The Vanishing (21 page)

Max laughed. “It’s self-defense. Have you ever eaten Alex’s cooking?”

“No, but I’ve heard the stories.” She opened the oven and pulled out the steaming pan of enchiladas. “I put chips and salsa on the table already.”

He nodded and opened the refrigerator. “We have diet soda and beer. What would you like?”

“Beer and enchiladas? Sounds like a good bet to me.”

He grabbed a couple of beers as Colette set the pan of enchiladas on a trivet in the middle of the table. She stuck a serving spoon in the pan and slid into a chair.

“I cannot wait to dig into this,” she said.

Max placed the beers on the table and sat in the chair next to her. “Me, either.”

The food was every bit as good as Max had imagined it would be, but altogether the dinner was nice and relaxing. They carefully avoided talk of childhood disappointments and instead shared stories about attending college and pursuing their careers.

He was surprised to find how easy it was to talk to her and how much he enjoyed hearing her more outrageous emergency-room stories. It was like talking to an old friend.

When he couldn’t eat another bite, Max rose from the table and picked up his and Colette’s dishes. “Since you did most of the work, I’ll do the dishes.”

“Well, technically, Holt did most of the work, but if you wash, I’ll rinse.”

She grabbed a dishrag and stepped up next to him at the sink, their elbows touching. He began washing dishes and passing them over to her so that she could rinse them and place them in a rack next to the sink.

They worked in silence, and Max was surprised to realize how natural it felt doing such a domestic chore with a woman he’d met only days ago. For a moment, he flashed back to helping Holt’s mother with the dishes when he was a boy. That same feeling of comfort and caring was always present in Holt’s home. That feeling was why he spent so much time there.

“Last one,” he said and passed her the final dish.

She rinsed the dish, gave it a swipe with the dish towel and placed it in the drying rack with the other dishes.

“So what’s on the agenda for tonight?” she asked, turning to face him.

She didn’t move away from the sink and her body was only inches from his. It would be so easy to kiss her, to wrap his arms around her and press every inch of his body against hers as he’d longed to since he first laid eyes on her.

Before he could rationalize all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea, he decided it was time to take a risk. Life held no guarantees, but if you stopped living, you were guaranteed to have a less fulfilling life than if you took a risk that paid off.

It was time to take that risk.

He lowered his lips to hers and slid his arms around her. As she leaned into him and wrapped her arms around him, he deepened the kiss, parting her lips gently with his tongue. She pressed her body tightly against his and he felt himself harden.

He moved from her lips and kissed her neck, trailing kisses down to her exposed breastbone. She sighed and he lifted her up from the floor in a sweeping move and carried her into the bedroom.

“I’ve wanted you since the first day I saw you,” he whispered as he put her down to stand facing him. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, inside and out.”

She pulled the bottom of his T-shirt up and over his head and ran her hands down his chest. “Then don’t make me wait any longer.”

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, then released her so that he could undress her. As he slipped her shirt over her head and tossed it onto the floor, she unfastened her jeans and pushed them over her curvy hips and to the floor. As she removed her lacy pink bra and underwear, he took in every inch of her and decided he was the luckiest man in the world.

He kicked off his shoes and removed the rest of his clothes, tossing them on the floor. Unable to wait another second without having his hands on her, he lay on the bed and pulled her down beside him. He explored every inch of her with his hands, his mouth, and she moaned until his own need could wait no longer.

He moved over her and entered her in one fluid motion. For a moment, he was perfectly still, relishing the way her body felt wrapped around him. Then he began to move. She matched his rhythm, and in no time they both fell over the edge.

Chapter Seventeen

He pulled her close to him, and she rested her head on his chest. She was sated as she’d never been before, as if every ounce of flesh on her body had been given the most relaxing and satisfying massage in the world. If required to stand and walk, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to manage it.

As she ran one hand up his bare chest, she felt the scar tissue from the injury she’d seen when he’d undressed. It was small and so perfectly round, and she would bet anything a bullet had made it. So close to his lungs, but in a place on the body where a millimeter could be the difference between life and death.

She felt him stiffen slightly as she ran her fingers across the scar, and she wondered how he’d gotten it. Was he scared when it happened? Was this scar part of the reason he’d left police work?

“I got shot two years ago,” he said quietly.

“How bad was it?” she asked, surprised that he’d said anything when she could tell it made him uncomfortable.

“It missed everything that keeps me alive, but my shoulder aches a bit from time to time.”

“You were lucky.”

“That’s what they say.”

“How did it happen?”

He was silent for a long time, and she was afraid he’d throw the wall around him back in place. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I imagine it’s hard remembering such a frightening event. I know I wouldn’t want to talk about the things that have happened to me this week at length. Not yet.”

You’re rambling.

She clamped her mouth shut, frustrated at herself for ruining such a pure moment between them.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s only normal that you’d ask, and maybe it’s time I told someone.”

She leaned up on her elbow so that she could see his face. “Only if you want to.”

“It’s time to let certain things go,” he said.

He ran one hand across his head and blew out a breath. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning. I was guarding a woman who was being stalked. The stalker had already attempted to kill her by running her car off the road into a drainage ditch.”

“That’s horrible. That poor woman.”

“I was impressed with how tough she was with her refusal to let the situation ruin her life or her son’s. Her husband had died in Iraq when her son was still a baby, so she was facing all of it alone with an eight-year-old to care for.”

“But she faced it all head-on. That’s admirable.”

“I thought so at the time, but as the days passed and we got no closer to catching her stalker, she grew impatient. She was an attorney with a big firm in Baton Rouge and was competing for a partner position. Every day she spent out of the office and the courtroom was one step further away from everything she’d been working for.”

“But surely the partners understood, and even if they didn’t, there would be other opportunities.”

“Everyone told her that, but she was obsessed, determined not to let one man ruin her obtaining her goal.”

“So what happened?”

“She got careless, then reckless. There was a case she’d been handling before all that happened, the case she thought was going to get her the partnership. The partners were about to reassign it to the other attorney vying for the position. So she sent me upstairs in her home on a wild-goose chase to investigate a noise and then snuck out.”

“But her son?”

“I guess she figured he was safe in the house with me. She knew I wouldn’t leave him there alone, not even to chase after her.”

“That’s awful, using her child to manipulate the situation.”

“The whole thing backfired in the worst way possible. Her son saw her leaving the house and yelled up the stairs to me. When she started pulling down the driveway, he ran outside to stop her. I tore down the stairs and outside, but the stalker had already gotten off two rounds.”

She gasped. “Oh, no!”

“The first shot took out one of her front tires. The second went through the radiator. The car rolled to a stop and she was a sitting duck in the middle of the driveway. She knew her only chance was to get back to the house, so she jumped out of the car and started running for the front door at the same time I ran outside.”

He stopped for a couple of seconds and Colette could see how much it hurt to revisit it all. “The stalker fired again. I tried to gauge the direction of the shot and fired off a couple of rounds as I ran. I was almost to her when I saw the glint of metal in the hedges near the road. The barrel was leveled directly at her. I tackled her but it was too late. He’d already gotten off the shot.”

She stared in surprise. She’d assumed he’d been shot in the chest, but his story didn’t support that theory. “It went through your back and out your chest?”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked back at her. The anger and pain were so visible, and that’s when it hit her.

“The bullet went through you and into her,” she said.

“Directly into her heart. She was dead before I could even call the paramedics.”

A tear ran down her cheek. “That poor little boy. He saw it all, didn’t he?”

He nodded. “From the living-room window. The nanny had dragged him inside but he broke away from her and ran to the front window. Everything was over before she reached him.”

She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her fingers. “That is the most awful story I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe she took such a risk. How could something as stupid as a job promotion possibly have outweighed the safety of her and her son?”

“It was all such a waste. She was so impatient. So hardheaded. And in trying to have it all, she lost it all, even her own life. And her son has to live with her choice the rest of his life.”

As he delivered those words, his expression was a mixture of sadness and anger and something else. Regret? Probably, but deep down, she knew it wasn’t that simple. Then a thought sparked in the back of her mind, and the more she contemplated it, the more it made sense.

“Were you involved with her?” she asked. “I mean, on a personal level?”

He sighed and nodded. “She was beautiful, intelligent and driven. I crossed a line I never should have, especially when I was on the job. I invested part of myself in a woman who was just like my mother.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “I bet Alex could make a lot out of that one.”

She laid her hand on the side of his cheek. “Maybe you should let her try.”

“Maybe I will,” he said. “It feels good telling you everything. It’s hard and sad, but I also feel almost relieved that someone else knows. That someone else understands.”

“I’m so sorry you went through that. Sorry for you and her and most of all, for her son. You’re right, it was a waste. Anytime you think talking will make you feel better, I’d be happy to listen.”

He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a squeeze. “Who listens to you?”

“Oh, well…I don’t have things that difficult to deal with.”

“Hmm. Well, that offer runs both ways.”

She closed her eyes and drank in his masculine scent as his words warmed her even more than the heat from his body had. If only this night could last forever.

Tomorrow would come too soon, and all their problems would be right back in front of them. And once those problems were solved, where did that leave them?

It was a question she wasn’t ready to ask.

* * *

M
AX AWAKENED BEFORE DAWN
. Colette was still curled in a ball next to him, sleeping soundly. She was beautiful even when she was worried, but at rest and completely peaceful, she was even more gorgeous. Last night, when he’d been on top of her, inside her, she’d reached the heights of angelic.

He’d thought he was taking a big risk last night, letting down his guard, exposing his darkest secrets, but he felt better than he had in years. Even with his future completely up in the air and even if Colette wasn’t part of it, he would never regret last night. It was a reawakening of his heart and soul. He was more energized, more determined, and his first priority was gaining the safety of Anna’s mother and the other villagers.

He slipped quietly from the bed, not wanting to disturb Colette. An idea burned at the back of his mind. It was indecently early, but the woman at the museum he needed to talk to was an early bird. She’d probably already put in an hour of work. If anyone could offer a viable solution for the villagers, it would be her.

* * *

C
OLETTE CLUTCHED THE PIECE
of paper with the notes she’d taken from Anna during their visit to the hospital that morning as they sped down the highway to Pirate’s Cove. They’d had a hard time convincing Anna to give them directions to the place she thought the villagers were hiding, but she’d finally agreed that Max’s idea was sound and a permanent solution to the problem of the coins.

Unfortunately, they were pushed to act on it immediately.

Max had received a phone call early that morning from his buddy who was watching Lambert. He’d tailed the man from his house to the highway that led to Pirate’s Cove. Apparently, they’d spooked him with their visit the day before, and he was probably desperate to obtain the coins before they did. That desperation combined with his likely already unstable mind made him a complete wild card.

Colette was still asleep when Max awakened her and filled her in on the situation. She hadn’t stopped worrying since, afraid of what the man might do to the villagers if he found them before they did.

Max tried to get her to stay behind at the hospital with Anna, but she’d refused. No way was he going into the swamp alone. She may not be trained for combat, but she was an extra set of eyes and an extra finger on a trigger. Two against one sounded like much better odds to her.

His agreement had been reluctant, and she wondered if he was afraid she’d strike out after him, especially given the horrible story he’d told her the night before. She wasn’t that brave or foolish, but saw no reason to elaborate on that as it might change his mind on taking her with him.