Run To You (5 page)

What kind of woman jumped in a car with a virtual stranger and fell asleep? Beau returned his gaze to the highway stretching in front of him like a gray ribbon. Either she was too trusting, she didn’t have other options, or she was crazy. Maybe she was all three.

Whatever her motive, he’d been damn relieved to see her practically flying down those concrete stairs with her backpack and duffel. He’d made the plan simple and easy to follow, but civilians were unpredictable, and the last thing he’d wanted to do was waste time running up those stairs and pounding on a locked door. The last thing he’d wanted to do was duke it out with the Gallos because Estella Leon couldn’t follow simple directions.

He lifted a hand from the steering wheel and looked at his wristwatch. It was a little after three and he was exhausted. He’d had little sleep in the past few days and he was running on fumes.

There had been a time in his life when he’d been able to exist for days on little shut-eye. When he’d stalked the enemy and hid in shadows and on rooftops or high in the Hindu Kush. But those days were behind him. He was thirty-eight. He’d been out of the corps for several years. Long enough to get used to the luxury of more than three hours here and there.

Above the sound of the air-conditioning, a drowsy sigh and a soft
mmm
brushed across his skin and drew his attention to the next seat. Drowsy eyes the color of a Bora Bora lagoon looked back at him from Stella’s beautiful face. “I fell asleep.” Sleepy confusion dragged her voice to a sultry whisper. The kind of sultry voice he hadn’t heard in eight months.

“About an hour ago.”

She stretched her bare legs, then stared out the windshield. “Where are we?”

Eight long months since he’d slid his hands up bare legs and put his mouth on a soft throat. “South of Tampa.”

“Where are we going?”

Eight months since his mouth slid south and— Jesus. That was twice. Twice since she’d jumped into his vehicle. He scowled and cleared his throat. “Tampa.”

“Why Tampa?”

“My mother and Dr. Mike live in Tampa.”

Two years after he and Blake had left home, his mother had shocked everyone when she finally picked herself up and walked out on his father. A year shy of her fortieth birthday, Naomi had gone back to school and earned her nursing diploma. She’d moved to Tampa, met prominent cardiologist Dr. Mike Crandall, and they’d been married for the last ten years. Happily, as far as Beau could tell.

“Are you planning to dump me on your mom?”

He glanced at her, then back at the road. He hadn’t thought of that, but the idea had merit. It would certainly solve his problem of where to stash her until he figured out what to do with her. She wasn’t his concern anyway. She was more Blake’s responsibility than his. If he decided to “dump” her at his mother’s for a few days, it wasn’t like he’d be dumping her at a Travelodge.

Chapter Five

I
t was a mansion. With an elevator in the garage and a pair of matching Mercedes beside a row of vintage cars.

“I’m starving,” Beau said as they stepped from the elevator. His arm brushed hers, warm skin and hard muscles. For some strange reason, this stranger’s touch calmed the tumble in her stomach. A steady touch in this strange, unsteady world that she’d woken to this morning. The heels of their boots thudded in perfect time as they walked down a short hall to an enormous kitchen. “You hungry?”

She’d had a bagel that morning and her stomach had started growling an hour ago. She nodded, speechless for one of the few times in her life. Everything was white. Shiny white marble like a museum. Stella had seen houses like this only in magazines or on television. She’d never been in a gated community in her life and felt very much out of place. She was careful not to scuff up the marble floor with the black soles of her boots.

“My mother knows our ETA.” Beau’s deep voice seemed to kind of echo, or maybe it was her nerves ricocheting in her own head. “She’ll have something for us.”

Stella walked beside Beau from the rear of the house toward the front. A lot of her family worked for people who lived in houses like this. Stella’s mother and grandmother didn’t, but they certainly had at one time. Before Stella was born. Before Marisol had given birth to a rich man’s illegitimate child and been paid to stay away. “She knows
I’m
with you?”

“Of course.”

Of course
. That was it. No reassuring, “She’s fine with it, Stella. Relax.” Years ago Stella had come to the realization that she was an acquired taste. More like schnapps than cognac. Which was fine with her. Schnapps was more fun than stuffy old cognac, but this was one of those times in her life when it might be best to be cognac.

She glanced through the rooms at the white furniture, deep purple and red pillows, and silver tables. Huge windows looked out on the back terrace and the Gulf of Mexico beyond. “Did you grow up here?” In the entrance, a wide white marble staircase and black wrought-iron rails led to a second floor. Paintings and professional photographs were artistically hung on the walls, and a vase of fresh-cut flowers dominated the heavy table in the center. Stella looked up at the domed ceiling high above her head.

“No. Dr. Mike is Mother’s second husband,” said the man of few words. Giving nothing more than the barest information.

A spot of yellow caught Stella’s eye and she turned her attention to the woman at the top of the stairs. Even from a distance Stella could see that she was perfect. Perfect blond hair, perfect lemon-colored blouse and white pants. Perfect woman in a perfect house, and Stella became very aware of her nonperfect appearance. Of her wrinkled dress and scuffed boots. She’d found an elastic band in the bottom of her backpack and had pulled her hair into a ponytail. The closer the perfect woman moved toward them, the more Stella felt imperfect, and the more she felt an urge to hide behind the stone mountain of a man standing beside her. Just slide behind him and hide her face in the warmth of his back. Although she didn’t know why she thought she’d find comfort there or why she was being such a weenie. Usually she was much stronger. She’d learned to be strong at a young age, and instead of hiding, she squared her shoulders and stood a little taller. Well, as tall as possible given her height.

“Beau!” A blond bob brushed the other woman’s shoulders and a twisted strand of pearls circled her throat. She was tall and thin and beautiful, and the tiny heels of her shoes tapped across the floor as she moved toward her son.

“Mom.” Beau dropped Stella’s duffel at his feet and opened his arms as his mother disappeared inside. He dipped his head and spoke next to her ear. His mother nodded and pulled back.

“Love you, too.” She gazed up and put her hands on the sides of his square jaw and cupped his face. “You look tired, baby boy.”

Baby boy
? Stella bit the corner of her lip. He looked like neither a baby nor a boy.

“Getting old.”

“No, you’re not.” Her hands fell to his big shoulders. “If you’re getting old, that means I’m getting really old.”

“You’ll never look old, Ma.” He cracked a rare smile and glanced up at the second floor. “Is Dr. Mike around?”

“No.” She shook her head and took a step back. “He’s speaking at a cardiovascular diseases conference in Cleveland.”

Beau returned his gaze to his mother, and a crease pulled at his brows. “You always travel with him. You didn’t stay because of me, did you?”

“Of course. I’d rather be here with you than sitting around with a bunch of doctors talking about atrial fibrillation.” Her hands fell to the sides of her crisp linen pants. “I love spending time with Mike, but after a few hours of the latest treatments and curative therapies discussions, I have to excuse myself and find something else to do.” She turned and looked at Stella, her brown gaze intense and a little curious. Tension pinched between Stella’s shoulders as she stood still and as tall as possible. Then a warm smile curved the older woman’s lips and reached the lines at the corners of her eyes. Eyes that were a warm brown instead of cold gray like her son’s. She reached out and took Stella’s hand in a soft cool grasp, and Stella felt her shoulders relax. “You must be Beau’s friend. I’m his mother, Naomi Crandall.”

Friend?
She wouldn’t call him a
friend
. Although she didn’t know what to call him. Uptight hard-ass, maybe. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Crandall.”

“Naomi.” She gave Stella’s hand a little squeeze, then dropped her own to her side. “Goodness, you’re a pretty little thing.”

“Jesus,” Beau muttered.

“Don’t curse, son. You know I don’t put up with cursing in my home.”

Stella cast a glance at the grouch by her side, then back at his much more pleasant mother. “You have a lovely home, Naomi.”

“Oh, it’s a museum.” She waved aside the compliment. “But we entertain Mike’s hospital associates and host charity events here.”

Stella had never been to a charity event, although she did stuff money in the Salvation Army kettles at Christmas.

“Are you hungry?” Naomi asked Stella as she took a step back.

Beau picked up Stella’s duffel. “I’m starving.”

“You were born starving.” She turned, and they followed her through a room with Grecian-inspired columns and a massive stone fireplace. “I had a wonderful shrimp and avocado salad, crab ceviche, and chilled salmon with dill sauce prepared for you.”

Sounded yummy to Stella. She loved ceviche. Crab or cucumber, it didn’t matter.

“Cold fish?” Beau complained. “Anything else?”

“Of course. A beautiful flatbread and a sprouted wheat.”

He grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like cursing again. “This isn’t one of your do-gooder meetings, and I’m not one of your Lean Cuisine friends.”

“It’s heart healthy.”

“My heart is healthy enough.”

“Your heart can never be too healthy.” She opened a set of glass doors and stepped onto a veranda overlooking a stunning view of the gulf beyond. “Just last week, a thirty-year-old man came into St. Joseph’s presenting left main coronary artery stenosis.”

Stella breathed in the breeze of the gulf. She didn’t know anyone who lived like this. She doubted even Sadie with all her money lived like this.

“My heart is fine and I want red meat.” He dropped their bags just outside the door. “Rare.”

Naomi moved toward a table set with bright red serving plates and baskets of bread and pretended not to hear her son. “I read an article published in Mike’s
American Heart Association Journal
that people who have type A, B, or AB blood have an increased risk of heart disease. You and your brother have type A. Like William.”

“Last time I talked to Dad, he sounded healthy.” Beau picked up a dinner plate and loaded it up with food.

“The ceviche is fabulous,” she told Stella as Stella picked up a plate. Then she turned her attention back to her son. “Everyone sounds healthy until they are hit with the ‘widow maker.’ ” She reached for bottle of wine chilling in a silver ice bucket. “Pinot?”

“Yes, please,” Stella said as she put a spoonful of shrimp and avocado salad on her plate. Her elbow bumped Beau’s forearm, and she felt him tense beside her like she’d done something wrong. Displeasure tightened the corners of his mouth. “This looks wonderful, Naomi.” She took a healthy mound of ceviche and a piece of fish and decided not to even try and figure him out. She grabbed a hunk of bread, then followed Beau to a small glass-and-wrought-iron table set with cloth napkins and silver flatware. A striped umbrella shaded the table, and Stella sat in the shade across from the man who’d changed her life with one punch to Ricky’s jaw. She’d known Beau less than twenty-four hours, yet here she sat, on the veranda of a multimillion-dollar mansion with him and his mother and feeling surprisingly at ease. Oh, she felt out of place, to be sure, but not nervous or panicked. Maybe it was because Naomi was calm and welcoming and seemed genuinely kind. Unlike her son, who was more like a barely contained thunderstorm. Or maybe it was because after the last twenty-four hours, she just felt numb. Like a train wreck victim who didn’t feel the pain of a large, gaping wound due to traumatic shock.

Naomi set three glasses of wine on the table and pushed one toward Stella. “I’m assuming you’re over twenty-one, Stella.”

“Yes.” She smiled and took a drink. She knew she looked young, but not
that
young. The crisp pinot hit her tongue and left behind a hint of pear. “This is wonderful,” she said, meaning more than just the wine.

“I’m happy you like it.”

Beau unfolded his napkin and placed it in his lap as he watched his mother take a seat. “Why aren’t you eating?”

“I ate earlier.”

“You’re too thin.”

“I ate!” Naomi insisted, and as the other two discussed Naomi’s eating habits, Stella stabbed her fork into a big piece of shrimp and avocado and took a bite. She was even hungrier than she thought and had to remember to slow down and not scarf like a wild beast. She placed her napkin in her lap and had to remind herself to use her best table manners, too.

Stella loved good wine and good food. She rarely cooked for just herself, but growing up, she’d certainly done her share. Besides family meals, twice a year she and her mother and Abuela made tamales for the entire family. It took them from sunup to sundown, and the tamales were devoured within hours. Sometimes when she let herself, she missed standing beside her mother and grandmother within the steamy kitchen in Las Cruces. She missed her mother’s busy hands and the sound of Abuela’s rich voice competing with
Una Familia con Suerte
blaring from the television on the kitchen counter. Most of the time, though, she didn’t let herself miss them at all. Most of the time, she pushed those feelings and memories to the back of mind where they couldn’t hurt her.

“Mmm.”

“You okay?”

She didn’t realize she’d closed her eyes until she opened them and looked across the table into Beau’s narrowed gray gaze. A shadow from the umbrella slashed across his forehead and nose and the chiseled bones of his cheek and jaw. She wondered what she’d done now. Not that she cared that much. “I’m fine. Why?”

“You moaned.” He stabbed at his salmon like the fish had committed a felony.

“Really?” He was mad because she
moaned
? That was ridiculous, and she turned her attention to his mother. “I moaned?”

“I wouldn’t call that a moan.” Naomi took a sip of wine. “More like a little sound of pleasure.”

“Call it what you want.” Beau shrugged. “Sound of pleasure. Breathy moan. It’s the same sound.”

Her moan had been breathy? He made it sound sexual and she hadn’t even been thinking of sex. Not at all.

“Don’t embarrass our guest.” An amused little smile tipped Naomi’s lips. “Beau’s never brought a woman to meet me before.”

After everything she’d been through in the past twenty-four hours, sex was the last thing on her mind. Until now. Until he’d put it out there on the table like a dessert course. Stella looked at the man scowling at his mother as he chewed. His Adam’s apple moved up his thick neck when he swallowed. She couldn’t imagine getting naked with Beau. He just wasn’t her type. She liked skinny guys with a sensitive side who weren’t afraid to show it. She liked guys who wrote poems and song lyrics, and she didn’t even mind a little nail polish or eyeliner every now and then. She couldn’t imagine that Beau
had
a sensitive side. Let alone that he wrote poems or wore eyeliner. The thought of him painting his nails made her smile.

“Don’t start picking out wedding china and counting grandkids, Ma.” He reached for his wineglass, and the evening sun caught on the rim and in short strands of his blond hair. He was handsome, though. If a girl liked big guys with hard muscles and chiseled good looks. “I told you on the phone, I’m doing a favor for one of Blake’s buddies.” He took a drink, then set the glass next to his plate. “I’m just making sure Stella gets to her sister’s place in Texas.”

That was news to Stella and she forgot all about picturing him with black fingernails. “You are?”

“We’ll talk later,” he said, and dug into his dinner.

She flipped her hair over one shoulder and returned his scowl. “I’m not taking the bus.”

Naomi gasped. “Beau, you are not dumping this girl at the Greyhound station!”

“You’re right, I’m not,” he said without taking his attention from Stella. “I think we covered that at the airport. You’re afraid to fly and hate the bus. Those two options are off the table.”

Stella took a sip of wine and asked the million-dollar question. “What’s on the table?”

“I’m working on it.” He took a big bite of salmon and washed it down with pinot. “What about your family?”

“What about them?”

“Any of them able to drive you to Texas?”

“My mother can’t leave my grandmother.” She took a few bites of ceviche and swallowed. She hadn’t spoken to some of her uncles in about ten years. She didn’t see any reason to reconnect now. “There’s no other family.”