Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (2 page)

Shay sighed. She wasn’t up to this; she was still so damn tired. Yeah, she had to go into town for the follow-up visit with her doctor, but hitting the bookstore?

This
bookstore? Although this one was the only one around, unless she wanted to drive another thirty minutes.

Coward. It’s not the
exhaustion
that has you down. You just don’t want to see Elliot
.

That wasn’t it at all, she insisted. She would
love
to see Elliot. The problem was Elliot didn’t want to see
her
. He’d dumped her. Months ago. Seeing him now … 
that
was what she wasn’t up to. Seeing him, thinking about what she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t have …

“Shay? Sweetie?”

Grimacing, she eased her way out of the car and met Lorna on the sidewalk.

“Are you not up for this? I mean … well.” She looked down, plucking at a loose thread on her shirt. “Never mind. This was a stupid idea. I promised you lunch before your checkup, not a shopping spree.”

The guilt in Lorna’s voice pricked at Shay’s conscience.

“It’s okay,” she said tiredly. “I’m fine. It’s been a few
days since I left the hospital, you know. I’m not a complete invalid. I even get myself dressed now.”

“I know. You just …” Lorna blew out a breath. “I shouldn’t have dumped this on you. You look worn out. Come on, we’ll go eat.”

“No.” Shay made herself smile. And damn her heart … she realized she
did
want to see Elliot, even if it would hurt. “You promised me books. You can’t back out now.”

Lorna meant well, Shay knew. Meant all sorts of well. It wasn’t her fault Shay avoided the bookstore like a plague, just as she had for the past six months. Ever since the problems with Elliot …

Don’t think about that right now
. Turning her head, she stared at the brightly lit windows of Winter’s End. Earth’s End was a small town; the town’s sole bookstore was a popular place. People came to grab a hot drink from the little coffee shop in the back of the store. They’d sit for a while, enjoy their drink and chat … read. Several different book clubs met here once a month.

And up until six months ago, this had been one of the few places in her life she actually
loved
. Outside of her house.

Was she really going to let a bad breakup get to her like that?

Was she actually going to spend the rest of her life avoiding this place just because she was too afraid to see Elliot?

Why not?
a sly voice in her head whispered.
You’re afraid of everything else
.

Damn it. She hated that it was true.

“Shay’s here.”

Looking up from his desk, Elliot met his sister’s gaze.

The look on her face held something of an impatient demand on it, but he didn’t pay much attention to
demands anymore. Demands were too similar to commands, and he’d left those behind when he’d walked away from the army nine years earlier.

He didn’t do demands. Didn’t do commands. If anybody didn’t like it, screw it and screw them.

Actually, that was kind of his outlook on most things in life anyway these days. He was who he was and if people didn’t like it? Screw them.

With the exception of his sister, Lorna. She was the one exception … the one person he still stopped to think of, for the most part.

Liar …

There was one other. Shay. The woman he loved. The woman who couldn’t trust him. The woman he still needed—the pain was a punch to the gut as he once more made himself accept the fact that she might be the woman he needed, but she was the woman he wouldn’t ever have.

Damn it
. It had been six fucking months. He ought to be used to this by now. Six months without her. Why wasn’t he over it? Over her? They’d only been together a year, and he’d spent more than half that time just trying to get it to where she wouldn’t bolt if he so much as came within two feet of her.

And yet, here he was, in knots, because he’d heard her name.

Shay …

Closing his eyes, he leaned back in the chair. “Why in the hell are you telling me this?” He opened his eyes to meet her gaze. “You can … wait. You’re not working today.”

“Nope.” She smiled at him serenely. “I told you I needed the day off to help out a friend … Shay.”

“Yeah? Then what are you doing in here?” He tried to focus on the paperwork in front of him, but he couldn’t.
Lorna kept staring at him and he knew she’d wait him out. Leaning back, he crossed his arms over his chest and studied her face. “What do you want, Lorna?”

“I want you to go out there. Talk to her.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s done, Lorna. Over. Done.”

“Liar.” Her golden eyes, so like his own, focused on his face. “You can’t hide in here forever.”

Wanna bet?
he thought sourly. No point in chasing after what he couldn’t have, he figured. He’d spent so much time doing just that. It had taken him a year just to get her to relax around him, months to get her to go out with him, and they’d had one year together … and now? Nothing. There was just nothing. He wasn’t getting his heart thrown back at him again.

“I’m not
hiding
—I’m
working
,” he pointed out, gesturing to the mess of orders, invoices, and bills that littered his desk. “Becca can check her out. That’s why she’s here—to work with customers.”

“Stubborn bastard,” Lorna muttered, staring at him through narrowed eyes. It reminded him, disturbingly, of the same look their mother had given them once upon a time. “You do realize she just got out of the hospital, right? That wreck of hers was worse than I thought. I talked to Mike. He tracked down one of the county boys who worked the accident. She could have died.”

A cold chill settled low in his gut and he looked away from the pile of work to stare at his sister.
She could have died …

Yeah. He knew about the wreck, all right. Of course, nobody here in Earth’s End had learned about the wreck until several days
after
it had happened. Shay hadn’t called anybody. Hadn’t told anybody. Hadn’t told
him
. Yet even after he’d heard about it, he’d waited by the
phone, for hours, for
days
, hoping she’d call him. But she never did. It served as just one more reminder how little she wanted or needed him in her life.

But …

Swallowing, he glanced up at his sister. “It was really that bad?” he asked gruffly. If it had been that bad, how could she have called him? Maybe she had needed him and she just couldn’t call—aw, hell.

“Yeah.” Lorna stared at him, her gaze intense. “I managed to get a little bit of information out of her on the drive into town today. She wouldn’t tell me anything when I went to see her in the hospital, but … yeah. It was bad. She spent days in a coma. Then she was laid up in ICU. Alone, because she didn’t have anybody down as next of kin and she didn’t call me until nearly two weeks later.”

Alone …

It hit him like a punch straight to his chest, and he groaned.

Images flashed through his mind. Shay, alone and frightened in a hospital. Shay, hurt and alone.

But that wasn’t enough torture … no, his brain just
had
to keep going. Shay’s lovely dark eyes, a shade between blue and purple, lifeless. Her face still. Shay … gone forever.
Fuck
. Just thinking about that was enough to turn his stomach to ice. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Why are you doing this? What do you want me to do, Lorna? We broke up, remember?”

“Yeah. I remember. And you’ve been a moody, mean bastard ever since.” She crossed her arms over her chest, watching him with flat eyes. “You still have feelings for her and you can’t honestly tell me you don’t.”

“It’s not about whether or not I have
feelings
for her.” Hell, yes, he had feelings for her. But Shay had so many secrets—she kept herself so closed off. It had been killing
him inside, bit by bit. He loved her, but she wouldn’t open up. Wouldn’t give him anything.

She was alone …

Fuck
.

“Then what is it about? What in the hell is so awful that it’s keeping you locked in here even though I know you want to go out there and see her?”

Lorna had disappeared into the office.

The second she did, Shay promptly moved to the very back of the store, far away from the long wooden counter that held the computer, the cash register, and everything else. Far away from the door where she’d last seen Lorna.

She was in there talking to Elliot. Shay knew it. Her friend still hadn’t come to grips with the fact that the two of them were over.

There was an ache in her chest—a dull one that had nothing to do with her still recovering body. Yeah, she knew Lorna hadn’t come to grips with the fact that her friend and her brother weren’t together anymore.

Shay still hadn’t come to grips with it.

She still thought about him all the time.

He’d been the first person she wanted to see when she woke up in the hospital. And she had almost called him, too. But he had told her he was done.

So she hadn’t called. Maybe he was done, but she wasn’t. She missed him, thought about him all the time.

She still dreamed about him.

She still wished she’d be working and hear the phone ring and just know it was him.

Not that many other people ever really called her.

There’d been a number of business-related calls, but those didn’t really count. Lorna. Shay’s assistant, Darcy, but that was about it. Hell, the only phone calls she really looked forward to anymore were Lorna’s. Guilt
tugged at her, because there had been a time when she’d loved talking to Darcy, but lately …

Hell, you ought to be thankful you’ve got Darcy to talk to. Darcy and Lorna, both? You should dance. That’s two friends
.

Yet neither of them did anything to ease the loneliness that had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. Only Elliot had done that. But she hadn’t been able to keep him …

You won’t share any damn thing with me, Shay … how long are we supposed to keep this up?

He’d asked her that, and she hadn’t been able to answer.

Are you ever going to let me in?

That, she could have answered. The answer had been no. But she hadn’t wanted to hurt him, so she kept the answer trapped behind her teeth. He’d seen it anyway, in her eyes, in the way she watched him.

I guess that’s it, then
.

They were over … just like that.

He hadn’t been unkind and he hadn’t tried to force anything out of her. But it was over just the same and her heart had been an aching, empty mess ever since. She missed him so much. There were times when she wanted to talk to him, wanted to see him so bad …

A shiver danced along her spine and she looked up, turned her head. Even before she saw him standing at the end of the aisle, staring at her, she knew.

He wasn’t too tall, his height brushing in just under five-ten, but there was a caged strength to his body that might have frightened her if it had been anybody but Elliot. Hell, at first, he
had
made her nervous. But he’d been patient, as though he knew if he moved too fast …

Golden eyes stared at her over the distance that separated them and even now, they managed to make her shiver.

Swallowing, she swiped her hands down her skirt and tried to get herself to calm down—to settle down, but her heart was racing away inside her chest and he hadn’t said a damn thing. He was staring at her, his gaze roaming over her body, as though searching for any sign of injury that lingered from the wreck.

Well, he was about to see one.

As if her face wasn’t already screwed up enough.

Bracing herself, she turned fully toward him.

But he didn’t do the double take just about everybody else had done upon seeing the bruises that still lingered. The swelling was finally going down and thank God, her nose had healed fairly well.

Most of the other injuries were hidden by clothing, but even Shay had been a bit dismayed by how awful she’d looked.

“You look like you should still be in bed,” he said bluntly.

Yes, I look awful. You look amazing
. Hell, he always looked amazing. Long and lean, strong without being too bulky, nice shoulders. Man, she’d always loved his shoulders. Right now, they were covered by a denim shirt that lay open over a Bob Marley T-shirt. It stretched over a lean belly and was left untucked over a pair of beat-up jeans.

Here at Winter’s End, the owners went for the casual look. Very casual, in Elliot’s case.

The look suited him.

But then again, if you were Elliot Winter, just about any look would suit you. She’d seen pictures of him from his army days and he’d worn his uniform with as much ease as he wore those jeans of his.

A powerful body, a face that was almost too pretty. Thick hair, a shade between rich auburn and brown that blazed with just a little more red during the summer. His eyes also blazed with color—burnished gold.
Like whiskey, they made her drunk, but without that pesky hangover.

He wasn’t hers anymore, though, and it hurt. It hurt like a bitch. He wasn’t hers anymore because she couldn’t be what he needed. Acknowledging that had broken her heart.

Because just looking at him made the ache worse, she looked away. “I spent almost three weeks flat on my back. I’d rather not spend any more time in bed unless I have to.” Peering around him, she looked for Lorna—she had to kick that woman’s ass. “Did Lorna send you out here?”

“Not exactly. I wanted to see you.” Dark russet hair fell into his eyes and he brushed it back absently as he closed the distance between them. “I heard the other driver walked away with barely a scratch.”

Scowling, she shrugged and turned back to the books. She’d been in such a reading slump lately—it wasn’t just the car wreck, either. It had been going on since … well. The breakup. She hadn’t been able to read or focus on much of anything all that well since he’d walked away from her.

“Is that right? He just walked away?”

“No.” She gave him a dark look and stroked one of her few remaining bruises. “The jerk
stumbled
away. The bastard was nearly twice the legal limit. And he didn’t stumble far—the police had him locked up before I even made it to the hospital, I think. It’s his third DUI in eighteen months, too.”