Still the One
Still the One
Debra Cowan
The woman standing in Rafe Blackstock's office was beautiful–unforgettably beautiful–and desperate for his help. But this wasn't just another client who needed a private investigator. This was the only woman he'd ever loved–the one who'd walked away from him without a backward glance, so many years ago….Kit Foley's troubled younger sister was missing, and she was willing to do anything to find her–even turn to the man she'd spent such a long time trying to forget. But their search for answers was proving to be even more dangerous than she'd feared–because it meant facing the truth of a love that had never died….
“Do you really believe we can put the past behind us and work together?” Kit whispered. “Do you really believe we can be friends again?”
Rafe stared into her eyes for a long moment, then lifted a hand and stroked her hair, his palm brushing her cheek. “Yes, I believe it.” But his body tensed, and his eyes darkened. Was she asking too much of him? Could she even do it herself?
“Friends…” he murmured, his gaze devouring her. His hand slipped around her nape, urging her toward him. He was going to kiss her….
But then he stopped, looking dazed. “Bad idea,” he said in a choked voice.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Bad.”
Kit wanted to scream. Friends? Was she kidding herself? Attraction still simmered between them, an attraction she had to fight. She couldn’t get involved with Rafe Blackstock again.
She’d never gotten over him the first time.
Dear Reader,
Happy New Year! And happy reading, too—starting with the wonderful Ruth Langan and Return of the Prodigal Son, the latest in her newest miniseries, THE LASSITER LAW. When this burned-out ex-agent comes home looking for some R and R, what he finds instead is a beautiful widow with irresistible children and a heart ready for love. His love.
This is also the month when we set out on a twelve-book adventure called ROMANCING THE CROWN. Linda Turner starts things off with The Man Who Would Be King. Return with her to the island kingdom of Montebello, where lives—and hearts—are about to be changed forever.
The rest of the month is terrific, too. Kylie Brant’s CHARMED AND DANGEROUS concludes with Hard To Tame, Carla Cassidy continues THE DELANEY HEIRS with To Wed and Protect, Debra Cowan offers a hero who knows the heroine is Still the One, and Monica McLean tells us The Nanny’s Secret. And, of course, we’ll be back next month with six more of the best and most exciting romances around.
Enjoy!
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
Still the One
Debra Cowan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DEBRA COWAN
Like many writers, Debra made up stories in her head as a child. Her B.A. in English was obtained with the intention of following family tradition and becoming a schoolteacher, but after she wrote her first novel, there was no looking back. After years of working another job in addition to writing, she now devotes her full time to penning both historical and contemporary romances. An avid history buff, Debra enjoys traveling. She has visited places as diverse as Europe and Honduras, where she and her husband served as part of a medical mission team. Born in the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, Debra still lives in her native Oklahoma with her husband and their two beagles, Maggie and Domino.
Debra invites her readers to contact her at P.O. Box 30123, Coffee Creek Station, Edmund, OK 73003-0003 or via e-mail at her Web site at http://www.oklahoma.net/~debcowan.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest thanks to the following:
Ken and Lisa Gonzales for their help
with Colorado detail; Dr. Lee Warren, M.D.,
Chief Resident, Department of Neurosurgery
(thanks, cuz!); Vickie Taylor for hooking me up
with her brother, a great source of information;
and Captain Scott Spears, USAF.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 1
“What the—” Rafe Blackstock stopped cold in the doorway of his private investigations office. “Kit?”
The slender woman turned. Though her thick mink-dark hair was short now, her eyes were still the same unusual slate blue he remembered and deep with the same wariness, the same uncertainty as the last time he’d seen her. “In the flesh.”
“I’ll say.” On this perfect June Sunday, he’d walked right in on his past, and his past looked darn good. Her faint musky scent squeezed his lungs.
His breath jammed somewhere under his ribs, but Rafe walked in and shut the door as if he hadn’t just had the wind knocked out of him. He was disoriented, his head swam, and he had to remind himself where he was. Oklahoma City, not Norman. Not standing ten years deep in yesterdays.
He didn’t know whether to shake her hand or hug her, so he simply stood there, arms hanging limply at his sides.
She gave him an uncertain smile. “Hello.”
“Hey.”
Kit Foley, who’d been his first love, who’d broken his heart and walked away. Kit, whom he’d thought he would never forget. She was here. Ten years older, beautiful in the way a woman becomes when she grows into her skin, her identity. It hurt his chest to look at her.
This case—her case—was the reason his office manager, Nita Howard, had paged him on Lake Arcadia about a missing persons case, why he’d put down that brand-new fiber-glass rod.
Kit’s dark-rimmed eyes paused hungrily on his features. Her voice went soft and shy, the way it did when she was in an uncertain situation. “It’s been a long time.”
No kidding. And Rafe suddenly felt every day of those long years in the wary pull of his muscles, the way her smoke-and-honey voice still stroked up his spine like warm fingers. Resentment, disbelief, unwelcome pleasure fused inside.
Kit. He couldn’t stop his gaze from sliding down her body, the way his hands had done numerous times. “Lookin’ good.”
She blushed. “You, too.”
Her coltish figure had rounded out, the angular edges of her hips now soft, her waist nipped in tightly. Her breasts were fuller, curving beneath the short-sleeved, cotton floral dress she wore. The wavy dark brown hair that had once reached the middle of her back was a shiny wedge that came just below her delicate ears. The style sharpened her cheekbones, highlighted her perfectly straight nose.
She was stunning. Her wide, dark-lashed eyes were bright with unshed tears, he realized, as her troubled gaze sought his.
“I need you—your help.”
I need you. His muscles clenched against those words. In the end, she hadn’t wanted to need him, had wanted to stand on her own. She’d proven that by walking away.
He thought he’d forgotten how shattered he’d been when she refused to marry him the day before his college graduation. Thought he’d forgotten how pain had closed over him with brittle frigidity when she’d stammered that she couldn’t leave her family responsibilities. Couldn’t live with the way he took total control. She wanted a partner, not someone who made decisions without her.
Feeling as off balance as the day the Air Force had permanently grounded him from flying, Rafe walked around her to his desk. He felt a foolish urge to ask Nita to come in, but his office manager had left as soon as he arrived.
Kit’s voice trembled, edgy and staccato. “I’m sure I’m the last person you want to see…. I didn’t know where else to turn.”
She was certainly the last person he’d expected to see. That old familiar awareness throbbed to stilted life. “How did you find me?”
“Um, this.” She pulled a black pocketbook from her purse and slid out a neatly folded piece of newspaper. She handed it to him. “I saw this about three years ago.”
Rafe skimmed it, his gaze going to hers as he realized it was the article the Associated Press had picked up on him. Two weeks after Rafe had left the Air Force, a child belonging to a major in Rafe’s old Air Force detail had been kidnapped by the major’s estranged wife. Rafe had set out on a one-man mission to find the child and succeeded. He’d also testified in the subsequent custody trial. The local paper had done a story, which had been picked up by AP.
Kit had seen the article. And kept it. Not knowing what to think about that, not wanting to think anything, Rafe handed it back to her.
She smiled uncertainly, slid the clipping in her pocket-book. “I called Kevin to see where you were and he told me. I found your phone number in the book.”
He’d spoken to Kevin Strong just yesterday, and his college roommate hadn’t mentioned a thing about Kit. Rafe made a mental note to tell his friend not to be so free with information.
Still not believing she was here, he cleared his throat. “How are you?”
“Fine.” She shoved a thick lock of hair off her forehead, giving a sharp laugh. “Well, not really. That’s why I’m here.”
Rafe tried to dodge the images that crashed over him—the throatiness of her laugh, the sleek feel of her body against his, the tight perfection of his inside her. She’d been his first love. Even if he told himself he’d forgotten her, he hadn’t.
Whatever had happened, he couldn’t take this case. Right now that was the only clear thing in his mind, but still he couldn’t deny a burning curiosity to find out what she’d been doing the last ten years, where she’d been.
“I can pay. Or…I guess I should ask about your fee.”
“We’ll work that out.” Was she married? Divorced? Children?
He didn’t want to ask or even acknowledge the questions ricocheting through his mind, didn’t want to admit to the heat that squeezed his chest at the thought of her with another man. He’d moved on.
He knew their relationship on her side had never been as committed as it had on his. After so long, it shouldn’t make him wince that it had taken him an entire year to get rid of her engagement ring. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Liz.” She hesitated then said, “She’s missing.”
“Again?”
“Don’t start, Rafe. This is serious.”
“With your sister?” He arched a brow. “Since when?”
She gave him a flat stare.
“You’re sure she didn’t hook up with some guy at a bar?”
“I’m sure,” she said tightly. “She’s not like that anymore.”
Rafe couldn’t even imagine such a transformation, but neither could he ignore the panic in Kit’s eyes.
Indicating the straight-backed chair in front of his desk, he eased himself down into his own overstuffed gray leather chair, grateful for the support at his back. “Tell me what happened.”
Instead of sitting, she began to pace. Her soft cotton dress curled around her calves and clung to her lithe body, molding her perfect breasts. Rafe forced his gaze to her face, picked up a pen and pulled a legal-size notepad over to him.
“Can I get you something? Water, a Coke?” He was amazed at how calm he sounded, especially when he wanted to ask a million questions. Do you still live in Tulsa? What have you been doing? Do you ever regret turning me down?
She flashed him a tremulous smile, but her worry was tangible. “No, thanks.”
He’d smelled this same raw desperation before in each of the twenty missing persons cases he’d solved.
“I’m a flight attendant for TransAmerica. Yesterday morning, I returned from a layover in Miami. I had a message, only thirty minutes old, from the hospital on my answering machine. The nurse said Liz had been in a car wreck.” Kit dragged an unsteady hand through her hair. Fatigue and worry drew her features taut, flattened the sweet curve of her full lips. “I raced over, but when I got there, Liz was gone.”
“Did you check at the nurses’ station? Maybe she—”
Kit shot him a look. “Of course. They told me they wanted to keep her overnight for observation, but she’d left with her husband, Tony Valentine.”
“Liz is married?”
“No. Yes. Supposed to be getting a divorce.”
“Ah.”
Kit’s dark glare skewered him.
“And you?”
She blinked. “Me?”
“Married?”
“No.” The word practically exploded from her.
Yes, that sounded like the Kit he knew. His mouth twisted, despite the satisfaction curling through him.
She shoved a hand through her hair again, then clasped her hands together. “Anyway, Liz just up and left with Tony.”
Which was just like Dizzy Lizzy Foley, Rafe reminded himself. “Maybe she got back together with her ex.”
“She lives with me. I would’ve known.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to tell you. She used to take off with one man or another a lot.”
“Something’s happened,” Kit said stiffly. “Liz wouldn’t just go off like this.”
“What about that time she ran off with the high school quarterback? Stephen Hankins?” Rafe reminded her.
“They were in Mexico, plastered on margaritas and begging a priest to marry them when you found her.”
That had been right after the death of Rafe’s grandfather. Kit had come home with him for the funeral, then left before it even started to chase after her sister. Again. Resentment curled through him. He thought he’d forgotten about that. Apparently not.
“So you won’t help me?” Kit stopped in front of his desk, anger snapping in her eyes.
He kept his gaze on her, refusing to dwell on the protective urge that shot through him. “She is an adult and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of foul play.”
“She called me this morning, terrified.”
He tapped a finger on his desk. “What did she say? Did she go with Tony willingly?”
“She said she couldn’t talk long because the call could be traced. She told me she was all right, that she’d be calling me later to wire some money.”
“To where?”
“She’s going to let me know. In the meantime, I can get some money together.”
Rafe bit off the sharp comment that rose to his lips and said gently, “It doesn’t sound as if she’s in trouble, Kit.”
She inhaled deeply, her eyes fluttering shut briefly. “She is.”
Whether Liz was in trouble or not, he could see Kit believed she was. Using his most soothing tone, he put himself on automatic pilot, which he should’ve done from the beginning. “Talk to me.”
Her hands, on top of his desk, fisted. Then unfisted, fisted. “Tony, her husband, was in prison for a computer scam and he was released about two weeks ago.”
Rafe held up a hand. “Wait a minute. Liz married a computer guy?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t go for computer guys.”
“She did.”
“He’s not into sports at all? Doesn’t play basketball or drive race cars or something?”
“No.” Kit tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I told you she’s changed.”
Evidently not enough, Rafe thought.
Walking to the opposite wall, Kit halted in front of a vintage black-and-white photograph of turn-of-the-century Oklahoma City. She wrapped both slender arms around her waist. “Tony got a job, was really trying to get his life straightened out.”
Her tongue darted out to moisten her rose lips.
Rafe’s belly drew up at the sight of that tongue, and he glanced down, scrawling some notes.
“I’m not sure I understand it all myself,” she said.
“When Liz called, I told her to put Tony on so he could tell me what was happening. Evidently he was sent to prison for manipulating stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange, making some money for a friend in serious financial trouble. Tony told me that while he was in prison, a man contacted him, a man with ties to organized crime.”
“Did he give you a name?”
“Alexander.”
“First or last name?” Rafe’s gaze tracked Kit’s agitated movements across his plush burgundy carpet.
“He didn’t say.” She surreptitiously swiped at a tear, and Rafe’s heart squeezed. She hated crying, hated even more for people to see it. Pulling a piece of paper from the side pocket of her purse, she passed it to Rafe. “Liz left this for me at the hospital.”
Rafe took the note, read the curvy scrawl. The mob’s after us. I’ll call.
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Liz’s dramatics.
Kit went on, “This man wanted Tony to pull the same scam for him on the prison computer, but Tony said he refused. Alexander threatened to hurt Liz if Tony didn’t do what he wanted. Tony said that man—” She halted, her shoulders sagging.
Concern had Rafe’s fingers curling into the arms of his chair. During that intense year they’d dated, he’d seen Kit cry only once, and it hadn’t been the day they’d broken up. It had been the day she’d heard that her sister had eloped with the local hockey team’s goalie. That had been marriage number one. He wasn’t sure what number Tony, the computer guy, was.
Rafe knew he shouldn’t touch Kit, but he rose, walked around his desk and settled his hand on her shoulder anyway, trying to discount the way she leaned slightly into his touch, the way her body heat shot straight up his arm.
She kept her head averted. Her musky scent slid into his lungs, knotting him up with regret and awareness. His hand was mere inches from the creamy flesh of her throat, the warm cleft where her neck and shoulder met, where he used to—
Get a grip. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?”
“No, thanks.” She dragged in a deep breath, then went on in a wobbly voice that mangled his insides. “Tony said Alexander was responsible for Liz’s accident, that he made it happen.”
“Where was it?”
“Just north of One Fiftieth Street on Western. There’s a hard curve there.”
He nodded. “On the edge of Edmond city limits. I’m familiar with it.”
Just two weeks ago, a man had made the local news for taking that curve too fast and flipping his car forty feet into the ravine below. Liz could’ve done the same thing.
“So,” Kit said, “Tony did what Alexander wanted while he was in prison.”
“Using the prison’s computer? How long did it take the warden to catch him?”
“Never.”
Rafe’s eyes widened.
She glanced over. “He’s that good, Rafe. A computer guru.”
He nodded, prompting her. “But when he got out, Tony refused to help Alexander?”
“Yes.”
“So you think Liz’s accident was deliberate. And now she’s disappeared with Tony. I can see why you’re concerned,” Rafe said gently. With some surprise, he recognized a flare of anger. Liz was always pulling stunts, putting Kit through all kinds of hell and expecting her to ride to the rescue. “Doesn’t Tony think Alexander will look for him?”
“I really don’t know what he thinks.” She stepped away from Rafe and pulled a tissue from her purse.
Rafe’s hand fell to his side, and he moved back to his chair. Jaw tight, he shrugged off the insidious thought that she’d once again rejected him.
“I begged Liz to meet me somewhere, but Tony said those men might be following me, too. I haven’t seen anyone, though.”
If someone from the mob was really tailing her and they knew what they were doing, Rafe knew she wouldn’t see them. “She could be with Tony on a lark, Kit. Look at her track record.”
“I know her track record!” Her gaze shot to his.
“Would I be here asking for your help if I thought this was a joyride?”
Ouch. “You have to admit she’s done this before.”
“This is different, Rafe. I can tell. I heard how frightened she was.”
“Of Tony?”
She frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“Did anyone at the hospital hear or see a struggle? Did Liz scream?”
“No, nothing.” Worry carved deep lines beside her mouth.
“She probably went with him voluntarily, Kit.”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
He hated the torture in her soft blue eyes. “So why would she do that?”
“She believes him, I guess.”
“About Alexander?”
“And Tony’s claim that he’s turning his life around. He’s called her every night since he got out, trying to mend fences. I thought she’d stand firm this time.”
Kit said this last half under her breath, causing Rafe to narrow his gaze. She’d never said anything less than supportive about Liz before.
“He knows he made a stupid mistake and he’s trying to fix it. He was doing well in his new job.”
“If Liz went willingly, and it sounds like she did, there’s really nothing you can do.”
“I’ve got to find her.”
“She’ll come home. She always does.”
She stared at him, her eyes huge in a face gone pale as chalk. “Tony said he could disappear, invent whole new identities for both of them. He can do it, Rafe. The FBI said it was a fluke they ever traced him to that computer scam in the first place. But running isn’t the answer. Tony should confront the problem, not spend his life looking over his shoulder. Or forcing Liz to do the same.”
Anger blunted her words. “I don’t know if I should believe Tony or not, but can I afford not to? I’ve got to find Liz and help her, in case Tony is telling the truth about the mob being after him. I can’t just turn my back on her.”
She never had been able to, and Rafe knew she probably never would. Due to the death of their mother when Kit was fourteen and Liz eleven, Kit had taken on the role of mother rather than sister.
“I went to the police,” she said. “They said there was nothing they could do. But I remembered that your uncle Wayne was with the FBI and he worked organized crime.” Her gaze, pleading and somber, locked with his. “That’s why I came here.”
Besides his uncle, Rafe had other contacts in the FBI. Which was why he knew the mob was moving into Oklahoma. “Why doesn’t Tony just go to the FBI himself?”
“He doesn’t have any evidence yet.”
“Kit—”
“He told me he snatched Alexander’s computer on the way out of town, that he’s going to get the evidence off of there, but right now he doesn’t have it.”
“Tony’s parole officer can go after him. Have you contacted that person?”
“Not yet.”
“We’ll do that.” Rafe made another note. “The more people looking, the more pressure, the better chance of finding them.”
“So you’ll help me?” The hope in her voice, her face, latched on to his conscience.
He knew he should pass this case off, but he couldn’t.
She’d been his first love. That connection would always be there, always mean something.
Bottom line—Rafe had never been able to turn his back on her.
“Please say you’ll help me.” Kit’s voice rasped. “You know how to find people. I don’t. Please, Rafe.”
Her whispered plea raked up memories of another whisper.
I can’t marry you. I want a partner, not a master.
She had always equated his proposal to giving up her independence. Ten years ago, Rafe had been exactly what she didn’t need. Or want. Resentment burned through him as he ran a hand over his face. And yet… Kit needed his help. Their past shouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t let it. “Yes, I’ll help you.”
Chapter 2
Relief washed through her, and Kit let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank you. Where do we start?”
Something sharp flickered in Rafe’s eyes, and she was painfully reminded of their ending, the last time they’d seen each other. Regret flared, but she squelched it. Breaking things off with him had been best for both of them. She refused, as she had for the last ten years, to second-guess that decision.
“Start by telling me where Tony might go.”
“I don’t know. His parents in Davis, maybe.” She could still feel Rafe’s touch on her shoulder, a gentle comfort, yet it branded her skin. She began to pace again, thrusting a hand through her hair.
He spared her a glance, scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad. “Any place he and Liz might go together?”
“His apartment, but I already checked it out. No one was there.”
She couldn’t help staring as Rafe continued jotting notes. The lush eyelashes, the too-straight patrician nose he’d inherited from his white mother. The high cheekbones, dark slash of brows and burnished skin testified to his Choctaw father. Rafe’s blatantly male features were leather dark, lined by confidences she’d never shared, smiles she’d never seen.
While waiting for him in his office, she’d steeled herself against the old attraction, but she hadn’t been prepared for the actual sight of him. The sleek black hair trimmed military short. The sculpted lips that had once turned her bones to water. Corded neck and biceps bared by the khaki T-shirt that loosely covered his hard, rangy chest. Lean runner’s legs gloved in worn, starched denim. And scuffed tennis shoes.
“Where’s his apartment?”
She dragged her gaze from Rafe, resumed her pacing. The movement helped dispel the warmth that had started to creep into her blood.
She gave him the name and address of a complex on the north edge of Oklahoma City, only a mile from her own house. The warmth of spring clung to him, as well as a mysterious scent that belonged solely to him. Not musky, not woodsy, but something in between.
Kit’s pulse throbbed heavily, and her throat grew tight. He was still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. For a moment, her worry over Liz was pushed aside in a sudden surge of emotion—regret, sharp and bitter. Affection, uncertainty.
Questions tumbled through her mind. What had brought Rafe back to Oklahoma City? Why had he left the Air Force?
The shock in his face upon seeing her had unnerved her, but not nearly as much as that instantaneous sultry heat in his eyes. Those black, smoldering eyes were now obsidian hard, remote.
Kit squared her shoulders, trying to push away everything except thoughts of her sister. She became aware that Rafe watched her impersonally, waiting for her to continue.
“Liz lives with me. She has for the last couple of years, since Tony went to prison.”
He nodded, making another note.
Her heart squeezed at his distance. What did she expect? That he would greet her as if she were an old friend? Kit had ruined that when she’d refused to marry him. Rafe’s matter-of-fact announcement that they would marry hadn’t been the first unilateral decision he’d made, but it had been the one to unleash a long-buried panic.
Since her mom’s death, Kit had made all the decisions in her family with the exception of a few financial ones. Her dad’s work schedule prohibited him from spending much time at home, and Kit had stepped into the void left after her mom’s death, taking care of the house and her sister. At first, she’d thrilled to Rafe’s take-charge attitude, to the fact that she’d found someone willing to shoulder her burden. But when he’d expected her to move east with him so he could attend Navy flight school, just up and leave her father and sister, she’d realized she couldn’t marry someone who made those decisions alone. She wanted to be his partner, not his insignificant other. So she’d said no to him.
The years had made a noticeable difference in him. He had always been lean, but now there was a whipcord strength in that leanness. A soberness in his eyes and face. A sense of…unpredictability that had Kit’s pulse kicking up a beat. She shoved an unsteady hand through her hair again.
His cool black gaze urged her on.
So Rafe was gorgeous. And as remote as a stranger. So what? He was going to help her find Liz. That was what mattered.
A memory clouded his eyes. For an instant, some of the tension in his face melted away. “You said you were a flight attendant for TransAmerica?”
“Yes.” On one of their first dates, they’d discussed the fact that Rafe wanted to be a pilot and Kit wanted to be a flight attendant. High with the exhilaration of new love, they’d declared it fate that they’d met and become involved.
Kit swallowed the sudden lump that rose in her throat.
His face closed again. “Where did Tony work?”
“For a major computer manufacturer.” She gave the name. “He developed software for them.”
“This was his most recent job? The one he started just out of prison?”
“Yes. I called there yesterday and left a message with the answering service for a friend of his, Mike.”
“I’ll check that out tomorrow.”
“I also went down to Davis and spoke with Tony’s parents. They haven’t heard from or seen him.”
“Could they be lying? Maybe hiding him?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so.” Kit realized her hand was in her hair again and lowered her arm. Inhaling deeply, she took in the slight tang of Rafe’s scent. Though quiet and often reserved, there was a steadiness, an intensity about him that filled a room. “They were very upset when I told them what was going on. They haven’t seen Tony since he went to prison—they were too embarrassed and angered by what he did.”
His gaze narrowed on her long enough to make her skin prickle with an unwelcome heat. Apprehension and a hint of anticipation swirled inside her, emotions that had nothing to do with her sister and everything to do with the man across from her.
“What if they’re off in Las Vegas or some place like that?”
“I still need to find her.”
“Would Tony hurt her?”
“I don’t think so. I think he really did take Liz with him out of concern for her safety. I mean, we can’t discount that, right?”
“I won’t discount anything. I’ll look at every angle. I’ll start by going to his apartment, checking things out.”
“I went there and couldn’t find anything.”
“I might know other things to look for.”
“Of course.” Kit couldn’t help the stiffness of her tone.
His silent scrutiny, the stoic face all combined to make her want to squirm. Through the years, she’d learned to handle some fairly intimidating men, and she didn’t appreciate the way just one measuring look from Rafe could make her feel as if she were in his way.
“I’ll also check with his parole officer.”
“I didn’t think to do that.” She shook her head. “This whole thing has knocked me for a loop. I’m so upset I probably did miss something at Tony’s apartment.” She forced a smile, her chest tight and aching.
“That’s what I’m here for. I’ll look for anything that might give a hint to where Tony could’ve gone. Check with the airlines and the bus depot, see if he bought a ticket using a credit card, though I doubt it.”
“I can do that.” Kit pulled a scrap of paper and a pen from her purse.
“No.”
Hand poised over her purse, her gaze snapped to his. “What?”
“I’ll do all the checking and call you when I’ve found something.”
She stiffened, crumpling the paper in her fist. “I want to help.”
“I know what I’m looking for. You don’t.”
His voice was gentle, but steel rimmed the words and sent a shaft of irritation through her. She’d hoped the years might’ve mellowed his insistent control. “I’m coming with you.”
“None of my other clients—”
“I’m coming.” The old anger swept in along with a flash of panic. Telling herself Rafe simply didn’t understand how important this was to her, she took a deep breath. “I need to be there when you find her.”
“I don’t know anything about this Alexander character. If he actually is connected to the mob, he could be dangerous. Besides, you need to be safe and sound so Liz has someone to come home to when I do find her.”
“She’s supposed to call me. Wouldn’t you rather be around to hear it?”
“You’ll let me know.”
She hesitated, then blurted, “Do you not want me along because of the past? Because of what I…what happened?”
His lips flattened. “No.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I said no.” Rafe bit out the words.
Kit took in the steel jaw, the piercing, narrowed eyes. Had he ever forgiven her for refusing him? “I won’t get in your way.”
She couldn’t tell if she was reaching him or not. The Rafe she’d known—loved—hadn’t had those black eyes that hardened to marble. Hadn’t been able to disappear beneath a stoic mask of indifference. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. Panic sawed at her.
“I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“I don’t like working with anyone,” Rafe said bluntly.
“Well, I didn’t love coming in here, but I did it.” She clenched her fists, stepping toward him. “Liz is in danger. I have to find her. You don’t know what it’s like to feel helpless, to feel—”
“I do know.” His voice lashed the air as he pushed out of his chair, tension coiling in his broad shoulders.
Kit took a reflexive step back, frowning at the harsh emotion beneath his words.
“I know helplessness, second-guessing, uncertainty—” He broke off, anger vibrating from him. “Don’t tell me I don’t.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t presume to know anything about my life, Kit. Don’t make assumptions about me.”
What had happened? She swallowed the question. She had no right to know anything about him, no right to care. She’d given that up long ago.
He leaned across the desk toward her, eyes blazing, a muscle flexing in his jaw. “Just because we were involved once doesn’t mean you know me now. Doesn’t mean you know anything about me.”
“I could say the same to you.”
The air snapped tight, hummed with old anger, past hurts.
Fury tautened his carved features; his throat worked. “Let’s agree to stick to this case,” he said hoarsely. “And facts about this case only.”
She nodded, her mouth dry, her heart hammering with the same wildness it had the first time she’d ever noticed him. He’d been running to class, up the hill past her. Long, lean legs bared by denim shorts, moving with a muscular fluidity that slowed her steps. The wispy image of his burnished flesh sliding against her pale skin floated through her mind.
She slammed the door on those thoughts. She wasn’t going to let her hormones—or her memories—get in the way of finding Liz.
“It’s not a good idea for you to come along,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Still think you ought to be calling all the shots, don’t you, Blackstock?”
Surprise widened his eyes a fraction. “This is how I do business.”
“This is why we didn’t work out ten years ago.”
Says you. His hands fisted as he studied the opposite wall. “I can move faster if I’m alone. And there will be situations where people might not talk to me if you’re around. This really is best, Kit. Take it or leave it.”
Ten years ago, she’d walked away from this very thing, but she didn’t have that luxury now. “Maybe my sitting around doing nothing is not best for me. Or for Liz.”
“Let me do my job. I’ll check in with you as often as you like, every step if you want, but it’s best if I’m solo.”
She set her jaw, her gaze burning into his. “I’m paying your fee. I should get to call the shots.”
“Not with me.”
Frustration hardened her voice. “How did you get in this line of work, anyway? It’s got nothing to do with flying jets.”
His face closed. “Long story.”
One he plainly wasn’t going to tell her. Swallowing against a sharpness in her throat, she said, “Fine.”
He tapped a finger on the desk, his gaze scouring her face. “No more talk about the past.”
“Fine.” She knew that was for the best, but the old wound inside her cracked open.
He irritated her, but even so, he was the one man she regretted walking away from. The one man who could reach places in her no one else ever could.
She couldn’t ignore the knot in her belly that was part anger, part anticipation. Not affected by him? Who was she kidding?
She wanted him to reassure her, tell her he’d find Liz quickly, that she would be able to handle all this. But she squared her shoulders against the maverick wish. She needed Rafe to find her sister. That was all.
She couldn’t let herself start needing him for anything else.
The sun sank to the horizon in a smear of gold and purple, edging the clouds with shimmering light. As Rafe drove north on May Avenue behind Kit’s car, following her from her brother-in-law’s apartment to her house, he rolled his shoulders against an edginess that worked through him, made him feel cornered. What he wanted right now was distance, but he’d needed Kit’s access to Tony Valentine’s apartment and her house.
She hadn’t been shy about letting him know she didn’t appreciate the way he did business. Even now, his blood charged at the thought. That sassy, sharp-tongued woman was not the Kit he’d known. No, sir. And he liked this new Kit. Which was why it would be better for both of them if he worked alone. Hell, it would be better for him. He needed to stay on this side of the past. Letting her tag along on this case would make that difficult, if not impossible.
He didn’t like the idea of spending a lot of time with her. Hell, any time with her. Rafe’s lips twisted.
The scent of fresh-cut grass and car exhaust drifted through the window of his ’67 Stingray. Golden light shimmered across the Corvette’s sleek black hood. He was making a big deal out of nothing. It was the shock of seeing her—his first love—after all these years, that was all. Plus the fact that he didn’t like working with anyone, especially the client who’d hired him. But with Kit there was another layer.
Calling in to report once or twice a day he could handle. Breathing the same air, smelling her provocative scent, having her in his space—no, thanks.
He rubbed his chest against the ache that had settled there upon first seeing her. The focus, the action of working the case would enable him to treat her like any other client. Eventually.
So far, so good. They hadn’t discussed the old days while Rafe had searched Tony’s place for scraps of paper, plane or bus ticket stubs, anything that might give a clue as to where Valentine had gone.
On the assumption that Valentine really was being watched by the mob as he’d told Kit, Rafe had swept the guy’s place for bugs and surveillance equipment. And found nothing. As a precaution, he needed to sweep Kit’s place, too. If he didn’t find anything there, he’d be free to start working the case. Alone.
As he swung his ’Vette behind her late-model four-door compact in the drive of a small brick house, his stomach clenched. He’d never seen Kit’s home, never known she lived in this popular older neighborhood. After college, she’d gone to work for a major airline in Tulsa. How long had she been in Oklahoma City? Longer than the three years since his own return?
Those questions had nothing to do with her supposedly missing sister. Rafe pushed them aside as he got out of the car, grabbing his device for detecting transmitters and his cell phone. Sergeant Kent Porter, a buddy from the Oklahoma City Police Department, had promised to call Rafe back after reviewing the report of the traffic accident that had sent Liz to the hospital. Porter had also said he would see what he could find out about any do-wrongs named Alexander.
Rafe followed Kit up the neatly swept concrete porch steps, flanked by terra-cotta pots brimming with yellow and white petunias. There were no memories for him here, nothing to distract him from the case.
Except the woman whose hips swayed so compellingly as she moved across the porch.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of silver. He turned in time to see the tail end of a sedan cross the intersection at the end of the block. It looked like the same car he’d seen a few minutes ago on May Avenue, right before Kit had turned into her neighborhood. Which could mean that they lived nearby. Or that someone was tailing her.
The little pinch in his gut told Rafe it was the latter, but he’d check again for the car before he left to speak to Valentine’s parents. He turned his attention to her home as she opened the front door and stepped inside.
He put a finger to his lips, then walked in, motioning for her to stay in the entry hall as he activated his bug detector. The late-model CPM-7307 had been modified by a buddy to also pick up the presence of hidden cameras. In addition to locating commonly used transmitters, the tool allowed Rafe to test AC outlets and phone lines. The small metal box, no wider than his wallet, included an output so he could listen for any phone modifications such as resistors or infinity bugs, anything placed on the wire itself.
Kit shook her head, wearing the same expression of amazement and disbelief she’d worn when he performed a search at her brother-in-law’s apartment.
Rafe bit back a grin. Making a quick sweep, he moved through the living room, peripherally aware of the honey-colored walls and ivory woodwork, the bold punctuation of color around the room. One wall of built-in bookcases boasted two shelves devoted to titles regarding functional family relationships. Interesting.
The scent of Kit’s light perfume trailed him, but he kept his focus narrowed. He found no bugs or cameras in the kitchen, no bugs in the phones or outlets there or in the living room. Moving down the short hallway off the foyer, he checked two bedrooms and the bath, then the ceiling fan in the living room and one in Kit’s bedroom. He felt along the undersides of her fluffy, distinctly feminine bed, keeping a firm lock on his imagination.
He returned to the front part of the house to test the phone. The dial tones hummed normally, and he removed the earpiece, snapped off his machine and tucked the device into his back pocket of his jeans.
“All clear.” He turned to where she still stood in the doorway. Red-gold sunlight pooled around her legs and shimmered through the light fabric of her dress, outlining her slender calves.
“This thing only scans one room at a time, but it’s thorough. One tone sounds for bugs, another for video equipment.”
She gave a short laugh and closed the door. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I’ve picked up some things.”
A shadow passed through her eyes and she nodded tightly, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Think you’ll find anything on that computer?” She referred to the desktop unit Rafe had confiscated from Tony’s, along with some disks.
“If there’s anything to be found on it. I’ve got a guy who’s a whiz with that stuff.”
“I hope so,” she said doubtfully. At his raised eyebrows, she explained, “Tony’s a computer genius. If he wants to hide or erase anything, he can probably do it.”
As she moved from the wood floor of the foyer into the carpeted living area, Rafe was careful to stay in the center of the room. When she flipped on an overhead light, he took a closer look at the living room and the visible part of the kitchen. The soft neutrality of the walls, woodwork and carpet was offset by jewel tones of ruby, emerald and sapphire in pillows, candles, an area rug beneath the dark pecan oval coffee table and frames scattered on the walls.
Kit watched him intently. So still, so quiet. Waiting. Awareness prickled his skin. As his gaze scanned the living room, he tuned in the soft snick of the undulating ceiling fan, the faint barking of a dog down the street. Something was off. Something—
Pictures. The realization hit him like a one-two punch. Rafe stepped closer to the wall, his gaze narrowing on the framed photograph there.
It was of Kit and her sister, brunette heads together, laughing. The distant sound of Kit’s laughter filled his mind, and he shoved away the phantom sound, his gaze skimming the wall.
More pictures. Some of Kit and Liz. One of Kit with her father.
One of Liz and a nice-looking man. Tony?
Kit walked over and removed the photograph from the wall. “This is Tony, just before he went to prison.”
Rafe nodded, taking the picture, studying the man’s intelligent pale gray eyes, the shaggy, medium brown hair. Though Rafe tried to concentrate on the image in front of him, his thoughts skipped back. In college, Kit had never wanted her picture taken. She’d been almost fanatical about that. Rafe had come to learn that was due to her innate shyness.
The only photograph Rafe had ever had of him and Kit had been taken at his fraternity’s spring formal. His mother probably still had it in his box of college stuff in the attic. Judging from the amount of pictures in this room, Kit seemed to have gotten over her aversion, he thought ruefully. Such a small thing, but not for her.
The Kit he’d known then, he reminded himself forcefully. Dragging his attention to the face of Tony Valentine, he struggled to bring to life something besides regret and a resentment that should have cooled long ago.
Kit walked to the mantel and took down another framed photograph. “This one of Tony was just taken about a week ago. He sent it to Liz.”
Rafe nodded, careful not to touch her as he took the frame. Valentine had cut his hair, almost a buzz cut. He’d grown a mustache and wore glasses. “I’ll want to make some copies of this.”
“Sure. Let me take it out of the frame.” Her fingers brushed his as she took the picture.
Casually, he turned away, squelching the jolt of electricity that jumped up his arm.
“Tony had some pictures of Liz. When we checked his place earlier, I noticed they weren’t on his refrigerator, where she told me he usually kept them.”
Could’ve been a smart move by Valentine to keep Alexander from getting a good look at Liz. Or it could’ve just been Valentine’s way of disappearing.
The photo Rafe had requested appeared over his shoulder, sans frame, and he took it, too conscious of the way Kit’s breath tickled his neck. His gaze scanned the entertainment center, the collection of CDs that ranged from the Eagles to Elvis Presley. Before it could fully form, Rafe aborted the reminder of his and Kit’s mutual pleasure in Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
More pictures lined the curved-leg table behind the sofa, and Rafe moved toward it. This case was all that mattered. There was a picture of Kit and her sister. Another of Kit in a pale pink satin gown that hugged every curve, bared her gorgeous shoulders. She stood next to Liz, who wore an ivory tea-length wedding gown, her hand on the tuxedo-clad arm of a man whose face was cropped off. Their father? Tony or another groom? Kit’s lover?
That last thought ambushed him, and before he could stop, Rafe wondered how many men Kit had seen since their college days. Had she ever come close to marriage or had she pushed them all away before they could get too close? Was she involved with someone?
Rafe knew he should leave those questions alone, but there was one he had to ask. “Are you seeing anyone now?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Dating anyone?”
A frown snapped her dark brows together. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about anything except this case.”
“That’s the reason I’m asking.” Even while his chest tightened in anticipation of her answer, he managed to sound detached. “I need to speak with anyone who’s had recent contact with your sister. They might know something without being aware of it.”
“Or they might have something to do with her disappearance?”
“Right.”
“I’m not seeing anyone,” she said stiffly, avoiding his eyes. “Haven’t for…a while.”
He nodded, silently cursing the bubble of pleasure that bloomed inside him. “I’d like to take a closer look at Liz’s room.”
“This way.” She walked past him and down the hall.
His gaze slid down the slender line of her back to the taut curve of her butt, the lean line of her thighs. She still had a class-A butt. And beautiful dewy skin. Rafe’s gaze lingered on the soft magnolia flesh of her neck.
He forced himself to look away and rejected the awareness that had started a dim, persistent throb in his pulse after the initial shock of seeing her in his office.
As he’d asked—or rather ordered—she’d kept her conversation limited to answering his questions, nothing about the past. He could do the same.
Stepping into Liz’s bedroom, Rafe took in the unmade full-size bed. Kit walked over and began pulling the leopard print sheet taut, straightening the matching comforter.
A black bra strap hung out of the top of one dresser drawer; three pairs of stiletto heels cluttered the space between the dresser and the wall.
“Are any of her clothes missing?”
Kit stepped over to take a quick look in the closet. “No, I don’t think so. And her suitcase is here.”
He nodded. “Who did Tony work for before he went to prison?”
“Another computer manufacturer. He worked with hardware back then, rather than software.”
“Any friends who kept in touch after he was put away?”
“Not that I know of.” Nervous energy poured off her. Her voice grew quieter with each answer.
Rafe could see that she was trying to stay out of his way. Regret stabbed at that, but he didn’t try to put her at ease. The more distance, the better. “Did Liz go see him?”
“Yes, at first. I don’t think she’s been in the last couple of months.”
In here, it was easier to pretend Kit was just another client. In here, there was no danger of running into the past they shared.
He followed her into the hallway, paused when she halted in front of an open closet that housed a washer and dryer. A laundry basket full of clothes jutted out, and Kit reached to move it out of the door’s path.
“Where does Liz work?”
“At a day-care center. It’s by the airport. We drive to work together sometimes.”
Rafe nodded, not sure how to define the strange heat that pushed under his ribs. Kit had become a woman he didn’t know; she had a life he knew nothing about.
“She’s had this job for more than two years, and I think she’s really getting her life together.”
Liz didn’t sound much different to him than she had when he’d known her ten years ago, but he said nothing. “What number was Tony? Which husband?”
Kit half-turned, eyeing him flatly.
“Number two, three, four?”
“Number three.” She flipped the tail of a shirt into the basket, then suddenly made a strangled sound. Her gaze shot to his.
“Kit?” He stepped toward her, concern spiraling through him. His gaze dropped to the basket then the shirt she fingered. At first he scanned for blood, something to explain why she’d gone so pale. Then he froze as he recognized the crimson-and-white basketball jersey.
His gaze locked on hers. Panic, disbelief, memory rippled across her features. Two bright spots of red crested her cheeks. His stomach flipped like it had the first time he’d taken up a fighter jet.
His thoughts wheeled back to the day after the Oklahoma University basketball team had made the NCAA playoffs. His college team hadn’t had practice that day; he had hoofed it back to the frat house, intending to shower and pick up Kit for supper. But she’d been waiting in his room, wearing his jersey—this jersey—and nothing else. Number twelve.
He swallowed hard, his gaze sliding over her before he could stop himself. Memories burst in his head like popping flashbulbs. The full curve of her breast peeking out from the deep-cut armhole of his jersey, the hem skimming the center of her smooth, bare thighs, the flush of shyness she’d never lost even though they’d been lovers for months.
That fast, he went hard. He could taste the sweet musk of her skin, smell his scent on her. His body quivered like a newly strung bow.
He sucked in a ragged breath, and his gaze went to hers. He saw the way her eyes darkened to purple, the pink that climbed her neck, the frantic tap of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. She remembered, too.
Every touch, every kiss, every whispered forever.
Her reaction only hollowed his gut, sheared the edge off any control he thought he possessed. Involuntarily, he stepped toward her. For one hellacious, gut-twisting instant he wanted to drag her to him, kiss her and prove to both of them that there was nothing left.
As if coming out of a trance, Kit jerked into motion. She shoved the basket against the washer face and shut the door.
“Is that—”
“No.” She flashed a brilliant smile, so brilliant it cut him to the core. “Looks like yours. Not yours.”
Bull. He was tempted to call her on it, but he resisted.
Where would that get them? Why had he thought he could ignore the past? Kit was his past. And he was good and pissed over her slingshotting back into his life. Hell.
Rafe clenched his teeth against the razor-edged desire that slashed through him.
Remember, he ordered, trying to escape the grasping hands of memory, of want, pulling at him. Ruthlessly he dredged up the rejection he’d felt when Kit had refused his marriage proposal. When he’d said forever, he’d meant it; she hadn’t.
“What about friends? Tony’s friends?” he asked quickly, his voice rough, the words scraping his throat.
“Can you think of anyone who might let Tony and Liz stay with them? Anyone who might hide them or know where they’ve gone?”
“No,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “Maybe you can ask his parents—”
His cell phone jangled, and Rafe grabbed at it like a drowning man going for a rescue line. “Yeah,” he said, almost ashamed at the enormous relief that rolled through him.
It was Porter, and as the cop spoke, Rafe’s jaw clenched tighter. The ambivalence he’d tried to shake off seconds ago surged back. Displeasure merged with concern. And his protective instinct, always deeper and stronger with Kit, roared to irritating life.
“Thanks, Kent.” He disconnected, his hand curling over the phone. “We’d better get going if we want to make it back from Davis before midnight.”
She started, taking a step toward him. Her soft scent curled around him. “What? You want me to go? Hel-lo! Just two hours ago you flat out told me you didn’t want me along on this case.”
Rafe exhaled and turned to fully face her. “That was before I talked to my buddy at the OCPD.”
She frowned.
“He says the officer investigating Liz’s accident believed she wasn’t paying attention to her driving. That her accident wasn’t deliberate.”
“But—”
“I’ve dealt with this officer before, and I don’t trust his judgement,” Rafe said baldly. “Neither does Kent.”
“Are you saying you believe what Liz told me? That someone ran her off the road?”
“I’m saying…” He gentled his voice. “I don’t like the odds, Kit.”
“So Tony was right,” she murmured.
“Maybe. Kent said he also might have an idea about this Alexander person. And…”
“And what?” Anxiety pulled at her features.
He hated dumping all this on her at once, but she deserved to know what they might be up against. “I noticed a car behind me on the way over here. The same car, three different times.”
She shook her head. “What—”
“It’s possible you’re being tailed. I’ll know better when we leave here.”
“Tony was right about that, too?” She sagged against the wall, her features wan and suddenly ravaged by fatigue.
Compassion and protectiveness swept through him. His first impulse was to put an arm around her, but he stayed where he was, giving her time to absorb it.
She stood quietly for a few moments, her fingers thrusting repeatedly through her hair. Fear, uncertainty skipped across her features then resignation. She straightened, her voice shaky. “I guess we’d better get going.”
“You all right?”
“Yes.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Rafe couldn’t stop the hard squeeze in his chest.
Fighting the vortex of memories, the emotion sucking at him, he pivoted and walked out of the room. “On our way out of town, I’ll drop off these photos and have some copies made.”
He didn’t like the concern for her that chewed at him. He wanted space, needed it; instead he was spending the next three to four hours with her.
“Tomorrow I’ll take Tony’s computer to the office, see if my contact can salvage anything useful off there. I’ll also check out Tony’s current employer and his parole officer.”
She nodded and followed him into the hallway, still looking shell-shocked.
“Could you write down the name of anyone else who might’ve been implicated in the scam he pulled, anyone who testified against him?”
“Sure,” she said faintly.
His body humming with frustration and remembered passion, Rafe waited on the lawn while she locked the front door, then walked toward his car. She halted uncertainly at the edge of the driveway.
His gaze shot between her car and his. It would be dark soon, but he’d made the drive south between Oklahoma City and Davis many times. The Department of Public Safety was more tolerant of his night blindness than the United States Air Force had been. Besides, he needed something to occupy his hands and his mind. Needed a release for the energy seething inside him, needed to feel the raw power of the ’Vette beneath him. “We’ll take mine,” he said gruffly.
She moved to the passenger side and opened the door before he could. Once inside, she shut her door with a loud click.
Gripping his keys so tightly they bit into his palm, Rafe walked to the driver’s side. Maybe he didn’t need to take her to Davis. Maybe she’d be safe here. But could he risk it?
No. He slid behind the wheel and started the car, leashing the resentment churning inside him. He could tell himself he might feel the same caution for any client who was possibly being tailed by the mob, but this wasn’t just any client. This was Kit.
And as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t deny that seeing his old jersey had hit him hard. Or why.
The connection he and Kit had shared had been deeper than any he’d ever had. An ember had ignited in the secret part of him only ever occupied by Kit. A part he’d thought erased by years and resentment.
Inches away from her, webbed by her faint scent and the torturous images that had seared his brain moments before, Rafe knew she still owned that tiny place inside him. He hated that little revelation, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that she might also be in danger. So much for avoiding his past.
Chapter 3
Arousal fired little points along her nerves. Rafe had nearly kissed her. Even now, hours later on the return trip to Oklahoma City from Davis, that thought hammered through Kit’s mind. With every pulsing sense in her, she wished he had.
Thank goodness he hadn’t.
Smoky midnight swirled around them. Phil Collins crooned on Rafe’s state-of-the-art car stereo. Kit ran a hand over the Corvette’s buttery soft tan leather seat, not surprised that Rafe drove such a speedster. He’d always said he had a need for speed. As they traveled north on I-35, leaving behind the south side of Oklahoma City, lights from the highway and roadside businesses flashed by in a blur. For the late hour, there was still a fair amount of traffic.
She glanced over her shoulder, as she had every couple of minutes since they’d lost the tail outside her neighborhood a few hours ago.
It wasn’t the dread of seeing another car following them that had her nerves feeling raw and exposed. It wasn’t the compact space and tight lines of the Corvette’s interior that made her feel…cornered. Or the fact that Rafe had barely spoken since they’d left Tony’s parents. It was the way Rafe’s body heat formed a wall against her arm, the way his dark, rich scent stroked her senses.
It was the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about that split second in the hallway when memories had crashed over both of them, when naked hunger had tautened Rafe’s features.
Only he had ever looked at her that way. Other men had said they wanted her, but none of them had ever looked at her as if they had to have her. For that one heartbeat of time, she’d wanted to fall into his arms, call back what they’d shared. And that was dangerous.
She was no more willing to give up her independence now than she had been in college. At fourteen, she’d been handling responsibilities most women didn’t handle until they were twenty-one, and she wasn’t going to give that up. Couldn’t, really.
The truth was she’d never gotten close to any man, until Rafe. Or since Rafe, she thought ruefully, staring over her shoulder again.
Her gaze shifted to his chiseled profile then dropped to his mouth. During their trip to Davis and the visit with Tony’s parents, she’d managed to dodge thoughts of that near kiss. But now…
Her nerves were shot, and she’d been in Rafe’s company less than twelve hours. Again she turned, searching the play of shadow and streetlights for a car that might have been behind them too long.
“I can’t believe I was really being followed,” she murmured, wishing she weren’t so aware of his lean fingers on the steering wheel, the broad hand that rested on his jeans-clad thigh.
He changed lanes, a smile in his voice. “If you’re going to look for a tail, it’s best if you aren’t too obvious.”
“Oh.” She faced front.
“Keep an eye out either by looking in your rearview or your side mirror.”
Her gaze sliced to the right. Illuminated by the high-powered roadside lighting, the side mirror showed a beat-up pickup pulling a horse trailer and following some distance behind. A sporty red car passed them on the left. “Maybe you could teach me some things. I mean, about how to spot a tail and how to lose one.”
“Sure.” Was it her imagination or did his voice tighten?
He’d been reserved since they’d left her house, answering questions when she asked, but not making conversation. She should probably follow his lead.
The effortless way he’d lost the men who followed them reassured Kit. And grated on her at the same time.
As long as she was with him, she didn’t have to worry that she would lead Alexander’s men anywhere, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t be with Rafe all the time.
Her body thrummed with awareness of his rich, earthy scent. She fixed her gaze on the side mirror, glad when they exited onto I-235 North in the center of the city.
Seeing his old basketball jersey had affected her like a kick to the stomach. Brought back the memory of the look on his face when he’d found her in that shirt so long ago. Surprise, then a slow-curling, wicked smile as he’d tumbled her onto his rumpled bed. That had been the first, and only, time she’d initiated their lovemaking.
At the memory, her cheeks heated and she shifted against the smooth leather at her back. “So, did you believe Tony’s parents? You really think they don’t know where he is?”
“Yes. If Valentine’s parents had seen him, I think they would’ve been nervous, evaded my questions. Plus I checked around outside while you stayed inside with them. There were no signs that anyone had been there. And I don’t think they faked the concern they feel for Tony and Liz. Or their anger at Tony.”
“I was really hoping we’d learn something down there.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Now what do we do?”
“Like I said, I’ll check on the computer we found at Tony’s place. I’ll talk to his employer and parole officer tomorrow.”
“I want to come along.” She half-turned to face him in the car, lacing her fingers together against the urge to touch him. Thank goodness, they were nearly at her house. “I know I can help, if you’ll just let me.”
Regardless of his answer, she didn’t plan to sit around waiting on him to learn something and call her with a daily report.
“We’ve already been over this.”
“What if you don’t find them? I will have done nothing to help Liz and I can’t live with that. I stayed out of your way at the Valentines and you are the one who wanted me to go.”
He sighed, running a hand over his face. “That was for your safety.”
“And what if I’m still being followed?”
“We’ll deal with it.”
“I really need to do something.” Then grudgingly, “Please?”
His jaw set as he exited the highway and headed west on Wilshire toward May Avenue. Heavier traffic zoomed along these streets than had been on the highway. At one point, he swerved sharply, reminding Kit that he’d done the same thing about an hour ago. He must’ve been trying to miss an animal or a pothole.
“What about your work schedule? Are you flying out anywhere in the next couple of days?”
“No. I called in yesterday.” Had it really been only a day and a half since Liz had disappeared with Tony? “I’ve built up a few weeks of vacation and my boss said I should take some time.”
“At least I won’t have to worry about where you are and I can concentrate solely on finding your sister.”
So glad I could help. Kit bit back the sarcastic words.
How had he gone from flying for the Air Force to this job? She didn’t ask. It was better not to know about the life he’d made without her.
Her mind and body ached from trying to deny how much she’d wanted him earlier. If Rafe sensed she couldn’t get past that, he’d be out of here so fast she wouldn’t know what happened.
He swung into her driveway and killed the engine. “I want to check your house again for bugs.”
“You didn’t find anything before.” She paused with her hand on the door handle.
“Don’t you wonder where those guys went after I shook their tail?”
She should have. She hadn’t.
“It’s possible they came back here, installed a little something to make sure they could keep track of you.”
“All right.” After getting out of the car, she moved up the sidewalk and onto the porch in front of him. He stayed close, close enough that she could feel him at her back. She swallowed against the way her nape prickled. She unlocked the door and waited for him to enter first.
She felt so out of her league with all this stuff, and Rafe acted as though it were second nature. When—how—had he learned to do investigative work? Obviously he needed to know these things for his current job. She knew he probably wouldn’t welcome her questions so she kept her mouth shut, walked in behind him and closed the door.
He motioned for her to turn on the light then the stereo, so she did, keeping the volume at a moderate level. The deep voice of a local DJ boomed out of the receiver before whiskey-voiced Chris Isaak began to sing about doing a bad, bad thing.
Inserting the earpiece into his left ear, Rafe headed down the hallway. His gaze was narrowed and his nostrils flared in a way that Kit had never seen.
He looked like a…predator, dangerous, unfamiliar. Kit couldn’t stop the spike of excitement in her blood pressure.
From what he’d told her at Tony’s, she knew that this time he would start at the back of her house and work his way to where they’d come in. He moved first to her bedroom, then Liz’s, turning in a slow circle in each room. Kit followed slowly, trying to ignore the slow roll of his hips, the ripple of muscle beneath the khaki T-shirt.
He made quick work of the bathroom and gave her a thumbs-up. She let out a sigh of relief. She could not handle knowing someone was watching her in the bath.
Her gaze locked on his hands. Strong, gentle hands sprinkled with a faint dusting of dark hair. Surrounded by the seductive bass of Chris Isaak, Kit found herself swamped by memories of those hands on her body, stroking, teasing, pleasing.
She wrapped her arms around her middle and forced herself to watch Rafe, to pay closer attention to the pictures on the walls, to the light switches, the blades of the ceiling fan, just as he did.
When he walked through the living room toward the kitchen, he halted abruptly. Pressing the earpiece close to his ear, he listened intently. He prowled the perimeter of her kitchen, returned to the living room. She moved to the sofa, feeling along the cushions, inside the lampshade, her gaze going questioningly to his. He nodded, those lean fingers edging around the casing of the wall phone as he glanced at the bug detector he held.
He reached up to slide a hand along the blades of the ceiling fan, and his T-shirt rode up to expose sleek brown skin. When he stretched, muscle flexed across his flat belly, drawing her eye to the waistband of his snug jeans.
She straightened, pulling her gaze away to scan the room, telling herself to keep searching for audio or video equipment, though she hardly knew what to look for. Rafe moved to the wall, studied the air-conditioner return where the wall met the ceiling. He ran a finger along each pleated opening of the vent, then moved away, seemingly satisfied.
Once again his gaze traveled the room, pausing on the sofa.
He went from relaxed alertness to rigid readiness. Her gaze followed his as he looked down at the tool he carried and she saw a green LED flash. Rafe slipped the bug detector into the back pocket of his jeans. With a few silent strides, he passed in front of her and stopped at the sofa, close enough that she could feel the warmth from his body.
Dread pinched at her.
He turned, wrapping his fingers around her elbow. The heat that shot up her arm barely registered as he drew her gaze to the sofa.
He pointed, and she stared for a moment without realizing what she looked at. Then…instead of the dark plaid-covered sofa button she expected to see, she saw a flat black button. Not a button, a bug. A listening device.
She turned, shock rippling through her. “Can they hear—”
He hauled her to him, his mouth crashing down on hers.
Kit stiffened, her eyes going wide. Hot, hard lips moved over hers as a shock wave jolted her body. Then she sagged against him. Just a little.
Half-formed thoughts tumbled around in her head. She might’ve imagined it, but for an instant she thought his lips softened, coaxing the strength out of her the way they used to. He lifted his head, his dark gaze smoldering on her lips then lifting to her eyes.
She blinked, swaying. A breathy sound escaped her, and a flush darkened Rafe’s skin.
He leaned toward her, and she couldn’t form one rational thought. Just… Oh, yes.
Then his breath burned her ear, sent a shiver down her spine. “Don’t talk.”
Talk? She couldn’t breathe. Her hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms.
He skimmed his lips up her temple, back down to her ear. She began to tremble. And reason kicked in. She pushed at his chest; his hands tightened on her upper arms.
Again he whispered, barely audible, “That’s a bug. Play along.”
Aloud, he said, “Ten years and you can still do this to me.”
His voice spilled over her like heated oil, torching a desire she’d buried too long. She knew it wasn’t real, knew he didn’t mean anything by it. Still her fingers curled into his T-shirt; she needed something to steady her legs.
His lips skimmed hers again. His hands smoothed down her back, flexed at her waist. Kit fought the urge to push away. She understood that he was playing for their unseen audience, but she shuddered anyway.
His lips came back to her ear, heat inching under her skin. “I found the camera, too. On the wall, four o’clock.”
Why was he talking about the time? Oh, he meant somewhere on the wall. A deep breath sawing out of her, she turned her head to the right.
Long fingers captured her jaw, gently forced her head to his. Black eyes seared hers, and he whispered against her lips, “Sorry, my four o’clock.”
She nodded dumbly, her body pulsing almost painfully.
His hands curved over her hips, and his voice rumbled out. “I am so ready for you.”
It was all an act for whoever was watching and listening, but it didn’t feel like acting to Kit. Still, she struggled to catch up, to be as cool as he was.
His eyes might be distant, but there was a flush beneath his skin. His breathing was slightly uneven.
He curled one knuckle under her chin, tilting her face toward his. “It’s been a long time,” he groaned. “Too long.”
To whoever watched, it probably appeared that they were kissing again. Kit lifted her head, her lips brushing his. Needles of heat slid under her skin. She forced herself to follow his gaze to the left, searching for the camera.
Rafe kissed her cheek, her temple. Her heart ached with a strange combination of sadness and anger as she struggled to pretend, the way he was.
This close there was no way he could miss the way her nipples had hardened and heat—of embarrassment, of arousal—flushed her body.
He breathed in her ear again. “The camera’s in the light knob.”
Her hands flexed involuntarily, bunching his shirt as her gaze shifted to the round knob on the wall that controlled the overhead light and ceiling fan. She tried to focus on what he said, but all she could think was she wanted him to kiss her again. For real, this time.
No, no, she desperately corrected. Where was her pride?
What pride? her conscience taunted. To even be here with him, she had to pretend she had none.
She could feel the power of his thighs bracketing hers, the flat, hard muscle of his belly, the lingering taste of his mint gum on her lips.
Tears stung her eyes, and Kit stiffened her spine. He felt it, trailed those wicked fingers up her back. His touch only fanned a languorous heat, and her irritation spiked. She didn’t like how he sent her pulse skyrocketing, didn’t like the way she ached to arch into him, wrap her body around his.
Resentment flared. Did he know how he was affecting her? Was he enjoying it? His voice was cool; his eyes weren’t. In a perverse need to find out if she could still affect him the way he did her, Kit slid her hands up his chest, around his neck and pressed full against him. She took a reckless satisfaction in seeing his eyes widen, feeling the sudden flex of his body against hers.
Going up on tiptoe, she whispered in his ear, “Now what?”
The satisfaction she felt was quickly squashed when he hauled her to him, one thigh insinuated between hers and pressing against the damp heat between her legs. Her hands clamped on to his shoulders for the sole purpose of support.
His gaze lasered into hers. He kissed her again, his mouth covering hers with ruthless purpose. Controlled deliberation. A warning to back off. Now.
It triggered something wild and angry inside her. Reacting on pure instinct, she slid one hand into his thick dark hair, curled the other around his strong, warm nape.
For a moment, he stiffened. Then his restraint snapped. His hands tunneled into her hair, gripping her head as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, claiming every part of her. She couldn’t think, didn’t want to.
It had been so long. He felt so good. Hard, hot male against her, his kiss seducing the strength from her legs. Her hands splayed across his back, pressing closer.
He pulled away, his breathing ragged, the muscles in his neck taut and straining. Surprise flickered in his eyes, then disappeared. “Get your things,” he rasped. “Let’s finish this at my place.”
She nodded, barely aware of moving down the hallway and into her room. With sweat-slicked palms, she dragged an overnight bag from the top of her closet and threw in a change of clothes, underwear. Heartbeat thundering against her ribs, she managed to remember her toothbrush and makeup.
Away from him, she could think. Yes, she needed to be away from him, she thought desperately as she dragged the back of her hand across her lips, still burning from his.
That kiss hadn’t felt like playacting to her. It had felt vividly, painfully real. Reminded her of what she’d thrown away.
When she returned to the front room, he reached for her, planting another kiss on her lips. But she felt the difference this time. This kiss was constrained, like the first one. Studied.
She tried to corral the sensations raging through her body. With one hot hand at her waist, Rafe guided her outside. She turned to lock the door, and he pressed close.
His chest felt like tempered steel against her shoulder blades. His body heat seared through the fabric of her dress. Throat tight, breasts tingling, she shut her eyes.
Only when she turned did she see that he wasn’t paying attention to her at all. He was checking out her porch light, studying the doorbell for signs of other bugs or another camera. Resentment shot through her, and she squashed the urge to knock him flat on his butt. He was doing a job, she ruthlessly reminded herself. He was here for Liz, not her. Not them. There was no them.
Still, how could he be so calm? She felt shaky, ready to shatter, and he looked fully in control. He was no longer flushed. His pulse beat slow and steady at the side of his neck whereas hers fluttered so rapidly she felt it in her throat.
He walked down the sidewalk and turned, waiting for her. Looking as unaffected as if he didn’t even know her, as if she hadn’t felt the hard swell of his arousal against her belly moments ago. It had meant nothing. It had been only for the people listening in on them.
Kit reminded herself of that at least twenty times on her way to his car. Trying to steady her thundering pulse, she walked to the opposite side of the Corvette. Across the car’s top, their eyes met.
“Sorry about that. The kiss, I mean.” He gestured toward the house with irritating nonchalance. “It was the quickest way I could think to stop you from announcing we’d found their bug and tipping them off about the camera.”
What was she supposed to say? Oh, it’s all right that you kissed the breath out of me. It wasn’t. She wondered if it was going to be.
“Sure. No problem.” Her voice caught, and she fought the urge to hide her face in her hands. “What do we do now?”
“You’re coming home with me.”
“But…” Panic clawed at her. “Is that a good idea?”
“You have a better one?”
“How about anywhere but there?” she drawled.
The glint of male satisfaction in his eyes had her clenching her jaw. “Wouldn’t it be better, safer if we—I went to a hotel?”
He slid her a look. “We can, but I can’t guarantee the security of a place like that the way I can my own house.”
“Of course.” The only thing she understood was that she needed to be away from him, and that wasn’t going to happen tonight.
His house. A dull throb built at the back of her head.
“Like it or not,” he said brusquely, “we’re stuck together.”
He obviously didn’t like it.
“And we both might as well get used to it. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we find that ditzy sister of yours.”
“You never did understand Liz,” she snapped. “Well, you don’t have to. You just have to find her.”
“That’s the plan,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Her glare went unremarked. Panic closed across her chest as she got into the Corvette. She told herself that finding Liz would be worth risking her heart again. Worth anything, but after that staged seduction scene, she wasn’t sure she was up for even five more minutes with Rafe Blackstock.
Chapter 4
Want clawed through him. As Kit ducked into the passenger side of his car, Rafe went down on all fours, then slid under the ’Vette. If there was a bug in her house, there was possibly something on his car or hers. At first glance, he saw nothing so he stretched his arm up and felt the undercarriage.
Blast her, she’d gotten him all hot and bothered in there, plastering her lush bod against his and issuing that silent but unmistakable challenge—I can make you want me, too.
That had never been the damn issue between them, just as it hadn’t been his real intent to fire her engines in there a minute ago. It had been instinct that had fueled the way he’d hauled her to him and silenced her with a kiss, instinct to keep her from announcing to their unseen audience that they’d found the bug and camera. Now he was paying the price because it had been pure want that exploded in his veins when she’d retaliated. Pure desire that had him pulling her to him, wanting to wrap both those long legs around his waist and say to hell with caution.
That was stupid, and he wouldn’t do it. Not just because he needed a clear mind in order to ascertain the danger Kit faced, if indeed there was danger, but also because he wasn’t giving her another chance to stomp all over his heart.
His mouth twisting, he tried to forget how she felt against him, how she’d surrendered to his kiss for just that one beat of time. There had never been any question of the sexual chemistry between them. Their problem—her problem—had been that she couldn’t commit. Her accusation that he was too controlling had been true at the time, but that hadn’t been the whole issue.
Sliding his hands along the lip of the car’s frame, he cursed the way his gut jumped at the remembered feel of her full breasts pressed against him, the wicked slide of her tongue against his, the deep wine taste of her.
More memories crowded through his mind, memories of their days together at OU, their nights, that time in the car on the way back from his parents’ place. Rafe slammed a mental door on those thoughts, ruthlessly turned his mind to the task at hand. Around one side of the car, then to the back and around the passenger side. His fingers grazed something. Aha.
He lay on his back and scooted under the car as far as he could. There it was, a little black box with a flashing red light. The bastards. Well, this proved someone was following her. Not that he needed more convincing after finding that bug and camera in her house. How serious these bad guys were had yet to be determined.
Rafe moved out from under the car and stood, walking up to Kit’s car. Her house was relatively old and didn’t have a garage. He’d probably find a tracking device on hers, too. Sure enough, he did.
She rolled down the window. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for tracking devices.”
“And?”
“There’s one on my car.” He knelt, felt around the wheel well, up along the lip of her frame, then moved around to the front of her car. “And there’s one on yours.”
He stood, dusting his hands. He’d been right to insist she come to his house tonight. Now all he had to do was keep his hands off her.
After easing into the driver’s seat, he took the tissue Kit offered and cleaned his hands as best he could.
“What do we do now?”
“Leave the device on your car. You won’t be using it.”
“What about the one on yours?” In the fading sunlight, she looked wan and worried.
He grinned. “We’ll dump it somewhere.”
She nodded, her blue-gray eyes searching his.
“It’ll be all right,” he said, compelled to reassure her.
“I hope Liz is, too.”
Rafe had no answer for that so he started the engine and backed the ’Vette out of Kit’s drive. He turned north on May Avenue and headed toward his house in Quail Creek. Amazing how close they lived to each other. Amazing they’d steered clear of each other until now.
She sat on her side of the car, arms crossed tightly. He figured she was probably still mad about his comments concerning Dizzy Lizzy. That was for the best. The more distance between them, the better.
Still, as he slid a look at her pale golden skin, the finely sculpted profile, his whole body tightened. In all fairness, their breakup hadn’t been entirely her fault. He’d blamed her all these years for not speaking up, but back then he had been too controlling, too insistent on his own way.
Even when he’d proposed, he hadn’t asked her to marry him; he’d simply told her she would and how they would live. The realization jolted him, and he jerked his gaze to the road. That had been a valid reason to turn him down. Besides her keen sense of family responsibility, had his control played a part in why she couldn’t commit to him? The only excuse he had for his domineering behavior was that he’d been young and stupid.
As she looked out the window at passing scenery, holding herself away from him, he realized it didn’t matter now. They’d gone their separate ways.
Spying a police cruiser up ahead, he changed lanes and pulled into the small parking lot of an all-night doughnut shop. She sent him a questioning look and he grinned, slid out of the car and moved around to remove the tracking device from the belly of the ’Vette.
He walked to the black and white, slapped it on the underside of the bumper and got back in his car.
Kit laughed. “That was good.”
“It’ll keep them busy for a while.”
“Until we get to your house?”
“Yeah.”
Her smile faded, and he recognized the shadows in her eyes as memories from the past. Memories she was fighting as much as he was. The silence stretched between them, stilted and unfinished. Regret pricked at him. He was swept with a sudden urge to touch her, reassure her, but about what? The past was past. Best to leave it alone.
He put the car in gear, reversed and pulled onto May Avenue. They drove in silence to his house. His life was markedly different from what he’d planned, even aside from Kit. She, on the other hand, still appeared to be her sister’s self-appointed rescuer.
Despite the years that had passed, Rafe wasn’t willing to play second fiddle to Dizzy Lizzy. Yes, the more distance the better. And that meant keeping his hands to himself. After that kiss, which even now rattled him, he knew she could still affect him like a neutron bomb. He couldn’t allow himself to get close to her again, not physically, not emotionally.
He’d have to protect her, find her sister without letting it become personal. They were over. They couldn’t go back; he wouldn’t go back.
For the fourth time in the last half hour, Kit rose from the supple, navy leather sofa in Rafe’s living room and walked toward the sliding patio doors. He had grilled chicken and vegetables for dinner; she’d cleaned up afterward. And thirty minutes ago, he’d invited her outside, but she’d thought it would be more prudent to stay inside. Away from him.
She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss at her house. It had completely ambushed her senses. And unleashed the curiosity that had been hammering at her since seeing him this morning.
Rafe’s finding that tracking device had convinced Kit that her sister was in danger, no matter what he said. She’d gotten a chuckle out of his putting it on the police cruiser. He was still so darn cute. Which she didn’t need to be thinking about, either.
Still, if they were going to be stuck together, she wanted to know how he’d gotten back to Oklahoma City. It had unsettled her to learn that they lived within five miles of each other and she hadn’t known it.
Finally, prodded by the curiosity she’d been trying all day to deny, she stepped through the sliding glass doors onto the patio and closed the door behind her.
Flagstone tile in variegated shades of cream and terra-cotta formed a far-reaching patio and framed a small rectangular pool. Potted plants in oversize ceramic planters guarded each corner. Bunches of petunias, begonias and other annuals spilled against a tall wooden privacy fence. A six-foot-wide border of grass edged the fence and butted up against the tile. The pool, covered with a blue tarp, waited to be filled with the first water of summer. Last week’s Memorial Day had surely been hot enough for swimmers.
Light from inside the house washed across the tile, shimmered off the cushioned lounge chairs around the pool. It was a perfect early summer night, growing cooler as the darkness swallowed the last of the sun. The stars burned bright in a velvet sky. Moonlight skittered across the patio, danced with the darkness. Kit squinted into the shadows.
“Over here.”
Rafe’s smoothly dark voice came from behind her and sent a shiver over her skin. She turned, rubbing her arms. She attributed the tightening of her belly to a sudden breeze, not the delicious timbre of his voice.
About ten feet to her right, she saw the silhouette of his upper body. The muted glow of house lights behind him played against his raven hair. Broad shoulders, seemingly carved from the night, rose from the water of a hot tub. Steam curled around him, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw he had leaned back against the wall of the hot tub, arms spread on either side, waiting, watching. Aggressive, male, primally appealing. He was familiar, and yet not. Her knowledge of the boy bumped into the mystery of the man.
She swallowed against the purely feminine flutter in her stomach and squashed the urge to scurry back into the house.
“If you want to join me, there’s an extra suit over there.” He inclined his head toward a storage closet partially visible in the shadowed alcove behind him, which also housed a grill and a picnic table. His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Or you can go without. I won’t be offended.”
To cover the sudden dip in her stomach, she retorted, “Yeah, that’s why I came out here. To get naked with you.”
He chuckled, and she found herself smiling. He was over there; she was over here. She was safe.
Still, that kiss from this afternoon was fresh in her mind, and the feel of that lean hard body against hers had opened the floodgate on memories that were better ignored.
“You sure you don’t want to join me?”
“Yes,” she murmured, wondering what he would do if she actually climbed in there with him.
“Pull up a chair or scoot over and dip your feet in. Feels pretty good.” He swirled a hand through the water invitingly, stirring moonlight and shadows around his bare, glistening chest.
She hoped he had something on beneath that water. He’d done his share of skinny-dipping in college.
“You’ve got a real bachelor setup here. The hot tub, the pool, the extra suit.” She couldn’t keep the bite out of her voice.
“People leave things,” he said with a shrug.
Which answered nothing. She itched to slip off her shoes and stick her feet in the warm water, but she knew it would be safer to stay dressed, keep some distance between them. Rafe, even without the seductive softness of night, had always been able to make her do things she regretted later. Like kissing him back there at her house.
Forcing the words past her tight throat, she asked, “So, where do we start tomorrow?”
She glanced over as he ran a wet hand through his dark hair, muscles flexing in his biceps with the movement. “We’ll stop at Tony’s parole officer first, see if he’s heard from him at all. Then we’ll pay a visit to Tony’s employer.”
Kit nodded.
“Was that what you really wanted to know, Kit?”
She jerked her head toward him. “What?”
“You’ve got curiosity written all over you. Just ask me.”
She ground her teeth. How could he still read her so easily, after all these years?
Water bubbled gently around him. His black eyes glittered at her.
“Now you believe me about Liz, right? After finding that tracking device.”
“I believe someone’s after you and I believe that’s tied to your sister. I don’t know how dangerous they are.”
She knew he didn’t believe her that Liz had changed. That was all right. It didn’t matter what he thought. He only needed to find her sister.
Kit walked to the edge of the pool, her hands clasped behind her back. “How did you get to Oklahoma City, Rafe? What happened to the Air Force? The fighter jets?”
He went abruptly still. She could feel it even from this distance. She glanced over, noted the rigid set of his wide shoulders, the way even the water seemed to stop moving.
He tilted his head back, stared at the star-studded sky. Moonlight slid down the column of his long throat. “I developed night blindness. Botched a landing, and the requisite exam showed a pretty severe case.”
“Night blindness?” She stepped toward him. That explained his sudden swerving on the way to Davis and again on the way back. “Are you okay? How severe?”
“Not so severe I can’t drive,” he said dryly. “But I can’t fly jets, that’s for sure. At least not for the Air Force.”
“I had no idea.” She found herself at the edge of the hot tub, looking at his face, half hidden in shadows. “I know how much you wanted that.”
“I had six years, and they were great.” He reached for the towel behind him and stood, water sluicing down his body. His hard-muscled, naked body.
Her eyes widened and she whirled around. “You could give a girl some warning.”
“I suppose. You know I don’t generally wear a suit.” There was a tightness in his voice that made Kit ache deep inside.
She’d forgotten that he liked to do things in the nude. He’d never been as concerned about his nakedness as she had been about hers. She remembered the time they’d gone skinny-dipping at the university pool after hours. How their splashing and teasing had turned to stroking, their water-slicked bodies sliding hotly against each other.
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Debra Cowan
The woman standing in Rafe Blackstock's office was beautiful–unforgettably beautiful–and desperate for his help. But this wasn't just another client who needed a private investigator. This was the only woman he'd ever loved–the one who'd walked away from him without a backward glance, so many years ago….Kit Foley's troubled younger sister was missing, and she was willing to do anything to find her–even turn to the man she'd spent such a long time trying to forget. But their search for answers was proving to be even more dangerous than she'd feared–because it meant facing the truth of a love that had never died….
“Do you really believe we can put the past behind us and work together?” Kit whispered. “Do you really believe we can be friends again?”
Rafe stared into her eyes for a long moment, then lifted a hand and stroked her hair, his palm brushing her cheek. “Yes, I believe it.” But his body tensed, and his eyes darkened. Was she asking too much of him? Could she even do it herself?
“Friends…” he murmured, his gaze devouring her. His hand slipped around her nape, urging her toward him. He was going to kiss her….
But then he stopped, looking dazed. “Bad idea,” he said in a choked voice.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Bad.”
Kit wanted to scream. Friends? Was she kidding herself? Attraction still simmered between them, an attraction she had to fight. She couldn’t get involved with Rafe Blackstock again.
She’d never gotten over him the first time.
Dear Reader,
Happy New Year! And happy reading, too—starting with the wonderful Ruth Langan and Return of the Prodigal Son, the latest in her newest miniseries, THE LASSITER LAW. When this burned-out ex-agent comes home looking for some R and R, what he finds instead is a beautiful widow with irresistible children and a heart ready for love. His love.
This is also the month when we set out on a twelve-book adventure called ROMANCING THE CROWN. Linda Turner starts things off with The Man Who Would Be King. Return with her to the island kingdom of Montebello, where lives—and hearts—are about to be changed forever.
The rest of the month is terrific, too. Kylie Brant’s CHARMED AND DANGEROUS concludes with Hard To Tame, Carla Cassidy continues THE DELANEY HEIRS with To Wed and Protect, Debra Cowan offers a hero who knows the heroine is Still the One, and Monica McLean tells us The Nanny’s Secret. And, of course, we’ll be back next month with six more of the best and most exciting romances around.
Enjoy!
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
Still the One
Debra Cowan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DEBRA COWAN
Like many writers, Debra made up stories in her head as a child. Her B.A. in English was obtained with the intention of following family tradition and becoming a schoolteacher, but after she wrote her first novel, there was no looking back. After years of working another job in addition to writing, she now devotes her full time to penning both historical and contemporary romances. An avid history buff, Debra enjoys traveling. She has visited places as diverse as Europe and Honduras, where she and her husband served as part of a medical mission team. Born in the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, Debra still lives in her native Oklahoma with her husband and their two beagles, Maggie and Domino.
Debra invites her readers to contact her at P.O. Box 30123, Coffee Creek Station, Edmund, OK 73003-0003 or via e-mail at her Web site at http://www.oklahoma.net/~debcowan.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest thanks to the following:
Ken and Lisa Gonzales for their help
with Colorado detail; Dr. Lee Warren, M.D.,
Chief Resident, Department of Neurosurgery
(thanks, cuz!); Vickie Taylor for hooking me up
with her brother, a great source of information;
and Captain Scott Spears, USAF.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 1
“What the—” Rafe Blackstock stopped cold in the doorway of his private investigations office. “Kit?”
The slender woman turned. Though her thick mink-dark hair was short now, her eyes were still the same unusual slate blue he remembered and deep with the same wariness, the same uncertainty as the last time he’d seen her. “In the flesh.”
“I’ll say.” On this perfect June Sunday, he’d walked right in on his past, and his past looked darn good. Her faint musky scent squeezed his lungs.
His breath jammed somewhere under his ribs, but Rafe walked in and shut the door as if he hadn’t just had the wind knocked out of him. He was disoriented, his head swam, and he had to remind himself where he was. Oklahoma City, not Norman. Not standing ten years deep in yesterdays.
He didn’t know whether to shake her hand or hug her, so he simply stood there, arms hanging limply at his sides.
She gave him an uncertain smile. “Hello.”
“Hey.”
Kit Foley, who’d been his first love, who’d broken his heart and walked away. Kit, whom he’d thought he would never forget. She was here. Ten years older, beautiful in the way a woman becomes when she grows into her skin, her identity. It hurt his chest to look at her.
This case—her case—was the reason his office manager, Nita Howard, had paged him on Lake Arcadia about a missing persons case, why he’d put down that brand-new fiber-glass rod.
Kit’s dark-rimmed eyes paused hungrily on his features. Her voice went soft and shy, the way it did when she was in an uncertain situation. “It’s been a long time.”
No kidding. And Rafe suddenly felt every day of those long years in the wary pull of his muscles, the way her smoke-and-honey voice still stroked up his spine like warm fingers. Resentment, disbelief, unwelcome pleasure fused inside.
Kit. He couldn’t stop his gaze from sliding down her body, the way his hands had done numerous times. “Lookin’ good.”
She blushed. “You, too.”
Her coltish figure had rounded out, the angular edges of her hips now soft, her waist nipped in tightly. Her breasts were fuller, curving beneath the short-sleeved, cotton floral dress she wore. The wavy dark brown hair that had once reached the middle of her back was a shiny wedge that came just below her delicate ears. The style sharpened her cheekbones, highlighted her perfectly straight nose.
She was stunning. Her wide, dark-lashed eyes were bright with unshed tears, he realized, as her troubled gaze sought his.
“I need you—your help.”
I need you. His muscles clenched against those words. In the end, she hadn’t wanted to need him, had wanted to stand on her own. She’d proven that by walking away.
He thought he’d forgotten how shattered he’d been when she refused to marry him the day before his college graduation. Thought he’d forgotten how pain had closed over him with brittle frigidity when she’d stammered that she couldn’t leave her family responsibilities. Couldn’t live with the way he took total control. She wanted a partner, not someone who made decisions without her.
Feeling as off balance as the day the Air Force had permanently grounded him from flying, Rafe walked around her to his desk. He felt a foolish urge to ask Nita to come in, but his office manager had left as soon as he arrived.
Kit’s voice trembled, edgy and staccato. “I’m sure I’m the last person you want to see…. I didn’t know where else to turn.”
She was certainly the last person he’d expected to see. That old familiar awareness throbbed to stilted life. “How did you find me?”
“Um, this.” She pulled a black pocketbook from her purse and slid out a neatly folded piece of newspaper. She handed it to him. “I saw this about three years ago.”
Rafe skimmed it, his gaze going to hers as he realized it was the article the Associated Press had picked up on him. Two weeks after Rafe had left the Air Force, a child belonging to a major in Rafe’s old Air Force detail had been kidnapped by the major’s estranged wife. Rafe had set out on a one-man mission to find the child and succeeded. He’d also testified in the subsequent custody trial. The local paper had done a story, which had been picked up by AP.
Kit had seen the article. And kept it. Not knowing what to think about that, not wanting to think anything, Rafe handed it back to her.
She smiled uncertainly, slid the clipping in her pocket-book. “I called Kevin to see where you were and he told me. I found your phone number in the book.”
He’d spoken to Kevin Strong just yesterday, and his college roommate hadn’t mentioned a thing about Kit. Rafe made a mental note to tell his friend not to be so free with information.
Still not believing she was here, he cleared his throat. “How are you?”
“Fine.” She shoved a thick lock of hair off her forehead, giving a sharp laugh. “Well, not really. That’s why I’m here.”
Rafe tried to dodge the images that crashed over him—the throatiness of her laugh, the sleek feel of her body against his, the tight perfection of his inside her. She’d been his first love. Even if he told himself he’d forgotten her, he hadn’t.
Whatever had happened, he couldn’t take this case. Right now that was the only clear thing in his mind, but still he couldn’t deny a burning curiosity to find out what she’d been doing the last ten years, where she’d been.
“I can pay. Or…I guess I should ask about your fee.”
“We’ll work that out.” Was she married? Divorced? Children?
He didn’t want to ask or even acknowledge the questions ricocheting through his mind, didn’t want to admit to the heat that squeezed his chest at the thought of her with another man. He’d moved on.
He knew their relationship on her side had never been as committed as it had on his. After so long, it shouldn’t make him wince that it had taken him an entire year to get rid of her engagement ring. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Liz.” She hesitated then said, “She’s missing.”
“Again?”
“Don’t start, Rafe. This is serious.”
“With your sister?” He arched a brow. “Since when?”
She gave him a flat stare.
“You’re sure she didn’t hook up with some guy at a bar?”
“I’m sure,” she said tightly. “She’s not like that anymore.”
Rafe couldn’t even imagine such a transformation, but neither could he ignore the panic in Kit’s eyes.
Indicating the straight-backed chair in front of his desk, he eased himself down into his own overstuffed gray leather chair, grateful for the support at his back. “Tell me what happened.”
Instead of sitting, she began to pace. Her soft cotton dress curled around her calves and clung to her lithe body, molding her perfect breasts. Rafe forced his gaze to her face, picked up a pen and pulled a legal-size notepad over to him.
“Can I get you something? Water, a Coke?” He was amazed at how calm he sounded, especially when he wanted to ask a million questions. Do you still live in Tulsa? What have you been doing? Do you ever regret turning me down?
She flashed him a tremulous smile, but her worry was tangible. “No, thanks.”
He’d smelled this same raw desperation before in each of the twenty missing persons cases he’d solved.
“I’m a flight attendant for TransAmerica. Yesterday morning, I returned from a layover in Miami. I had a message, only thirty minutes old, from the hospital on my answering machine. The nurse said Liz had been in a car wreck.” Kit dragged an unsteady hand through her hair. Fatigue and worry drew her features taut, flattened the sweet curve of her full lips. “I raced over, but when I got there, Liz was gone.”
“Did you check at the nurses’ station? Maybe she—”
Kit shot him a look. “Of course. They told me they wanted to keep her overnight for observation, but she’d left with her husband, Tony Valentine.”
“Liz is married?”
“No. Yes. Supposed to be getting a divorce.”
“Ah.”
Kit’s dark glare skewered him.
“And you?”
She blinked. “Me?”
“Married?”
“No.” The word practically exploded from her.
Yes, that sounded like the Kit he knew. His mouth twisted, despite the satisfaction curling through him.
She shoved a hand through her hair again, then clasped her hands together. “Anyway, Liz just up and left with Tony.”
Which was just like Dizzy Lizzy Foley, Rafe reminded himself. “Maybe she got back together with her ex.”
“She lives with me. I would’ve known.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to tell you. She used to take off with one man or another a lot.”
“Something’s happened,” Kit said stiffly. “Liz wouldn’t just go off like this.”
“What about that time she ran off with the high school quarterback? Stephen Hankins?” Rafe reminded her.
“They were in Mexico, plastered on margaritas and begging a priest to marry them when you found her.”
That had been right after the death of Rafe’s grandfather. Kit had come home with him for the funeral, then left before it even started to chase after her sister. Again. Resentment curled through him. He thought he’d forgotten about that. Apparently not.
“So you won’t help me?” Kit stopped in front of his desk, anger snapping in her eyes.
He kept his gaze on her, refusing to dwell on the protective urge that shot through him. “She is an adult and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of foul play.”
“She called me this morning, terrified.”
He tapped a finger on his desk. “What did she say? Did she go with Tony willingly?”
“She said she couldn’t talk long because the call could be traced. She told me she was all right, that she’d be calling me later to wire some money.”
“To where?”
“She’s going to let me know. In the meantime, I can get some money together.”
Rafe bit off the sharp comment that rose to his lips and said gently, “It doesn’t sound as if she’s in trouble, Kit.”
She inhaled deeply, her eyes fluttering shut briefly. “She is.”
Whether Liz was in trouble or not, he could see Kit believed she was. Using his most soothing tone, he put himself on automatic pilot, which he should’ve done from the beginning. “Talk to me.”
Her hands, on top of his desk, fisted. Then unfisted, fisted. “Tony, her husband, was in prison for a computer scam and he was released about two weeks ago.”
Rafe held up a hand. “Wait a minute. Liz married a computer guy?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t go for computer guys.”
“She did.”
“He’s not into sports at all? Doesn’t play basketball or drive race cars or something?”
“No.” Kit tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I told you she’s changed.”
Evidently not enough, Rafe thought.
Walking to the opposite wall, Kit halted in front of a vintage black-and-white photograph of turn-of-the-century Oklahoma City. She wrapped both slender arms around her waist. “Tony got a job, was really trying to get his life straightened out.”
Her tongue darted out to moisten her rose lips.
Rafe’s belly drew up at the sight of that tongue, and he glanced down, scrawling some notes.
“I’m not sure I understand it all myself,” she said.
“When Liz called, I told her to put Tony on so he could tell me what was happening. Evidently he was sent to prison for manipulating stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange, making some money for a friend in serious financial trouble. Tony told me that while he was in prison, a man contacted him, a man with ties to organized crime.”
“Did he give you a name?”
“Alexander.”
“First or last name?” Rafe’s gaze tracked Kit’s agitated movements across his plush burgundy carpet.
“He didn’t say.” She surreptitiously swiped at a tear, and Rafe’s heart squeezed. She hated crying, hated even more for people to see it. Pulling a piece of paper from the side pocket of her purse, she passed it to Rafe. “Liz left this for me at the hospital.”
Rafe took the note, read the curvy scrawl. The mob’s after us. I’ll call.
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Liz’s dramatics.
Kit went on, “This man wanted Tony to pull the same scam for him on the prison computer, but Tony said he refused. Alexander threatened to hurt Liz if Tony didn’t do what he wanted. Tony said that man—” She halted, her shoulders sagging.
Concern had Rafe’s fingers curling into the arms of his chair. During that intense year they’d dated, he’d seen Kit cry only once, and it hadn’t been the day they’d broken up. It had been the day she’d heard that her sister had eloped with the local hockey team’s goalie. That had been marriage number one. He wasn’t sure what number Tony, the computer guy, was.
Rafe knew he shouldn’t touch Kit, but he rose, walked around his desk and settled his hand on her shoulder anyway, trying to discount the way she leaned slightly into his touch, the way her body heat shot straight up his arm.
She kept her head averted. Her musky scent slid into his lungs, knotting him up with regret and awareness. His hand was mere inches from the creamy flesh of her throat, the warm cleft where her neck and shoulder met, where he used to—
Get a grip. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?”
“No, thanks.” She dragged in a deep breath, then went on in a wobbly voice that mangled his insides. “Tony said Alexander was responsible for Liz’s accident, that he made it happen.”
“Where was it?”
“Just north of One Fiftieth Street on Western. There’s a hard curve there.”
He nodded. “On the edge of Edmond city limits. I’m familiar with it.”
Just two weeks ago, a man had made the local news for taking that curve too fast and flipping his car forty feet into the ravine below. Liz could’ve done the same thing.
“So,” Kit said, “Tony did what Alexander wanted while he was in prison.”
“Using the prison’s computer? How long did it take the warden to catch him?”
“Never.”
Rafe’s eyes widened.
She glanced over. “He’s that good, Rafe. A computer guru.”
He nodded, prompting her. “But when he got out, Tony refused to help Alexander?”
“Yes.”
“So you think Liz’s accident was deliberate. And now she’s disappeared with Tony. I can see why you’re concerned,” Rafe said gently. With some surprise, he recognized a flare of anger. Liz was always pulling stunts, putting Kit through all kinds of hell and expecting her to ride to the rescue. “Doesn’t Tony think Alexander will look for him?”
“I really don’t know what he thinks.” She stepped away from Rafe and pulled a tissue from her purse.
Rafe’s hand fell to his side, and he moved back to his chair. Jaw tight, he shrugged off the insidious thought that she’d once again rejected him.
“I begged Liz to meet me somewhere, but Tony said those men might be following me, too. I haven’t seen anyone, though.”
If someone from the mob was really tailing her and they knew what they were doing, Rafe knew she wouldn’t see them. “She could be with Tony on a lark, Kit. Look at her track record.”
“I know her track record!” Her gaze shot to his.
“Would I be here asking for your help if I thought this was a joyride?”
Ouch. “You have to admit she’s done this before.”
“This is different, Rafe. I can tell. I heard how frightened she was.”
“Of Tony?”
She frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“Did anyone at the hospital hear or see a struggle? Did Liz scream?”
“No, nothing.” Worry carved deep lines beside her mouth.
“She probably went with him voluntarily, Kit.”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
He hated the torture in her soft blue eyes. “So why would she do that?”
“She believes him, I guess.”
“About Alexander?”
“And Tony’s claim that he’s turning his life around. He’s called her every night since he got out, trying to mend fences. I thought she’d stand firm this time.”
Kit said this last half under her breath, causing Rafe to narrow his gaze. She’d never said anything less than supportive about Liz before.
“He knows he made a stupid mistake and he’s trying to fix it. He was doing well in his new job.”
“If Liz went willingly, and it sounds like she did, there’s really nothing you can do.”
“I’ve got to find her.”
“She’ll come home. She always does.”
She stared at him, her eyes huge in a face gone pale as chalk. “Tony said he could disappear, invent whole new identities for both of them. He can do it, Rafe. The FBI said it was a fluke they ever traced him to that computer scam in the first place. But running isn’t the answer. Tony should confront the problem, not spend his life looking over his shoulder. Or forcing Liz to do the same.”
Anger blunted her words. “I don’t know if I should believe Tony or not, but can I afford not to? I’ve got to find Liz and help her, in case Tony is telling the truth about the mob being after him. I can’t just turn my back on her.”
She never had been able to, and Rafe knew she probably never would. Due to the death of their mother when Kit was fourteen and Liz eleven, Kit had taken on the role of mother rather than sister.
“I went to the police,” she said. “They said there was nothing they could do. But I remembered that your uncle Wayne was with the FBI and he worked organized crime.” Her gaze, pleading and somber, locked with his. “That’s why I came here.”
Besides his uncle, Rafe had other contacts in the FBI. Which was why he knew the mob was moving into Oklahoma. “Why doesn’t Tony just go to the FBI himself?”
“He doesn’t have any evidence yet.”
“Kit—”
“He told me he snatched Alexander’s computer on the way out of town, that he’s going to get the evidence off of there, but right now he doesn’t have it.”
“Tony’s parole officer can go after him. Have you contacted that person?”
“Not yet.”
“We’ll do that.” Rafe made another note. “The more people looking, the more pressure, the better chance of finding them.”
“So you’ll help me?” The hope in her voice, her face, latched on to his conscience.
He knew he should pass this case off, but he couldn’t.
She’d been his first love. That connection would always be there, always mean something.
Bottom line—Rafe had never been able to turn his back on her.
“Please say you’ll help me.” Kit’s voice rasped. “You know how to find people. I don’t. Please, Rafe.”
Her whispered plea raked up memories of another whisper.
I can’t marry you. I want a partner, not a master.
She had always equated his proposal to giving up her independence. Ten years ago, Rafe had been exactly what she didn’t need. Or want. Resentment burned through him as he ran a hand over his face. And yet… Kit needed his help. Their past shouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t let it. “Yes, I’ll help you.”
Chapter 2
Relief washed through her, and Kit let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank you. Where do we start?”
Something sharp flickered in Rafe’s eyes, and she was painfully reminded of their ending, the last time they’d seen each other. Regret flared, but she squelched it. Breaking things off with him had been best for both of them. She refused, as she had for the last ten years, to second-guess that decision.
“Start by telling me where Tony might go.”
“I don’t know. His parents in Davis, maybe.” She could still feel Rafe’s touch on her shoulder, a gentle comfort, yet it branded her skin. She began to pace again, thrusting a hand through her hair.
He spared her a glance, scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad. “Any place he and Liz might go together?”
“His apartment, but I already checked it out. No one was there.”
She couldn’t help staring as Rafe continued jotting notes. The lush eyelashes, the too-straight patrician nose he’d inherited from his white mother. The high cheekbones, dark slash of brows and burnished skin testified to his Choctaw father. Rafe’s blatantly male features were leather dark, lined by confidences she’d never shared, smiles she’d never seen.
While waiting for him in his office, she’d steeled herself against the old attraction, but she hadn’t been prepared for the actual sight of him. The sleek black hair trimmed military short. The sculpted lips that had once turned her bones to water. Corded neck and biceps bared by the khaki T-shirt that loosely covered his hard, rangy chest. Lean runner’s legs gloved in worn, starched denim. And scuffed tennis shoes.
“Where’s his apartment?”
She dragged her gaze from Rafe, resumed her pacing. The movement helped dispel the warmth that had started to creep into her blood.
She gave him the name and address of a complex on the north edge of Oklahoma City, only a mile from her own house. The warmth of spring clung to him, as well as a mysterious scent that belonged solely to him. Not musky, not woodsy, but something in between.
Kit’s pulse throbbed heavily, and her throat grew tight. He was still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. For a moment, her worry over Liz was pushed aside in a sudden surge of emotion—regret, sharp and bitter. Affection, uncertainty.
Questions tumbled through her mind. What had brought Rafe back to Oklahoma City? Why had he left the Air Force?
The shock in his face upon seeing her had unnerved her, but not nearly as much as that instantaneous sultry heat in his eyes. Those black, smoldering eyes were now obsidian hard, remote.
Kit squared her shoulders, trying to push away everything except thoughts of her sister. She became aware that Rafe watched her impersonally, waiting for her to continue.
“Liz lives with me. She has for the last couple of years, since Tony went to prison.”
He nodded, making another note.
Her heart squeezed at his distance. What did she expect? That he would greet her as if she were an old friend? Kit had ruined that when she’d refused to marry him. Rafe’s matter-of-fact announcement that they would marry hadn’t been the first unilateral decision he’d made, but it had been the one to unleash a long-buried panic.
Since her mom’s death, Kit had made all the decisions in her family with the exception of a few financial ones. Her dad’s work schedule prohibited him from spending much time at home, and Kit had stepped into the void left after her mom’s death, taking care of the house and her sister. At first, she’d thrilled to Rafe’s take-charge attitude, to the fact that she’d found someone willing to shoulder her burden. But when he’d expected her to move east with him so he could attend Navy flight school, just up and leave her father and sister, she’d realized she couldn’t marry someone who made those decisions alone. She wanted to be his partner, not his insignificant other. So she’d said no to him.
The years had made a noticeable difference in him. He had always been lean, but now there was a whipcord strength in that leanness. A soberness in his eyes and face. A sense of…unpredictability that had Kit’s pulse kicking up a beat. She shoved an unsteady hand through her hair again.
His cool black gaze urged her on.
So Rafe was gorgeous. And as remote as a stranger. So what? He was going to help her find Liz. That was what mattered.
A memory clouded his eyes. For an instant, some of the tension in his face melted away. “You said you were a flight attendant for TransAmerica?”
“Yes.” On one of their first dates, they’d discussed the fact that Rafe wanted to be a pilot and Kit wanted to be a flight attendant. High with the exhilaration of new love, they’d declared it fate that they’d met and become involved.
Kit swallowed the sudden lump that rose in her throat.
His face closed again. “Where did Tony work?”
“For a major computer manufacturer.” She gave the name. “He developed software for them.”
“This was his most recent job? The one he started just out of prison?”
“Yes. I called there yesterday and left a message with the answering service for a friend of his, Mike.”
“I’ll check that out tomorrow.”
“I also went down to Davis and spoke with Tony’s parents. They haven’t heard from or seen him.”
“Could they be lying? Maybe hiding him?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so.” Kit realized her hand was in her hair again and lowered her arm. Inhaling deeply, she took in the slight tang of Rafe’s scent. Though quiet and often reserved, there was a steadiness, an intensity about him that filled a room. “They were very upset when I told them what was going on. They haven’t seen Tony since he went to prison—they were too embarrassed and angered by what he did.”
His gaze narrowed on her long enough to make her skin prickle with an unwelcome heat. Apprehension and a hint of anticipation swirled inside her, emotions that had nothing to do with her sister and everything to do with the man across from her.
“What if they’re off in Las Vegas or some place like that?”
“I still need to find her.”
“Would Tony hurt her?”
“I don’t think so. I think he really did take Liz with him out of concern for her safety. I mean, we can’t discount that, right?”
“I won’t discount anything. I’ll look at every angle. I’ll start by going to his apartment, checking things out.”
“I went there and couldn’t find anything.”
“I might know other things to look for.”
“Of course.” Kit couldn’t help the stiffness of her tone.
His silent scrutiny, the stoic face all combined to make her want to squirm. Through the years, she’d learned to handle some fairly intimidating men, and she didn’t appreciate the way just one measuring look from Rafe could make her feel as if she were in his way.
“I’ll also check with his parole officer.”
“I didn’t think to do that.” She shook her head. “This whole thing has knocked me for a loop. I’m so upset I probably did miss something at Tony’s apartment.” She forced a smile, her chest tight and aching.
“That’s what I’m here for. I’ll look for anything that might give a hint to where Tony could’ve gone. Check with the airlines and the bus depot, see if he bought a ticket using a credit card, though I doubt it.”
“I can do that.” Kit pulled a scrap of paper and a pen from her purse.
“No.”
Hand poised over her purse, her gaze snapped to his. “What?”
“I’ll do all the checking and call you when I’ve found something.”
She stiffened, crumpling the paper in her fist. “I want to help.”
“I know what I’m looking for. You don’t.”
His voice was gentle, but steel rimmed the words and sent a shaft of irritation through her. She’d hoped the years might’ve mellowed his insistent control. “I’m coming with you.”
“None of my other clients—”
“I’m coming.” The old anger swept in along with a flash of panic. Telling herself Rafe simply didn’t understand how important this was to her, she took a deep breath. “I need to be there when you find her.”
“I don’t know anything about this Alexander character. If he actually is connected to the mob, he could be dangerous. Besides, you need to be safe and sound so Liz has someone to come home to when I do find her.”
“She’s supposed to call me. Wouldn’t you rather be around to hear it?”
“You’ll let me know.”
She hesitated, then blurted, “Do you not want me along because of the past? Because of what I…what happened?”
His lips flattened. “No.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I said no.” Rafe bit out the words.
Kit took in the steel jaw, the piercing, narrowed eyes. Had he ever forgiven her for refusing him? “I won’t get in your way.”
She couldn’t tell if she was reaching him or not. The Rafe she’d known—loved—hadn’t had those black eyes that hardened to marble. Hadn’t been able to disappear beneath a stoic mask of indifference. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. Panic sawed at her.
“I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“I don’t like working with anyone,” Rafe said bluntly.
“Well, I didn’t love coming in here, but I did it.” She clenched her fists, stepping toward him. “Liz is in danger. I have to find her. You don’t know what it’s like to feel helpless, to feel—”
“I do know.” His voice lashed the air as he pushed out of his chair, tension coiling in his broad shoulders.
Kit took a reflexive step back, frowning at the harsh emotion beneath his words.
“I know helplessness, second-guessing, uncertainty—” He broke off, anger vibrating from him. “Don’t tell me I don’t.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t presume to know anything about my life, Kit. Don’t make assumptions about me.”
What had happened? She swallowed the question. She had no right to know anything about him, no right to care. She’d given that up long ago.
He leaned across the desk toward her, eyes blazing, a muscle flexing in his jaw. “Just because we were involved once doesn’t mean you know me now. Doesn’t mean you know anything about me.”
“I could say the same to you.”
The air snapped tight, hummed with old anger, past hurts.
Fury tautened his carved features; his throat worked. “Let’s agree to stick to this case,” he said hoarsely. “And facts about this case only.”
She nodded, her mouth dry, her heart hammering with the same wildness it had the first time she’d ever noticed him. He’d been running to class, up the hill past her. Long, lean legs bared by denim shorts, moving with a muscular fluidity that slowed her steps. The wispy image of his burnished flesh sliding against her pale skin floated through her mind.
She slammed the door on those thoughts. She wasn’t going to let her hormones—or her memories—get in the way of finding Liz.
“It’s not a good idea for you to come along,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Still think you ought to be calling all the shots, don’t you, Blackstock?”
Surprise widened his eyes a fraction. “This is how I do business.”
“This is why we didn’t work out ten years ago.”
Says you. His hands fisted as he studied the opposite wall. “I can move faster if I’m alone. And there will be situations where people might not talk to me if you’re around. This really is best, Kit. Take it or leave it.”
Ten years ago, she’d walked away from this very thing, but she didn’t have that luxury now. “Maybe my sitting around doing nothing is not best for me. Or for Liz.”
“Let me do my job. I’ll check in with you as often as you like, every step if you want, but it’s best if I’m solo.”
She set her jaw, her gaze burning into his. “I’m paying your fee. I should get to call the shots.”
“Not with me.”
Frustration hardened her voice. “How did you get in this line of work, anyway? It’s got nothing to do with flying jets.”
His face closed. “Long story.”
One he plainly wasn’t going to tell her. Swallowing against a sharpness in her throat, she said, “Fine.”
He tapped a finger on the desk, his gaze scouring her face. “No more talk about the past.”
“Fine.” She knew that was for the best, but the old wound inside her cracked open.
He irritated her, but even so, he was the one man she regretted walking away from. The one man who could reach places in her no one else ever could.
She couldn’t ignore the knot in her belly that was part anger, part anticipation. Not affected by him? Who was she kidding?
She wanted him to reassure her, tell her he’d find Liz quickly, that she would be able to handle all this. But she squared her shoulders against the maverick wish. She needed Rafe to find her sister. That was all.
She couldn’t let herself start needing him for anything else.
The sun sank to the horizon in a smear of gold and purple, edging the clouds with shimmering light. As Rafe drove north on May Avenue behind Kit’s car, following her from her brother-in-law’s apartment to her house, he rolled his shoulders against an edginess that worked through him, made him feel cornered. What he wanted right now was distance, but he’d needed Kit’s access to Tony Valentine’s apartment and her house.
She hadn’t been shy about letting him know she didn’t appreciate the way he did business. Even now, his blood charged at the thought. That sassy, sharp-tongued woman was not the Kit he’d known. No, sir. And he liked this new Kit. Which was why it would be better for both of them if he worked alone. Hell, it would be better for him. He needed to stay on this side of the past. Letting her tag along on this case would make that difficult, if not impossible.
He didn’t like the idea of spending a lot of time with her. Hell, any time with her. Rafe’s lips twisted.
The scent of fresh-cut grass and car exhaust drifted through the window of his ’67 Stingray. Golden light shimmered across the Corvette’s sleek black hood. He was making a big deal out of nothing. It was the shock of seeing her—his first love—after all these years, that was all. Plus the fact that he didn’t like working with anyone, especially the client who’d hired him. But with Kit there was another layer.
Calling in to report once or twice a day he could handle. Breathing the same air, smelling her provocative scent, having her in his space—no, thanks.
He rubbed his chest against the ache that had settled there upon first seeing her. The focus, the action of working the case would enable him to treat her like any other client. Eventually.
So far, so good. They hadn’t discussed the old days while Rafe had searched Tony’s place for scraps of paper, plane or bus ticket stubs, anything that might give a clue as to where Valentine had gone.
On the assumption that Valentine really was being watched by the mob as he’d told Kit, Rafe had swept the guy’s place for bugs and surveillance equipment. And found nothing. As a precaution, he needed to sweep Kit’s place, too. If he didn’t find anything there, he’d be free to start working the case. Alone.
As he swung his ’Vette behind her late-model four-door compact in the drive of a small brick house, his stomach clenched. He’d never seen Kit’s home, never known she lived in this popular older neighborhood. After college, she’d gone to work for a major airline in Tulsa. How long had she been in Oklahoma City? Longer than the three years since his own return?
Those questions had nothing to do with her supposedly missing sister. Rafe pushed them aside as he got out of the car, grabbing his device for detecting transmitters and his cell phone. Sergeant Kent Porter, a buddy from the Oklahoma City Police Department, had promised to call Rafe back after reviewing the report of the traffic accident that had sent Liz to the hospital. Porter had also said he would see what he could find out about any do-wrongs named Alexander.
Rafe followed Kit up the neatly swept concrete porch steps, flanked by terra-cotta pots brimming with yellow and white petunias. There were no memories for him here, nothing to distract him from the case.
Except the woman whose hips swayed so compellingly as she moved across the porch.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of silver. He turned in time to see the tail end of a sedan cross the intersection at the end of the block. It looked like the same car he’d seen a few minutes ago on May Avenue, right before Kit had turned into her neighborhood. Which could mean that they lived nearby. Or that someone was tailing her.
The little pinch in his gut told Rafe it was the latter, but he’d check again for the car before he left to speak to Valentine’s parents. He turned his attention to her home as she opened the front door and stepped inside.
He put a finger to his lips, then walked in, motioning for her to stay in the entry hall as he activated his bug detector. The late-model CPM-7307 had been modified by a buddy to also pick up the presence of hidden cameras. In addition to locating commonly used transmitters, the tool allowed Rafe to test AC outlets and phone lines. The small metal box, no wider than his wallet, included an output so he could listen for any phone modifications such as resistors or infinity bugs, anything placed on the wire itself.
Kit shook her head, wearing the same expression of amazement and disbelief she’d worn when he performed a search at her brother-in-law’s apartment.
Rafe bit back a grin. Making a quick sweep, he moved through the living room, peripherally aware of the honey-colored walls and ivory woodwork, the bold punctuation of color around the room. One wall of built-in bookcases boasted two shelves devoted to titles regarding functional family relationships. Interesting.
The scent of Kit’s light perfume trailed him, but he kept his focus narrowed. He found no bugs or cameras in the kitchen, no bugs in the phones or outlets there or in the living room. Moving down the short hallway off the foyer, he checked two bedrooms and the bath, then the ceiling fan in the living room and one in Kit’s bedroom. He felt along the undersides of her fluffy, distinctly feminine bed, keeping a firm lock on his imagination.
He returned to the front part of the house to test the phone. The dial tones hummed normally, and he removed the earpiece, snapped off his machine and tucked the device into his back pocket of his jeans.
“All clear.” He turned to where she still stood in the doorway. Red-gold sunlight pooled around her legs and shimmered through the light fabric of her dress, outlining her slender calves.
“This thing only scans one room at a time, but it’s thorough. One tone sounds for bugs, another for video equipment.”
She gave a short laugh and closed the door. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I’ve picked up some things.”
A shadow passed through her eyes and she nodded tightly, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Think you’ll find anything on that computer?” She referred to the desktop unit Rafe had confiscated from Tony’s, along with some disks.
“If there’s anything to be found on it. I’ve got a guy who’s a whiz with that stuff.”
“I hope so,” she said doubtfully. At his raised eyebrows, she explained, “Tony’s a computer genius. If he wants to hide or erase anything, he can probably do it.”
As she moved from the wood floor of the foyer into the carpeted living area, Rafe was careful to stay in the center of the room. When she flipped on an overhead light, he took a closer look at the living room and the visible part of the kitchen. The soft neutrality of the walls, woodwork and carpet was offset by jewel tones of ruby, emerald and sapphire in pillows, candles, an area rug beneath the dark pecan oval coffee table and frames scattered on the walls.
Kit watched him intently. So still, so quiet. Waiting. Awareness prickled his skin. As his gaze scanned the living room, he tuned in the soft snick of the undulating ceiling fan, the faint barking of a dog down the street. Something was off. Something—
Pictures. The realization hit him like a one-two punch. Rafe stepped closer to the wall, his gaze narrowing on the framed photograph there.
It was of Kit and her sister, brunette heads together, laughing. The distant sound of Kit’s laughter filled his mind, and he shoved away the phantom sound, his gaze skimming the wall.
More pictures. Some of Kit and Liz. One of Kit with her father.
One of Liz and a nice-looking man. Tony?
Kit walked over and removed the photograph from the wall. “This is Tony, just before he went to prison.”
Rafe nodded, taking the picture, studying the man’s intelligent pale gray eyes, the shaggy, medium brown hair. Though Rafe tried to concentrate on the image in front of him, his thoughts skipped back. In college, Kit had never wanted her picture taken. She’d been almost fanatical about that. Rafe had come to learn that was due to her innate shyness.
The only photograph Rafe had ever had of him and Kit had been taken at his fraternity’s spring formal. His mother probably still had it in his box of college stuff in the attic. Judging from the amount of pictures in this room, Kit seemed to have gotten over her aversion, he thought ruefully. Such a small thing, but not for her.
The Kit he’d known then, he reminded himself forcefully. Dragging his attention to the face of Tony Valentine, he struggled to bring to life something besides regret and a resentment that should have cooled long ago.
Kit walked to the mantel and took down another framed photograph. “This one of Tony was just taken about a week ago. He sent it to Liz.”
Rafe nodded, careful not to touch her as he took the frame. Valentine had cut his hair, almost a buzz cut. He’d grown a mustache and wore glasses. “I’ll want to make some copies of this.”
“Sure. Let me take it out of the frame.” Her fingers brushed his as she took the picture.
Casually, he turned away, squelching the jolt of electricity that jumped up his arm.
“Tony had some pictures of Liz. When we checked his place earlier, I noticed they weren’t on his refrigerator, where she told me he usually kept them.”
Could’ve been a smart move by Valentine to keep Alexander from getting a good look at Liz. Or it could’ve just been Valentine’s way of disappearing.
The photo Rafe had requested appeared over his shoulder, sans frame, and he took it, too conscious of the way Kit’s breath tickled his neck. His gaze scanned the entertainment center, the collection of CDs that ranged from the Eagles to Elvis Presley. Before it could fully form, Rafe aborted the reminder of his and Kit’s mutual pleasure in Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
More pictures lined the curved-leg table behind the sofa, and Rafe moved toward it. This case was all that mattered. There was a picture of Kit and her sister. Another of Kit in a pale pink satin gown that hugged every curve, bared her gorgeous shoulders. She stood next to Liz, who wore an ivory tea-length wedding gown, her hand on the tuxedo-clad arm of a man whose face was cropped off. Their father? Tony or another groom? Kit’s lover?
That last thought ambushed him, and before he could stop, Rafe wondered how many men Kit had seen since their college days. Had she ever come close to marriage or had she pushed them all away before they could get too close? Was she involved with someone?
Rafe knew he should leave those questions alone, but there was one he had to ask. “Are you seeing anyone now?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Dating anyone?”
A frown snapped her dark brows together. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about anything except this case.”
“That’s the reason I’m asking.” Even while his chest tightened in anticipation of her answer, he managed to sound detached. “I need to speak with anyone who’s had recent contact with your sister. They might know something without being aware of it.”
“Or they might have something to do with her disappearance?”
“Right.”
“I’m not seeing anyone,” she said stiffly, avoiding his eyes. “Haven’t for…a while.”
He nodded, silently cursing the bubble of pleasure that bloomed inside him. “I’d like to take a closer look at Liz’s room.”
“This way.” She walked past him and down the hall.
His gaze slid down the slender line of her back to the taut curve of her butt, the lean line of her thighs. She still had a class-A butt. And beautiful dewy skin. Rafe’s gaze lingered on the soft magnolia flesh of her neck.
He forced himself to look away and rejected the awareness that had started a dim, persistent throb in his pulse after the initial shock of seeing her in his office.
As he’d asked—or rather ordered—she’d kept her conversation limited to answering his questions, nothing about the past. He could do the same.
Stepping into Liz’s bedroom, Rafe took in the unmade full-size bed. Kit walked over and began pulling the leopard print sheet taut, straightening the matching comforter.
A black bra strap hung out of the top of one dresser drawer; three pairs of stiletto heels cluttered the space between the dresser and the wall.
“Are any of her clothes missing?”
Kit stepped over to take a quick look in the closet. “No, I don’t think so. And her suitcase is here.”
He nodded. “Who did Tony work for before he went to prison?”
“Another computer manufacturer. He worked with hardware back then, rather than software.”
“Any friends who kept in touch after he was put away?”
“Not that I know of.” Nervous energy poured off her. Her voice grew quieter with each answer.
Rafe could see that she was trying to stay out of his way. Regret stabbed at that, but he didn’t try to put her at ease. The more distance, the better. “Did Liz go see him?”
“Yes, at first. I don’t think she’s been in the last couple of months.”
In here, it was easier to pretend Kit was just another client. In here, there was no danger of running into the past they shared.
He followed her into the hallway, paused when she halted in front of an open closet that housed a washer and dryer. A laundry basket full of clothes jutted out, and Kit reached to move it out of the door’s path.
“Where does Liz work?”
“At a day-care center. It’s by the airport. We drive to work together sometimes.”
Rafe nodded, not sure how to define the strange heat that pushed under his ribs. Kit had become a woman he didn’t know; she had a life he knew nothing about.
“She’s had this job for more than two years, and I think she’s really getting her life together.”
Liz didn’t sound much different to him than she had when he’d known her ten years ago, but he said nothing. “What number was Tony? Which husband?”
Kit half-turned, eyeing him flatly.
“Number two, three, four?”
“Number three.” She flipped the tail of a shirt into the basket, then suddenly made a strangled sound. Her gaze shot to his.
“Kit?” He stepped toward her, concern spiraling through him. His gaze dropped to the basket then the shirt she fingered. At first he scanned for blood, something to explain why she’d gone so pale. Then he froze as he recognized the crimson-and-white basketball jersey.
His gaze locked on hers. Panic, disbelief, memory rippled across her features. Two bright spots of red crested her cheeks. His stomach flipped like it had the first time he’d taken up a fighter jet.
His thoughts wheeled back to the day after the Oklahoma University basketball team had made the NCAA playoffs. His college team hadn’t had practice that day; he had hoofed it back to the frat house, intending to shower and pick up Kit for supper. But she’d been waiting in his room, wearing his jersey—this jersey—and nothing else. Number twelve.
He swallowed hard, his gaze sliding over her before he could stop himself. Memories burst in his head like popping flashbulbs. The full curve of her breast peeking out from the deep-cut armhole of his jersey, the hem skimming the center of her smooth, bare thighs, the flush of shyness she’d never lost even though they’d been lovers for months.
That fast, he went hard. He could taste the sweet musk of her skin, smell his scent on her. His body quivered like a newly strung bow.
He sucked in a ragged breath, and his gaze went to hers. He saw the way her eyes darkened to purple, the pink that climbed her neck, the frantic tap of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. She remembered, too.
Every touch, every kiss, every whispered forever.
Her reaction only hollowed his gut, sheared the edge off any control he thought he possessed. Involuntarily, he stepped toward her. For one hellacious, gut-twisting instant he wanted to drag her to him, kiss her and prove to both of them that there was nothing left.
As if coming out of a trance, Kit jerked into motion. She shoved the basket against the washer face and shut the door.
“Is that—”
“No.” She flashed a brilliant smile, so brilliant it cut him to the core. “Looks like yours. Not yours.”
Bull. He was tempted to call her on it, but he resisted.
Where would that get them? Why had he thought he could ignore the past? Kit was his past. And he was good and pissed over her slingshotting back into his life. Hell.
Rafe clenched his teeth against the razor-edged desire that slashed through him.
Remember, he ordered, trying to escape the grasping hands of memory, of want, pulling at him. Ruthlessly he dredged up the rejection he’d felt when Kit had refused his marriage proposal. When he’d said forever, he’d meant it; she hadn’t.
“What about friends? Tony’s friends?” he asked quickly, his voice rough, the words scraping his throat.
“Can you think of anyone who might let Tony and Liz stay with them? Anyone who might hide them or know where they’ve gone?”
“No,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “Maybe you can ask his parents—”
His cell phone jangled, and Rafe grabbed at it like a drowning man going for a rescue line. “Yeah,” he said, almost ashamed at the enormous relief that rolled through him.
It was Porter, and as the cop spoke, Rafe’s jaw clenched tighter. The ambivalence he’d tried to shake off seconds ago surged back. Displeasure merged with concern. And his protective instinct, always deeper and stronger with Kit, roared to irritating life.
“Thanks, Kent.” He disconnected, his hand curling over the phone. “We’d better get going if we want to make it back from Davis before midnight.”
She started, taking a step toward him. Her soft scent curled around him. “What? You want me to go? Hel-lo! Just two hours ago you flat out told me you didn’t want me along on this case.”
Rafe exhaled and turned to fully face her. “That was before I talked to my buddy at the OCPD.”
She frowned.
“He says the officer investigating Liz’s accident believed she wasn’t paying attention to her driving. That her accident wasn’t deliberate.”
“But—”
“I’ve dealt with this officer before, and I don’t trust his judgement,” Rafe said baldly. “Neither does Kent.”
“Are you saying you believe what Liz told me? That someone ran her off the road?”
“I’m saying…” He gentled his voice. “I don’t like the odds, Kit.”
“So Tony was right,” she murmured.
“Maybe. Kent said he also might have an idea about this Alexander person. And…”
“And what?” Anxiety pulled at her features.
He hated dumping all this on her at once, but she deserved to know what they might be up against. “I noticed a car behind me on the way over here. The same car, three different times.”
She shook her head. “What—”
“It’s possible you’re being tailed. I’ll know better when we leave here.”
“Tony was right about that, too?” She sagged against the wall, her features wan and suddenly ravaged by fatigue.
Compassion and protectiveness swept through him. His first impulse was to put an arm around her, but he stayed where he was, giving her time to absorb it.
She stood quietly for a few moments, her fingers thrusting repeatedly through her hair. Fear, uncertainty skipped across her features then resignation. She straightened, her voice shaky. “I guess we’d better get going.”
“You all right?”
“Yes.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Rafe couldn’t stop the hard squeeze in his chest.
Fighting the vortex of memories, the emotion sucking at him, he pivoted and walked out of the room. “On our way out of town, I’ll drop off these photos and have some copies made.”
He didn’t like the concern for her that chewed at him. He wanted space, needed it; instead he was spending the next three to four hours with her.
“Tomorrow I’ll take Tony’s computer to the office, see if my contact can salvage anything useful off there. I’ll also check out Tony’s current employer and his parole officer.”
She nodded and followed him into the hallway, still looking shell-shocked.
“Could you write down the name of anyone else who might’ve been implicated in the scam he pulled, anyone who testified against him?”
“Sure,” she said faintly.
His body humming with frustration and remembered passion, Rafe waited on the lawn while she locked the front door, then walked toward his car. She halted uncertainly at the edge of the driveway.
His gaze shot between her car and his. It would be dark soon, but he’d made the drive south between Oklahoma City and Davis many times. The Department of Public Safety was more tolerant of his night blindness than the United States Air Force had been. Besides, he needed something to occupy his hands and his mind. Needed a release for the energy seething inside him, needed to feel the raw power of the ’Vette beneath him. “We’ll take mine,” he said gruffly.
She moved to the passenger side and opened the door before he could. Once inside, she shut her door with a loud click.
Gripping his keys so tightly they bit into his palm, Rafe walked to the driver’s side. Maybe he didn’t need to take her to Davis. Maybe she’d be safe here. But could he risk it?
No. He slid behind the wheel and started the car, leashing the resentment churning inside him. He could tell himself he might feel the same caution for any client who was possibly being tailed by the mob, but this wasn’t just any client. This was Kit.
And as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t deny that seeing his old jersey had hit him hard. Or why.
The connection he and Kit had shared had been deeper than any he’d ever had. An ember had ignited in the secret part of him only ever occupied by Kit. A part he’d thought erased by years and resentment.
Inches away from her, webbed by her faint scent and the torturous images that had seared his brain moments before, Rafe knew she still owned that tiny place inside him. He hated that little revelation, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that she might also be in danger. So much for avoiding his past.
Chapter 3
Arousal fired little points along her nerves. Rafe had nearly kissed her. Even now, hours later on the return trip to Oklahoma City from Davis, that thought hammered through Kit’s mind. With every pulsing sense in her, she wished he had.
Thank goodness he hadn’t.
Smoky midnight swirled around them. Phil Collins crooned on Rafe’s state-of-the-art car stereo. Kit ran a hand over the Corvette’s buttery soft tan leather seat, not surprised that Rafe drove such a speedster. He’d always said he had a need for speed. As they traveled north on I-35, leaving behind the south side of Oklahoma City, lights from the highway and roadside businesses flashed by in a blur. For the late hour, there was still a fair amount of traffic.
She glanced over her shoulder, as she had every couple of minutes since they’d lost the tail outside her neighborhood a few hours ago.
It wasn’t the dread of seeing another car following them that had her nerves feeling raw and exposed. It wasn’t the compact space and tight lines of the Corvette’s interior that made her feel…cornered. Or the fact that Rafe had barely spoken since they’d left Tony’s parents. It was the way Rafe’s body heat formed a wall against her arm, the way his dark, rich scent stroked her senses.
It was the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about that split second in the hallway when memories had crashed over both of them, when naked hunger had tautened Rafe’s features.
Only he had ever looked at her that way. Other men had said they wanted her, but none of them had ever looked at her as if they had to have her. For that one heartbeat of time, she’d wanted to fall into his arms, call back what they’d shared. And that was dangerous.
She was no more willing to give up her independence now than she had been in college. At fourteen, she’d been handling responsibilities most women didn’t handle until they were twenty-one, and she wasn’t going to give that up. Couldn’t, really.
The truth was she’d never gotten close to any man, until Rafe. Or since Rafe, she thought ruefully, staring over her shoulder again.
Her gaze shifted to his chiseled profile then dropped to his mouth. During their trip to Davis and the visit with Tony’s parents, she’d managed to dodge thoughts of that near kiss. But now…
Her nerves were shot, and she’d been in Rafe’s company less than twelve hours. Again she turned, searching the play of shadow and streetlights for a car that might have been behind them too long.
“I can’t believe I was really being followed,” she murmured, wishing she weren’t so aware of his lean fingers on the steering wheel, the broad hand that rested on his jeans-clad thigh.
He changed lanes, a smile in his voice. “If you’re going to look for a tail, it’s best if you aren’t too obvious.”
“Oh.” She faced front.
“Keep an eye out either by looking in your rearview or your side mirror.”
Her gaze sliced to the right. Illuminated by the high-powered roadside lighting, the side mirror showed a beat-up pickup pulling a horse trailer and following some distance behind. A sporty red car passed them on the left. “Maybe you could teach me some things. I mean, about how to spot a tail and how to lose one.”
“Sure.” Was it her imagination or did his voice tighten?
He’d been reserved since they’d left her house, answering questions when she asked, but not making conversation. She should probably follow his lead.
The effortless way he’d lost the men who followed them reassured Kit. And grated on her at the same time.
As long as she was with him, she didn’t have to worry that she would lead Alexander’s men anywhere, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t be with Rafe all the time.
Her body thrummed with awareness of his rich, earthy scent. She fixed her gaze on the side mirror, glad when they exited onto I-235 North in the center of the city.
Seeing his old basketball jersey had affected her like a kick to the stomach. Brought back the memory of the look on his face when he’d found her in that shirt so long ago. Surprise, then a slow-curling, wicked smile as he’d tumbled her onto his rumpled bed. That had been the first, and only, time she’d initiated their lovemaking.
At the memory, her cheeks heated and she shifted against the smooth leather at her back. “So, did you believe Tony’s parents? You really think they don’t know where he is?”
“Yes. If Valentine’s parents had seen him, I think they would’ve been nervous, evaded my questions. Plus I checked around outside while you stayed inside with them. There were no signs that anyone had been there. And I don’t think they faked the concern they feel for Tony and Liz. Or their anger at Tony.”
“I was really hoping we’d learn something down there.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Now what do we do?”
“Like I said, I’ll check on the computer we found at Tony’s place. I’ll talk to his employer and parole officer tomorrow.”
“I want to come along.” She half-turned to face him in the car, lacing her fingers together against the urge to touch him. Thank goodness, they were nearly at her house. “I know I can help, if you’ll just let me.”
Regardless of his answer, she didn’t plan to sit around waiting on him to learn something and call her with a daily report.
“We’ve already been over this.”
“What if you don’t find them? I will have done nothing to help Liz and I can’t live with that. I stayed out of your way at the Valentines and you are the one who wanted me to go.”
He sighed, running a hand over his face. “That was for your safety.”
“And what if I’m still being followed?”
“We’ll deal with it.”
“I really need to do something.” Then grudgingly, “Please?”
His jaw set as he exited the highway and headed west on Wilshire toward May Avenue. Heavier traffic zoomed along these streets than had been on the highway. At one point, he swerved sharply, reminding Kit that he’d done the same thing about an hour ago. He must’ve been trying to miss an animal or a pothole.
“What about your work schedule? Are you flying out anywhere in the next couple of days?”
“No. I called in yesterday.” Had it really been only a day and a half since Liz had disappeared with Tony? “I’ve built up a few weeks of vacation and my boss said I should take some time.”
“At least I won’t have to worry about where you are and I can concentrate solely on finding your sister.”
So glad I could help. Kit bit back the sarcastic words.
How had he gone from flying for the Air Force to this job? She didn’t ask. It was better not to know about the life he’d made without her.
Her mind and body ached from trying to deny how much she’d wanted him earlier. If Rafe sensed she couldn’t get past that, he’d be out of here so fast she wouldn’t know what happened.
He swung into her driveway and killed the engine. “I want to check your house again for bugs.”
“You didn’t find anything before.” She paused with her hand on the door handle.
“Don’t you wonder where those guys went after I shook their tail?”
She should have. She hadn’t.
“It’s possible they came back here, installed a little something to make sure they could keep track of you.”
“All right.” After getting out of the car, she moved up the sidewalk and onto the porch in front of him. He stayed close, close enough that she could feel him at her back. She swallowed against the way her nape prickled. She unlocked the door and waited for him to enter first.
She felt so out of her league with all this stuff, and Rafe acted as though it were second nature. When—how—had he learned to do investigative work? Obviously he needed to know these things for his current job. She knew he probably wouldn’t welcome her questions so she kept her mouth shut, walked in behind him and closed the door.
He motioned for her to turn on the light then the stereo, so she did, keeping the volume at a moderate level. The deep voice of a local DJ boomed out of the receiver before whiskey-voiced Chris Isaak began to sing about doing a bad, bad thing.
Inserting the earpiece into his left ear, Rafe headed down the hallway. His gaze was narrowed and his nostrils flared in a way that Kit had never seen.
He looked like a…predator, dangerous, unfamiliar. Kit couldn’t stop the spike of excitement in her blood pressure.
From what he’d told her at Tony’s, she knew that this time he would start at the back of her house and work his way to where they’d come in. He moved first to her bedroom, then Liz’s, turning in a slow circle in each room. Kit followed slowly, trying to ignore the slow roll of his hips, the ripple of muscle beneath the khaki T-shirt.
He made quick work of the bathroom and gave her a thumbs-up. She let out a sigh of relief. She could not handle knowing someone was watching her in the bath.
Her gaze locked on his hands. Strong, gentle hands sprinkled with a faint dusting of dark hair. Surrounded by the seductive bass of Chris Isaak, Kit found herself swamped by memories of those hands on her body, stroking, teasing, pleasing.
She wrapped her arms around her middle and forced herself to watch Rafe, to pay closer attention to the pictures on the walls, to the light switches, the blades of the ceiling fan, just as he did.
When he walked through the living room toward the kitchen, he halted abruptly. Pressing the earpiece close to his ear, he listened intently. He prowled the perimeter of her kitchen, returned to the living room. She moved to the sofa, feeling along the cushions, inside the lampshade, her gaze going questioningly to his. He nodded, those lean fingers edging around the casing of the wall phone as he glanced at the bug detector he held.
He reached up to slide a hand along the blades of the ceiling fan, and his T-shirt rode up to expose sleek brown skin. When he stretched, muscle flexed across his flat belly, drawing her eye to the waistband of his snug jeans.
She straightened, pulling her gaze away to scan the room, telling herself to keep searching for audio or video equipment, though she hardly knew what to look for. Rafe moved to the wall, studied the air-conditioner return where the wall met the ceiling. He ran a finger along each pleated opening of the vent, then moved away, seemingly satisfied.
Once again his gaze traveled the room, pausing on the sofa.
He went from relaxed alertness to rigid readiness. Her gaze followed his as he looked down at the tool he carried and she saw a green LED flash. Rafe slipped the bug detector into the back pocket of his jeans. With a few silent strides, he passed in front of her and stopped at the sofa, close enough that she could feel the warmth from his body.
Dread pinched at her.
He turned, wrapping his fingers around her elbow. The heat that shot up her arm barely registered as he drew her gaze to the sofa.
He pointed, and she stared for a moment without realizing what she looked at. Then…instead of the dark plaid-covered sofa button she expected to see, she saw a flat black button. Not a button, a bug. A listening device.
She turned, shock rippling through her. “Can they hear—”
He hauled her to him, his mouth crashing down on hers.
Kit stiffened, her eyes going wide. Hot, hard lips moved over hers as a shock wave jolted her body. Then she sagged against him. Just a little.
Half-formed thoughts tumbled around in her head. She might’ve imagined it, but for an instant she thought his lips softened, coaxing the strength out of her the way they used to. He lifted his head, his dark gaze smoldering on her lips then lifting to her eyes.
She blinked, swaying. A breathy sound escaped her, and a flush darkened Rafe’s skin.
He leaned toward her, and she couldn’t form one rational thought. Just… Oh, yes.
Then his breath burned her ear, sent a shiver down her spine. “Don’t talk.”
Talk? She couldn’t breathe. Her hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms.
He skimmed his lips up her temple, back down to her ear. She began to tremble. And reason kicked in. She pushed at his chest; his hands tightened on her upper arms.
Again he whispered, barely audible, “That’s a bug. Play along.”
Aloud, he said, “Ten years and you can still do this to me.”
His voice spilled over her like heated oil, torching a desire she’d buried too long. She knew it wasn’t real, knew he didn’t mean anything by it. Still her fingers curled into his T-shirt; she needed something to steady her legs.
His lips skimmed hers again. His hands smoothed down her back, flexed at her waist. Kit fought the urge to push away. She understood that he was playing for their unseen audience, but she shuddered anyway.
His lips came back to her ear, heat inching under her skin. “I found the camera, too. On the wall, four o’clock.”
Why was he talking about the time? Oh, he meant somewhere on the wall. A deep breath sawing out of her, she turned her head to the right.
Long fingers captured her jaw, gently forced her head to his. Black eyes seared hers, and he whispered against her lips, “Sorry, my four o’clock.”
She nodded dumbly, her body pulsing almost painfully.
His hands curved over her hips, and his voice rumbled out. “I am so ready for you.”
It was all an act for whoever was watching and listening, but it didn’t feel like acting to Kit. Still, she struggled to catch up, to be as cool as he was.
His eyes might be distant, but there was a flush beneath his skin. His breathing was slightly uneven.
He curled one knuckle under her chin, tilting her face toward his. “It’s been a long time,” he groaned. “Too long.”
To whoever watched, it probably appeared that they were kissing again. Kit lifted her head, her lips brushing his. Needles of heat slid under her skin. She forced herself to follow his gaze to the left, searching for the camera.
Rafe kissed her cheek, her temple. Her heart ached with a strange combination of sadness and anger as she struggled to pretend, the way he was.
This close there was no way he could miss the way her nipples had hardened and heat—of embarrassment, of arousal—flushed her body.
He breathed in her ear again. “The camera’s in the light knob.”
Her hands flexed involuntarily, bunching his shirt as her gaze shifted to the round knob on the wall that controlled the overhead light and ceiling fan. She tried to focus on what he said, but all she could think was she wanted him to kiss her again. For real, this time.
No, no, she desperately corrected. Where was her pride?
What pride? her conscience taunted. To even be here with him, she had to pretend she had none.
She could feel the power of his thighs bracketing hers, the flat, hard muscle of his belly, the lingering taste of his mint gum on her lips.
Tears stung her eyes, and Kit stiffened her spine. He felt it, trailed those wicked fingers up her back. His touch only fanned a languorous heat, and her irritation spiked. She didn’t like how he sent her pulse skyrocketing, didn’t like the way she ached to arch into him, wrap her body around his.
Resentment flared. Did he know how he was affecting her? Was he enjoying it? His voice was cool; his eyes weren’t. In a perverse need to find out if she could still affect him the way he did her, Kit slid her hands up his chest, around his neck and pressed full against him. She took a reckless satisfaction in seeing his eyes widen, feeling the sudden flex of his body against hers.
Going up on tiptoe, she whispered in his ear, “Now what?”
The satisfaction she felt was quickly squashed when he hauled her to him, one thigh insinuated between hers and pressing against the damp heat between her legs. Her hands clamped on to his shoulders for the sole purpose of support.
His gaze lasered into hers. He kissed her again, his mouth covering hers with ruthless purpose. Controlled deliberation. A warning to back off. Now.
It triggered something wild and angry inside her. Reacting on pure instinct, she slid one hand into his thick dark hair, curled the other around his strong, warm nape.
For a moment, he stiffened. Then his restraint snapped. His hands tunneled into her hair, gripping her head as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, claiming every part of her. She couldn’t think, didn’t want to.
It had been so long. He felt so good. Hard, hot male against her, his kiss seducing the strength from her legs. Her hands splayed across his back, pressing closer.
He pulled away, his breathing ragged, the muscles in his neck taut and straining. Surprise flickered in his eyes, then disappeared. “Get your things,” he rasped. “Let’s finish this at my place.”
She nodded, barely aware of moving down the hallway and into her room. With sweat-slicked palms, she dragged an overnight bag from the top of her closet and threw in a change of clothes, underwear. Heartbeat thundering against her ribs, she managed to remember her toothbrush and makeup.
Away from him, she could think. Yes, she needed to be away from him, she thought desperately as she dragged the back of her hand across her lips, still burning from his.
That kiss hadn’t felt like playacting to her. It had felt vividly, painfully real. Reminded her of what she’d thrown away.
When she returned to the front room, he reached for her, planting another kiss on her lips. But she felt the difference this time. This kiss was constrained, like the first one. Studied.
She tried to corral the sensations raging through her body. With one hot hand at her waist, Rafe guided her outside. She turned to lock the door, and he pressed close.
His chest felt like tempered steel against her shoulder blades. His body heat seared through the fabric of her dress. Throat tight, breasts tingling, she shut her eyes.
Only when she turned did she see that he wasn’t paying attention to her at all. He was checking out her porch light, studying the doorbell for signs of other bugs or another camera. Resentment shot through her, and she squashed the urge to knock him flat on his butt. He was doing a job, she ruthlessly reminded herself. He was here for Liz, not her. Not them. There was no them.
Still, how could he be so calm? She felt shaky, ready to shatter, and he looked fully in control. He was no longer flushed. His pulse beat slow and steady at the side of his neck whereas hers fluttered so rapidly she felt it in her throat.
He walked down the sidewalk and turned, waiting for her. Looking as unaffected as if he didn’t even know her, as if she hadn’t felt the hard swell of his arousal against her belly moments ago. It had meant nothing. It had been only for the people listening in on them.
Kit reminded herself of that at least twenty times on her way to his car. Trying to steady her thundering pulse, she walked to the opposite side of the Corvette. Across the car’s top, their eyes met.
“Sorry about that. The kiss, I mean.” He gestured toward the house with irritating nonchalance. “It was the quickest way I could think to stop you from announcing we’d found their bug and tipping them off about the camera.”
What was she supposed to say? Oh, it’s all right that you kissed the breath out of me. It wasn’t. She wondered if it was going to be.
“Sure. No problem.” Her voice caught, and she fought the urge to hide her face in her hands. “What do we do now?”
“You’re coming home with me.”
“But…” Panic clawed at her. “Is that a good idea?”
“You have a better one?”
“How about anywhere but there?” she drawled.
The glint of male satisfaction in his eyes had her clenching her jaw. “Wouldn’t it be better, safer if we—I went to a hotel?”
He slid her a look. “We can, but I can’t guarantee the security of a place like that the way I can my own house.”
“Of course.” The only thing she understood was that she needed to be away from him, and that wasn’t going to happen tonight.
His house. A dull throb built at the back of her head.
“Like it or not,” he said brusquely, “we’re stuck together.”
He obviously didn’t like it.
“And we both might as well get used to it. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we find that ditzy sister of yours.”
“You never did understand Liz,” she snapped. “Well, you don’t have to. You just have to find her.”
“That’s the plan,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Her glare went unremarked. Panic closed across her chest as she got into the Corvette. She told herself that finding Liz would be worth risking her heart again. Worth anything, but after that staged seduction scene, she wasn’t sure she was up for even five more minutes with Rafe Blackstock.
Chapter 4
Want clawed through him. As Kit ducked into the passenger side of his car, Rafe went down on all fours, then slid under the ’Vette. If there was a bug in her house, there was possibly something on his car or hers. At first glance, he saw nothing so he stretched his arm up and felt the undercarriage.
Blast her, she’d gotten him all hot and bothered in there, plastering her lush bod against his and issuing that silent but unmistakable challenge—I can make you want me, too.
That had never been the damn issue between them, just as it hadn’t been his real intent to fire her engines in there a minute ago. It had been instinct that had fueled the way he’d hauled her to him and silenced her with a kiss, instinct to keep her from announcing to their unseen audience that they’d found the bug and camera. Now he was paying the price because it had been pure want that exploded in his veins when she’d retaliated. Pure desire that had him pulling her to him, wanting to wrap both those long legs around his waist and say to hell with caution.
That was stupid, and he wouldn’t do it. Not just because he needed a clear mind in order to ascertain the danger Kit faced, if indeed there was danger, but also because he wasn’t giving her another chance to stomp all over his heart.
His mouth twisting, he tried to forget how she felt against him, how she’d surrendered to his kiss for just that one beat of time. There had never been any question of the sexual chemistry between them. Their problem—her problem—had been that she couldn’t commit. Her accusation that he was too controlling had been true at the time, but that hadn’t been the whole issue.
Sliding his hands along the lip of the car’s frame, he cursed the way his gut jumped at the remembered feel of her full breasts pressed against him, the wicked slide of her tongue against his, the deep wine taste of her.
More memories crowded through his mind, memories of their days together at OU, their nights, that time in the car on the way back from his parents’ place. Rafe slammed a mental door on those thoughts, ruthlessly turned his mind to the task at hand. Around one side of the car, then to the back and around the passenger side. His fingers grazed something. Aha.
He lay on his back and scooted under the car as far as he could. There it was, a little black box with a flashing red light. The bastards. Well, this proved someone was following her. Not that he needed more convincing after finding that bug and camera in her house. How serious these bad guys were had yet to be determined.
Rafe moved out from under the car and stood, walking up to Kit’s car. Her house was relatively old and didn’t have a garage. He’d probably find a tracking device on hers, too. Sure enough, he did.
She rolled down the window. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for tracking devices.”
“And?”
“There’s one on my car.” He knelt, felt around the wheel well, up along the lip of her frame, then moved around to the front of her car. “And there’s one on yours.”
He stood, dusting his hands. He’d been right to insist she come to his house tonight. Now all he had to do was keep his hands off her.
After easing into the driver’s seat, he took the tissue Kit offered and cleaned his hands as best he could.
“What do we do now?”
“Leave the device on your car. You won’t be using it.”
“What about the one on yours?” In the fading sunlight, she looked wan and worried.
He grinned. “We’ll dump it somewhere.”
She nodded, her blue-gray eyes searching his.
“It’ll be all right,” he said, compelled to reassure her.
“I hope Liz is, too.”
Rafe had no answer for that so he started the engine and backed the ’Vette out of Kit’s drive. He turned north on May Avenue and headed toward his house in Quail Creek. Amazing how close they lived to each other. Amazing they’d steered clear of each other until now.
She sat on her side of the car, arms crossed tightly. He figured she was probably still mad about his comments concerning Dizzy Lizzy. That was for the best. The more distance between them, the better.
Still, as he slid a look at her pale golden skin, the finely sculpted profile, his whole body tightened. In all fairness, their breakup hadn’t been entirely her fault. He’d blamed her all these years for not speaking up, but back then he had been too controlling, too insistent on his own way.
Even when he’d proposed, he hadn’t asked her to marry him; he’d simply told her she would and how they would live. The realization jolted him, and he jerked his gaze to the road. That had been a valid reason to turn him down. Besides her keen sense of family responsibility, had his control played a part in why she couldn’t commit to him? The only excuse he had for his domineering behavior was that he’d been young and stupid.
As she looked out the window at passing scenery, holding herself away from him, he realized it didn’t matter now. They’d gone their separate ways.
Spying a police cruiser up ahead, he changed lanes and pulled into the small parking lot of an all-night doughnut shop. She sent him a questioning look and he grinned, slid out of the car and moved around to remove the tracking device from the belly of the ’Vette.
He walked to the black and white, slapped it on the underside of the bumper and got back in his car.
Kit laughed. “That was good.”
“It’ll keep them busy for a while.”
“Until we get to your house?”
“Yeah.”
Her smile faded, and he recognized the shadows in her eyes as memories from the past. Memories she was fighting as much as he was. The silence stretched between them, stilted and unfinished. Regret pricked at him. He was swept with a sudden urge to touch her, reassure her, but about what? The past was past. Best to leave it alone.
He put the car in gear, reversed and pulled onto May Avenue. They drove in silence to his house. His life was markedly different from what he’d planned, even aside from Kit. She, on the other hand, still appeared to be her sister’s self-appointed rescuer.
Despite the years that had passed, Rafe wasn’t willing to play second fiddle to Dizzy Lizzy. Yes, the more distance the better. And that meant keeping his hands to himself. After that kiss, which even now rattled him, he knew she could still affect him like a neutron bomb. He couldn’t allow himself to get close to her again, not physically, not emotionally.
He’d have to protect her, find her sister without letting it become personal. They were over. They couldn’t go back; he wouldn’t go back.
For the fourth time in the last half hour, Kit rose from the supple, navy leather sofa in Rafe’s living room and walked toward the sliding patio doors. He had grilled chicken and vegetables for dinner; she’d cleaned up afterward. And thirty minutes ago, he’d invited her outside, but she’d thought it would be more prudent to stay inside. Away from him.
She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss at her house. It had completely ambushed her senses. And unleashed the curiosity that had been hammering at her since seeing him this morning.
Rafe’s finding that tracking device had convinced Kit that her sister was in danger, no matter what he said. She’d gotten a chuckle out of his putting it on the police cruiser. He was still so darn cute. Which she didn’t need to be thinking about, either.
Still, if they were going to be stuck together, she wanted to know how he’d gotten back to Oklahoma City. It had unsettled her to learn that they lived within five miles of each other and she hadn’t known it.
Finally, prodded by the curiosity she’d been trying all day to deny, she stepped through the sliding glass doors onto the patio and closed the door behind her.
Flagstone tile in variegated shades of cream and terra-cotta formed a far-reaching patio and framed a small rectangular pool. Potted plants in oversize ceramic planters guarded each corner. Bunches of petunias, begonias and other annuals spilled against a tall wooden privacy fence. A six-foot-wide border of grass edged the fence and butted up against the tile. The pool, covered with a blue tarp, waited to be filled with the first water of summer. Last week’s Memorial Day had surely been hot enough for swimmers.
Light from inside the house washed across the tile, shimmered off the cushioned lounge chairs around the pool. It was a perfect early summer night, growing cooler as the darkness swallowed the last of the sun. The stars burned bright in a velvet sky. Moonlight skittered across the patio, danced with the darkness. Kit squinted into the shadows.
“Over here.”
Rafe’s smoothly dark voice came from behind her and sent a shiver over her skin. She turned, rubbing her arms. She attributed the tightening of her belly to a sudden breeze, not the delicious timbre of his voice.
About ten feet to her right, she saw the silhouette of his upper body. The muted glow of house lights behind him played against his raven hair. Broad shoulders, seemingly carved from the night, rose from the water of a hot tub. Steam curled around him, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw he had leaned back against the wall of the hot tub, arms spread on either side, waiting, watching. Aggressive, male, primally appealing. He was familiar, and yet not. Her knowledge of the boy bumped into the mystery of the man.
She swallowed against the purely feminine flutter in her stomach and squashed the urge to scurry back into the house.
“If you want to join me, there’s an extra suit over there.” He inclined his head toward a storage closet partially visible in the shadowed alcove behind him, which also housed a grill and a picnic table. His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Or you can go without. I won’t be offended.”
To cover the sudden dip in her stomach, she retorted, “Yeah, that’s why I came out here. To get naked with you.”
He chuckled, and she found herself smiling. He was over there; she was over here. She was safe.
Still, that kiss from this afternoon was fresh in her mind, and the feel of that lean hard body against hers had opened the floodgate on memories that were better ignored.
“You sure you don’t want to join me?”
“Yes,” she murmured, wondering what he would do if she actually climbed in there with him.
“Pull up a chair or scoot over and dip your feet in. Feels pretty good.” He swirled a hand through the water invitingly, stirring moonlight and shadows around his bare, glistening chest.
She hoped he had something on beneath that water. He’d done his share of skinny-dipping in college.
“You’ve got a real bachelor setup here. The hot tub, the pool, the extra suit.” She couldn’t keep the bite out of her voice.
“People leave things,” he said with a shrug.
Which answered nothing. She itched to slip off her shoes and stick her feet in the warm water, but she knew it would be safer to stay dressed, keep some distance between them. Rafe, even without the seductive softness of night, had always been able to make her do things she regretted later. Like kissing him back there at her house.
Forcing the words past her tight throat, she asked, “So, where do we start tomorrow?”
She glanced over as he ran a wet hand through his dark hair, muscles flexing in his biceps with the movement. “We’ll stop at Tony’s parole officer first, see if he’s heard from him at all. Then we’ll pay a visit to Tony’s employer.”
Kit nodded.
“Was that what you really wanted to know, Kit?”
She jerked her head toward him. “What?”
“You’ve got curiosity written all over you. Just ask me.”
She ground her teeth. How could he still read her so easily, after all these years?
Water bubbled gently around him. His black eyes glittered at her.
“Now you believe me about Liz, right? After finding that tracking device.”
“I believe someone’s after you and I believe that’s tied to your sister. I don’t know how dangerous they are.”
She knew he didn’t believe her that Liz had changed. That was all right. It didn’t matter what he thought. He only needed to find her sister.
Kit walked to the edge of the pool, her hands clasped behind her back. “How did you get to Oklahoma City, Rafe? What happened to the Air Force? The fighter jets?”
He went abruptly still. She could feel it even from this distance. She glanced over, noted the rigid set of his wide shoulders, the way even the water seemed to stop moving.
He tilted his head back, stared at the star-studded sky. Moonlight slid down the column of his long throat. “I developed night blindness. Botched a landing, and the requisite exam showed a pretty severe case.”
“Night blindness?” She stepped toward him. That explained his sudden swerving on the way to Davis and again on the way back. “Are you okay? How severe?”
“Not so severe I can’t drive,” he said dryly. “But I can’t fly jets, that’s for sure. At least not for the Air Force.”
“I had no idea.” She found herself at the edge of the hot tub, looking at his face, half hidden in shadows. “I know how much you wanted that.”
“I had six years, and they were great.” He reached for the towel behind him and stood, water sluicing down his body. His hard-muscled, naked body.
Her eyes widened and she whirled around. “You could give a girl some warning.”
“I suppose. You know I don’t generally wear a suit.” There was a tightness in his voice that made Kit ache deep inside.
She’d forgotten that he liked to do things in the nude. He’d never been as concerned about his nakedness as she had been about hers. She remembered the time they’d gone skinny-dipping at the university pool after hours. How their splashing and teasing had turned to stroking, their water-slicked bodies sliding hotly against each other.
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Debra Cowan
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The woman standing in Rafe Blackstock′s office was beautiful–unforgettably beautiful–and desperate for his help. But this wasn′t just another client who needed a private investigator. This was the only woman he′d ever loved–the one who′d walked away from him without a backward glance, so many years ago….Kit Foley′s troubled younger sister was missing, and she was willing to do anything to find her–even turn to the man she′d spent such a long time trying to forget. But their search for answers was proving to be even more dangerous than she′d feared–because it meant facing the truth of a love that had never died….