Criminal Promises (9 page)

She had a brain. He’d known who had targeted
her or he would have held to his resolve to not move in.

Conflicted between worry and anger, suddenly
too exhausted to land another punch, she bit a strip of Velcro with
her teeth to pull off a glove. After removing the second one, she
stretched lightly to keep her muscles from tightening up.

She wasn’t invisible, boring or willing to be
pushed around. He had another think coming if he thought he could
issue orders and expect her to blindly follow. Whatever kind of
women he was used to being around, she wasn’t one of them.

Her privacy had been invaded and Harte had
reverted to caveman mode. With the sensation of a hundred fuzzy
spiders running across her exposed skin, impressions of dirty filth
suffused her. She had never felt more violated and scared in her
life. More betrayed.

The haven she had designed for her children,
their security and peace of mind, had been threatened. If Adalia
had marched into her living room and held a gun to her head, she
could have handled it better.

“You will answer my
questions.”
Or get out.
“I’m not playing mind games with you on top of
everything else.”

Blowing out a deep breath, she assured
herself she could and would remain calm, rational and logical. She
would not become irrational. Well, any more so than she already
had.

Narrowing her eyes, she studied him and again
waited. Instead of cool caution, his stare remained glacial. Every
muscle in his giant body was taut. His jaw twitched. The bulging
vein in his neck throbbed. He fisted and un-fisted his hands. She’d
done the same things before working the bag.

Menace vibrated off him and grabbed her by
the throat. His nostrils flared slightly with each breath. As
surely as she knew he wouldn’t tell her everything, she knew he
itched to pound the stuffing out of something. Impatience warred
with logic. She wanted answers, but she may have better luck if she
let him cool off.

She walked to the cabinet in the wall that
hid the punching bag when she released it from the floor and
ceiling anchors, pulled out a larger pair of boxing gloves, and
tossed them to him. A feral grin spread across his face as he
secured the Velcro fasteners.

She stepped back and sat on his weight bench.
Once his hackles lowered she would demand answers. Or maybe she’d
take advantage of the distraction the bag provided.

Like the caged beast had been set free, he
went after the bag. His fists hammered the leather, bouncing the
bag a little. The echo of his power and satisfaction sang in her
body. She’d spent many sleepless nights in the garage with only the
bag for company.

With each slap of leather against leather,
Harte’s wrath mounted rather than eased. Rolling his shoulders
back, he pummeled the bag. For five minutes the sounds of his rough
breathing and leather slapping the bag dominated the garage.

He became the distraction. Maggie leaned back
against the barbell and extended her legs on the bench with her
ankles crossed.

His muscles coiled and released beneath the
power of each precisely delivered blow. He worked out with punching
bags often. Her brain flashed to an image of him working out
shirtless and her breath stuttered.

Don’t go there.
She shook her head clear. “How long have you
known Adalia was out?”

“Since the first morning I
came here.” He pivoted his hip to put more power behind the punch.
The mounting brackets clanged.

“Why wasn’t I notified of
her release?”

The dangerous edge of his
temper surged briefly. His shoulders jerked. His hands fell to his
sides and he stared at the bag with his chest heaving. “She wasn't
released.”

Maggie leaned forward, not
sure she’d heard him correctly. He’d spoken so quietly. “Excuse
me?”

“She escaped.”

Swarmed with building heat,
she gritted her teeth. “The woman killed my husband. Shouldn’t I
have been told?”

He sighed and turned to
her. Anguish deepened the laugh lines around his eyes. “It wasn’t
my decision.”

No apologies. No evasions. No explanations.
How was she supposed to argue with a man who wouldn’t argue?

Instead, he stood before her with sweat
soaking his hair and running down his temples. His T-shirt clung
tightly to his chiseled torso and had her thinking more about the
masterful sculpture that was his body. She’d love to explore him,
to again feel the press of him against her.

She bit into her lower lip. Sweaty men had
never done it for her. Harte did. The leashed power he’d only
partially shown as he ripped into the bag amazed her. Aroused her
when she shouldn’t be aroused.

Focus!
She swung her legs off the bench and went to Harte.
Struggling to organize her thoughts, she took the gloves he’d
removed and carried them to the storage cabinet. His spicy and
masculine scent trailed her. Awareness fluttered in her gut. “I
need answers.”

She hadn’t been afraid of him when he’d
looked ready to murder, but now, with raw energy pulsing off him,
he threatened her. She craved him. His passion. His ability to make
her forget her own name with a brief kiss. Adalia wasn’t the only
thing she needed answers about, but she was priority.

He said nothing. Maggie turned back to see
him on the floor inspecting the bar extending out the base of the
bag. When he stood, he looked at the ceiling, grinning.

Now that’s power.

His pleasure with the bag filled her with
pleasure. She liked that he’d found something in her home that
pleased him. Too much of that pleasure was detrimental to her
safety.

“This is genius. Who did
it?”

“Me.”

His head jerked to her in
shock. “You?”

“Yes.” He could have
sounded a little less archaic in his shock. “You see, we little
women aren’t helpless. We don’t need chauvinistic men around to do
things for us, tell us what to think, or when to move.”

“
I never said you were
helpless.” He wrinkled his brow and slid his gaze down her body
before slowly working his way back up. “And I’m not a
chauvinist.”

“Great. Then behave as if
you believe that.” His survey of her body had her blood
sizzling…not entirely from anger. “Why wasn’t I told Adalia was
out? Why is she here?”

“I don’t have those
answers.”

She crossed her arms over
her chest, braced her legs apart. She’d wanted to be calm and
rational. Too bad. “Harte—”

“Mags—” He stepped forward
with a hand out. “Maggie, can’t you trust me on this?”

“I could ask the same of
you. Things were sane until you showed up. But now a woman has been
killed, I’ve dealt with one screwed up prank after another, and my
husband’s killer has been in my home. You give me no answers, but
want me to trust you.”

“It would be
easier.”

“For you.” Unable to stand
still and unwilling to pace nervously, she moved to the punching
bag. Bending down, she slid the pole from the floor up into the
base of the bag. “You should have warned me.”

“I couldn’t.”

She opened her mouth and
then shut it. Disbelief gripped her throat. “You’re trying to
decide if I’m somehow involved. Do you think I as somehow
responsible for Mike being there that day?”

“No.” His pinched
expression belied the adamant tone as he raked his hand through his
hair. “But we didn’t want to alarm you in the event nothing more
happened.”

“You’re days too late.”
After securing the hook to hold the pole in the base of the bag,
she grabbed the bag with both hands, twisted it counter-clockwise
to release it from the locked position in the ceiling and then
shoved it along its track to the cabinet in the wall.
“
That’s
why you
agreed to move in here.”

“My not wanting to be here
had nothing to do with you.”

“Sure. Every girl knows
that really means it has everything to do with her.” With nothing
else to do, she went and sat on the end of his weight bench. “You
make believing you impossible.”

His shoulders dropped as he
walked over and knelt in front of her. “My captain, when I briefed
him, ordered me not to tell you what’s going on.”

Arguments and demands
danced on her tongue. She chose a different route. “Are my kids in
danger? Is Adalia going to come into my house again? You’re a cop.
What the hell are you doing to stop her?”

“It’s not that easy,
Mags.”

Knowing he was right didn’t
settle her. She’d been holding things in, going along, for too
long. His dismissal busted through her reserve and allowed all the
pressure to escape. “It’s plenty easy. I want to know what you
know. Why you thought I needed to be watched. What does she
want?”

“I don’t have answers for
you.”

Arrgh
. The man could be dense and she was losing her patience in
the glare of his omissions. “You knew she was out. You should have
stopped it. None of this should have happened.”

His head jerked back as if she’d struck him.
She didn’t care.

“You could have
asked
me to stay in the
living room. You could have taken one minute to act civil rather
than acting like a know-it-all jerk ordering me around. Rather than
acting like Detective Pritchett.”

He worked his mouth like he
was going to say something. She stayed still and shook her head. If
he left, he could take Adalia with him. “You being here is a
mistake.”

“Too late. You said
yourself I made you feel safer.” Harte stood, towering over her as
he shook his head. “Guess what, sweetheart. I was doing my job in
the living room. I don’t have time for niceties and patting you on
the head like a little kid when there’s danger or a perceived
threat. I want to catch Adalia Wood more than I want to coddle your
feelings. I couldn’t have stopped her today, because it took your
sexy ass too long to come tell me about her. And I am
not
like
Pritchett.”

Sexy. Did he mean that? Idiot, that doesn’t
matter right now.

Rather than cower on the
bench, she stood and stepped forward until her toes bumped his.
Angry heat bounced off him, but she refused to give in. “You think
today was
my
fault?”

“Maybe you could have
acted quicker.”

“Maybe you could have told
me what was going on so I could have been on the look out. I
would’ve known who she was so I could react faster!”

“You—”

“Couldn’t have done
anything any differently!” She shoved him back a step. “I stepped
into the hallway and saw a silhouetted woman I didn’t get a good
look at until it was too late. What was I supposed to do, magically
transport myself to you while barricading her retreat?”

“Maggie—”

“My sister and daughter
were in the next room. She was in the car before I figured out who
she was. My priorities were dead on.” She bit her tongue to keep
herself from voicing the colorful string of four-letter words that
would help nothing. But he was wrong.

“Here’s the long and short
of it, Mags. You agreed to my living here.” His voice quieted to
normal. His eyes softened. “You wanted to feel safer. I’ll make
sure you are.”

“Your presence didn’t stop
her from waltzing in the front door.”

“No, but it will not
happen again.” Confidence rode his deep-timbered growl.

Her anger drained as fast
as it had built to a boil. Her temper was hot, but generally
subsided quickly. “Does she want me dead?”

“If she doesn’t get what
she wants.”

“What does she
want?”

“Not sure.”

“You know more than you’re
telling.”

“And I’ll no doubt piss
you off again before I have it all figured out. If I notice
something off I probably won’t take the time to ask you politely to
do something.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth. “But
I’ll try to give you as much of an explanation as I
can.”

“Start with what you found
in the office?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It only raises more
questions. Potentially painful ones.”

“Maybe I could help you
answer them.”

“No.”

She stepped around the
immovable mass of man in front of her and paced the floor. “You
treat this like a top secret mission. I deserve to
know.”

“I intend to keep my job,
which means I’m not telling you.” He spun on his heel and headed to
the kitchen door. He paused and grinned back at her. “By the way, I
love the bag.”

Mouth agape, she watched him shut the door.
What had just happened?

She wouldn’t cost him his job, but a killer
had walked in and out of her home as cool as a privileged cucumber.
Maggie and her family were at risk every moment Adalia was free.
With or without Harte in the house, she was not equipped for
emotional warfare with a killer.

Or the sexy detective awakening her
desires.

Listening to the pounding rain, which had
threatened for the last week, Maggie stretched out beside Jared on
his bed. Dressed in one of Mike’s shirts with his eyes drooping as
sleep dragged him under, Jared curled at her side. The hint of a
smile quirked his lips, but still not a full smile. That was
something she hadn’t seen since Mike’s death.