Melting The Ice

“Let’s go.” He took her arm and started to lead her down the path. She struggled to match his long gait as he ushered her along the trail toward the village. She was losing control, he was sucking her down into a confusing, gray maelstrom. She had to take a step back.

“Wait, Rex.”

He stopped.

“I…I’m going home to change first.” Besides feeling like something the cat had dragged in, the perspiration on her skin had cooled and set her shivering. “I’m cold.”

Rex skimmed his eyes over her, a twinkle brightening the ice for an instant. He grinned. Quick and wolfish. “Yes. I see. I’ll come with you.”

She wrapped her arms over her chest. “No. I’ll go alone and meet up with you later.”

“Hannah, you’re not getting it. You’re in the same kind of trouble Amy was. You have to trust me on this.”

There it was again. That word. Trust. She glanced back into the forest. She felt as if she was trapped between the devil and the trees. She was sure someone had been following her. What if Rex was right? Had she been tailed last night?

Hannah sat silent in his four-wheel-drive vehicle as he drove her around the lake.

He had the wheel and all the control. She had none. She had no idea what she had gotten herself into. She was being forced to trust him. Look where that had gotten her before.

They were approaching her condo. “Here. This one.”

He pulled into her driveway. “Nice place.”

“It’s mine.” The words escaped her mouth before her head even registered them.

“Still a nice place.”

“Thanks.” She’d made a decent investment in this property. She’d lived frugally during her foreign correspondent years. Her clothes had been utilitarian, her accommodation and food on the company tab. But she’d earned well and invested well. It had secured her this home. Now her freelance work plus the hours she put in at the Gazette supplemented her income. She and Danny were doing fine.

She climbed out of the car. He followed. He was going to come in. Into her home. Thoughts of Danny streamed through her brain. His room. His little bicycle. His toys. The photographs of him all over her condo. She turned to him. “Rex.” Her voice was firm. “I don’t want you in my house. Can you wait?”

He angled his head, curious. “Why?”

“I just don’t.”

“I’ll just come in and take a quick look around. Make sure things are safe. Then I’ll leave you in peace while you change.”

Panic licked at her stomach. “No. Please.”

Rex frowned, studying her face. Then he turned away and scanned the surroundings. He looked back at her. “And if there’s someone inside?”

“I’ll yell.”

He shook his head, looked up at the sky, blew out a stream of air in frustration. But he wasn’t pushing her. She had to hand him that.

“Wait.” He strode back to the SUV and fished a cell phone out of the glove compartment. He punched in some numbers and handed it to her. “Here. Press one and I’ll be there in a flash. Don’t lock your door. I’ll keep watch out here.”

Hannah stepped into her home and closed the door quietly behind her. She took her time. Not so much to spite him as to absorb and process the events of the past twenty-four hours.

Rex Logan had walked back into her life and turned it upside down, spilling it all directions like a box of kids’ toys. She turned on the shower and let hot water sluice over her limbs, beat at the dull ache in her shoulder. She was going to have to play along with him for a while. She had no other option. Fred LeFevre would laugh her out of his office if she came to him with a conspiracy theory and zero proof to back it up. And what if Rex was telling the truth? What if she did tie him up in bureaucratic red tape? Would that mean they’d never find out if someone had taken Amy’s life? And why?

Hannah steeled her resolve. She’d march to the beat of his drum for now. God help her. Because once they’d solved the mystery of Amy Barnes, she was going to have to deal with the fact that this stranger in her life was Danny’s father.

And she was going to have to try and resolve it all before Friday. Before Danny came home.

She toweled off and rubbed a mild gardenia-scented lotion over her body.

Hannah changed three times before she settled on a lemon-yellow sleeveless dress hemmed about two inches above her knees. It offset her tan and showed her limbs to best advantage. She couldn’t remember when she’d last worn a dress. Not this summer, anyway.

She appraised the result in the mirror, then muttered a curse. Why did she even care?

“Well, I’ll tell you why you care.” She leaned forward and addressed her reflection, wagging her finger at her alter ego. “You want to look cool and groomed and unfazed by his little charade. That’s why.” Her very feminine core, deep down, also wanted Rex to see what he’d lost. A part of her wanted him to eat dust.

Satisfied, she grabbed her sunglasses, sweater and purse and headed back to his car.

“You took your sweet time.” But the gruffness of his words belied the glint of obvious approval in his eyes.

And it sparked a small glow of warm triumph in her belly.

Rex said nothing as he drove.

She looked like a golden goddess, this woman sitting next to him. The soft floral scent of her freshly showered body stirred painful memories of crushed frangipani blooms.

He lowered the window, letting in the fresh air. He wanted to blow the scent of her from his nostrils.

He’d had altogether too little sleep in his SUV. After he’d seen that hulking figure step out from under the portico and walk in her footsteps, he’d followed Hannah home, parked across the street, just out of sight until he could be sure she hadn’t been tailed all the way.

When she set off for her run earlier this morning, he’d followed her in his vehicle but lost her when she cut into the forest. He’d dug his gym bag out of the car, changed into his sweats and tried to catch up to her, but she was packing a mean pace and he’d lost her, until she crashed into him near the suspension bridge. He would have to keep closer tabs on her.

Seeing her in the forest this morning, vulnerable, tousled, flushed, breathless, the damp T-shirt molding the soft roundness of her breasts, had near driven him wild.

He not only wanted to protect her, he needed to. It was a primal urge. He wanted to gather his woman in his arms and keep her safe from the evil of the world.

Only she wasn’t his woman.

And she could never be.

He gripped the wheel and stepped on the gas, negotiating the bend in the road.

The silence hung thick and charged between them.

Rex led her to an intimate booth in the back corner of Ben’s Bistro. A private cocoon in the midst of the lively clatter of plates and cutlery and steady buzz of voices. The sun spilled warm through small windowpanes, throwing square patterns onto the red-and-white checked tablecloth.

“We can talk here.”

She took a seat opposite him.

“Try the eggs.”