Flirting With Disaster (23 page)

Making her disappear would’ve been the easiest thing in the world. A few people would’ve suggested to the press that she’d run away to live with her fugitive father, and no one would’ve even looked for her body. That was what her dad had left her with. No protection. No security. No love.

She realized Tom was speaking to her and looked up. “What?”

“I won’t put the cuffs back on you, but we’re probably going to pass Gates, so wear your coat loose and hold your hands together.”

She nodded and shrugged on her coat. There were no marks on her wrists. The cuffs had been loose enough that she probably could have slipped out of them if she’d been willing to hurt herself. But she could still feel them there, the cool steel of them on her flesh. She clasped her hands together and let Tom take her arm.

She heard Gates yell something at Tom as soon as they hit the parking lot. The FBI agent popped out of a parked car with his cell phone to his ear.

Tom’s hand on her arm kept her moving, but she stared at Gates as he strode across the lot, trying to discern some evil on his face, but he looked like anyone else. Maybe he hadn’t been bought out. Maybe he was only a dedicated federal agent. If so, she didn’t have to feel the least bit guilty. He’d be thrilled to have the case solved.

When he was almost on them, his foot slipped on an icy patch of slush, and Isabelle looked down to his shiny brown dress shoes. They weren’t practical here. They weren’t practical in Chicago at this time of year. And they looked very, very expensive.

Tom opened the back door of the SUV, and she slipped in without looking at Gates again. He kept yelling at Tom, asking where the hell Tom thought he was taking her. Tom remained calm. “I’m booking her into the county jail. You can see her in a few hours, I’m sure, once she’s out of processing.”

Gates shouted about making sure Tom lost his job, but Tom just got in the SUV and pulled away.

Isabelle bit her lip. Maybe he really was going to lose his job.

His phone rang, but he only glanced at it. “My boss,” he murmured.

“Does he know what you’re doing?”

“I’ll call him as soon as I have the gun.”

She didn’t want to ask, but she did. “Will that be okay?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said. She didn’t press for the truth.

She stared out the window at the mountains she passed every day and still felt humbled by. It was cloudy today, and she was thankful for that. The typical azure Jackson sky would’ve been too much to take when she felt like a mass of open gray wounds.

“Why did you sleep with me?” she asked, her breath fogging the window. “After you found out who I was.”

He didn’t answer. After a dozen heartbeats of silence, she looked up to see him watching her in the rearview mirror.

“Why did
you
sleep with
me
?” he asked. “When you knew I was the last person you should be around?”

She turned her head to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes. She hoped he couldn’t see, because she couldn’t stop them this time. She’d slept with him because it had made her so happy. His body, his mouth, his need. Because it had felt so right, and she hadn’t known that he was gathering information about her with every touch.

It had felt real.

She didn’t say anything else. Instead, she used the last ten minutes of the drive to numb herself again and make sure her eyes were dry by the time they pulled onto her lonely little road.

It hadn’t been real.

Reaching for the door before Tom could open it for her, she got out and walked toward her porch without a word. He followed her into her house and down the hallway to her bedroom. She didn’t look at the twisted covers and rumpled sheets of her bed as she moved to the bathroom and her closet beyond.

She tossed her coat on the floor and pulled the attic door down, then got the ladder secured just as Tom was reaching to help. She didn’t need help; she just needed him to do his job. “There’s not enough room for both of us,” she muttered before heading up the ladder. It wasn’t strictly true, but there wasn’t enough room to be in the tiny space without bumping into each other with every movement. She couldn’t touch him that way.

She climbed up to the small finished area of the attic, but within ten steps, she was walking on beams. She passed the chimney and carefully put her foot onto one of the joists that angled up from the floor, then grabbed a rafter above her head and pulled herself up. Eight feet up, where the chimney was flush with a rafter, sat the bundle she’d put there on the day she’d moved in.

Dust clouded around her as she pulled the awkward package down. She tucked it under her arm, then reached blindly back with one foot to find the wood beneath her. Hands circled her waist. She didn’t even jump in surprise. Of course he’d come up to help. He couldn’t keep away from her secrets.

“Try not to step through my ceiling,” she muttered as she turned and shooed him away, but her skin still tingled from his grip. How could she want him when she hated him so much?

He descended the ladder first then reached for her again. She couldn’t scream at him not to, because she didn’t want him to know how much it affected her, so she gritted her teeth at the way his hands framed her hips before they slid up her waist in a torturous imitation of lust. In that moment, she wanted him to push for more. She wanted him to press her to the ladder and push his cock against her ass to show that she’d made him hard. She wanted his mouth on her neck, kissing her even as she cursed and screamed for him to get his hands off her. She wanted him to ignore all her hatred and force her to do what she really wanted. Because she did want it. And she despised herself for it.

She’d never understood angry sex. She’d never been able to fathom how you could want someone you were pissed at. But she got it now, because with some people it was about the animal that lurked beneath the civilized being you showed the rest of the world.

She never wanted to speak to him again, but she’d fuck him at the drop of a hat.

His hands had left her, and she was standing with her forehead pressed to one of the rough wooden rungs of the sliding ladder. He took the package from her and set it aside.

“Isabelle? Are you okay?” She felt his body heat hovering so near. He wanted to touch her. She wanted him to.

She shook her head, feeling the wood press into her skin as a tear dropped straight from her eye and landed on her wrist. “No,” she whispered.

His fingers brushed her neck. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured. She tipped her head, wanting him to touch more, and then his mouth was there, warm and whispering, “I’m sorry,” against her skin, and she sobbed.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “Please.” But he didn’t stop kissing her neck, and his hands were at her waist again, and this time they kept sliding up to cup her breasts as she pressed her ass to his hips.

He was hard for her and she groaned, pain and need all mixed up in her chest, the tendrils of it brushing between her legs.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, but his cock didn’t regret anything. His cock was thick and long and eager against her ass as she rubbed into him.

His hands slid down again, reaching for the button of her jeans, and she could feel the way his fingers trembled against the bare skin of her stomach. He whispered her name, asking for permission, maybe, but she wouldn’t give it to him. She wouldn’t ask for this.

In the end, he didn’t wait for her word. His hand slid inside her jeans and into her panties, and she was soaked and slick beneath his fingers. “Oh, fuck, Isabelle.”

She nodded as another tear dropped to her hand. She put that hand over his and moved him lower until he could curl his fingers into her.

She didn’t say yes, but she moaned and ground her ass tighter to his cock.

Tom cursed beneath his breath, and for a moment she was worried he’d stop, but he didn’t stop. He drew his hand free and pulled down her jeans with two vicious tugs that left her skin feeling raw. She heard his zipper open. Heard the crumpling sound of a condom wrapper. She reached behind her and found his hip as she shifted her feet back and watched his stance spread wider behind hers. His cock rubbed against her aching pussy. Isabelle held tight to the ladder and arched back to tilt her hips higher.

He pushed slowly into her, stretching her carefully, trying not to hurt her. Didn’t he know she was hurt already?

She dug her fingers into his hip and pressed her ass back hard, and he sank deep into her, setting off exactly the ache she wanted. But he was still too careful. Still trying to read her. His hand rose to her neck, fingers spreading gently up her jaw to her tear-wet face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Isabelle, please...”

She turned her head and bit his wrist, making him hiss and jerk away from her. “I hate you,” she growled as she pulled his hips back to her and sank his cock deep again. “I hate you.”

“Goddamn it, Isabelle,” he said, but he finally gave her what she wanted. He fucked her. Hard. No sweet words or caresses or care. He sank his cock into her over and over as her hands went tighter and tighter on the ladder.

His hands joined hers, gripping the wood just above her hands, and he pounded into her. She focused on those lovely hands, his knuckles turning white, tan skin and golden hair disappearing beneath the white cuff of his dress shirt. She watched the tendons strain beneath his skin, and she took his cock, and it was exactly what her body wanted.

The anger and lust built inside her until she couldn’t take it anymore. “Come,” she ordered, the power of it intoxicating. The power of making him want her past all his good intentions and morals and guilty feelings. “Come for me,” she moaned.

This time he didn’t hold himself still. There was nothing subtle about this. His thrusts grew short and brutal and fast, and then he grunted against her neck, his breath hot and heavy on her skin as he came.

Every muscle in her body trembled. Her pussy ached. Her forehead hurt where she’d scraped it on the wood.

His breath calmed a little. He loosened one hand from its hold and slid it down her shoulder. “Let me make you come,” he whispered, his fingers trailing down her stomach.

“No,” she said, straightening until his cock was free of her, one last, long slide of unexpected pleasure. “I don’t want to.”

“What?”

She tugged up her jeans and swiped at the tears on her face. “I don’t want to come.” Not with him here. Later, when she was alone, she’d think of this and get off, but she couldn’t do it in front of him. Not now.

“Isabelle—” But she ducked under his arm and left him there. He followed her to the bedroom a minute later. “If you didn’t want—”

“I wanted it,” she said tersely. “But I don’t want to come for you.”

He looked hurt and confused, as if she’d slapped him hard. She tipped her head toward the package under his arm. “You have the gun. You can go now.”

“Jesus,” he breathed.

“I don’t want to see you again,” she said.

He stared for a long moment before he seemed to snap from his shock. He stood a little straighter and wiped the confusion from his face. “We’ll need statements and—”

“Then send Mary to talk to me. Or someone else. Just not you.”

He looked around, his gaze jumping over the room before he shook his head. “It might not be safe for the next twenty-four hours or so. Gates won’t know—”

“I’ll stay with Lauren,” she said. “Sophie’s there, too. I’ll be fine.”

He opened his mouth then closed it. Finally, he took a deep breath and shook his head. “All right. If that’s the way you need it to be. But this isn’t what I want. All of this...” He waved a hand toward her sad, rumpled bed. “All of this was...”

“Goodbye, Tom.”

His hand fell to his side. He watched her. He watched for so long that she was afraid her mask would crack and she’d lose it and let out all the tears inside her. But she held tight to her control, and he finally gave up.

“Goodbye, Isabelle,” he said.

He walked out, but he didn’t leave. He sat outside in his truck for nearly thirty minutes, making phone call after phone call. Finally, a marked sheriff’s truck pulled up next to him. They spoke for a long moment while Isabelle watched through the window, afraid she’d made Tom so angry that he’d changed his mind and was going to have her taken to jail after all.

But then the sheriff’s vehicle pulled away and parked on the road just below her driveway, and Tom finally drove off. He’d left someone to watch over her.

Her throat thickened, but she didn’t have time to cry.

An hour later, she drove from her home with all her paintings boxed for shipping, one angry Bear hiding under her seat, enough clothes to get her through a week away and $20,000 in cash. Just in case.

She stopped next to the sheriff’s truck just as fat, sullen snowflakes began to fall from the sky. The deputy rolled down his window, and she was surprised to realize she recognized him as the boyfriend of Jenny, one of her favorite bartenders in town.

“Ms. West,” he said politely.

“Hi. Are you here to follow me?”

He frowned. “Ma’am, I’m here to be sure no one bothers you for the next little while, so yes, I’m afraid I’ll be following you to wherever you want to go.”

“But that’s all? Really?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, thanks. It’s Nate, right?”

He relaxed and winked. “Yes. Known as Jenny’s boyfriend when I’m not on official business.”

“All right.” She started to roll up her window then rolled it back down. “I’m sorry if this is weird.”

“I’m sorry if it’s weird for you,” he responded.

She drove away, off to explain to her girlfriends that Isabelle West was actually a fugitive of justice who’d likely committed several felonies on her long run from the law. Shit. They’d probably love it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T
OM
LEFT
HIS
disciplinary hearing and walked straight out of the US Marshals Service building and down the front steps. It was spring, finally—for a couple of days, at least—and he needed a walk.

A week’s suspension without pay, which he’d start serving tomorrow, and a demotion that had more meaning on paper than it did in reality. Tom had been lucky. Really lucky. He could have been fired, could have lost his pension, but in the end, his “temporary lapse in judgment” had been outweighed by the corruption he’d helped expose in a case that had left a good police officer dead.

The gun hadn’t been registered, of course. It had disappeared from the evidence room in a Chicago police precinct over twenty years before, and it hadn’t shown up since then. But the fingerprints on it...those had been on file. And they’d belonged to Captain Kerrigan.

Fingerprints were only a small piece of evidence, of course, and the man hadn’t yet been charged with any crime, much less murder, but the wheels were turning. Kerrigan had stepped down from his new position as deputy superintendent of the police department, and a special prosecutor had been brought in from Washington, DC, to head up the corruption case. This time, it wouldn’t be only small-time cops going down.

Tom was relieved with how his own disciplinary hearing had turned out. He’d been on desk duty since January, and he was ready to get back to work after the suspension. But he’d do the same thing all over again, given the choice, even the parts that had left him hollowed out and yearning inside. He’d do it for her.

Tom tipped his head up to the sun, feeling the heat on his face and trying not to think about Isabelle. An impossibility considering where he was going.

The Cheyenne office of the FBI was even less impressive than the Cheyenne marshal’s office. The place looked like an accounting firm, and not a successful one, but the metal detector inside the building’s entry gave away that it wasn’t just another door.

Tom showed his badge and told the guard he didn’t have his service revolver on him, and he was escorted to a tiny seating area while a receptionist made a call. It seemed unnecessary. Tom could hear the phone ringing in a room just a few feet away.

“Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan to see you,” she said about five seconds before a young agent stepped out of that open doorway.

“Deputy,” the guy said, holding out a hand. “I’m Special Agent Browning.”

Man, they made Special Agents younger every year. “Nice to meet you. I hope I’m welcome here.”

Browning laughed. “More than welcome. From what I hear, Chicago’s pretty pleased to be rid of that Gates guy. Nobody liked him.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“He probably won’t be charged for selling information, but he’ll never be in law enforcement again.”

“I guess that’ll have to be good enough,” Tom said.

Browning clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Come on in. I have that box right here. I just need you to sign for it and affirm that you’ll deliver it to Ms. Pozniak.”

“It’s West,” he corrected him. “Legally now, from what I understand.”

“Right.” Browning sat down and slid some papers across his pristine desk. This guy was organized. No wonder he was moving up quickly. “Nice of you to take this stuff personally. I’m sure it’s a difficult situation for her.”

“Yeah.” Difficult. Tom glanced at the cardboard box. It wasn’t much of anything, from what Tom had seen on the evidence sheet. The box was sadly small. He signed all the paperwork and left with the box under his arm. He had a week to drive it out to her, but he planned to leave this afternoon.

Mary was waiting by his car when he returned to the marshal-service building. “I heard,” she said. “You doing okay?”

“I’m fine, but you’re the one who’ll have to give up the acting-supervisor gig when I get back in a week,” he said, pushing her affectionately away from the door of his SUV.

“You know I don’t care about that.”

“Don’t pretend you haven’t loved being in charge,” he said.

“Well, if it had to be someone,” she said with a smile, “then I’m thrilled it was me. Are you leaving tomorrow?”

“Today.”

“Oh. Okay, just...”

“What?” he asked.

“Be careful. I mean, I don’t know what you’re hoping for, Tom, but...”

He wasn’t hoping for anything. He just wanted to make things right for Isabelle. “I’m only trying to make amends for what happened.”

“You don’t need to make any amends,” Mary snapped. “You risked everything to help her!”

“Mary,” he said. They’d had this discussion a dozen times. “She’s had it a lot rougher than I have. She didn’t do anything wrong, and she lost everything except her actual life, and she was damn worried about that, too.”

“That wasn’t your fault!”

“No. But I didn’t exactly restore her trust in people, did I?”

She shrugged. “Whatever. You’ll do what you want. Just say hi to Jill for me while you’re out there.”

“You just said hi to her two weeks ago.”

Mary’s cheeks flushed. “She was in Cheyenne for a meeting. She picked me up here, and we had dinner. That’s all.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“We’re taking it slow,” she protested. “Both of us.”

“That’s smart,” he said.

“Yeah.” She looked away. “But a little frustrating.”

Mary walked away while he was still laughing at her. Not that he had any good reason to laugh. He knew all about frustration.

Tom drove home to change into jeans and a green button-down that Mary had once said made his eyes look nice. He grabbed the bag he’d already packed and hit the road for Jackson.

Okay, so maybe he was hoping for something, thinking Isabelle might have softened toward him a little. There’d been a lot of changes in the past three months, after all.

In February, with all the new activity on the case, the FBI had finally requested DNA samples of a John Doe who’d died about five years before. The man had been living in Central America with a fake passport. The DNA tests proved that he’d been Malcolm Pozniak.

His remains had been long since buried in Ecuador, but the US Embassy had still had his personal possessions in a box in storage. Tom had fought hard to have everything sent to him once it was processed.

He’d also fought hard to get the charges that had been pending against Isabelle dropped. He wasn’t sure how much of a difference he’d made. After all, she’d had an attorney. But all but two misdemeanors had been tossed out. She wouldn’t be serving any time. She didn’t deserve to.

So maybe, after all those changes and with the danger having released its hold on her life, maybe she’d changed her mind about him a little.

Or maybe she’d been so busy and stressed, she hadn’t been thinking about him at all. Or maybe she hated his guts.

However it was, he couldn’t leave it the way they’d said goodbye. He needed to say goodbye when she wasn’t crying and so damn angry and... He still couldn’t believe he’d touched her like that. He’d thought she’d needed it the way he had. As a moment of grace. Of connection. Of knowing they’d make things better. But that hadn’t been it at all.

“Damn,” he muttered as he pulled onto the highway out of town. Damn, indeed. It was going to be a very long drive, but he didn’t have much doubt that the drive home would be even longer. It was one thing to drive toward hope, and a very different thing to know you were driving away from it.

* * *

L
AUREN
STOOD
UP
from the corner table she’d managed to snag at their favorite restaurant. “Congratulations!” she said, holding up a glass of champagne as Isabelle approached. “You’re not a felon!”

“Oh, my God,” Isabelle groaned. “You’re the worst.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s a big deal!”

“Thanks.” She took the glass Lauren handed her and downed a big gulp.

Yesterday she’d signed a deal in her lawyer’s office that would allow her to plead down to two minor tax-fraud counts for using a fake name and social security number. All other charges, including the stickiest one of withholding evidence in a federal murder case, had been wiped away. She was a free woman, basically. And not just free, but legal. This morning a state judge had granted her a name change. She was no longer living a lie.

“Where’s Veronica?” Isabelle asked. This would be Veronica’s second girls’ night out with them. She was a little quiet, but Isabelle had been quiet with the other women at first, too. It wasn’t easy to trust people. She understood that.

“She’s running late. Something about a deadline for her column. She told us to start without her.”

Isabelle took another sip. “Did she think we wouldn’t?”

“She’s new. So how are you holding up? You look good. You stopped losing weight.”

“Yeah, I felt like eating again once they told me they probably wouldn’t even need my testimony. The gun has Kerrigan’s fingerprints on it, and ballistic tests confirmed it shot the first bullet. I won’t have to go back there and face those people.”

“Good. And everything else?”

“Everything else is good. I just started a new commission. It feels great to get back to work.”

“Mmm.” Lauren sipped her champagne and watched Isabelle over the rim of her glass.

“What?”

She shrugged. “I heard Jill saw Tom a couple of weeks ago.”

Isabelle felt her face go hot for a brief moment before it went ice-cold. She shook her head. Her ears buzzed. “I don’t want to know about that.” She’d known Jill might have seen Tom when she met Mary for dinner, but Jill hadn’t said a thing about it.

“Isabelle,” Lauren said, “you still like him.”

“No, I don’t,” she said. “He lied to me about everything.”

“You lied about everything, too.”

“It’s not the same.”

“How is it not the same?” Lauren pressed.

“Because,” she started then had to swallow the thickness from her throat. “Because...” She felt her face crumple, and there was nothing she could do to stop the sob that escaped. “Because I didn’t want him to do that to me.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Lauren said, sounding slightly panicked. She grabbed Isabelle’s hand and squeezed tight. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Isabelle said, covering her face with her other hand. “I thought it was real and so good, and it wasn’t real.”

“Isabelle, shh. You don’t know that.”

“He was lying!”

“Well, you’ve been lying to me the whole time I’ve known you, and this is real, isn’t it?”

Isabelle sniffed, but more tears just filled her head again. “Yes.”

“And Jill? You’ve known her for more years than anyone, and you were lying to her and it was real, wasn’t it?”

“It’s not the same,” she muttered, reaching for her napkin. She dumped the silverware and covered her face with the white square.

“How?” Lauren didn’t sound very sympathetic.

“He handcuffed me, in case you don’t remember! Brought the whole federal government down on my head.”

“Now you’re just being silly. That’s a funny story you can tell about how you met.”

“Shut up,” she snapped, but Lauren didn’t sound chastened when she spoke.

“You can say whatever you want, but you still miss him.”

Two more fat tears escaped her control at that. She wouldn’t admit that she missed him. She wouldn’t admit that she thought about him every day and looked up news stories online to see if he might be mentioned. He never was anymore. After the initial few stories, he hadn’t been named again.

She took a big sip of champagne and a very deep breath and raised her chin. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

“You could get in touch.”

“No.”

“You could ask Jill to ask Mary.”

“No!” she cried then looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Are you crazy?”

“So you’re just never going to see him again?”

Oh, shit. Tears spilled over her cheeks again, because she knew she was never going to see him again, and because she felt stupid. Stupid for still wanting to. Stupid for missing him so much when he’d been here for only a week. Stupid that she’d had to look up “how to stop thinking about someone” on the internet.

She wiped at her face and then leaned closer to Lauren. “Why would he want to see me, Lauren? I lied, too. And he still might lose his job over it. I’m supposed to call him and say, ‘Hi, this is the crazy fugitive girl who’s still pissed at you and may have ruined your life. Want to go out for a drink so we can rehash that terrible week?’”

“No. You’re supposed to say that you’re wondering how he’s doing. That’s all.”

“And if he just tells me to fuck off?”

“What if he does? You’re being a coward over
that
?”

“I’m not being a coward! We had sex a few times. What makes you think it meant anything to him?”

“Because he risked his job for you, Isabelle. For
you
.”

“I’m sure he regrets it,” she snapped.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I don’t want to! I’m still mad!”

Lauren rolled her eyes as though
Isabelle
was the one being unreasonable.

“Oh, hey, Veronica!” Lauren said, standing up to hug their newest friend.

Veronica waved cheerily at Isabelle, though her smile faltered when their eyes met. Isabelle imagined that her face was a blotchy mess.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. This last column was a challenge. Some guy had a question about sex, so there were a lot of substitutions to be made in his original letter. And a lot of stuff I had to look up.”

“About sex?” Lauren asked, sounding surprised.

“I don’t automatically know everything about sex just because I write an advice column, you know,” Veronica said, color rising on her cheeks.

That made even Isabelle smile. “We’ve got to get you out more if the mere mention of sex makes you blush.”

“I have pale skin!” she protested.

“Okay,” Lauren said, “I have a hypothetical advice question for you. Say you lie about your identity to a man, and he later arrests you, but you guys really, really like each other...”

Veronica’s eyes went wide as saucers. She glanced at Isabelle as if she were afraid there was going to be a fistfight. But screw it. Lauren was slowly wearing her down.