Material Witness (16 page)

Cassie willed herself not to give in
to the impulse of reaching up to push her fingers through his thick, coarse
hair.

Jake dropped Cassie's hand, quickly
forcing his gaze away from her tempting lips to the counter behind her. “We can
use these mugs as candlestick holders for now,” he said, occupying himself by
placing the lighted candles in the mugs he'd just retrieved from the hooks
under the cabinet. Anything to keep himself from feeling the emotional war
raging inside.

He'd been ready to kiss Cassie. All
he had to do was bend his head and press his lips against the sweetness of her soft
mouth, feel the fire she had burning inside her.

He'd almost done just that last night
in the back of the truck. He'd kissed her forehead. To give her comfort, he
reasoned. But he'd fought mightily to let it end there. He'd wanted more from
that kiss. He wanted to hold her in his arms as she slept beside him. The
feeling was as overwhelming now as it had been last night.

As tired as he was, he'd slept
straight as a board with his hands glued firmly beside him, hoping he wouldn't
subconsciously reach for her in the middle of the night. After a few hours of
sleep, he'd pulled himself from the mattress and climbed to the front of the
cab with Bernie, deciding chitchat with the truck driver would surely cure his
libido.

It worked.

But being this close to Cassie now,
and in such confined quarters, was bringing the memories of carnal dreams he’d
had last night rushing back.

Clearing the sudden lump that lodged
in his throat, he asked, “Where is the power panel?”

“In the pantry.”

He couldn't help but laugh. “This
shack is about as small as a pantry and it
has
a pantry? What about
bedrooms?”

“Just one very tiny one. Maureen has
this enormous bed in there that leaves next to no room for anything else. But
the bed is big enough for both of us.”

Jake's heart slammed against his
ribcage. “No, you take it.”

He ignored the wounded expression on
Cassie’s face. She was tired. So was he. But the small pout of her full lips
made his heart break just the same.

She straightened her spine and jutted
out her chin. “I'm not going to attack you in the night.”

Maybe she wouldn't, but Jake couldn't
be certain he could say the same. A little sleep and a walk into hypothermia
land hadn't changed that fact that he still wanted her desperately.

 “You're being ridiculous. We slept
in the same bed last night, and it didn't matter to you.”

“We didn't have a choice last night.
Tonight we do.”

Glancing around the dimly lit room,
he saw the large sofa in the middle of the floor in front of an ancient
potbelly stove.

“That should do me fine for the
night. That way I can keep the fire going.”

She looked past him toward the sofa
and then peered up at him again. “I can't let you sleep on that thing.
I've
slept on that sofa, and I know how uncomfortable it is. You need your sleep
just as much as I do.”

He didn't say anything. How could he
tell her that he didn't trust himself not to reach out for her in the middle of
the night? That the only thing he was thinking of had nothing to do with sleep.

“Let's work at getting some lights
and some heat in the cabin. We can argue about the sleeping arrangements
later.”

It didn't take much to figure out how
the solar electrical system in the cabin worked. While Cassie turned on the
power, Jake gathered some stacked logs from a small woodpile out back and filled
the woodstove. Within a short time, the cabin filled with welcoming heat.

“These should fit you and be
comfortable to sleep in while your clothes dry,” Cassie said as she walked in
from the bedroom. In her hands, she carried a pair of dark gray sweatpants and
a matching sweatshirt.

She'd changed out of her wet clothes,
too, Jake noticed. Her hair was damp, combed free of tangles and pulled back in
a tight ponytail at the base of her head. She wore a pair of green spandex
stretch pants that accentuated the curves of her slender hips and the smooth
lines of her thighs and a short Kelly green and blue flannel shirt. She'd taken
off her soaked sneakers and socks and now had a pair of fluffy bear slippers on
her feet that look incredibly ridiculous and adorable on her at the same time.

Jake glanced down at the pile of
clothes she still held in her hands. “Maureen keeps men's clothes here?”

“I think they belong to Adam. Or
maybe they belonged to her ex-husband. She got the cabin in the divorce, along
with the Jeep she keeps parked out back.”

“There's a Jeep?”

“Yeah, Maureen’s afraid of driving in
the snow without four-wheel drive. She hates driving in the city even more, so
she keeps the Jeep here. It doesn't get much use. We had to jump start it last
summer to get it going.”

“I thought you said she doesn't come
up here in the winter?”

“She doesn't. At least not since her
divorce was final. But she keeps a vehicle here just the same. It costs a lot
less than keeping it in the city.”

“That’s good news for us. It'll save
us having to walk to town to get some supplies.”

Cassie fiddled with her hands. “How
long do you think we'll need to be here?”

Jake ran his hand over his scruffy
face. “I have no idea.”

“They must know by now that we
escaped the explosion,” she said, rolling her shoulder.

“I’m guessing they knew within the
hour. Surveillance cameras would have shown us running into the woods.”

“Why didn’t they come after us?”

Jake had wondered that himself. “The
only thing I can think of is that Agent Bellows didn’t want to bring on more
suspicion than what the explosion was bound to do.”

“You think he did this?”

“It’s the only logical thing I can
think of. He checked the perimeter of the house when we went inside. And when
we went to open the doors, they wouldn’t budge. My guess is he knew that the
explosion would break free whatever he used to jam the doors. If not, he needed
to cover his tracks before the fire department got there.”

“But why? Why would the FBI bring me
there only to try to kill me. Why would I be a threat to them?”

“Not the FBI. But you being able to
finger Angel Fagnelio in that shooting has probably rattled someone’s cage.
Angel had to have been working with someone from the FBI and I’m guessing it
wasn’t Novak.”

He got a good look at Cassie now. He'd
tried his best to pull his thoughts away from her, but now he allowed himself
to really look at her for the first time. She wasn't scared anymore. Her face
was freshly scrubbed as if she'd washed away the worry creases along with the
dirt and grime from the explosion. Maybe it was the fatigue or because she was
in familiar surroundings that she seemed more at ease.

He took in the sight of her. Cassie’s
hair was wet and her face cleanly scrubbed.

“When did you take a shower?”

“While you were fiddling with the
stove. You didn't hear the water running?”

Jake shook his head. “I guess I was
too busy trying to get the fire going.”

“It was…lukewarm,” she said with a
smile. “But even that was okay because the water pressure is pretty strong. I
needed something to pull some of these aches out of me. I think I'm going to
sleep for a hundred years now.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You should
take one, too. You might have better luck with the hot water, now that the
system has been on a while.”

“Am I that offensive?” he said with
amusement.

Cassie quirked a smile, cocking her
head to one side. “Only mildly offensive. But the hot water will ease the
tightness in your muscles. Don't you feel like a truck rolled over you?”

“That's basically what happened when
we rolled down that hill. It was worse last night,” he said, rubbing his
two-day-old beard again. It was beginning to itch. “I could use a good soak and
a shave though.”

She tossed him the clothes, which he
caught in both hands like a football. “I think I saw some fresh razors in the
cabinet. Why don't you do that now while I see what I can scrounge up for
dinner out of the canned goods in the pantry. I’m starving.”

Twenty minutes later Jake emerged
from the tiny bathroom to the smell of food. Cassie had outdone herself by
cooking up a pot of canned beef stew and biscuits from a box mix. In truth, it
didn’t matter what Cassie had prepared. It was hot. It was food. And Jake would
have eaten anything she put in front of him.

He hoped that as soon as the dishes
were cleared and washed, Cassie would just go to bed. It would be easier that
way. Looking at Cassie in the soft lighting of the cabin only seemed to magnify
another hunger inside him that wouldn't easily be sated.

The sofa didn't look inviting at all,
but at this point, Jake didn't care. He dropped down to the middle cushion and
leaned back. Closing his eyes, he squeezed the tension spot in the center of
his forehead with the pad of his thumb and index finger.

“You've got to learn to relax, Jake.
Every time I look at you you're all bunched up into tight knots.”

With a rush of cool breeze, Cassie
moved behind him. Placing her delicate fingers on his shoulders, she gently
kneaded his tightly knotted muscles the hot shower hadn’t eased.

“That feels good,” he murmured,
keeping his eyes closed. Too good.
Warning bells pealed loudly in his
head, but he ignored them. She wasn't going to bed. And he needed her to go to
bed.
Alone.

A soft chuckle escaped Cassie’s lips.
“I know. It felt good when you were doing it to me the other day.”

Jake remembered the feel of her body
easing beneath his fingers as he'd touched her. Was that really just two days
ago? It didn't quite seem possible. Time was passing so rapidly and yet it felt
as if he and Cassie had been running from a phantom for so long.

“You know all about me,” Cassie said,
her voice like smooth velvet to his ears, like a breath of a whisper.

He liked the sound of her voice, the
way it was strong and sure sometimes, like the other day when she was
determined to get her way with the FBI.

And now, when it was low and sexy as
hell.

His thoughts betrayed him, making him
wonder what she'd sound like when she was making love to a man. Did she talk at
all? Whisper sweet words against her lover's ear? Or just moan as desire took
hold of her? He had a hard time pushing away the image of her calling out his
name as she reached climax.

His body reacted to his thoughts and
he felt himself grow hard. Shifting his place on the sofa, Jake shook his head
to rid himself of the image invading his mind. But it remained.

He stole a quick glance at her,
knowing he shouldn't. Knowing he'd see the unspoken words he heard in her
voice.

“No, I don't,” he whispered. “I don't
know anything about you, Cassie.”

She smiled sweetly as her fingers kept
working magic, gently kneading the knots in his shoulders. It was like a slice
of heaven.

“You know I write crime novels. In
fact, you had a field day teasing me about it the other night. You know about
my life, my family. You've seen my apartment, my editor's hideaway. You've even
seen me in my pajamas. I'd say you know more about me than most of the men I've
been involved with over the years.”

“Have there been many?”

“Not enough to be even remotely
scandalous,” she said with a light chuckle. “But we aren't going to talk about
me anymore. I want to know about you, Jake Santos.”

He closed his eyes again and tried to
concentrate on what Cassie was doing to him, to let the tension gripping him
ease. In the end, it was futile. Instead of relaxing, her gentle ministration
wound him tighter and tighter into knots. Hell, having her in the same damned
room as him was enough to give him a full blown heart attack!

“I've been on the police force for
nearly—”

“Oh, no you don't. I don't want a
resume.”

She stopped kneading his shoulders
and moved in front of him, kneeling down on the floor at an intimately close
range.

“I want to know what's in here,” she
said, gently pointing her finger to the center of his chest. “Starting when you
were a child and going all the way up to what you had for lunch the day we met
at Rory's.”

His lips tugged into a wry grin.
“This could take a long time.”

Tilting her head to one side, she
gave him an irresistibly sweet smile, but it never reached her eyes. “I don't
think we're lacking for time. Not here anyway.”

Jake straightened himself on the
sofa, moving over to the end. Reaching over, he tapped his hand on the seat at
the opposite side. Cassie obliged by sitting where he’d indicated. The wide gap
between them made it easier for Jake to think.

“I already told you I grew up in West
Orange. I'm the youngest of six kids and the only boy.”