Baby Breakout (15 page)

Her fingers trembled as she reached for the snap of his jeans, pulling it loose. Then his hands replaced hers, and he shucked off his jeans. She fumbled with her own snap, but his hands were there, too, pulling off the rest of her clothes.

Cool air rushed over her, raising goose bumps on her skin. He cursed and rubbed his palms over her arms and then her breasts. “You are cold.”

Her nipples peaked, and tension wound tight inside her. She moaned, and he replaced his hands with his lips, tugging at one of her nipples until she whimpered with desire.

Her hands were busy, too, sliding over all his smooth skin. Muscles rippled beneath her touch. She ran her fingertips down his back to his butt.

He groaned against her breast. “Erica…”

“I want you…” She shouldn’t. She had so many reasons not to trust him. Not to want him. But she wanted him.

Her admission snapped his control because he pushed her back onto the tarp. And his mouth went crazy, covering every inch of her with kisses that heated her skin. When his mouth slid lower, between her legs, she arched off the tarp. She shuddered with ecstasy and screamed his name.

And then he was there, filling her. She had forgotten how big he was. She stretched and arched, trying to take him deep inside her.

He held most of his weight onto his arms, the muscles flexing and bulging. She slid her hands over them and then over his shoulders to his back. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding on to him as tightly as she could for as long as she could.

She had no illusions that it would be long. But she would enjoy it while she could. She kept arching into him, meeting his thrusts.

He sank deeper and deeper into her. And that pressure that had wound so tight inside her finally broke free. She screamed his name as pleasure overwhelmed her.

Then, with a deep guttural groan, he joined her in ecstasy. His big body shuddered, but instead of dropping on top of her, he rolled to his side. Then he pulled her tight against him.

His hand ran up and down her back. “You’re cold…”

Sweat beaded on her lip, but the wind was chilling her skin.

He grabbed up their clothes and arranged them over her. Something scratched her hip and she flinched, fearing the scalpel had found her again. But when she tentatively reached out, she realized it was car keys that had fallen out of his pocket.

“Sleep,” he urged her. “You were up all night.”

“So were you,” she said. And she suspected that hadn’t been the only night’s sleep he’d missed. “Are you going to sleep, too?”

“I haven’t really slept since before the riot,” he admitted. But from the tension in his big body, she doubted that he would be able to sleep even now.

She was pretty certain that he had a plan. And he wouldn’t sleep until he saw the plan through. She wondered now how much that plan was about clearing his name and how much about vengeance.

She had to stop him from doing something that would put him back in prison for good. But she couldn’t stay awake; her eyelids had grown too heavy to keep open. She would close them for just a minute.

Just a minute…

But when she awoke what might have been only moments later, she was alone.

* * *

W
HERE
THE
HELL
WAS
J
ED
?
Had prison slowed down the man? From the skirmish in Erica Towsley’s apartment, he knew Jed hadn’t physically slowed. But maybe prison had dulled his usually quick mind. He should have been here by now. For most of their lives, Jed had been ahead of him—in class, in accolades.

Except for the past three years.

Then Jed had fallen behind. He hadn’t been smart enough or fast enough to figure out how he had been framed or who had done it to him.

Now that Jed had seen
him
behind the wheel of the car that had nearly driven his family off the road, Kleyn knew the truth.

But he would never be able to prove it. No one would. No, Jed would die before he would ever be able to prove his innocence.

He would die a guilty man—as soon as he stepped into the trap that had been set for him.

Chapter Fourteen

Leaving her alone had been so hard. But Jed had wrapped her in her clothes and the tarp to keep her warm. He had also left her the drop cell phone Rowe had given him. He suspected the DEA agent had a GPS on it, so he would find Erica.

Hopefully before it grew dark.

Could he leave her alone?

He had yet to start the car and drive off. He hadn’t even shut the driver’s door because he hadn’t wanted to awaken her. The engine would when he started it, but by then it would be too late for her to catch him.

He drew in a deep breath and reached for the keys. But they didn’t dangle from the ignition. He must have taken them with him when he’d jumped out of the car. So he searched his pockets. They were empty.

Where the hell were the keys?

Metal creaked as she pulled open the passenger door and settled onto the seat. She held the keys out between them. “Looking for these?”

Back when they had first met, he had admired her quick brain. She had been applying for a job with his firm, and he’d wanted to hire her. But he had wanted to date her even more. When he’d told her that, she had willingly withdrawn her application. She’d already had a job with her aunt’s bookkeeping firm in Miller’s Valley, but she had wanted to move to a bigger city. She had wanted more opportunities than Miller’s Valley had offered.

She had found another job in Grand Rapids. And he had found her.

“Erica…”

“I can’t believe you were going to leave me alone here in the middle of nowhere,” she said, glaring at him—her blue eyes icy with fury and hurt.

“I left you Rowe’s cell phone,” he pointed out. It protruded from the front pocket of her jeans.

She nodded. “I don’t have a clue where I am, though.”

“He would have found you.” He swallowed hard. “He
will
find you.”

“You’re going to throw me out of the car?”

“I can’t bring you with me.” He wasn’t going to talk to just the witness. There was someone else he was determined to find—unless he was just chasing a ghost.

“Why not?” she asked, but she gave him no chance to answer. “It’s not because you’re going to talk to the witness. It’s because you don’t want any witnesses when you settle the score with whoever framed you.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.” So maybe he shouldn’t have made love with her. But he suspected he would be the one who got hurt over that, over letting down his guard enough to get that close to a woman he would never be able to trust. Any more than she trusted him…

She shook her head, rejecting his claim. “You don’t think I’ll get hurt with you leaving me in the middle of nowhere?”

“Rowe will find you,” he insisted, reaching for the keys.

She pulled them back, holding them near the passenger’s door. “But will
he
find me first?”

Jed’s arms were longer than hers, his grip stronger, so he easily reached across her and took the keys from her. But then he replayed her comment in his head. “What do you mean?”

“That man who broke into my apartment—the man you recognized but won’t admit that you did—he could find me before Rowe gets here.”

His breath stuck in his lungs for a moment, then escaped in a ragged sigh. “Damn it…”

She was right. If she hadn’t stolen the keys from his pocket, he might have left her at the mercy of a maniac. Sure, he’d been watching his rearview mirror and hadn’t noticed anyone following him. But then he hadn’t noticed her in the backseat, either.

He could have a missed a tail. The sheriff or the bounty hunter or maybe the killer himself if he hadn’t already bought off someone else to do his dirty work as he had last time. “I need to talk to the witness.”

He needed to learn what the man had really seen that night so that Jed would know if he could trust that what he’d seen hadn’t been just a figment of his over-exhausted mind.

“You’re going to have to take me with you,” she stubbornly insisted as she buckled herself into the passenger seat.

She was right. He couldn’t leave her here. But he worried that bringing her along might put her in more danger than leaving her behind.

* * *

N
OT
ONLY
HAD
SHE
GRABBED
his keys but she’d grabbed up the scalpel again, too. It was sheathed and inside her pocket. The slight weight of it against her hip comforted her. It was the only comfort she had as Jed remained silent and tense behind the steering wheel.

Not many more miles passed from the two-track lane where they had made love before he turned off onto another street, this one lined with houses. He pulled the car up to the curb in front of a modest brick ranch. Tall trees from the thick woods behind it cast the house in shadows despite the brightness of the afternoon sun.

Finally he cleared his throat and deigned to speak. “You’re staying in the car.”

“No.” He was bigger and stronger than she was, but he wasn’t going to bully her. She wasn’t going to calmly accept the decisions other people made for her anymore. Her parents hadn’t consulted her before dumping her on her great aunt. Jed hadn’t asked if she’d wait for him before he’d dumped her. And Brandon had insisted she wear his damn ring even though she’d turned down his proposal.

People weren’t going to ignore her opinions and wants and needs anymore.

“Erica, think about our daughter,” he said, as if her every waking thought wasn’t already about her precious baby. “She needs her mother.”

“She needs her father, too,” she insisted. “That’s why I’m here. I have to make sure that Isobel will have the chance to get to know you.”

His lips curved into a slight grin. “So you’re here to protect me?”

“Yes.” From himself.

“I survived three years in prison without you,” he pointed out.

She shuddered at the thought of where he’d been. The things the media had reported about Blackwoods had been horrific—a warden who encouraged inmates to murder each other…

“I wouldn’t have survived what you have,” she admitted.

She hadn’t been that strong—until she’d found herself pregnant and alone except for an aunt that had needed her help even though she hadn’t been able to remember who Erica was.

She’d had to learn to be strong, so that her daughter would have someone she could count on as Erica had never been able to count on her own parents.

His smile slid away. “I don’t know about that.” He lifted his hand from the wheel. The blood had dried on his wound. “You’re tougher than I realized.”

Pride warmed her. “That’s why I’m not staying in the car.”

He sighed. “I guess it’s better if you go inside with me than follow me in later.”

As she had at the lawyer’s. Then she had doubted Jed’s innocence. “Do you think we’ll find this man the same way we found Marcus Leighton?”

“Dead?” He nodded. “I think it’s a possibility. Hopefully Rowe tracked down the man’s address before the killer did.” He cursed beneath his breath and muttered, “I should have come right here.”

But instead he’d made love to her.

Or had he only been trying to distract her so that he could leave her behind? Neither one of them had declared any feelings for the other. But why would he fall for her now, after blaming her for his going to prison, when he hadn’t fallen for her before then?

He would never love her. But maybe he would forgive her for not talking to the police when she should have. The police might have figured out what Marcus had been up to—deliberately throwing Jed’s defense.

And maybe, if Erica helped prove his innocence, Isobel would forgive her, too, when one day she learned the truth about her parents. When she learned how her father had been in prison for the first few years of her life while her mother had done nothing to help him. Then.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“This is a bad idea,” he said. “Macy shouldn’t have let you stow away with me.”

“Macy understood my need to help you.” The young woman had acted as if Erica was in love with her brother. But Erica didn’t love Jed any more than he loved her.

She had given up on love long ago—receiving it and giving it. To anyone but Isobel. Her daughter was the only one Erica would trust with her heart.

It beat faster just over Erica thinking about her. The little girl was safe with her aunt and uncle-to-be. But Jed was right that Erica wasn’t safe. If she stepped inside that house with Jed, would she ever see her daughter again?

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I can drive you into town and drop you off in a well-populated area where you’ll be safe until Rowe can pick you up.”

“I have to do this,” she corrected him.

The witness might not respond to Jed’s threats, but maybe he would to her plea to give her daughter back her father. She drew in a deep, bracing breath and reached for the door handle.

Jed met her on the other side of the car. He kept glancing around as they headed toward the front door of the small brick house. “He must not have gotten as much money as Leighton.”

How did one set a price for a man’s life, though? Because in testifying against Jed and sending him to prison, this man had cost Jed his life.

Jed sighed. “But then he was homeless when he testified against me. This probably seems like a castle to him compared to the parking garage he was living in.”

And it probably did because the yard was well kept, all the windows and trim freshly painted. There was pride in ownership. Was there pride in what he’d done to achieve the house?

If so, she would never be able to convince him to do the right thing. This man obviously felt no guilt over sending an innocent man to prison. If he had felt any remorse, he probably would have been back on the streets, lost in the bottle.

She knocked on the front door, anger making her pound so hard that the door opened.

“I don’t like this,” Jed remarked.

“It’s broad daylight.” Not like the eerie predawn hours when they had found Marcus Leighton dead in his office.

“Crime happens even during the day,” he replied, reminding her how naïve she was.

Growing up in Miller’s Valley with her great aunt had been like growing up in a fifty-year-old time warp. There was no crime or criminals in Miller’s Valley. Everyone but her aunt had always left their doors unlocked.

That was another reason why, in addition to caring for her aunt, Erica had returned to Miller’s Valley. After the fiasco with Jed and Brandon, she had wanted nothing to do with city life anymore. This house was in a smaller town, the witness having chosen to leave the city behind, too.