for you."
I raised my head. "Thought you shaved to change your identity."
He grinned. "There's always a cover story."
Laughing closed more of the distance between us
I turned into his caresses, so his fingers covered my face and neck, and I remembered how alive I'd felt the first time he'd stroked my cheek, and how I'd run scared when the pleasure shifted to panic. Happiness in my life was something taken away, not given.
Warmth turned to longing as his thumb passed over my mouth, parted my lips. I caught his thumb and nibbled, drawing deep moans in his chest. Taking his hand, I dragged his fingers down the arc of my neck till he slipped his hand under the shirt and his wet thumb stroked over my nipple. His chest muscles clenched, his throat muscles tightened, and he wheezed for air like a man straining for control. But his hand wouldn't participate.