The Trouble with Temptation (29 page)

Beau tugged at his ear, debating. Then he decided,
in for a penny …
“My dad was in ’Nam. Had himself a head injury. Ended up with memory problems for pretty much the rest of his life. He didn’t remember hardly anything about the war and when he came back home, for a long time, he didn’t remember my mother … or me. Bits and pieces came back, but not everything. And he’d forget things. All the time. Our house almost burnt down because he started a fire in the fireplace and then up and walked out of the house. Wasn’t nobody else there. Once, I found his gun in the freezer. I saw him put it in there, though he swears he didn’t. Mama had to take the bullets and everybody in town knew not to sell him any. He had problems with the drink, too.”

Gideon listened. Beau wasn’t from Treasure, hadn’t moved here until he’d accepted the position with the force ten years earlier. He didn’t often talk about his dad—not because he was ashamed, but because … well, Beau just didn’t care to talk unless he had to.

“He came after me for putting the gun in there,” Beau said, looking away. “Mama made him stop. She could always get him to stop. Right up until the end—she wasn’t there that day. When he finally realized what he was doing … well.” Beau stopped and shrugged. “The thing is, Chief, with head injuries and amnesia, people do things and don’t always remember doing them. Especially when there’s trauma involved. I know. I seen it, grew up around it.”

Gideon rubbed at his jaw and like Beau, seemed to take time, thinking through his answer. “Beau, I’m sorry about your dad. That said … we’re talking about two very different people. If you knew Hannah, you’d probably see that. Anybody who works with her, or talks to her … well, they can tell you that. This isn’t a woman who’s going to stick a gun in the freezer or leave a fire unattended.”

Beau studied his boss for a moment and then looked down at the rock and the robe.

“Okay, then.” Maybe he didn’t know Hannah well, but he knew the chief. Besides, some crazy shit was going on. Shayla Hardee, then that Maxwell woman.

So Beau would do his job.

He didn’t know whether he was hoping that she’d done something weird with her robe and the smooth little rock … or wishing that she hadn’t.

Which was the better alternative, he wondered.

*   *   *

“A rock? Really?” His wife laughed softly as they sat down to dinner.

Beau glanced up at Ellison and shrugged. For once, his beautiful wife wasn’t on call. He had plans that involved getting her naked and maybe bringing out his handcuffs.

She really did enjoy that.

“A rock. Her robe.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t think much of it, but the chief says she’s not the forgetful type. I mean, with her amnesia and all…”

Ellison reached out and touched his hand. “Everybody is different, love. You know that.”

He nodded, averting his eyes. He did know that. He’d come to accept—and even forgive—his father to some extent. It had been years since he’d thought about the old man with any kind of bitterness. But … sighing, he pushed those thoughts out of his head. He had other things in mind tonight that were much better than the past anyway.

“So…” He drew the word out, keeping his tone casual. “What do you think? Is she…” He hesitated, because this was dodgy ground.

“Damn it, Beau.” She slammed her glass of wine down, rising from the couch to pace. “I don’t know why you keep doing this. Patient confidentiality is patient confidentiality.”

She swung back around to face him, her full lips compressed, color riding high on her cheekbones. She folded her arms under her breasts and he had to remind himself not to stare.

If he got distracted, she’d get distracted and then she’d get pissed and accuse him of using sex to distract her.

The bottom line, though … with Ellison, she could get sidetracked with anything as simple as a lotion commercial—the kind where it showed a woman slicking up her legs with lotion before she went out for a night on the town with her man. He both loved and hated how easily she embraced her sexuality. Loved it, because he benefited from it. Hated it, because once upon a time, other men had, too.

Clearing his throat, he eased himself to the edge of the couch and braced his elbows on his knees, staring at the aquarium that graced the far side of the wall. It took up almost a quarter of it, built into the wall and catching the light of the sun as it came through the windows in the morning. He found it soothing. Ellison found it sexy. Go figure.

“Ellie … it’s not so much me wanting to invade privacy,” he said diplomatically. “You have to look at this from my point of a view.”

“
My
point of view is a doctor’s,” she snapped.

He surged upright, his temper snapping. He got damn tired of keeping the peace when she jumped boots first down his throat over the smallest damn thing. “And mine’s a cop’s, Ellie!”

Her eyes widened at the bite in his voice. Something sparked in her eyes and she licked her lips.

He held up a hand. “Don’t,” he said quietly.

Her lids drooped.

He wanted to swear. Then he did. “Son of a bitch. Would you listen to me? Ellie, if she’s stable and her head isn’t … if she’s not like my dad, then maybe she
didn’t
put that damn robe in her closet and that rock in the pocket.”

“It’s just a robe,” Ellison said softly.

“But that don’t matter.” He moved toward her and caught her hand.

She squeezed back and he knew the storm was over, but he still needed her to understand. Tugging her with him, they moved down the hall. The master bedroom had a big, elaborate bathroom, but he’d decided when they moved in that he’d just leave that bathroom to Ellison. Every damn thing in there had a place.

They stopped in the doorway and he flicked on the light.

After seven years of living here, he did know that certain things belonged in certain places. Ellison even had a list for when a replacement had to come in for their cleaning lady. There were two robes, one for spring and summer, one for fall and winter. The robes were washed, like clockwork, on Saturday mornings and then went back into place on the hook beside the shower. Two towels were precisely folded on the heated rod next to the robe, while another was on the rod inside the shower.

“If we came home from work, the two of us together at the same time one day … for once…” He caught sight of her rolling her eyes and he grinned at her. “Humor me, okay? Say it was Tuesday and you knew you’d left everything in its place and the cleaning lady hadn’t been in … now.”

He stepped around her and took the robe, carried it out of the bedroom and laid it on the bed, arms open wide, as though a person had gone to lay down in it and simply … faded away while the robe remained. “Say we came in and found the robe like that. Would you be spooked?”

Ellison swallowed, staring at the robe. Then she lifted her eyes and stared at Beau. “Yeah.” She nodded.

“So that’s my thing. I don’t know Hannah.”

“I do,” she whispered. “Not as well as some, but … yeah.”

She licked her lips and nodded again, slower, more thoughtful. “She’s a paramedic, baby. She’s a paramedic and she wouldn’t have gotten the go-ahead to come back to work if the state of Mississippi thought she wasn’t mentally sound.”

Beau went back to staring at the robe. Passing his hand over his neatly trimmed beard, he heaved out a hard sigh. “So the chief has a reason to be concerned. But why would somebody break into her apartment—and how
could
somebody break into her apartment so easily—just to rearrange some of her clothes?”

There was only one reason, though.

Somebody had wanted to scare her.

*   *   *

I’ve loved you since high school …

Hannah brooded over the decaffeinated sweet tea she’d been given along with her dinner.

She’d drunk half of the tea and had pushed her food around enough so that it looked like she’d eaten more than four bites.

She kept remembering bits and pieces of a dream and she kept thinking about a river rock, shoved into the pocket of her robe.

She hadn’t been back inside her apartment all day but she’d have to soon.

It was almost dusk and she was so tired, she was dragging.

Yeah, she’d gotten up at two o’clock, but she didn’t care. Night shifts had never been her favorite and between that and the pregnancy, her mental clock was so off-kilter, it was pathetic.

“Hey.”

She glanced up at the familiar voice and smiled at Neve. Nodding to the wide, mostly vacant booth, she said, “Please. Join me. Save me from myself.”

“But you look like you’re having so much fun…” Neve teased as she dropped into the booth. It was a big U, and she scooted around so that she and Hannah were side by side.

A big green utility-styled bag hung from her side and Neve slid the strap from her shoulder, letting it fall to the seat. She wore it with a silk shirt, a pair of slouchy, loose khakis, and sandals that looked like they cost the sun. Only on Neve could such a mix of styles look so coolly, casually perfect.

Dangles of gold and gems fell from Neve’s earlobes, catching in the dim light as she brought her hands up and folded them on the table in front of her.

“So.” Neve said the simple word with an air of finality.

“So.” Hannah echoed, drawing it out into a question.

Neve canted her chin up and arched a brow. “Seems like my bad luck fell into your lap.”

Hannah snorted. “Nah. I didn’t have some nutbag come into my kitchen and try to drag me back to Scotland.”

The skin around Neve’s eyes tightened.

“Ah, hell.” Hannah blew out a breath. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Why? It’s nothing but the truth.” Neve leaned an elbow on the table, shifting her body to face Hannah. “You got a different, special flavor of nutbag … into rocks and robes. Now
that
is fancy crazy, Hannah.”

Hannah couldn’t suppress a shiver.

Neve’s eyes softened. “Are you okay?”

“It was just a rock. He moved my robe. Why be so freaked out?” she murmured.

“Because you don’t know who he is?” Neve offered helpfully. “Because there’s no idea how he got inside your place? Because he came into your place while you were sleeping?”

“Yeah.” Hannah reached up and worried the neckline of her shirt, staring off into the distance, but seeing nothing.

“I don’t…” She started to say, only to realize she didn’t know what she’d planned to say from the get-go. She passed a shaking hand through her hair and then lowered it, staring at the faint tremor of her fingers. “Sitting here is making me nuts. I need to get out of here for a while.”

“But—”

Hannah shook her head. She pulled out the money she’d readied for the bill and dropped it on the table.

She hurried out the door, leaving Neve behind her.

Ian joined her a moment later.

“Brannon’s going to kill us,” she said quietly.

“We only promised we’d keep an eye on her while she was here, love,” Ian said, a grim look in his dark eyes. He skimmed a hand down her back, staring through the window at the bent head of Hannah Parker as she crossed the street. “We can’t exactly wrap her up and put her in a box, now can we?”

“Brannon would prefer it.”

“Well.” Ian seemed to ponder the idea before he met her eyes. “There was a time when I might have preferred it for you. But ya would have thrashed me, wouldn’t you?”

*   *   *

Hannah climbed into her car and drove.

She had no destination and nothing in mind, other than the plain and simple fact that she had to
move
.

Had to get out and had to breathe.

She felt like a million people were staring at her.

She felt like a million people wanted to ask her questions.

Questions … she had a million of them herself and she was almost certain there were answers locked up inside her head, but they were going to stay there, obscured behind a fog so thick, nothing could penetrate it.

You were down at the river, Hannah. Do you remember?

She thought about what Gideon had told her months ago.

Rubbing her belly with one hand, she pulled to a stop at the four-way at the edge of town. She had three choices. She could turn left and make a slow, meandering circle that would take her back through town. She could go straight and eventually find her way to the highway and that would put her on the interstate. Maybe she could just disappear for a few days. Not too many. Her savings would only last so long and she might be able to beg a few days of personal time, but eventually, she’d have to come back.

Or she could turn right.

That would lead her to the river.

To her houseboat.

To the running paths.

Do you have any idea what you were doing down there, Hannah? Have you ever seen Shayla Hardee there?

You saw something.

You called 9-1-1. Think, Hannah. Think. You need to remember.

Her head pounded hard, so hard, she felt herself getting nauseated.

But she turned right.

*   *   *

“She left?” Brannon pinched the bridge of his nose as he listened to Neve’s apologetic voice, coming soft over the phone line. His instinct was to snarl—that was almost the norm for him lately. He bit it back. “Neve, stop. It’s not … look, it’s not like you could sit on her, right?”

Neve’s laugh was weak. “Well, I could have tried. She would have shrugged me off like I was nothing.”

“Exactly.”

Both of them were close to equal in height but while Neve might have fit the image that society had in mind for their idea of beautiful—slim and lithe—Hannah looked more like a starlet from the golden age of Hollywood, a delightful powerhouse of curves. And he knew for a fact just how much strength those curves hid. Yeah, she could have picked up his baby sister and probably carried her across a football field if she had to.

“Any idea where she went?” he asked, gesturing to Marc to shut it down for the night. “She head home?”

His gut wrenched at the idea of her being in her apartment alone. He’d told her to hang out and wait for him at the pub. He’d been planning on asking her to … well, not move
in
with him, but maybe … well. Stay with him. For a while.