“I want to ask you a question, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”
“Shoot, Abigail.”
Her mouth twisted in wry amusement. She’d corrected him enough, but he liked the reaction he got when he used her full name. She knew very well what he was doing. “I told you my story—”
“You mean I dragged it out of you kicking and screaming—”
“—and now I want yours. I want to know how you got that scar.”
Cade could feel himself blanch, and then flush. This wasn’t what he’d expected her to ask at all. “I know it bugs you—”
“Bugs me? What?”
“It turns women off.”
She bit her lip, flushing as darkly as he, and looked shyly aside with an expression that made every cell in his shaft take notice. “I...think we, uh...proved that’s not the case. More than once.” When her gray eyes at last climbed back to his after lingering at his mouth, he flattened his palms on the tabletop and drew a deep breath.
“Holy hell, Abigail, if we weren’t both half fainting from starvation, and if this weren’t a public place—”
She gave a tiny, breathless laugh. “And that’s another thing. We should talk about your plans.”
He pitched his voice low and intimate, for her ears alone. “You and me, just as soon as we have dinner, right back in that motel bed. We’ll sweat off all these calories. That’s my plan. I think it’s genius.” He reached for the hand she had curved around her beer glass, and she let him take it, even returned his grip.
“I mean...I have to go back home sometime. This has been nice—” She broke off when his grip tightened, and smiled. “Better than nice. But the reality is—”
“Why?”
“Why...what?”
“Why go back? At all? Ever? What’s there you gotta have?”
She was still staring at him, mouth open, when the kid brought their dinners and grinned at their linked hands on the table. She blinked hard, and Cade guessed she was fighting back tears. He relented. “Eat your catfish. And I’ll tell you about my scar.”
* * *
Marsh sat in the silver Honda at the stop sign where the street split and went two ways: onto the interstate headed south, or under the interstate to climb on it headed north.
He realized he had no idea which way Abigail had gone. He didn’t doubt she’d gotten on the interstate, though. What quicker way to leave Marsh than the nearest high-speed roadway? What he still didn’t comprehend was why, and with whom, she’d gone. He’d been over and over the short list of Abigail’s friends, which had grown even shorter since Marsh had moved in and helped her see those friends weren’t good for her. He simply couldn’t picture her with any of the men—there were only two, both married, and Marsh had already proved to himself Abigail wasn’t with Drew. The other man was in his sixties.
But the hipster had said Abigail was the one driving.
Marsh drummed his fingers on the wheel. Which way? North was Ocala, not too far away. South was Tampa.
He thought hard. If he were Abigail, which way?
The loud honking of a horn from behind him startled him. His head flicked up and he stared into the mirror. Behind him was a small blue sedan.
Marsh got out of his car. He needed something on which to expend his rage, and an impatient, rude driver was just the thing. As he slammed the Honda’s door, the car behind suddenly jerked left across the double yellow line and headed toward the intersection. The person in the passenger seat turned to stare at Marsh as the sedan passed; a stiff middle finger from the passenger, and one from the driver, greeted him.
Marsh yanked open his door again, jumped into the car and took off after the sedan.
It went north.
So did Marsh and his fury.
Ten minutes later, he had to concede that for a small sedan, it had more engine power than his Honda, and he gave up the chase. He hadn’t once been able to get closer than about fifty feet to the blue sedan, and after several drivers honked and thwarted his aggressive tailgating, Marsh realized that he was focusing on the wrong thing. He needed to find Abigail, not chase down a couple of redneck jerks from Wildwood. No doubt he’d find that sedan in town another day, and when he did, he’d figure out how best to point out to them the error of their ways.
Ocala was only another fifteen minutes or so up the interstate. He began to see signs advertising fast-food restaurants, hotels, shopping.
Marsh nodded to himself; north felt like the right direction. He imagined he could feel the pull of Abigail, drawing him to her. He twisted the vents for the air conditioner so they blew full on him, cooling his hot face. When the sign for the Ocala mall turned up, Marsh took the exit. Abigail sometimes shopped one of the department stores there for new clothes, though it had been a while since she’d gone.
The mall didn’t feel right, once he was there. Marsh made a quick pass through the department store, then zipped up and down the main shopping concourse, but he couldn’t feel Abigail. He didn’t think she was there, or if she’d been there, she was long gone now.
Still, to be sure, he took the silver Honda up one aisle and down the next of the vast mall parking lot. He stopped once or twice when he found red pickups he thought the hipster might have described as “old,” but none held evidence of her—not that she’d leave much, he thought. She hadn’t had anything but her wallet on her when she went out for groceries.
It was a needle in a haystack. But he couldn’t stay at home and wait. He knew she wasn’t coming back on her own. He’d have to find her and bring her back. Teach her about duty and responsibility and the debt she owed to Marsh for all his help since Gary’s death. This time he wasn’t going to stop at kisses and squeezing her breasts between his hands, burying his hot, hard flesh there. He was going to take her as a man took a woman he loved, take her and claim her and make her understand she belonged to him body and soul. When Marsh was finished with Abigail, she would have no more questions, reservations or excuses. She would be utterly and irrevocably his, and as soon as the bruises were faded he would take her to the courthouse and they’d have a civil ceremony. He would stake his claim not only physically and spiritually but legally, as well. She wouldn’t even have to change her name. She was meant for him. He should have taken steps much sooner, but he’d thought she’d come around on her own.
He’d been wrong.
He hated to be wrong.
Even more than that, he hated admitting it. It left him feeling as if he wasn’t in complete control of a situation. Somewhere she’d met someone who had no qualms about taking her away from Marsh, and she’d gone.
A sweaty hour later he was convinced Abigail was not at the mall. She might have been there yesterday—because of their day care clients, Marsh had lost the better part of a day. She’d planned her escape well, but he knew he’d find her. He headed back toward the interstate, passing through horse country. How she loved the neat white fences and the spacious pastures dotted with live oak trees and dark, cool shade for the racehorses raised locally.
Wouldn’t that be the life? Marsh let himself dream a little, watching a mare and a half-grown colt streak through a pasture to his right. Raise some Thoroughbreds, be a part of the racing elite at the local tracks, work their way up to Hialeah. He could see Abigail in a slim, cool sundress and a matching picture hat with a big, swooping brim to shade her tanned shoulders. Marsh, of course, would take a rye on the rocks from her hand—she’d serve him before she served their guests, because she loved and honored him. He’d even let her have a julep, as long as it was just the one. He didn’t like the idea of Abigail drunk. Drunken women were unattractive.
Before he merged with the interstate again, Marsh pulled the Honda to the side of the road and sat with his hands on the wheel and his eyes closed, trying to visualize Abigail. Which way, now that he wasn’t chasing a couple of smart alecks? Which way?
After he breathed for a while and calmed himself, he thought he could still feel the pull of her.
North it was, after all. He put the car into gear and headed for the on-ramp. North, past Ocala. He decided she wouldn’t have stopped at the closest big town. No, she’d be farther away than that. Somewhere she thought Marsh wouldn’t think to look.
“I’m coming for you, Abigail,” he half sang. “Just sit tight. I’m coming. And when I get there we’re going to have a lot of talking to do. A whole lot of talking.”
The miles ticked by. Exit after exit zipped past, and none of them felt right. Before long Marsh noticed he was both hungry and thirsty. The rye was just about cooked out of his system. He wanted breakfast—a very late lunch, by now—and he needed to put a little fuel in the Honda’s gas tank.
“Fuel up both our tanks,” he said, patting the steering wheel. “Can’t think right on an empty stomach.” He started watching for signs again.
Micanopy.
He’d been there once a few years ago. From what he remembered, it was a small place, not any bigger than Wildwood, but it was probably big enough to have a diner of some kind and a gas station.
Marsh took the exit, nodding to himself. It felt right.
It sure did.
Because right there just off the exit was a rinky-dink motel, one of those junky places made of thickly painted cinder block, the classic cheap Florida construction material.
In the motel parking lot was a red pickup truck with a camper shell. It looked old.
Marsh pulled in and parked right in front of the office. He had some questions for the motel clerk, now, didn’t he? Yes, indeed.
Chapter 10
W
hy go back? At all? Ever? What’s there you gotta have?
Abby was trying to listen to Cade’s story of a sting operation gone bad, of the meth lab somewhere out in farm country. It was interesting to learn the DEA flew over the countryside with infrared equipment that could detect the heat signatures of a meth lab cooking up a batch and pass that information along to local enforcement agencies.
She was trying to listen to him. She kept bringing her attention back to his quiet voice, the way he alternated steak and potato with story.
Trying to listen.
But part of her brain kept shouting the thing that he’d said before he began the complicated tale of chemical reactions, criminal personalities, the motivating factor of money and going undercover as part of the joint task force.
Why go back? At all? Ever?
Why go back?
Because she thought she had to. Because there were people depending on her. A house. A life. Memories. Years of commitment and sweat she couldn’t bring herself to throw away.
Yet only hours ago—or was it an entire day? she was losing track—Cade had told her Marsh wouldn’t hurt the clients, that they mattered to him only as a means of controlling her. The clients’ families wouldn’t tolerate abuse of their loved ones. Marsh had to realize that. Cade was right.
Why go back at all?
Because Marsh had everything, everything that had ever belonged to her and Gary, except what was in her wallet right now.
Everything. It galled her to think she would let him walk away and never challenge him. Surely she was stronger than that. Surely she could go back home, change the locks. Call the police. Show them her bruises—
“It’s highly corrosive, hypophosphorous acid,” Cade was saying, his fingertips straying up to his eyebrow, cupping the side of his face where the skin still looked raw and puckered.
“You were lucky not to be blinded,” Abby said, forcing her attention back to the present. She stared into Cade’s blue eyes and thought how dreadful it would be for their beauty to be diminished in any way.
“No kidding.” More steak, more potato. A swallow of beer. Abby looked at his throat working and suppressed a ragged indrawn breath of mingled horror at his story, and arousal at the sight of his tanned, bare neck.
What’s there you gotta have?
Nothing.
If she were brutally honest with herself, there was nothing in the house she
had
to have. There were things she wanted, of course there were. Mementos. Financial records. The computer. Business files. Photos of her life with Gary. Her small jewelry collection.
But what if, instead of the reality of Marsh’s manipulations, there’d been a disaster, like a hurricane or a fire? Those were all
things,
and things could be replaced. Even things like birth certificates. It would be a hassle, it might be expensive, the loss would even be painful, like grief—but it would be possible.
She could walk away.
She could.
She looked up at Cade, who was explaining how he’d gotten himself out of the lab before the volatile chemicals sent the whole place up in flames, even though he could barely see, and made it to the road, where a passing motorist had stopped for him and driven him to the hospital.
“I swear that guy broke a land speed record.”
“Where was your team, your backup?”
“I was undercover, remember? Being undercover means you don’t always have someone else standing by to help out.”
“So it wasn’t a drug bust.”
“Not right then. I was there to figure out both ends of the supply chain—where the guys got their raw materials, and where the meth went after the cook. But they made me—somehow, they made me, and one of them chucked a dish of that crap at my face.”
“They meant to kill you.”
“Yeah.” More beer. “Instead, I look like a villain out of a superhero movie, and I was still alive to give evidence.”
“They went to jail?”
“You bet.” The satisfaction in Cade’s voice spread to his fierce smile. “For a long, long time.”
“But you didn’t go back to working undercover, did you? By then you’d have looked pretty distinctive.” Abby personally thought Cade looked pretty distinctive anyway, even if she ignored the furious presence of the scar. He was physically imposing, fit and strong, and she had fallen hard for his blue eyes. She thought that if a cop had stopped her for speeding and had blue eyes like Cade’s, she would have remembered those forever, and would recognize them if she saw them elsewhere. But maybe she was just a sappy woman infatuated with the first man who’d shown her tenderness in months.
“I did for a while. Long enough for them to decide I was too easily remembered and cut me loose.”
Why go back at all?
“So somewhere in there you decided on a career change?”
“My department was great with me coming back on regular patrol duty.” He shrugged. “But after only a month, I knew it wasn’t going to be enough for me, not after I’d been a part of busting some of the really big drug rings in the state.” He turned his beer glass around and around on the table. Abby waited, watching his hands. She liked the way his fingers moved, slow and careful, sure.
After a while he spoke again. “One of the older K-9 guys wanted to retire. When the man goes, pretty much the dog has to go, too, because of the bond. It’s really rare for a dog to be shifted to a new deputy. So when the county offered me that K-9 slot and training, I took it, even though it meant going back to patrol duty and looking for lost kids or old people who’ve gotten confused and wandered off. Dogs don’t care if you don’t look like other people. Dogs only care about how you smell, how you act.” He looked up at her, and there they were again, those blue eyes. Except now there was a shadow in them, evidence of his struggle to put his life back together. Again she waited, nodding slowly, not looking away. She looked at his scar. He meant for her to, she thought. He had it turned toward her. She took a good long look. It took getting used to, but Abby was used to looking past people’s surfaces to the person inside—sometimes locked far, far within, the way some of her clients were.
He drank the last swallows of beer and pushed the glass toward the edge of the table, where the staff would notice. “I thought a lot about quitting altogether. But what kind of job can you get when you look like I do? Night watchman at some high-rise in Jacksonville? Full-time zombie at a traveling carnival? Telephone sales?”
“Oh, Cade—”
He shook his head, looking away from her at last. “I’ve adjusted, don’t worry. Doesn’t mean I like the way I look. It doesn’t make things easy, you know? But I don’t want to punch the living daylights out of people who comment about it anymore—” He stopped, realizing what he’d said, and stared at Abby. “That didn’t come out right.”
“You’re not talking about irrational behavior,” she said quietly. “You’re not Marsh.”
“I’m damn well not. Though I wouldn’t bet on his chances of remaining a pretty boy if I ever get hold of him.”
Abby flushed. She couldn’t allow Cade to take that kind of risk for her. She was thrilled by his white-knight words, but this was her own battle. He was just pointing out to her something she should have known for herself, but couldn’t see through her grief over Gary, and later, her own vulnerability and self-loathing. “Tell me about how you and Mort got to be a team.”
Cade grinned, glancing out the window to where they both could see Mort’s silhouette in the back of the red pickup. “The training school isn’t far from Wildwood, actually. Just the next town over, right outside Bushnell. The people who run it bought a former Thoroughbred horse farm.”
“Bushnell! Not even ten minutes down the road from my house.”
“Mort and I were just coming back from a refresher course when we stopped at the store in Wildwood. I’m sure you know the place.” Cade’s wink was long and slow. Abby felt her face burning, but a smile also crept across her lips.
“Go on with your story.”
“Mort was my first training candidate dog. We pretty much grew up together in the training. Officers don’t always bond with the first dog they work with, but Mort and me, yeah. The instructors gave me a few chances with some other candidate dogs, but it just didn’t take.” Cade grinned and looked out the window beside them in the general direction of his pickup. “Mort and I climbed a ton of fences, crawled through bushes and culverts, chased down the bad guys in their protective suits. Working with Mort was... It wasn’t the same as a really big bust, but there’s something to be said for having your best friend around all the time.”
“Knowing he’s always got your back, and you always have his.” Abby nodded, pleased to hear the animation and engagement in his voice. “So now you and Mort find lost kids and old people.”
“Thugs and drugs sometimes, too, but yeah. People pay attention to a dog like Mort when they might not listen to a cop giving them directions.”
“I know about that firsthand,” she said ruefully. “He’s pretty intimidating. Those are some big teeth, and a fierce growl.”
Cade nodded. “The refresher course reminded me how much I liked the training. Police dogs are athletes. Working with Mort pushes me to...I don’t know, be at my best, I guess. Mort always gives one hundred percent. This time Mort and I got to be the demo team for some new K-9 trainees. I think we really made a difference, showed them what it’s like in the real world.”
“It sounds rewarding. Fulfilling.”
Cade looked at her oddly and Abby wondered why what she’d said could bring that quizzical expression to his face. She blinked and let the subject drop, afraid she’d put her foot in it somehow. She looked down at the table in confusion. Cade’s steak was nearly finished, but she herself was still picking at her catfish. The hush puppy rolled around on her plate, too dense and greasy to be appetizing now that it had cooled. She glanced out the window, looking toward the pickup and Mort, and saw a silver Honda sedan coming into the parking lot too fast, whirling to a stop virtually nose-to-bumper with another car near the wharf.
Every nerve in her body fired at once.
It was Marsh’s car. She knew it. Somehow he’d tracked her here—somehow he’d found the motel, maybe talked to the clerk. He’d scoured Micanopy, found the place the locals went for dinner, and he was here.
“Oh, no, no no no,” she moaned. Her fork clattered into her plate and she bolted out of the booth so forcefully that she knocked against the table, jolting their plates and glasses. “Where’s the back door?” she hissed. “Is it through the kitchen?”
“What?” Cade reached out, caught her wrist. “What the hell, Abby?”
Everyone in the restaurant was staring.
“He’s here,” she moaned. “That’s his car. I have to go. I have to get out of here!” She tried to jerk free of Cade’s grip, and instead he came up from the seat with her as she pulled.
“Don’t be a fool.” He looked out the window to see what had upset her, never letting go. In fact, he was reeling her in, hand over hand, until he could get his arm around her waist. He kept the pitch of his voice calm and even. “First, that’s not Marsh. How could it be? He has no idea where you went. Second, everybody and their dog drives a damn silver Honda. I’m in law enforcement, I should know. It’s like the car of invisibility, millions of them on the roads.” His head bent to hers. He put his mouth close to her ear. “And third, if that
is
Marsh, believe me,
nothing
would give me more pleasure than to meet him.” The cold menace in Cade’s voice sent a shiver up her spine.
She wanted to see Cade beat Marsh to a bloody pulp, she realized, panting.
Cade’s arm scooped her back toward the booth, bringing her along with him as he moved. “Come back and sit down. First of all we’ll watch to see the driver get out.” He urged her into the booth—on his side, where the vinyl was warm from his body—and came in beside her, effectively trapping her.
“It’s him. It’s him. It’s—”
“It’s
not,
Abigail.” He caught her chin and turned her panicked face from the window. “What the hell did Marsh
do
to you?” His blue gaze searched her face. “What haven’t you told me?”
“Let me out. Let me go. You can’t keep me here. I can’t stay. Don’t you understand?
I can’t stay here with him out there.
”
“What I understand,” Cade said softly, all but whispering, “is that you’re terrified out of your wits by the mere sight of one of the most common vehicles in the country, and you’re not rational right now. Get hold of yourself, Abigail McMurray.”
* * *
If he’d ever doubted the reality of what prolonged stress could do to a person, he’d had it proved in spades by the simple expedient of a silver Honda sedan in a backwoods parking lot. Cade let Abby turn back to the window to stare fixedly at the Honda, though her hand was up to hide her face from outside view. They didn’t have to wait long for the driver to open his door and step out.
It was a kid, as Cade had known it would be from the Honda’s flashy entry into the oyster-shell lot. The kid bounced to the car he had blocked in, an arm shot out of the car’s window and there was an elaborate exchange of grips and fist-bumps.
Abby slumped in the booth, trembling with reaction. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Yeah,” Cade agreed. “Drink some water.”
“Is it bad that I want a giant shot of bourbon instead?”
“If that’s what you want, babe, I’ll get it for you.”
“I can’t believe I freaked out like that. The whole restaurant must’ve seen me.”
“They did.” He couldn’t hide his small but growing smile.
“I’m such an idiot.”
“Don’t keep beating yourself up about it.”
“
Such
an idiot!”
“Yeah.” Cade was grinning.
“You don’t have to agree so quickly, you know.”
“How about that bourbon now?”
Abby rubbed a hand over her face. She slumped a little in the booth, leaning against Cade’s shoulder. It didn’t matter how hot the summer was, or the warmth of the late-day sun coming in through their window. He liked the warmth of her next to him, and the impression of trust he perceived from her body. She wasn’t frightened by him.