Hers for the Holidays (15 page)

14

L
YDIA
CLIMBED
THE
stairs, relieved to be out of the rush of the festival and eager to have a few minutes alone with Ely. Nerves were rattling inside her gut, but she was determined to do this before she let any reservations keep her from saying what she had to say.

“Ely, hey, I need to—” Lydia said, entering but stopping short, finding not Ely, but Kyle in her bedroom.

He paused, looking up from a knapsack he was filling with something. Money, she realized, her eyes focused on the fat wad of bills in his hand.

“What are you doing? What’s that?” she asked, trying to process what she was seeing.

Kyle sighed, glaring at her as if she was a nasty bug he wanted to squash.

“It’s my retirement, and you’re supposed to be busy outside with the festival.”

“But where...how...?”

“None of your damned business. Where’s loverboy? Meeting you up here for a little slap and tickle?” he asked, sneering.

He reached into the bag before she could answer, drawing out a gun.

“Kyle,” she said, backing up and putting her hands up defensively. “I don’t know what this is, but I’m not going to stop you. Just go. Don’t hurt anyone,” she said, her heart hammering.

“That’s how it would have been if you hadn’t come snooping.”

Snooping? In her own house?

“Come here,” he ordered, waving the gun.

She paused, and he asked again, more emphatically, so she did.

“Finish packing this, while I keep an eye out. Then we’ll take a nice friendly stroll down to my truck, and you can go back to your life.”

Lydia wondered if he really meant it, but did as she was told, trying to think frantically about how she could signal someone, anyone, from the window, but there was no way.

She looked down at the bottom of the guest room closet to find the boards pulled up, the remainder of a large stash of money still hidden inside. She reached down and grabbed two handfuls.

“How long has this been hidden here?”

“I have no idea. I’ve been searching for their stash for over a month. I’ve been through every abandoned property and building for five miles, and this was the only place left,” Kyle said in agitation. “I figured it had to be in the house. I had found it the other day when your boyfriend conveniently agreed to get you out of the house for the night, but then Smitty was hanging around late with some of the festival guys, and I couldn’t get it out without someone noticing. I thought tonight would be the perfect distraction, but you’ve been messing this up from the start.”

Everything clicked in her brain as she packed more of the money into the bag.

“Gee, so sorry,” she said sarcastically. “You were in the truck...you’ve been harassing me.”

“I had another guy helping out, you know, just to throw you off the scent, but you don’t scare easily, do you, Lydia?” He looked at her with something between admiration and lust, and she broke eye contact, shuddering.

“We’ll be gone in a week or so. Why not just wait?” she asked.

“The money would be gone then, too—the guys who are coming up from South America for it wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet in your head to get you out of their way, so consider this your lucky break.”

“So this isn’t yours?”

“It is now,” he said with a laugh, and then was quiet as he watched her pack up the rest and zip the bag. “About time I got some payoff for dealing with these sleazebags all these years.”

Lydia stared. “You’re a cop?” she asked incredulously.

“Fed, actually. Been undercover here for a while, and when this opportunity came up, I decided it was time.”

Lydia hoped that if Kyle really was a cop, he would be less inclined to kill her—or maybe it made him more dangerous.

“What do you mean Ely agreed to get me out of town? He’d never agree to help you.”

“He thought he was helping me for his D.C. buddies. When he got involved, I knew I had to move fast.”

Lydia digested that. So Ely had known about Kyle, and he hadn’t told her? And their entire night together in Billings had been arranged so that Kyle could search her house?

She couldn’t focus on that now, and Kyle seemed done with the conversation, too, as he hauled her up by the arm, closing the closet door.

“Okay. Now we walk down to my truck, nice and easy. I’ll have to tie you up so you can’t go run and alert anyone too soon, and then I’ll be gone. If you decide to mess with me, or alert anyone, especially your boyfriend or the sheriff, people will get hurt, do you understand?” he asked, jamming the gun into the small of her back.

“Okay, yeah,” she said, holding her breath and walking out of the room, her mind spinning.

What if Kyle didn’t keep his word? What if he killed her, and she never got to tell Ely how she felt, or that she wanted to be with him as more than his casual sex partner? To see if they had a future? To find out if he was even interested in a future, she thought, her mind going back to what Kyle had said.

Maybe she really was just a temporary fling to Ely.

She wouldn’t cause Kyle to hurt anyone, especially Ely, or any of the kids running around the festival grounds. She was trapped, she thought as they exited through the back door. Kyle had his arm slung around her in a friendly way as they emerged into the crowd, his other hand holding the gun at her side.

“Just make like we’re two pals, enjoying the festivities.”

“People will miss me at the booth.”

“They’ll find you when they come looking.”

Find her how, exactly, she thought, a chill taking over that had nothing to do with the cold.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Faith, in Steve Granger’s arms, looking like perhaps they had mended a few fences of their own. Lydia wondered if she would ever feel Ely’s arms around her again.

A few people said hello, and paused to thank her for such a great time, and she smiled briefly, trying not to sound unnatural as she acknowledged their sentiment and kept walking. Kyle was getting nervous, she could tell, the gun poking harder into her side.

It only took a minute or two to reach the bunkhouse down past the festival area. They were alone.

At least, even if the worst happened, she’d kept him from hurting anyone else. It was a comfort.

Kyle dragged her to the storage shed beside the bunkhouse and opened the door. Lydia heard mumbling. Looking into the small, cold space, she saw Roger—Faith’s nephew—also bound and bleeding from his temple. He was shivering visibly, his eyes bleary.

“What did you do?” Lydia hissed, turning on Kyle. “Why are you picking on a kid?”

“Watch it,” he said, grabbing her roughly and jerking her arm behind her back, pushing her into the shed where she stumbled and fell down beside Roger. “Roger was my little helper, and I was compensating him nicely for it, until he decided he might rat,” Kyle said, grabbing a rag from his pocket that he intended to stuff into her mouth, as he had done with Roger.

“Roger was the one helping you harass me? To get me out of the house?”

“Yeah, until I caught him heading for the sheriff’s office this morning. Caught him just in time,” Kyle said. “Grab a few of those plastic ties there on the shelf—do your ankles, then your hands—behind your back. Good,” he approved her application of the ties and shoved the gun back into his belt, stepping forward with the gag. “Now this will keep you quiet until I’m long gone.”

Lydia caught a glint of something out of her eye—someone behind Kyle? She wasn’t sure.

“So who hid the money?”

“One of the cartel’s local guys. I saw him leaving here one day, and started searching, but never could find it. Then you showed up back in town and began digging through everything.”

“The people who come after that money are going to know it’s missing, and they’ll come after you,” she tried desperately to keep him talking, keep him there.

“That’s the best part. They’ll figure you took it, or the kid, or your boyfriend,” he said with a laugh. “And they’ll never find me, honey, because I don’t exist. I’d watch your back from here on in, if I were you.”

“I think you should do the same,” she said, smiling as she saw Ely appear behind Kyle in the doorway of the shed, shotgun in hand.

“Yeah, right. Now open wide,” he said maliciously, intending to gag her with an old rag.

“Touch her again and I’ll drop you where you stand,” Ely said dangerously, and Kyle froze.

“Ely, he has a gun,” she said as Kyle tried to reach for his weapon, but Ely closed in and hit Kyle hard in the back of the head with the butt of the gun before the man could do anything.

Steve Granger turned the corner just then, his expression dangerous, his gun drawn, as well. He looked at Kyle moaning on the floor of the shed, and holstered his weapon. Taking in Lydia and Roger as Ely disarmed Kyle and gave the forty-five to Steve, the sheriff smirked.

“Well, hell, I thought I told you to wait,” he said to Ely.

“Things move fast, Granger. And I really, really wanted to hit this guy,” Ely said, working on Lydia’s and Roger’s restraints as Granger cuffed Kyle and called for an ambulance.

Within minutes chaos broke out around them, but all Lydia cared about was being in Ely’s arms. She was safe now. People buzzed all around her as the police shut down the festival early and cleared out the crowd, but Lydia hardly noticed.

She couldn’t seem to stop touching Ely as the police took her report, and the EMTs took Roger off to the hospital. He would be okay, but had come dangerously close to hypothermia.

“How did you know?”

“We saw him go in the house. Steve and I were watching from the crowd, waiting for him to come out, but then you went in, and that changed everything.”

“So you all knew?”

“I told Steve I found out that he was undercover DEA, and apparently Steve already knew—they were keeping an eye on him, worried that he was dirty. Turns out it was true. I had a feeling if he found something in the house, he was going to try to take off with it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? How could you keep this all from me?” she asked, bewildered by what was happening right under her nose.

“I needed to play it close. I also couldn’t risk Ian—Kyle—finding out. It would have put you in danger if he thought you knew. Even more so,” he said.

He’d been protecting her. It was what he did—his job.

What she really wanted to know was if their night in Billings had just been part of the plan, as Kyle said, or if it had been as special as she thought it was. But that wasn’t fair. She had set the terms of their relationship—keep it casual. She had told him that she didn’t want commitment.

He had told her he was looking for a fresh start, new adventures, and nothing to tie him down. He hadn’t come out here for her, but at Tessa’s bidding. None of that had changed even though Lydia had a feeling that she had changed significantly.

She wanted all of those things—or at least, she was more open to the possibility, now that she didn’t need to shut herself off from happiness anymore.

But that wasn’t fair to Ely. At least they had decided that they would remain “friends” when they went back to Philly. Maybe in time...well, she could hope.

They walked into the house, alone, together, everything quiet again. The festival would reopen the next night, but for now, they could focus on each other, and the close call they’d had.

“He said Roger was helping him.”

“Yeah. I knew the kid was involved somehow, but had no idea he was in that deep.”

“I wonder what Steve will do? It looked like he and Faith were getting back together.”

“Roger was grabbed by Kyle trying to go to Steve to tell him about the operation, and about you. That counts, and the kid paid a pretty severe price as it is. Hopefully he’ll learn a lesson. I’m betting he doesn’t charge him, or at the very least, Roger gets off on probation.”

Lydia hoped that, as well.

Ely pulled her down into the deep couch with him, and Lydia snuggled in. She turned, looking up into his face, framing it with her hands. A warm, possessive feeling captured her, and if she never had to move from this spot, she’d be a happy woman.

So this was love?
she wondered. Did it always sneak up quietly like this, happening all at once, or had it actually been there all along, and she’d been afraid to see it?

“What are you thinking?” Ely asked, studying her face.

“I’ll tell you later,” she said, worried that telling Ely about her newfound feelings would be too much and would ruin what they did have together. She couldn’t just change the rules because her feelings had changed—could she?

Reaching up for a kiss, Lydia decided that she didn’t really want to talk right now anyway. He started to say something, and she put a finger to his mouth. Standing, she took off her clothes and then did the same for him.

She straddled him, taking him in and moving with a gentle rocking of her hips. She felt more connected to him in that instant than she had to anyone in her life. Soon, they were both clinging to each other and gasping through their climax.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed against him, loving how it felt to be this close to him, their bodies still connected, his arms banded around her. She closed her eyes, sealing in tears that threatened from the emotion that overwhelmed her.

This was what they had, and it was what she had told him that she wanted. For now, it had to be enough.

* * *

A
LITTLE
LESS
THAN
a week later, Ely sat in front of the computer on Christmas Eve morning, scanning airline ticket prices. Several of them were good—not many people were traveling to Philly the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but he couldn’t settle on one.

The house had been more or less cleared out. The festival was over—having gone off with booming success—and Lydia had made peace with her past. He’d enjoyed meeting her friends, seeing her happy, and now she was ready to get back to Philly and get on with her life.

Very likely without him, he realized suddenly.

He didn’t want to go.