Take Me Deeper (8 page)

Zane kept on walking.

“Look, I'm sorry about Nirvana. I just couldn't see you wearing flannel.”

Ignoring her, he went through the door and let it slam shut behind him.

Iris woke with the distinct feeling that something was wrong, which was pretty much business as usual. Except this time she couldn't quite pinpoint what exactly was bugging her.

Cautiously she opened one eye. A baby in a swimming pool reaching for a floating dollar bill looked back.

Oh crap. Nirvana. Teenage boy.

Zane.

She groaned and threw an arm over her face. She'd been hoping yesterday had been a bad dream, just like she'd hoped that when she left Dallas things would get better. But apparently not. Apparently life hadn't finished screwing with her.

Not only had she gotten the cartel on her tail, but she was now the prisoner of a bounty hunter whose brother wanted to send her back to jail.

And she still hadn't figured out how she was ever going to get her sister back.

Don't blame it on life, Callahan. This is your own stupid fault.

Iris swallowed and took away her arm. Yes, so it was her own fault. She'd been the one to get herself into this situation, and if she hadn't been so set on getting the money for that house for Jamie, she'd never have taken Dylan up on his offer to help her out. That had been her own stupid decision. God, so many stupid decisions…

She stared up at the incongruously ornate ceiling above her head.

Perhaps not escaping the night before, after hearing Quinn and Zane argue, had been another stupid decision.

Quinn had sounded pretty certain about what he wanted to do with her, which meant she could either stay here and let herself be delivered back to jail or escape and take her chances with the cartel. She'd chosen to stay here mainly because, despite the long sleep she'd already had yesterday, a deep exhaustion had settled into her bones, and the opportunity to have a shower and a sleep somewhere safe was just too good to pass up. Even if Zane had obviously
not
been thrilled with that decision.

In fact, he'd been pretty damn irritated with her.

Why? Because she'd been fairly calm about her situation? Seemed a weird thing for a guy as cool as he was to get irritated about. Or was it only because he'd had to do her laundry?

She'd put all her clothing in the hallway outside and, sure enough, he'd taken it all away twenty minutes later, at the same time as he'd delivered a burger, fries, and Coke. It was like a weird kind of room service, though he hadn't appreciated the joke when she'd offered to tip him, giving her an icy look from underneath his dark lashes instead.

He'd left her alone the rest of the night, which she'd found vaguely disappointing. Though she couldn't imagine what she wanted from him. Not sex, that was for sure, not when she'd only just met the guy. He was already helping her, so there didn't seem much point in screwing him anyway. Instead she'd amused herself by poking around in his room, looking at his books and comics, fiddling with his guitar.

It was odd, this whole hotel setup. The bounty hunting business downstairs, with the bedrooms upstairs. Odd, too, that this room was still like a teenage-boy shrine or something, as if it had been this way for years and no one had touched it. Clearly he hadn't been back here since, so why keep it like this? And how long, exactly, had he been away?

Her mounting curiosity about him unsettled her, so she'd put herself to bed not long after that, quickly falling into a dreamless sleep very like the one she'd had earlier that day. As if she didn't have to worry about anything. As if she knew, deep down, that she was protected, safe.

Safe? Don't get ahead of yourself.

Iris scowled at the reminder and sat up. On a chair by the window sat a small pile of clean clothes. Her clothes. Holy hell, he really had done her laundry. There was also a tantalizing, familiar smell in the air.

She turned her head and there it was, sitting on the nightstand. A large coffee in a take-out cup, a paper bag resting next to it. Coffee and…She reached out and grabbed the bag, peering inside. It was a cinnamon roll and it was still warm.

Something clenched tight inside her. He'd done her laundry and he'd brought her breakfast. Jesus. She didn't need to think about how long it had been since anyone had done anything for her, not when she already knew. Dylan. He hadn't done her laundry, it was true, but he'd bought her coffee. Had taken her to dinner. Fixed up a few things around the trailer. Small acts of kindness that had gotten under her guard, little by little, gaining her trust until…

Yeah…until he ruined your life. Remember that?

Iris stared down at the paper bag with the delicious pastry inside. She should put it aside, grab her stuff, and get out of here. Get out now while she could. Then again, that wouldn't solve her situation with her sister. Jamie was still in foster care and she was no closer to a plan on how to get her back out again.

She sighed. Staying here and letting Zane Redmond and his hostile brother decide her fate sucked, and all this caretaking stuff Zane was doing for her was confusing and troubling. But it was better than being dead. And who knew? Maybe sticking around would give her a plan on how to deal with the whole drugs-charges thing. She just had to keep her guard up, stay wary, and not let Zane get under her skin by doing laundry and buying her food.

Didn't mean she couldn't eat this cinnamon roll though. It would only get cold and stale if she didn't, and the same with the coffee. Be a shame to waste it and after all, she was very hungry.

Iris tore open the bag and devoured the pastry. Then she grabbed the coffee, taking sips of it as she pulled on some clean clothes.

Might as well go downstairs and see if Zane had managed to change his stupid brother's mind about shipping her to Dallas.

Once she was dressed, Iris made her way along the hallway and down the stairs, looking around to see where Zane might have gotten to.

The foyer was empty, but voices could be heard through an open doorway that led to another room or something, she didn't know what. They were deep, male, and sounded very, very annoyed.

Iris paused, curious in spite of herself.

There was Zane's cool timbre, mixed with Quinn's rougher, grittier tones. And a third voice, smooth and warm as honey. Was that the third brother he mentioned?

All three men were definitely arguing and it didn't take a genius to figure out who they were arguing about. Her.

“You take her to Dallas and you'll have to go through me,” Zane was saying icily. “I'm not going to have another woman's death on my conscience.”

Another woman's death? Iris drifted closer to the door, intrigued.

“Charlie again?” Quinn sounded as pissed off as he had the night before. “Yeah, we're not going to talk about that. We made a vow on it, remember?”

“You and Rush and Dad made a vow,” Zane snapped. “I didn't.”

“Hey, come on, Zane.” The smooth voice this time, easygoing and relaxed. “Redmonds stick together, remember? Don't be such a fucking dick.”

“Yes, well, you have to believe that, don't you?” Zane's voice was barbed. “Or else you would have spent eight years in jail for sweet fuck all.”

There was a crashing silence.

Oh crap. Some serious shit was going down from the sound of things, and she appeared to be caught in the middle of it. Wonderful. Zane was arrogant, cold, and had been a bit of a dick, but still. He'd saved her, cleaned her up after she'd scratched herself, and now she had clean clothes and was fully caffeinated thanks to him. She didn't want to be the reason he was now having a major falling out with his brothers.

Maybe she should leave after all. Maybe that would be easier for all concerned.

She turned from the doorway, already forming plans for running quickly back upstairs to grab her duffel bag and leaving.

“Where do you think you're going?”

Iris stopped dead, Zane's cool voice somehow wrapping around her and holding her tight.

Damn. Too late now.

“I…” She stopped and turned around.

Zane was standing in the doorway, arms folded across his broad chest. He was in a suit today and for some reason she couldn't stop staring. Which didn't make any sense because she
hated
guys in suits. But Zane…God, he was a total package.

The suit was dark blue, the fabric obviously expensive and perfectly tailored to his wide shoulders and lean waist. He wore a crisp white shirt with it, the top couple of buttons undone to reveal the tanned skin of his throat, and the white seemed to make the intense sapphire of his eyes stand out even more.

Okay, so maybe guys in suits weren't that bad.

Iris swallowed, trying to pull herself together enough to give him an answer that wasn't “actually, I'm thinking of escaping. See ya.”

His eyes narrowed. “Running out on me, huh?”

“Well…no. I was just…uh…going to check out the main street and…stuff.”

Zane cursed, moving toward her, and she battled the sudden, insane desire to turn and run through the doors before he could catch her. But she couldn't seem to make her legs move, and then his fingers were sliding around her upper arm, gripping her, and her skin prickled with heat, a wave of it spreading over her entire body.

She looked up at him, shocked by her own reaction, his gaze clashing with hers. She was achingly conscious of his fingers resting against her bare skin, his grip firm enough that she couldn't pull away and yet not tight enough to cause pain.

She'd never felt this before, not this trembling, half-excited, half-scared sensation that sat in the pit of her stomach. Intellectually she knew what it was—she wasn't an idiot—but she'd never actually experienced it herself, not even with Dylan.

Sexual attraction. Hot. Raw. Overwhelming.

“Liar.” His voice was soft and there was a caressing quality to it, so unlike the ice that normally coated every word. It made her shiver. “You were getting out of here, weren't you?”

Pull yourself together, Callahan. You're not going to let some dude get to you just because he's hot, right?

No. Damn. Way.

Iris jerked her arm out of his grip. “So what if I was?” Annoyingly, she could still feel the imprint of his fingers, the heat lingering on her skin as if she'd been scorched.

He didn't reach for her again, but the look in his eyes burned, gas-flame blue. “If you were, I'd say it was pretty ungrateful considering I did your laundry and brought you breakfast.”

She could feel her face heat. “You didn't have to do any of those things.”

“Yet you're wearing clean clothes and you have that coffee in your hands.”

“I—”

“The word you're looking for is ‘thanks.' ”

Her flush deepened. Great, now she looked like an asshole. But then that was the problem when people did stuff for her. It happened so rarely even when her mom had still been around that she didn't know how to handle it. And after Dylan, everyone's motivations seemed suspect.

Swallowing her immediate reaction, which was to tell him not to be such a patronizing ass, she mumbled, “Thanks.”

He at least had the grace not to look satisfied, his expression remaining sharp and focused on her. “Tell me why you were leaving.”

She sighed and lifted a shoulder. “I wasn't really. At least, not until I heard you guys arguing. I just don't want to be the reason for that.”

The expression in Zane's eyes was disturbingly perceptive, making her want to look away. “Are you sure it's not just because you're a coward?”

Anger flared inside her, thick and hot. How dare he? He didn't know her, he didn't know what she'd been through, how damn difficult the last year had been. A coward would have rolled over and drowned her sorrows the way other people in the trailer park did—with cheap drugs and even cheaper booze. But she hadn't, no way. She'd chosen to keep fighting, to make up for the mistake of trusting Dylan, and do whatever it took to get her sister back.

“Oh, right,” she said sarcastically. “Leaving here and risking being found by the cartel is cowardly.”

He scowled. “I told you I'd protect you.”

“And I don't know you from a bar of soap. So give me one good reason why I should trust anything you say.”

A look of frustration crossed his lean features. “I would have thought I'd given you many reasons to trust me.”

“What? Coffee and laundry?”

“I'm a soldier, Iris. Protecting people is what I do.” His tone was flat with certainty, with conviction. There was no doubt he meant what he said.

But still, she didn't want to put her trust in anyone again. First her mother had up and left, then Dylan had tricked her into the situation she was in now. No, the lessons she'd learned had been too hard and far, far too painful.

“That might be true, but I—”

She didn't get to finish. Obviously losing patience, Zane reached out and gripped her arm once more, this time tight enough that there was no way she could pull free. “Like I said,” he muttered tersely, “you're not going anywhere.” Then he turned and moved toward the open doorway, pulling her with him.

Furious, Iris tried to dig her heels in, only to be dragged over the carpet like a recalcitrant dog at the end of a leash. “Let go of me, you bastard,” she muttered, trying to pull away.

Zane ignored her, and before she could get another protest out, she was pulled into the long, dim room that had obviously once been the hotel bar.

Along one wall ran the bar itself, the shelves behind it stacked with empty bottles. The rest of the space was taken up with various arrangements of chairs and tables, with some booth seats along the opposite wall.

Quinn sat at one of the tables, the surface covered with paper, while another man sat on the bar with his arms folded. They both looked up as Zane and Iris entered, Quinn's scowl becoming more ferocious while the man at the bar only grinned. He could only be Zane and Quinn's brother, given the height and breadth of him, plus there was a certain similarity to his features. His eyes were the kind of color that Iris thought almost couldn't be real, an intense turquoise blue, his dark hair threaded with tones of caramel and gold. His mouth was long and wide, his smile slow and lazy, making his scarred-boxer's features seem almost friendly. But she didn't make the mistake of thinking he was. She'd seen men like him, the easy smile and the twinkle in their eyes masking the dangerous animal beneath. And this guy was all danger, she could smell it.