Savior in the Saddle (12 page)

Why the hell did he want her like this?

He didn’t have an answer for that, and it didn’t seem to matter to his mouth, or to the rest of his body. He just hauled her as close to him as she could possibly get, and he kissed her as if he had a right to do exactly that.

He didn’t have that right, though.

Kisses and caresses would just lead her on. But that still didn’t stop him.

He tightened the grip he had on the back of her neck and angled her head so he could deepen the kiss. She tasted like…Willa. It was a taste he’d already sampled, and while there was the whole forbidden-fruit thing going on here, his response seemed about much more than that. He’d had forbidden fruit before, and it’d never tasted this good.

She made that mind-blowing sound of pleasure deep within her throat and pressed as hard against him as he did against her. They pulled away, only to catch their breath and, as if starved for each other, went right back for another round.

Soon, though, the kiss and the body-to-body contact wasn’t enough. Soon, certain parts of him started to demand more. That was Brandon’s cue to pull away, and he tried. But Willa held on, and he didn’t put up much of a fight.

“I’m on fire,” she mumbled against his mouth.

That was something he didn’t need to hear, but it wasn’t something he could forget, either. It was a primal invitation to his overly aroused body, and his instincts were to scoop her up in his arms and haul her off to bed.

That couldn’t happen, of course.

Brandon repeated that to himself but still didn’t pull away. Instead, he dropped some kisses on her neck and cupped her left breast with his hand.

“Still on fire,” she let him know, and she added more of those sounds of silky feminine pleasure.

Willa went after his neck as well and landed a few kisses in one of his very sensitive spots. Too sensitive. More of that, and a trip to the bed would happen whether it should or not.

Brandon forced himself to pull back.

Willa’s breath was gusting now, and his wasn’t much slower. They stared at each other, too close for him not to consider just jumping right back in. But he didn’t. If a simple kiss was leading her on, then this was a dozen steps past that at a time when Willa was most vulnerable. She was pregnant and scared. And he was taking advantage of that and this attraction between them.

She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and made another sound of pleasure. Brandon’s body clenched, and he took a huge step back.

“So?” she said. “What happens now?”

No way was he going to answer that. Because a response—any response—could get him in even hotter water.

“Ah,” she mumbled when he glanced away. “I guess that means we aren’t going to do
that.
”

“No,” he agreed. “Wrong time, wrong place. Hell…wrong everything.” Brandon mumbled some harsher profanity under his breath.

“Wrong man?” she concluded.

“Especially that.” He glanced away again and was sorry he’d said anything.

“You have that look again, as if I just poked a stick at a raw wound. You obviously have secrets you don’t want to share.”

She grabbed his chin and drew his gaze back to hers. “Since you’ve saved my life more than once in the past twenty-four hours, I would tell you my deepest darkest secret…if I could remember it.”

She smiled.

He didn’t.

“You don’t remember your secrets?” he asked. This was the first time it had occurred to him that she hadn’t regained her full memory after watching that DVD in the hotel suite.

Willa shrugged. “I’d like to say yes to that, but there are still blanks.” She drew in a quick breath. “On the drive over, I kept trying to piece things together, but I don’t remember how I ended up on the floor of that hospital.”

Good. Maybe she wouldn’t regain those horrific memories. She had remembered what files the gunman had forced her to access, and that had to be enough. Willa had already had enough stress without recalling an attack that had left her in a coma.

She touched his face again, turning him in her direction. “I sense you’re pushing me away. That’s probably for the best, if I were in a sane mode right now. I’m not. I’m in pregnancy mode where I need to protect this baby at all costs. I figure you’re my best bet for that protection because you have a genetic link.”

He stared at her. “Yeah,” he settled for saying.

Brandon almost left it at that. Almost. But for some reason he decided that Willa deserved something better. A better explanation. And she certainly deserved something better than him.

“My birth father is a man named Wade Decalley,” Brandon heard himself say. “My mother never talked about him much, and a few years ago, I found out why.” He paused long enough to gather his breath. “He’s a convicted serial killer, and he’s spent the last thirteen years on death row.”

Brandon realized it was the first time he’d said that out loud. The first time he’d actually told anyone the truth about his father.

Willa didn’t blink. Didn’t gasp. She merely put her fingers on his arm and rubbed gently. “I’m sorry.”

“No need,” he practically snapped. “I didn’t know about him when I agreed to donate the semen I’d stored for my military tour in the Middle East.”

Now she blinked, and she gave him an ah-ha kind of look. “Now, I get it. You don’t want to pass on your DNA to a child because of your father.”

“But I did anyway. I’m sorry for that, Willa. I’m sorry you didn’t get the biological father you thought you were getting for this baby.”

The corner of her mouth lifted, but she was also blinking back tears. “I think this baby girl has an amazing biological dad, one who would risk his own life to protect her.” Willa leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I don’t regret her having your DNA.”

“You might,” he mumbled.

She huffed, pulled away from him and fluttered her fingers in the direction of the bathroom. “I think I’ll grab that shower now.”

Brandon hoped it would help her relax, especially after their kissing session and his confession about his family
legacy.
He sure as hell could use something to help him relax, too, but he had too much to do. While he fixed Willa something to eat, he needed to call and try to get some information about Jessie Beecham’s murder and the files that the gunman had wanted Willa to tamper with.

That meant contacting Cash.

Brandon took a prepaid cell phone from the kitchen drawer. A phone that couldn’t be traced. He’d bought it on impulse, a throwback to his Special Ops days when he had been trained to be prepared for anything. At the time of the purchase, he had figured it would never be used, that he would spend the rest of his life as a sheriff, not doing anything that required a prepaid cell. But he needed to return to his roots in covert ops in order to keep Willa safe.

However, it would have to end there.

Once he had the answers they needed and Martin Shore and the danger had been neutralized, there would be only one thing left for him to do.

The best thing he could do for both Willa and the baby was to get as far away from them as possible.

Chapter Ten

Willa sat at the cozy kitchen table and ate the turkey and cheese sandwich Brandon had fixed for her. She wasn’t actually hungry, but she forced herself to eat because of the baby.

Brandon’s own sandwich lay untouched on the table across from her, and instead of eating, he was pacing while he talked on a cell phone. Since he’d been on the phone when she came out of the shower, she had no idea how long this conversation had been going on. But she did know that he was talking to Cash.

And Brandon obviously wasn’t happy about the answers he was hearing.

“Now you think Dr. Farris could be responsible for the leak?” Brandon challenged. He didn’t wait for an answer. He went to the laptop sitting on a corner desk and pressed some keys. “Because before we even met the doctor, Martin Shore found us at the safe house that SAPD provided.”

He paused, and she could hear the faint sound of Cash’s voice on the other end of the line. Unfortunately, she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“You do that,” he told Cash. “You dig into Dr. Farris’s background, and I’ll do the same. If the woman is dirty, I want her arrested.”

So did Willa. She cringed because she’d actually been in the room with the person who might want her dead. And she’d trusted the doctor. Well, she’d trusted her enough to watch that DVD that had spurred her memory and almost certainly created more danger.

“Cash thinks the doctor is the leak?” Willa mouthed.

He shook his head and held his hand over the speaker end of the cell. “I think he’s grasping at straws. He has no proof.”

And they didn’t have proof of Cash’s innocence, either.

“Good,” Brandon said several moments later, removing his hand so he could continue his call to Cash. The printer next to the laptop began to spit out something. “Because I’d like to talk with Dean Quinlan, too. Yes, you can do that. Have him call me at this number.”

Dean Quinlan—the former CSI whose name had been on the files at the hospital. Willa didn’t think she’d actually met the man, but like Brandon, she wanted to ask him questions about his involvement in all this.

“No, I’m not bringing Willa in,” Brandon insisted. “And no, I’m not telling you where we are.” He hung up. “Don’t worry. Cash didn’t send the fax. My deputy did, so Cash doesn’t know we’re here.” He snatched the piece of paper from the printer.

“Recognize him?” Brandon asked, sliding the paper across the table toward her. It was a picture of a brown-haired man with a thin face.

Willa shook her head. “No. Who is he?”

“That’s Dean Quinlan.”

She took a harder look at the man who seemed to be at the center of everything. Was he the person who’d hired Shore to kill her? He didn’t look like a killer, but Dean Quinlan could want her dead because she might be able to prove his involvement in the maternity hostage situation.

“He wants to talk to you?” she asked.

“Yeah. But don’t expect Quinlan to confess to any thing. Cash questioned him over the phone—Quinlan refused to meet with him—but the man claims he’s innocent.”

And he might be. But someone was guilty. “What about the actual lab samples at the maternity hospital? Did I tamper with them?” She shook her head, huffed. “Because I only remember hacking into them.”

“Cash claims the test results were fine. They did a duplicate set of tests at another site and came up with the same results.” He sat down across from her and met her gaze. “Of course, if you managed to tamper with the actual samples, then the duplicate test would give the same results.”

Willa put her sandwich back on the plate and tried to recall any other details. But her mind just wouldn’t let her go there.

“If I somehow contaminated or corrupted the samples, then how would I prove that?” she wanted to know.

“You can’t. But it’s possible they could exhume Jessie Beecham’s body to get what they need. There were two DNA samples in the files you accessed,” Brandon explained. “They were taken from tissue found beneath Beecham’s fingernails.”

“Jessie Beecham,” she repeated. “The club owner with ties to the mob who was found murdered.”

Another nod. “But this wasn’t a mob hit. Too messy for that. It appears Beecham had been in some kind of physical altercation with his killer before he was struck on the head with a blunt object. His wallet, gun and phone were all missing, so SAPD suspected the motive might be robbery.”

Willa gave that some thought. “Or maybe it was meant to look like a robbery?”

“Yeah.” And he paused again. “So, SAPD wanted a fast turnaround on the DNA they collected from his fingernails because they wanted a quick arrest. Beecham’s allies were making a lot of noise and blaming Beecham’s rival. SAPD thought they might have a mob war on their hands. Since the lab in Austin was out of commission thanks to the fire, they sent it to the secure area of the San Antonio Maternity Hospital.”

Which had turned out not to be so secure thanks to the gunman, and her. “Who would have known the samples were there?” she immediately asked.

“Anyone in SAPD.” Brandon mumbled some frustrated profanity. “Or someone who worked in the hospital lab itself.”

In other words, there were too many people involved to narrow it down to one specific suspect. She already didn’t trust Dr. Farris, Cash and this Dean Quinlan, but she would possibly have to add many more to her list.

Brandon took the photo from her and stared at it. “According to Cash, the DNA samples were held in a secure vault, and the handful of hospital staff who had access to that area all had the proper security clearances. They’ve all checked out and are no longer suspects.”

“Well, someone gave the gunman the code to get into the vault area because it was written on the paper he took from his pocket.”

“Cash believes the gunman could have gotten the info after the hostage situation started. A lab tech was killed within minutes after the gunmen stormed the hospital. It’s possible the gunman threatened to kill the tech, and he coughed up the code.”

“And the gunman killed him anyway,” Willa supplied. Then she thought of something else. “The gunman tried to call Dean Quinlan.”

“Quinlan denies that,” Brandon grumbled. “But I don’t buy it. Quinlan could have been bought off.”

“By whom?”

“By Wes Dunbar, the rival club owner. Jessie Beecham and he were long-time enemies. They could have gotten into an altercation that resulted in Beecham’s death.” He dropped the picture onto the table. “But the DNA samples didn’t prove that. The DNA belonged to a homeless man with a criminal record a mile long.”

“So, this homeless man was arrested?” Willa asked.

“He was. And his court-appointed lawyer did a plea bargain. The guy’s already in jail for manslaughter.”

But he could be innocent. All of this, including the hostage situation itself, could have been orchestrated to put the blame for murder on a homeless man when the real killer was still out there.

It didn’t take Willa long to come up with a possible identity for the real killer. “Wes Dunbar, the rival club owner, could have murdered Beecham and then paid off the CSI, Dean Quinlan, to tamper with the evidence.”