Stranded with the Suspect Read online

  “That door leads to the bedroom,” Andi said, pointing to the open door on the west wall. “And the ladder in the corner goes up to a loft. That’s where I always slept. What do you think?”

  Simon nodded. “It looks good. We should be all right here.”

  Not a ringing endorsement, but she would take it. She went to the table and lifted off the chimney of a glass kerosene lantern, turned up the wick and lit it with a match from the box that sat beside the lamp. Two more lamps fit into sconces on the walls. They cast a golden glow that dispelled some of the gloom.

  “I should start a fire,” Simon said, going over to the stove.

  “There’s a woodpile around back,” Andi said. She bustled around, pulling things out of cabinets, wiping down the table with a rag. Being here energized her. She felt sure of herself here, and safe in a way she couldn’t have felt on the road.

  Simon left and returned a moment later with an armful of wood. “I’ll start the fire, then get our things from the cruiser,” he said. “Then I might check in with the Denver cops, see if they have anything new for me.” He had called the commander and informed him of their change of plans when they had stopped for gas and a few more groceries on their way back through Johnson Village.

  “Unless things have changed, you won’t have a cell phone signal here,” Andi said.

  He scowled, something he did all too often, she thought. She didn’t sense any real anger behind his curmudgeonly expressions though. She thought of them as a kind of habit, or a shield to make other people keep their distance. She had done something similar when she played the role of haughty socialite. That part of her life seemed like years ago now.

  “I don’t like being out of touch,” he said as he arranged kindling inside the woodstove.

  “It’s only one night.” She stood beside him and watched him work. “I know it probably seems strange to you, but I like being where it feels like no one else can reach us.”

  “As long as you don’t decide to go into labor tonight.”

  She laughed. “I don’t think it’s a matter of deciding,” she said. “But don’t worry—I feel great.” All the terror and despair from earlier in the day had yielded to a kind of euphoria. Simon was alive. She was alive. They were safe.

  And they were together. Whatever they had between them—whatever she sensed was building—seemed too tenuous to last outside the crazy situation they found themselves in, yet her feelings for him overshadowed her doubts. Maybe this caring cop wouldn’t want to waste time with her once he had delivered her into someone else’s oversight, but right now, with circumstances forcing them together, she was going to hold on to whatever he was willing to give her.

  “I think that’s going to do it,” he said as flames licked up the side of the logs in the stove. He made sure the flue was open, shut the stove door and dusted his hands on his pants. “I’ll get the groceries and the luggage.”

  By the time he returned, she had lit the stove and put a kettle on to boil. “We have tea or instant coffee,” she said, studying the supply of staples in the cupboard. “Or the water Carrie sent with us.”

  “Coffee is fine.” He removed his coat and hung it on a peg by the door. Then he unpacked the food while she got out cups and plates. “Your friend Carrie must have thought we were going to Montrose by way of Texas,” he said as he surveyed the sandwiches, fruit, chips and cookies in the bags.

  “She wanted to make sure we didn’t go hungry,” Andi said. “She seemed like the nurturing type. Good thing too. Not everyone would let a crazed, weeping woman into her home.”

  “I guess we both have had our share of luck today,” he said.

  They sat down to lunch with coffee for him and tea for her. The simple food tasted so good, and not merely because of her increased appetite. Eating a meal in a place you wanted to be, with someone you wanted to be with, was the best seasoning.

  The meal done, Simon pushed his chair back. “You should rest,” he said. “I’ll have a look around outside so I don’t disturb you.”

  “First, I want to have a look at your chest.” She had seen the bullet strike him, had watched him fall. Until she saw his wound—or lack of it—she couldn’t quite accept that he was really all right.

  “There’s nothing to look at,” he said.

  “How do you know? Have you undressed and examined the wound?”

  “There hasn’t been time for that.”

  “There’s time now.” She pushed back her chair and stood. “There’s even a first aid kit in the closet if we need it.”

  “You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He moved to the sofa and she followed. He removed his gun belt and draped it over the back of the sofa, then unbuttoned his shirt and slid out of it. The Kevlar vest was a bulky, black shield over his torso, the place the bullet had hit barely visible as a small tear in the fabric.

  He hesitated a moment, then took off the vest, muscles bunching with the movement. “Oh, Simon,” she breathed, when she saw the angry purple bruising across his sternum.

  He looked down at himself and winced.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “A little.”

  She brushed her fingertips across his shoulder, then bent and kissed the bruise, the gentlest flutter of her lips that nevertheless made him draw in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry,” she said, and tried to move back, but he pulled her to him once more.

  “That wasn’t a sound of complaint,” he said, eyes dark with passion.

  The need within her—a different kind of hunger that had lain just beneath the surface all day—surged inside her. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, all of her longing and wanting and waiting telegraphed in the meeting of their lips.

  “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” he said, stroking her cheek, as if he needed to touch her to reassure himself she was real.

  “Come to bed with me,” she urged. “I want you to make love to me.”

  “I want that too,” he said. “But are you sure? With the baby?”

  “We may have to make a few...accommodations...for the baby, but you can’t hurt it. And I think it would do us both good.”

  His answer was to kiss her again, the burn of his day-old beard against her face a reminder that this was no fantasy, but achingly real—and for now, at least, so right.

  * * *

  SIMON FOLLOWED ANDI to the bedroom, where they were confronted by the unmade bed. “There should be linens in the closet,” she said, crossing the room to a narrow door. He watched her move, with the careful, heavy walk of the very pregnant. There was still time to stop this—to turn around and walk out of the room and out of the house. He could shovel snow or chop wood or find some way to work off his lust.

  But then she turned and smiled at him—as if he was the only man she had ever wanted, and he knew he wouldn’t leave unless she ordered him away. He reached to take the stack of sheets from her, and his fingertips brushed the underside of her breast. It was as if she had a direct connection to his groin, pulling the tension there tighter.

  They made the bed together, then she turned her back to him and began to undress. He watched, mesmerized, as she stripped, revealing full, heavy breasts and the taut, rounded mound of her abdomen. She was so obviously, intensely female and his every response felt heightened.

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Well?” she said, with a pointed look at his trousers.

  He stripped quickly, leaving his clothes where they fell on the floor, and moved in behind her, caressing her curves, kissing the soft roundness of her shoulder and the satiny skin of her throat, holding the weight of her breasts in his hands and wishing, not for the first time, that he had had a part in making the child inside her.

  She cupped his face in her hands and kissed hi
m fiercely, eyes dark with need, breathing rapid. “I don’t want to wait anymore,” she said.

  “No,” he agreed.

  She knelt on the bed and he positioned himself behind her, hands cradling her hips, her rounded belly. “Hey, what’s this?” he asked, running his thumb over the tattoo of a pink rosebud on the curve of her bottom.

  She looked back at him and grinned. “That’s my little secret.”

  “Mine now too,” he said. He moved his hands around to the front, massaging her breasts.

  “Yes, that feels so good,” she said. She closed her eyes and arched her back. “Yes.”

  She was ready for him, and he eased into her slowly, alert to any sign of resistance. There was none, and when she tightened around him he went a little senseless. He cradled her in his arms, wrapped over her and around her and in her. When he moved his hand lower to fondle her, she moaned and thrust back hard against him, her uninhibited passion fueling his own desire. But he held himself back, focusing on her, on teasing and pleasing her, drawing out her pleasure as well as his own.

  She moved easily beneath him, setting the pace, thrusting back against him, then rocking forward, eyes closed, a half smile curving her lips as she lost herself in some private pleasure. Watching her fueled his own arousal, and he indulged himself in the pleasure of exploring her body, running his hands over her breasts, tracing the curve of her back with his lips. The tension building in her moved into his body as well, until he was holding his breath, balanced on the edge of his own release, waiting for her.

  She came with a loud cry, convulsing in his arms, the intensity of the moment stripping him of the last of his control and he followed her over the edge, rocking against her until he was spent and breathless, every pain and doubt and coherent thought momentarily banished.

  Afterward they slept, the sated, cocooned sleep of those who had found safe harbor in each other’s arms. When Simon woke it was almost dark, only a thin gray light coming through the windows. He eased out of bed and, still naked, went to build up the fire, which had burned down to coals. He found another blanket in the closet and draped it over Andi’s sleeping form, then carried his clothes into the living room and dressed.

  Outside, the snow had stopped falling, though a thick white blanket lay over the landscape, softening hard edges and hiding details of the world outdoors. Simon walked around the house, assessing its defensive position. Not that he expected to have to hold off intruders, but his training was too ingrained to ignore.

  He shoveled a path to the outhouse, then decided to park the cruiser out of sight, around the back of the house. The smoke from the stovepipe and lights in the windows made it evident the cabin was occupied, but he didn’t have to advertise by whom. On his way back up to the house he met Andi, on her way back from the outhouse. “Going somewhere?” she asked.

  “Not without you.” He gathered her close. “How about some supper?”

  “You really know the way to my heart.”

  They decided to eat in front of the fire. He insisted she sit on the sofa while he heated soup and served it on a tray. She sighed. “This is so nice,” she said.

  “Yeah, it is.” It couldn’t last—she was still in danger, and he still needed to get her to a safe house and set to work finding and stopping not only Daniel Metwater, but Victor Krayev. But he would try to set that aside for a few more hours, and focus on enjoying this night with her.

  “Tell me about the rosebud,” he said. “How did you end up with a tattoo on your backside?”

  She laughed. “I got it on a dare. Silly, I guess, but it made me feel rebellious and brave. I know to everyone else it looked like I had the perfect life—looks, money and social prestige. But the one thing I didn’t have was freedom. Someone was always watching me—either my father, to make sure I wasn’t doing anything to tarnish his reputation, or the bodyguards he hired to protect me, or the press who reported on our every move.”

  “So you got a tattoo.”

  She laughed again—a lilting cascade of notes that did crazy things to his insides. “I know, right? No drugs, sex or rock and roll for me. I got a tattoo of a flower where most people will never see it.” She shrugged. “I was a good kid, I guess. But in the end, I could never be good enough. I could never live up to my dad’s idea of what I should be.”

  “I know what that’s like,” he said.

  She put a comforting hand on his knee. “Did your father expect you to be a police officer like him? Surely he would be proud of you now.”

  “I’ll never be the cop he was,” Simon said. He could never be as genuinely good as his father—and his mother and uncles and aunts—had been. They had all devoted their lives to serving others. Simon had been cut from a different mold. He had realized it when he was still young, and he was sure everyone else could see it. He had come from a family of saints, and he was the bad apple of the bunch.

  “You’re the best cop I’ve ever known.” She squeezed his knee and leaned toward him, her tone teasing. “At least you don’t have any tattoos, do you? Or did I miss something?”

  He shook his head. “No tattoos.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “You don’t believe in them?”

  “I like being different.”

  “You like being contrary.” She nodded.

  “All right, that too.”

  “At least you didn’t get one and then regret it,” she said. “I know people who have done that.”

  “So do I.” He yawned. The warm fire and easy company had relaxed him completely. Andi was right—they had both needed this break from the constant stress of the past few days.

  “Daniel had a tattoo he was ashamed of,” she said. “He almost always kept it covered.”

  All lethargy vanished at this revelation. He looked at her intently. “I saw him dancing around the fire in little more than a loincloth,” he said. “I don’t remember any tattoo.”

  “It was on his biceps.” She indicated a spot on the outside of her left arm. “A lion with devil horns, mouth open in a roar, blood dripping from its fangs.” She shuddered. “Pretty gruesome. He told me he hated it, and wished he had never gotten it.”

  Simon and his fellow Rangers had been studying Daniel Metwater intently for months, but he was sure none of them knew anything about a tattoo. “How do you cover up something like that?” he asked. “Makeup?”

  She shook her head. “He had this elastic sleeve. It was flesh colored and really thin, but opaque. He could pull it on like an armband. You could hardly see it. For the bonfires, he would wear these tribal armbands over it and no one could tell. I probably would never have known about it if I hadn’t walked in on him getting dressed one night, before he put on the sleeve.”

  “How did he react when you saw it?” Simon asked.

  “He was angry, but then he calmed down and apologized. He said he was just so ashamed of the ink—that he didn’t think it set a good example for his followers. He asked me to promise to never say anything about it to anyone.” She made a face. “I guess I just broke that promise.”

  “When a guy puts a knife to your throat and threatens to kill you, I think it negates any promises you made to him,” Simon said.

  “I guess so.” She shifted to stare into the fire, seemingly lost in thought. Was she thinking of Daniel Metwater, trying to reconcile her love for him with all he had done to her? A black mood settled over Simon at the thought. She deserved so much better than Metwater, but when had love ever had anything to do with merit?

  “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the things I could have done differently in my life.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I guess the prospect of being a mother has me reassessing everything, but especially my bad choices.”

  “You trusted people who betrayed you,” Simon said. “Beating yourself up over that won’t do any good.”

  “Oh, I know that
.” She turned to him, her eyes clear and calm. “But I want to make better choices in the future. And I want to do what I can to make up for past mistakes.” She took his hand, her grip warm and firm. “Were you serious when you said you could help me get in touch with my dad?”

  “If that’s what you want, yes.”

  “I don’t know what I want. But...he’s the only family I have. And I miss him.” She shook her head. “I don’t miss the man he was the last few years—driven by ambition and greed—but the father he was when I was younger, before my mother died. What he did—killing Frank—was horrible. But I think, in a twisted kind of way, he believed he was protecting me.”

  “You could write to him,” Simon said. “Then if that goes okay, you could arrange to visit him—though seeing him in prison will be tough. Emotionally, I mean.”

  She nodded. “A letter would be a good start. Maybe writing down how I feel about everything that has happened would be good for both of us.”

  He studied the soft curve of her cheek, the silky fall of her hair—she looked impossibly young and innocent, yet she had already seen enough tragedy for a lifetime, and it hadn’t broken her. “You’re amazing,” he said.

  She blinked. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’ve been through so much, and you’re still so good.”

  She laughed. “There are plenty of people out there who wouldn’t agree with you on that.”

  “I don’t care what they think.”

  Something flared in her eyes—passion or joy—and she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Then I don’t care, either.”

  He pulled her close, and the moment might have evolved into another round of lovemaking, if she hadn’t had to stifle a yawn. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m so sleepy.”