Against the Odds (19 page)

Rina continued on to her bedroom, her legs shaky as she hurried
along. She swallowed against the tears lodged in her throat. What in God’s name
had she been thinking? Staying in his home? Sleeping with him every night? By
now, Alex must be bored senseless. He was used to sleeping with a legion of
women. To help her, he had put his life on hold—and he wasn’t even getting
paid!

She fought to keep from crying as she dragged her suitcase out
from under the bed and started tossing in clothes. The suitcase was almost
packed when Alex showed up in the open doorway.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She glanced up at him, hurt mixed with anger. Anger won out.
“What does it look like? I’m leaving. You don’t owe me anything, Alex. Not your
services as a bodyguard or as a...a stud. I have other friends who can help me.
I’m Sage’s best friend. Jake won’t let anything happen to me. You don’t have to
feel obligated just because you slept with me.”

“Bullshit.” He grabbed the suitcase and tossed it away,
spilling clothes all over the floor. “You aren’t going anywhere. Just because
one of my old girlfriends showed up at the door—uninvited—doesn’t change
things.”

“Doesn’t it? I knew I recognized her. She’s a supermodel, for
God’s sake. Her arrival reminded me quite clearly that I’m your
client
and nothing more.”

“That isn’t true and you know it.”

“Do I?”

He sighed, ran a hand over his face. “I know I handled that
badly. I said the wrong thing and I’m sorry. It’s just... This is new to me,
too.”

“You mean sleeping with one woman instead of a baker’s dozen? I
imagine that takes a lot of self-restraint for a man like you.”

His jaw hardened. Alex caught her shoulders. “Whatever you
think, the fact is you need me. And dammit to hell—I need you.”

She gasped as he hauled her close and kissed her, not a sweet,
apologetic kiss, but a hot, greedy kiss that turned her inside out.

“It’s you I want—can’t you see that?” Hot kisses burned along
her throat, and little shivers raced over her skin. He grabbed the hem of her
red-and-white top and dragged it off over her head, popped the clasp on the
front of her white lace bra, tore it off and tossed it away.

She was barefoot. He stripped away her navy blue pants and the
white lace bikini panties she wore underneath, then he was kissing her again,
running his hands all over her body, stroking, caressing, kindling the arousal
he’d stirred that morning.

“Tell me you want me,” he demanded, his teeth grazing her neck,
biting an earlobe, making her hot and wet. “Say it.”

She bit back a moan. “I want you. God, yes, I want you.” She
was trembling, panting, aching as he filled his hands with her breasts, kneaded,
lowered his head and tasted.

Heat roared through her, made it impossible to think. She
didn’t realize he had backed her up to the bed until her knees hit the mattress,
he tumbled her backward and came down on top of her. She only knew she was more
than ready for him to relieve the hot, sweet yearning inside her.

She burned for Alex. Never seemed able to get enough. She heard
the buzz of his zipper as he freed himself, found her wet and ready, buried
himself deep inside. He caught her hands and pulled them over her head, holding
her in place while he took her with long, determined strokes, took and took, as
greedy for fulfillment as she.

Deep, saturating pleasure washed through her, pulled her toward
climax. His fierce need was exactly what she wanted, his body telling her that
he truly cared, that she was the woman he desired above all others.

She climaxed, then came again. Moments later, Alex followed her
to release. Both of them were breathing hard, their muscles taut, then slowly
relaxing. Alex came down next to her on the bed and pulled her on top of him,
ran his hands over her back in a gently soothing motion. She could feel his
heart racing, the damp heat of his body.

“Don’t go,” he whispered against her ear. “I don’t want you to
go.” And though she knew the risk she was taking, the yearning in his voice was
enough to convince her to stay.

It was insane. The unmistakable road to heartbreak, and yet as
she lay there with his arms possessively around her, she couldn’t make herself
leave.

“I’ll stay,” she said, and felt his body relax beneath her.

Long seconds passed as they lay together, each taking comfort
in the other.

“We didn’t finish our breakfast,” Alex finally said, nuzzling
her ear.

“No, and now I’m really hungry.”

He kissed the top of her head and uncoiled his long body from
around her. “We could use the microwave to heat it back up.”

Rina smiled. “That’ll work.” She knew she was getting in way
too deep with Alex, but there was something about him that called to her, urged
her to follow her heart.

Alex scooped her up in his arms and carried her naked down the
hall to his bedroom. He stripped off his clothes and they climbed into the
shower together. They didn’t come out from under the dense, hot spray until he’d
made love to her again.

Twenty-One

H
enry felt the vibration, dug his cell
phone out of his pocket and pressed it against his ear.

“Why haven’t you answered your goddamned phone?” said the
irritated voice on the other end of the line.

“I was busy. I have a life, too, you know.”

“If you want your money, you better put your life on hold and
get this done.”

Henry took a deep drag on his cigarette, blew out a smoke ring.
“You sayin’ you found her?”

“It isn’t confirmed, but there’s more than a good chance she’s
staying with the guy she was with in the chopper. His name is Alex Justice and
he’s a private investigator. He’s been asking questions, digging up information.
She showed up at Flo’s with Justice in tow, and they went to see Priscilla.
According to Flo, they’ve got a thing going. I imagine Florence is ecstatic,
since the guy’s worth a fortune.”

“You know where to find him?”

“He lives in River Oaks. Write this down.”

Henry wrote the address in the palm of his hand. “How you’d
come up with it?” He figured a private dick would be careful about letting
people know where he lived.

“Nobody hides from Google. And don’t underestimate Justice the
way you did the first time. If he’s as good a detective as he is a pilot, you
better watch your ass.”

“I’m not stupid.”

“That remains to be seen. Have you talked to Ortega?”

“He’s ready to go whenever you say the word. I’ll call him,
fill him in, give him the address. He’ll move as soon as he can make it
work.”

“Do it.” The line went dead, and Henry closed the phone. There
was big money in this. His old Uvalde high school buddy knew he could count on
Henry the way he had since they were kids. And this time, the payoff would be
once-in-a-lifetime big.

Henry smiled and opened the phone.

* * *

Alex got the call just before dark the next day. For the
past half hour, he’d been listening to Sabrina complain about getting out of the
house. Even keeping her in bed half the afternoon hadn’t worked.

The memory brought him back to his visit from the tall,
statuesque Gabriella Moreau, and he wondered at his reaction—which was no
reaction at all. He had no desire for Gaby, who had once stirred his blood just
by walking into a room. He couldn’t pinpoint the time when Sabrina had become
the focus of his desire. And an important part of his world.

It bothered him a little. He wasn’t sure if he was changing,
finding his way through life as he had been trying to do for years, or if she
was just a fresh diversion, a woman unlike the type he had been attracted to for
as long as he could recall. Beautiful, svelte and emotionless. The kind of woman
who didn’t need anything from him except the use of his Platinum American
Express card.

He wasn’t sure what was happening between him and Sabrina.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t ready to give her up.

When the call came in, she was upstairs in the guest bedroom,
using her laptop to dig up information on Desert Mining, the company she hoped
to work with if the molybdenum was actually there.

Alex heard the roar of a jet and dug out his iPhone, pressed it
against his ear. “Justice.”

“Alex, this is Josh Reynolds.” The assistant D.A. who had been
keeping him posted on Edward Bagley.

“Hey, Josh, what’s up?”

“This is a call I really hated to make, but I figure you
deserve to know.”

His fingers tightened around the phone. “What is it?”

“Bagley slipped surveillance. He’s in the wind, and we have no
idea where he’ll surface.”

Fuck.
“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“I wish I were. Nobody knows exactly how it happened. He was
home and we had men watching the house 24/7. We didn’t figure out he was gone
until one of the undercover officers spotted flames coming out the back windows.
The building was nearly destroyed, but the arson guys are sure he wasn’t
inside.”

“I can’t believe this. He must have had a way out you didn’t
know about.”

“We got a warrant after you turned in that DNA evidence,
searched the place top to bottom but didn’t find much of anything. And any DNA
resulting from the search was also ruled out because we got the warrant on
illegal evidence in the first place.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I think you’re right. He had some kind of secret passage we
didn’t find.”

“It fits. Could be how he was moving around without getting
noticed, and he burned down the house to destroy any other evidence that might
have turned up.”

“That’s the way it looks.”

Alex closed his eyes, fought to rein in his temper. “So you’ve
got nothing,” he said softly. Too softly. “Not a goddamned single
thing—including Bagley.”

“Sorry, Alex.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.” Alex hung up the phone and
turned to see Sabrina standing a few feet away.

“What is it?”

“Bagley slipped his tether. He’s on the loose and nobody has
any idea where he’s gone.”

She walked over, wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m so
sorry.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Wiseman are going to be devastated. They still
had hopes we were going to find new evidence that would nail the bastard once
and for all.”

“It’s not your fault. They wouldn’t even know who killed their
daughter if it weren’t for you.”

“Maybe. Doesn’t help the next little girl Bagley murders.” Or
the ones before Carrie Wiseman, and Alex was fairly sure there were some. “The
son of a bitch was a schoolteacher. Can you believe it?”

“Teacher of the Year, they said on the news.”

“
Teacher of the Year.
That’s a good
one. That’s what kept him out of the spotlight for so long. People just couldn’t
believe an upstanding guy like that could be capable of such a heinous
crime.”

“They’ll find him. We have to believe that.”

Alex released a slow breath. “I wish I were convinced.” He
rubbed his jaw. He needed a drink, something strong. Hell, he needed a whole
damned bottle.

Sabrina gently tugged on his arm. “Come on. It’s almost time
for supper. I’m going crazy locked up in here every day, and now so are you.
Let’s get out of here for a while.”

She was right. He needed to get out, and he couldn’t keep her
locked up forever. She was ready to bolt as it was.

“Let me get my weapon.” He ignored the Ruger he kept in a
drawer in the kitchen and headed upstairs for his S&W .45. Strapping his
shoulder holster on over his T-shirt, he slipped a blue flowered short-sleeved
shirt over the gun and headed back downstairs.

By the time he reached the bottom of the staircase, Sabrina had
changed into a yellow sundress that left her back exposed and barely covered her
sweet little ass. He wasn’t sure he wanted her flashing that luscious body for
anyone but him, but it sure was turning him on.

“I’m ready,” she said, slinging the strap of a small white
handbag over her shoulder.

He felt more like peeling off the dress and keeping all that
sweet femininity to himself, but he figured that wasn’t an option—at least not
until they got home. Leading her out to the garage, he loaded her into the car,
punched in the alarm code and climbed in behind the wheel, backed out and
remotely closed the garage door.

“So where are you taking me, flyboy?” she asked as he drove
down the street. “And it better be the kind of place you’d take your friend
Gabriella.”

Alex just smiled, thinking most of the time he’d just taken
Gaby to bed. “How about the Post Oak Grill? If I remember, Jake said it’s one
you and Sage really like.”

Sabrina leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, gave him a
tiny catlike smile. “Purrrfect.”

Even in the black mood he was in, Alex couldn’t stop a
grin.

* * *

The atmosphere was elegant and the food delicious, as
usual. Rina remembered only too well the last time she had been there with Sage,
when Jake Cantrell, her bodyguard at the time, had stormed in to rescue her from
a group protesting the oil deal her company was making with a Saudi Arabian
sheik.

Tonight was infinitely more relaxing.

She took a sip of the expensive Bordeaux that Alex had ordered.
“All right, so now that you know most of my family’s dirty little secrets, I
want to know something about yours.”

Alex’s smile slipped away. “Not much to tell. They’re rich and
they spend a lot of time in Europe.”

“That’s it? Sorry, not enough. What else?”

Keeping his expression carefully bland, Alex took a drink of
his wine. “They’re old-money, East Coast high society and they were pretty much
lousy parents when Becca and I were growing up.”

She had begun to figure that from the little tidbits he’d let
slip here and there. “What about now?”

Alex shrugged, his wide shoulders moving beneath the
blue-flowered shirt. The color matched his eyes and just looking at him sitting
there made her heart beat faster.

“Same deal,” he said. “I try to stay away as much as my
conscience will allow. I go back about once a year.”

Rina studied the blank expression he was working so hard to
maintain. Maybe the need she read in him had something to do with his past. “But
they loved you, right?”

He lifted his wineglass then returned it to the table without
taking a drink. “In their own way, I guess. Mostly we were raised by nannies. A
string of them. I don’t even remember most of their names.”

“Oh, Alex, that’s so sad.”

His features tightened. He picked up his wineglass and leaned
back in his chair. “Beats living in Uvalde.”

Rina blanched at the cutting remark, the kind she had never
heard him make before. He didn’t want her pity. If she hadn’t understood that,
she might have been angry.

“We didn’t have much money, that’s for sure.”

Alex blew out a slow breath, set his wineglass back on the
table. “I’m sorry.” He reached over and took hold of her hand. “I didn’t mean
that. I have a hard time talking about my parents. In a way I’m jealous of the
life you lived.”

“Jealous?”

“It’s obvious how much your mother loves you. And the way you
talk about your dad...he must have loved you, too.”

She smiled wistfully. “I was lucky. My cousins and I, we didn’t
even know we were poor until we grew up. That was when things changed.”

“That’s when you decided to put yourself through college and
became a successful stockbroker.”

“I worked my way though school, but Uncle Walter helped
me.”

“What about his own kids? He help them, too?”

“Bob was the only one who went on after high school. He got a
two-year degree from community college, but he had no desire to continue. He
started working and eventually got his real estate license. He was very
successful as a developer.”

“Until the recession hit.”

“That’s right.”

They finished their meal, medium-rare steaks and potatoes au
gratin for both of them, then shared an extravagant desert of vanilla bean crème
brûlée.

So full her ribs were aching by the time they finished and
headed outside, Rina noticed the way Alex studied the landscape, keeping an eye
out for trouble. He hadn’t forgotten the plane crash or the car accident. He had
even paid the valet extra to park his BMW in the lights in front of the
restaurant so no one could tamper with it.

Rina knew he was good at his job. She smiled to think he was
earning every dollar of the money she wasn’t paying him.

* * *

Alex took the long way back to his house. Once he
thought he caught a glimpse of a dark brown sedan that seemed to be following
them, but a couple of turns and the car was gone. He made a couple more evasive
moves just to be sure they weren’t being followed, but the car didn’t reappear.
A motorcycle turned a corner behind them, appearing for a couple of blocks in
his rearview mirror, then it rounded a corner and headed off in another
direction.

“We need some milk for breakfast,” Sabrina said. “Would you
mind stopping at the minimart? It won’t take a minute.”

He checked the mirror. No sign of the dark sedan or the cycle.
It was safer just to go home, but Sabrina liked granola and milk for breakfast
and so far there’d been nothing to indicate anyone even knew where she was. And
there was still no conclusive proof she was in danger.

He pulled into the minimart lot, parked up close to the front
door and turned off the engine.

Sabrina cracked open her door.

“Hold on...we’ll both go in.” He wasn’t about to leave her in
the car alone or let her go into the store without him.

They walked inside, and she headed back to the dairy section.
The store was empty except for the bald man behind the counter and a skinny
teenager trying unsuccessfully to buy beer. Sabrina grabbed a quart of nonfat
milk off a refrigerated shelf and brought it up to the counter. Alex paid for it
and they headed out the door.

They were almost back to the car when a movement at the edge of
his vision caught his eye. Metal gleamed in the fluorescent light coming out of
the store windows as three men ran out of the darkness.

“Run!” He only had time to shove Sabrina out of the way before
a big, burly Hispanic man was on him. Sabrina screamed as Alex threw a punch
that broke the man’s nose and spewed blood all over his black T-shirt. The
return punch split Alex’s lip; he ducked a jab, and swung another punch as a
second man appeared just to his left, knife in hand.

Swearing an oath, Alex brought his knee up hard into the first
man’s groin, doubling him over, then drove a fist into his face, knocking him
down. No time to pull his pistol. The second man, solidly built, iron-jawed and
ready for a fight, rammed into him like a freight train, driving him backward,
the knife slashing viciously through his shirt and T-shirt, streaking like fire
across his skin.

Alex dived forward instead of back, chopping the edge of his
hand down hard against side of the second man’s neck and sending him sprawling
on the ground.