“True,” Kell said, sitting back. “That’s why Greenley’s going to surreptitiously see that word gets out. The fact that I have a cabin in the Guadalupes is common knowledge around the office. If Vargas isn’t the leak, the information on our location will hopefully get back to whoever is.”
“If there is a leak. If the killer hasn’t just been watching me all this time.”
He nodded, finishing off his food.
Jamie could only stare at hers. “Either way, we’ll never know he’s coming. No matter what I said about being able to see if he was.”
“That’s okay,” Kell told her, the smile on his face deliciously, deviously wicked. “Because we’re no longer the only ones watching. Greenley and his boys have got our back. There’s no way anyone is getting to us without first going through them.”
Overhead, the cane ceiling fan stirred the air, squeaking in a maddening rhythm while drawing the heat from Kell’s body. He needed a can of WD-40. He needed a second bedroom, or a longer, more comfortable sofa. He needed a way out of this mess that was guaranteed to save Jamie’s life.
He’d done what his experience as a Texas Ranger dictated he do. If it had been anyone but Jamie, he wouldn’t be caught up in this circle of second-guessing; every time he told himself he’d done the right thing, he came right back to feeling he’d done wrong by Jamie.
And those feelings were all tangled up with the ones he had for her. The ones making failure impossible. Sleep, too.
“I’m awake, you know.”
He closed his eyes, swallowed, opened them again. “I know.”
“You can talk to me if you have something on your mind,” she said softly.
“I know.” He left it at that, mostly because he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t going to apologize for doing what he’d done. And if his job cost him her love…
Wow. Yeah. Best he leave it at that.
Jamie sighed, rolling onto her back. “I’m not mad at you.”
Anger he could handle. Anger could be worked through. It was hatred he didn’t want. Hatred meant she felt strongly, just not the things he wanted her to feel. “You’ve got to know, I would never put you in more danger. If I thought for a minute that he could get through us to you…”
“I want to be as confident as you are that he can’t. That he won’t.” She pulled the sheet to her chin and held it there. “I’m just not that brave.”
Not that brave? Kell found himself frowning, and turned onto his side, keeping the distance he was waiting for her to close. “This guy wasted no time in coming to you after the hypnosis and Duren’s body was ID’d. If this goes down, it’s going to happen fast. I’ve got men on every road, footpath, hiking and biking trail that lead to the cabin. He’s not going to get to you. It’s not going to happen.”
“You’re assuming he’ll use a path or a road or a trail,” Jamie countered. “He could be walking in as the crow flies even as we speak.”
He could be, but Kell’s men had more eyes and ears than their own. They had surveillance equipment. Heat sensors. Motion detectors. Parabolic mics. To avoid apprehension, the killer would have to slip in on a shadow, or like smoke. “He’s not going to get to you.”
She reached out with one hand and stroked it down the center of his chest. “The good guys don’t always win, Kell.”
“I will not let him get to you,” he told her again, wondering for a moment which of them he was reassuring. He squeezed her fingers, held them over his fast-beating heart.
“I know you’ll do your best—”
“No, sweetheart.” He was not going to let her lie down and give up. Not after ten years spent in hiding. Not after he’d just found her. “Getting to you is going to require going through me. And I’ve got a really big gun.”
She laughed softly. “That does make me feel better. Even if we’re not talking about the same weapon.”
His breath caught, his cock thickened. “It’s all yours. Anytime, anywhere.”
Her nails scratched lightly over his skin. “As long as it’s not in my driveway, you mean.”
“Next time we’re there,” he said and sucked back a sharp breath at her touch. “I promise.”
“Promise me there will be a next time?” Her fingers were moving now, searching, surrounding. “That we’ll get out of here in one piece?”
He would die making sure it happened. But rather than put the emotion overwhelming him into words that would sound too simple, he brought her face close and kissed her, speaking to her in the only way that felt right.
He knew about love. He’d grown up in a home where there was never a question that his parents would make up after fighting. Where actions spoke louder than words, but where the words themselves were never in short supply, and were used wisely, appropriately, used to solve as well as to soothe. Yeah, he knew about love.
He didn’t know about this, about Jamie, precious, a gift, making his heart swell, ache, crave, making his body hard, splintering his focus. She was his case, but she was so much more, and he opened his mouth over hers and asked her to be his everything.
Her lips parted, her tongue tasted his. She wedged her body so far beneath him that his only move was to cover her. He did, and she opened her legs, hooking her heels in the small of his back, pressing her hands to his spine. She was supple, pliant, warm like wax, melting into him.
He needed a condom, but he didn’t want to turn away. His erection lay pressed between them, pulsing. His mouth hadn’t tasted enough of her yet, and he wanted this mating to last until they were both too exhausted to move. If might very well be their last time—a thought he pushed away before it caused him to suffer and soften.
Her fingers massaging up and down his back, Jamie tilted her hips, seeking him. He groaned, freeing himself long enough to hang over the edge of the bed and dig his wallet from the jeans he’d kicked out of last night. Once he was sheathed, he entered her, no foreplay, no seduction, no romance.
Her sigh as she sank into the mattress was of satisfaction, of a gratitude that humbled him, of love. He had given her something she wanted, a something he was quite certain touched her in places his cock never would, though not for his lack of trying.
He rocked against her, not thrusting, not stroking, but a simple rhythmic motion of his lower body that kept them pressed together from belly to breast, as did his arms scooped beneath her. His head he rested beside hers on her pillow, sharing the air that she breathed.
Neither one of them said a word, they loved gently, slowly, though sounds of pleasure—gasps, moans, whimpers—were impossible to hold back, and punctuated the whir of the cane fan above.
And when neither of them could deny their bodies, they came together, the completion ripping into the core of his soul.
Standing in the center of the front porch and shading her eyes, she found Kell sitting sideways in the driver’s seat of his SUV, the door opened, his cell phone pressed to his ear. She didn’t want to disturb him, but was curious what conversation had sent him outside to talk. They were too deeply involved in this game of catch a killer for secrets.
He saw her movements peripherally, turned toward her and gestured for her to come near. He smiled as he did it, and she relaxed. He didn’t tell her to wait. He didn’t hurriedly end the call. He welcomed her, and she was glad, even though what she heard told her nothing. He was responding in brief affirmatives, shaking his head as if it made a difference to the person on the other end of the sound waves. That made her smile, and he held out a hand, pulling her to stand between his thighs.
She leaned back against his chest with his arm around her, staring into the distance, wondering where the members of his team were posted, wondering if the killer was on his way. He kept her there until he’d finished, not even a minute, then he turned her and kissed her until she had to pull away to breathe.
“I’ve been waiting since dawn to do that.”
“I seem to remember you doing the same thing not long before. Did you sleep at all?”
“I never sleep when a case is coming down to the wire. I’ve got too much going on in my mind. It’s insomnia’s fertile ground.”
She wondered if their involvement made his insomnia worse. “Anything new since last night?”
A single nod. “Everyone’s in place. Now we wait.”
That would have to do. “And you’re making your phone calls out here why?”
“Because that’s what a prince does for his Sleeping Beauty,” he told her, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear.
He made her want to laugh. He made her want to cry. He made her want to have his babies…and that was her clue to stop with the wanting. “And what is the prince planning to do about feeding me?”
He canted his head to the side and considered her. “How ’bout a picnic and a swim?”
“Should I paint a target on my back with ketchup?” she asked, considering him in return.
He gave her a look, then hopped down and closed up his SUV. Hooking his arm around her neck, he led her back to the cabin, saying, “I don’t want to make you a target. I do want you to relax. That’s all.”
“In that case, I accept.” She’d never had a man pamper her, and as much as she was enjoying Kell doing so, she reminded herself that this was nothing but a detour before she reached the city limits of Singletown where she’d be living the rest of her life. “You want me to do sandwiches?”
“Nope. I want you to change and go.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead, then sent her on her way with a slap on her ass. “I’ll meet you at the pond in a few.”
It was a caveman gesture, and it had her smiling as she found her still-damp underwear and worked them on, then left through the back door, slapping him on his ass as she did. She fairly skipped down the dock to the pond, kicking off her sneakers and leaping into the water.
She surfaced, sputtering, the fright forgotten, the fun all she knew. Kell had done this for her, too. Given her back the parts of her life she’d hidden, out of sight, out of mind. For so long she’d felt she didn’t deserve to know joy. That she needed to suffer for the families of the victims. Now she wanted to be happy, and she wanted Kell, forever.
“Stop it. Right now,” she ordered herself. She could not keep doing this. Whatever happened, happened. And nothing was going to happen until she knew that for both of them, this relationship was built on more than her case.
“Hey you! Come and get it.”
At the sound of Kell’s voice, she turned where she was treading water, and swam back to the dock. When she got there, he was waiting, the box of food he’d carried down to the pond sitting next to her shoes. She took his hand when he offered it, tumbling against him when he tugged.
His bare chest was warm, his heart thumping, but her stomach won out. She pushed away and went for the sandwiches he’d stacked in the box between folded paper towels. He’d forgotten to bring drinks, but he had brought a knife—the one she’d gripped so hard in the kitchen yesterday.
She held it up for him to see. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Just thought it might make you feel better,” he said, grabbing a sandwich and biting a quarter of it away.
She glanced down at the front of his board shorts, unable to help herself. “Because your gun’s all out of ammo?”
“If it is, it’s all your fault,” he said, still chewing.
“I will gladly take the blame. As long as you trot yourself back to the cabin for drinks.”
He mock frowned. “Trot? Is that princess for ‘please’?”
Really, he was too cute for his own good. Or for hers. “Will you please get the drinks? And sunscreen?”
“As you wish,” he said with a wink. “Just watch where you wave that thing. It’s called a weapon for a reason.”
She dropped to sit on the dock and watched him go, picnicking with herself while she waited for him to return. Oh, but she really could get used to this.
Yes, Weldon was small and quiet, but this…this was peaceful, serene. As if here time meant nothing—a thought that brought a second that was related.
Kell had been gone way too long.
She turned to look at the cabin, saw…nothing. Her sandwich-filled stomach tensed. He could’ve taken a phone call, but wouldn’t he have walked down to the dock while doing so? He should’ve been back with their drinks by now.
Maybe she was borrowing trouble, overreacting, being plain ridiculous, but she could think of only one reason he wasn’t. She got to her feet, slipped on and tied her shoes.
And then she picked up the knife.