“From your mother. I paid her.”
She felt more betrayed by him for destroying her privacy than by her mother for taking the payment. Because she expected nothing different from her mother. “I thought you had standards.”
“I couldn’t meet you, yet I knew you the first time I saw your photograph.”
“Then you realize that I know how to be alone.”
“You may know how to be alone.” His voice had that deep, persuasive tone that made her knees buckle. “But you don’t know how to be with me.”
“All I need from you is safety.” Anything else was too dangerous.
“I will give you safety whether or not we have sex. But let me tell you this.” He paced toward her, taking his time, allowing her to flee. Or not.
She did not. Would not.
He said, “There are only two things I don’t know about you—where you’ve been for the past year, and whether or not we will set each other on fire when we have sex. I don’t know if you’re going to ever tell me about your lost year. But I’m betting yes on the second.”
“You’re obsessed.” Which sent a chill through her … and a most inappropriate heat.
“Yes.” He took her hands in his, put them palm to palm, intertwined their fingers in a slow, sensual tease. He leaned close, so close his lips were right above hers; his breath filled her nostrils, and heat rolled off him in waves. “Let me show you what obsession means.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Summer closed her eyes.
If she took this step, if she let Kennedy McManus make love to her, she would have ceded control to him. She had not come through hell for that.
She opened her eyes. She shook her hands free of his. She pushed him away. This past year had taught her to adapt, to think on her feet. Events did not shape Taylor Summers. She shaped events.
So she clasped him around his ribs and looked into his eyes. In as prosaic a tone as she could manage, she said, “My drawings are on my iPad.”
She saw the flash of some emotion in his eyes. Fury, swiftly subdued? No, more likely irritation that his seduction plan had gone amiss.
“Let me get it.” She retraced her steps back down the corridor, through the laundry room, and out the back door. She unlocked her trunk, got her briefcase and duffel bag, and turned back to the house.
Kennedy stood in the door, his black hair rumpled by her hands. He watched her with the grim expression she had seen in so many of his photos.
“What?” But she knew what. He thought she had run.
He didn’t understand. She was done with running … unless Michael Gracie was chasing her.
She strode steadily back toward the house, toward Kennedy.
He moved aside.
The return to the living room was oppressive and silent.
She put her briefcase on the coffee table, pulled out her iPad, unlocked the hidden files, and passed him the tablet. “Here. Look through my drawings. I’ll go … wash my hands.”
She went back to the guest bathroom and used the facilities and, as she said, she washed her hands. Repeatedly. While staring into the mirror and reminding herself that spontaneous sex was always a disaster. At least … for her it always had been.
But still she wanted. Her body, starved for far too long of all but the most superficial of touches, needed to be held, to feast on passion and get drunk on the taste and the scent and the feel of a man.
Kennedy McManus smelled like memories of innocent love, looked like the stripper at a bachelorette party, and yes, he would be a banquet to the senses.
This stirring in her body was his fault, and she hated him for that.
Thoroughly she dried her hands. She opened the door. She walked back down the hall, stepped into the living room, and—
There he stood, holding the iPad, and gazing at her with narrowed eyes. He turned the tablet toward her. “You expect me to sign a letter of agreement saying I will get you your old life and good reputation back?”
He was so sure of himself, she couldn’t help but mock him. “Can you not do that?”
His eyes kindled with rage. His chest heaved—and by God, she could see enough to know it was a very impressive chest. “Damn you,” he said. “You’ve got me by the balls.”
She didn’t follow at first. Then she understood. “Because you’re responsible for letting your nephew get snatched? Yeah. Okay. I didn’t have to try and save him. I could have hidden behind a tree, pretended it had never happened. I could have reported it to the police and been guilty for the rest of my life. So don’t tell me you’re responsible. I made the choice.” Her voice caught. “I did.”
“I know that. You chose to help my nephew. That’s gold.” He paced toward her, picked up her left hand. He took her little finger between his thumb and forefinger. “And it would appear helping Miles cost you more than even I imagined.”
She extricated her hand from his, and closed her fingers into a fist.
At the time, losing her finger had not felt like a sacrifice. It had felt like survival. But now, she felt almost embarrassed, as if she were trying to guilt him. “I want my life back. I want my reputation back. I want to live without fear. I am charging you for my choice.”
He got in her face, nose to nose, compelling her to believe him. “I will pay.” He plucked a stylus out of his shirt pocket and signed the letter, then placed the iPad on the coffee table. “To the best of my abilities.”
“You’re Kennedy McManus. I expect that will be satisfactory.” She dangled a tempting tidbit. “And you’ll figure out who Jimmy is. You know, Jimmy—the guy who had your nephew kidnapped.” She headed out toward the car again.
He followed. “Jimmy. My God, I know a dozen Jims and James and Jimmys, and not one of them has any reason to want to hurt me.”
That was naive. “You’re successful. For some people, that’s enough.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Even more naive—and very Kennedy. She had read enough about him to know he understood the intricacies of any technological problem, and not much about human nature. She also knew she would get nothing but frustrated by arguing with him. She opened the back door and set the mechanism to hold it open. “Trust me on this. You pissed this guy off big-time, somehow … he said you were friends, and you betrayed him.”
He followed her out to the car. “Where are you going?”
“The Hartmans told me to prepare the house for guests. I have a cooler filled with the essentials to stock the refrigerator.”
“No point. We’re not staying here.”
Like she hadn’t seen this coming. “I’m not. I’ve got an apartment in town.”
“I can’t guarantee your safety in Virtue Falls. We’ll go to California, where I’ll put you in the hands of my security team.”
Fat chance. “I didn’t ask you to guarantee my safety. I’m doing that.” She glanced at her watch, then at him. “In two hours, I’ve got a building inspection to perform, so if you don’t want me to load the refrigerator, let me know now. I’ve got other stuff I can be doing.”
He stood there like the proverbial immovable object. “You said you wanted your old life back. Why bother with your business here?”
She placed her hand on the car and leaned toward him. “I like what I’ve got in Virtue Falls. I like being a vacation home concierge. I like being a construction coordinator. I work for myself, there’s a demand for what I do, and over the next few years, I expect to expand the business to include other areas of the coast, probably into Oregon and Northern California. When I say I want my old life back, I mean that I want to be able to use my own name, or if I wish, legally change it to Summer Leigh. I want to travel by plane without being afraid someone’s going to spot my phony ID. To see my former friends and not have them scream and run away from the murderous kidnapper. I want a life without fear.”
“You say I don’t know what we’re up against. That’s true. But no matter who this Jimmy is, California would b
e safer for us both.”
“Yeah. No one’s tried to kill me lately, so I’m not going to California.” She smiled without humor. “Now—are you staying? Do you want your refrigerator stocked? Or do you need to return to California to find Jimmy and figure out how to nail him for his crimes?”
“No matter where I am, I can find him.”
She maintained eye contact.
He gave up first. “I’m staying.”
“Okay.” She leaned into the trunk and pulled out the cooler. “Grab those bags of groceries. We’ll get you fixed up.”
He got the bags and followed her toward the house. “I’ll go with you on your inspection.”
“You most definitely will not.” She went inside, put the cooler on the counter and waited while he came in.
“You can’t be alone, and as a man of wealth, I’ve taken courses to guard against terrorists.”
“I’ve read the books on safety, and I’ve taken classes, too. Online, but I learned a lot.” She shut the door after him, and locked it. “Look. If Jimmy figures out I’m alive, he’ll have a sniper kill me. There will be nothing you can do.”
Kennedy paced, his fists clenching and unclenching in frustration.
“What’s more, having you here increases my danger. He’s probably watching you, wondering why you came to Virtue Falls.”
“I came without fanfare.”
“He’s watching you,” she repeated. “And he’s smart. He knows you’re here. Hopefully he thinks you came for vacation or to work out a project. So let’s not give him notice I’m alive by having you tag along after me.” She headed to the kitchen. “Anyway—I won’t be alone. I’m going to be on a construction site with framers and concrete guys and roofers. The basement and foundation are finished, but after the fact, the homeowner decided to install a wine cave. You know? Concrete poured to look like the walls are hollowed out of rock? That takes skill, my friend. It’s a big cave for a vacation home—when it’s full, it’ll hold two thousand bottles. I have to go. With concrete scheduled for this afternoon, the construction supervisor needs approval to complete the pour.”
Kennedy didn’t bother to fake it. “I have no idea what you just said.”
She opened the cooler. “I inspect the rebar—you know what rebar is?”
“Those long iron bars they place in concrete to make it strong.”
“Right. Reinforcement bars. Before the builder pours the concrete, I inspect the rebar size and spacing to make sure the contractor didn’t try to cheap out.” She loaded the refrigerator and turned to face Kennedy.
He put the groceries in the cupboards in some proper, methodical order only he understood. “This is a seismic zone. Isn’t … cheaping out … dangerous?”
“Exactly. Lots of earthquakes, some serious, so placement and amount of rebar is imperative. Same with the framing. It’s got to be right. The landscape architect has heavy equipment out there moving and removing some big trees, too. When this place is done, it’s going to be a great estate.” Which gave her a thrill; the Parnham home would be the first that she had guided from foundation to finish.
Kennedy folded the bags and handed them back to her, then glanced at the clock. “If you’re leaving in two hours, I need your information now. Start from the beginning, and tell me every detail about that day Miles was kidnapped. Why were you there? What did you see? What did you hear? What made you interfere? How did you escape?”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Kennedy saw Summer’s glow of enthusiasm visibly dim.
“Right. Come on, then. Let’s get down to business.” Turning on her heel, she walked into the living room.
He followed. “I don’t understand. Why would a woman who has traveled, seen Paris, Tokyo, and the Taj Mahal, and worked for the fashion world’s foremost interior designers … why would you enjoy the thought of pouring a concrete cave of fake stone, or be thrilled about studs, trusses, and connections?”
“You don’t have to understand. I don’t understand what thrill you get from digging around and tracking stuff in people’s computers, either. That doesn’t mean I think you’re nuts.”
So he’d said something wrong, although he didn’t know what. “I didn’t say I thought you were nuts. I asked for an explanation.”
She seated herself in the easy chair, and folded her hands in her lap. “I suspect any woman who tried to make you understand anything would be doomed to failure. Your understanding is limited to what’s logical to your mind, and that is a very limited comprehension.”
He intended to point out that what was logical to his mind was what was logical, but Summer distracted him by launching into a speech that covered the events of Miles’s kidnapping as she had seen them.
As she spoke, Kennedy walked off to the side. Her severe haircut flattered and revealed her features. Resolution, horror, and fear marched one by one across her mobile face. Yet while she remembered the events clearly, she was also able to separate her emotions from them.
That surprised him. He had told her he researched her thoroughly, and he had. He had come to a few conclusions: the Taylor Summers who had saved his nephew was flawed, a woman trapped in a career that did not fully engage her, a woman given to extravagances of emotion that led her into passionate love affairs and, later, broken engagements. The divide between her mind and heart seemed narrow and constantly changing.
Unexpectedly, he had been swept up in the pleasure of seeing her move quickly and with ferocity, of hearing her voice correct him about her name, of realizing that the Taylor Summers he had studied for so long had been burned in the fire, and Summer Leigh had risen like a phoenix in her place. He had taken her into his arms and … well. He had kissed her. If she had yielded, he would have had sex with her. Now he had himself back under control. But he still wondered at his own madness, and worry twitched in his mind. What spell had she cast on him?
She interrupted his reverie. “The man in charge of the kidnapping was Seamore ‘Dash’ Roberts,” she said. “Do you know him?”
He stepped into her peripheral vision. “I do. Are you sure?” The Taylor Summers she had been seemed frilly, girly—an interior decorator—definitely not the type of female who followed football.
“Dash was a running back,” she said. “This guy ran faster than any person I’ve ever seen. If he hadn’t been intent on shooting me, he would have had me.”
“Why would Dash Roberts kidnap my nephew?”
“Because his boss told him to.” Serious as a heart attack, she looked at Kennedy. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Dash has disappeared. With Jimmy as his employer, it’s not smart to fail.”
Kennedy had not heard. “You mean you think he’s dead?”
“I know he’s dead. I saw him killed.”
That surprised him. “Killed. You saw him killed?”
“Shot in the head execution-style.” Her voice was cool. “Months later … on my last day in Wildrose Valley.” Gently she cradled her little finger in the palm of her right hand.
“By Jimmy?”
“That’s what Dash called him. Jimmy.”
Who was this Jimmy? What kind of thug had she—and Kennedy—run afoul of? What kind of man terrified her so thoroughly she always carried a pistol? And wore a leather belt that looked as if it could double as a weapon? “It’s all right. Don’t jump ahead. We’ll get to that part of the story soon.” He thought he sounded comforting.
But she shot him an annoyed glance. “I didn’t jump ahead. I merely answered your question. But I’ll take care not to deviate from the prescribed chronological path again.”
She got aggravated about the strangest things.
She described her wild flight up the mountain, her dive into the cave—and stopped.
“Go on,” he said.
She opened her mouth. Shut it. Took a breath and tried to speak. Her voice caught. Her eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head repeatedly. Finally she said, “Sorry.” She croaked the word.
“Did Dash follow you?”
She shook her head again.
“Were there bats or blind fish or—”
She put her hand to her throat as if to ease the tension. “Was safe. Stayed … overnight. I got out. But dark. Just … dark.”
He supposed, after her ordeal, she had the right to suffer PTSD. Yet how odd, to describe the violence and fear of the kidnapping, yet balk when describing the safety of a cave. He glanced at his watch. Probably her fear of the dark was a good thing to skip, since they had little more than an hour left. And with Summer, he was already in too deep, entangled in passions and emotions he didn’t understand or imagine he would ever experience. “We’ll skip the cave. You got out of the cave and went to your car…”
She took up the tale with the explosion, her flight into the mountains, and her fear that Dash would find and eliminate her. “But he never found me again. I found him, and he did not see me until…” She cradled her mutilated hand again. “I think he saw me right before the bullet entered his brain.”
“When was that?”
“Early December.”
“You survived in the Sawtooth Mountains from August to December?”
She stared straight ahead. She nodded.
“It’s brutal up there.” He asked the question that had been bothering him like a stone in his shoe. “How did you survive until December?”
“I changed careers.” She smiled faintly. “I became a burglar.”
Cold crept from his gut and from the old, jagged memories of his childhood. He looked down at his hands, at his sensitive fingertips, so gifted at lifting a wallet or opening a combination-lock safe. “You became a burglar. You … stole things.”
“Food and survival gear. Yes.” She laughed.
Her hilarity made him ill.
She continued, “Actually, I broke into the first house with the intention of going to the law. I mean, after I ate, which was my first priority. But when I turned on the computer and saw I’d been blamed for Miles’s kidnapping … I was trapped. I didn’t know what to do, so I thought I could just … stay alive until I figured it out.” She shook her head. “No one can stay alive up there in the mountains. Not without shelter, without food, without human contact. The loneliness drove me insane. I was … crazy. I … hallucinated.”