Seeing Red (16 page)

Gently, he removed the gun from her hand. She let it go, glad to be rid of it.

“Now,” he said. “You go to bed.”

Her heart dropped a little in her chest. “Okay, then.” She licked her lips, half searching for a reason to keep him here.

She put on an appreciative expression to hide her unwarranted disappointment. “Thank you for your concern.” She reached for the doorknob with her right hand and held her left out to him. “I’d like to have my gun back.”

He looked oddly amused as he tucked the gun into the back of his waistband. Then he took her hand from the doorknob and held it in his. “Oh, I’m not leaving.”

“Oh?” She swallowed hard, her mouth unexpectedly dry.

“You need to sleep. I doubt you’ll be able to knowing Alexander was standing under your window an hour ago.” He took her by the shoulders, turning her to face the short hall to her bedroom. He held her with her back to his chest. Leaning close enough that she felt his breath on her ear, he said, “Go. Sleep. I’ll be right out here.”

A little chill traveled from her ear, down her neck, and pooled at the base of her spine. She tried to dismiss her very sexual response as gratitude. That’s all it was. Gratitude and exhaustion. She never knew it could feel so good to have someone else in charge. She’d never
wanted
anyone else in charge. That thought scared her just a little bit.

She half turned and kissed his cheek. Then she hurried into her bedroom and closed the door.

She didn’t sleep.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

E
llis felt the crawl of every protracted minute until the sky began to lighten in the east. She was thankful when it was time to drag her tired bones out of bed and get ready to teach her class in the park. It beat lying here wondering about the man who was on the other side of her bedroom door.

She’d dressed and finished washing her face and brushing her teeth when the doorbell rang three times in rapid succession.

When she hurried into the living room, Nate was already looking out the peephole.

“Shit,” he said under his breath.

“Ellis!” Her uncle’s shout was followed by a firm knock.

Her heart slid back down to its proper place as she moved to open the door.

Nate grabbed her wrist. “It’d be best if he doesn’t know I’m here.”

“He’s obviously upset. I can’t just not answer the door.”

“Ellis,” her uncle called through the door. “I hear you talking to someone in there. Are you all right?”

She shot Nate a look of determination. “I’m fine.” She yanked her wrist free and disarmed the alarm, then opened the door.

Lucky for Nate, he didn’t try to stop her.

For an instant after the door opened, Greg stood there, looking confused. His gaze skittered from her to Nate and back again. “Um . . . sorry. I didn’t know you had—” His eyes suddenly narrowed. For a brief moment, he studied Nate’s face. “It’s you!” He stepped into the room and stood toe-to-toe with Nate. “What in the hell are you doing here with my niece?”

Her uncle had always treated her with the protectiveness of a father. The loss of Laura had magnified it beyond reason.

Ellis put a hand on her uncle’s arm. “Nate’s here to help.”

“Does Rory know about this?” Her uncle looked at her with accusing eyes.

She nearly laughed. It had taken Greg nearly a year to dismiss his concerns over Rory’s intentions. “It’s not like that,” she said.

Greg was so focused on giving Nate the stink-eye that Ellis wasn’t sure he even heard her.

Nate didn’t move, didn’t speak. She noticed a muscle tick in his jaw.

“Dear Lord!” She motioned toward the kitchen. “Let’s go sit down.”

Greg looked at her. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Perfectly.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, then headed to the kitchen. “I need coffee.”

She didn’t wait. The men would follow or start swinging. Either way, she needed caffeine and Tylenol.

They followed.

Greg took a seat at the kitchen table. Nate leaned up against the counter with his ankles and arms crossed. He still hadn’t said a word.

Drumming his fingers on the tabletop, Greg said, “What, exactly, is going on here?”

Ellis filled and started the coffeemaker. “It’s a long story.” She heard his intake of breath and headed off his next comment. “Which I’ll be happy to explain fully in a minute. First, tell me why on earth you’re here at this hour thinking I’m in some sort of trouble?”

“I got a call a few minutes ago from security here at the complex saying you’d reported a prowler, and they’d been unsuccessful in trying to reach you this morning.”

“No one tried to reach me.” Ellis’s skin suddenly felt too small.

Nate spoke for the first time. “Didn’t you think it odd that security contacted you and not Ellis’s parents?”

“I was half asleep. I just threw on my clothes and rushed over here.”

Nate looked at her. “Is your uncle even on your emergency contact list?”

She shook her head, her stomach feeling like a bag of snakes. “No. Only my parents’ home and cell numbers.”

Ellis’s last fingerhold of denial crumbled away. Her skin crawled, thinking of Alexander out there watching her. That was his thing, after all, watching women—before he took his game to the next level.

“Who would have called me, then?” Greg asked. His voice held a suspicious tone, his gaze directing that suspicion toward Nate.

Ellis sat down with her uncle. After a quick glance at Nate, she said, “We think Hollis Alexander has been watching my house.”

Greg remained so still, she thought he might have stopped breathing.

Finally, he asked, “You saw him?”

“I saw someone. Two nights in a row. Who else could it be?”

Greg’s voice rose in anger when he said, “You mean he was out there and you didn’t call anyone to report it? You didn’t even call your dad or me to let us know? We could have caught the bastard! He’d be back in prison.”

“I did call security. They didn’t find anyone. I dismissed it as being someone from the complex. But when it happened again last night, I began to suspect . . . ” She poured the coffee.

If she told him how she’d discovered Nate, Greg was sure to blow a gasket. He’d hated Nate from the moment he’d set foot in the Reinhardt house. He’d never seen Nate’s presence as anything but suspicious, a guy from the wrong side of the tracks sure to ruin Laura.

She handed a mug to Nate and set another in front of her uncle.

“You still haven’t explained why
he’s
here,” Greg said.

She sipped her coffee, scrambling for a way to present the situation in an undamning light.

Nate saved her by saying, “I came by to check on her. Apparently, I frightened him off. He must have called you.”

“Why would he call me?” Greg asked.

That was a very good question. One Ellis had no answer for.

Nate said, “I’m sure he had a reason. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

Greg cut a glance toward Nate. “What the hell are you even doing in Belle Island? I thought you were long gone.”

“I was.” Nate didn’t move from his spot against the counter. “I came back when I learned Alexander had been paroled.”

“Why?” her uncle challenged.

“Because I owe Ellis.”

In a low tone, Greg said, “Ellis is none of your concern.”

“With all respect,” Nate said evenly, “I beg to differ.”

“I don’t want you around my niece.” Greg stood, his voice dropping even more. “Laura was fine until you started hanging around. If not for you, someone like Alexander would never have found her.”

“That’s enough!” Ellis shouted, stepping close. “Uncle Greg,” she said, her tone matching her uncle’s, “Nate is here as my friend, my guest.”

She knew it was useless to try to change her uncle’s opinion of Nate, so she didn’t. “I’m a grown woman, and you know as well as anyone I can take care of myself. We all want the same thing here—for Alexander to be put back in prison where he belongs.”

There was a flash in Nate’s eyes, a flash that said prison wasn’t what he had in mind for Hollis Alexander. Again she was struck with how little she knew about this man and what he’d been doing for the past fifteen years.

“Now,” she said, drawing a breath, “let’s figure out a way to work together to make that happen.”

Greg said, “Nate left here fifteen years ago without a thought for you, or Laura. You don’t even
know
him. This is not the time to put your trust in a stranger.”

It frightened her a little that he’d just put to words her own thoughts.

He grabbed her hands. “If Alexander is hanging around here, the best thing you can do is what your dad wants you to—leave. Please”—he paused—“leave. It won’t have to be for long.”

Something in his eyes set off a new fear. “You aren’t going to do anything rash.”

“I think you’re the one who needs to worry about doing something rash.” His eyes were hard when he said to Nate, “Go away. Leave Ellis alone.”

“I can’t do that. Not while she’s in danger.”

“Just make sure you aren’t the one to hurt her,” Greg said firmly, then headed toward the door.

In the silence that followed, Nate’s breathing told her he was working to keep himself in check.

“What?” she prompted.

After a moment, he said, “Everyone is going to know I’m here.”

“So?” That was the least of their problems at the moment. “What difference can it possibly make? Alexander already knows you’re here.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Forget it.”

“No, I won’t. What is it that makes people knowing you’re here a problem?”

“It has nothing to do with any of this, so don’t worry about it.”

She didn’t push. Deep down, a little voice said it was because she was afraid of the answer she might get. She ignored that voice.

“What did Uncle Greg mean when he said Alexander wouldn’t have found Laura?” she asked. “How can he blame you for that?”

After Laura had been attacked, Greg had said that she’d changed when she began seeing Nate, had started keeping secrets. But Ellis had dismissed it as her uncle looking for logic and reason in a random, violent act.

She thought back to that summer. True, occasionally she’d seen Laura sneaking back in her bedroom window in the wee hours. A couple of times, she’d seen Nate walking her up from the beach. They’d had their arms around each other. But what on earth could that have to do with Alexander finding her?

“He just needs someone to blame,” Nate said with a shrug. “Might as well be me.” He stepped closer and took her by the shoulders. “I am here for
you.
Nothing else matters.”

He looked into her eyes, and for a moment, she couldn’t move. The floor undulated beneath her feet. Only the strength of his hands maintained her balance. She felt each heartbeat surge her blood, and her vision closed off everything except his face.

They stood there, looking into each other’s eyes. Ellis searched for any hint of duplicity, the slightest indication of deceit, but there wasn’t a shadow of anything treacherous. She saw only strength and caring . . . and something more. Longing? Passion?

The room was suddenly too warm. She continued to stare into his smoky eyes; their gazes locked in an intimate dance that drew her closer to him.

Swallowing dryly, she asked, “Is that really why you came back? For me?” The words left her lips in a whisper.

He cupped her face in his hands. “For you.”

He leaned slightly closer.

Ellis’s lips tingled in anticipation. She stopped breathing, feeling as if she was cresting the first long incline of a roller coaster.

Instead of taking the stomach-dropping plunge, her car stuck at the top when Nate pressed his lips to the center of her forehead—not her oh-so-ready mouth.

When he released her, she looked everywhere except into his eyes. If she looked there, he’d see how mistaken she’d been, how she’d misread his intentions. She would die of embarrassment.

This was a lesson she wouldn’t forget.

He was only here because he
owed
her.

Lorne Buckley arrived at the O.T. Wallace County Office Building in a bad mood. The fact that he found Wayne Carr sitting in the anteroom of his office knocked it down yet another notch.

When Lorne entered, Carr rose from his seat. As usual, he was dressed in his own version of hip reporter: three-hundred-dollar shoes that worked at looking casual and scruffy, jeans, and an open-neck collared shirt under a ridiculously expensive sport coat. Naturally, his ensemble was completed with sunglasses and an ultracool three-day growth of beard. All but the beard no doubt supplied by his wife’s inherited money.

Lorne said good morning to his secretary and walked past Carr without as much as a nod of recognition. What did the man expect after his article in the paper? The
Belle Island Sentinel
was a small paper, but plenty of people read it—and more than one had called to read it aloud to Lorne.