Dangerous Curves (16 page)

C
ECE WOKE UP
near dawn, the pleasure she’d received from Blain’s lovemaking suffusing her in a warm glow. If she were a cat, she’d have done one of those paw stretches, claws extended, back arched. Content. That’s the way she felt. And she hadn’t felt that way in a long, long time.

It was an effort not to stare at Blain, to look at the contours of his face and simply marvel that he lay next to her. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d end up in bed with Blain Sanders.

She slipped from beneath the covers and into a hotel bathrobe, wandering into the living area of the suite. She’d kill for a cup of coffee right now. She thought about calling room service, but she didn’t want to wake Blain. What she wanted to do was think.

You think too much.

Yeah, most of the time that was true, Cece admitted, settling on a couch that sat before a huge window. The sun was just breaking the plane of the horizon, turning the sky a deep purple that would eventually fade to gray and then blue.

She had fallen for Blain.

There was no sense in denying it. Not after last night. He’d swept under her defenses, charmed her with his Southern accent and his tender concern.

She sighed, tucking her feet beneath her, because as much as she wanted a life with Blain, she knew Cece Blackwell, Federal Agent, couldn’t have it. And that tore her apart.

“What are you doing up so early?”

She started, shocked to see Blain come around the edge of the couch, a similar bathrobe thrown over his large frame.

“Did I wake you?” she asked.

“Nah,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Thinking,” she admitted, the instant surge of happiness she felt upon seeing him dimming, the peacefulness she’d felt upon first waking evaporating like water on sand.

“C’mon back to bed.” She could tell by his expression what he had in mind. It amazed her how just that look could get her heart pumping, make goose pimples rise on her arms. The back of her neck tingled as she imagined him kissing it.

“I have too much work to do,” she lied.

“Don’t work,” he said, leaning forward to cup her face.

But that was the problem. She
was
her work…always would be.

“You’re thinking about work again,” he said, his voice faintly teasing. “I can tell.”

She looked him in the eye, feeling her stomach knot. The sun had started to rise, the night was over; time for the realities of the day.

“Blain, we can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?”

“This,” she said, motioning to herself.

“Use the hotel’s bathrobes?”

He was teasing her, she could tell, but she didn’t smile. “Get involved,” she said.

“You’re going to give me that speech again, aren’t you? The one about how dangerous a job you have and how you can’t ask me to live that kind of life?”

She shot up from the couch. “Damn it, this is nothing to joke about.”

“Cece, c’mon,” he said, following her up. “It’s a little late to be telling me we can’t get involved.”

She swallowed, looking into his masculine blue eyes.

“We already
are
involved. I’m involved. And nothing you say is going to change that.”

She looked away, but he tipped her chin up again, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I know you’re worried about the effects your job might have on us, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I hope you’re willing, too.”

Was she? Was she willing to give up her hard-won independence? And was that really the issue at hand? Was it her independence she suddenly feared losing, or her fear of losing Blain should their relationship fail?

“I told you that I lost my partner,” she found herself
saying, looking away from him because suddenly it was hard to meet his eyes. “And I told you how horrible it was to tell his widow that Bill had died. But what I didn’t tell you was just how close I was to Bill and his wife.”

“Cece, whatever happened in the past, it doesn’t matter—”

She held up her hand. “Yes, Blain, it does matter. It matters when you have a front row seat to the effects of your job. I’ve never been deeply involved with someone like Bill was. But he would tell me about what it was like, about how hard it was to turn back into himself after going undercover, especially with his family looking on. They can send you to all the psychiatrists in the world, but it’s not easy. I saw what it did to Bill and his marriage. I saw what it did to his kids.”

“Then we won’t have kids.”

“We…what?” she asked in shock, the gears of her mind grinding to a halt. “What did you say?”

“We don’t have to have kids,” he answered tenderly, lifting his hands to her shoulders, squeezing them. “Hell, Cece, we don’t have to have a dog if you don’t want to.”

Oh, Blain.

But she didn’t say the words aloud. That he would agree to that, that he would make that sacrifice…And yet still. Obviously he didn’t understand.

“I help her out, you know.”

His brow wrinkled, the expression of tenderness fading into confusion. “Help
who
out?”

“My partner’s widow.”

“How?”

“With money.”

She could tell that surprised him. Well, and why wouldn’t it? There were days when she didn’t understand why she did it. Then again, she did. It had to do with losing her own father, and then her mother. It had to do with struggling for years to put herself through college. It had to do with five little kids who needed their mother hale and hearty, not working her fingers to the bone—as her own mother had.

“She doesn’t know it,” Cece explained. “She thinks the money she gets comes from a pension. I had a bank set it up that way. She’s not the type who would accept charity.”

“So you send her financial aid?”

“I do,” Cece admitted. “They had five kids, Blain. Five wonderful little kids who were like nieces and nephews to me before Bill died. Afterward—” she shook her head “—afterward it was too hard on his widow and me. We drifted apart, but not before I saw how hard she struggled to keep her family afloat. Five kids are a lot of mouths to feed, and Bill’s death benefit only went so far. It was like my childhood happening all over again. So I set up an account, diverted money from my checks. She thinks it’s a special fund.”

She didn’t think it was possible, but the look in his eyes softened all the more. “Unbelievable.”

“Actually, it was pretty easy. Especially when I
was determined that the same thing that happened to my mother wouldn’t happen to her. Every little bit helps. I called her the day after my bank sent her the first check. She called it pennies from heaven.”

“You amaze me, you know that?” he said at last.

She didn’t move, couldn’t move because of the look in his eyes. They held so much awe, so much amazement, so much admiration.

“The more I learn of you, the more I see how remarkable you are.”

He pulled back, looked down at her. He was going to kiss her. She stepped out of his arms.

“No, Blain. Don’t,” she said, “Just don’t. I can’t do this with you. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t get involved with anybody,
anybody,
unless I had a desk job.”

“Then get a desk job.”

“I don’t
want
a desk job. I want to keep doing what I’ve been doing—getting bad guys off the streets. My life was almost ruined by a kid working for some two-bit car-theft ring. I almost went to juvenile detention for something I didn’t do. That pissed me off. So I got even, not with the crooks that almost sent me away, but with others like them. And I’m good at it. Only, I realized early on that the job entails some sacrifices.”

“Like falling in love?” he asked softly.

Oh, man, was she so easy to read? “Like falling in love,” she answered back.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, his blue eyes nearly black in the half-light of the hotel room. “How can someone be so brave and yet so scared?”

“I’m not scared,” she lied.

“Then I guess this is it.”

“I guess so,” she said.

“Shame,” he said.

“What is?”

“It’s a shame that you’re afraid to love.”

H
E LEFT HER ALONE,
and damn it, Blain was kind of tired of backing off. He liked tackling problems head-on, and the way he felt about Cece…Well, he wasn’t prepared to treat it like a casual affair. But she needed time to think, and so he gave it to her, ordering room service since they weren’t in any hurry to leave. She was thumbing through some papers by the time their breakfast arrived. Work, by the looks of things—he was familiar with the method of losing yourself in your job. Hell, racing being as stressful as it was, he was practically a workaholic.

Work he might not have for much longer.

With that thought foremost in his mind, he kept his distance for the rest of the morning. So it was something of a surprise to have Cece call out to him an hour or so later, “Blain, come here,” in a voice unmistakably tinged with excitement.

The sight of her still in her bathrobe, hair tumbled down her back, made him want to go to her, to maybe kiss the back of her neck or tousle her hair.
She gave part of her not-that-sizable income to her partner’s widow. He couldn’t quite believe it. And yet, to be honest, it didn’t really surprise him.

“Check this out,” she said, turning to her laptop, which she’d plugged into the suite’s Internet connection. She was completely unaware of the effect she had on him.

And then he saw what she was looking at. And he froze at the image on the screen.

It was Randy’s car after it had exploded, fire and debris frozen in time before the screen faded to black.

“I went over the notes from our first meeting,” Cece said, clicking on something that started the image rolling again. “You told me just before Randy wrecked he’d been complaining of a vibration.”

Blain didn’t say anything. He couldn’t speak, not when he was face-to-face with the worst day of his life.

“My notes said he reported a problem with a tire.”

She glanced back at him and saw the look on his face. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken his eyes off her brightly colored monitor.

“Oh, jeesh, Blain,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”

He blinked, looked away, shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye he could see what happened next. If he
closed
his eyes, he could see what happened next. Randy’s car bobbled. It started to pitch, heading toward the wall at the worst possible moment.

Boom!

A fireball. On the other side of the catch fence, fans looking on with horror. Flames. Black smoke. Debris.

“If you don’t want to watch it, Blain, I’ll understand. Jeesh, I’m sorry. I was just so focused on what I was doing…”

He looked into the eyes of the woman he’d made love to over and over again last night, the woman he was starting to fall in love with.

Only he’d forgotten about her job. What was it she’d said?

Eventually, what I do for a living will hurt you.

He hadn’t believed her at the time, but glancing back at her computer monitor he realized she was right—because if she could so easily push aside what they’d done last night, she must be harder on the inside than he’d thought.

“What did you discover?” he asked.

She looked as if she wouldn’t answer. Looked as if she might tell him to forget it.

He made his face go blank, made himself say the words, “Go on. Show me.”

Reluctantly, she faced her monitor again, though she peeked at him one last time.

“It’s not what I discovered,” she said, “so much as what it is I’m thinking.” She moved her hand to press the replay button. For a second, a brief moment that he might have missed if he hadn’t been looking for it, she hesitated. But he saw her stiffen almost imperceptibly before she went ahead and clicked.

Dark screen. Bright light. Randy’s car in the center of the screen.

“As I was saying, just before the wreck, Randy was complaining about a tire.”

Think we’ve got a tire goin’bad,
Randy had said.

Don’t say that,
Mike, his crew chief, had groaned.

Gonna have to come in…shit!

Who’d said the word? Blain still didn’t know. Randy or Mike—someone had cursed just as Randy had started to slide…and slide…and slide.

Boom!

Dear Lord, would he ever get that image out of his mind? But this was different. This was watching it again, something he hadn’t done since before going to the FBI.

“We now know the car exploded just before impact.”

With Randy inside. Randy, who’d climbed up the ranks of stock car racing alongside Blain. They’d been a team, amassing six championships, the two of them hoping to find the magic again so they could win a seventh.

Boom!

“What I’ve always wondered was if the killer had a scanner. If maybe he’d heard Randy say you had a bad tire. At which point our killer was faced with a decision. He must have seen Randy sliding, must have realized he was going into the wall. The speed he was traveling, the angle he was going in at would have taken Randy out of the race. All that hard work
getting the explosives into the car, all that planning, wasted. Unless—” she glanced back at Blain, her eyes seeming to shine “—unless the killer detonated the bomb right then, right at that very moment.”

Randy. This was Randy she was talking about.

Eventually, what I do for a living will hurt you.

Yeah, Blain hadn’t thought she meant personally. But reliving all this, going through the motions again—it hurt.

“So he detonated the thing just before Randy hit, thinking that a car erupting into flames before it hit a wall would surely garner attention.”

She clicked Replay again.

Not again.

“Only it didn’t,” she said. “And that must have pissed our killer off. It didn’t happen the way he’d planned. Nobody cried foul. Nobody said a word.” She reached into her pile of papers. “And so he sent this.”

It was the note.