Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (10 page)

CHAPTER SIX

N
OAH
DID
HIS
damnedest not to think about Cait over the weekend, and he dodged her for most of the following workweek. Every time he saw her coming his way, he summoned his new mantra: Use Your Head. Usually followed by: For God's Sake. Add an exclamation point.

There were a lot of reasons why any kind of personal relationship with her wasn't smart, starting with the fact that, yes, she worked for him. Women employed at Chandler's were off-limits, too.

It wasn't only that, though. Cait McAllister had wounds that he could almost see, like the fading yellow of bruises. She was not up for casual sex, and that was all that interested him. The emotional crap wasn't his style, and God knows he had never imagined a wife and family. He had neither the experience nor the skill set to make a success of either. He barely remembered the father who'd appeared and disappeared from his life until that last fishing trip when Noah was something like eight or nine. Mom had remarried about then, and his stepfather had been disgusted with the baggage she brought. He was never abusive, just tried to pretend Noah didn't exist. Kind of like a man who'd reluctantly allowed the kids to get a dog but didn't want anything to do with it and threw a fit if it tripped him or dug a hole in the lawn. Noah thought he'd been eleven or twelve—huge for his age and, predictably, clumsy—when one day he overheard him and Mom talking in their bedroom, the door not quite closed.

“Your ex must've been an even uglier son of a bitch than he looks in pictures, if the kid is anything to go by.”

Noah should have kept going, not waited to hear what his mother replied.

She clicked her tongue in that way she had. “You shouldn't say that, Dennis!”

He remembered relaxing slightly, forming the intention of walking on.

Too late. Because she continued. “It does bother me that he looks so much like his dad, though. I wish he took more after my side of the family. There isn't a single good thing he could have inherited from his father.
Nothing,
” she finished with vehemence, and even hate, which slid between his ribs like a switchblade.

Sometime that night, lying in bed unable to sleep, filled with an adolescent's oversize hurt and anger, was when he formed the intention of finding his father someday.

Over the years, he didn't quite forget how often his father had disappointed him, but he dwelled more on the few times Dad had taken him to see the Trail Blazers play at the Rose Garden, the summer afternoons getting stuffed on hot dogs while they watched a minor-league baseball team play their hearts out. His father had taken him camping, too. He sent a very occasional child support check for the next few years, the last from Angel Butte. By the time Noah set out on his futile quest to track the man down to an obscure town in central Oregon, he had grown up enough to know better than to expect much. Maybe all he'd wanted was to say,
I needed you. Where were you?

He still regretted not getting the chance.

Noah knew what he was good for and what he wasn't. He was a ruthless workaholic who didn't have time for a serious relationship, never mind a family even if he'd wanted one. He had enough of a conscience to go out of his way to avoid hurting the women he used for sex.

One who bore her hurt so visibly was off-limits, all other issues aside.

This driving need to protect her—well, she was his, in a sense, just like the town was. That's all it could be.

So he kept his distance when he could.

What he didn't like was knowing she had nobody to follow her when she left work each day. He was aware that she attended a couple of evening meetings that week, too, which meant she'd be driving home alone at night and having to cross her dark yard to the safety of the town house. If it was safe, given that it had no security system and could easily be breached by a man determined to terrorize her—or to claim her, once and for all.

A few times, he found himself driving by her place, just casually glancing to see if her lights were on, not sure what that told him or what he'd do if they weren't.

One night at the library, they sat two chairs away from each other in a brief meeting about the pipeline replacement project. Walking out, he asked if the moving truck had showed up yet.

She shook her head and said in a low voice, “I'm getting by.”

He had clenched his teeth on the impulse to ask if she'd had dinner. She'd murmured a vague goodbye, her eyes not quite meeting his, and veered off to talk to someone else.

Good,
Noah told himself, but he felt irritated instead of relieved.

The murder of a respectable and longtime local citizen was causing a lot of talk and worry, but the investigation had apparently stalled. Jerry Hegland had often stayed late in his office at the airport. Nobody had seen him leave the night before his body was found. Investigators were confident he'd made it home, though, and eaten a typical bachelor's meal of a couple of microwave-heated burritos and a beer. All that went in the dishwasher was a dirty fork, which meant he'd eaten out of the tray the food came in. One beer can, crushed by hand, reposed in the otherwise empty recycling container. His Jeep was in the garage. It seemed likely his killer had come to his house, but the absence of blood said he wasn't murdered there. Unfortunately, the neighbors either hadn't been home or had pulled the blinds and been engrossed in television shows or their own doings. Nobody saw a thing.

The latest came from Cait's brother, whose path crossed Noah's in front of the courthouse that Friday. Both men hesitated, then met under a cherry tree in full bloom.

“I haven't heard an announcement yet,” Noah commented.

“Next week or two.” Colin squeezed the back of his neck as if it hurt. “You're following the Hegland murder?”

“Yes.” He was getting a little pissed because most of what he knew came via gossip, listening to the police band or overheard conversations rather than directly from his police chief the way he expected.

“Lieutenant Vahalik let me know this morning that it's looking like he's been taking payoffs for years.”

Noah muttered an obscenity.

Colin made a noise suggesting agreement. “This thing is spreading far and wide.”

“But why would they have knocked him off?”

All he got was a head shake.

“The appointment of his replacement will be mine,” Noah said, frowning. “I'll be damn careful. Traffickers have lost the airport.”

“Maybe they don't need it anymore. There are half a dozen private runways in the area now.”

“You mean he'd become redundant.”

Colin lifted a shoulder. “It's possible. If they wanted to cut off payments, and he threatened to talk...”

What else was there to say? Speculation didn't get them anywhere.

“What happened with you and your sister?” Noah asked.

“None of your business.” There might be a dark shadow of pain in those gray eyes, but no give in the hard voice.

Noah moved his shoulders in what he meant for a shrug, but it felt more like an attempt to lessen tension. He couldn't claim her family problems
were
his business. Hadn't he been trying to make sure they weren't?

“I take it you haven't located the boyfriend?”

Looking no happier than he felt, McAllister shook his head. “It's been a week and a half now. She might be right that he didn't hang around.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Goddamn it, no, I don't!” Her brother glared at Noah. “Tell me what I can do that I'm not.”

He felt violent and had to hide it. “You could have avoided getting into it with Cait, so she doesn't have to go home to an empty house every night.”

McAllister closed his eyes. “
Shit.
You think
I
like it?”

“No.” Noah didn't have to admit it, but he wasn't being fair. Cait wasn't a pushover. In fact, given her feisty personality, he could see her being at fault.

“I've hung on to the memory of my kid sister,” said Colin in a strange voice. “She hit me with how little I really know her.” After a brusque nod, he strode away.

As he watched the police captain go, Noah had an uncomfortable realization. He'd taken to thinking of him by his first name. As if... He didn't know. Didn't want to know.

Mumbling under his breath, he went the opposite direction.

* * *

T
HANK
G
OD
THE
moving truck was supposed to arrive tomorrow. Of course, the company had first promised to deliver on Saturday. The cause of the delays meaning they wouldn't arrive until Tuesday had been unspecified.

Cait was especially irked because, once again, she'd have to take time off work, but she didn't care. She wanted her television, her big squishy chair, a dresser with real drawers, so she could put her clothes away. Pans, a mixer, cookbooks and her box of recipes. And her books—she missed her books.

She turned into the alley behind the row of town houses, and her headlights picked out garbage cans behind a lot of the other units. That meant tomorrow morning was pickup. Not really cooking, she hadn't generated that much trash yet, but she had some. She might as well put her brand-new can out.

The garage door rose as she approached and she turned neatly into it, leaving the door open so she could pull the can out.

Not for worlds would she have admitted to anyone—specifically Noah or Colin—that she dreaded that quick dash across the small yard to let herself into the back door when she got in at night like this. But it would be two weeks tomorrow since Blake's last stunt, and she was starting to cautiously believe he really
wasn't
in town.

Even so, after letting herself out into the yard, she peeked cautiously around, then hurried. She should have left a back porch light on. No, better—she'd get a motion-activated floodlight installed, like Colin had over his garage.

The yard wasn't totally dark, because neighbors on each side had outside lights on and second-story windows were lit, too. Even so, she was almost to the back door when she saw that the siding looked funny. Like...something was smeared on it?

Heart pounding, she unlocked and flipped the switch that turned on lights both over this door and on each side of the French doors that led from the dining room onto the deck. They were enough to illuminate the entire tiny enclosed backyard. She was alone out there.

Still cautious—someone could have hoisted himself to watch over the fence—she took only a couple of steps out so she could see.

Words seemed to be scrawled in dark paint all over the lower rear of her town house. They started small at the far corner, getting bigger and bolder as they got closer.

“Sorry Sorry Sorry.” Over and over and over.

Dear God.

Gasping, Cait scurried back inside and locked the door, leaning against it until she could catch her breath.

911? Colin?

Noah.

Her hands shook as she pulled her phone from her bag and scrolled for his last call, then pushed Send.

“Please, please, please,” she whispered.

“Cait?” he said.

“Blake has been back,” she said, and her voice shook, too.

* * *

N
OAH
DROVE
SO
quickly he should have gotten a ticket. He'd have been glad to pick up a cop on the way.

“It's not an emergency,” she had assured him and then sounded embarrassed. “I shouldn't have called you. I'm sorry. I guess I just need to report this and then...” She'd lapsed into silence.

And then what?
he thought savagely as he rocketed around a corner. She'd go to bed and get a good night's rest?

He slammed to a stop in front of her town house, lit from top to bottom, and ran up on the porch. He was reaching for the doorbell when the door opened. Cait had been watching for him.

He hated seeing how finely drawn her features were, how pale her face was. Even so, she gave a brave attempt at a smile.

“I
really
shouldn't have called you. I'm sorry, Noah. I panicked.”

He stepped over the threshold, shouldered the door closed and took her in his arms. For a moment she stayed stiff, vibrating like high-tension wires, but then as if someone had pulled the plug on the power, she sagged against him. Her arms came around him, and he felt her grab handfuls of his dress shirt as if afraid he'd push her away.

She wasn't crying, but fine tremors shook her body. In the heels, she was tall enough to bury her face against his neck, where he had unbuttoned his shirt earlier after ripping off the tie the minute he'd walked in the door at home.

“Of course you should have called me,” he murmured. He kept on, probably repeating the same thing half a dozen times before progressing to, “I'd have been pissed if you didn't. I'm sorry. Damn it, I'm sorry.”

Her shoulders shook, and for a moment he thought she finally had broken down, but then he realized she was laughing.

Whatever had struck her as funny gave her the strength to pull back. Noah reluctantly let her go, realizing the laughter had the shrillness of hysteria.

“What do
you
have to be sorry for?” she asked.

“That we haven't been able to stop this son of a bitch.” He frowned, realizing what he was most sorry about. “I don't like you having to come home alone at night,” he said more slowly.

“None of it's your fault.”

“It's because you're working for me that you have so damn many evening meetings.”

“This kind of job always does,” Cait pointed out, steadier now. “I considered applying for a couple of jobs in California. Would it be better if this was happening in Santa Rosa or Escondido? Where I don't know
anybody?
”