Hush (33 page)

“Ten a.m. suit you?” he asked.

It took her a second, but then she understood: that's when she would talk to George. As she nodded, Finn pulled off into the parking lot of a Comfort Inn and Suites.

“You're staying with me, so I got us one room,” he said as he
pulled the suitcases from the trunk. That slight smile of his appeared. “Two beds, though.”

She didn't protest. The attack on George had underlined how much danger she and Emma and Margaret were in. In response to Finn's instructions, she walked into the hotel a few steps ahead of him, apparently to keep him between her and any attack that might come from the direction of the parking lot. As she did, she thought,
Without him, I'd be a sitting duck.

The shiver that slid down her spine was a stark reminder of how very vulnerable she was. And how very dependent on him she was.

Whatever he is, whatever he's done, right now I need him. Dangerous or not.

They got settled in the room—two queen beds, a credenza holding a TV against the wall opposite, plus a small sitting area with a couch, chair, and desk, all decorated in tasteful earth tones—and freshened up. Then Finn took her to dinner.

She wasn't hungry—shades of Emma!—but she kept that to herself and went. He clearly was, and once again she knew she needed to eat.

There wasn't a lot of choice. A café in the downtown area, the ubiquitous McDonald's, and a Waffle House. They settled on the café. The town was tiny, less than a thousand people. It was a collection of rundown red-brick buildings and a few outlying stores, all mostly there for the purpose of supporting the staff and visitors of the sprawling Mack H. Alford Correctional Center, which was visible as a shimmering mirage of chain-link fences and squat buildings just a few miles down the road. The surrounding landscape was hilly and mostly brown with heat,
although a few blades of grass and some valiant trees showed green.

“So how are you going to put this to George tomorrow?” Finn asked. They were ensconced in a booth in the café, and he was seated across from her. The booth was in a corner, Finn having refused the waitress's offer of a prime seat in front of the big front picture window (he didn't say why, but his refusal gave Riley an instant, hair-raising vision of snipers with rifles). From where they sat, she could still see out. She watched as the orange blaze of the setting sun was extinguished by a mass of purple clouds, and tongues of lightning began to flicker in the distance.

The café was surprisingly busy. It was noisy and full of good smells, the air-conditioning worked, and the red vinyl bench seats were cracked but comfortable. The waitress having taken their order, Riley was already sipping gratefully at a tall glass of sweet tea, while Finn drank root beer.

Riley frowned at him reprovingly. “Did anybody ever tell you that you have a one-track mind?”

“With George being injured, you're probably not going to have all day to beat around the bush. It'd be a good idea to be prepared with exactly what you're going to say.”

“Tell me what you did with the money, you mean old goat, or I'll stab you again myself?”

The tightening of his mouth told her what he thought of her flippancy. “Riley—”

The waitress appeared carrying a tray, and started putting their food on the table. Finn quit talking until the woman asked, “Anything else I can get for you?” and, when they shook their heads, left them alone again.

“You need to go in with a plan. A few key points you want to make.” The fact that he was dumping ketchup on meatloaf—his plate was loaded with meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans—didn't detract from the determination in the look he directed at her.

“I have a plan.” Riley dipped a fork into the tuna part of her tuna salad plate and smiled at him across the table. “Wing it.”

That got a rise out of him, as it was meant to do.

“Damn it.” He put the ketchup down. “This is serious.”

“You want serious? Fine. Here's serious: I think I can figure out what to say without you trying to coach me. So stop.” She ate tuna.

Clearly exasperated, he looked at her for a moment without replying.

“Eat your food,” Riley said, not quite maliciously, and ate more tuna.

He ate a couple of forkfuls, then said, “You're beautiful.”

For some reason, that didn't sound like it was meant to be a compliment. “Thank you.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“You're smart, too.”

“You want to get to the point here?”

“You're lying to me.”

“What?” Riley's eyes didn't widen. She didn't choke on her tuna, but it was close.

Her first thought was,
Pot, meet kettle
. Her second was,
Oh
, 
crap
.

He said, “It's time to come clean.”

Riley's chest tightened as guilt bubbled up inside her. Finn was looking at her, his blue-gray eyes holding hers like he could
see inside her head. Okay, she told herself to quell the little curls of panic that were starting to twist through her veins, he might be able to read her easily but there was no way he could
know.
Anything. At least, not anything important.

Keep your mouth shut
.
Stand your ground
.

“How did you know?” she asked on a shaky-sounding breath.

Putting down his fork, he looked suddenly grim. “Talk to me, Angel. I'm listening.”

That
angel
did funny things to her insides. Actually, she discovered unwillingly,
he
did funny things to her insides. Just like she was still in her yellow dress, he was still wearing the charcoal suit, but he'd unbuttoned his collar and lost the tie. Against the white shirt, his throat looked brown and strong. Stubble darkened his square jaw. His mouth was tense, and his eyes were bloodshot, with the faint lines around his eyes noticeably deeper than before. He looked dark and tired and irritable, he was a federal law enforcement officer who was taking advantage of their forced proximity to interrogate her every chance he got, and he had just accused her of telling him lies.

And, oh, yeah, dangerous or not, she wanted him. Bad.

It was stupid. She wasn't proud of it. But there it was.

“All right, I did lie,” she confessed, her eyes wide as she held his intent gaze. “Earlier. When I was in the bathroom, and you didn't come back, and I said I wasn't worried about you? That just wasn't true. I
was
worried about you.”

For a moment his expression didn't change. Then it did: his brows snapped together and his mouth compressed and he looked
dire
.

She grinned. A big ol' pure Texas shit-eating grin. She couldn't help it.

Their eyes held. Hers, she knew, twinkled. His did not.

Then his face relaxed, and he smiled. Not that little uptick that she'd started to think was all he was capable of, but a real smile. Even if it was a little wry.

“Funny.” He went back to eating his meat loaf. She took a couple more bites of tuna. Then he gave her a level look and said, “Sooner or later, I'm going to find out.”

She devoutly hoped not. In fact, she was going to do everything in her power to make sure he did not.

Ignoring the prickle of apprehension that slid like goose bumps over her skin, she shook her head reprovingly at him. “Like I said, one-track mind.”

The waitress returned then, with their check and an offer of coffee. Riley declined. Finn paid, and took his coffee to go.

Outside, it was dark. It had cooled off a little from earlier, but the humidity made the air feel thick. The moon looked like a fuzzy white cotton ball in a field of midnight blue. A few stars played peek-a-boo among the scudding clouds. The night smelled of approaching rain. To the west, the flickers of lightning were bigger and stronger now.

When they were in the car driving the short distance back to the hotel, Finn looked at her and said, “You'd be better off telling me whatever it is you're hiding before I figure it out on my own.”

Riley had been reluctantly admiring the strong masculine lines of his profile against the glow of the hotel's security lights.

Almost glad to have her thoughts diverted, she frowned at him as he turned into the parking lot. “You think so?”

He sent her an impatient look. “Cut the crap. I know there's something. You need to tell me.”

“Newsflash, Mr. Agent Man: I don't know what you're talking about.”

He'd just finished parking. At her response, the muscles in his face contracted, his mouth hardened, and as he shot a look at her his eyes glinted steel blue.

“Yeah, you do. Come on, we don't want to hang around in the parking lot.”

As they were walking inside, with his hand on her arm and him a pace behind her, looking for all the world like he was escorting a prisoner to jail, it occurred to her that spending the night alone in a hotel room with a man she'd decided might very well be dangerous wasn't something any minimally prudent woman would do.

She kept walking anyway.

He didn't say anything else, and neither did she. Kicking off her shoes, she went into the bathroom as soon as they reached the room. When she came out, he'd taken off his jacket and had his gun on the nightstand between the beds. He was standing at the foot of the bed nearest to the door and was in the process of unbuttoning his shirt.

His eyes raked her. He was looking tall and dark and ill-­tempered, and his sheer size made the space feel surprisingly small.

“It's all yours.” She indicated the bathroom, and started to walk past him toward the sitting area, with some thought of turning on CNN and trying to catch the day's news.

She didn't make it past him. His hand shot out to flatten
against the wall. His arm formed a barrier in front of her nose, stopping her in her tracks.

Frowning, she looked up at him. “What?”

His eyes were hard. “If you're involved in this scheme of George's, you're looking at prison. That's if the system gets you. If I go away, if somebody who's not part of the system gets hold of you, they'll torture you to get the information they want out of you and then they'll kill you. You understand that, right?”

Riley cast her eyes heavenward. “You are a broken record.” Since his arm blocked her from the sitting room, she turned to go the other way.

His other arm shot out, trapping her between them. Her eyes narrowed. She faced him, scowling and prepared to verbally blast him. He didn't quite have her pinned to the wall, there was still some room, but her body brushed his and her hands came up to flatten against his chest to hold him off and her breath caught as her heart started to pick up the pace. His eyes were unreadable as he looked down at her, but she could see the quickening of the pulse in his throat, feel the heat coming off him.

“I don't like bullies,” she said. “Get out of my way.”

He made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. “I'm trying to save your ass here.”

“Is that what you're doing?” She glared up at him. He was way bigger than she was, taller, wider, strong enough where any thought of a physical contest between them was laughable. Their bodies barely touched, but where they did she knew it. Beneath the cool smooth cotton of his shirt, she could feel the tension in his muscles. She could feel the electricity surging between them, and she could tell by the tightening of his jaw and the darkening
of his eyes that he did, too. “Funny, feels to me like you're trying to intimidate me.”

“Does it?” His eyes slid over her face, his mouth tightened, and then his arms dropped and he made a be-my-guest gesture indicating that she was free to walk away. She didn't. She didn't want to. She stayed right where she was, her hands pressed to his chest, her face lifted to his pugnaciously. Because now the heat that was rolling off him was enveloping her, too, and her body was quickening and tightening and she was finding it harder to breathe. “What I'm trying to do is help you. You need to trust me.”

When hell freezes over
, is what she thought as all the reasons she shouldn't flashed through her mind. But her hands were closing on his shirt front and her heart was pounding like she was running and the dark, restless gleam in his eyes was melting her bones.

She didn't trust him, not one bit. But what she did do was go up on tiptoe and kiss him.

H
is mouth was warm, and firm, and stayed perfectly still as hers found it. Riley kissed him softly, parting her lips, moving them against his, loving how unmistakably masculine they felt, loving the rasp of his stubble against the soft skin of her cheeks and chin. Her lids were lowered so that she couldn't see his eyes, but she could see the sharp flare of his nostrils and the sudden tensing of his jaw. Her hands were fisted in his shirt, and she could feel the deepening of his breathing in the rise and fall of his chest, feel the hardening of the muscles beneath.

His mouth moved on hers, kissing her back but only barely, a feather-light molding of her lips that had her mouth clinging to his, wanting more. He deepened the kiss, licking into her mouth, and she shivered and kissed him back. As one hand came up to thrust deep into her hair, he took a step forward so that she had to take a step back, which brought her shoulder blades up against the cool plaster of the wall. Riley felt his long, strong fingers
shaping the back of her skull. His other hand gripped her hip bone. She sensed desire on his part, and resistance, too, and was excited by both. Even as her body throbbed with arousal, even as her heart started to slam against her breastbone, even as she swayed so that she was arching up against him, he broke the kiss and lifted his head to look down at her.

“This your way of changing the subject?” The hot, dark glitter in his eyes, the growl in his voice, the rigidity of his body, told her how turned on he was. There was no mistaking his erection: it pressed against her, hard and thick even through the layers of their clothes.