Cold Midnight (21 page)

“I appreciate that, but no.”

“Let me put it to you this way: Answer the question here or we take this downtown.”

“You’re going to arrest me because I won’t tell you who I spent the morning with?”

“No. But I will take you in for questioning.”

Wade’s chin jutted out. “I hate to have to mention this, but the mayor is a personal friend of mine.”

“Did you spend the morning screwing the mayor?”

Wade barked out a laugh. “No.”

“Then I don’t give a shit how friendly you two are. Now answer the question or I’m hauling you in. I can make it painfully public, if you’d like.”

“Jane,” Wade blurted. “I was with Jane McKay.”

Chase almost failed to school his shock. “And Jane will confirm?”

“I really don’t want Kylie to—”

“Jane will confirm?” Chase repeated.

“I don’t know. She doesn’t want Kylie to know about us.”

“Really. I wonder why that could be.”

“I trust you’ll be discreet, like you said.”

Letting the statement dangle, Chase moved on. Let the shifty son of a bitch sweat. “One other question.” He flipped to a new page in his notebook. “How is it that you ended up being the surgeon who worked on Kylie’s knee ten years ago?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

Chase waited for a response.

Wade’s complexion turned a fiery red as he curled his hands into fists. “I was already in the ER for another case when she was brought in.”

“And the case you were originally there for? What was that?”

“It’s unrealistic to expect that I would recall.”

“But if I were to go back and check the ER records, there’d be another patient with your name on their file?”

Wade, seeming to have gotten control of his anger, cocked his head. “What exactly do you think I did? I’m in the mood for a good laugh.”

Easy, Chase thought. Don’t blow it. “You were in the ER when Kylie arrived, were you not?”

“You make it sound like I was waiting for her at the door.”

“Were you?”

“No, damn it. She was in a trauma room when a nurse came to get me for a consult. And she was damn lucky I was there. If I hadn’t been, she’d have a stump instead of a knee.”

Chase took a steadying breath against sudden vertigo. “Certainly you acknowledge that was some good fortune for you, too. A star athlete with a terrible knee injury that you fixed. She’s a walking billboard for your good work, not to mention an attractive woman who’d make someone like you a kickass trophy wife.”

“So what do you think happened, detective? You think I arranged the attack on her so I could fix her up and woo her?”

“You’re forgetting. I was there,” Chase said. “I saw the way you looked at her back then.”

“And I saw the way
you
looked at her. I had no intention of getting in the way of that.”

“Yeah? Why do I have a hard time believing that a guy who puts the moves on two sisters at the same time is the upstanding kind?”

Wade took a step toward him, his fury palpable. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I work in Florida, the retirement capital of the fucking world. I’m up to my eyeballs in knee and hip replacements. I don’t need to go around looking for work, and I certainly wouldn’t sic two fucks with a baseball bat on a defenseless girl alone in the woods.”

Satisfied, Chase put away his notebook. As much as he wanted to go after Wade for the attacks past and present, it didn’t fit. If Wade were truly twisted, Kylie would have had trouble with him a long time ago. “If I have any other questions, I’ll call you.”

Wade got into the BMW and took off with a squeal of tires.

Good riddance, Chase thought as he opened the front door and stepped into Kylie’s living room. He paused when he saw her with her head lolled back against the chair cushion, her eyes closed. He thought she was sleeping soundly, thank God, but then noticed the fine film of perspiration that dampened her brow.

Her whimper shot his heart into his throat, and he took a step toward her just as she shifted restlessly, flinging an arm out that crashed into the lamp on the table beside her. She started awake with a sharp gasp and frantically looked around.

When she saw him, she pushed herself straighter, the fearful expression on her face smoothing into blank indifference. How quickly she managed it floored him. Maybe they hadn’t made any progress after all.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked, groggy.

“You obviously needed the rest.”

Pushing to her feet, she folded the blanket and replaced it on the back of the sofa. Other than trembling hands, she looked as steady and poised as ever. “It won’t take me long to pack.”

He watched her walk away and wondered what it would take to rip away her game face for good.

33

THEY DIDN’T SPEAK TO EACH OTHER ON THE WAY
to the safe house located about an hour from Kendall Falls, though Kylie used Chase’s cell phone to call Trisha to ask her best friend to check in on Quinn for her. After that, Kylie could have used meaningless conversation as a distraction from the persistent images in her head that had started with the nightmare. Blue aluminum baseball bats, merciless attackers in ski masks, smashed windshields. She desperately wanted it to stop. All of it. Even if just for a few minutes. God, she was so tired. She just wanted to curl up and lapse into unconsciousness for a few days.

Chase steered the SUV off a two-lane Fort Myers street flanked by palm trees into a middle-class neighborhood. In the middle of the first block, he pulled into the driveway of a small, white stucco house with a tidy front yard and a large banyan tree arching over the terra-cotta roof.

“It’s nothing fancy,” he said, “but it’s safe.”

They walked up the front walk together, Chase toting her overnight bag. They could have been a married couple returning from a Caribbean cruise or walking into their new home for the first time. Inevitably, she thought of the kiss back at the police station. Nothing at all like Wade’s kiss, and Wade was a pretty damn good kisser. Yet his mouth on hers didn’t shoot her senses over the rainbow. Not like Chase’s did.

“Are you hungry?” Chase asked as he slid the key into the lock and turned it.

“Starving.” It came out with more enthusiasm than she’d intended, with guttural overtones, thanks to the clenching of her insides, and she gave him a sheepish smile. “I can’t remember the last time I ate.”

He grinned at her. “Then that will be one of our first priorities.”

He gestured for her to precede him through the door and hit a light switch. As she walked in, pleasant, lemon-scented air greeted her. The décor was simple: relatively new beige carpet, a used but decent overstuffed sofa in a generic teal-and-peach pattern, midsize TV and a glass and wrought iron coffee table piled with magazines. The day’s
Kendall Falls News
had been left amid the magazines, next to a half-full cup of coffee, as if whoever had cleaned had paused for a break with the newspaper before taking off.

Chase set her bag down inside the door. “Looks like Sam was able to get someone to prepare the place. That means there are groceries. I’m thinking pasta, if that sounds palatable.”

She nodded, but she wanted a shower first. The pungent odor of smoke clung to every skin cell.

“The shower’s down the hall,” he said. “And you can have your choice of bedrooms.”

She picked up her bag and headed in that direction, grateful that he’d read her mind.

The tiny bathroom probably hadn’t been renovated since the house had been built in the seventies, considering the aqua blue bathtub, sink and toilet. But it had a shower, hot water and clean towels—all that she needed. She stripped and stepped in and sighed as clean water splashed over her face. Thinking nothing but “lather, rinse, repeat,” she washed away the aftermath of the fire.

Afterward, she wrapped herself in a thin towel that hit her at midthigh and ventured into the nearest bedroom, where she dropped her bag on the floor by the bed. The small room had the look of a middle-of-the-road hotel: cheaply decorated with a palm tree print bedspread and a lamp with a square shade on the bedside table. A white wicker chair sporting a flowery cushion sat in the corner.

Sinking down onto the side of the bed, Kylie closed her eyes—just for a minute—and then she’d pull on some clean clothes and go check on the progress of dinner. Her stomach growled at the thought, and she tried to decide which she wanted more. Food . . . sleep . . . food . . . sleep . . .

Curling up on her side—just for a minute—she thought groggily about what she wanted more.

Food . . . sleep . . . Chase . . .

 

 

CHASE MOVED AROUND THE SMALL KITCHEN, IM
PRESSED that the house had fairly new white appliances and decent blond-wood cabinets. It was a typical rental property, though: clearly lived in by people who hadn’t cherished their surroundings because they didn’t own them.

The timer went off to signal the pasta was done, and he dumped the noodles into a strainer in the sink. Steam rose to the light overhead, and as he watched it, he thought about how normal it seemed to make dinner while Kylie showered. They’d never had a chance to do anything normal like cook together, always either training, attending their respective classes or traveling to the next tournament. Whenever they could snag free time together, they spent it far away from either of their families, and therefore not near any kitchens.

Once he’d pulled the garlic bread out of the oven, he went looking for Kylie. He suspected she’d fallen asleep, but he wanted her to eat something. She’d gotten pale and thinner over the past few days, so he suspected she was eating as much as she was sleeping.

Sure enough, he found her zonked out on the bed, curled on her side and still wearing the towel from her shower, wet hair soaking the pillow. The scent of vanilla soap floated on the air as he took a moment to appreciate how peaceful and relaxed she looked. She must have been sleeping so soundly she didn’t hear him walk in, because she didn’t move, and her breathing remained deep and even.

He hated to wake her, but he hated more how prominent her collarbones looked under her skin. She had to have been running on fumes since the discovery of the bat at the construction site.

Perching on the side of the bed, he stroked a gentle hand over her upper arm. “Kylie.”

Nothing. Not even a shift in her breathing.

He leaned down, careful not to jostle her. He’d seen how easily she startled, and he didn’t want to alarm her now. “Kylie,” he said, a bit louder than before.

She didn’t move, though a small smile curved her lips.

He stopped before saying her name again, surprised by the smile. What was that about? An unconscious reaction to the sound of his voice? That’d be cool.

Smiling himself now, he grazed his fingers over the dark strands of hair at her temple. “Kyylieee,” he whispered, singsongy now.

She stirred under his hand, shifting onto her back with a deep sigh. “Chase?”

“Dinner’s ready,” he said, voice still soft. “You said you were starving.”

“Hmm.”

His smile grew. He loved her soft and sleepy and out of it. Maybe it was sad, but that was when she was most like she’d been when he’d fallen in love with her the first time.

Shaking his head, he caressed the back of her hand draped over her stomach. “I made spaghetti,” he said. “And garlic bread. You love garlic bread.”

“Mmm. Garlic bread.”

He laughed at the sensual moan, but it caught in his throat when she ran a loose hand back through her damp hair and breathed his name through barely parted lips. “Chase.”

His heart stuttered, and he held his breath, watching her and waiting. This was a bad idea, sitting on the edge of her bed while she was half asleep and gloriously naked under that towel, smelling of soap and shampoo and everything that turned him on. He should get up and leave right now. Right. Now.

But then the hand she’d sifted through her hair dropped onto his thigh, and she bent one knee, shifting her legs slightly apart under the towel and canting her hips up just a tiny bit.

He couldn’t move, riveted by the sight of that terry cloth sliding ever so slowly upward, revealing more of the most gorgeously toned thighs he’d ever seen. Perfect thighs for wrapping around his hips and—

Okay, he’d leave in a minute.

Closing his eyes, he savored the heat of her fingers through his jeans. Not a thing sexual about it—she was still out of it, not knowing what she’d done—but his body seemed to think it was the sexiest thing ever. He held back his response, concentrating on breathing evenly, until her breath hitched, and her head arched back into the pillow, her lips parting on a soft moan.

Oh, Jesus, she was having a sexy dream.

Blood rushed straight to his groin, tightening his jeans to the point of discomfort.

Lowering his head and swallowing, he drew in a slow, steadying breath and started to count backward from twenty . . . no, wait, that wouldn’t do it. A hundred might work.

Around thirty-four, the throb began to ease.

That’s it. Time for Chase Jr. to go back into storage.

Except Chase Jr.
really
didn’t want to go. Chase Jr. wanted some attention.
Needed
some attention. And just thinking about the kind of attention he wanted—needed—the kind Kylie was getting in her dream, made Chase’s jeans too tight all over again. Tighter than before.
Damn it all to hell
.

“Later,” he muttered through his teeth.

“Chase?”

He snapped his eyes open to find Kylie blinking and bleary. The fingers resting on his thigh moved to rub at her eyes, and he breathed an inward sigh of relief. That would help.

“What time is it?” she asked as she pushed up onto one elbow and peered at him with sleepy eyes.