Identity Crisis (25 page)

This couldn’t be happening. Dear God, this couldn’t be happening! She was the bright spot. She was the center pushing back his own darkness, and he couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t lose her!

‘Kendra!’ He yelled for her until his throat was raw. ‘Kendra, answer me!’ Why the hell didn’t she respond?

Almost before he knew it, Ellis and Dee were on either side of him, both with flashlights. Ellis was carrying a baseball bat.

‘I can’t find her,’ Garrett managed between gasps for breath. ‘Jesus, I can’t find her! She was there one minute next to me. I could hear her and then she was gone.’

He headed back into the woods, ignoring Ellis’s call after him to wait.

He had just reached the point where the world was swallowed completely in darkness other than the swath cut through by his flashlight when he saw her, lying face down on the pine straw, and his heart stopped. And the world stopped. And it was all his fault. He raced toward her, feeling like he was moving through quicksand, feeling like everything had downshifted into slow motion, feeling like everything was conspiring to keep him away from her. He stumbled over an exposed root, practically falling on top of her.

Then he heard her moan, and everything launched back into real time. ‘Kendra! Kendra! Jesus Christ! Kendra, are you all right?’ He slid in next to her on his knees just as she forced herself up into a sitting position and coughed and gasped.

‘I’m all right,’ she assured him. ‘Fell. Winded myself. ‘I’m fine.’ Her last words were swallowed up in a little gasp as Garrett pulled her to him.

‘I told you to stay,’ he whispered. ‘I told you to stay. Damn it, Kendra! Don’t ever, ever do that to me again!’

‘I couldn’t stay,’ she managed between his rain of kisses. ‘Not when you were out here alone.’ She touched his cheek. ‘Garrett, you’re bleeding! What happened?’

‘Just a branch,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing.’ He pulled her still tighter to him, forcing another breathless grunt. ‘Jesus, woman, what am I going to do with you? What am I going to do with you?’

‘I don’t know.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck as he eased her up onto her feet. ‘What you did back there on the blanket a few minutes ago, that seemed to work pretty well.’

They barely cleared the woods before Dee broke into a run and grabbed Kendra in a fierce hug. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered against her friend’s neck. ‘I’m so sorry. We thought you’d be safe here. I swear we both did.’

Kendra pulled away and ran a hand through Dee’s sleep-mussed hair. ‘I am safe,’ she replied with a smile that was way more confident than anything Garrett could have expected under the circumstances. ‘Don’t worry, Dee, I promise, I’m fine.’

Dee pulled her back into a rib-crunching bear hug with a laugh that was more of a sob. ‘God, I was so scared.’

‘There was someone out there,’ Kendra said, as Garrett came forward and pulled her back to him, not yet ready to let her go, lest she vanish again. ‘There was.’ She nodded fiercely. ‘You saw him didn’t you, Garrett?’

‘I saw something,’ he said, wishing like hell he’d got a better view.

Just then Ellis joined them with the head of his security team. He gave Kendra a tight hug and surprised Garrett by giving him one too. Then he rummaged in his pocket and handed Garrett a handkerchief for his bloodied face.

‘It’s possible,’ the security man was saying. ‘There could have been someone out there.’

‘There was,’ both Garrett and Kendra said in unison.

The man nodded politely. ‘There’s just no real way of knowing until we get some daylight and can go back and do a better search. If he was there, he’s long gone by now. We’ll go out at first light, before the rain sets in, and if he left so much as a hair on a branch we’ll find it,’ he said.

‘You make sure you do,’ Ellis said. ‘This is my home, damn it. It’s safe, off limits to the world. I hire you to keep it that way. Now take care of it.’

Chapter Twenty-
Three

He shoved his way into the Ford Focus, not bothering to take off his wet boots. They were only a minor discomfort, barely registering in the scheme of things. The forced march down the hill had cooled his rage and left him exhilarated, feeling justified, purified, and almost untouched by the whoring he had just witnessed. He had reminded himself all the way down that he had known what he’d find, that he had known what the two of them would be up to there on the ground behind Ellison Thorne’s mansion, and it wasn’t star-watching.

Oh, he’d seen the whole thing, from their arrival with blankets and goodies, to their little argument, to the first thrusts and moans of their passion. He had forced himself to watch. And with the night vision goggles, he could see every detail. He had forced himself to watch and he had forced himself to hold his lust, to sublimate it, to save it back for her. It wasn’t time yet. It was an exercise in patience, in waiting, in pushing his feelings back far enough that he could do what he had to do and not let emotions interfere. It was also his way of reminding them that he could get to them anywhere they went, even on the private property of Garrett’s powerful brother. It was a reminder of how helpless they were and how completely in control he was.

He started the car and headed back toward Portland. His work here was done. The time was getting closer, but he wasn’t quite ready yet. As he drove the car down the winding road, he replayed the view of the two of them stumbling blindly through the woods, unaware of the fact that he could see everything. Everything. It delighted him that he had been so close behind her when she fell. She sensed him there and had just looked over her shoulder when she tripped. He saw it all happening, saw the root she caught her foot in, saw her lurch forward just as he had reached out to touch her.

A bold move on his part, and he would have done it, could have done it, just brushed her shoulder, maybe her cheek; just let her hear him breathe before he vanished into the dark. She would have been terrified, and totally blind to the danger she was in. The thought made him hard, and he absently laid his hand against the fly of his jeans where his erection stirred. The whole incident had aroused him so, even as the sight of Thorne fucking his Tess had enraged him. But this time he held his control. This time he didn’t falter. His time would come. She would pay, and pay dearly.

When she had fallen and winded herself, he decided on discretion. There was so little challenge in frightening her when she couldn’t run, when she was helpless. There was no sport in that, and besides, he had gotten what came for. He’d proven his point. She was his for the taking. And when the time was right, he would take her. And no one could stop him.

By the time security stumbled into the woods, he had already found the stream and, just to be on the safe side, had waded it back down to the road below where his car was. The woods had been dry. There had been no rain for several days. There would be no tracks, nothing for them to find. And even if they did it wouldn’t matter. They’d never find him in time.

He pulled his hand away from the absent stroke, stroke, stroke of his hard-on and took deep, even breaths. He was in control. Complete control, and even his lust he could hold until the time was right.

When he was calm again, and his arousal had settled to the soft buzz of satisfaction from a task well done, he stopped at an all-night grocer as he entered Gresham. He bought eggs, milk, and a couple of steaks. He was pretty sure there was a skillet in the apartment. He was starving, and the steaks would be a treat, a way of celebrating how close he was, a way of savoring the night’s encounter.

Kendra found Garrett in the bathroom leaning over the sink. At first she thought he was being sick until she saw the blood. It was all over his shirt and drying on his face. He was gingerly examining the cut along one cheekbone. She’d cleaned herself and changed into her yoga pants and a T-shirt Dee had let her borrow.

‘You all right?’ she asked. A stupid question, but it made him aware of her presence, and they were all a little jumpy after what had happened tonight. She hadn’t wanted to sneak up on him.

‘Jesus, Kendra, don’t you ever knock?’ The irritation in his voice surprised her.

‘The door was open, and here you are bleeding over the sink.’

‘The door was open because I thought I was alone, and I’m not bleeding any more. Not much.’

‘Sit down.’ She nodded to the edge of the bathtub.

‘I don’t want to sit down,’ he protested. ‘I want you to leave me alone.’ He jerked his arm away from her and she felt his words like she’d been slapped, but she squared her shoulders and nodded to the side of the tub again.

‘I don’t care what you want, now sit down and let me look at it.’

‘Goddamnit, leave me alone!’ He shoved her away. ‘Can’t you ever just let it be? Can’t you ever just let me do what I need to do?’

She stepped back with her hands up, a wave of angry confusion washing over her.

‘Don’t you get it? You could have died because of me.’ He stood bleeding in the middle of the bathroom floor with both hands clenched at his side in tight fists. Even beneath the drying blood and the dust, she could see the tensing of muscles along his jaw and down the sides of his neck.

‘You’re the only one here I see bleeding,’ she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. ‘Now please, Garrett, sit down and let me take care of that.’

He stood staring at her as though he was struggling to understand what she wanted of him, then he dropped onto the edge of the tub with a wounded-animal growl. He sat passively while she undid his shirt and slid it off his shoulders, running a hand down his chest across his sternum. He tensed beneath her touch and his eyelids fluttered. God, she could never keep her hands off him, not after the first time, not after she had been in his arms. He caught her hand and gave it a tight squeeze before letting her go.

Then she found a washcloth, soaked it in warm water, and carefully wiped the blood away from his cheek and from the cut. ‘It’s not deep,’ she said, unable to hide the tremor of relief in her voice at knowing that he was safe here with her, at knowing that his wounds were minor. ‘Doubt there’ll be a scar.’ She offered him a tease of a smile. ‘Too bad, really, scars in just the right place can be so sexy.’

He grunted what might have been a chuckle, what might have been a growl. ‘Sorry to disappoint. I’ll try for a bigger branch next time.’

As she turned to rinse out the washcloth in the sink, he pulled her to him, between his legs, wrapping his arms around her waist, resting his head just below her breasts. He held her there, his breathing accelerated, his pulse a wild fluttering at the soft spot beneath his ear. She pulled him close, viewing the crown of his dark head through a mist of tears, fighting the fierceness of the emotions that threatened to unravel her. She told herself it was just the events of the night. Nothing else. They just needed the comfort of each other. They just needed the reassuring closeness of being together.

He tightened his grip until she could just barely breathe, and she returned the favor, letting the washcloth fall into the bathtub behind them. Neither of them moved. And frankly she didn’t care if they never moved again, here in the bright, safe warmth of Ellis’s house, wrapped in each other’s arms. She’d been in a lot of places in her life. Some of them had been amazing, once-in-a-lifetime places, some of them had been horrendous nightmares of places, but none of them had ever been better, or more frightening than this, than being held in the arms of Garrett Thorne in this moment, in this quiet second when the rest of the world was locked outside.

But the moment passed, and at last he spoke into her sternum. ‘I’ve changed my mind, Kendra. I’ll have Don arrange another chance for us to speak to the press.’

‘Good.’ She pulled away, retrieved the washcloth, and continued her ministerings to his wounded face. ‘Glad we agree. This should help us get some idea if Razor Sharp is with the press outside your house.’

‘Kendra.’ He grabbed her wrist, stilling her hand against his cheek. ‘I want Don to call a press conference so I can tell them that I’m …’ He took a deep breath. ‘I want Don to call a press conference so I can tell them that I’m Tess Delaney.’ The words seemed painful as he forced them up from his throat.

‘Garrett, you can’t be serious.’ She lifted his chin and forced him to meet her gaze. ‘This can’t be what you want.’

He pulled away. ‘I don’t see what a big deal it is anyway. I mean, you think I should come clean about Tess, and I know Ellis and Stacie do.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘Not like this, not because you feel forced to. And you can’t really believe it would keep me safe or make any difference in the situation.’

‘I can’t protect you when you do things like you did tonight,’ he said. ‘If I come clean and we get you out of here, I don’t know, maybe somewhere abroad for a few weeks, maybe longer. Maybe we could change your appearance before you come back. Clearly that’s easy enough for you to do.’

She sat down on the edge of the tub next to him. ‘This is my home, Garrett. I don’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t want to run away again. And I don’t want to be anyone else either.’

‘You’re being Tess,’ he said.

‘I’m being Tess because that’s my job. You hired me.’

‘That’s my point, Kendra. I hired you. I put you at risk because I didn’t have the balls to own up to being Tess.’

‘Damn it, Garrett!’ she gave the bloodied washcloth a hard lob into the sink. ‘You know what you are? You’re a coward. You don’t want to be Tess and you don’t want to be Garrett Thorne either. Who the fuck do you want to be?’

‘Well, I’m not very good at being either, really, am I?’

‘Who on earth told you that? Where did you get such a stupid idea?’ She held his face in her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye. ‘What? Is it because you’re not a very good Ellis? Well, guess what, Ellis would make a lousy Garrett. The very thought makes me cringe, and he’d make an even worse Tess, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop blaming yourself and let’s just get on with it. Let me do what I do best. That is what you hired me for, isn’t it?’

He pulled her to him so hard that the vertebrae in her neck popped and she offered a little gasp. ‘I need you safe, Kendra. I need that more than anything else. I need you safe.’

‘I’ll be safe, Garrett, and I’ll be a lot more likely to stay safe if you stop feeling guilty for protecting Tess, for doing what you felt you had to do.’

Galina had hot chocolate waiting when they were both cleaned up and dressed. Harold, Ellis’s butler, had built a fire in the fireplace, and they joined Dee and Ellis around it. It was high summer. They didn’t need the heat, but it warmed places that had nothing to do with anything physical. Garrett sat with his arm wrapped around Kendra possessively. He’d been that way ever since he found her in the woods. She was never in any real danger. At least, she hadn’t thought she was, but if it had been him, if she had lost him, even for a minute … She shivered at the thought and settled still closer to him. Tomorrow she would worry about that, about how she couldn’t let him go into the woods alone, about the cold knot she’d felt in her chest at the fear of him going in and not coming back.

They had told Ellis and Dee about Kendra’s shower experience and the police had been notified, even though it was clear there was nothing they could do. Ellis had more faith in his security teams and the detectives he always used when he needed that sort of help.

‘God, Kendra.’ Dee shivered. ‘I can’t believe this guy was right in the house with you, right in the bathroom. What stopped him? What made him leave? Do you have any idea?’

Kendra shook her head. ‘I thought it was Garrett. He just stood there for a few seconds, watching me, I guess. Obviously I couldn’t make out the details of his face or I would have known it wasn’t Garrett. Then, after a little while, he turned and left.’

‘Security has searched the house and the back yard as best they could in the dark,’ Garrett said. ‘So far they’ve found no evidence of the man.

‘But he was there,’ Kendra said. ‘He was there all right.’

‘If this is the same man you saw in the woods,’ Ellis said, ‘I just can’t imagine how anyone could have known that you were here.’

‘He could have made a guess,’ Kendra said. ‘I mean, Garrett’s your brother and this is a place where we’d have more privacy. It wouldn’t be a difficult deduction to make.’

‘Through the woods is the only way onto the property without security knowing it,’ Ellis said. ‘And that’s not an easy route unless you know it. I never wanted that kind of protection,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘I never wanted my home to be a fortress, but I’ve made some pretty powerful enemies in the past few years, and both Beverly and Wade insisted. I never expected that it would ever really be necessary.’

‘I’m sorry I brought this to your home,’ Garrett said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ellis replied. ‘You’re family.’ He shot Kendra half a smile. ‘You both are, and the main thing is that you’re both safe.’ He held Kendra’s gaze for a second, then said, ‘Harris knows and so does Stacie. We felt they needed to know. Besides, I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with either of their anger if they thought we’d kept it from them.’

‘And Wade,’ Dee said. ‘We called Wade. He’ll be out in the morning to check out the woods, and he may want to check your house too, Garrett. If the security people miss anything, Wade’s the one to find it.’

Ellis glanced from one of them to the other. ‘You both need to get some sleep. We all do. Dee and I have rescheduled our meetings and arranged things so we can work from home tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’s a good time to leave the two of you.’ The look he shot both of them made it clear there was no need arguing with him, that the decision was final. ‘There’s nothing that can be done right now, and the bastard’s not likely to come back tonight. Though if he does he won’t find the house nearly as accessible as the woods.’

A dream of falling from a high place woke Kendra with a start. With her heart racing, she reached for Garrett, called his name. But she was alone in a huge bed in the strange room. It took her a second to remember that she was at Ellis’s home in his palatial guest suite. As the nightmare of the past 12 hours came back to her, she sat up in the bed, chafing her bare arms from something far more than cold.