Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (22 page)

The worry was sticking with her like a burr. There were already a couple of other candidates besides the incumbent sheriff. What if her problems dragged on and Colin entered the race too late?

And yet, for all her guilt, right this minute she was ungrateful enough to be swept with relief because she
could
be alone, if only for a few minutes.

Still carrying both bags, she had started down the hall toward the bedroom when she heard the sound of breaking glass.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

N
OAH
WASN
'
T
TWO
minutes down the road when he abruptly wrenched the wheel to the side and skidded to a stop on the shoulder.

“Shit,” he said explosively.

How could he have left her like that, thinking there was any truth at all in the crap about being a wimp. He winced at the memory of her eyes, darkened to charcoal by pain he hadn't done a single thing to ease.

If you think that, you're still letting him victimize you.

“Letting him” had to be the worst thing he could have said, after she'd just finished telling him that she'd “let” that bastard Ralston brainwash her, dominate her, hit her. As if “letting him” wasn't bad enough—he'd tacked
still
onto it.

Noah groaned, hearing her response.

Then I guess I'm just cut out to be a victim.

The irony was, despite what she had to have seen as his cruelty, her chin had had a belligerent cast, her wounded eyes were dry, her pride alive and well.

Couldn't she see that her childhood had set her up to accept abuse? Living in fear of her father, seeing her mother cower? Noah had read between the lines in Cait's few stories about her childhood. To survive, she'd made herself the next thing to invisible. She grew up knowing only two survival tactics: going unnoticed and enduring.

Animals like Blake Ralston seemed to have a gift for homing in on susceptible women. Noah guessed that Cait had had no idea she was until she'd gotten involved with him. She'd made herself into a strong woman in so many ways. Why would she suspect her instinct would be to revert to those childhood lessons?

Noah swore a few more times, then checked the road both ways and swung into a sharp U-turn. He should have marched right in the house with Cait, told her brother and his wife that they needed privacy and straightened her out. Instead, he'd left her thinking...

He didn't like knowing what she was thinking.

* * *

C
AIT
FROZE
.
It was all her nighttime fears made real.

The bedroom,
she thought frantically. She could push the dresser over to block the door, give herself time to get out the window.

Heart slamming, she ran in, closed the door and pushed the useless little button to lock it. Her bags dropped with a thud and she began to wrestle the tall dresser across the floor.

The door splintered, and she whirled as the lock gave and a man shoved his way in. The lethal-looking gun in his hand riveted her. And, oh, God, that hand wore a thin latex glove. Only slowly did she lift her gaze to his face.

An ordinary face. Thin, to go with his medium height and lean runner's build. Graying brown hair, brown eyes.

Shaking, she whispered, “I would never have recognized you.”

His expression didn't even change. “I couldn't take that chance. You did recognize Jerry.”

“Only because I knew him.”

He shook his head and stepped away from the door. “We need to go.”

“I won't.”

“Your choice.” He sounded truly indifferent, although beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. “There are kids playing outside next door so I'd rather not kill you here, but I will if you're too much trouble.”

She thought frantically. In the self-defense class, they'd taught that a woman should never go with the man. They hadn't mentioned the choice of being alone with him or...alone with him.

And she could see in his flat gaze that he really would do it. At least if she walked out of the house with him, she'd buy herself a few minutes.

Oh, Noah.

She prayed Nell wouldn't come home right now. This man would think nothing of killing two women instead of one.

Stiffly, feeling a hundred years old, she walked past him. The moment she did, he thrust the barrel of the handgun hard into her back.

“Kitchen,” he said.

* * *

N
OAH
BRAKED
AS
close to the front porch as he could get and leaped out. Children's voices and then a happy shriek came from one direction. The sound of a car door slamming had his head turning momentarily. Had to be at the place on the other side, he realized as he mounted the steps two at a time and leaned on Colin's doorbell.

Nothing. The house remained silent.

Was she huddled in her bedroom ignoring him? Hoping he'd go away? But where the
hell
was her brother?

Noah stepped to the side and cupped his hands to get the best view through the window. There was no movement inside at all.

For the first time, he felt a flicker of alarm. When he'd left her, he'd assumed Colin would be home, or Nell at least. Hesitating only briefly, he bounded down off the porch and circled the house. As he did, he heard the vehicle next door start. Someone was leaving rather than arriving, then.

The back door stood open. What the hell? Why would Cait have gone out— The sight of the shattered window beside it made his blood chill. What if Colin
had
been home? They could both already be dead.

Using his shoulder in case there were fingerprints on the door, Noah pushed it wider and stepped in. He scanned the main living space at a glance, then raced for the bedroom wing. One door was splintered into pieces that hung from the hinges. The terror of that day when he saw that the windows of Cait's car had been shot out returned in full force. Redoubled, because now he knew that he loved her.

His heart pounded in sickening jerks as he stepped over the threshold, his gaze going straight to her two bags, abandoned in the middle of the floor. The dresser stood askew, and he guessed she'd been trying to block the door but had run out of time.

He looked in the other bedroom and the two bathrooms to be sure Cait wasn't there.

911.

No, think. Goddamn it, think.

When he had left only a few minutes ago, he hadn't gone far down the road. No traffic had passed heading into town. A few vehicles going the other way. He'd swear there hadn't been time for someone to pull into Colin's driveway, park, go around back and break in, haul Cait out and drive away. Whoever this guy was, he had to have been waiting. Prepared to leave if Colin had come home first or come home with Cait? Had he been waiting every day, concealed in the woods surrounding the house, waiting for the one time Cait was alone?

Oh, hell.
Galvanized, Noah remembered the slam of that car door, the vehicle he'd heard starting. He was willing to bet the sound had come from the house to the north. The night of the bomb threat, Colin had mentioned that the owner was rarely there. Noah hadn't seen a car passing the driveway, heading toward town. He might have missed it—but he had to gamble one way or the other, and he doubted Cait's abductor would have wanted to get into heavy end-of-day traffic with her sitting beside him under duress.

Noah wouldn't let himself think about the possibility that she was unconscious or even dead in the trunk of the car.

He ran, leaping into his SUV, gunning the engine the moment it caught. Gravel spurted under his tires. He barely paused at the foot of the driveway, accelerating to the left, away from town. Flooring it as he fumbled for his phone.

Even traveling at a reckless speed for this narrow, two-lane road, he thumbed through contacts until he found her brother's number.

Answer, Goddamn it, answer.

“Noah?” Colin said, his voice already edgy.

* * *

“Y
OU
KILLED
J
ERRY
,” Cait said. He'd made her scramble in on the driver's side and crawl over the console to the passenger seat before getting in himself. This wasn't the silver crossover he had driven the other time; today he drove an almost new dark gray sedan.

She had both her hands flattened on the dashboard, per orders.

“Move your hands and I'll shoot you,” he had told her matter-of-factly before starting the car. He drove one-handed; the other held the gun on her.

Now she thought in despair that she might as well have spared her breath.

She tried again. “Weren't you together in...whatever you were doing?”

“You know what we were doing.” This time she thought there was a hint of stress in his voice.

“Burying a body.” She sounded weirdly calm, considering. She was glad, although she didn't think he cared one way or another whether she was terrified.

He drove, his gaze flicking from the road ahead to the rearview mirror and back again, only sliding toward her occasionally.

“He had a soft spot for you,” the man said after a minute or more had elapsed, surprising her. “He didn't want to admit we had to eliminate you.”

“Why would you think I'd even seen you that day?”

“Why take chances?” he said again with the faintest of shrugs.

Would he tell her his name if she asked? Did it matter who he was?

In the ensuing silence, she ran over and over again through the steps she'd have to take to escape. Get the seat belt off. Unlock and then open the door. Throw herself out. Which might kill her, but she didn't think so. He was driving at a careful forty-five miles an hour, not one mile above the speed limit. Broken bones were a risk she'd take.

Except—what was to stop him from backing up and getting out just long enough to shoot her? There was so little traffic.

Plus, she had to remove her hands from the dashboard to take even the first step. Unfortunately, he was keeping the gun steady on her.

Her thoughts were pinging like the ball in an old-fashioned pinball machine.

Whap.
If this was his car, he probably didn't want to shoot her
in
it.

Except she had no idea who he was, and neither did Colin or anyone else. Why would his car ever be looked at?

Whap.
Oh, God—where was he taking her? What if they were almost there, while she tried desperately to decide whether
now
was her only chance?

Pricklingly aware of him, she knew the instant he tightened. His eyes narrowed on the road behind them. The air in the car seemed suddenly charged with electricity.

Cait tried without being obvious to angle herself to see the road through her side-view mirror. Her heart jumped. A big black pickup or SUV was closing fast on them.

Speeding? Or chasing them?

Colin.

She didn't realize she'd said her brother's name aloud until the man beside her snarled, “Don't get your hopes up. We both know he's got other fish to fry tonight.”

He hadn't totally convinced himself, though. He was watching the road behind them more than the road ahead—or her.

Now,
she thought, her muscles bunching, but her eyes stole to the gauge and she saw that his speed was climbing. Fifty, fifty-two, fifty-five.

The vehicle behind was filling her side mirror, and hope bounced in her.
Noah?
But how could he have known?

And what could he possibly do if he did catch them?

* * *

C
OMING
CLOSER
TO
praying than he had since he was a credulous kid, Noah kept snatching looks in the rearview mirror. No flashing lights yet.

He still didn't know if Cait was in the car ahead. There were two people, he could see that much. The scum who'd snatched her might conceivably have already turned off, into one of the several dozen driveways or private roads—or Noah might have miscalculated in the beginning, and turned the wrong direction. This could be a couple of innocent people driving home after a day at work or tourists out for a drive or returning to their resort. But he didn't think so.

He couldn't think of a resort out here, and this wasn't a particularly scenic drive. The road eventually intersected one that led to Sunriver and thus to Highway 97, but it wouldn't be a commonly chosen route.

Noah glanced at the speedometer. He was going seventy but not gaining as quickly as he should be. The son of a bitch ahead was speeding up. Noah's pulse rocketed. Oh, yeah, the guy was definitely getting nervous.

Close enough to see the license plate, he hit redial and waited while Colin had the plates run.

“Son of a bitch,” said her brother. “Ronald Floyd.”

“The assistant D.A.?” Noah knew of him but couldn't bring his face to mind.

“Might be him and his wife on their way somewhere. Or someone stole the car.”

“I'm making whoever it is nervous. He's running for it.”

“Floyd.” Colin still sounded stunned. “Do you have any idea how many drug crimes he's prosecuted? Even worse, how many he's
declined
to prosecute? Damn. We should have been looking beyond the police department.”

Right that moment, Noah didn't give a flying you-know-what. All he could think was,
Cait.

“I'll leave you on speaker,” he said, and dropped the phone on the seat beside him before pressing harder on the gas. Seventy-five. He hoped like hell they didn't meet anyone coming toward them. Except a cop. A cop would be good.

Eighty.

What if, by engaging in a high-speed chase, he endangered Cait?

Could he risk doing nothing but riding the bumper until the cavalry showed up?

“Goddamn it, I need help here,” he snapped.

“Try slowing down. See what he does.”

He eased up slightly.

A hand thrust out of the driver's-side window of the Camry, which swerved, then steadied while straddling the double yellow line. Wrong side of the car if the guy was trying to get rid of an incriminating item....

Something pinged off the metal of his Suburban. A rock—
No. Shit.