I’m not the problem here, for a change,
he thought. It wasn’t his face, or his job, the things that usually erected a wall between Cade and women. It was Marsh who was the problem, and Cade could be the solution, or at least part of it.
“I...don’t want to get drunk,” Abby said, slowly. “I mean...well, it might help, but it’s only temporary. Right?” She looked up at him. “What I want is for this all to be over.”
He could drown in those earnest gray eyes. They were deep and beautiful, full of honesty and unspoken truths. The women he’d dated before now, even the ones he thought he might be in love with, seemed shallow in retrospect. Were they only surfaces reflecting his own ego? Cade had chosen them for their beauty or the way they made loving seem fun, but not something to be taken seriously. With Abby, he’d somehow fallen straight through the surface to the real woman beneath, and found an ache he knew he could heal, and the desire to know her better. More than better; he wanted to probe to her very soul and protect what he found there.
Crazy thoughts,
he told himself.
He didn’t speak for a long moment, untangling her words while he set aside the discomfort of these unfamiliar feelings. She had to mean the situation with Marsh, not the situation with him, but he couldn’t ask for clarification. He couldn’t let himself be fooled by their overwhelmingly intimate situation over the past thirty hours or so. Just because he’d slept with her—twice—didn’t give him the right to wedge himself into her life or tell her what to do. The best he could hope for was giving a little advice based on his years of experience in exactly her domestic situation. He could have bulldozed his way into her homelife, shoved Marsh out and shoved himself into the void left behind, but that wouldn’t make him better than Marsh, just less prone to settle disagreements with fists.
Cade wanted to be better than Marsh.
“It’s your choice, babe. Bourbon or no bourbon, what’s happening in your life is your choice.” He shrugged as her brows drew down in confusion. “You can do what you want. If you want to go back to Marsh, you can do that.”
Abby blanched, her mouth opening to defend herself, but Cade held up a hand.
“Hear me out. I’m not going to tell you I want to see you go back to Wildwood and that situation, because I think if you do that, the only way it’ll end is with you in the hospital and him in jail, or one of you dead, probably you.”
The muscles in her throat worked hard. “He’s not a killer—”
“That’s what they all say. They make excuses for the piles of garbage who ought to be men. But you’re better than that, Abby. You deserve better, and I—I want to help you get there. Not just because I’m a deputy and I’m trained to deal with situations like this. Not just because the sex was great and I’m grateful.”
I’m grateful.
He cringed inwardly at his own words. He was indeed grateful, but it was more than that. So much more. Dangerously more. He had to guard against the urge to luxuriate in her nearness. It couldn’t last, and he knew it. Meanwhile, he’d take what he could get, and continue to be grateful.
“You want to help me?”
“You don’t see that? You really don’t see that? What the hell else have I been doing for the past day and a half, if not that?”
Abby’s eyes welled with tears, but they didn’t spill. “But I stole your truck. I ruined your trip, your vacation. I—”
“Tell me what you want. In words. You have options, no matter what you may think. I’ve heard it all—women think they’re too weak, or not smart enough, don’t have the money to make it, they love the bastard, what about the kids, the house is in his name, whatever. But you have choices. Make them.” Cade ached to touch her, ached to take it all out of her hands, make the choices for her because he knew what was best, what would be right and good. But he kept his hands on the table, where Abby could see them, because despite everything they’d been through together, she was still checking the emotional weather by watching his hands.
She might never get over that, and Cade hated Marsh sight unseen for that one thing alone.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Abby whispered. “What if Marsh calls the police, reports me missing? My poor day care clients—”
“He won’t call.” Cade’s voice carried a tone of finality, of utter certainty. Marsh would call the cops only when he went too far one day, and a fist-crunch took her life, and he had to cover his tracks. “If he’s doing anything at all, he’s looking for you himself.”
Abby stiffened, and her gaze went involuntarily to the Honda sedan in the parking lot.
“He sure as hell won’t find you here, Abigail.” He gestured to the rustic restaurant around them.
“The motel, though... It’s right off the interstate.”
“You’re not driving a vehicle he can track, and I didn’t tell the desk clerk I was bunking with the sexiest car thief in Florida. Nobody knows where you went except me and Mort.”
Abby blushed a bright, furious red. “Cade!”
He bent for a swift, light kiss on her startled lips, then drew back and looked at her seriously. “I’ve got the answer for every objection you can make. The choice is simple. It’s sticking to it that’s going to be damn hard, probably the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life. Harder even than living with him in your pocket. Marsh is going to undermine you at every point. He’s been inside your head before. He’ll get in there again. You’ve gotta put up the walls, and keep them up.”
Abby drew a long, shaky breath. “Harder than everything he’s done already?”
“Yep. But here’s the thing—when it’s over, it’s really over.” Cade didn’t tell her the other thing he knew. Abusers liked to lurk on the fringes of their victims’ lives, find a new place to set the thin end of the wedge and get back in. It might not matter to Marsh whether he was controlling Abby from within her own life. It might be enough for him to plague her with slashed tires or running down her business reputation, vandalizing her house, making her spend money she didn’t have to fix his messes. Stalk her, terrorize her.
“I can do it.” She looked once more out the window to where the silver Honda was slowly backing out, with the other car following. The boys were leaving. “I can. I’m not going to live like that another minute.”
Cade stretched out an arm and pulled her mug of beer across the table. He picked up his water glass, since his mug was empty, and held it up. “I’ll drink to that.”
Abby clinked glasses with him, her eyes growing stern and dark. “Tomorrow I’m going to close the checking account. Marsh can get his funds somewhere else. And I’m going to change the locks.” Then her stern expression changed suddenly to one of alarm. “Um, Cade?” Her voice was small and uncertain.
“What is it?”
“Do you think you could give me a ride home?”
Cade threw back his head and laughed. “Abigail McMurray, you are without a doubt the most brazen car thief I have ever had the pleasure to meet.”
Then Cade learned what it was like to be the reason for her smile. When it came, it blazed brighter than the reddened evening sun. A ragged piece of himself lurched once, deep inside. He realized it was his heart, thumping strong and swift, and feeling remarkably whole, instead of an empty place like where a tooth was missing.
She might be delighted by the compliment he had paid her, but now that her meltdown over the silver Honda was fading, Cade’s brain began ticking over their conversation. He thought about what she’d said as he told her how he had enjoyed the K-9 training and refresher course.
Fulfilling.
Rewarding.
Maybe fulfillment and a sense of accomplishment could be as good as an adrenaline rush—not as quick or sharp, but surely longer lasting. He wondered if it was what Abby felt when she worked with her clients. He looked at her again and saw she was still smiling. Her eyes weren’t even tracing over the edges of his scar. She saw
him.
That was enough of a rush for Cade.
For now, anyway. For now.
* * *
“Look, buddy, I don’t know how to be any clearer. We don’t give out information about our guests.” The desk clerk crossed his arms over his chest and took a step back from the counter. His dark eyes were narrowed and stern in his thin, seamed brown face. Grooves ran from his nose to the corners of his mouth. Only a few minutes ago, those grooves had been deep with a welcoming smile, but now they bracketed his frown.
Guests.
Marsh grimaced. Is that what they called the kind of two-bit hustlers and johns who would rent a room in such a fleabag motel?
“I told you. I’m her husband. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
“And I told
you.
I don’t care who you are. If you don’t have a warrant, you don’t get jack.” The man’s quiet drawl grew even quieter, more determined.
Marsh’s hands clenched. He itched to pick up the shiny silver night bell that stood at one side of the counter and hurl it against the wall, or grab the man by his collar and drag him across the counter. The desk clerk was a tougher nut to crack than the hipster at the convenience store. This man was older, harder—and he had laughed at the five dollars Marsh had first slid his direction.
Now Marsh slid over a twenty. The man looked at it, then up at Marsh. “You got a C-note in that mighty tight wallet of yours, buddy?”
Marsh flushed dark red in fury. “Is that what it’ll take? A hundred?”
“That’s right.” The man nodded slowly. “That’s what it’ll take. Or a warrant, like I said.”
A hundred dollars. It was sixty more than Marsh had on him, since he’d come away from the house without proper prep or planning. He’d gotten out of the habit of carrying much cash—everybody used plastic these days. He’d given half his cash to Abigail yesterday to pay for the emergency groceries.
Enraged, Marsh opened his wallet and upended it over the counter. Another five and a ten dangled out and then fell, joining the twenty-five already lying on the smooth wood. “There it is. Everything I’ve got in my wallet. What’ll that get me? Anything? Anything at all?”
The clerk began to smile again. “Might buy you a couple gallons of gas across the road. What are you driving?”
Marsh slammed his hand down flat over the money and crushed it in his fist. “Thanks for nothing. I’ll remember you. If something bad has happened to her, I’ll remember you, how you could have helped and wouldn’t. And I’ll be back.” He crammed the cash into his pocket with the wallet, heedless as he yanked open the office door and then banged out through the screen door, which shrilled on its hinges. He felt he could rip open the motel’s walls with his bare hands, but he settled for stalking down the parking lot to the end unit—
—where the red pickup truck was gone.
While Marsh had been in the office grilling the clerk, Abigail and her lover had vanished. He hadn’t even heard the truck drive out, he’d been so intent on prying information from the desk clerk. He turned and sprinted the other way, to where he could see the road and the ramps of the interstate, but the truck was nowhere to be found.
Marsh slammed his fist against the cheesy painted sign—Rest-n-Refresh Motel We’re Air-Conditioned!—and let out a howl of fury.
He’d been that close, he knew it.
He turned around again, passing the office once more, and headed for the end unit, where the truck had been parked. The curtains were closed too snugly for him to see anything inside.
He has his hand on the doorknob when the screen door shrieked again.
“I wouldn’t, friend,” came the clerk’s voice, carrying clearly to Marsh’s ears. “I think I’d better let the sheriff know you’re showing a lot of interest in damaging my property.”
Marsh took two steps back from the door and showed his hands, palms out. The clerk had a phone in his hands, forefinger poised.
“I’m just really...concerned,” Marsh said, trying to keep the breathless fury out of his voice. “I have to find her before she gets hurt.”
And then I’ll show her exactly how much trouble she’s put me through the past day and a half.
“There’s no need to call the law.”
The clerk eyed Marsh with a narrow stare. “I think it’s time you took your leave, friend.”
Marsh came back to the Honda. The clerk gave Marsh’s license plate a good long look, standing in front of the “Checkout time 11 a.m.” sign.
Checking Marsh out,
Marsh thought, gritting his teeth. He tried for a sincere smile, but was sure it only made him look as if he was about to puke. He couldn’t help it. “I’m going. No problems here, right?”
The clerk didn’t respond, just stood there glaring as Marsh started the Honda and backed out of the parking spot. When Marsh looked in the rearview, the clerk was speaking into the phone.
“No!” Marsh pounded the steering wheel. Without a doubt the clerk was reporting him, and probably the description of his car, to the sheriff. He had to get control of himself. Going off half-cocked like that—when he wasn’t even certain Abigail had headed north instead of south—wasn’t going to get him what he wanted. He didn’t even know for sure the red truck was the right one, but he believed it was. It felt right. Something had to break Marsh’s way, soon. He was owed a win, he thought, a little reward. He loved Abigail so much that he couldn’t lose her this way.
Marsh headed the Honda into the little town of Micanopy, trying to calm down, peering at the people in every car he passed. The truck, if it was here, wouldn’t be hard to find. The town was too small to hide a vehicle that distinctive, and its image was burned into Marsh’s brain. The truck had a square blocky red body sporting a few scoured spots with brownish primer paint sprayed to guard against rust. A white camper shell capped the bed of the pickup, windows on both sides, and a hatch window at the back. Big chrome gas cap cover behind the driver’s door.
A few minutes later, having already passed through the town on its main street, he pulled into a convenience store with elderly gas pumps out front, the sort that didn’t even take credit cards. He went inside to prepay, and bought a rock-hard burrito from under the heat lamp in the deli area. While he pumped gas and methodically gnawed at the burrito, he thought hard. It was not quite four in the afternoon. The day’s heat was building to its apex. How many streets were there to this town? How long would it take him to scour them all? Were Abigail and her lover even still here, or had they climbed onto the interstate and driven away?