"You're upset," she murmured, taking a sip of coffee, thankful that the mug didn't shake in her grip.
For a moment he just stared, and then he slouched back in the chair, shaking his head as if he didn't know what to make of her. "Men don't get upset," he finally informed her in a slow, precise drawl. "We get pissed. But don't take it personally. I woke up angry at everything this morning. Merricks. The Casus. Women being raped and murdered and threatened. I'm pissed off about this entire goddamn situation."
"Be careful," she cautioned. "Your anger...it can lead to other things."
He snorted, sending her a tight smile. "Don't worry, sweetheart. As tempting as you look, I'm not going to attack you."
"It's not me I'm worried about," she told him, refusing to let him rattle her any more than he already had. "I meant what I said last night, Ian. I'm not afraid of you. But until you learn to accept what you are, you're waging an internal battle against yourself. I don't think anger's going to help that."
He didn't make a response. Just kept staring at her, as if waiting for some kind of answer...a revelation.
Feeling a desperate need for a change in the subject, Molly set her coffee on the table and said, "I talked with Elaina again last night. Or rather, she talked to me."
Rocking the chair onto its back legs, Ian absorbed those strange words, wondering how the hell he'd ended up here. Wondering how in God's name he was going to keep his hands off the woman sitting across from him, wrapped up in soft jeans and a tight coral-pink T-shirt that hugged the delicate shape of her breasts, making his mouth water. She looked too warm and soft and giving, and that made him as angry as all the other whacked-out shit going on. He hated this need for her itching beneath his skin. Hated the fact that all he wanted to do was just reach out, rip off those hip-hugging jeans and pull her over his lap, pressing his mouth to the warm, tender patch of skin beneath her ear. Breathe in her mind-drugging scent, while trailing his right hand up the smooth expanse of her inner thigh...
Rolling his shoulder, Ian shook off the provocative image and refocused his gaze, scanning the small kitchen, thinking the cheap motel room was all wrong for her. Cracked linoleum, scarred table. Stale air smelling of acrid smoke from his cigarette. Molly Stratton was like something from a different world that had just landed there by accident, so vibrant and real and fresh, but alien...completely out of place.
She shifted beneath the piercing intensity of his stare as it swung back toward her, and ran her tongue over her bottom lip, drawing his eye. Her mouth was too sweet looking for a man not to want to violate. To take and capture and dominate. The violence of his kiss the night before had left it swollen and dark with color--the normally soft pink replaced by a crimson rose that looked good enough to eat.
And she hadn't had sex in three years. Unbelievable.
God only knew he'd be lucky if he lasted another three minutes without touching her. Only two things stopped him in his tracks. The fact that she'd told him no last night. And the dark, seductive knowledge that once he'd buried his body in hers, thick and hard and deep, his fangs would quickly follow, seeking that rich, dangerously addictive rush of blood.
Rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth, as if he could recapture that wild, decadent flavor, Ian lifted his gaze. "So what did she have to say?"
She wet her bottom lip with her tongue again, a nervous gesture of hers, her fey face flushed with color. He knew it was from the way he was watching her. "What?" she asked.
"My mother," he prompted, clearing his throat. "You said you'd heard from her."
"Oh, uh...She gave me a name."
"Yeah?" He slowly exhaled. "A name for what?"
Shifting in her chair again, she curled her fingers around the mug of coffee sitting on the table in front of her. "Elaina said that there are those nearby who can help us. She gave me a man's name, but when I called information this morning, they didn't have an available listing."
"What's the name?"
"Scott. Kierland Scott. Does it sound familiar to you?"
Ian snorted. "I've never heard of him, but he sounds like a prick."
She frowned at his tone. "Is your first instinct always to dislike someone before you even know them?"
"Pretty much," he rumbled, reaching for his coffee and taking a heavy sip.
"You know," she ventured cautiously, warning him that he wasn't going to like what she was about to say, "if you want, we can talk about things. It might make you feel better if you just get it off your chest."
He cut her a narrow-eyed look, suspicious and wary. "Get what off my chest?"
"The fact that you're mourning her." He opened his mouth, but she rushed on, saying,
"Regardless of how you would categorize your relationship, I know you're upset about Kendra. That isn't just going to disappear with a good night's sleep, Ian."
He put one hand over his eyes, holding up the other in a gesture of entreaty. "Please, just shut up. I have no desire to sit here and listen to you analyze my feelings, especially over another woman. Not now. Not ever."
"All I'm saying is that it's okay to feel remorse, to be upset over her loss."
Feel remorse? Be upset? Christ. As if either of those platitudes even came close to the self-loathing eating away at his insides like acid. "What the hell do you want to hear, Molly?" he exploded in a low, seething rush of words, the front legs of the chair slamming back on the floor with a sharp crack of sound as he leaned forward. "That I feel bad about what happened?
That if it wasn't for her knowing me, she wouldn't be dead? Yeah, I admit it. Now can you just shut the hell up about it?"
"You didn't kill her, Ian," she said softly, the look in her eyes even softer, making him feel dangerously close to the edge.
"I didn't warn her, either," he growled. "If I'd listened to you--"
"She might have laughed in your face and told you that you were as crazy as you told me I was on Friday afternoon."
"Yeah, maybe," he grunted with a heavy sigh, stubbing out his cigarette into the black plastic ashtray, the set of his mouth grim, his fury like a living thing within his body. "All I know is that I want to make that bastard pay."
"And you will," she murmured. "I have no doubt of that."
He took another sip of coffee, ran one hand back through his hair, and finally said, "So what's the plan?"
"The plan?" she repeated, as if she didn't know what he was talking about. "What makes you think I have one?"
Hah. He wasn't buying that innocent expression for a second. "You're a woman, right?"
She frowned, moving to her feet and taking the empty coffee cups to the sink. "Meaning?"
she asked over her shoulder.
"Meaning a woman always has a plan," Ian drawled, going for the most insufferable tone he could deliver.
"Well, as a matter of fact," she said, turning and leaning back against the counter, her arms crossed over her T-shirt-covered chest, the coral color accentuating the fairness of her complexion, "There is something that we need to do."
Taking another cigarette out of the pack, he perched it between his lips and reached for the matches. "Let's hear it."
"Last night, Elaina asked me...us...to do something." She hesitated, then went on. "She wants us to go to the storage unit where her things are being kept. I guess Riley is keeping them in a town called Mountain Creek. She didn't say where it all came from, but I'm assuming it was shipped there from where she lived."
"Let me guess," he muttered, lighting his cigarette while Riley's strange mention of the storage facility burned through his brain, making him uneasy as hell. "I'm betting there's something she wants us to pick up. Something she left for me."
"How did you know?" she asked in a surprised voice.
"I have a key to the place. Riley gave it to me. He told me that she'd left me something."
"Do you know what it was?" she asked, her tone hopeful.
He stared at the glowing tip of the cigarette, then shifted his gaze back to her curious expression. "Not a clue."
"Can't you call Riley and ask him? He could probably let us know what we're looking for."
"If I call him, he'll show up," he said, flicking his cigarette over the ashtray. "And I'd rather not have to explain who you are and what I'm doing with you."
"All right," she agreed, though she still sounded determined. "We'll just have to go and search through everything on our own, then."
"And how are we supposed to know what we're looking for?" he grunted, his uneasiness mounting. Whatever the hell was out there, it probably wasn't going to be anything he wanted a part of. "That place has to be full of crap. I don't think Elaina ever threw anything away."
Her brown eyes shimmered with a spark of amusement, and he knew he wasn't going to like her answer. "Well?" he snapped, inhaling an impatient stream of smoke.
"I know it sounds crazy--" she paused, a wry smile twisting the corner of her mouth "--but she said we'd know what we needed when we found it."
AFTER DECIDING that they'd have more privacy if they stayed at the motel, they made a quick stop by Ian's apartment so that he could shower, change clothes and throw a bag of stuff together. He also grabbed the key to the storage unit that Riley had given him, and then they were finally on their way.
Leaving her rental car at his apartment, they loaded into his truck, then picked up an early lunch of burgers and fries from a fast-food restaurant. Now, as they headed down the two-lane highway toward the nearby town of Mountain Creek, Molly broke the heavy silence by saying, "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Let's have it," he drawled, picking up his soda and taking a sip through the straw. Sunlight poured through the front windshield, glinting blue off the thick, ink-black strands of his hair, the warm, radiant glow of sunshine highlighting the rugged beauty of a face that looked as wickedly sinful as it did divine, too gorgeous to be merely human.
Which you know he's not.
The small bite marks that she'd managed to cover with a light layer of concealer pulsed like a memory against the side of her throat, and Molly shivered, forcing her mind back to her question.
"Exactly what went wrong between you and Elaina?" she asked, twisting in her seat to face him.
His expression shifted to one of...regret?...edged by that customary bitterness that was so much a part of him.
"Let's just say that I was anything but her golden child," he said after a moment, his left hand braced on the top of the wheel, while his right curved around the top of the soda cup he had perched on his thigh.
"She loved you," she said simply. "Very much."
He rolled his shoulder, as if throwing off an unwanted touch. "Yeah, well, that didn't stop her from accusing me of throwing my life away, of being just like my old man, who was the biggest loser to ever walk the planet. The hell of it was, she was right. She always said she expected more from me, but all I ever did was disappoint her. By the time I was sixteen, I'd dropped out of school and had started running with a rough crowd--" a gritty burst of laughter rumbled in his chest "--which was putting a nice spin on what they really were.
Eventually I just got tired of her bitching and hit the road."
"Did you ever go back?" she asked, fighting the urge to reach out her hand and trail her fingertips down the masculine perfection of his arm. Over the bulging power of his bicep that stretched the sleeve of his gray T-shirt. Across the corded strength of his forearm. Against the thickness of his wrist.
"Once I left, I never set foot in her house again."
"And yet, when she needed your help, you gave it," she said softly. "I know you paid for most of her medical bills while she was sick, up until the time of her death."
He cut her a dark, sudden look of surprise, his brows pulled together in a deep scowl over the furious blue of his eyes. "Who the hell told you that?"
Molly lifted her brows. "Who do you think?"
Shifting his gaze back to the road, he cursed under his breath. "I told him to tell her the money came from him," he growled, thumping his palm against the steering wheel.
"You asked Riley not to tell her?" she murmured, fascinated by the play of emotions shifting over his profile, his anger like a living, breathing thing, trapped there in the cab of the truck with them.
"No, I didn't ask him," he ground out. "I told him. But he never could keep a damn secret to save his life."
"Well, for what it's worth, I think what you did was very admirable, Ian. Elaina told me it cleared out the savings you'd accumulated since moving to Colorado and starting your business. That's quite a sacrifice."
He shifted his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable with her praise. "Money's money," he muttered. "I do what I do because I enjoy it. Because it keeps me outside. Allows me to work with my hands, set my own schedule. Not because it's gonna make me rich someday."
"I can respect that," she told him, wondering if he had any idea how amazing it was, the selflessness and pure generosity of what he'd done in a world whose very pulse centered on the mighty dollar. "And from what I've heard, you're incredibly good at what you do. She's very proud of you."
He grunted under his breath in response, and they fell into another heavy silence, until he eventually said, "Now it's my turn."
Molly had been staring out the front window, but she shifted her gaze back to his profile.
"Your turn to what?"
"To ask a personal question."
She knew what he was going to say, but she asked anyway. "What do you want to know?"
"I want to know why you're here. Why you couldn't just tell Elaina to take a flying leap and pretend you never even heard about us crazy-assed Buchanans. Why you're willing to put your life on the line for people you don't even know."
"It isn't a pretty story," she warned him in a low voice, her gaze focused on her lap, where she smoothed a thumb over the dark denim of her jeans. She was aware of a cold, slick sensation curling around the back of her neck, beneath her hair, and knew precisely what it was. The chilling burn of guilt. The kind you could never outrun. Never undo.