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Rescue Me!
Elda Minger
Ladies' Night at Clancy's, the dry cleaner's or the produce aisle at Puccini's Market? The last place Cody Roberts expects to find a sexy woman is at a convenience store during an armed robbery. He's no hero, just a troubled actor playing action heroes for the silver screen and living on the edge.But Cody tackles the gunman and saves the day.Jennifer Whitney can't believe this gorgeous stranger has come to her rescue. She's shaken, yet intensely drawn to Cody's warmth and comfort–it's little wonder they spend hours making love, reaffirming life. But when morning comes, Jen senses that it's really Cody who needs rescuing…. Badly. And in her vulnerable state is she the woman to do it?
She couldn’t take her eyes off this hero
That sexy, muscular, masculine body who’d come to her rescue. When Cody bent to reach for his jeans, she said just one word.
“Please…”
The word sounded loud in the quiet of the motel room. He looked at her, disbelieving. Puzzled. But also desiring her. He couldn’t hide it any more than she could.
Jen held out her hand. She was acting on pure instinct, wanting to reaffirm life in the most primal way possible. Her throat felt dry, constricted with both fear and excitement.
He moved toward her on the bed, his eyes wide, his growing arousal evident.
She wanted to take him into her arms and offer him peace. It would be pleasant. No…Pleasant couldn’t begin to describe her sexual feelings toward Cody.
I want you, she thought, as I’ve never wanted another man in my life. With a single touch she knew she would set something in motion. Something that was always meant to be. Destiny. Kismet.
This was more than just sex.
Dear Reader,
When I looked up the word hero in my dictionary, there were several meanings, among them a mythological or legendary figure of great strength and authority. A man admired for his achievements and qualities, or a chief male in literary and dramatic work. Or perhaps a hero is a person who does brave deeds, like the main character in a movie.
There are many definitions, but we all know a hero when we see one. Someone rises to the occasion and becomes the best person he or she can be. The New York City firemen who displayed extraordinary courage in the face of absolute disaster that day in September. A best friend who keeps others going through tough times and despair. Or someone who hopes, and acts, against impossible odds.
Cody Roberts, the hero in Rescue Me!, is such a person. Faced with deadly odds, he chose to act. And in so doing, he changed the lives of three people, himself included, forever. I loved writing his AMERICAN HEROES story, and I hope you will all enjoy reading it, as well.
All my best,
Elda Minger
Rescue Me!
Elda Minger
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Nancy Cochran.
You are a heroine in real life, and this story is for you.
I’m so lucky to have you as a friend.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#ufaa70e5b-3b9b-5087-9e2f-dc57d7502fb1)
Chapter 2 (#u50bda507-6b98-5019-8c0a-d712068af3d9)
Chapter 3 (#u63005f67-4af5-5135-af1a-d5a825235760)
Chapter 4 (#u5c0ff892-d2e1-5e5c-8890-e0c00ca05f5d)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
1
CODY ROBERTS HAD SUFFERED through worse hangovers, but he couldn’t remember when.
His mouth tasted like the inside of a sewer. His eyes were gritty. He had to get to his job by noon, show up and convince everyone he could still do it. And he’d never felt less like going to work in his life.
But he had no choice. Especially not with his reputation. People he worked with depended on him. And more than that, he wanted to be able to depend on himself again.
Even though Cody wasn’t drunk, he drove carefully along the Arizona road, watching out for other cars. He wasn’t so hungover that he was a danger to others. No, if he’d been that wasted, he wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel of a car.
As low as he’d gotten various times in the last seven years, he’d never sink that low.
Fortified by a cup of black coffee from a convenience store a few miles back, Cody drained the last of the surprisingly good coffee and tossed the empty cup into the back of the rusty old blue van. With just a little more caffeine he’d be ready to head back to work.
Up ahead, just as the sun began to break over the horizon, he saw the familiar logo of another chain convenience store. Though desert sunrises were spectacularly beautiful, painting the skies with lavenders, pinks and golds, Cody didn’t allow himself the pleasure of enjoying nature’s gifts. He had a cup of coffee to get and a job to finish up this October morning—in that order.
JENNIFER WHITNEY STARED AT the front of the convenience store, wondering if she had enough energy to walk inside.
She’d been driving most of the night. Now, just east of Phoenix, off Interstate 10, she had to decide if she was going to take a detour on her way to Los Angeles by way of Sedona. She wanted to see those red rocks and energy vortexes and the Indian ruins and had planned on making this detour when she’d first started out.
But now she was wiped out. Perhaps the wisest thing to do would be to forget the coffee, find the nearest motel, check in and sleep for a good twelve hours. She needed to rest. More than that, she needed the sanctuary of a motel room in order to forget her problems. And they were considerable.
The need for coffee won out. She stretched, then grimaced as she heard all the little cricks and pops of her protesting body when she moved. Determined to get some coffee and hit the road again, Jen stepped out of the car and went into the store.
CUTE BUTT.
That was Cody’s first thought as he pulled into the convenience store parking lot. He eased the van to a stop on the far side of the parking lot, needing the little bit of a walk to stretch his legs and get some air.
The petite blonde had caught his eye the minute she’d walked into the store. He observed her through the glass, enjoying the view as she headed straight for the coffee.
Cute butt, he thought again. And a great car. The candy-apple-red Mustang sat in the parking lot, directly in front of the convenience store, the backseat piled high with boxes, blankets and what looked like a small table. He imagined that the trunk was crammed just as tightly.
She was moving. On the road.
He thought about talking to her, then realized he probably looked like the devil himself. After a long, lost weekend, he had a certain griminess about him, and certainly from the way his eyes were stinging and sensitive, they had to be bloodshot.
Hardly the best first impression to make on a lady.
And she was a lady. He’d registered that fact right away. The way she carried herself, the way she wore her clothing, even though she was dressed in jeans and a light pink sweater. He’d seen the slender gold bracelet flash on her arm in the early morning autumn sun.
For just an instant Cody wondered what a woman like that was doing alone on the road. Didn’t she have family to take care of her? A friend to drive with? The open road could be tough. Even dangerous. It wasn’t wise for a woman to travel alone, and she looked about as substantial as a cream puff.
Aw, so he looked like hell. He could at least go in, get that cup of coffee and wish that cutie a fine morning.
He smiled at that thought and reached for the door handle to the van. Cody was just about to step outside when a man, late twenties or very early thirties, dressed in ripped jeans, a black T-shirt and a jean jacket and boots, caught his eye. Long, stringy, dirty hair. Rounding the corner from behind the convenience store. He looked tired. Fed up.
And he was carrying a sawed-off shotgun.
JEN HAD JUST ADDED AN EXTRA packet of sugar to her coffee. Baby coffee, her friends in Chicago would have teased. She always liked to add a lot of milk, otherwise it tended to upset her stomach. She was sensitive to caffeine, so she knew that even with the small amount of coffee in the cup she’d get enough of a buzz to drive a little farther and find a room. Then finally she could crash.
She knew she must be really wiped because she was starting to have doubts about the wisdom of this entire trip. When she’d started out from Chicago, she’d been so confident that she was doing the right thing. But it got awfully lonely out on the road, and she’d had plenty of time since leaving home to question what she was doing.
She approached the counter, coffee in hand, eyeing the display of doughnuts nearby and wondering if she should go for broke and get one.
“Oh, go for it.”
She glanced up and smiled at the young man behind the counter. He had sandy brown hair, clear blue eyes and his face was sprinkled with freckles. Those eyes were amused as he gazed at her. He wore a faded gray sweatshirt and equally worn jeans.
She recognized a fellow optimist when she saw one. Still, he did seem awfully young to be in charge of the store.
“You’re the only one here?”
He seemed affronted, but in a kidding way. “Hey, Charlie couldn’t make it, so he asked me to cover for him.”
Well, that explained it. Jen couldn’t help smiling back at him. “How much are the dough—”
The front door exploded inward, and a man with long, greasy black hair yelled, “Get down, both of you! On the floor!”
And the nightmare began.
CODY HAD WATCHED AS THE MAN entered the convenience store. If there had ever been a sign from God for him to stop drinking, this was it. More than anything he wished he had a clearer head.
A girl with a gold bracelet and a kid behind a counter who looked as if he was barely out of high school—two people as good as dead unless he got in there and did something. He didn’t think scum like that would let either of them live, because then they’d be able to identify him.
Weighing his options, trying to come up with a plan to get everyone out alive, Cody stealthily moved across the parking lot.
“THE MONEY! HURRY UP!”
The cashier’s voice was shaking so badly, he could barely get the words out. “I can’t open the register, I can’t just—”
For one awful moment Jen thought the man was going to shoot the boy right where he stood.
“Ring up a bogus sale, asshole, before I blow your head off!”
Jen lay facedown on the floor. She’d dropped her coffee, flung it in a reflex reaction, and it had spilled all over the floor several feet away. She tried to breathe, tried to think, to remain calm. But it was so hard. Her heart was thundering in her chest; she could hear her blood pounding sickeningly in her ears. For a long, still moment, the longest moment, almost out of time, she had the strongest intuition she and this boy were going to die.
Right here. Right now.
Life over. Finished.
“Whoa, wait a minute.”
Everything within her stilled as the robber turned his attention toward her.
“Sit up and take off that bracelet. And keep those hands where I can see them.”
She sat up as slowly as she dared, hoping perhaps the young clerk could press a silent alarm button or something while he wasn’t being watched. But he didn’t have a chance. This man had done this sort of thing before, his dark eyes feverish as his glance darted back and forth between them.
He was drunk or high or both. And that was bad for the two of them, making this man all the more unpredictable.
“Take it off!”
She did.
“Throw it here.”
The oddest memory, considering her circumstances, surfaced. Her high school graduation and her father handing her the small, beautifully wrapped package. The happiness on his handsome face when she’d opened his present and he’d seen her joy.
She tossed the robber the bracelet carefully. She’d considered hurling it so he’d have trouble catching it, but she didn’t want to do anything to make matters even worse. This was real life, not some action movie.
“Nice.” The robber studied it briefly, then shoved it in his jean-jacket pocket. “Now the sweater.”
She felt nauseous as his meaning became clear.
“Hurry it up!” He glanced toward the clerk. “Get that money out, asshole!” Then back at her. “The sweater, babe. Now!”
Looking down the barrel of a loaded shotgun didn’t give her much of a choice or any sense of false modesty. Jen started to pull the pink cashmere sweater over her head. Slowly. Slowly. Thinking the entire time that she would rather die than have this man touch her.
CODY HAD TO MAKE SURE THIS guy was alone. That took a few minutes, but he hadn’t heard any gunshots yet, so he still had hope.
While he’d sneaked out in back of the convenience store, he’d formulated a plan.
Help me out here, okay? he prayed silently. At least let the two of them live. If this is the way you want my sorry ass to go, I accept it. But those two in there, they don’t deserve it—
Taking a deep breath, he kicked the front door open.
SHE’D JUST PULLED THE SWEATER over her head, still had her hands entangled in its sleeves, when she heard the noise.
Someone else—
“Hey, you!” the slurred, masculine voice said. “Whadda I have ta do ta get a cuppa—” He stumbled into the robber, causing him to turn.
Causing him to take the shotgun off her.
A drunk. Great.
Then the drunk moved so he was between her and the robber, then he turned, pretending to sneeze. His face angled so the robber couldn’t get a look at his expression, this crazy stranger gave her a look so full of fierce command, she almost shrank back. He inclined his head ever so slightly toward the counter, the movement miniscule.
And Jen realized he was no drunk.
The unspoken command in his eyes was unmistakable.
Get behind that counter. Now.
She did, crabbing back on her hands and knees, moving sideways over the slick linoleum floor, trying her best not to make any noise as the “drunk” continued to talk.
“Okay, okay! Hands up, I get it!” The stranger backed away from the robber, and Jen noticed he was doing an excellent job of keeping the man’s shotgun pointed toward his midsection—away from her and the young clerk. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Goddamn it, I said up! Up in the air, you bastard.”
What happened next went down so fast, she didn’t see all of it. The stranger moved so quickly, butting headlong into the robber and blessedly avoiding the shotgun. The gun flew up and fired, and chunks of the ceiling rained down, clattering against the linoleum. Jen got behind that counter in no time, and the young clerk threw himself down on top of her, covering her, then putting his hands over his ears, his wiry young body shaking as hard as hers was.
Then the sounds of fists.
One punch. A grunt. Two punches.
Then silence.
The clerk was crying, and Jen smoothed his short hair back from his face, offering comfort. She used her cashmere sweater, still tangled around her arms, to wipe his eyes. And hoped to God that their stranger was the one still standing.
She had the sobbing boy cradled against her as she looked up. The stranger leaned over the counter and smiled, his split lip bleeding.
“Guess I can’t ask him if he has any rope.”
“By the—by the car stuff, the oil and stuff,” the clerk gasped, then continued to cry. Jen’s eyes stung as she held him closer.
“Great. Be right back after I tie our friend up.”
She heard each decisive step as he strode across the store, paused, then walked back. Heard him unwinding rope. Then she almost started to cry herself as she pictured him tying up the man who had almost taken all of their lives.
“I’m okay,” the clerk gasped. “I’m okay.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’ve gotta call my boss.”
“Call the police first.”
The boy was in no shape to do anything. Gently disengaging herself, Jen stood up, reached for the phone behind the counter and dialed 911.
“Where are we?”
“Don’t worry,” the clerk said, then blew his nose. She recognized the signs of masculine embarrassment in his eyes. “The address will come up on their screen.”
He glanced up as the stranger approached and placed a large cup of black coffee on the counter, then selected two raspberry doughnuts from the display and put them in a waxed paper bag.
He set the bag next to the coffee and smiled wearily at them. “Just tell ‘em there’s been a robbery and their man is right here, all hog-tied and waiting for them.” He reached into his back jean pocket and took out his wallet.
“I really don’t think—” Jen began.
He threw down a ten-dollar bill. “That should cover the rope, the coffee and the doughnuts. How’s he doing?”
“Okay, but—”
He walked over to a display, plucked down a small, travel-sized packet of tissues, then leaned over the counter, making eye contact with the clerk on the floor.
“You did real good, son,” he said, handing him the tissues. “You didn’t lose your head.”
The boy simply nodded.
The stranger picked up his coffee and bag of doughnuts, then started toward the door.
“But—” Jen said. “The police are coming. Aren’t you going to stay and—”
He held up his hand. “I’ve got to go. People are depending on me.”
“But—”
He smiled, then grimaced in mild pain as the expression pulled his split lip taut. “Darlin’, I wish I could stay, but I can’t. You’d better get dressed—the police should be here shortly.”
Jen glanced down. Clad only in a delicate, lacy demibra, she might as well have been topless in front of him. But it didn’t bother her. Not now. She’d almost been killed.
“Wait!” She pulled her sweater over her head, flipping her long hair out of the neckline. “Wait! I don’t even know your name or how to thank you or—”
“You don’t want to know me,” he said and walked out the door.
2
REACTION SET IN AS CODY pulled out of the parking lot.
His hand—his right hand holding his coffee—started to shake. Setting the cup down in the van’s drink holder, he concentrated on driving. If the van lurched along at a slightly slower pace than was normal for this stretch of road, that was all right. The sun wasn’t very high in the sky and there wasn’t much traffic.
Two black-and-white police cars whizzed by, lights flashing, sirens screaming, racing toward the convenience store. Cody watched their progression in his rearview mirror, then turned his attention back to the desert road.
He couldn’t have stayed. The press would have had a field day. He could see the headline in the tabloids now: Washed Up Action Hero Makes a Real Rescue. Or worse. No, he wanted no part of it. He’d seen firsthand how the media destroyed people’s lives.
Hell, he’d been one of their supreme achievements.
He drove until he reached a shopping center, complete with grocery store, drugstore, dry cleaner, pet shop, a bagel shop, a health-food store and a Mexican restaurant. Feeling as if he were operating the van in slow motion, he guided it into the parking lot, where he chose a parking space on the far side of the stores. Turning off the ignition, he sat in the driver’s seat, staring ahead, seeing nothing.
Talk about a wake-up call. Today had been nothing short of a sharp smack to the side of his head.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, but finally he shook his head and reached for the bag of jelly doughnuts. He ate first one, then the other, then drank some of the strong, warm coffee. Just the ordinary feel of eating something, just the everyday smell of coffee, the taste of powdered sugar and raspberry jelly, was enough for him right now.
It comforted him.
Cody closed his eyes, then opened them quickly as he saw brief flashes of the robbery in his mind. Better to see what was actually out there. He focused his gaze on a cactus on the side of the parking lot and took a few deep breaths.
He’d been scared to death going into that store. But all he’d known was that he couldn’t let those two people inside die. Both of them so young and filled with promise. Both thinking they had all the time in the world when he knew that wasn’t true at all.
Older and wearier—but not necessarily wiser—he knew better than to take an optimistic attitude to life.
He checked his watch. He didn’t have to report to the set until noon, so he could afford to take a short nap. Even though he knew he probably wouldn’t sleep, he needed to breathe, to feel, to close his eyes and center himself. He could still feel the adrenaline buzzing through his bloodstream.
Thankful that the van only possessed its two front seats, while the rest of the vehicle was used for hauling equipment around, Cody got out of his seat and maneuvered himself into the back of the van. Someone had left an old sleeping bag there, and he unzipped it and spread it out, knowing it would offer his back some cushioning against the metal floor of the van. He stretched out on top of the thick material.
And thought about the blond woman. He wondered how she was feeling, where she’d been going, what was going to happen to her now. He wondered what would have happened if there had been no robbery this morning and if he’d been able to talk to her while she’d made her purchases.
Something about her had pulled at him. A flare of attraction. But something else.
He sighed. Stretched. Closed his eyes. Tried not to replay the robbery in his mind. Thought of his father’s ranch in Texas, the way it had been. The creek. Quarter horses grazing. The wind singing through the trees, the green tops and silvery undersides of the leaves making that subtle contrast in the sun. The smell of the earth. The feel of that sun on his shoulders.
It worked. Slowly but surely it worked. Despite the odds, he found a measure of peace.
JEN DIDN’T FEEL ANYTHING until she saw the young cashier’s mother enter the convenience store. An attractive brunette in her late thirties, she strode right over to her son, enfolding him in her arms.
“Oh, Johnny, are you all right?” Jen heard as the concerned female voice floated out from behind the counter. And as she watched mother and son, her eyes filled.
Her own mother had died when she was seven. Cancer had taken her quickly. Her father had provided Jen with every material comfort, except for the things she had really craved—love, understanding, acceptance and his time. Now, in this convenience store, if her father had come to help her, the first words out of his aristocratic mouth would have been blame. He was a master at assigning blame and instilling guilt. Something along the lines of What did you do?
She wondered if the clerk—Johnny—knew how very lucky he was.
She answered all the questions put to her by the police officers as best as she could. Concerned for Johnny, Jen sensed he felt the robbery was somehow his fault, or at least he didn’t believe he’d handled it as well as he could have. Needing to reassure him, perhaps as much for herself as for him, she approached the back of the store, where mother and son were now sitting.
Johnny had told the officers his full name was John McGann. Jen directed her attention to the young man’s mother. She didn’t think Johnny was in any shape to hear what she wanted to say.
“Mrs. McGann?” she said.
The clerk’s mother glanced up, her skin pale, her hazel eyes worried.
“I just wanted you to know your son was very brave. When—when we were behind the counter and we couldn’t see what was going on, he used his body to protect me. He would have—” She didn’t have to go on. All three of them knew what would have happened.
“Who was this man?” Mrs. McGann whispered, obviously referring to the stranger who had subdued the robber. “Why didn’t he stay?”
“I don’t know. But—but I thanked him. I—”
I don’t even know your name or how to thank you or—
Actually she hadn’t. She’d tried to, but she hadn’t.
“Well, he was an angel, protecting the two of you,” the older woman said. She eyed Jen. “Are you all right, hon? Would you like to come back home with us and have a cup of coffee or something? Maybe talk about it a little?”
When Jen didn’t answer, she said, “Do your folks live nearby? Is there anyone I can call to come and be with you?”
Another employee had arrived, ready to take over, as Johnny was clearly being given the rest of the day off. Jen hesitated. There had always been that part of her that had yearned for a mother, and Mrs. McGann was obviously a very good one, offering nurturing and support to her during the aftermath of this crisis. But Jen had a sudden intuition that if she didn’t get back on the road immediately, she might lose her nerve altogether and hightail it back to Chicago and the life her father wanted for her.
“That’s very kind, but I have to be in Phoenix later this morning.” Which was a lie. She had no one waiting for her in Phoenix. No one at all.
“I understand,” Mrs. McGann said, but Jen had the feeling she saw much more than she commented on. Funny how most mothers had that funny little sixth sense that clued them in to what was really going on. “But if you need to talk or anything, here’s my number. I’ll give you both home and work. And my cell. You can call me anytime. Anytime at all.” She scribbled the phone numbers on a piece of paper and handed it to her.
“Thank you, Mrs. McGann.”
“Laura. Call me Laura. And thank you for staying with Johnny until the police arrived. Until I arrived.”
“Of course.”
After making sure the police didn’t want her to remain for any more questioning and taking their card and giving them her cell number, Jen poured herself a large cup of coffee. She laced it with plenty of milk and sugar, took two of the glazed doughnuts, paid for her purchases over Johnny’s protests and walked outside to her Mustang.
The sage-scented desert air stung her nostrils as she breathed in deeply, and for one long moment she thought she was going to cry. There had been that moment, inside the store and on the floor, when she’d thought she’d never take another breath, and it felt so wonderful to still be alive. The sky, the air, the coffee—everything felt unbearably new, almost shimmering with life.
I’ll never take it for granted again.
Though little more than an hour had passed since she’d first entered the convenience store, Jen felt as if she were entering another lifetime. Though she was profoundly grateful to be alive, something crucial had been lost.
She’d realized how easy and inconsequential it was for some people to take a life, and that dark knowledge made her exhausted to her bones, to the depths of her soul.
And afraid.
As she unlocked her car, she thought of the man who had come to their rescue. He’d been tall and strong, and those blue eyes had been so intense when he’d silently ordered her behind the counter. And she’d obeyed, recognizing his strength and responding to it.
He’d been a hero in the true sense of the word. He’d acted in a heroic way with no thought for his own safety. He hadn’t had to come into the convenience store; he could have driven on or even considered himself a Good Samaritan by calling the police on his cell.
But he’d been a hero—her hero. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him; her memories of this man were so incredibly vivid. She felt as if they’d been etched on her soul, she’d been so touched by his selfless actions.
Jen knew she was being unreasonable, thinking of this man, spinning thoughts about him, wondering if…Most likely he had a family, a wife and a couple of children. She wondered if they all knew how lucky they were to have a man like that in their lives to protect them.
For an instant, as she slid into the driver’s seat and put her coffee and doughnuts down, she wished he was with her. She had a feeling if she could just lean on him for a few minutes, feel his arms around her, she wouldn’t feel so afraid.
But that was impossible.
CODY KNEW HE HAD TO LEAVE the parking lot, but he couldn’t seem to get his body in gear.
He was worn out. Perhaps weary was a better word. Soul sick, as his father would have said. He hadn’t had a whole lot of energy when he’d started out this morning, and the robbery had finished him off.
But he knew he had to get to work, so he set himself a limit of ten more minutes. Then he opened the van’s sliding side door and sat on the van’s floor, facing outside with his booted feet on the cement. He took in deep breaths of the cool, morning desert air. It felt fresh and open. Vast and timeless.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt glad to be alive.
JEN PULLED OUT OF THE PARKING lot, tried to take a sip of her coffee and found that she couldn’t. Her hands were shaking that badly.
Setting the takeout cup in the Mustang’s drink holder, she concentrated on driving through the small town, passing the first shopping center, driving by businesses and smaller, outlying houses surrounded by cacti and rock gardens. Trying to keep her attention on the road when her eyes were rapidly filling with frightened tears.
Aftershock. The shock was wearing off and she was starting to feel. And she didn’t want to. At least not while she was driving.
She was in no shape to be on the road.
The motel she finally spotted was on the far side of town, a small, pale pink stucco affair with a tiled roof. The neon sign, complete with a cactus, was turned off. But all Jen cared about was the black-and-white Vacancy sign prominently displayed.
She pulled into the parking lot, went into the main office and got a room, then drove a few more spaces down so she was parked in front of door number seventeen. Taking her coffee, the doughnuts and her overnight bag, she locked her car, then unlocked the motel room’s door and let herself in.
It was no resort, but the small room was pleasant. The queen-size bed had a clean, colorful green-and-cream-striped spread, and the room smelled fresh.
Locking the front door behind her, she dragged a ladder-back chair from the small table in front of the window and wedged it beneath the doorknob.
She knew this wasn’t normal behavior on her part, but she found herself suddenly scared, wanting to make the room secure, not wanting to be caught off guard. And she also knew exactly where those fears were coming from and that they were very normal after what she’d just experienced.
Jen sat on the bed. She forced herself to sip her warm coffee, then take bites of the doughnuts, chew and swallow. Automatically. Again and again, even though she didn’t really taste anything. She knew she had to go through these simple motions of living until she felt better again. Or at least until she got her blood sugar up.
The only thing she could compare the robbery to was a car accident she’d been in when she was sixteen. Her girlfriend had been driving when the car in front of them had gone completely out of control, smashing into the cement center divider. They’d plowed into the back of the runaway car. It had been over six months before she’d felt at ease in a car, either driving or as a passenger.
Now Jen knew it would take a while before she felt safe out in the world.
She stopped eating when the doughnuts and coffee threatened to come right back up, then walked into the motel bathroom. After a brief inspection of the small, utilitarian facilities, she turned on the shower, stripped off her clothing and reached for the wrapped bar of guest soap. It smelled of lemon.
If she closed her eyes, she could see the robber’s expression, the way he’d looked at her as she’d slowly taken off her pink sweater.
More than anything, more than even wanting to feel safe again, she wanted to feel clean.
CODY KNEW HE’D BE LATE TO THE set if he didn’t get it in gear. But his thoughts kept returning to the woman in the pink sweater. He wondered if she’d gotten to where she was going, if she had family waiting for her, a boyfriend or parents nearby. He wondered how she’d felt while being questioned by the police. He wondered if when she closed those extraordinary blue-gray eyes she saw the same images he did.
Forcing himself to finish the last of the lukewarm black coffee, he stretched, took a few deep breaths, then got into the van’s driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
He drove through the desert town, intent on making good time until he passed a small, pink stucco motel and glimpsed that familiar candy-apple-red Mustang parked out front.
There couldn’t be two cars with that particular paint job in a town this size.
Before he had time to question his judgement, he turned left, across the two-lane highway, into the motel’s parking lot, and eased the battered van to a stop beside the sports car.
He stared at the motel room door. Door number seventeen. And as he studied that door, he knew that the woman with the gold bracelet was probably having as bad a time as he was. Worse, because she didn’t look like the type to have been around guns for most of her life. Or lunatics.
Again he thought of the image she projected and the fact that she was traveling alone on the road. It just didn’t fit. Women like her were cosseted and protected by their families, by their money. Not let loose on the road.
He thought of that red car and all the belongings piled in the backseat. Was she running away from someone? Did she need help? Whatever her life circumstances, having been caught in the middle of a robbery couldn’t have helped things.
He sat in his van, staring at the motel door, knowing he was only postponing the inevitable. Something had pulled him toward this woman from the instant he’d seen her. Then they’d been thrown together and shared a pretty horrific experience. Now something was telling him to knock on that door and make sure she was all right.
He’d see how she was doing. Make sure she called family, or at least had someone in her life who knew what had happened and could help her. Then he’d leave. But he had to see her, make sure she was all right. He had a feeling she was hurting and needed help.
He glanced away from the closed motel door, toward the red Mustang. Something about the woman made him want to protect her. Make life easier for her. He wanted to know who she was and where she was going. He wanted to talk to her. He couldn’t let it alone.
Hell, he wanted to know her name.
Knowing he would do nothing to hurt her, acting on deep instinct, Cody opened the van door and got out. He slammed the door shut and locked it. Then he walked over to the motel room door and rapped on it sharply three times.
3
JEN WAS COMBING HER WET HAIR back from her face, clad only in a short, ivory silk robe, when she heard the three sharp knocks. The sounds made her jump. She came up off the bed with her heart beating, her hands once again shaking so much, she dropped the blue wide-toothed comb.
She moved to the door, peered through the peephole. And saw the man who had saved her life. Not even hesitating, she moved the chair back, then opened the door a crack, the chain still in place.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.” She didn’t know why, but she was ridiculously glad to see him.
“You okay?” He got straight to the point, and she had a feeling that this was his way.
She started to say yes—that automatic yes, that Everything’s fine so often said to the question How are things going? But her lips couldn’t form the words. She felt incapable of lying, of presenting that facade. Instead she felt her mouth tremble. She trembled. Her body felt as if it didn’t belong to her.
She couldn’t lie to this man. Though she hadn’t even known he existed a few hours ago, they had been through too much together.
Life and death had a way of bonding people.
“No.” The single word felt raw in her tight throat. She didn’t offer any protest as he stepped closer.
“Take the chain off the door.” That voice. So low and gentle, so soothing.
She did as he said, then seemed to watch from outside her own body as he opened the motel door further, stepped inside, closed it. He draped his jean jacket over one of the chairs, then he put his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the bed. He sat her down on it and took her into his arms.
“Go ahead and cry,” he said. “I may just join you.”
His deep voice was all the persuasion she needed. The sobs came up now that she felt safe in the circle of his arms. Something about the way he held her made her feel so protected. No one could get her here, now. She wasn’t alone; she was touching another human being—the only person who could truly understand what she’d been through during those terrible moments looking down the barrel of that shotgun.
She cried harder, remembering how he’d stumbled through the door, drawing the madman’s gun, making sure it wasn’t pointed at her. She cried because her first thought on seeing him had been that he was a useless drunk, another complication. Another problem. Instead he’d saved her life with no regard for his own.
Somehow she had to make him understand.
“I thought—I thought—” her words hiccupped on a sob “—you were drunk.”
He continued to smooth her hair. He simply held her, offering no judgement concerning her crying, simply being there for her. It had been so long since anyone had truly been there for her, and Jen clung tighter. She couldn’t let him go. Not yet. Not now.
“But when—when you came in—” She choked on another sob, and he patted her back as if she were an infant needing to be burped. Then he rubbed her back, his hands soothing, knowing exactly how to release the tightness. His touch both soothed and comforted. This man’s touch was like none she’d ever felt before.
“I thought—I thought we were all going to die,” she gasped out, fresh tears filling her eyes, running down her face.
“I know,” he said. “Me, too.”
Still those strong arms held her as she buried her face against his chest, her cheek smashed flat against his blue denim shirt. He smelled of coffee and sugar—the powdered sugar that had spilled on the front of his shirt. She held on tighter as she cried.
“Honey, honey,” he said softly, his low voice almost crooning. “Tell me where your family is and I’ll get you safely home. You shouldn’t be alone—”
“No!” She clutched at his shirt harder, then, almost as if seeing herself and what she was doing for the first time, Jen felt embarrassment. Shame. She was out of control, in an anonymous motel room with a virtual stranger, dressed in nothing but a thin silk robe.
She pulled away slightly, gazed up at the man’s face.
He doesn’t feel like a stranger.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. Couldn’t tear her gaze away. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. She heard the sound of a car drive by on the highway, then another. A door slammed.
She couldn’t look away from him. The strong line of his jaw. His mouth. Those incredibly blue eyes.
Why had he been put in her path? No, not merely put there. Flung there. She remembered the way he’d stumbled into the convenience store and suddenly realized—
“You knew,” she whispered. “Before you came in that door, you knew there was a robbery going down.”
He tried to look away, as if embarrassed by what he’d done, but she slid her hand up, cupped the side of his face, held his gaze. Her fingers seemed to burn where she touched him, almost vibrate with energy, it felt so intense between them.
“You did.”
He finally, almost reluctantly, nodded his head.
She continued to study him, knowing she would be able to see his face in her mind’s eye for the rest of her life. Those eyes. The dark brown hair with that spark of auburn shot through it. The slight stubble on his chin. His strong, warm, muscular body.
But it was his eyes…Something about them haunted her. More than the slight redness, more than the weariness she saw there. She sensed something inside him had died or had very nearly been extinguished. She studied him, and he let her look until his own eyes filled and he glanced away. Over at the window. Down at the floor.
Anywhere, she knew, but at her.
She didn’t know exactly how she came to the realization, but Jen knew he’d been ready to die for her and Johnny. Because this man who couldn’t look at her felt there wasn’t anything left for him. She’d seen it in his eyes. He was just marking time on this planet. He’d essentially kicked in that convenience store’s door this morning and begun a death mission. He hadn’t cared if he’d lived or died.
He’d saved her life, and now she knew he was suffering. A lost soul. And yet as lost as she sensed he was, he’d still helped her when that help had meant life and death to her. He’d still been a hero, his actions totally unselfish, his only thoughts to help her and Johnny survive that robbery.
She couldn’t stand the fact that he’d done such a heroic thing and was now suffering for it.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, stroking the side of his face with her fingertips. “No, don’t feel that way.”
He blinked, and it might have been as if those tears had never shimmered in his eyes. She watched as he slid the social mask into place. Almost like an actor’s mask. And she wondered if anyone close to him knew how badly this man was hurting.
“No,” she whispered, stroking the side of his face, then gently touching his split lip. Easing him back on the queen-size bed. Sliding beside him, all the while touching him. Her arms around him. Her body pressed against his. Simple human comfort. Simple touching. Letting him know he wasn’t alone, she was with him. She would be with him now and help him through this.
He lay back beside her, his boots still on, fully dressed. She snuggled against him, her cheek on his chest, and felt his hands in her hair. Stroking her, sliding his fingers through the damp strands.
“I don’t think either of us should be alone right now,” she said. How odd that she should recognize this stranger’s despair. Probably because it was so close to her own. She shifted closer, held him. Listened until his breathing became deep and regular and she knew he had finally found solace in sleep.
Just before she drifted off, a thought flitted into consciousness.
How strange. I don’t even know his name….
Then another.
But I do know him…. I do….
CODY CAME AWAKE ALMOST THREE hours later. It took him a few seconds to reorient himself, to remember how he’d come to this hotel room, to this time and place.
And this woman.
All of it came back to him, and he lay in bed, thankful to be alive. And thankful that this woman had been perceptive enough to know he was in no shape to hit the road.
He glanced at the bedside clock. He had just enough time to call Trevor and explain why he wouldn’t be at work today. Trevor would have to shoot around him, but unless Cody made that call, the director would believe he was out there, coming off a bender. The best thing he could do was clean up and be on time tomorrow, ready for work.
But he had to call him.
Cody reached for his jacket, found his cell phone and punched in the number. He waited, hoping to get Trevor directly but getting the director’s voice mail instead. At the beep Cody left a message, swiftly and succinctly explaining why he wouldn’t be on the set today. He told Trevor about the robbery attempt but asked him not to say anything to anyone. Then he made his apologies and hung up.
Perhaps he’d go to his director’s hotel room tonight when he returned and apologize for holding him up. He probably could have really pushed and made it back to the set, but intuition told him not to leave this woman alone today.
He eased himself out of bed, then looked down at the sleeping woman, her hair spread out around her head like a blond halo. She lay curled on her side in the large bed, the silky robe barely covering her. They’d both fallen asleep on top of the coverlet. Now he studied her, that fall of silky blond hair, those slender, perfect legs.
After a moment he eased the bedspread, blanket and top sheet down, then tucked her in. The air-conditioning in the motel room had kicked in as it had gotten hotter outside, and he didn’t want her to catch a chill.
He settled the bedding around her shoulders, up to her chin, and she snuggled deeper into the bed in sleep, then smiled. He watched her face, committing it to memory.
That hair. He’d loved touching it. Comforting her. And he wondered again how a woman so delicate came to be out on the road by herself. There was a piece to this puzzle he didn’t have or understand.
Yet for all that her appearance said she was delicate, she had a spine there, as well. She’d responded to his unspoken command back at the robbery site. She hadn’t gone all hysterical or fallen apart until they’d been alone together in this motel room.
She would get through this. He was just thankful he could help her along.
She was also perceptive as hell, and that scared him a little, if he were honest with himself. She’d looked at him, and within minutes of their being alone, she’d seen far more than all the tabloids and newspapers, than all the reporters and talk-show hosts had ever noticed.
She’d seen him. And she hadn’t been afraid.
Cody closed his eyes and took a deep breath, considering how he felt. His legs felt a whole lot more solid beneath him. Just that short amount of sleep and that human touch, that contact, had grounded him. He remembered reading an article that had said sleep was the brain’s way of organizing and making sense of data, and the short nap he’d taken with—
He didn’t even know her name.
Cody smiled down at the sleeping woman. The short nap he’d taken with this angel had allowed him to make sense of some pretty horrific data. As his mother had always said, things look a whole lot better after a solid meal and a good night’s sleep.
And, in his case, a shower.
Not wanting to disturb her, he moved as quietly as possible, picking up the blue comb at the foot of the bed as he headed toward the small bathroom.
Small wasn’t the right word. Miniscule was. And already crowded with her toiletries. Just enough room for a toilet, a sink and a shower. He was a big man and would barely have room to turn around in the small shower stall.
So as not to crowd it even further, Cody swiftly took off his boots and peeled off his clothing just outside the door. Entering the bathroom, he closed the door gently, then turned on the shower, already anticipating the feel of hot water on his tense shoulders.
The water was good and hot and plentiful. The small sliver of guest soap was lemon-scented, and he used a generous amount, lathering it over his body, feeling as if he were washing away the scent of fear, washing away all that had happened just that morning.
He ducked his head beneath the sharp, hot spray, then used some of the woman’s shampoo. It had an herbal smell, not too bad. Cody rinsed his hair, enjoying the feel of the hot water working the tension out of his body.
Outside the shower, standing by the sink with a white towel around his waist, he risked one more loan. One that was more personal but necessary. He searched through her toiletry bag until he found a plastic razor. Lathering up with the lemon-scented soap, he shaved, swiping away at the weekend stubble covering the lower half of his face.
When he finished, he wiped his face with a hot, wet washcloth, then combed his clean hair with the blue comb he’d found at the foot of the bed.
Feeling pleased with the way he looked and feeling so much better, confident that he could drive back to the set without breaking down, all he needed now was a good meal. Perhaps he could ask this woman—after making sure he finally found out what her name was—if she’d join him.
Opening the bathroom door and letting a rush of cool air into the steam-filled room, he stepped outside. Cody wished for just an instant that he had clean clothing to put on. Then he let the white motel towel that had been draped around his hips fall to the floor.
Just before he reached for his worn jeans, he felt a sudden jolt of awareness and glanced up.
She was awake. And watching him.
HE WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL man she’d ever seen.
Tall, strong and muscular. Powerful shoulders. Perfectly proportioned. She could see defined muscles in his legs and chest, even his abdomen. And his chest was covered with a sprinkling of dark hair.
Her heart in her throat, Jen looked up at his face.
He blushed, the reddish hue suffusing his face and neck.
She couldn’t imagine why—until she glanced down at his body again and saw he was becoming swiftly and gloriously aroused. His sex, as impressive as the rest of his body, was lengthening. Thickening.
Again, he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
She’d awakened at the tail end of his shower, coming to consciousness while hearing the steady, soft fall of water. Then she’d smiled seeing how he’d tucked her in while she’d slept. The tenderness and intimacy of the gesture had touched her deeply.
She’d known he was taking a shower in her motel room, and it hadn’t bothered her a bit. She, a woman who hadn’t let her own fiancé touch her intimately until they’d been together for over a year, felt perfectly comfortable with this almost total stranger taking a shower in her motel room while she lay in a queen-size bed clad only in a whisper-thin silk robe.
She didn’t know why, but there weren’t as many barriers between them. Or maybe she did. Maybe she’d gone through most of her life having perfected the rather distant, cool and collected social face and manner that her father deemed appropriate. And maybe she’d set out on this journey to the West Coast because a part of her—the wisest part—knew her life was slowly killing her.
Maybe she wanted to live. To really feel alive. To know what that felt like after having come so close to dying.
But she couldn’t take her eyes off him. That muscular, masculine body. That large, strong erection. When he bent down and reached for his jeans, she said just one word.
“No.”
Though she’d spoken softly, the word sounded loud in the quiet of the motel room. It stilled his movement for his clothing. He looked at her, disbelieving. Puzzled. But also desiring her. He couldn’t hide it any more than she could.
But Jen knew he wouldn’t join her on her bed unless she let him know that was exactly what she wanted. This man, this stranger, wasn’t the type to take advantage of a woman. But she wouldn’t have wanted him or felt as safe with him if he’d been that sort of man.
He hadn’t seemed to register what she’d said, and Jen realized words were not the answer. Actions were. She’d told him, but now she would show him exactly what she wanted.
Sitting up in bed, she slipped the ivory silk robe off her shoulders, letting it slide to her waist. She felt the cool, air-conditioned air in the motel room against her breasts. As she looked down at them, unable to look at him, she felt her nipples harden into tight little points of sensation.
She wet her lips, trying to find the words to tell him what she wanted. Her throat felt dry, constricted with both a sort of fear and an equal amount of excitement. And somehow she knew this was right, knew this was what she wanted and what he needed.
In the end she merely looked up and held out her hand, knowing he could see exactly what she was trying to tell him in her eyes. It had to be there—emotions this strong had to come out somehow. A part of her couldn’t believe this was really happening, that she was making this happen, but a stronger feeling told her that this was right, it had to happen.
The connection, that strange electric sensation when she’d touched his cheek, remained. Slowly he crossed the room. Then he knelt down on the bed as she slid down on the soft mattress, onto her back. She closed her eyes as she felt his fingers swiftly untie the sash of her short robe, then lifted her hips as he yanked it away.
She opened her eyes, watched him as he studied her for a long moment, looking at her body almost as if he couldn’t believe what was about to happen. What had to happen.
Their eyes met. Held. She knew he was giving her one last chance to back out, to reconsider, even though she could see he was poised and ready, tense with need, his sex swollen and full, painfully aroused.
But this was more than mere sex. She was acting on pure instinct, wanting to reaffirm life in the most primal, instinctual manner possible. After coming so close to death, she wanted to feel again, to know she was alive. She wanted to be close to him, as close as one person could get to another.
She wanted to take him into her body and offer him peace. She wanted to fully experience her own sexuality, which had never happened before. And Jen knew it would happen with this man. She felt more when he simply touched her than when other men had been inside her, moving, the sensation not horrible, simply…pleasant.
Pleasant was not a word she’d ever use in connection with her sexual feelings toward this man. It wouldn’t be pleasant with this man, it would be something far more than that.
I want you, she thought, like I’ve never wanted another man in my life. She reached up, her gaze never leaving his, knowing that with a single touch she would set something in motion. Something that felt as if it had always been meant to be. Destiny. Kismet. Whatever you wanted to call it.
One touch. One leap of faith. She only knew she had to take it, because he was making this her decision, he was giving her complete control.
Her hand came up, and it was steady. She touched the side of his face, now smooth. He’d shaved.
At her touch he seemed to shudder, and she saw he’d been holding himself in check for her. She smiled at him, knowing that smile was reflected in her eyes, and he turned his face and kissed her palm.
Sensation, electric and hot, shot all the way through her body. To her breasts, then lower, pooling between her thighs. Making her ache. She’d never felt this way with any other man and knew she never would.
She wanted this moment as she’d never wanted anything else in her life. She was being given something few women experienced in their lifetime and she wanted to take it. Her hand slipped around the back of his neck as she urged him closer, pulled him down on top of her. Their naked skin touched all along their bodies. She barely had time to cry out at the wonder of it, how it felt, before his lips came down over hers. His body covered hers. He moved between her thighs. And she simply surrendered to something that felt so right.
And for the first time since early this morning, that horrible morning when she’d thought she was going to die, Jen felt alive.
4
HE’D NEVER FELT MORE WELCOMED into a woman’s bed. More wanted. When she’d held out her hand to him, looking small and delicate in the middle of the large bed, his heart had opened, started to ache. And feelings he hadn’t felt in a long time had begun their long, arduous climb to the surface.
He’d sensed what she was offering him was more than a mere physical sensation or release. It felt as if he were being handed a lifeline. And he took it. He’d never wanted anything more. He took it and followed her down onto the bed in the middle of the day. Life might be going on all around them, but for this day, this hour, this moment, they were alone in the quiet coolness of this motel room, with just each other and the strong emotion that seemed to flow between them so effortlessly.
When he kissed her, it didn’t seem like the first time, they fit together so well. She seemed familiar to him in the best possible way, and he deepened the kiss, feeling his body quicken, hoping that it would not betray him or shame him.
He wanted her with the intensity of a teenage boy, that strong hunger and desire, but he wanted to give her the skill and knowledge of a man who knew how to love a woman thoroughly. Yet all of his desire, his emotions, seemed to be demanding he get as close as possible as quickly as possible.
He broke the kiss and, though he wasn’t usually a man who talked in bed, whispered, “Your name.” He wanted to know her name.
“Jennifer.” The one word came out on a sigh, so deeply satisfied, and it thrilled him to hear that tone in her voice when all he’d done was kiss her.
“Jen,” he said with a deep sense of satisfaction, and something flickered in those deep blue-gray eyes.
“What is it?” he whispered, looking down at her. His body was pressed into hers, even though he was taking most of his weight on his forearms.
She smiled up at him with a hint of tentativeness. “I like the way you say my name.”
“Is Jennifer better? Jenny?”
“Jen’s fine. You?”
It took him a moment to get that she was asking him his name. “Cody. Cody Roberts.”
There was the slightest flicker of awareness in her expression, and he prayed she wouldn’t suddenly recognize who he was and what he did. He’d had enough of those kinds of encounters—women who slept with him to get close to success or to get a part in one of his films. Or just to say they’d slept with a star. Even a fallen star.
“It feels like…I know the name.”
His whole body tensed.
“It must be because,” she whispered, “I feel so close to you.”
He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make love to her, to make it good for her, to lose himself inside her. In his experience, you were either attracted to a woman or you weren’t, and he was incredibly attracted to this woman.
“Jen,” he whispered. Then he kissed her.
SHE’D NEVER FELT THIS WAY with any other man.
It wasn’t as if she had a vast amount of sexual experience. She’d had only a couple of boyfriends in college and then Ethan. Ethan, who her father had practically handpicked for her and for whom she had felt absolutely nothing.
Ethan, who was waiting back in Chicago for her, even though she’d broken their engagement and given him back the flawless diamond ring before she’d started on her trip to California and freedom.
Her father had thought she was insane. By implication, so had Ethan. But Jen had known there was something else or someone else out there for her. She’d known that the life she would have had with Ethan would have gone precisely, step-by-step, according to her father’s master plan for an ordered life.
It would have been an emotional jail cell. A gilded cage. And she would have beaten her wings frantically against the bars, and no one would have heard. But the end result would have been the same.
Now she had a chance to fly free. To live.
She was glad as she looked up at Cody that no one would ever know about this encounter. She wanted it for herself alone, didn’t want anyone judging her or giving her any unwelcome and unasked-for opinions.
No one would ever know about the robbery other than the police and perhaps the local news. Certainly no one she knew. She would have this time alone, out of time, all for herself. She would give to Cody and, in giving to him, find out so much about herself.
She’d left Chicago because she’d been afraid she’d stopped feeling anything, and since she’d met this man she’d done nothing but feel.
She touched his lip. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
She smiled. “Then kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me again.”
He smiled down at her, and her heart sped up at the look in those dark blue eyes. “You’re really something,” he whispered, then kissed the side of her neck. “I didn’t come here thinking this was going to happen.”
“I know.” She hesitated. “I didn’t open the door thinking something like this would happen.”
That smile. Devastating. He kissed her temple and whispered, “Sure? Are you okay, Jenny?”
“Never better.”
He laughed, a low, satisfied sound that thrilled her, then she ran her fingers through his hair and gently tugged his head down to hers, his mouth to hers. And then one kiss blended into the next and the next, and her body began to soften, to become pliant and willing and so filled with yearning.
She was more than ready when he touched her breasts, when he moved down and kissed them, took them into his mouth and pulled on them strongly. Almost blind with need, her eyes shut, she arched up against him, all feeling centered where his hands and mouth were touching her.
And she couldn’t stop touching the strong, hard muscles beneath his smooth, hot skin. Her hands were restless, taking him in, learning him, wanting to commit him to tactile memory.
Before, she’d felt a subtle impatience from her partners, as if they felt she wasn’t quite keeping up with them, as if they were indulging her by going slowly. Now she felt as if she were racing ahead of Cody, on fire, impatient for what he was going to do next, wanting more and more and more….
When his hand slipped between her thighs and cupped her, she was almost ashamed at how ready she was. He looked at her as he touched her and saw the bright flush on her face.
“Don’t,” he whispered, sliding back up and kissing her softly. “Don’t go there, Jen.”
Her face was so hot, it prickled. She wasn’t at all surprised he read her mood. That short moment when he’d first come into the room and they’d sat on the edge of the bed had told her he was a sensitive man.
“Don’t stop, Cody,” she whispered. “Please…”
He did as she asked but kept his gaze on her face as she felt first one finger, then a second, gently push her open, move within her, stretching her, readying her—
“Oh!” The sensation that caught hold was a new one, and she looked up at him and saw a smile in his eyes.
“Yes,” he whispered, then kissed her hard, his hand relentless, his fingers so knowing, the sensations so strong, she closed her eyes, tilted her head back into the soft pillow—
And cried out as she came, her thighs falling open in the aftermath, her body first tense and then so wonderfully relaxed. She felt as if she were melting into the mattress as she turned toward him. Her hands trembled as she grasped his hard shoulders, seeking stability after having her sensual foundation rocked.
This was what had been missing. What had seemed like a hopeless amount of work with any other partner had come so naturally with this man.
“Mmm,” she sighed against his neck. Then she smiled as she felt him start to laugh.
“So, I’m funny?” she whispered. She’d never opened the front curtains when she’d first come in, and now with the only light coming from the open bathroom door, the room was dimly lit, like twilight. Not dark but not light either.
“No,” he whispered, pulling her more strongly into his arms. “Not funny at all.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was studying her with an intent expression on his face.
She touched that strong jawline once again, loving the feel of it on her fingertips.
“Let me give to you,” she whispered.
“It works both ways, Jenny,” he said. “We give to each other.”
“But I haven’t—”
“You will.” He took her hand, guided it right to where he wanted it, taught her how to please him. And she found that it wasn’t awkward as it had been in the past. She wanted to please him, wanted to make this good for him. It thrilled her that she had it in her power to excite him to this extent.
She was practically shaking with reaction when he finally rolled her over onto her back and slid between her spread thighs. And while she’d thought there might be a moment of discomfort when their bodies joined together, when that moment came, her body opened and she accepted all of him in one smooth, hard thrust.
He began to move inside her, strong strokes that seemed to burn their way up inside her, exciting her. She held on to him, grasped his forearms, his shoulders, wrapped her legs around his body tightly because she felt as if at any second she might come apart and fly off their bed.
And again, that racing toward completion, that tightening pressure deep within, then—
She came with a low, anguished moan, and he followed her, finding his own release, pushing into her and then, with strong contractions of his own, finishing.
She felt his muscular chest rising and falling, heard his labored breathing, ran her hands up his damp back and had never in all of her adult life felt closer to another living person.
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Elda Minger
Ladies' Night at Clancy's, the dry cleaner's or the produce aisle at Puccini's Market? The last place Cody Roberts expects to find a sexy woman is at a convenience store during an armed robbery. He's no hero, just a troubled actor playing action heroes for the silver screen and living on the edge.But Cody tackles the gunman and saves the day.Jennifer Whitney can't believe this gorgeous stranger has come to her rescue. She's shaken, yet intensely drawn to Cody's warmth and comfort–it's little wonder they spend hours making love, reaffirming life. But when morning comes, Jen senses that it's really Cody who needs rescuing…. Badly. And in her vulnerable state is she the woman to do it?
She couldn’t take her eyes off this hero
That sexy, muscular, masculine body who’d come to her rescue. When Cody bent to reach for his jeans, she said just one word.
“Please…”
The word sounded loud in the quiet of the motel room. He looked at her, disbelieving. Puzzled. But also desiring her. He couldn’t hide it any more than she could.
Jen held out her hand. She was acting on pure instinct, wanting to reaffirm life in the most primal way possible. Her throat felt dry, constricted with both fear and excitement.
He moved toward her on the bed, his eyes wide, his growing arousal evident.
She wanted to take him into her arms and offer him peace. It would be pleasant. No…Pleasant couldn’t begin to describe her sexual feelings toward Cody.
I want you, she thought, as I’ve never wanted another man in my life. With a single touch she knew she would set something in motion. Something that was always meant to be. Destiny. Kismet.
This was more than just sex.
Dear Reader,
When I looked up the word hero in my dictionary, there were several meanings, among them a mythological or legendary figure of great strength and authority. A man admired for his achievements and qualities, or a chief male in literary and dramatic work. Or perhaps a hero is a person who does brave deeds, like the main character in a movie.
There are many definitions, but we all know a hero when we see one. Someone rises to the occasion and becomes the best person he or she can be. The New York City firemen who displayed extraordinary courage in the face of absolute disaster that day in September. A best friend who keeps others going through tough times and despair. Or someone who hopes, and acts, against impossible odds.
Cody Roberts, the hero in Rescue Me!, is such a person. Faced with deadly odds, he chose to act. And in so doing, he changed the lives of three people, himself included, forever. I loved writing his AMERICAN HEROES story, and I hope you will all enjoy reading it, as well.
All my best,
Elda Minger
Rescue Me!
Elda Minger
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Nancy Cochran.
You are a heroine in real life, and this story is for you.
I’m so lucky to have you as a friend.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#ufaa70e5b-3b9b-5087-9e2f-dc57d7502fb1)
Chapter 2 (#u50bda507-6b98-5019-8c0a-d712068af3d9)
Chapter 3 (#u63005f67-4af5-5135-af1a-d5a825235760)
Chapter 4 (#u5c0ff892-d2e1-5e5c-8890-e0c00ca05f5d)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
1
CODY ROBERTS HAD SUFFERED through worse hangovers, but he couldn’t remember when.
His mouth tasted like the inside of a sewer. His eyes were gritty. He had to get to his job by noon, show up and convince everyone he could still do it. And he’d never felt less like going to work in his life.
But he had no choice. Especially not with his reputation. People he worked with depended on him. And more than that, he wanted to be able to depend on himself again.
Even though Cody wasn’t drunk, he drove carefully along the Arizona road, watching out for other cars. He wasn’t so hungover that he was a danger to others. No, if he’d been that wasted, he wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel of a car.
As low as he’d gotten various times in the last seven years, he’d never sink that low.
Fortified by a cup of black coffee from a convenience store a few miles back, Cody drained the last of the surprisingly good coffee and tossed the empty cup into the back of the rusty old blue van. With just a little more caffeine he’d be ready to head back to work.
Up ahead, just as the sun began to break over the horizon, he saw the familiar logo of another chain convenience store. Though desert sunrises were spectacularly beautiful, painting the skies with lavenders, pinks and golds, Cody didn’t allow himself the pleasure of enjoying nature’s gifts. He had a cup of coffee to get and a job to finish up this October morning—in that order.
JENNIFER WHITNEY STARED AT the front of the convenience store, wondering if she had enough energy to walk inside.
She’d been driving most of the night. Now, just east of Phoenix, off Interstate 10, she had to decide if she was going to take a detour on her way to Los Angeles by way of Sedona. She wanted to see those red rocks and energy vortexes and the Indian ruins and had planned on making this detour when she’d first started out.
But now she was wiped out. Perhaps the wisest thing to do would be to forget the coffee, find the nearest motel, check in and sleep for a good twelve hours. She needed to rest. More than that, she needed the sanctuary of a motel room in order to forget her problems. And they were considerable.
The need for coffee won out. She stretched, then grimaced as she heard all the little cricks and pops of her protesting body when she moved. Determined to get some coffee and hit the road again, Jen stepped out of the car and went into the store.
CUTE BUTT.
That was Cody’s first thought as he pulled into the convenience store parking lot. He eased the van to a stop on the far side of the parking lot, needing the little bit of a walk to stretch his legs and get some air.
The petite blonde had caught his eye the minute she’d walked into the store. He observed her through the glass, enjoying the view as she headed straight for the coffee.
Cute butt, he thought again. And a great car. The candy-apple-red Mustang sat in the parking lot, directly in front of the convenience store, the backseat piled high with boxes, blankets and what looked like a small table. He imagined that the trunk was crammed just as tightly.
She was moving. On the road.
He thought about talking to her, then realized he probably looked like the devil himself. After a long, lost weekend, he had a certain griminess about him, and certainly from the way his eyes were stinging and sensitive, they had to be bloodshot.
Hardly the best first impression to make on a lady.
And she was a lady. He’d registered that fact right away. The way she carried herself, the way she wore her clothing, even though she was dressed in jeans and a light pink sweater. He’d seen the slender gold bracelet flash on her arm in the early morning autumn sun.
For just an instant Cody wondered what a woman like that was doing alone on the road. Didn’t she have family to take care of her? A friend to drive with? The open road could be tough. Even dangerous. It wasn’t wise for a woman to travel alone, and she looked about as substantial as a cream puff.
Aw, so he looked like hell. He could at least go in, get that cup of coffee and wish that cutie a fine morning.
He smiled at that thought and reached for the door handle to the van. Cody was just about to step outside when a man, late twenties or very early thirties, dressed in ripped jeans, a black T-shirt and a jean jacket and boots, caught his eye. Long, stringy, dirty hair. Rounding the corner from behind the convenience store. He looked tired. Fed up.
And he was carrying a sawed-off shotgun.
JEN HAD JUST ADDED AN EXTRA packet of sugar to her coffee. Baby coffee, her friends in Chicago would have teased. She always liked to add a lot of milk, otherwise it tended to upset her stomach. She was sensitive to caffeine, so she knew that even with the small amount of coffee in the cup she’d get enough of a buzz to drive a little farther and find a room. Then finally she could crash.
She knew she must be really wiped because she was starting to have doubts about the wisdom of this entire trip. When she’d started out from Chicago, she’d been so confident that she was doing the right thing. But it got awfully lonely out on the road, and she’d had plenty of time since leaving home to question what she was doing.
She approached the counter, coffee in hand, eyeing the display of doughnuts nearby and wondering if she should go for broke and get one.
“Oh, go for it.”
She glanced up and smiled at the young man behind the counter. He had sandy brown hair, clear blue eyes and his face was sprinkled with freckles. Those eyes were amused as he gazed at her. He wore a faded gray sweatshirt and equally worn jeans.
She recognized a fellow optimist when she saw one. Still, he did seem awfully young to be in charge of the store.
“You’re the only one here?”
He seemed affronted, but in a kidding way. “Hey, Charlie couldn’t make it, so he asked me to cover for him.”
Well, that explained it. Jen couldn’t help smiling back at him. “How much are the dough—”
The front door exploded inward, and a man with long, greasy black hair yelled, “Get down, both of you! On the floor!”
And the nightmare began.
CODY HAD WATCHED AS THE MAN entered the convenience store. If there had ever been a sign from God for him to stop drinking, this was it. More than anything he wished he had a clearer head.
A girl with a gold bracelet and a kid behind a counter who looked as if he was barely out of high school—two people as good as dead unless he got in there and did something. He didn’t think scum like that would let either of them live, because then they’d be able to identify him.
Weighing his options, trying to come up with a plan to get everyone out alive, Cody stealthily moved across the parking lot.
“THE MONEY! HURRY UP!”
The cashier’s voice was shaking so badly, he could barely get the words out. “I can’t open the register, I can’t just—”
For one awful moment Jen thought the man was going to shoot the boy right where he stood.
“Ring up a bogus sale, asshole, before I blow your head off!”
Jen lay facedown on the floor. She’d dropped her coffee, flung it in a reflex reaction, and it had spilled all over the floor several feet away. She tried to breathe, tried to think, to remain calm. But it was so hard. Her heart was thundering in her chest; she could hear her blood pounding sickeningly in her ears. For a long, still moment, the longest moment, almost out of time, she had the strongest intuition she and this boy were going to die.
Right here. Right now.
Life over. Finished.
“Whoa, wait a minute.”
Everything within her stilled as the robber turned his attention toward her.
“Sit up and take off that bracelet. And keep those hands where I can see them.”
She sat up as slowly as she dared, hoping perhaps the young clerk could press a silent alarm button or something while he wasn’t being watched. But he didn’t have a chance. This man had done this sort of thing before, his dark eyes feverish as his glance darted back and forth between them.
He was drunk or high or both. And that was bad for the two of them, making this man all the more unpredictable.
“Take it off!”
She did.
“Throw it here.”
The oddest memory, considering her circumstances, surfaced. Her high school graduation and her father handing her the small, beautifully wrapped package. The happiness on his handsome face when she’d opened his present and he’d seen her joy.
She tossed the robber the bracelet carefully. She’d considered hurling it so he’d have trouble catching it, but she didn’t want to do anything to make matters even worse. This was real life, not some action movie.
“Nice.” The robber studied it briefly, then shoved it in his jean-jacket pocket. “Now the sweater.”
She felt nauseous as his meaning became clear.
“Hurry it up!” He glanced toward the clerk. “Get that money out, asshole!” Then back at her. “The sweater, babe. Now!”
Looking down the barrel of a loaded shotgun didn’t give her much of a choice or any sense of false modesty. Jen started to pull the pink cashmere sweater over her head. Slowly. Slowly. Thinking the entire time that she would rather die than have this man touch her.
CODY HAD TO MAKE SURE THIS guy was alone. That took a few minutes, but he hadn’t heard any gunshots yet, so he still had hope.
While he’d sneaked out in back of the convenience store, he’d formulated a plan.
Help me out here, okay? he prayed silently. At least let the two of them live. If this is the way you want my sorry ass to go, I accept it. But those two in there, they don’t deserve it—
Taking a deep breath, he kicked the front door open.
SHE’D JUST PULLED THE SWEATER over her head, still had her hands entangled in its sleeves, when she heard the noise.
Someone else—
“Hey, you!” the slurred, masculine voice said. “Whadda I have ta do ta get a cuppa—” He stumbled into the robber, causing him to turn.
Causing him to take the shotgun off her.
A drunk. Great.
Then the drunk moved so he was between her and the robber, then he turned, pretending to sneeze. His face angled so the robber couldn’t get a look at his expression, this crazy stranger gave her a look so full of fierce command, she almost shrank back. He inclined his head ever so slightly toward the counter, the movement miniscule.
And Jen realized he was no drunk.
The unspoken command in his eyes was unmistakable.
Get behind that counter. Now.
She did, crabbing back on her hands and knees, moving sideways over the slick linoleum floor, trying her best not to make any noise as the “drunk” continued to talk.
“Okay, okay! Hands up, I get it!” The stranger backed away from the robber, and Jen noticed he was doing an excellent job of keeping the man’s shotgun pointed toward his midsection—away from her and the young clerk. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Goddamn it, I said up! Up in the air, you bastard.”
What happened next went down so fast, she didn’t see all of it. The stranger moved so quickly, butting headlong into the robber and blessedly avoiding the shotgun. The gun flew up and fired, and chunks of the ceiling rained down, clattering against the linoleum. Jen got behind that counter in no time, and the young clerk threw himself down on top of her, covering her, then putting his hands over his ears, his wiry young body shaking as hard as hers was.
Then the sounds of fists.
One punch. A grunt. Two punches.
Then silence.
The clerk was crying, and Jen smoothed his short hair back from his face, offering comfort. She used her cashmere sweater, still tangled around her arms, to wipe his eyes. And hoped to God that their stranger was the one still standing.
She had the sobbing boy cradled against her as she looked up. The stranger leaned over the counter and smiled, his split lip bleeding.
“Guess I can’t ask him if he has any rope.”
“By the—by the car stuff, the oil and stuff,” the clerk gasped, then continued to cry. Jen’s eyes stung as she held him closer.
“Great. Be right back after I tie our friend up.”
She heard each decisive step as he strode across the store, paused, then walked back. Heard him unwinding rope. Then she almost started to cry herself as she pictured him tying up the man who had almost taken all of their lives.
“I’m okay,” the clerk gasped. “I’m okay.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’ve gotta call my boss.”
“Call the police first.”
The boy was in no shape to do anything. Gently disengaging herself, Jen stood up, reached for the phone behind the counter and dialed 911.
“Where are we?”
“Don’t worry,” the clerk said, then blew his nose. She recognized the signs of masculine embarrassment in his eyes. “The address will come up on their screen.”
He glanced up as the stranger approached and placed a large cup of black coffee on the counter, then selected two raspberry doughnuts from the display and put them in a waxed paper bag.
He set the bag next to the coffee and smiled wearily at them. “Just tell ‘em there’s been a robbery and their man is right here, all hog-tied and waiting for them.” He reached into his back jean pocket and took out his wallet.
“I really don’t think—” Jen began.
He threw down a ten-dollar bill. “That should cover the rope, the coffee and the doughnuts. How’s he doing?”
“Okay, but—”
He walked over to a display, plucked down a small, travel-sized packet of tissues, then leaned over the counter, making eye contact with the clerk on the floor.
“You did real good, son,” he said, handing him the tissues. “You didn’t lose your head.”
The boy simply nodded.
The stranger picked up his coffee and bag of doughnuts, then started toward the door.
“But—” Jen said. “The police are coming. Aren’t you going to stay and—”
He held up his hand. “I’ve got to go. People are depending on me.”
“But—”
He smiled, then grimaced in mild pain as the expression pulled his split lip taut. “Darlin’, I wish I could stay, but I can’t. You’d better get dressed—the police should be here shortly.”
Jen glanced down. Clad only in a delicate, lacy demibra, she might as well have been topless in front of him. But it didn’t bother her. Not now. She’d almost been killed.
“Wait!” She pulled her sweater over her head, flipping her long hair out of the neckline. “Wait! I don’t even know your name or how to thank you or—”
“You don’t want to know me,” he said and walked out the door.
2
REACTION SET IN AS CODY pulled out of the parking lot.
His hand—his right hand holding his coffee—started to shake. Setting the cup down in the van’s drink holder, he concentrated on driving. If the van lurched along at a slightly slower pace than was normal for this stretch of road, that was all right. The sun wasn’t very high in the sky and there wasn’t much traffic.
Two black-and-white police cars whizzed by, lights flashing, sirens screaming, racing toward the convenience store. Cody watched their progression in his rearview mirror, then turned his attention back to the desert road.
He couldn’t have stayed. The press would have had a field day. He could see the headline in the tabloids now: Washed Up Action Hero Makes a Real Rescue. Or worse. No, he wanted no part of it. He’d seen firsthand how the media destroyed people’s lives.
Hell, he’d been one of their supreme achievements.
He drove until he reached a shopping center, complete with grocery store, drugstore, dry cleaner, pet shop, a bagel shop, a health-food store and a Mexican restaurant. Feeling as if he were operating the van in slow motion, he guided it into the parking lot, where he chose a parking space on the far side of the stores. Turning off the ignition, he sat in the driver’s seat, staring ahead, seeing nothing.
Talk about a wake-up call. Today had been nothing short of a sharp smack to the side of his head.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, but finally he shook his head and reached for the bag of jelly doughnuts. He ate first one, then the other, then drank some of the strong, warm coffee. Just the ordinary feel of eating something, just the everyday smell of coffee, the taste of powdered sugar and raspberry jelly, was enough for him right now.
It comforted him.
Cody closed his eyes, then opened them quickly as he saw brief flashes of the robbery in his mind. Better to see what was actually out there. He focused his gaze on a cactus on the side of the parking lot and took a few deep breaths.
He’d been scared to death going into that store. But all he’d known was that he couldn’t let those two people inside die. Both of them so young and filled with promise. Both thinking they had all the time in the world when he knew that wasn’t true at all.
Older and wearier—but not necessarily wiser—he knew better than to take an optimistic attitude to life.
He checked his watch. He didn’t have to report to the set until noon, so he could afford to take a short nap. Even though he knew he probably wouldn’t sleep, he needed to breathe, to feel, to close his eyes and center himself. He could still feel the adrenaline buzzing through his bloodstream.
Thankful that the van only possessed its two front seats, while the rest of the vehicle was used for hauling equipment around, Cody got out of his seat and maneuvered himself into the back of the van. Someone had left an old sleeping bag there, and he unzipped it and spread it out, knowing it would offer his back some cushioning against the metal floor of the van. He stretched out on top of the thick material.
And thought about the blond woman. He wondered how she was feeling, where she’d been going, what was going to happen to her now. He wondered what would have happened if there had been no robbery this morning and if he’d been able to talk to her while she’d made her purchases.
Something about her had pulled at him. A flare of attraction. But something else.
He sighed. Stretched. Closed his eyes. Tried not to replay the robbery in his mind. Thought of his father’s ranch in Texas, the way it had been. The creek. Quarter horses grazing. The wind singing through the trees, the green tops and silvery undersides of the leaves making that subtle contrast in the sun. The smell of the earth. The feel of that sun on his shoulders.
It worked. Slowly but surely it worked. Despite the odds, he found a measure of peace.
JEN DIDN’T FEEL ANYTHING until she saw the young cashier’s mother enter the convenience store. An attractive brunette in her late thirties, she strode right over to her son, enfolding him in her arms.
“Oh, Johnny, are you all right?” Jen heard as the concerned female voice floated out from behind the counter. And as she watched mother and son, her eyes filled.
Her own mother had died when she was seven. Cancer had taken her quickly. Her father had provided Jen with every material comfort, except for the things she had really craved—love, understanding, acceptance and his time. Now, in this convenience store, if her father had come to help her, the first words out of his aristocratic mouth would have been blame. He was a master at assigning blame and instilling guilt. Something along the lines of What did you do?
She wondered if the clerk—Johnny—knew how very lucky he was.
She answered all the questions put to her by the police officers as best as she could. Concerned for Johnny, Jen sensed he felt the robbery was somehow his fault, or at least he didn’t believe he’d handled it as well as he could have. Needing to reassure him, perhaps as much for herself as for him, she approached the back of the store, where mother and son were now sitting.
Johnny had told the officers his full name was John McGann. Jen directed her attention to the young man’s mother. She didn’t think Johnny was in any shape to hear what she wanted to say.
“Mrs. McGann?” she said.
The clerk’s mother glanced up, her skin pale, her hazel eyes worried.
“I just wanted you to know your son was very brave. When—when we were behind the counter and we couldn’t see what was going on, he used his body to protect me. He would have—” She didn’t have to go on. All three of them knew what would have happened.
“Who was this man?” Mrs. McGann whispered, obviously referring to the stranger who had subdued the robber. “Why didn’t he stay?”
“I don’t know. But—but I thanked him. I—”
I don’t even know your name or how to thank you or—
Actually she hadn’t. She’d tried to, but she hadn’t.
“Well, he was an angel, protecting the two of you,” the older woman said. She eyed Jen. “Are you all right, hon? Would you like to come back home with us and have a cup of coffee or something? Maybe talk about it a little?”
When Jen didn’t answer, she said, “Do your folks live nearby? Is there anyone I can call to come and be with you?”
Another employee had arrived, ready to take over, as Johnny was clearly being given the rest of the day off. Jen hesitated. There had always been that part of her that had yearned for a mother, and Mrs. McGann was obviously a very good one, offering nurturing and support to her during the aftermath of this crisis. But Jen had a sudden intuition that if she didn’t get back on the road immediately, she might lose her nerve altogether and hightail it back to Chicago and the life her father wanted for her.
“That’s very kind, but I have to be in Phoenix later this morning.” Which was a lie. She had no one waiting for her in Phoenix. No one at all.
“I understand,” Mrs. McGann said, but Jen had the feeling she saw much more than she commented on. Funny how most mothers had that funny little sixth sense that clued them in to what was really going on. “But if you need to talk or anything, here’s my number. I’ll give you both home and work. And my cell. You can call me anytime. Anytime at all.” She scribbled the phone numbers on a piece of paper and handed it to her.
“Thank you, Mrs. McGann.”
“Laura. Call me Laura. And thank you for staying with Johnny until the police arrived. Until I arrived.”
“Of course.”
After making sure the police didn’t want her to remain for any more questioning and taking their card and giving them her cell number, Jen poured herself a large cup of coffee. She laced it with plenty of milk and sugar, took two of the glazed doughnuts, paid for her purchases over Johnny’s protests and walked outside to her Mustang.
The sage-scented desert air stung her nostrils as she breathed in deeply, and for one long moment she thought she was going to cry. There had been that moment, inside the store and on the floor, when she’d thought she’d never take another breath, and it felt so wonderful to still be alive. The sky, the air, the coffee—everything felt unbearably new, almost shimmering with life.
I’ll never take it for granted again.
Though little more than an hour had passed since she’d first entered the convenience store, Jen felt as if she were entering another lifetime. Though she was profoundly grateful to be alive, something crucial had been lost.
She’d realized how easy and inconsequential it was for some people to take a life, and that dark knowledge made her exhausted to her bones, to the depths of her soul.
And afraid.
As she unlocked her car, she thought of the man who had come to their rescue. He’d been tall and strong, and those blue eyes had been so intense when he’d silently ordered her behind the counter. And she’d obeyed, recognizing his strength and responding to it.
He’d been a hero in the true sense of the word. He’d acted in a heroic way with no thought for his own safety. He hadn’t had to come into the convenience store; he could have driven on or even considered himself a Good Samaritan by calling the police on his cell.
But he’d been a hero—her hero. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him; her memories of this man were so incredibly vivid. She felt as if they’d been etched on her soul, she’d been so touched by his selfless actions.
Jen knew she was being unreasonable, thinking of this man, spinning thoughts about him, wondering if…Most likely he had a family, a wife and a couple of children. She wondered if they all knew how lucky they were to have a man like that in their lives to protect them.
For an instant, as she slid into the driver’s seat and put her coffee and doughnuts down, she wished he was with her. She had a feeling if she could just lean on him for a few minutes, feel his arms around her, she wouldn’t feel so afraid.
But that was impossible.
CODY KNEW HE HAD TO LEAVE the parking lot, but he couldn’t seem to get his body in gear.
He was worn out. Perhaps weary was a better word. Soul sick, as his father would have said. He hadn’t had a whole lot of energy when he’d started out this morning, and the robbery had finished him off.
But he knew he had to get to work, so he set himself a limit of ten more minutes. Then he opened the van’s sliding side door and sat on the van’s floor, facing outside with his booted feet on the cement. He took in deep breaths of the cool, morning desert air. It felt fresh and open. Vast and timeless.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt glad to be alive.
JEN PULLED OUT OF THE PARKING lot, tried to take a sip of her coffee and found that she couldn’t. Her hands were shaking that badly.
Setting the takeout cup in the Mustang’s drink holder, she concentrated on driving through the small town, passing the first shopping center, driving by businesses and smaller, outlying houses surrounded by cacti and rock gardens. Trying to keep her attention on the road when her eyes were rapidly filling with frightened tears.
Aftershock. The shock was wearing off and she was starting to feel. And she didn’t want to. At least not while she was driving.
She was in no shape to be on the road.
The motel she finally spotted was on the far side of town, a small, pale pink stucco affair with a tiled roof. The neon sign, complete with a cactus, was turned off. But all Jen cared about was the black-and-white Vacancy sign prominently displayed.
She pulled into the parking lot, went into the main office and got a room, then drove a few more spaces down so she was parked in front of door number seventeen. Taking her coffee, the doughnuts and her overnight bag, she locked her car, then unlocked the motel room’s door and let herself in.
It was no resort, but the small room was pleasant. The queen-size bed had a clean, colorful green-and-cream-striped spread, and the room smelled fresh.
Locking the front door behind her, she dragged a ladder-back chair from the small table in front of the window and wedged it beneath the doorknob.
She knew this wasn’t normal behavior on her part, but she found herself suddenly scared, wanting to make the room secure, not wanting to be caught off guard. And she also knew exactly where those fears were coming from and that they were very normal after what she’d just experienced.
Jen sat on the bed. She forced herself to sip her warm coffee, then take bites of the doughnuts, chew and swallow. Automatically. Again and again, even though she didn’t really taste anything. She knew she had to go through these simple motions of living until she felt better again. Or at least until she got her blood sugar up.
The only thing she could compare the robbery to was a car accident she’d been in when she was sixteen. Her girlfriend had been driving when the car in front of them had gone completely out of control, smashing into the cement center divider. They’d plowed into the back of the runaway car. It had been over six months before she’d felt at ease in a car, either driving or as a passenger.
Now Jen knew it would take a while before she felt safe out in the world.
She stopped eating when the doughnuts and coffee threatened to come right back up, then walked into the motel bathroom. After a brief inspection of the small, utilitarian facilities, she turned on the shower, stripped off her clothing and reached for the wrapped bar of guest soap. It smelled of lemon.
If she closed her eyes, she could see the robber’s expression, the way he’d looked at her as she’d slowly taken off her pink sweater.
More than anything, more than even wanting to feel safe again, she wanted to feel clean.
CODY KNEW HE’D BE LATE TO THE set if he didn’t get it in gear. But his thoughts kept returning to the woman in the pink sweater. He wondered if she’d gotten to where she was going, if she had family waiting for her, a boyfriend or parents nearby. He wondered how she’d felt while being questioned by the police. He wondered if when she closed those extraordinary blue-gray eyes she saw the same images he did.
Forcing himself to finish the last of the lukewarm black coffee, he stretched, took a few deep breaths, then got into the van’s driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
He drove through the desert town, intent on making good time until he passed a small, pink stucco motel and glimpsed that familiar candy-apple-red Mustang parked out front.
There couldn’t be two cars with that particular paint job in a town this size.
Before he had time to question his judgement, he turned left, across the two-lane highway, into the motel’s parking lot, and eased the battered van to a stop beside the sports car.
He stared at the motel room door. Door number seventeen. And as he studied that door, he knew that the woman with the gold bracelet was probably having as bad a time as he was. Worse, because she didn’t look like the type to have been around guns for most of her life. Or lunatics.
Again he thought of the image she projected and the fact that she was traveling alone on the road. It just didn’t fit. Women like her were cosseted and protected by their families, by their money. Not let loose on the road.
He thought of that red car and all the belongings piled in the backseat. Was she running away from someone? Did she need help? Whatever her life circumstances, having been caught in the middle of a robbery couldn’t have helped things.
He sat in his van, staring at the motel door, knowing he was only postponing the inevitable. Something had pulled him toward this woman from the instant he’d seen her. Then they’d been thrown together and shared a pretty horrific experience. Now something was telling him to knock on that door and make sure she was all right.
He’d see how she was doing. Make sure she called family, or at least had someone in her life who knew what had happened and could help her. Then he’d leave. But he had to see her, make sure she was all right. He had a feeling she was hurting and needed help.
He glanced away from the closed motel door, toward the red Mustang. Something about the woman made him want to protect her. Make life easier for her. He wanted to know who she was and where she was going. He wanted to talk to her. He couldn’t let it alone.
Hell, he wanted to know her name.
Knowing he would do nothing to hurt her, acting on deep instinct, Cody opened the van door and got out. He slammed the door shut and locked it. Then he walked over to the motel room door and rapped on it sharply three times.
3
JEN WAS COMBING HER WET HAIR back from her face, clad only in a short, ivory silk robe, when she heard the three sharp knocks. The sounds made her jump. She came up off the bed with her heart beating, her hands once again shaking so much, she dropped the blue wide-toothed comb.
She moved to the door, peered through the peephole. And saw the man who had saved her life. Not even hesitating, she moved the chair back, then opened the door a crack, the chain still in place.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.” She didn’t know why, but she was ridiculously glad to see him.
“You okay?” He got straight to the point, and she had a feeling that this was his way.
She started to say yes—that automatic yes, that Everything’s fine so often said to the question How are things going? But her lips couldn’t form the words. She felt incapable of lying, of presenting that facade. Instead she felt her mouth tremble. She trembled. Her body felt as if it didn’t belong to her.
She couldn’t lie to this man. Though she hadn’t even known he existed a few hours ago, they had been through too much together.
Life and death had a way of bonding people.
“No.” The single word felt raw in her tight throat. She didn’t offer any protest as he stepped closer.
“Take the chain off the door.” That voice. So low and gentle, so soothing.
She did as he said, then seemed to watch from outside her own body as he opened the motel door further, stepped inside, closed it. He draped his jean jacket over one of the chairs, then he put his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the bed. He sat her down on it and took her into his arms.
“Go ahead and cry,” he said. “I may just join you.”
His deep voice was all the persuasion she needed. The sobs came up now that she felt safe in the circle of his arms. Something about the way he held her made her feel so protected. No one could get her here, now. She wasn’t alone; she was touching another human being—the only person who could truly understand what she’d been through during those terrible moments looking down the barrel of that shotgun.
She cried harder, remembering how he’d stumbled through the door, drawing the madman’s gun, making sure it wasn’t pointed at her. She cried because her first thought on seeing him had been that he was a useless drunk, another complication. Another problem. Instead he’d saved her life with no regard for his own.
Somehow she had to make him understand.
“I thought—I thought—” her words hiccupped on a sob “—you were drunk.”
He continued to smooth her hair. He simply held her, offering no judgement concerning her crying, simply being there for her. It had been so long since anyone had truly been there for her, and Jen clung tighter. She couldn’t let him go. Not yet. Not now.
“But when—when you came in—” She choked on another sob, and he patted her back as if she were an infant needing to be burped. Then he rubbed her back, his hands soothing, knowing exactly how to release the tightness. His touch both soothed and comforted. This man’s touch was like none she’d ever felt before.
“I thought—I thought we were all going to die,” she gasped out, fresh tears filling her eyes, running down her face.
“I know,” he said. “Me, too.”
Still those strong arms held her as she buried her face against his chest, her cheek smashed flat against his blue denim shirt. He smelled of coffee and sugar—the powdered sugar that had spilled on the front of his shirt. She held on tighter as she cried.
“Honey, honey,” he said softly, his low voice almost crooning. “Tell me where your family is and I’ll get you safely home. You shouldn’t be alone—”
“No!” She clutched at his shirt harder, then, almost as if seeing herself and what she was doing for the first time, Jen felt embarrassment. Shame. She was out of control, in an anonymous motel room with a virtual stranger, dressed in nothing but a thin silk robe.
She pulled away slightly, gazed up at the man’s face.
He doesn’t feel like a stranger.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. Couldn’t tear her gaze away. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. She heard the sound of a car drive by on the highway, then another. A door slammed.
She couldn’t look away from him. The strong line of his jaw. His mouth. Those incredibly blue eyes.
Why had he been put in her path? No, not merely put there. Flung there. She remembered the way he’d stumbled into the convenience store and suddenly realized—
“You knew,” she whispered. “Before you came in that door, you knew there was a robbery going down.”
He tried to look away, as if embarrassed by what he’d done, but she slid her hand up, cupped the side of his face, held his gaze. Her fingers seemed to burn where she touched him, almost vibrate with energy, it felt so intense between them.
“You did.”
He finally, almost reluctantly, nodded his head.
She continued to study him, knowing she would be able to see his face in her mind’s eye for the rest of her life. Those eyes. The dark brown hair with that spark of auburn shot through it. The slight stubble on his chin. His strong, warm, muscular body.
But it was his eyes…Something about them haunted her. More than the slight redness, more than the weariness she saw there. She sensed something inside him had died or had very nearly been extinguished. She studied him, and he let her look until his own eyes filled and he glanced away. Over at the window. Down at the floor.
Anywhere, she knew, but at her.
She didn’t know exactly how she came to the realization, but Jen knew he’d been ready to die for her and Johnny. Because this man who couldn’t look at her felt there wasn’t anything left for him. She’d seen it in his eyes. He was just marking time on this planet. He’d essentially kicked in that convenience store’s door this morning and begun a death mission. He hadn’t cared if he’d lived or died.
He’d saved her life, and now she knew he was suffering. A lost soul. And yet as lost as she sensed he was, he’d still helped her when that help had meant life and death to her. He’d still been a hero, his actions totally unselfish, his only thoughts to help her and Johnny survive that robbery.
She couldn’t stand the fact that he’d done such a heroic thing and was now suffering for it.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, stroking the side of his face with her fingertips. “No, don’t feel that way.”
He blinked, and it might have been as if those tears had never shimmered in his eyes. She watched as he slid the social mask into place. Almost like an actor’s mask. And she wondered if anyone close to him knew how badly this man was hurting.
“No,” she whispered, stroking the side of his face, then gently touching his split lip. Easing him back on the queen-size bed. Sliding beside him, all the while touching him. Her arms around him. Her body pressed against his. Simple human comfort. Simple touching. Letting him know he wasn’t alone, she was with him. She would be with him now and help him through this.
He lay back beside her, his boots still on, fully dressed. She snuggled against him, her cheek on his chest, and felt his hands in her hair. Stroking her, sliding his fingers through the damp strands.
“I don’t think either of us should be alone right now,” she said. How odd that she should recognize this stranger’s despair. Probably because it was so close to her own. She shifted closer, held him. Listened until his breathing became deep and regular and she knew he had finally found solace in sleep.
Just before she drifted off, a thought flitted into consciousness.
How strange. I don’t even know his name….
Then another.
But I do know him…. I do….
CODY CAME AWAKE ALMOST THREE hours later. It took him a few seconds to reorient himself, to remember how he’d come to this hotel room, to this time and place.
And this woman.
All of it came back to him, and he lay in bed, thankful to be alive. And thankful that this woman had been perceptive enough to know he was in no shape to hit the road.
He glanced at the bedside clock. He had just enough time to call Trevor and explain why he wouldn’t be at work today. Trevor would have to shoot around him, but unless Cody made that call, the director would believe he was out there, coming off a bender. The best thing he could do was clean up and be on time tomorrow, ready for work.
But he had to call him.
Cody reached for his jacket, found his cell phone and punched in the number. He waited, hoping to get Trevor directly but getting the director’s voice mail instead. At the beep Cody left a message, swiftly and succinctly explaining why he wouldn’t be on the set today. He told Trevor about the robbery attempt but asked him not to say anything to anyone. Then he made his apologies and hung up.
Perhaps he’d go to his director’s hotel room tonight when he returned and apologize for holding him up. He probably could have really pushed and made it back to the set, but intuition told him not to leave this woman alone today.
He eased himself out of bed, then looked down at the sleeping woman, her hair spread out around her head like a blond halo. She lay curled on her side in the large bed, the silky robe barely covering her. They’d both fallen asleep on top of the coverlet. Now he studied her, that fall of silky blond hair, those slender, perfect legs.
After a moment he eased the bedspread, blanket and top sheet down, then tucked her in. The air-conditioning in the motel room had kicked in as it had gotten hotter outside, and he didn’t want her to catch a chill.
He settled the bedding around her shoulders, up to her chin, and she snuggled deeper into the bed in sleep, then smiled. He watched her face, committing it to memory.
That hair. He’d loved touching it. Comforting her. And he wondered again how a woman so delicate came to be out on the road by herself. There was a piece to this puzzle he didn’t have or understand.
Yet for all that her appearance said she was delicate, she had a spine there, as well. She’d responded to his unspoken command back at the robbery site. She hadn’t gone all hysterical or fallen apart until they’d been alone together in this motel room.
She would get through this. He was just thankful he could help her along.
She was also perceptive as hell, and that scared him a little, if he were honest with himself. She’d looked at him, and within minutes of their being alone, she’d seen far more than all the tabloids and newspapers, than all the reporters and talk-show hosts had ever noticed.
She’d seen him. And she hadn’t been afraid.
Cody closed his eyes and took a deep breath, considering how he felt. His legs felt a whole lot more solid beneath him. Just that short amount of sleep and that human touch, that contact, had grounded him. He remembered reading an article that had said sleep was the brain’s way of organizing and making sense of data, and the short nap he’d taken with—
He didn’t even know her name.
Cody smiled down at the sleeping woman. The short nap he’d taken with this angel had allowed him to make sense of some pretty horrific data. As his mother had always said, things look a whole lot better after a solid meal and a good night’s sleep.
And, in his case, a shower.
Not wanting to disturb her, he moved as quietly as possible, picking up the blue comb at the foot of the bed as he headed toward the small bathroom.
Small wasn’t the right word. Miniscule was. And already crowded with her toiletries. Just enough room for a toilet, a sink and a shower. He was a big man and would barely have room to turn around in the small shower stall.
So as not to crowd it even further, Cody swiftly took off his boots and peeled off his clothing just outside the door. Entering the bathroom, he closed the door gently, then turned on the shower, already anticipating the feel of hot water on his tense shoulders.
The water was good and hot and plentiful. The small sliver of guest soap was lemon-scented, and he used a generous amount, lathering it over his body, feeling as if he were washing away the scent of fear, washing away all that had happened just that morning.
He ducked his head beneath the sharp, hot spray, then used some of the woman’s shampoo. It had an herbal smell, not too bad. Cody rinsed his hair, enjoying the feel of the hot water working the tension out of his body.
Outside the shower, standing by the sink with a white towel around his waist, he risked one more loan. One that was more personal but necessary. He searched through her toiletry bag until he found a plastic razor. Lathering up with the lemon-scented soap, he shaved, swiping away at the weekend stubble covering the lower half of his face.
When he finished, he wiped his face with a hot, wet washcloth, then combed his clean hair with the blue comb he’d found at the foot of the bed.
Feeling pleased with the way he looked and feeling so much better, confident that he could drive back to the set without breaking down, all he needed now was a good meal. Perhaps he could ask this woman—after making sure he finally found out what her name was—if she’d join him.
Opening the bathroom door and letting a rush of cool air into the steam-filled room, he stepped outside. Cody wished for just an instant that he had clean clothing to put on. Then he let the white motel towel that had been draped around his hips fall to the floor.
Just before he reached for his worn jeans, he felt a sudden jolt of awareness and glanced up.
She was awake. And watching him.
HE WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL man she’d ever seen.
Tall, strong and muscular. Powerful shoulders. Perfectly proportioned. She could see defined muscles in his legs and chest, even his abdomen. And his chest was covered with a sprinkling of dark hair.
Her heart in her throat, Jen looked up at his face.
He blushed, the reddish hue suffusing his face and neck.
She couldn’t imagine why—until she glanced down at his body again and saw he was becoming swiftly and gloriously aroused. His sex, as impressive as the rest of his body, was lengthening. Thickening.
Again, he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
She’d awakened at the tail end of his shower, coming to consciousness while hearing the steady, soft fall of water. Then she’d smiled seeing how he’d tucked her in while she’d slept. The tenderness and intimacy of the gesture had touched her deeply.
She’d known he was taking a shower in her motel room, and it hadn’t bothered her a bit. She, a woman who hadn’t let her own fiancé touch her intimately until they’d been together for over a year, felt perfectly comfortable with this almost total stranger taking a shower in her motel room while she lay in a queen-size bed clad only in a whisper-thin silk robe.
She didn’t know why, but there weren’t as many barriers between them. Or maybe she did. Maybe she’d gone through most of her life having perfected the rather distant, cool and collected social face and manner that her father deemed appropriate. And maybe she’d set out on this journey to the West Coast because a part of her—the wisest part—knew her life was slowly killing her.
Maybe she wanted to live. To really feel alive. To know what that felt like after having come so close to dying.
But she couldn’t take her eyes off him. That muscular, masculine body. That large, strong erection. When he bent down and reached for his jeans, she said just one word.
“No.”
Though she’d spoken softly, the word sounded loud in the quiet of the motel room. It stilled his movement for his clothing. He looked at her, disbelieving. Puzzled. But also desiring her. He couldn’t hide it any more than she could.
But Jen knew he wouldn’t join her on her bed unless she let him know that was exactly what she wanted. This man, this stranger, wasn’t the type to take advantage of a woman. But she wouldn’t have wanted him or felt as safe with him if he’d been that sort of man.
He hadn’t seemed to register what she’d said, and Jen realized words were not the answer. Actions were. She’d told him, but now she would show him exactly what she wanted.
Sitting up in bed, she slipped the ivory silk robe off her shoulders, letting it slide to her waist. She felt the cool, air-conditioned air in the motel room against her breasts. As she looked down at them, unable to look at him, she felt her nipples harden into tight little points of sensation.
She wet her lips, trying to find the words to tell him what she wanted. Her throat felt dry, constricted with both a sort of fear and an equal amount of excitement. And somehow she knew this was right, knew this was what she wanted and what he needed.
In the end she merely looked up and held out her hand, knowing he could see exactly what she was trying to tell him in her eyes. It had to be there—emotions this strong had to come out somehow. A part of her couldn’t believe this was really happening, that she was making this happen, but a stronger feeling told her that this was right, it had to happen.
The connection, that strange electric sensation when she’d touched his cheek, remained. Slowly he crossed the room. Then he knelt down on the bed as she slid down on the soft mattress, onto her back. She closed her eyes as she felt his fingers swiftly untie the sash of her short robe, then lifted her hips as he yanked it away.
She opened her eyes, watched him as he studied her for a long moment, looking at her body almost as if he couldn’t believe what was about to happen. What had to happen.
Their eyes met. Held. She knew he was giving her one last chance to back out, to reconsider, even though she could see he was poised and ready, tense with need, his sex swollen and full, painfully aroused.
But this was more than mere sex. She was acting on pure instinct, wanting to reaffirm life in the most primal, instinctual manner possible. After coming so close to death, she wanted to feel again, to know she was alive. She wanted to be close to him, as close as one person could get to another.
She wanted to take him into her body and offer him peace. She wanted to fully experience her own sexuality, which had never happened before. And Jen knew it would happen with this man. She felt more when he simply touched her than when other men had been inside her, moving, the sensation not horrible, simply…pleasant.
Pleasant was not a word she’d ever use in connection with her sexual feelings toward this man. It wouldn’t be pleasant with this man, it would be something far more than that.
I want you, she thought, like I’ve never wanted another man in my life. She reached up, her gaze never leaving his, knowing that with a single touch she would set something in motion. Something that felt as if it had always been meant to be. Destiny. Kismet. Whatever you wanted to call it.
One touch. One leap of faith. She only knew she had to take it, because he was making this her decision, he was giving her complete control.
Her hand came up, and it was steady. She touched the side of his face, now smooth. He’d shaved.
At her touch he seemed to shudder, and she saw he’d been holding himself in check for her. She smiled at him, knowing that smile was reflected in her eyes, and he turned his face and kissed her palm.
Sensation, electric and hot, shot all the way through her body. To her breasts, then lower, pooling between her thighs. Making her ache. She’d never felt this way with any other man and knew she never would.
She wanted this moment as she’d never wanted anything else in her life. She was being given something few women experienced in their lifetime and she wanted to take it. Her hand slipped around the back of his neck as she urged him closer, pulled him down on top of her. Their naked skin touched all along their bodies. She barely had time to cry out at the wonder of it, how it felt, before his lips came down over hers. His body covered hers. He moved between her thighs. And she simply surrendered to something that felt so right.
And for the first time since early this morning, that horrible morning when she’d thought she was going to die, Jen felt alive.
4
HE’D NEVER FELT MORE WELCOMED into a woman’s bed. More wanted. When she’d held out her hand to him, looking small and delicate in the middle of the large bed, his heart had opened, started to ache. And feelings he hadn’t felt in a long time had begun their long, arduous climb to the surface.
He’d sensed what she was offering him was more than a mere physical sensation or release. It felt as if he were being handed a lifeline. And he took it. He’d never wanted anything more. He took it and followed her down onto the bed in the middle of the day. Life might be going on all around them, but for this day, this hour, this moment, they were alone in the quiet coolness of this motel room, with just each other and the strong emotion that seemed to flow between them so effortlessly.
When he kissed her, it didn’t seem like the first time, they fit together so well. She seemed familiar to him in the best possible way, and he deepened the kiss, feeling his body quicken, hoping that it would not betray him or shame him.
He wanted her with the intensity of a teenage boy, that strong hunger and desire, but he wanted to give her the skill and knowledge of a man who knew how to love a woman thoroughly. Yet all of his desire, his emotions, seemed to be demanding he get as close as possible as quickly as possible.
He broke the kiss and, though he wasn’t usually a man who talked in bed, whispered, “Your name.” He wanted to know her name.
“Jennifer.” The one word came out on a sigh, so deeply satisfied, and it thrilled him to hear that tone in her voice when all he’d done was kiss her.
“Jen,” he said with a deep sense of satisfaction, and something flickered in those deep blue-gray eyes.
“What is it?” he whispered, looking down at her. His body was pressed into hers, even though he was taking most of his weight on his forearms.
She smiled up at him with a hint of tentativeness. “I like the way you say my name.”
“Is Jennifer better? Jenny?”
“Jen’s fine. You?”
It took him a moment to get that she was asking him his name. “Cody. Cody Roberts.”
There was the slightest flicker of awareness in her expression, and he prayed she wouldn’t suddenly recognize who he was and what he did. He’d had enough of those kinds of encounters—women who slept with him to get close to success or to get a part in one of his films. Or just to say they’d slept with a star. Even a fallen star.
“It feels like…I know the name.”
His whole body tensed.
“It must be because,” she whispered, “I feel so close to you.”
He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make love to her, to make it good for her, to lose himself inside her. In his experience, you were either attracted to a woman or you weren’t, and he was incredibly attracted to this woman.
“Jen,” he whispered. Then he kissed her.
SHE’D NEVER FELT THIS WAY with any other man.
It wasn’t as if she had a vast amount of sexual experience. She’d had only a couple of boyfriends in college and then Ethan. Ethan, who her father had practically handpicked for her and for whom she had felt absolutely nothing.
Ethan, who was waiting back in Chicago for her, even though she’d broken their engagement and given him back the flawless diamond ring before she’d started on her trip to California and freedom.
Her father had thought she was insane. By implication, so had Ethan. But Jen had known there was something else or someone else out there for her. She’d known that the life she would have had with Ethan would have gone precisely, step-by-step, according to her father’s master plan for an ordered life.
It would have been an emotional jail cell. A gilded cage. And she would have beaten her wings frantically against the bars, and no one would have heard. But the end result would have been the same.
Now she had a chance to fly free. To live.
She was glad as she looked up at Cody that no one would ever know about this encounter. She wanted it for herself alone, didn’t want anyone judging her or giving her any unwelcome and unasked-for opinions.
No one would ever know about the robbery other than the police and perhaps the local news. Certainly no one she knew. She would have this time alone, out of time, all for herself. She would give to Cody and, in giving to him, find out so much about herself.
She’d left Chicago because she’d been afraid she’d stopped feeling anything, and since she’d met this man she’d done nothing but feel.
She touched his lip. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
She smiled. “Then kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me again.”
He smiled down at her, and her heart sped up at the look in those dark blue eyes. “You’re really something,” he whispered, then kissed the side of her neck. “I didn’t come here thinking this was going to happen.”
“I know.” She hesitated. “I didn’t open the door thinking something like this would happen.”
That smile. Devastating. He kissed her temple and whispered, “Sure? Are you okay, Jenny?”
“Never better.”
He laughed, a low, satisfied sound that thrilled her, then she ran her fingers through his hair and gently tugged his head down to hers, his mouth to hers. And then one kiss blended into the next and the next, and her body began to soften, to become pliant and willing and so filled with yearning.
She was more than ready when he touched her breasts, when he moved down and kissed them, took them into his mouth and pulled on them strongly. Almost blind with need, her eyes shut, she arched up against him, all feeling centered where his hands and mouth were touching her.
And she couldn’t stop touching the strong, hard muscles beneath his smooth, hot skin. Her hands were restless, taking him in, learning him, wanting to commit him to tactile memory.
Before, she’d felt a subtle impatience from her partners, as if they felt she wasn’t quite keeping up with them, as if they were indulging her by going slowly. Now she felt as if she were racing ahead of Cody, on fire, impatient for what he was going to do next, wanting more and more and more….
When his hand slipped between her thighs and cupped her, she was almost ashamed at how ready she was. He looked at her as he touched her and saw the bright flush on her face.
“Don’t,” he whispered, sliding back up and kissing her softly. “Don’t go there, Jen.”
Her face was so hot, it prickled. She wasn’t at all surprised he read her mood. That short moment when he’d first come into the room and they’d sat on the edge of the bed had told her he was a sensitive man.
“Don’t stop, Cody,” she whispered. “Please…”
He did as she asked but kept his gaze on her face as she felt first one finger, then a second, gently push her open, move within her, stretching her, readying her—
“Oh!” The sensation that caught hold was a new one, and she looked up at him and saw a smile in his eyes.
“Yes,” he whispered, then kissed her hard, his hand relentless, his fingers so knowing, the sensations so strong, she closed her eyes, tilted her head back into the soft pillow—
And cried out as she came, her thighs falling open in the aftermath, her body first tense and then so wonderfully relaxed. She felt as if she were melting into the mattress as she turned toward him. Her hands trembled as she grasped his hard shoulders, seeking stability after having her sensual foundation rocked.
This was what had been missing. What had seemed like a hopeless amount of work with any other partner had come so naturally with this man.
“Mmm,” she sighed against his neck. Then she smiled as she felt him start to laugh.
“So, I’m funny?” she whispered. She’d never opened the front curtains when she’d first come in, and now with the only light coming from the open bathroom door, the room was dimly lit, like twilight. Not dark but not light either.
“No,” he whispered, pulling her more strongly into his arms. “Not funny at all.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was studying her with an intent expression on his face.
She touched that strong jawline once again, loving the feel of it on her fingertips.
“Let me give to you,” she whispered.
“It works both ways, Jenny,” he said. “We give to each other.”
“But I haven’t—”
“You will.” He took her hand, guided it right to where he wanted it, taught her how to please him. And she found that it wasn’t awkward as it had been in the past. She wanted to please him, wanted to make this good for him. It thrilled her that she had it in her power to excite him to this extent.
She was practically shaking with reaction when he finally rolled her over onto her back and slid between her spread thighs. And while she’d thought there might be a moment of discomfort when their bodies joined together, when that moment came, her body opened and she accepted all of him in one smooth, hard thrust.
He began to move inside her, strong strokes that seemed to burn their way up inside her, exciting her. She held on to him, grasped his forearms, his shoulders, wrapped her legs around his body tightly because she felt as if at any second she might come apart and fly off their bed.
And again, that racing toward completion, that tightening pressure deep within, then—
She came with a low, anguished moan, and he followed her, finding his own release, pushing into her and then, with strong contractions of his own, finishing.
She felt his muscular chest rising and falling, heard his labored breathing, ran her hands up his damp back and had never in all of her adult life felt closer to another living person.
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