Читать книгу Her Hero And Protector - Shawna Delacorte - Страница 7

Chapter Two

Reece’s senses jumped to rigid attention as he rose to his feet and stood facing Brandi. “You were abducted by a policeman?” His words came machine-gun fast as the excitement raced through him. “Are you sure? How do you know he was a policeman? Was he in uniform? Do you know his name? What did he look like? How old was he? Had you ever seen him before?”

Had he heard her correctly? It was a rogue cop who had framed him for a crime he didn’t commit. A quick surge of anger jolted through him. He would never be able to get those two years back, but he was determined to get the people responsible for sending him to prison. It was all he had thought about for the entire two years. Was it even remotely possible that what happened to him could somehow be connected to her predicament?

His office had been in Rocky Shores. It had been a detective with the Rocky Shores Police Department who had framed him. She lived in Rocky Shores. Could it be the same cop? If it had happened in Seattle, or some other large city, he would have said it was preposterous—too coincidental to be real. But in Rocky Shores—a city of only thirty thousand people? Or was he desperately grasping at straws in an attempt to connect the two incidents?

He repeated his question, determined to get an answer that satisfied him. He leaned forward, his hands on the back of the sofa on each side of her head—his face almost touching hers. He slowly repeated the question, clearly enunciating each word in a low voice that left no room for any confusion concerning his seriousness and demand for an answer.

“How do you know he was a policeman?”

Brandi stared at Reece in several seconds of stunned silence. He had suddenly come alive, catching her totally off guard. The intensity etched on his features matched the resolve in the depth of his blue eyes. His commanding presence was unnervingly close, his face so near that she could literally feel the strength of his determination radiate to her.

And that wasn’t all. His clean, masculine scent was as sexy and appealing as if he had just splashed himself with an aphrodisiac guaranteed to work its wonders on unsuspecting women. It was the type of thing that could make the strongest will melt on the spot. She suspected that if they continued in such close proximity she would succumb with very little objection in spite of the earlier frightening physical encounter.

She tried to douse the flame of desire he had ignited inside her—the totally inappropriate desire—by forcing her attention back to the reality of the present and the danger that had suddenly invaded her life. Something was going on. Something more than the owner of this cabin wanting to know why she had trespassed on his property. He already knew a lot about her, but the only thing she knew about him was his name.

If that was really his name.

It left her with a very uncomfortable feeling. He had blatantly displayed how physically vulnerable she was when he had thrown her over his shoulder as if she were nothing more than a sack of feathers and then pinned her to the floor when she had tried to run again. With each ensuing question her emotional vulnerability increased.

And she didn’t like the sensation—the same helplessness that had beset her for the past month. An emotional upheaval that she couldn’t control.

Somehow, she had to regain the upper hand over what was happening. She had to once again be in charge of her own life. Whether anyone believed her or not, she knew she was in danger, and it was up to her to protect herself from the unknown person who seemed determined to harm her. She had tried to go to the police and had been dismissed as if she was some delusional nut case—some irrational woman. She didn’t have anyone she could count on other than herself.

His voice interrupted her attempt to make sense of things. “You haven’t answered my question, Brandi. How do you know the man who abducted you was a police officer?”

She steeled her determination, put her hands on his hard, muscled chest and pushed him away. “Stop browbeating me!”

He straightened up as her words sank in. And along with his realization of what she had said was the heated sensation of her hands against his chest. One thing was blatantly clear. He had to avoid any more physical contact with her. Two years in prison followed by three months of self-imposed isolation had left him with a very tenuous hold on his libido. Being around her had ignited a burning need that all the cold showers in the world would not be able to quench.

He took a step backward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It’s just that I’m very interested in what you’re saying. I want to know about this man you claim abducted you. I…uh…I know some of the members of the Rocky Shores police force—”

“You’re friends with the police?”

He saw the alarm register on her features and knew he had said the wrong thing. “No, I didn’t say I was friends with any of the members of the Rocky Shores Police Department. I merely said I knew some of them. I came in contact with several of the boys in blue over the years. Sort of an occupational hazard.”

“Occupational hazard?” She furrowed her brow in confusion. “What is it you do?”

“I was a private investigator.” He clenched his jaw in a hard line of determination. “And a damn good one, too. I lived on Mercer Island, but my office was in Rocky Shores.”

“A private investigator?” Her entire demeanor brightened. “I had considered hiring a private investigator when the police wouldn’t help me with my stalker.”

“Why didn’t you?”

A downcast expression crossed her face. “I guess I thought it would all come to a stop by itself, the same way it had started. I kept putting it off—” she emitted a sigh of resignation “—and then it was too late. Maybe if I’d hired a private investigator I wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

“So, let me try this for the third time.” His words and tone of voice were part exasperation and part determination. “How do you know the man who abducted you was a police officer?”

“Well…he was dressed in plainclothes, but when he grabbed me his jacket came open and I saw a badge clipped to his belt.” She saw Reece’s eyes narrow as if he was turning the information over in his mind. A little tremor of anxiety fluttered around inside her. Had she said the wrong thing?

“Describe him for me.”

“I only got a glimpse of him before he blindfolded me.”

“Do the best you can. Let’s start with his size. How tall do you think he was? My size? Shorter? Taller? Heavier? Lighter? What was your impression of his physical presence?”

She looked at him quizzically. “Why do you want to know? Why are you suddenly so interested?” She returned her gaze to the flames crackling in the fireplace. She had to admit that she felt a little more at ease around him. Whatever fears she might have harbored about Reece Covington and her safety while in his cabin had subsided. If he had wanted to harm her there was nothing preventing him from having already done it. He had her in his control and hadn’t taken advantage of the situation.

“No one believed me before I was abducted, including the police. I know no one will believe me now, especially the police, if I say that I think it was one of their own who did it.”

“I’m not everyone else. I’m me and I’m interested—very interested.”

He searched the depth of her eyes and once again felt the emotional tug of her vulnerability, something he didn’t want to experience or even know about. He also felt the physical pull on his desires, something he most assuredly wanted to explore even though he knew he shouldn’t. But a very real sensation all the same.

“Why? Why would you be interested in what happened?” A shortness of breath caught in her lungs. He seemed to be looking into the very depths of her soul. If she thought she had been in trouble while running through the woods to escape her abductor and again when Reece had tackled her, she didn’t know what to call what was happening now. She had run for her life and ended up in a cabin with a man who left her confused, unnerved and uneasy. But she was no longer fearful of his presence.

Quite the contrary. In some strange way she felt a sensual pull toward him, a totally inappropriate attraction. There was something very solid and real about this man, something very reassuring. He exuded a silent strength that said he knew who he was and could handle himself in any type of situation, whether physical or mental.

And he claimed to be a private investigator. Perhaps he was just what she needed. Could it be that fate had delivered her into the hands of someone who would believe her story? Someone who could actually help her find her way out of the nightmare?

Reece shifted his weight from one foot to the other in a moment of discomfort as he turned her words over in his mind. “Let’s just say that I have an old score to settle with someone.”

He allowed his tensed muscles to relax while carefully choosing his words. He didn’t want to do or say anything that would cause her to stop confiding in him. “I want to find out if there’s a possible connection between what’s been happening to you and something from my past.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t think that’s pertinent to our discussion.”

Brandi stood up, dropped the blanket to the floor and took a couple of steps toward the fireplace. She held her hands out toward the warmth. “I see. I’m supposed to bare my soul to you, but whatever is going on in your life is none of my business.” She turned to face him. “That doesn’t seem very fair to me.” She leveled a stern look in his direction. “How about you? Does that seem fair to you?”

There was no doubt in his mind about the message she had just delivered. He was pushing her too much, too hard and too fast. He needed to back off and let things calm down. He had to keep his own issues off the front burner if he was going to get the information out of her that he wanted.

Reece shifted gears in an attempt to gain her confidence. He extended a warm smile. “I’m hungry. I notice you helped yourself to some soup, but that’s not much of a meal. Now that I have food in the refrigerator, could I interest you in some dinner? Maybe a steak and a green salad?”

A tentative smile curled the edges of her lips. “I have to admit that Iam hungry. You’re right, soup isn’tmuch of a meal and that’s the only thing I’ve had to eat all day.”

He went to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with an opened bottle of wine and two glasses. “My favorite merlot to go with the steak. How do you like yours cooked? Rare, medium…”

“How about a pink center, but not really too red?”

He smiled—a warm, engaging smile. “Consider it done.”

Brandi took a sip of her wine as she watched him return to the kitchen. He had a marvelous smile framed by an incredibly handsome face. His eyes were honest, eyes that didn’t look away as if they were trying to hide something. And a smooth voice that she suspected could lull anyone into believing whatever he wanted them to believe. Or so it seemed.

She was beginning to relax as the stress started to melt away. For the first time since the nightmare began, she felt a flicker of hope try to assert itself. If Reece Covington truly was a private investigator maybe he could help her. She allowed a slight sigh of resignation. It took more than someone with a handsome face, a hard body and enough sexual magnetism to fill the Grand Canyon to be able to help her. She knew the danger surrounding her would not go away on its own. Should she trust him more than she already had? After all, what did she have to lose?

Only her life, that’s all.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. The sound of the rain on the roof mingled with the crackling and popping of the burning wood to form an intimate coziness. With his office in Rocky Shores he certainly would have come into periodic contact with the Rocky Shores police. As a private investigator he surely had occasion to interface with the local police on cases he was working on.

There seemed to be a lot of mystery surrounding him, but she felt somewhat reluctant to question him too much. Her mind drifted to myriad thoughts, some of them about the trouble she was in, some of them about this very disconcerting man and others to what the future held for her. It seemed no time at all before Reece returned with a tray. He set it on the table.

“Dinner is served.”

They ate, sipped their wine and engaged in superficial conversation. She immediately recognized his mastery at controlling the situation, including the direction of the conversation and the topics they discussed. If he was even half as good a private investigator as he was at manipulating what went on around him without giving the impression of seeming to be demanding or intimidating, then perhaps he would be the ideal person to help her.

If he really was a private investigator.

And if he meant what he said about not harming her.

When they finished eating, he indicated the sofa in front of the fireplace. He put another log on the fire, then sat down next to her.

“Now that we’ve had some dinner and you’ve had an opportunity to relax, perhaps we could get back to the main issue at hand.”

She gathered her composure and challenged his take-charge attitude. “Okay, I believe my question was what had happened in your past that you apparently think might be linked to what’s going on in my life right now. What kind of a connection are you talking about and why do you think such a connection would even exist?”

He emitted a soft chuckle, amused by her attempt to put him on the defensive. “I meant getting back to your description of what this policeman who abducted you looks like.”

“I’ve answered lots of questions for you. I think it’s time you answered at least one of mine.”

He turned her words over in his mind. He had to admit that it was a reasonable request. “All right.” He chose his words carefully, not wanting to fully disclose the nature of what had happened. “I had a run-in with a Rocky Shores police detective that turned out very bad for me. Ever since then, I’ve had my suspicions about him, his honesty and his ethics. I’m trying to determine if it could be the same man who abducted you.”

“Wouldn’t that be a little too coincidental? Something from out of left field?”

“No more so than finding you in my cabin.”

Brandi leaned back and slowly nodded her head. “Touché!”

“Besides, we’re both connected to Rocky Shores, a town of only thirty thousand people. I worked there and you live there. That ties it together with some reality rather than mere coincidence, certainly much more than if it had been a large city like Seattle.”

He softened his voice to a soothing timbre. “Now, tell me what the man looked like…as much as you can recall.”

“Well, I’m five-seven, and he was definitely taller than I am but not as tall as you.”

“I’m six foot two. So, would five feet eleven inches be about right? Or would he be a little shorter than that? Or taller?”

“That sounds right…five-eleven. He was average weight for his height. His hair was sort of a sandy brown color with some gray mixed in. I’d say he was in his mid-forties.”

The excitement built inside him. His mind raced almost faster than his mouth could keep up with it. “Did you notice the color of his eyes? Any scars, tattoos or other distinguishing marks? A beard or mustache?”

“His eyes? No, I didn’t get that good a look at him. As I said, it was only a quick glimpse before he blindfolded me.” She wrinkled her brow in concentration. There was something else…something she could almost see, but not quite.

He cocked his head and looked questioningly at her. “Yes?”

“I’m not sure. I know I saw something important, but I can’t bring it into focus. It was so fleeting. Maybe I only thought—”

Her body stiffened. A quick jolt of fear crashed through her when he placed his hand over her eyes. She grabbed his wrist and frantically tried to pull his hand away from her face.

Her sudden burst of fear came out in her voice. “What are you doing?” Had her tentative trust been misplaced? Was this the moment she had dreaded? Was he in league with her stalker? Had she said enough for him to realize that she could be a threat to him?

Reece shoved her hand away. “Just relax. I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. Now, close your eyes and try to visualize what happened. What did he do first? Tell me everything you can remember in the order that it occurred.”

Brandi took a calming breath. Had she allowed her fears to shove her imagination into overload? When she wasn’t afraid of what he might do, he managed to instill a sense of confidence.

“Okay.” She took a calming breath, leaned back and closed her eyes. The scene began to replay through her mind.

“He must have been hiding in my garage, waiting for me. When I opened my car door he came up behind me and put his hand over my mouth. As I struggled to get free he put his other arm across my neck and told me I’d better shut up and behave if I didn’t want to get hurt.”

“His voice…what did it sound like?”

“I couldn’t tell. He whispered the words in my ear, sort of a raspy whisper. I don’t know if it was real or if he was attempting to disguise his voice. He shoved me toward the side door of the garage. He turned me loose so he could open the door. That’s when I got a glimpse of his face. He put a blindfold over my eyes and steered me out the door and across the backyard toward the alley. I tripped on something, stumbled and fell. My blindfold shifted position. When he reached down to pull me to my feet, I was able to see out from underneath it.”

She frowned as she pursed her lips. “That’s when I saw his badge…and something else. It was on his arm.”

She sat up straight. Her eyes opened wide as if she had just remembered something. “No—it wasn’t his arm. It was on his wrist.”

Reece’s voice grew anxious. “What did you see? A scar? A tattoo? What?”

“I’m not sure. He had something around his wrist. It wasn’t a watch. I think it was…” The fuzzy image suddenly popped into focus. She saw it clearly. The excitement filled her voice and surrounded her words. She made eye contact with him. “That’s it! It was a medical alert bracelet.”

“Were you able to make out what type of medical condition? If he was a policeman, then he would have been in good health so it wouldn’t have been something like a heart condition. Perhaps an allergy to some sort of medication?”

“I don’t know what it said, but I recognized the medical insignia on it.”

A flicker of disappointment rippled through him, dashing his hopes. He quickly shoved it aside and went on to his next question. “The badge…were you able to make out anything beyond the fact that it was a badge? A police department? A federal agency? Anything?”

A dejected Brandi slumped back against the sofa cushions. A definite air of disappointment accompanied her words. “No, just that it was a badge clipped to his belt.”

Reece shifted the direction of his questions in an attempt to jog her memory a little more. “Was there anything else on his belt? A holster, perhaps? If he was wearing his badge, then he was probably armed, too. Did you notice anything like that?”

“No, nothing.”

“Okay, let’s try something else. How was he dressed?”

She furrowed her brow in concentration as she tried to force an image. “He wasn’t wearing a suit, but he wasn’t dressed in jeans, either. He wore slacks, a shirt that buttoned down the front and tucked in rather than a pullover and some sort of lightweight jacket with a zipper.”

“You’re doing great, Brandi. Just a little more, now. What color were his clothes?”

“The slacks were a charcoal-gray and the jacket a lighter shade of gray. The shirt was blue.”

“That’s terrific—good job.” He squeezed her hand to show his appreciation.

She looked up at him. His expression showed how pleased he was with what she had been able to recall. A little moment of satisfaction nestled inside her. It was a lot more detail than she realized she had noticed at the time.

There was one more thing she became acutely aware of…Reece’s hand still covered hers. Rather than evoking fear, this time his touch filled her with a comfort that she found very reassuring. It was accompanied by a flicker of hope she had not felt since the nightmare began a month ago.

“Does that help at all? Did I remember enough for you to recognize who it was?”

“Well, it wasn’t enough for me to be sure about anything, but it will go a long way in identifying who it was if we come across him somewhere along the line.”

“We?” The excitement bubbled inside her. “Does this mean that you believe me? That you’re going to help me?” Maybe there was a way out of this mess after all. She tried to temper her enthusiasm with a more pragmatic approach. “I’ll pay for your investigative services, of course. A straightforward business deal.”

“We can talk about that later.” He withdrew his hand from hers. The moment of intimate contact had infused him with a warmth he had not felt in a long time. The moment he broke the physical contact a sudden feeling of loss flooded through him. That was not a good sign. He needed to double his determination to maintain his emotional distance from this very tempting woman and her obvious vulnerability, which continued to tug at him.

“Do you think you would recognize him if you saw a picture?”

She tilted her head to one side and scrunched up the side of her mouth. “I don’t know. I might. As I said, it was only a glimpse.” She sat up straight and stared at him. “Do you have pictures of the members of the Rocky Shores Police Department?” Then she slumped back again. “Of course, he might be a police officer somewhere else, one of the other cities around Seattle or maybe even in Seattle.”

A sigh of resignation escaped her throat. “Or maybe he was some sort of security guard and not a law enforcement officer at all.”

Reece grabbed another log and put it on the fire. “That’s very true. We can’t go jumping to conclusions.” As much as he wanted to tie together her problem with his, he didn’t have anything concrete—only his strong suspicions.

He went to the window, pulled the drape aside and stared out into the darkness. “The rain doesn’t seem to be letting up. It looks like it might end up raining all night.” And of even more concern to him was what to do about her being in his cabin. Eventually it would be time to go to bed. Should he offer to drive her home? Drive her to a motel?

Suggest that she spend the night in his cabin?

He was never going to keep temptation at arm’s length with her sleeping under the same roof with him. A cozy fire, the sound of the rain—a scene ripe for seduction. He sucked in a deep breath, held it for several seconds, then slowly exhaled. What had he gotten himself into? The very notion that her stalking and abduction would have any connection to him being set up and framed for a crime was totally preposterous. He was trying to make two pieces fit together that didn’t even belong to the same puzzle.

Reece had been offered parole after only a few months in prison, but had refused. He had no intention of giving them the opportunity of sending him back to prison with time added on to his sentence by claiming some trumped-up violation of his parole. He did the full term of his sentence and walked out the gates without further obligation to the legal system—no reporting to a parole officer, needing to provide them with his address or having to prove that he had a job.

It had been three months. He had been hiding in his cabin with nothing to do to occupy his time other than read, watch television, surf the Internet and dwell on the past and what had happened to him. Maybe it was time to put that part of his life to rest. To quit thinking about it. To stop fixating on the people who had been responsible.

But that was easier said than done.

He stared at Brandi. She seemed to be lost in thought. Perhaps fate had delivered her into his hands. Even though he no longer had his private investigator’s license, he could still put his expertise to use by helping her get to the bottom of the mystery. It would give him a place to focus his energy and help pull him out of his self-pity.

He needed to come up with a plan of action. But first, he had to figure out what they were going to do about sleeping arrangements for that night. He returned to the sofa and sat down next to her.

“Brandi…” He took her hand in his. Once again the physical contact filled him with a warmth that had been missing from his life for far too long. He forced his thoughts to the immediate problem. “We have to figure out what to do about tonight…about sleeping arrangements…about where—”

He felt her muscles tense and her body stiffen.