Secrets and Desire: Best-Kept Lies / Miss Pruitt's Private Life / Secrets, Lies...and Passion

Her insides crumbled. “You’re wrong.”

“So you are afraid that someone is after you.”

“I’m a mother. I’m not taking any chances with him.”

“Only with yourself.”

“Let’s not get into this.” She pressed a button and the answering machine rewound.

“Is he with your cousin Nora?”

Her muscles tensed. How had he learned about Nora, on her mother’s side? Her brothers had never met Nora.

“Or maybe Aunt Bonita, your mother’s stepsister?”

God, he’d done his homework. Her head thundered, her palms suddenly sweaty. “It’s none of your business, Striker.”

“How about your friend Sharon?” He folded his arms over his chest. “That’s where I’m putting my money.”

She froze. How could he have guessed that she would leave her precious child with Sharon Okano? She and Sharon hadn’t seen each other in nearly nine months, and yet Striker had figured it out.

“You wouldn’t take a chance on a relative, or you would have left him in Montana, and your co-workers are out because they might slip up, so it had to be someone you trusted, but not obvious enough that it would be easy to figure it out.”

Her heart constricted.

He reached forward and touched her shoulder. She recoiled as if burned.

“If I can guess where you hid him, so can the guy who’s after you.”

“How did you find Sharon?” she asked. “I’m not buying the ‘lucky guess’ theory.”

Kurt walked to the coffee table and picked up his beer. “It wasn’t rocket science, Randi.”

“But—”

“Even cell phones have records.”

“You went through my mail to find my phone bill? Isn’t that a federal offense, or don’t you care about that?” she asked, then her eyes swept the desk and she realized that he couldn’t have sorted through the junk mail and correspondence that was hers, as she’d had it held at the post office ages ago.

“It doesn’t matter how I got the information,” he said. “What’s important is that you and your son aren’t safe. Your brothers hired me to protect you, and like it or not, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He drained his beer in one long swallow. “Fight me all you want, Randi, but I intend to stick to you like glue. You can call your brothers and complain and they won’t budge. You can run away, but I’ll catch you so quick it’ll make your head spin. You can call the cops and we’ll get to the bottom of this here and now. That’s just the way it is. So, you can make it easy for everyone and tell me what the hell’s going on or you can be difficult and we’ll go at it real slow.” He set his bottle on one end of the coffee table and as he straightened, his eyes held hers with deadly intensity. “Either way.”

“Get out.”

“If that’s the way you want it. But I’ll be back.”

So angry she was shaking, she repeated, “Get the hell out.”

“You’ve got one hour to think about it,” he advised her as he made his way to the door. “One hour. Then I’ll be back. And if we have to, we’ll do this the hard way. It’s your choice, Randi, but the way I see it, you’re damn near out of options.”

He walked outside and the door shut behind him. Randi threw the bolt, swore under her breath and fought the urge to crumple into a heap. She forced starch into her spine. Nothing was ever accomplished by falling into a million pieces. It was hard to admit it, but Kurt Striker was right about one thing; she didn’t have many choices. Well, that was tough. She wasn’t going to be railroaded into making a wrong one.

Too much was at stake.

Four

Kurt slid behind the wheel of his rental, a bronze king-cab pickup. The windows were a little fogged, so he cracked one and turned on the defrost to stare through the rivulets of rain sliding down the windshield. He’d give her an hour to sort things out, the same hour he’d give himself to cool off. There was something about the woman that got under his skin and put him on edge.

From the first moment he’d seen her at the Flying M, he’d sensed it—that underlying tension between them, an unacknowledged current that simmered whenever they were in the same room. It was stupid, really. He wasn’t one to fall victim to a woman’s charms, especially not a spoiled brat of a woman who had grown up as the apple of her father’s eye, a rich girl who’d had everything handed to her.

Oh, she was pretty enough. At least she was now that the bruises had disappeared and her hair was growing back. In fact, she was a knockout. Pure and simple. Despite her recent pregnancy, her body was slim, her breasts large enough to make a man notice, her hips round and tight. With her red-brown hair, pointed little chin, pouty lips and wide brown eyes, she didn’t need much makeup. Her mind was quick, her tongue rapier sharp and she’d made it more than clear that she wanted him to leave her alone. Which would be best for everyone involved, he knew, but there was just something about her that kept drawing him in and firing his blood.

Forget it. She’s your client.

Not technically. She hadn’t hired him.

But her brothers had.

You have to keep this relationship professional.

Relationship? What relationship? Hell, she can’t stand to be in the same room with me.

Oh, yeah, right. Like you haven’t been through thisbefore. And like last night never happened.

She’d put Joshua in his room and then after Kurt had sneaked down the stairway, she’d followed him and found him in the darkened living room where only embers from a dying fire gave off any illumination.

He’d already poured himself a drink and was sipping it quietly while staring through the icy window to the blackened remains of the stable.

“You were watching me,” she’d accused, and he’d nodded, not turning around. “Why?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Bull!”

So she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. So be it. He took a sip of his drink before facing her.

“What the hell were you doing upstairs?”

“I thought I heard someone, so I checked.”

“You did. It was me. This house is full of people, you know.” She was so angry, he could feel her heat, noticed that she hadn’t bothered buttoning her nightgown, acted as if she was completely unaware that her breasts were visible.

“Do you want me to explain or not?”

“Yeah. Try.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, involuntarily lifting them, causing the cleft between them to deepen. Kurt kept his gaze locked with hers.

“As I said, I heard something. Footsteps. I just walked upstairs and down the hall. By the time I started for the stairs you were there.”

“And the rest, as they say, is history.” She arched an eyebrow and her lips were pursed hard together. “Get a good look?”