Desert Ice Daddy (10 page)

“In the pickup?” Might not be a bad idea. As long as she kept down. She might be safer in the vehicle while he looked around out there.

But she was shaking her head, a tone of desperation creeping into her voice. “I want you to take this car and go back.”

At first, he couldn’t comprehend what she meant. Then he understood only too well. She had seen what he’d done at the guardhouse and she no longer felt comfortable around him. Hell, maybe she no longer felt
safe
around him. One thing was certain—she no longer wanted his help.

Being pushed away by her hurt more than his combined injuries. “You need me here,” he argued. “You might not like who I am, but I’m what you need.” If she thought she was going to calmly waltz in and negotiate with those guys, she was more naïve that he’d judged her to be. “This is what it’s going to come down to, Taylor. Violence. You don’t have to like it, but you’re going to have to let me handle it, because there’s no way in hell I’m leaving you and Christopher behind.”

He grabbed her arm without thinking, then dropped it when he caught himself. “No way in hell.”

H
E COULD BE STUBBORN
, but so could she. “He’s my son. This is my problem. I want you to go.”

Even in the middle of the night, the moon provided enough light for her to see his blood-soaked leg. He needed help.

At one point along the way, she realized that this wasn’t going to be a simple exchange. People were going to get hurt. Akeem already had. People were going to die. Possibly her, but she could live with that. She was willing to go as far as she possibly could with this, no matter the end. She would get her son back or die trying.

She couldn’t expect the same from Akeem. He wasn’t Christopher’s parent. Scorching kisses and some serious groping notwithstanding, he was nothing but a girlhood crush and her brother’s friend.

“I didn’t ask you to get involved in this,” she snapped at him and watched the gathering storm on his face.

“Too damn bad,” he said tight-lipped.

“You have nothing to do with us,” she said in a fierce whisper.

His lips flattened into an even tighter line, until they all but disappeared. A long second passed before he spoke, his voice low and hard. “Everything that happens to you concerns me, Taylor.”

Her heart slammed against her chest.

She was trying to save him, didn’t he understand? Ap
parently not, and it was probably a good thing, because if he did, there was no way in hell he would leave.

“Akeem, you—”

He cut her off. “What is your plan?”

“I go in and talk to them. With me alone and unarmed they won’t feel threatened. I’ll tell them where the money is.” She paused. “I swear I’ll pay you back.” She ignored the look he shot her, and went on. “When they rush off to get the money, I’ll take Christopher and hide somewhere in case they come back. But I don’t think they will. They’ll be running off with your millions.”

It
could
work that way, not that she thought it would. Something didn’t add up with the whole kidnapping. She fought to remain optimistic, but her instincts said to expect a darker end. And Akeem didn’t need to be part of that.

“I’m coming with you every step of the way until you and Christopher are safely back at the ranch. It’s your choice if you don’t ever want to see me after that.” His face was as hard as his voice.

Warning flashed in his eyes. He was spitting mad at her.

She didn’t care. As long as he got away from this place in one piece and lived. “You have to—”

She couldn’t finish once again. He grabbed for her and hauled her against him, taking her mouth in a kiss that was far from his previous gentle seductions. He took her this time, with or without her consent, making her powerless in his grip, in the swirl of sensations and emotions that washed over her, leaving her breathless.

“Tell me I have nothing to do with you,” he growled when he let her go at last.

She couldn’t have, even if she could talk.

The air was too charged with tension between them—sexual and every other kind—to properly draw a breath. She reached for the door handle instead, and got out on shaky legs.

Akeem was right behind her. And when in a few steps her stunned surprise wore off, all she could think of was that after all these years…

How dare he kiss her like that just when they were walking into death? She didn’t know whether to tear into him for that or ask for another one.

At another time perhaps.

But she couldn’t afford to think of anything else but her son right now, couldn’t afford to spend much more time fighting Akeem off. She’d tried. She wished he had gone. But he was here, and he was going to have to take responsibility for his own choices.

Everybody did. That was one of the things she was learning.

“We are not just waltzing in there and hoping to negotiate,” Akeem said as he passed her. “We’ll go in without being seen and assess the situation then make a plan.”

And she gave up fighting him any further, because, honestly, it was such a comfort and relief to have him there. She looked around and surveyed the surrounding area and buildings. No windows looked this way that she could tell. When they walked around the corner, they spotted a rusty metal door. She followed Akeem toward it.

Unfortunately, none of his keys opened the lock. She
had a feeling the guy they’d gotten the keys from was supposed to call up and identify himself for someone to come down and let him in.

And since neither her nor Akeem’s voice was one the people in there would recognize, it seemed they were officially out of luck.

They’d come pretty far against all odds. But now, an arm’s reach from their goal, they were stuck. Out in the open with no way in and no place to hide if one of the two missing pickups pulled up.

“Do you think he was expected to come back?” She was referring to the man who had nearly cut her neck.

“Probably. Most likely, they’re following some sort of a plan.”

“So someone will come outside to look for him at some point?”

“It’d make more sense for them to call his cell.” He pulled a black phone from his pocket.

She hadn’t realized they had another phone now. “Can I call Flint?”

He tossed her the phone. “You bet.” The words were easily spoken, but his face remained dark. He hadn’t forgiven her for trying to send him away.

But he hadn’t raised his voice. Not once. Hadn’t raised his hand. A different man from Gary altogether. There
were
different men. Not that she hadn’t known that on an intellectual level. There was Flint, for example. But Flint was her brother. Akeem was a whole other kind of experience.

She was dialing her brother’s number already when
she thought of something and her fingers went still, hovering above the keypad. “You don’t think the phone might be monitored?”

“I don’t see any reason why they should keep track of their own calls.”

“Good.” She pressed the call button, and said, “It’s me, Taylor” as soon as the other end was picked up. “Are you alone?”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. We’re at the old refinery where Gramps used to work. Christopher might be here.”

“The cops are still downstairs. Want me to—”

“No.”

“Jackson’s pilots are here, too. We’ve been grounded by the police. There’s a massive search going on in Hell’s Porch. But all civilians have been ordered out because of the shooting.”

She repeated the words to Akeem, who reached for the phone.

“The search isn’t as massive as they make it appear. I think the cops might be involved somehow.”

She couldn’t hear what his brother responded to that.

“Okay,” Akeem said, then held the phone out. “He wants you back.”

But before she could find out what Flint wanted, a shot rang out in the night, ripping the phone from her hand. And in case she was wondering if the bullet had been meant for her or the phone, the next shot grazed her shoulder.

Pain seared across her skin, shock immobilizing her for a second before she crouched to make a smaller tar
get. She was hit. She couldn’t be hit. Christopher was in there somewhere, waiting for her to come for him. How could she have been this stupid? Instinct pushed her forward, toward her son.

Then Akeem was there, on top of her, dragging her to safety.

“Y
OU STUPID IDIOT
!” Jake Kenner knocked the hired gun, Gabe, away from the window. “We’re not supposed to kill the woman.” The boss had been very specific about that.

Hate burned in Gabe’s eyes as he turned back. He didn’t like to be told what to do, that one. Which was why he hadn’t been able to hold down a job for more than six months ever in his life. He cursed every ranch he ever worked, annoying the rest of the men to death. There was plenty of tension to go around without anyone bitching and moaning from dawn to dusk.

“She ain’t supposed to be here.” Gabe shrugged.

He had a point there. “Go upstairs and look around. See if there are cops with her. Don’t shoot at anyone.” He shoved the man off then looked through the window. Taylor McKade was gone and so was the man who’d been at her side a moment ago.

Damn.

He thought for a moment, then decided this constituted a major development. One the boss wasn’t going to like, but the man would be angrier still if he found out that Jake had kept the news from him. He flipped his cell phone open and dialed.

“The McKade woman is here with her guy.”

Silence stretched on the other end.

“Just the two of them?”

“Yes, sir.” At first, he’d just wanted his cut of the money and everything to go as planned without anyone getting hurt. But little had gone the way they’d planned. Now he just wanted the whole damn thing to be over. He no longer cared who he’d have to hurt to get out of here with the money in his pockets.

“Keep them busy until morning,” the voice said, then all he heard was a dial tone.

Jake closed his phone and pushed it back into his pocket. The boss made little sense. As long as they were here, why not take the money from them? Easy enough to have all three of them disappear in one of the tar pits, disappear forever should said tar pit catch fire by accident.

Odd that the boss hadn’t asked about the money at all.

Jake had thought plenty about it during the past two days. And it ticked him off that the McKade woman and her lackey didn’t seem to have anything with them.

He hadn’t mentioned the phone to the boss. He would have only been yelled at for not shooting it before they’d had a chance to make the call. Or chewed him out for having allowed a shot at Taylor McKade in the first place. She wasn’t to be hurt.

He’d been told that with some emphasis. The guy, though, could die, should die, before he had a chance to interfere. Whatever happened to the kid, happened. Maybe the boss had other plans for the woman. She was
pretty enough, although not Jake’s type. He preferred a saucy, easy-to-tumble barmaid any day of the week. Not that he could look that way these days. His new girlfriend was nothing if not territorial, with that gleam of marriage in her eyes. Still, she was a decent woman. He would have enough money soon. Maybe he would give marriage a try.

Who the hell knew what the boss had in mind for Taylor McKade? Who the hell cared?

Either way, mentioning the phone would have brought trouble, and it didn’t much matter anyway. Even if a call had gone off to the cops, the boss had the cops taken care of. Then messing up the exchange at the boulders had been a mistake, the boss had promised, a mistake that wasn’t going to happen again.

He would like to know how these two had gotten the damn phone to work. It was supposed to have been fixed to receive calls but not call out. But they had gotten one call out. If not more. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Keep them busy till morning.
He didn’t expect that would be too hard. Those two weren’t going anywhere, not as long as he had the kid. There were three of them inside, armed to the teeth, and the other two coming soon. Taylor McKade and her guy might not have any weapons—they hadn’t used any at the botched handover attempt—but he wouldn’t underestimate them right off the bat.

But they
had
spent an awful long time trekking through the desert without much to eat and drink, likely without sleep. And he didn’t think they knew the re
finery. Most likely they’d followed the tracks of one of the pickups here. He hadn’t expected that. Taylor could not have done that on her own. When he’d made his plans, he hadn’t known that some guy would be coming with her, too. It might take them until morning just to find what they were looking for. Which would be perfect.

By then the boss would arrive and he could deal with them.

All Jake had to do was keep a tight rein on the sorry excuse of a team the boss had assembled. The men were growing restless locked up in here. Pete had gone off to buy some smokes. Jake hoped the guy would be back soon. He hoped Pete heeded his warning and wouldn’t bring any booze back with him. Whiskey was the last thing Gabe and those other idiots needed.

He wished, not for the first time, that he could have pulled off the job on his own, but the boss had insisted on a whole team of hired help.

A bunch of incompetents. He would have to keep on his toes to make sure they didn’t bring him down with them in the end.

Akeem shoved Taylor behind him. They needed to get out of the line of fire and to higher ground so that he could keep an eye on the movements of the enemy and figure out the layout of the buildings. There was enough moonlight for decent visibility, except in the deep shadows made by the taller buildings.

The solution presented itself as they rounded a towering storage tank. A rusty metal ladder ran up the side, all the way to the top. He helped her up in front of him, watched the dark stain spread on her shoulder. She’d been shot. Hurt again.

His jaw was clenched tight enough to snap. He eased the pressure so he could ask, “How bad is it?”

She halted for a second and reached for her arm. “Sticky.” Then resumed climbing.

“A little or a lot?” Pain sliced into his thigh with every step as he climbed. He checked his own bandage, glad to see that the bleeding hadn’t increased too badly, even with activity.

“Feels like a lot.”

Anger and concern held him in a tight grip. He should have come alone. He should have somehow found a way—no matter what the kidnappers had said—to talk her out of coming with him.

He pushed her to go faster. They needed to get up on top before they were discovered and someone opened fire on them.

Then Taylor reached the top and hesitated for a moment. He could see why. The actual roof was five feet below them on the other side. She straddled the ring that ran all around the edge of the roof, probably to protect it from heavy winds, which seemed to have damaged the roof anyway. He could make out several foot-wide holes. Luckily, they didn’t have to get on the roof. There was a two-foot ledge inside of the protective ring, four feet down, probably used by maintenance at one time. She swung her feet over and dropped to crouch on the ledge, Akeem right on her heels.

“Stay right there.”

She didn’t look as if she was keen on exploring anyway. She was holding her arm.

He would get to that. He eased up first and looked out. No movement on the ground, no movement inside any of the buildings that he could see from here, no lights on anywhere. Maybe they would be okay for a few minutes.

He laid out the emergency supplies he’d gotten from the first-aid kit before leaving their bags behind: an alcohol wipe and a couple of large bandages. He’d planned on using them on Taylor’s neck, but her arm
needed them more. “Let’s try to take off your shirt. Let me know if it hurts.” He reached for her, awareness creeping into the moment immediately.

“It’s not that bad.” But she winced when he moved her arm.

He felt the cloth around the wound first, and after a while, breathed a little more easily. He didn’t find as much blood as he had feared he would. But the wound was still bleeding. The forced pace of their climb probably hadn’t helped.

“Stay still as much as you can.” He unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it off her good arm first, so he would only need to move her injured arm as little as possible.

Since the wound was still fresh, at least they didn’t have to worry about the material being stuck in dried blood, causing her further pain.

“Here.”

The sleeve slipped off easily. Her T-shirt was in the way, too, the wound just above the shoulder. He wanted to see all of it, as much as he
could
see in the darkness. He tried to push the material aside, but it wasn’t enough. So she reached for the hem and pulled the T-shirt over her head with her good hand. Which left her wearing precious little.

Don’t look at the pale yellow lace.
Not an easy thing to do since it about glowed in the moonlight, definitely drawing attention.

Don’t think of the feel of her skin.

Who was he kidding?

“So what’s the verdict? Am I going to bleed to
death?” She was saying the words jokingly, but he could hear the underlying worry in her voice and knew she wasn’t as worried about herself as about her inability to help her son if something happened to her.

And here he was, lusting for her.

On some level, he knew he probably should be ashamed of himself, but damned if he could find that place. So since he couldn’t not want her—even now, even here, always—he went for the next best thing, ignoring that he did.

“You’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ve gotten into worse scrapes at the ranch.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Relief lightened her voice.

And he didn’t want to. He hated to think of Taylor in any kind of danger or hurt.

He ripped the wrapper off the alcohol wipe. “This is going to sting.”

Her indrawn hiss of air was the only response.

He made as quick a work of disinfecting the wound as he could, making sure he got all of it. The bullet hadn’t gone in, just grazed her shoulder. But it did take a chunk of skin with it.

When he was done, working by nothing but moonlight, he positioned the bandages so they would cover the worst of the wound. He’d saved a corner of a wipe to clean the cut on her throat, his mood darkening by the minute. When he was done with that, he helped her get her shirt back on. They had no backup clothing here. As bloody and torn as the sleeve was, there was no help for that.

Only when he finally moved and the moonlight fell on her face did he see how her lips were pressed together, the tight set of her jaw.

Dammit. She wasn’t hurt badly, but she shouldn’t have gotten hurt at all.

“Still burning?”

“Like hell on high octane.” She offered a pained smile.

He wished he could take her pain. He wanted to pull her into his arms, run his fingers down her hair and soothe her. But she wasn’t likely to go for that. She wanted him gone. He winced at the memory of how he had kissed her in response.

“Look, I’m sorry about…Kissing you back there was…And that guy in the guardhouse. I had no choice, Taylor. I don’t want you to think that you can’t trust me. I know I’m not what you need, probably the last thing you need, but you have to let me—”

“I didn’t mind the kiss.”

He was so focused on how to word what he meant to say, that she’d confused him for a second. “What?”

“I don’t mind it when you kiss me.”

He stared at her. At her mouth, specifically.

If only they had the time.

Another moment passed before other thoughts caught up with him again. “About the guy. I know what I did appeared savage. Hell, I was—”

“Thank you for saving my life.”

Did she not mind what he’d done? But then why the
get away from me
speech? God, women were hard to understand at times, which hadn’t bothered him all that
much in the past. But he wanted to understand Taylor. “Why do you want to send me away?”

She didn’t look like she was keen on giving him an answer. Looked on the exasperated side more than anything.

“Come on, Taylor.”

For a moment she flattened her lips together. Something shifted in her eyes. “You have nothing to do with this.”

He expelled the pent-up air in his lungs. “Everything that has to do with you, has to do with me,” he said quietly. It was as good as a confession, but he had to make her understand.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“So are you.”

“You’re hurt worse.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Is this a contest?”

“This might get—” She stopped as if to search for the right word. “If things go badly here…I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

His heart went wild banging in his chest. “Because?” he asked quietly.

“Because I care about you.” She looked away. “So there.”

Digesting that took a while. She cared about him. That was good. Great, in fact. He could build on that.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me. Or to you. Or to Christopher. I swear,” he said and reached out to put his fingers under her chin, turned her head, then bent his head to fit his lips to hers.

S
HE COULD GET USED TO THIS
. Kissing Akeem. Taylor settled against him, burrowing against his solid chest. His lips were warm on hers, gentle. Which was what she needed. The pain in her shoulder disappeared. He turned the kiss into something more urgent and demanding. Which was what she wanted.

He tasted her as if he never wanted to stop. And at this moment that was fine with her. There was such comfort in his touch.

Oblivion.

She gave herself over to the pleasure, her emotions exhausted from the day’s events. She wanted the energy that vibrated through him and into her as he explored her.

How easy this was, she thought, and wondered if it would have been like this before, if he’d taken her seriously back then, if she hadn’t run off when he’d seemed reluctant.

She didn’t wonder long. What he was doing to her felt too good to spend mental energy second-guessing the past.

They pulled apart reluctantly. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment.

“Are you okay?” He searched her eyes in the moonlit night.

She hoped he couldn’t see the heat in her face. The wound was fine, nothing but a dull throb that felt tight when she moved. Her head, however, was seriously spinning from his kisses.

She simply nodded. “What do we do next?”

Then caught herself and prayed he didn’t think she
meant what might follow kissing. Nothing was going to happen along those lines. They weren’t on a date. High time she remembered that.

But he understood her without explanations and rose to look over the edge. “They’re down there.” He sat back down after a moment. “We wait until they give up searching, then we go down and find a back way into the building from where they shot at you. I bet that’s where they’re keeping Christopher.”

She peeked out, and after minutes of straining her eyes could finally see one shadow that was deeper than the others. It might have moved a fraction of an inch.

She pulled back down. “So we’re stuck here?”

“If we try to climb down now, they can pick us off easy as anything.”

“Remind me again why we came up here?”

“We needed a place to hide. And I wanted to get a better idea of the layout of the refinery. At least now we know the exact relation of the buildings to each other. We can make a plan.”

That made some sense. “But we could be stuck up here for hours.”

He nodded.

“I’m going to go crazy.” She stretched her legs, her arms, her back.

Silence settled between them as he watched.

Minutes passed before he spoke. “Why did you run off with Gary and marry him?”

S
HE LOOKED AWAY
, and for a moment Akeem didn’t think she would answer, didn’t know why he’d asked the
stupid question in the first place. The night was filled with awareness between them and the last thing he wanted was to discuss Gary with her. And yet, part of him needed to know.

“He wanted me,” she said after a while. “He did anything to get me. I was just so dazzled that he wanted me that badly. You have no idea how nice that felt.” She shook her head.

The words
You had pushed me away, You didn’t want me,
hovered in the air between them.

“I was an idiot.”

That earned him a smile. Which elicited another confession.

“However much Gary wanted you, I wanted you a hundred times worse.”

Her eyes went wide. “You did?”

“I’ve been kicking myself since for not going after you when you ran off. Somebody should have.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was nobody. I had nothing to offer. And I figured Flint would kill me if he ever found out that I lusted after his baby sister.”

She flashed a rueful smile. “I was hardly a baby. Flint did come after me, you know.”

He shook his head. He hadn’t known. Flint had never said anything about that.

“I didn’t come back with him.”

Would she have come back with Akeem?
was the question that hung in the air between them.

“I’d been naïve and idealistic. Things were off with Gary from pretty early on. But I was too determined to make it work.” She drew a deep breath. “I had to learn that not every mistake can be fixed. Some mistakes you just have to walk away from.”

He watched her in the moonlight.

“You probably don’t know much about mistakes.” She gave a self-deprecating smile. “You’ve never put a foot wrong.”

He gave a strangled laugh. “You’d be surprised.”

“Look at the business you’ve built. You are a success. What am I?”

“A beautiful woman, inside and out, who learned her lessons from life. Someone who had the courage to walk away and start anew. A great mother. The beginning of a spectacular success story.”

She looked surprised.

“The woman I still want,” he added, and found that her eyes could go wider yet.

She didn’t seem like she was used to compliments, so he decided to back up his words with action. He kissed her brows, her eyelids, kissed his way down the bridge of her nose, dragging out time before he brushed his lips over hers.

She was a woman to be savored.

She wasn’t hurt badly. He thanked heaven for that. He’d be able to protect her. Another thing in their favor. For the moment, he refused to think of the million other things that stacked the odds against them.

For the moment, he allowed himself to taste the sweetness of her lips, to run his fingers through the silk of her hair. The moon and the stars shined above them.

And it was all slow and easy and good for a while. Then an urgency crept between them again, just like it had at the guardhouse.

Things could not get as out of hand again as they had back there, he thought in the last coherent corner of his brain. Then reassured himself that they
had
been able to stop in time. They would stop again.

So he allowed his hands to caress her face, her uninjured arm, her breasts. And when she moaned into his mouth, he swallowed the sound.

She reached for his shirt to pull it up. He let her. Then held his breath as her slim fingers explored his abdomen and moved up to his chest. She set his body buzzing with need. A need he would ignore. All he would do was distract her for a while, relax her.

He, himself, was feeling far from relaxed.