Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2 (52 page)

“I'll gawk, thanks,” she said and admired the muscles rippling under the skin in his back and shoulders as he unbuttoned his jeans and took them off. Then he spread his arms. “Like what you see?”

She rotated her finger in the air and he did a 360, a silly grin plastered on his face. She could see what this bantering was doing to his anatomy—a guy had a hard time hiding certain things about himself—and it thrilled her.

“Your turn,” he said and sat down again. She stood up and unbuttoned her sweater, then pulled off her shirt. He produced a wolf whistle and she bowed from the waist.

“Thank you,” she said.

His expression softened as he crooked a finger. “Come here. That bra looks tricky. You may need help getting it off.” She stepped closer to him, trembling as he ran his fingers across the bra, feeling his quickening breath clear down in her groin as her breasts escaped the delicate lingerie. She slipped off her jeans, leaned forward and kissed him then put her knee between his legs and pushed him back on the bed, climbing up to join him, straddling him.

His gentle caresses grew more intense as his warm mouth seemed to devour her. He pulled her hips against his. His engorgement between her legs drove her mad and she lay down on top of him, anxious for her bare breasts to touch his chest. He kissed her again and again until there was no definition, until he rolled her over onto her back and stared down into her eyes. His gaze seemed to burn through her skin.

He slowly lowered his head and kissed her, sucking gently on her lower lip. Everything changed. There was no stopping, no going back, no second thoughts. This is what they had both wanted since laying eyes on each other, an abandoned romp where thoughts were as unnecessary as clothes, where bare skin and hot moistness met urgency, where need, exhilarated by desire, pushed them to the breaking point.

There was nothing shy about Lily's investigation of Chance's magnificent physique. The skin on his butt was amazingly smooth and soft, and to possess even temporary power to arouse him to the point he could no longer delay plunging himself into her body was a mystifying feeling.

For an hour or more, they loved each other with abandon. He was a generous lover, rough when it aroused her, gentle when she asked for it, tireless in pleasing her just as she pleased him. Lily had only slept with one other man in her life and he'd boasted he felt about sex the same way he felt about almost every aspect of life: he was in it to win it. Sex hadn't been about desire followed by tenderness. For Jeremy, it had been about conquest, about planting a flag and moving on, not raining tender kisses over a lover's breasts and belly and beyond.

Chance erased that past. And later, when he held her in his arms and drifted off to sleep, she comforted herself that even if she never slept with him again, or more likely, they slept together often until their differences drove them apart, well, even if that happened, she had this moment.

It would be foolish to put too much meaning into what had happened that night. She just had to try to go with the flow and keep her head and give him the room to bolt when the time came.

* * *

C
HANCE
AWOKE
WITH
a start. He opened his eyes and found Lily sound asleep beside him. She was still here! His lips curved. There was a time not so long ago that last night's sex would have sated his hunger for her and maybe in the back of his mind, he was hoping that was still a possibility. He could tell himself that sex wouldn't change the nature of their relationship; experience had told him that wasn't true. What usually happened was a moment of bliss followed by trepidation as he pondered how to slip away into the night.

For the first time in his life he didn't want to slip away. He wanted the silken bonds he could feel entwining his body and heart to grow stronger. Last night, the more she'd responded to him, the more he'd wanted to give her. The feeling persisted even now. He wanted her here, in this bed, in this house, on this ranch. The thought she and Charlie could disappear again terrified him.

He kissed her cheek and her lashes fluttered. Damn if he didn't find it sexy. “Time to face the day,” he whispered. Her phone rang and she groaned. He found her jeans on the floor and tugged the phone out of the pocket. “Looks like it's Kinsey,” he said, adding, “Your phone is almost dead. There's a hookup over there on the desk.”

Lily sat up straight and smiled at him as the sheet fell around her waist. Naked and tousled, she looked good enough to coax under the sheets for another hour or two. He handed her the phone, sighed, and went to take a shower.

* * *

T
HINGS
GOT
OFF
to a slower start than they'd anticipated when they found the horses had somehow escaped their pasture and wandered off here and there across the fields. Chance finally cornered Jangles, his gorgeous bay gelding, and helped Lily saddle him. That had taken a while as it had been peppered with longing looks between Lily and Chance and excited babble from Charlie detailing the events of the living room campout.

An hour later, she and Kinsey rode past the hanging tree on their way to the ghost town. The October morning was cold and crisp and the snowy ice that had fallen the day before crackled beneath the horses' feet.

“Do you have any idea what you want to draw?” Lily asked Kinsey as they rode abreast.

“Not really. I like to stay open to inspiration. I won't do anything with the building where Gerard lost his family,” she said. “I just want to take a look and see what attracts my attention. I hope it won't be boring for you.”

“It won't. I've been wanting to investigate the place myself before it's nothing but a heap of wood.”

“Just be careful,” Kinsey warned.

“I will.”

Kinsey studied her for a second and smiled. “You're different today.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. You didn't snap at Chance once this morning.”

Lily shrugged. “He's not so bad.” She slid Kinsey a sidelong glance and added, “As a matter of fact, he's pretty spectacular.”

“I knew it!” Kinsey said. She wore a bright yellow baseball hat that had once belonged to Gerard. That and the backpack strapped to her coat made her look like a college student riding to a class. “Finally,” she added with an exaggerated sigh.

“Finally. Speaking of Hastings men, what's going on with Pike? He seemed a little distant last night. Chance said he's worried about his sister?”

“Tess isn't really his sister,” Kinsey said. “Pike's mom and Tess's dad got together about twelve years ago which in that neck of the woods make theirs a long standing relationship. Heck, I guess it does almost anywhere anymore. Anyway, he was the star of that television show that only aired one season, the one about a private eye married to a belly dancer.”

“I'm not big on TV,” Lily admitted.

“It was on a long time ago. Rumor has it he got booted when he went into rehab. Tess was born about then and eventually came to live with him. I guess he cleaned himself up. He does television ads and voiceovers now and someone said he bought a restaurant or something. Anyway, Pike has never lived in the same house with Tess but he seems very protective of her. She left when Mona kicked her dad out of the mansion, but no one has heard a word from her since.”

“There's always someone or something to worry about,” Lily mused.

“Are you worried about Jeremy?”

Lily thought back to the shiver she'd experienced when she stood framed in Chance's window the night before. But Jeremy was in Canada or beyond, it was just the last of her overburdened nervous system working out the kinks. “Not really,” she said, and squeezing her knees, urged her horse into a trot. “Last one there is a rotten egg,” she called over her shoulder.

They slowed down when the first building rose to their left. The main street stretched out ahead, overgrown with weeds, flanked with buildings slowly sagging to the earth. Lily soon became distracted by an old saloon complete with a decayed-looking balcony. They dismounted and draped the reins over the remains of a hitching post. Kinsey untied a roll from the back of the saddle and produced a folding stool where she perched to open her backpack and withdraw the sketch pad and charcoal pencils. Lily looked over her shoulder for a while, amazed at how adroit her friend was at capturing the nuances of light and shadow. Eventually, she wandered down the street alone, quickly caught in the mystery of the past, wishing Chance was by her side, holding her hand.

* * *

G
ERARD
RODE
OUT
with Chance and Charlie to look at the last herd of cattle brought down from the mountains. With Charlie riding in front of him in the saddle, he took it slow. Charlie, meanwhile, played with the palomino's mane and hummed a tune Chance recognized. Undoubtedly, Frankie had been whistling it the night before around the “campfire.” The tune was catchy but the lyrics were borderline obscene and Chance hoped his brother hadn't shared those.

This group of Angus cattle would give birth for the first time this spring. For now it was important they grazed good fields. The cattle milled around the fence, looking for handouts, curious about the people staring at them while Charlie babbled on and on about dressing up as a cowboy for Halloween.

“Can I carry a gun?” he asked Chance.

“A real gun?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No, but we can make a pretend gun out of wood in the shop this afternoon. Would that do?”

“Yes!” Charlie cried and ran to the fence to tell the cows his big plan.

“He's a great kid,” Gerard said.

“You bet he is,” Chance agreed. “He's been through a lot but he seems hardwired for happiness, especially when he's here.”

“And you and Lily seem to have reached a new level in your relationship,” Gerard added.

“You can tell?”

“Duh,” Gerard said. “There's still tension between you two, but the nature of it is different. You, little brother, actually seem to be in love. I never thought I'd live to see the day.”

Chance shook his head. “Too early to call it that,” he grumbled but wasn't positive Gerard hadn't hit the nail on the head.

How did he feel about that? Scared, worried, trapped?

Excited? Anxious?

Anxious was as good a word as any, he decided.

His cell phone rang and he was glad for the interruption from his head games. The area code was the one for Greenville but he didn't recognize the number. It was probably the police asking another question as they fought to build their case against Tabitha Stevens.

“Hello,” he said, hoping this wouldn't take too long. Then he paused and listened. Meeting Gerard's glance, he finally spoke again into the phone. “Yes,” he said. “I understand. Thanks.”

“What—” Gerard started to say, but Chance shook his head.

“Lily's phone is at my house charging,” he said. “Try calling Kinsey. Now.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Lily wandered the empty street, pausing to peer into some of the more intact-looking buildings. She didn't actually go into any of them as they were well posted with warning signs. The place could never be reclaimed. It was just a matter of time before the Hastings family would have to demolish it or risk further accidents.

Eventually she ended up at the end of town where the old mining site had existed a long, long time ago. A few pieces of rusted equipment and boards barring entry into the cave itself were all that was left of a human presence. The cave reminded her of the tunnel back at White Cliff and she stared at it for a few minutes, lost in thought, reliving that long hike through the earthy darkness and the accompanying horror of not knowing where Charlie was.

But she knew where he was now. Chance would take care of him, Chance wouldn't let anything or anyone harm him. Charlie was safe, she was safe.

So why was she shivering?

Well, it was cold outside. The coat Chance had bought her was warm, but her cheeks stung from the breeze. She plunged her hands into her pockets and turned to retrace her steps, although she paused at the bank where the robbery signaled the beginning of the end of Falls Ridge. It was difficult not to speculate about the man who got away with the money. Where did he go? Was he able to enjoy his ill-gotten goods or did the ghosts of his former colleagues haunt him to the end?

And who was he? As far as she knew, the other three men had been locals, but the fourth man was a mystery.

A mystery. Like Chance. What was he thinking? Was he ready to bolt? How could she ever bear seeing him lose interest in her, sensing his needs had been filled and he was ready to move on to a new adventure, a new lover?

Was he the reason she shivered inside? Was this haunting fear one of rejection?

She checked her watch and saw that it was time they started home. A few more minutes and she rounded a slight curve. Jangles and Kinsey's mount should be visible now, but they weren't. Had the horses wandered off? She picked up her pace to ask Kinsey what was going on. But Kinsey wasn't where Lily had left her. The stool rested on its side while the sketch pad lay on the ground, the top sheet fluttering in the biting wind. Charcoal pencils had scattered across the half-frozen earth. The small bag that held the rest of the art supplies sat exactly where it had when Lily last saw it. There were no footprints on the cold, hard-packed earth.

So, had the horses run off and had Kinsey left to get them back? Had the wind caught the sketch pad and blown it to the ground? Was that what pushed over the stool?

“Kinsey?” she called, and though her voice didn't echo, it did sound hollow and forlorn. She kept walking, looking into dark, open doorways as she passed, calling Kinsey's name as she went. Despite there being no evidence of foul play, it was hard to shake a growing feeling of foreboding and she quickened her pace.

She finally caught a glimpse of yellow coming from inside a heavily shadowed building. Was that Kinsey's hat? Lily knew Kinsey would never willingly go inside one of these old deathtraps. Lily stepped up onto the wooden sidewalk, avoided a cave-in and entered the building. She plucked the yellow cap from the floor and scanned the empty room.

The only standing fixture was a counter along one wall. She leaned over it and found Kinsey on the floor. After rushing to her side, she knelt by her friend's body and felt for a pulse in her throat. When Kinsey's heartbeat leapt to greet her touch, Lily swallowed a sob of relief.

A red mark on Kinsey's head suggested she'd been hit. Who had done this to her and why?

How could it be Jeremy but how could it not? Her mind refused to leap farther than him, but it didn't make sense. He was in Canada. She searched Kinsey's pockets for her cell phone but couldn't find it. She had to get help. She had to know what happened. Maybe the phone was in the backpack with the art supplies still resting by the stool. She lifted Kinsey's shoulders, determined to drag her out of this building, but that wasn't as easy as it sounded.

Kinsey's eyes opened. “Gerard?” she mumbled.

“No, sweetie, it's me, Lily. Thank goodness you're awake. Can you stand up? We have to get you out of here.”

“Gerard,” Kinsey repeated. “Gerard...”

Lily relaxed her hold on the other woman's shoulders. “It's okay,” she said, smoothing her hair. “I'll get help.”

“...baby,” Kinsey whispered as her eyes closed again.

Was she talking about Gerard or was it possible Kinsey was pregnant? Oh, God, if she died in this town carrying Gerard's baby the poor guy would never recover. Lily took off her coat and tucked it around Kinsey's still form, then she leaned over her and listened to the sound of her breathing. It seemed steady enough.

One way or another, she had to summon aid and the best bet for that was to find Kinsey's cell phone. She ran outside and started back toward the saloon, her gaze darting everywhere. Someone had hurt Kinsey. That someone was probably still around and there were so many places to hide...

Suddenly a man detached himself from the shadows of a covered sidewalk and stepped onto the street about a hundred feet away. “Lily,” he said in a voice that still struck terror in her heart.

She turned around and took off, the sound of his laughter ringing out behind her. “Run if you want. Where are you going to go?”

Good question, but for now all she wanted was distance and her feet hit the ground with only that in mind. She looked back over her shoulder and saw that Jeremy had started running after her. She passed the building where Kinsey lay, her only thought to get this monster away from her friend and to escape herself.

Of course it was Jeremy. Who else would it be? His stride was longer than hers and he jogged every day of his life. She knew she could not outrun him forever. She also knew she would leave the relative safety of the town very soon and be out in the open. Glimpsing an alley between two buildings, she sprinted to her right. This would take her back toward the saloon and the promise of the phone, but the alley was a dangerous place as it was too narrow to offer protection. Doors opened off it, doors that led into ramshackle structures, one more treacherous than the next. A blast from behind kicked up a puff of dirt to her left as Jeremy fired a gun at her, and she realized nothing inside those buildings could be more terrifying than what pursued her from behind.

She had to get that phone. She darted into a nondescript building and saw the door onto the street ahead of her. Sure enough, she exited a few feet from the overturned stool. She grabbed the backpack and ran into the saloon. There was no visible exit, in fact, most of the back wall had crumpled inside. Footsteps sounded outside and she took the only route open to her and that was the stairs. She stopped at the top and flattened herself against a wall as she heard the thud of Jeremy's footsteps grind to a halt below her.

“Lily!” he yelled.

She tried to quiet her breathing as she felt around the heavy pack stuffed with Kinsey's art supplies. Momentary joy turned to despair when what she thought was the phone turned out to be only a metal case for a small package of tissues. The phone wasn't in the backpack.

“I know you're here,” he said. He wasn't even breathing hard. “We can do this easy or we can do this hard.” She heard his footsteps as he approached the stairs.

She was terrified he would go back for Kinsey and try to use her as a hostage. She couldn't think of a single thing she could do to stop him. He was stronger, meaner, and he had a gun. But he also had something else, something she understood the power of: he had nothing to lose.

“You didn't think I'd stay in Canada without a fitting farewell to my lovely bride, did you?” he said. She could hear him moving around. What was he doing down there?

She looked around the darkened area in which she stood. It appeared to be a hallway with doors spaced along it like the rooms of a small hotel. One door stood open and light from it spilled into the dark hall. She inched along the wall. The creaks her footsteps created seemed to jump through the building.

“Might as well come down here,” he called.

She wanted to tell him to shut up, but maybe she should engage him in dialogue. The sound of their voices might mask her movement. “I'm not your bride,” she hollered.

He laughed. “My first wife is dead now, Lily. That kind of makes you my one and only.”

“Elizabeth's not dead,” Lily yelled.

“Au contraire,”
he said. Lily heard something splinter or break downstairs. “I took her out yesterday morning. One shot, right between the eyes. Damn good aim if I do say so myself. I could have done the same exact thing to you. I mean, I had you in my sights last night and this morning, too. But you've really been a pain in the ass. I want to put my hands around your lovely little neck. I want you to look at me when I kill you. I want you to know your lying lover is next. I've already done his family, I just need to find him. But I will. He'll die after you and so will anyone else who gets between me and my kid.”

She swallowed what felt like an iceberg. “What did you do to Chance's family?”

“Never you mind. You have your own troubles.”

“Please, please, just leave. Don't hurt anyone else, don't take Charlie, you don't love him,” she said, coming to a halt across the hall from the open door. “He'll slow you down. You're on the run now.”

“I am not on the run,” he said. “People like you run, Lily. People like me triumph.”

She stopped moving when she got across from the illuminated room. For a second, she struggled with her emotions, tears perilously close to blurring her vision. But that was what Jeremy wanted and she would never again give him the satisfaction of breaking her. People she loved were depending on her. She would not let them down.

She focused on the room. Half the outer wall had disintegrated, showing nothing through the opening but gray skies. What kind of structure was next door? She inched her way toward the light.

Maybe she could use Jeremy's emotions against him. He had to have a raw nerve somewhere. “What about your other son?” she called out.

He didn't respond.

“You must have freaked out when Maria reported that you and Elizabeth had a son and that very son was sitting downtown in your jail, a confessed murderer. How would that look to the people you kiss up to? They would have distanced themselves from you. Your career would be over. I'm surprised you didn't kill the boy yourself.”

“Who said I didn't?” he said.

She stopped short. “You murdered Jimmy? How? He hung himself. Besides, I saw you that night, you came home and took out your anger on me.”

“That wasn't anger, dear-heart, that was a celebration. I gave him the rope,” he added, “in a figurative way, that is. I told him I knew he was covering for someone. I promised him I would find out who it was and I would prosecute them and then pull the switch on the electric chair myself. I swore I would then go after his mother and every whacko in White Cliff. The kid almost wet himself he was so scared. He asked what he could do to fix things and I told him what I once told you.”

“You told him it would be better off all around if he was dead,” she said, reliving for an instant the moment he'd said the same thing to her. No wonder the boy killed himself. She had never met Jimmy but her gut clenched as she imagined the pain he must have felt when his long-lost father told him to sacrifice his own life to save the lives of the people he loved. Jimmy had been Charlie's half brother and he was dead and now this jerk wanted to take Charlie. “You are a bastard,” she yelled.

“Sticks and stones,” he said. “Take a deep breath, Lily. Do you smell something?”

She had inched her way into the room and now approached the crumbled wall. She couldn't allow Jeremy to take Charlie. She had to do something. The roof of the building next door was six feet away with a drop of about the same. The roof had caved in in one place. She might possibly survive a jump but would her weight and momentum send her crashing down through layers of rotting wood?

And then Jeremy's last comment finally sank into her brain. She crept back toward the hall and sniffed the air—smoke!

“The flames are almost touching the stairs,” Jeremy called. “Unless you want to burn to death, you better come on down and take your chances with me. I wouldn't wait too long to make up your mind.”

Smoke was seeping through the boards by her feet, drawn to the open wall behind her. If she went downstairs he would shoot or strangle her. If she jumped out that window, she chanced injury or death.

She turned around, gripped Kinsey's backpack in front of her to provide some cushion between her bones and the roof, ran toward the opening and jumped. She hit the neighboring building with a crash and lay very still for a few seconds, not sure if she was just winded from the fall or hurt more badly, taking shallow breaths to control the pain and afraid to move lest the roof give in. Her leg throbbed and her hands burned.

The smell of smoke was more pronounced. A fire in this dead town would move quickly, leaping from roof to roof until there was nothing left but ashes. Kinsey was unconscious less than a block away and no one knew she was there but Lily. Somehow she had to recover enough to get off this roof, evade Jeremy and drag Kinsey out of that building.

Sensing movement, she struggled into a sitting position in time to witness Jeremy launch himself from the opening through which smoke now billowed. He landed a few feet away from her and immediately started to stand, but the stress of his impact following hers was too much for the old roof and it groaned like a tortured ghost. As Jeremy pulled the gun from his waistband, the roof cracked one last time and gave way. Lily fell downward with the wreckage, gripping the raw wood beneath her to keep from sliding into free fall.