A slow smile creased his face as he moved up closer, until his toes nudged hers, his breath warm on her face as he murmured, “Hey.”
His lips brushed across hers and she sighed into his mouth, whimpering as his tongue pushed inside her mouth to tangle briefly with hers. His arms came around her and she gasped as her feet left the ground. Dimly, she heard him kick the door shut and then he was leaning back against it, hiking her thighs up around his hips so he could cup her bottom.
She arched up against him as those hard, hot hands kneaded restlessly at her ass. With her knees clutching his hips, the folds between her thighs were exposed and she whimpered as the covered length of his cock pressed against her.
A savage groan fell from his lips—the room whirled around her and then she was cold. Cold and sitting alone on the couch, while Joel stalked away from her. Arching a brow at him, she mused, “Well, nice to see you, too.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she hugged herself as a chill raced down her spine and her body ached.
He sent her a narrow look over his shoulder, eyes slitted, mouth grim. “I can’t think around you. I’ve never been able to think clearly around you,” he muttered. He shoved his hand through his hair as he dropped to sit on the chair across from her. “And right now, I need to think. We need to talk.”
Licking her lips, she stared into his serious face. She really didn’t like the sound of that, or the grim look in his eyes. “Okay,” she finally said, her voice soft and hesitant. “What about?”
His face was cold, implacable as stone—his lips barely moved as he said flatly, “About your husband. And about your lawyer.”
“What about Aleisha?” she asked, her voice worried even as her face went rigid. “And that bastard is not my husband.”
His lids drooped and he murmured, “That’s not how he will see it.”
Emery swallowed, then forced the fear back under control. Restless energy filled her and she stood, unable to sit down any longer.
As she paced, she said, “He’s in a coma, Joel. He has been ever since that day. It’s not very likely he’ll ever come out of it.”
Joel’s eyes closed.
A cold chill raced through her. She stared at him as his eyes slowly opened and he stared at her, those dark unreadable eyes holding so many secrets. She’d known he wasn’t telling her something.
Emery stood still as he rose from the chair and moved toward her, closing the distance between them. His hands came up, cupping her face. She swallowed, the knot in her throat damn near choking her as she looked up at him.
“What is it?” she asked quietly, tears blurring her vision. One fell, and it seemed to burn a path down her cheek.
“He’s awake.”
The strength drained out of her. As though somebody had simply opened something inside of her and just let it all flow away. Emery started to crumple to the ground and Joel’s arms caught her, pulling her against him.
“No.” Struggling, she tried to pull away, but he just held her against him and carried her to the couch. “Damn it, let me go! You’re lying—Aleisha would have called me. The nurses, the doctors, they know to call her…”
“Emery.”
She saw it in his eyes. Shaking her head, she whispered, “No. Damn it, no! She was safe! She told me she was safe—he couldn’t have hurt her.”
“He didn’t.” Emery jerked away, but she couldn’t break free from him, and deep inside she knew she didn’t want to. She needed his comfort too badly. “She was in a car wreck a few days ago. An accident, baby. Accidents happen.”
“No,” she whimpered, shaking her head as a sob rose in her throat. Giving in to the need to cry, she crumpled against him. Harsh, bitter cries tore from her throat and she clung to him.
For the longest time, she could do nothing more than cry. The grief inside her had left her dumb, blind and deaf to everything around. For three years, Aleisha had been her one contact to real life. Her one contact to sanity—when she was running and hiding, she worried she’d forget who she was.
Aleisha had been her anchor.
And now her one friend was dead.
“W-was it fast?” she finally asked, her voice hoarse.
“Yes. She wouldn’t have felt anything,” Joel murmured, reaching up and brushing her hair back.
“Thank God for that,” she muttered, closing her eyes again. There was an odd niggling doubt in her head and she sat back, looking up at him narrowly. “How did you know about her?”
“The FBI.”
Emery’s heart froze. “They know where I am.”
Joel sighed, his head falling back to rest against the couch. “One agent does. I don’t know about them as a whole. And I don’t know why she hasn’t tried to talk to you.”
She felt his gaze on her as he studied her under the fringe of his lashes. “Don’t you want to know more about Grainger?”
Emery saw something in his eyes that she had only glimpsed before. He hated Vincent Grainger. It was a gut-deep hatred, and somehow…old, she sensed. She had glimpsed it before, all the times she had run into him when he had come to the house on business, but he’d always hid it so quickly, and he never showed it around Vincent.
Why… Hatred was a personal emotion. Hate, like love, was generally earned. What had Vincent done?
Swallowing, she pushed insistently against his arms until he let her go. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she rose and walked away.
I’ll have to grieve later…think about why Joel hates Grainger so much later.
Right now, she needed to think. Moving to the window, she brushed aside the curtains and stood there, staring outside.
When Joel moved up behind her in silence, she never even heard him.
* * * * *
Emery whirled when Joel touched her shoulder. “What are you planning on doing about Vincent?” he asked quietly.
She licked her lips, staring at him with haunted eyes. She just shook her head. “I don’t know. I need to think.”
He watched, his hands curled into useless fists as she walked away, her head bent low.
Moments later, he heard the back door close quietly.
Dropping into a chair, he muttered, “Damn it.”
He started to stand up. His arms itched to wrap around her, hold her. That scared look was one he’d promised he’d never see in her eyes again.
Let her have some time.
Narrowing his eyes, he said flatly, “Isn’t that some strange advice coming from you, Sis?”
Carly laughed. Maybe. She’s not going to do what you want.
Pulling the cell phone from his pocket, he tapped it idly on his leg, glancing around the room. He couldn’t see Carly anywhere so he resigned himself to talking to thin air for the hundredth time. “She will. I’m not giving her a choice.”
She’s not as weak-willed as she used to be. She’ll fight you. And you shouldn’t try to make her, sweetie. She’s got a right to stand and fight on her own terms.
“She’s got a right to live without being afraid of him,” Joel growled.
Then don’t bully her—let her stand on her own two feet. If she chooses to leave, so be it. But let her choose.
He shook his head. “She stays safe. And safe is away from him.”
With that, he lifted the phone and started to punch in numbers. They were running out of time anyway.
Ten minutes later, he verified that Grainger was still allegedly catatonic.
It didn’t appear to be a line the feds were buying. Joel hadn’t spent the past twenty years just burying landmines under Grainger’s feet. He’d also been building a network of information and informants, all of them people who had hated Grainger as much as Joel did.
Once he’d made sure that Grainger was still in Maine, he headed outside.
Emery was out there, sitting in a swing, staring up at the sky. “I told you I wanted to be alone,” she said in a level tone.
Joel arched a brow. Damn. She’d gone and grown some teeth. “I know,” he replied neutrally. “I want to let you know I had to make some calls. Do some stuff. I’ll be back tonight.”
“No.”
Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Excuse me?”
She turned her head and met his gaze. “No,” she repeated coolly. “I need some time to think.”
“It’s not safe.”
She snorted. “My ass. I know you. If it wasn’t safe, you wouldn’t be leaving. You apparently know everything that’s going on with him, so I assume he’s still in the hospital…or someplace where’s he’s being watched. Although I’m kind of curious as to why they haven’t locked his ass up. But that’s not the point. I need some time to think, Joel. Come back in the morning.”
“Are you going to be here?” he asked, his voice low and gritty. He had this gut-deep fear that she’d panic and take off.
A smile curled her lips upward. “This is my home, Joel. It’s the first thing that’s been mine in forever. I’m not leaving.”
Closing the distance between them, he lowered his head to hers and covered her mouth with his. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Turning away, he said silently, You will have to leave for a while, baby. But you’ll come back, I promise.
* * * * *
Vincent stared at the man in front of him with narrowed eyes, watching as he closed the door gently behind him.
“Hey, boss,” Carter said, a smug little smile on his face.
Vincent just stared slackly at him.
Carter smiled. “It’s okay. You can talk to me. Your babysitters are taking a nap. Permanently.”
Narrowing his eyes, Vincent straightened up just a little in the hospital bed.
With a grin, Carter moved closer. “That’s more like it. Don’t worry. I’ve got a cousin working the desk here. And I know the feds aren’t due in for a while yet, but we got to get you out of here.”
Finally, Vincent asked in a soft voice, “We?”
Carter beamed at Vincent, “Yeah, we. I knew you weren’t in no vegetative state. Smart move, though. Real smart. Come on, we don’t have much time. How much can you move?”
Suspicious, Vincent stared at Carter. “What are you doing here?”
Carter grinned. “Been waiting for you. I told you…my cousin Rachel.”
Vincent was too fucking tired to argue, or debate, or worry about the good fortune that had landed one of his men right where he needed him. Normally, he would have been a little more suspicious, but right now…right now, he needed to get out of there.
As Carter came around, he said, “How many people are available? I need to find an old friend.”
Carter paused, smiling. He lifted a yellow legal-sized envelope. “If it’s Lockhart, that’s already done.”
Chapter Eight
Kneeling in the dirt, she felt the summer sun shining warm on her face, and smiled as she ran her hands over the blooming bushes of flowers, stripping away some of the branches.
A shadow fell across her hands and a rose appeared in her line of vision.
Instinctively, she breathed in the sweet scent and then she lifted her head, squinting up at Joel. He squatted down in front of her, twirling the rose between his fingers. “You grow nice flowers.”
Emery tried to force herself to scowl, even though all she wanted to do was throw herself at him.
She’d dreamed of him last night. Ached for him until she finally felt asleep, hours past midnight. Then the dreams had come, black, ugly ones, full of pain and torment. They’d had her struggling, shivering and shaking, tossing in her sheets, until they finally woke her, screaming.
Joel could have kept those ugly dreams away. Just one touch of his hand made her feel cleaner, stronger.
But right now, she wanted to lash out at him. There was a fury in her gut and it was centered on him.
Damn it, why in the hell was she so mad at him?
Slowly, she reached out, closing her fingers around the fragile stem, twirling it as she slid him a look from under her lashes. “Gee, thanks. I couldn’t have grown a prettier one myself.”
He just shrugged. His eyes ran over the backyard and she had the oddest feeling that he was aware of every little thing around them, from the way the breeze drifted across, to the new bushes she had planted. There was an odd, tense set to his shoulders, and his mouth was rather grim.
“You look pretty serious for a man stealing flowers,” she mused.
A slow smile creased his face. “Sorry.” His lids drooped, and he suddenly looked sleepy. Sleepy and hungry. “I missed you last night.”
Emery licked her lips, sniffing the rose before glancing up at him. “I missed you, too.” Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, she murmured, “I didn’t sleep well…bad dreams, half the night. The other half of the night, I couldn’t sleep for wanting you too much.”
Joel groaned. Then his hands were on her and Emery gasped, then started to giggle as her dirty hands left damp stains on the white button-down shirt he wore. “I’m getting you dirty,” she whispered.
His arms closed around her, snuggling her against him. “Don’t care. Damn it, I don’t feel complete without you against me.”
His gruff voice sent a shiver down her spine. One hand slid up to cup her nape, his mouth brushing against her earlobe.
He sighed, and his body seemed to shudder with it, then he pulled back. Narrowing her eyes, she demanded, “Now what?”
His hand cupped her cheek, his thumb rubbing over the curve of her lower lip. “I need to talk to you…”
Her brows lowered over her eyes and she poked out her lip. “Damn it, don’t you think we had enough serious talks yesterday?”
Joel sighed softly, dropping his forehead until it pressed against hers. “No, sweetie. There’s not as much time as I thought.”
That sent a frisson a fear racing through her. Slipping away from him, she wrapped her arms around herself, staring out at the lush green lawn, the bright bursts of flowers planted here and there. “What is it, Joel?”
“Grainger’s missing.”
Her hands fell limply to her lap and all the strength left her body. Her breath escaped her in a rush and she tried to breathe around the knot that had suddenly formed in her chest. “Missing?”
His eyes went flat and grim. “Since early this morning. Last seen about six hours ago. The two guards stationed outside his room are dead, shot in the head. He had outside help. I’m taking you away—”
“Like hell.”
Terror swarmed up, threatening to close her throat, but damn it, that bastard wasn’t doing this to her again.