Killing Secrets (26 page)

“I’ve seen your blueprints for Katy. I have no doubts you can do the job. My concern is your safety.”

She understood—she’d be exposing herself—but she felt more confident knowing a guard, not to mention an entire work crew, would be with her every second. As long as Amanda was happy and secure, she really wanted to do this. Getting her hands dirty was what she loved about landscaping, and she owed Patrick so much. “If you find it’s not working, you can lock us back up in the trailer and I’ll do what I can from there.”

“It’s settled then,” Evelyn said briskly, reaching out to touch Amanda’s cheek. “We’re going to make oodles and oodles of cookies, sweetie. Maybe we can do something crafty. Suze loves to make noodle pictures. Do you like them, too?”

Amanda nodded happily.

Patrick pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “I have things to do before we can go,” he told his mother, who glanced at his uneaten pancakes. “Thanks for breakfast, Mom. Sorry I can’t stay to finish.” He looked in Rachel’s direction without actually meeting her gaze. “Be ready to go in half an hour.”

He nodded to Skip. “Let’s talk to Jane about rearranging a couple of things on the schedule before you take off for the day.”

Rachel watched the kitchen door close behind the two men. She’d wondered what would change between her and Patrick after their lovemaking. Now, she knew. Patrick hadn’t done or said anything to suggest he was as aware of her as she was of him. Add business and the reminder a dead wife also lay between them—one she suspected Patrick still loved—and her hope he might actually care about her was crushed.

Hurt ran over her, quickly swallowed by the protective armor of anger. The man showed her heaven, and then snatched it away?
Fine.
Cool and professional was what Patrick wanted? That’s what he’d get.

~~~

Two Weeks….

Four Days….

Five Hours….

…’Til death.

“Still waiting to kill Thorne?”

Robby didn’t appreciate the monster’s snide tone because it reverberated through his aching skull like a jackhammer, drowning out the sound of the backhoe digging a trench behind him. Bad things kept happening to Patrick Thorne—some of
his
design, some just good fortune smiling down on him—yet the contractor kept coming up smelling like roses.

He’d been excited when he heard the landscaper ran off with his mistress, leaving Thorne without a way to finish the Southgate project in time for the grand opening next month—Robby couldn’t have planned a better blow to Thorne Enterprises—but barely twenty-four hours had passed and the problem was already solved. Not a hiccup in Thorne’s precious schedule.

And, this time, Robby didn’t have Skip to blame.

His stomach cramped as he watched the James woman point where trees should be planted on a berm at the edge of the project fifty yards away. She laughed at something one of the men said, shook her head, and then they examined one of the trees together. The woman obviously knew what she was doing. The huge man that hovered at her back, never more than four feet away, kept an eagle eye on their surroundings and marked him as the bodyguard Thorne had hired.
I’m beginning to see your point.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

The churning darkness in Robby’s brain began to grow until it blurred his eyesight from the outside corners, creeping inward. A frisson of fear swept through him, but he battled the maelstrom back. Yet, it wasn’t easy to regain control. The monster was becoming stronger each day. Soon, he wouldn’t be contained, and Robby would lose himself forever to the blackness. For that reason alone, he might have to change his timetable for Thorne.

But, not yet. His Angel hadn’t said the words. If he gave her more time, she would make the right decision. He knew it. The date of Thorne’s death wouldn’t matter once she made the right choice. Maybe tonight when he took her the present he’d bought her.
We wait.

The darkness howled.

Chapter Eighteen

Patrick stared in shock at the man who’d tracked him down to the unfinished third floor of the final Southgate building. Grant Colbert had been a thorn in Patrick’s side since he won the contract late last fall to build the real estate mogul’s luxury home in the countryside north of Denver. He’d scrambled to get the dirt work done, the house closed up before winter settled in, but Grant had demanded so many changes through the following months, the interior wasn’t signed off until last week.

“You fired the landscaper? For god’s sake, why?” He knew the moment he saw Colbert’s expression tighten that he could have phrased his question more diplomatically. It wasn’t as if he’d lost money on the contract because Colbert insisted on paying for all of the changes, but he was tired of the man’s manipulations. Patrick had finished two fifty-unit Southgate apartment buildings in the time it had taken him to build this man’s twelve-thousand square foot house.

“I can make him fix whatever he did wrong,” he said. “Finding another landscaper at this late date will be next to impossible and you want the job finished in plenty of time for your Fourth of July party.”

Normally an even-tempered man, despite his demanding pickiness, Colbert blew up. “That asshole’s not stepping foot on my property again. It was bad enough his workers put a tree through my office window and he refused to repair the damage. But then, he had the audacity to tell me I have to pay for another tree to replace the one they put through the window!”

Patrick wasn’t thrilled he’d have to tear crew off one of his other jobs to replace the window and chase down the landscaper for payment. But those weren’t his biggest problems at this moment. “I’d be upset, too, Grant,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “Finding a replacement landscaper now is going to be tricky. All the good ones are book—”

One of Colbert’s trademark have-I-got-a-deal-for-you smiles crossed his face. “Already covered. I spoke to the woman doing your landscaping here. She’s giving me a bid. Looking out my window at
that
all day, she can charge me the moon. I’ll pay it.

“She’s coming out to my house to get the lay of the land, but I doubt there’s any question we can work something out. I already called in a glazier to fix the window. The landscaper responsible for the breakage will foot the bill if he wants to continue working in this town.

“So we’re back on track, Rick, and everyone’s happy. Just tracked you down to fill you in.” He shook Patrick’s hand, turned, and walked through the stud wall toward the temporary elevator that had brought him to the third floor. He lifted the crossbar blocking the open shaft, stepped inside the cage, replaced the bar and started his descent with a push of a button.

Watching the man’s hundred dollar haircut disappear from view, Patrick cursed. Not at Colbert’s persistent use of an abbreviated version of his name or because the man managed to get on-site without a hard hat, but because the landscaper the man evidently hired was Rachel. Patrick should be happy the man had solved his own problem for a change. He didn’t have room for another schedule delay.

In the past twenty-four hours, Rachel had proven she could do the job. The missing landscaper’s crew was working happily and efficiently under her direction, and she’d made more progress with the project than he’d expected. He didn’t, however, want her to work for Grant Colbert.

He tried to tell himself it was because he didn’t want her sidetracked from the Southgate project. But, the truth is it was Colbert setting his personal sights on Rachel that bothered Patrick most. The real estate agent was rich, powerful and, according to Jane, “Sin, walking on two legs.” His office manager practically drooled every time the man called.

Jealousy reared its ugly head, and he didn’t like it. Making love to Rachel was a monumental mistake…and inevitable. Her gorgeous brown eyes had sucked him in the first day they met. Her sultry, Southern voice and scent had woven through his senses for days, her smiles become as crucial to him as the blood in his veins. And the woman had walked away from their one heat-filled night together without a backward glance. Since breakfast yesterday, it appeared Southgate was the only connection left between them.

His hand tight around his radio, he ordered Rachel to come to him. She tried to explain she was in the middle of something. He simply turned off his radio. Ten minutes later, she stomped off the elevator across the bare floorboards to his side, her daytime bodyguard, Carl Sprang, trailing behind her. “You called,” she said in a calm voice that belied the fire in her doe brown eyes.

Sorry for allowing his jealousy to dig a deeper chasm between them, he forced a casual tone into his voice. “Just had a visit from Grant Colbert. He said you’re going out to his place to check on his landscaping requirements. I thought you’d planned to be here this week to facilitate this project.”

Taking off her hard hat to wipe sweat off her brow before putting it back on absently, she frowned. “I told him I was too busy to accommodate his time frame, but that I’d take a look at his property to see what it would entail…when I got the chance. I didn’t make any promises.”

“Good.” Patrick was more relieved she wasn’t set on working with the man than he was about ensuring Southgate met the launch deadline next month.
Not good.
“You’ll want to get on top of the job here so you can leave once they get your ex behind bars.”

Her lips pursed. “In a hurry to get rid of me?”

“Of course not. I only meant—”

Aware the bodyguard was watching their exchange with too much interest, Patrick nodded toward the elevator. “Wait downstairs, Sprang. Rachel’s safe with me here and this conversation is private. I’ll escort her down when we’re finished.”

The man looked questioningly at Rachel, not moving toward the elevator until she nodded, which cranked up Patrick’s tension another notch.

Once Sprang was gone, he caught Rachel’s hand and pulled her around the closest finished wall. Then, he confronted the one topic that had been gnawing on him since he woke up to find Rachel gone from his bed. “Rach,” he said in a low voice. “We have to talk about the night the folks came home.”

For a long moment, he saw a different kind of fire build in her eyes. She licked her lips, like she could still feel him there, nibbling on her mouth, feasting on her. Her pulse quickened under his fingers. The memory of her taste, the heat radiating off her lilac scented skin, so close, yet so far, made him want to take her again. Right here.

With a gasp for whatever she could see on his face, she tugged her hand away and bumped into the drywall behind her. “There’s nothing to say.”

He could think of a thing or two
. “Come back to my bed,”
for starters. Followed by,
“Don’t go back to Dallas. Let me take care of you and Amanda.
“That’s it? I know I made a mistake when I made love to you but—”

“What do you want from me, Patrick?” she interrupted, pain in her eyes. “I-I can’t work with you, if, if…I’m leaving as soon as Amanda’s safe from her father,” she finished in a rush. “Please don’t make this any harder for me.”

He reminded himself he hadn’t wanted to get involved with Rachel from the start; he didn’t do broken women any more. Looking into her eyes, that vow sounded hollow. He wanted Rachel, baggage and all. He wanted to protect her from Greg, from everything that hurt her or Amanda.

Like you wanted to protect Karly? Your baby?
“I need you at Southgate, Rachel. That’s all.” The lie almost choked him.

“Patrick, I can’t get into the—” His lead HVAC man came to a dead stop as Patrick glared at him. “Excuse me. I’ll just—”

“What, Knowles?” Patrick said before the crewman could turn on his heel and walk back around the wall.

The man grimaced. “I’m not sure how it happened, but I got locked out of the maintenance room at the other end of the building. If I can get back in there, I’ll finish up this floor today.”

“I’ll let you get back to work, Patrick.” Rachel tried to walk around him.

He frowned. He wasn’t sure what there was left to say but he wasn’t finished with this conversation. “Wait here,” he ordered. “I’ll go unlock the door and—”

She flashed a quick smile at his crewman. “I can come back later.”

Patrick refused to step aside so she was forced to acknowledge his presence. “Rach, I sent Sprang downstairs, remember? I’ll take you back to him. Wait here. Or wait by the elevator. Don’t go anywhere by yourself.”

Her lips firmed over what he suspected was another argument, but then she nodded. “Fine.”

Assured she wasn’t going to bolt the moment his back was turned, Patrick walked off with his crew member.

~~~

Two Weeks….

Three Days….

Eight Hours….

…’Til death.

Leaning into a two-by-four stud in the shadow of a wall where the arguing couple couldn’t see him watch their exchange, Robby almost laughed out loud. The irritation on the James woman’s face when she turned her back on Thorne was gratifying. Robby was too far away to hear what they were talking about before the crewman interrupted them. Whatever it was, Patrick’s tension, his sexual frustration when this woman was within range, was almost palpable.