Web of Lies (6 page)

Then, there was just heavy breathing and more groaning, as their hungry bodies inflamed each other.  Finally, he pulled away and stepped back from her.

“Can we make a deal?”  His eyes searched her face.

“What?”  Faith took deep, shuddering breaths to calm her body.

“Let’s declare a truce.  I know you don’t know me and have no reason to trust me, aside from what Grant said.  However, I also know something’s caught fire between us.  So, if we use this trip to get to know each other, maybe we can figure out if we want this to go further or not.  I’m way older than you are, Faith. You may just decide you don’t want a used up older guy chasing your tail.”

She could hear him trying to inject humor to defuse the tension that still rolled between them.  Suddenly, she didn’t want that.  She wanted the sexual tension to remain.  She could sense that he wasn’t as used up as he’d said, and that he was, in fact, restraining himself.  And that only made her want him more.  His age didn’t faze her, either; although it was clear that her age bothered him. 

“I’ll do it, if you promise to stop throwing the age difference in my face.”  As she watched his face, she had another realization.  “And if you stop thinking of me as Grant Lee’s little girl.  I’m a grown woman.  I’m not afraid of you.  And you wouldn’t be my first lover.”

She watched as his face lost all expression, and she wondered what it meant. 
Could he be jealous?  Nah, not possible,
she decided
.  Still, it would be nice if he felt possessive towards me.  It would mean I matter more than just a quick fuck.
 

She waited for him to agree, and when he nodded, she released the breath she had been holding.  She wished they already knew each other well enough to do the strip-and-fuck she suddenly craved.  Instead, she straightened her shirt and stepped out of the circle of his arms.  “I guess we’d better go, then,” she said, trying to fill the silence that grew between them.

Jack cleared his throat.  “Yeah, we’d better.” 

He took their luggage and led the way out to the truck after checking out.  The drive was quiet, and the tension between them was not helping.  Faith wanted to know more about him, but she didn’t know where to start, or whether she should wait for him to start.  The decision was taken out of her hands when he said, into the silence, “I’m thirty-eight years old, Faith.  I’ve known your dad since I was eighteen.”

That stopped her.  He really was much older, and he probably knew her father far better than she did.  Plus, he probably knew what Grant had been doing for those six years he had been away.

“He never stopped talking about you,” Jack continued, as though he could read her mind.  “He had to leave when he did, all those years ago, to protect you.  And then two months ago, trouble came back to haunt him.  He already knew he was dying, and he decided he ought to get to you before he passed.  He wanted to let you know he had never abandoned you.”

Faith looked over at him as he drove, her eyes wide and wet with tears.  She swallowed, so she could speak.  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

Jack shrugged.  “Maybe he was going to, before the accident made what he had to give you more important.”

“Do you think it was really an accident?” she asked, wiping her eyes.

Another shrug, a small silence, and then a quiet, “No.”  He sighed and ran a hand over his buzz-cut hair.  “But I have no evidence that it was anything else. So really, what would I tell the cops?  Speculation is zero-tenths of the law.”

Silence descended between them again. This time it was not charged by the electricity that had shaken them earlier.  It was nevertheless a weighty silence, as they grappled with their thoughts. 

Faith watched the miles fly by and tried to think what the key she now had attached to a leather string around her neck could possibly open. 
Maybe it is to a safe, although it doesn’t look like any safe key I’ve ever seen.  A door to a storage locker or container?  And what could he possibly have in it that my dad wouldn’t even tell Jack about?

“Do you know anything about what happened after your dad left you with his mother?” Jack asked, out of the blue.

It was not an especially happy turn in the conversation, but it was better than nothing.  Faith found that she liked to hear his baritone.  For some reason she couldn’t fathom, now that she had stopped fighting the attraction she felt for him, it soothed her.  It made her want to curl up and purr like a contented cat.

“No, I don’t.  He never told me, even after he came back.  Why?”

“Because whatever that key is for has to be related to it somehow.”

She asked the inevitable question.  “What was he protecting me from?”

“Not what, who.”  Jack paused and inhaled deeply, and then he told her what he knew, “The story is typical gang stuff, except that your dad infiltrated one of the gangs’ strongholds and took back the bike that they had stolen, along with something that had belonged to your mother.  He didn’t check the saddlebags, which it turns out were stuffed with cocaine and money.  LOTS of money.”

“What happened then?”  Faith was intrigued.

“Well, they couldn’t find the bike because Grant had it so well hidden, and they couldn’t finger him for the retrieval.  They watched him for months, and even roughed him up badly once, but he never gave it up.  Eventually, they stopped looking.  When it was safe, he shipped it to the homestead and only used it there.  However, he spent all those years watching his back because he knew they suspected he had something to do with the loss of not just the bike, which was one owned by The King, himself, but also the cash and coke, which was worth half a million bucks.  And, of course, they knew he had to have been the one who took whatever it was of your mother’s that they had stolen.”

Faith swung round to face him.
“What?  My dad owned a bike Elvis had before him?”  Her eyes were wide with shock.  “Isn’t that worth a lot of money?  And what did he do with all of the money and the drugs?”

“Yes, he owned one of Elvis’s many bikes.  And he managed to get the money and the drugs to the cops, with the story of where they were found.  They handled it from there.  It was one of the biggest drug busts, and the cops had nothing to do with it.”

“So you think this is about the bike?  And what was in the saddlebags?”

“It’s possible.  Heck, anything is possible.  I think Grant thought he was protecting me, as well, by not giving me all the details.  I didn’t agree with him, but there was nothing I could say to change his mind.  At the end of the day, Grant always did what he thought was best, no matter what anyone else said.”

Another long silence was broken by a stop for brunch.  They ate on the go, and though Faith itched to hear more, she sensed that Jack was preoccupied.  She had learned a great deal about her father during his time away, but she knew there was a lot she would never know now that he was gone.  She only hoped she would have better luck finding out about the key.

CHAPTER SIX

Four weeks earlier--Jack

Faith obviously wanted to talk, but Jack had nothing much more to give her.  He was not going to tell her about Grant’s ongoing troubles with the rival gang, or the loss of everything he owned, except his two bikes, in the blaze that the fire department ruled as suspicious. 

It was bad enough she had lost him for good this time, without ever fully knowing how much he really loved her.  Knowing what he went through to keep her safe would not help her at all.  It was better that she remain ignorant of anything that would not help her solve the mystery of the key.

They didn’t stop again until late afternoon. After a pleasant conversation about what foods they liked to eat and which were the best restaurants, they were off again, driving through the night.  He wanted to make it across the Illinois state line before they stopped for the night. 

He had a friend whose cabin they would use.  When he finally pulled up to the cabin, Faith was asleep.  He sat for a minute, just watching her breathe.  He wished he had met her under different and better circumstances. 

She was a funny, feisty woman.  She was sharp as a tack and witty. He liked the things he was discovering about her, and because he had begun to let himself enjoy the sizzle between them, he was more relaxed.  He found himself wishing he could protect her from every threat, which he knew was fanciful romantic twaddle, but that was how he felt. 

He was too old not to have thought himself in love before, and he was determined not to make that mistake here.  They would end up in bed― he knew that for a fact.  However, he was certain that once she recovered from the loss of her father, she would move on from their affair. He would just have to wish her the best and let her go.

He woke her up, suddenly uncomfortable with the trend of his thoughts.  He had an odd ache in his chest at the thought of letting her go.  “Time for a real bed and some sleep, Faith.” 

He watched her yawn and stretch, and the lust he had all but forgotten slammed back into him with a fury that left him stunned.  He hurried out of the cab, retrieving her suitcase before going around to help her out of the truck.  She was a tall girl, and he loved that she fit him so comfortably.  Most women were too short, and he had had to do a lot of adjusting to kiss them or make love with them.  Faith was his match, though he was taller than her, and her body was strong and sexy to him.

He let her into the cabin, which had the undisturbed air of a place rarely used, though Jack knew his friend had been there the week before and would be back this weekend again.  He took her suitcase to the bedroom and showed her where the bathroom was. 

“Where’s your stuff?” she asked.

“I have some things here,” he said. He saw the unease creep into her features, and he stepped away from her. “Just friends, remember?  You’re safe with me.  Would you like anything else before I go?”

He watched her pause, as though she were thinking about it deeply, and then she shook her head, murmured her thanks, and watched him shut the door on her.  He listened to hear if she would engage the lock, but she didn’t, and he felt a weight lift off his chest. 

When he heard the shower turn on, he helped himself to a large bourbon from his friend’s liquor cabinet and sat with his feet up.  He would shower when she was done.  He hoped he could get more sleep tonight than he had done the night before.

He must have dozed off, because he awoke with a start.  The light was off, and a sheet had been draped over him.  The glass was nowhere to be seen.  He smiled, wondering what she must have thought, coming out to find him sprawled on the sofa.  It pleased him that she had thought to try and make him comfortable without disturbing him. 

Throwing the sheet aside, he checked the time and decided it was too late for a shower.  It might disturb her.  He’d do it while she had breakfast later.  Stripping to his boxers, he stretched out on the sofa again and pulled the sheet back up.  He’d be up before she was, so he wasn’t worried she’d see him all but naked.

When he woke up, the sun was streaming in the window, and he could smell bacon. 
What the...?
  He sat up with a jerk, making sure to drag the sheet with him.  The last thing he needed was for Faith to see his morning wood, which was always impressive.  He knew that with her in close proximity, it would be off the damn charts.  He must have made a sound because she turned to look at him.

“Morning!  I wanted to make you breakfast instead of having us stop.  I’d like to go as far as we can without stopping today, if that’s all right?  I’ve already made a kind of picnic lunch for us, using what I found in the fridge.  I don’t know if your friend comes here often, but this bacon and these eggs shouldn’t be left here for too much longer.”

She was nervous.  Jack knew it by the way she didn’t meet his eyes, and by the details she was giving about the food.  Frankly, he didn’t care what they ate, or what she prepared for them to eat on the way.  He did care that she wanted to contribute.  He wondered how she had managed to get past him without waking him up.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.  I wanted everything to be ready before I woke you up.”

She was babbling again. No doubt because he was staring at her with hunger clear in his eyes. 
She doesn’t need this from me now.  And I sure as hell don’t need to be going over this terrain so damned often.  Friends... that is the agreement. 

Gathering the sheet around his hips, he went to get clean clothes before heading into the bathroom.  By the time he got out, she had finished and the table was laid for two.  He went to the coffee pot and poured two cups, and then he sat across from her.

“This is quite a spread,” he commented, stuffing a slice of bacon into his mouth.

“I thought you might be hungry,” she said.  “I know I was.”

He watched her sip her coffee delicately and felt his chest doing its odd warm-up again. 
I’m hungry all right
, he thought
.
  The setting was ideal for romance, and at any other time, Jack would have availed himself of the opportunity to lay some love on the woman across the table from him.  However, this was Faith, and he had a feeling he would want more than just a tumble and some kisses from her.  Though the way he was hardening up just thinking about it, a tumble and some kisses would be a great right now.

He blinked to refocus his thoughts.  This was just breakfast, and she was still Grant’s daughter, and they had said friendship, nothing more.  He kept his eyes on his food, emptying the plate and his first cup of coffee without looking at her.  He knew he had to get his body back under control.  As he stood up to pour himself a second cup, he caught her eyes on him.  Instantly, he was hard again. 

“Faith, stop it!”  When she met his eyes, he groaned low in his throat and went around to stand beside her.  “You’re not making it easy for me, you know?”

She stood up, crowding him. He stepped back, so she wouldn’t feel the fullness of his apparently unending desire for her. 

“You look hot when you’re asleep, all uncovered.  That didn’t make it easy on me, either.”

“Faith,” he protested, but it sounded more like a groan of desire.  It was fueled by a shot of lust that held him in place when his brain was telling him to move.

She moved past him to the coffee pot and took his mug from his unresisting fingers to pour him a second.  He took it back when she offered it and went back to his chair, hoping a second cup and some distance would calm his body before they had to get in the truck.  She cleared the table and was getting ready to wash the dishes when he said, “Leave them.  I’ll do it.  Go get ready.  We leave in thirty minutes.”

He didn’t give her a chance to argue, and the mindless task of washing up cleared the lust from his gaze.  Once on the road, they would drive all day.  He hoped to pull into Grant’s homestead by the end of the week.  He helped her pack the food and drinks, and they set off.  Something about the way she looked in the white Capri pants and yellow sleeveless top made him wish she was his.  It was such an unusual thought and was enough to make him almost panic.  He wasn’t into long term, and he couldn’t do short term with Grant’s daughter.  She deserved better than that.

He turned the radio on to keep him from thinking, and eventually, when she fell asleep, he relaxed.  He couldn’t wait for the week to end, so he could deliver her safely to Grant’s homestead.  Then, he could go about his own affairs, and she would be free to go back to her life without him.  He ignored the empty feeling that settled in his gut at the thought.