Stolen Seduction (26 page)

Shane’s eyes shifted from Teresa to Hailey, who was looking up at him with a wary expression and

eyes so blue he knew if he let himself he could easily dive in and never come up for air again. Beneath his hand, he felt Hailey’s skin, warm and soft and alive. So different from how he felt 90 percent of the time. And that hum in his blood, the one he was discovering wasn’t just a sexual reaction, ratcheted up another notch until every cell in his body was aware of only one thing: her.

You can’t save her. But maybe…she can save you.

“I will,” he said softly, never once looking away.

Teresa let out a long breath. Then she released both of their hands. “Good. That’s…good.”

Their eyes held even as Teresa closed her own. In the soft skin of Hailey’s hand, he felt her pulse

pound in time with his. It wasn’t until Teresa sighed that Shane and Hailey both managed to tear

their gazes from each other.

Teresa reached for Hailey one more time with weak arms. “Come here, m’ija.”

The two hugged. More quiet words were spoken. Then Teresa dropped her arms and turned her

head to the side to look where Rafe and Billy and Lisa were standing quietly watching the whole

scene. Rafe’s and Lisa’s eyes were both red-rimmed and bloodshot. Billy just looked lost.

Quietly, Shane eased out of the room to give the family privacy. And as he leaned against the wall

in the middle of the corridor, his heart thumping hard against his ribs, he tried to make sense of

what had just happened. For some reason he had the strangest sense the ice he’d built up inside was

slowly starting to thaw and break.

The elevator door opened down the hall, and Peter Kauffman, flanked by a woman with short dark

hair, headed his direction. Both were holding small paper coffee cups with steam wafting from the

lids.

“Maxwell.” Surprise was evident on Kauffman’s face when he reached Shane. He didn’t ask the obvious question, but instead introduced Shane to his fiancée, Kat Meyer, and made small talk about

Teresa.

It wasn’t a shocker Kauffman was here. He and Rafe were tight as brothers. What was a shocker,

though, was the fact all that resentment Shane had built up for Kauffman over what had happened to

Hailey no longer seemed important.

Moments later, Hailey stepped out of the room, and though there were tear tracks on her cheeks, she

didn’t break down, didn’t reach for him. Didn’t even look his way. She said a quick hello to Pete

and Kat, then announced she needed some fresh air before turning and striding away from Shane

down the hall.

If he’d been thinking, he’d have given her space. But that connection they’d shared in Teresa’s hos-pital room had done something to him. And he followed without a second thought.

She made it as far as the wide, tall windows that looked down to the parking lot before breaking

down. He caught her just as her knees crumpled and pulled her tight against his chest. “Let it out.”

Her hands clenched into fists against his chest, and her face dropped to his shoulder. He wrapped

his arms around her and held her close while she cried. And wasn’t it strange that normally a hysterical woman made him want to run for the hills, but this one? This one he couldn’t seem to get

enough of no matter the situation.

He didn’t talk, just rubbed her back and held her while she worked through her emotions. And he

knew when she finally had because she went still in his arms.

“I hate that you’ve seen me like this.”

There was the feisty woman he remembered. Her voice was muffled. And so damn sexy, all rough

and spent from the past few days, it made him think of holding her like this in his bed. Naked. Just

the two of them.

“Like what?

“Like this. A blubbering mess.” When she pushed back, wiped her cheeks and waved her hands, he

realized she’d pulled up her temper. But that was okay. If this was what she needed to do to work

through losing Teresa, he’d argue with her all she wanted. “I’m so not that woman. The kind who

cries and gets sick and needs someone to take care of her. Teresa was just plain wrong. You know

that’s not me.”

“I know exactly who you are, Hailey.” Her mouth snapped shut when he stepped close and ran his

thumb over her cheek to wipe back a tear.

Yeah, he realized as he caressed her soft skin. Over the last few days she’d definitely thawed him

out. To the point where he was actually starting to feel again. To think about the future. About what

it could be like. With her in it. But would it be enough to make up for what he’d done?

He dropped his hand and fought the urge to kiss. her “Do you want to stay here?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “I want to go find my father’s letter.”

So did he. So they could wrap this up. And maybe then he could figure out what he was going to do

about Hailey Roarke.

Nicole tossed her magazine on the coffee table in the lobby of the hospital. Pursed her lips and

tapped her toe against the carpet. What was taking so long? She glanced at her watch. She’d been

sitting here for nearly two hours. Were they just going to leave her down here all night?

Frustration growing, she headed for the Coke machine she’d seen down one of these corridors earlier. The elevator opened and Billy walked out.

She stilled. Caught her breath. Then wished she’d been ten seconds earlier and nowhere to be seen.

He looked like hell, eyes all red, hand shaking as he rubbed his forehead. Though he was alone, one

look told her everything she needed to know about what had happened upstairs.

“We’re going,” he barked without looking at her face.

She fell in line next to him not because he’d ordered, but because…hell, she wasn’t even sure why

anymore. “What about Shane and Hailey?”

“They left an hour ago.”

They had? She hadn’t seen them. But then there had to be numerous entrances and exits in this

place.

“Get in,” he said when they reached the car. He didn’t hold her door for her like he had earlier in the

day, didn’t give any indication he even wanted her there. Just snarled at her and turned over the en-gine, then glared off into space.

And she knew she had a choice, right then. Walk away from him and all this for good or…not. Quietly, she climbed in, closed the door and clicked her seat belt.

He drove faster than she liked, weaving through the streets of San Juan while “Maria, Maria” blared

out of the radio. She didn’t bother asking him where they were headed, but she wondered. Especially when the early evening lights of the city turned to darkness and a sea of green.

Forty minutes later he pulled to a stop in front of a rundown shack. The jungle was thick here, large

palm fronds and trees she didn’t know how to identify hiding parts of the dilapidated building.

Without a word, he got out of the car and disappeared behind the cabin.

She stayed, taking in the unwelcoming environment. Then figured enough was enough and went to

look for him. She heard water running, like from a river or stream, and smelled damp earth and

moss. As she pushed her way through vines that snared her arms and legs, she cursed under her

breath at the fact it was humid as hell and she was sweating—not to mention ruining her good shoes

—then stumbled when the foliage opened up and she found herself standing on the edge of a cliff

that seemed to drop at least a quarter mile straight down.

Her breath caught. The wind danced lazily across her skin, birds screeched far below, and the sky

was so close she thought she could touch it. In the distance, a mountain range rose, the peaks covered with clouds.

But the view didn’t capture her attention. The man standing dangerously close to the edge with his

hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, his eyes staring straight down, was all she could

see.

He wasn’t planning to jump, was he? Her mind spun as she searched for something she could say to

talk him back from the ledge. And came up with only one thing she knew he’d be interested in.

“Three.” When Billy didn’t bother to look her way, she added, “That’s the number on the bottom of

my mother’s bronze. Well, oh-three.”

He still didn’t turn to face her, which she figured couldn’t be a good sign. She glanced from him to

the ledge he’d inched closer to as her anxiety shot up a notch.

“I saw it last spring, hidden in the back of her closet. I’d gone in there to pilfer a pair of shoes because…well, I knew it would tick her off.” She waved her hand even though he still hadn’t looked

at her. “That part’s not important. What is important is the fact it’s gone now. I went looking for it

when I was home a few days ago. And when I asked Matilda where she’d put it, the housekeeper

said my mother had gotten rid of it. We had a little ‘tiff’ as my mother calls it, because I wouldn’t

give her mine. I haven’t talked to her since.”

When even that didn’t get a response, she eased down to sit on a large boulder, but her muscles

were tensed and ready in case she had to lunge and pull him back.

Her heart beat like wildfire when she said, “She doesn’t think too highly of me, my mother. The only consolation is she doesn’t think highly of Hailey, either.”

And boy, didn’t that make her sound like a bitter Jan Brady? Way to go, Nicole.

She blew out a breath. Wished he’d look at her or say something, and when he did neither, figured

she’d just keep on going. “You asked me why I hate Hailey? I don’t. Not really. I mean, not in the

way you think. It’s just…” She shrugged. “Nothing breaks her. I was the one my mother favored. I

was the one who got away with everything. Daddy…he tried. Early on I remember him stepping in

and intervening on our behalf with our mother, but she never backed down. And after a while, he

just kinda stopped. But Hailey…”

Her voice trailed off as she thought about the numerous battles Hailey and Eleanor had had over the

years. About Garrett’s repeated attempts to draw Hailey into RR and their mother sloughing the idea

off. Hailey had never wanted to work for Roarke Resorts on principle. No one had bothered to ask

Nicole.

“If anything,” Nicole said quietly, “it made her tougher. She doesn’t need anybody. Not like me.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” His harsh voice brought her eyes up from the ledge she’d been

studying as memories ran through her mind. But he didn’t look at her. He was still staring off into

the ravine below.

“I don’t know. I guess maybe because halfway up this mountain I realized if you were planning to

kill me and bury my body in the rain forest somewhere, there aren’t many people who’d miss me.”

He finally turned and focused on her, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his foot mere centimeters from the edge of the cliff. That strong jaw of his flexed beneath a day’s worth of stubble, and

though there was still anger and pain in his eyes from losing his mother, there was something else,

too. A hint of something soft that shored up her courage and made her go on, even though part of

her knew it was a really dumb idea. “Sisters should miss each other, don’t you think?”

“You have a long way to go to convince Hailey of that.”

She sure did, didn’t she? “I can help by giving her the numbers.”

“You don’t want them for yourself?”

Did she? She looked out across the valley and thought about her family, Hailey, everything Billy

had just lost. Was her need to prove her worth to Eleanor Roarke really that important in the grand

scheme of life? She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I’m not Hailey.”

He glanced across the rolling hills to the blue-green mountains beyond. “The native Taíno people

believed the good spirit Yuquiyu reigned from the mountaintop throne of El Yunque over there.”

Her gaze drifted to the mountain off in the distance. “Do you believe in spirits, Nicole?”

She knew he was talking about his mother, and the tender spot in her chest that had started as a pinprick the night they’d spent in her hotel suite grew by leaps and bounds. She’d felt it expand at the

racetrack, even when he’d been so mad at her he couldn’t seem to see straight. Felt it even more

now as a lost look crept into his eyes.

“I believe there’s a lot I don’t know,” she said softly. “And after everything that’s happened today,

I’m not ruling anything out.”

He looked down. Toed the soil near the ledge of the cliff. Rocks and dirt broke free and bounced

down the embank ment, picking up speed until nothing was left but a soft thud echoing up from far

below.

She tensed. And just when she was sure he was going to tell her he did believe in spirits, then step

off that ledge, he eased back, turned and walked toward her. The relief that pulsed through her entire body was as sweet as wine.

He stopped when they were toe to toe. “Stand up.”

She did, slowly, as her eyes ran over his square jaw, up to his hazel eyes and light brown hair so different from his brother’s.

“I don’t like lies,” he said. “And I won’t put up with half-truths.”

“I…I can do honest.”

“I’m not so sure. You’ve been scheming so long, I don’t even know if you can handle honest.”

“I can try.”

He stared at her until her skin tingled. And just when she was sure he wasn’t going to say anything

else, he said, “This is my uncle’s land. I come up here when I need to be alone.”

“You stay here? By yourself?”

“Sometimes.” He tipped his head. “Do you like being alone, Nicole?”

Her heart pounded against her ribs. He didn’t touch her, didn’t take his hands out of his pockets or

move any closer. But there was something in his eyes. Something sad and broken and lost and