Flirting with Disaster (28 page)

“If I can get Adam Decker up here, he can back up our story and clear both of our names. But that’s the least of it. He’s in danger down there. If Robert Douglas finds him before we can get him out of there, he’s a dead man.”

“Jesus,” Alex said. “What a fucking mess.”

“I’m going down there. It’s the only way.”

There was a long silence. He pictured his brother on the other end of the phone, pacing up and down.

“Okay,” Alex said finally. “If the guy can clear your name, by all means get him out of there. But you know what? You never should have gotten mixed up in this situation to start with. For God’s sake—you’ve got a daughter to think about!”

“Don’t lay that guilt trip on me,” Dave said hotly. “Don’t you do it.”

“I know what Lisa was like in high school. News reports say she already has one drug conviction.”

“That was a false conviction. Her brother set her up.”

“Right. They’re all innocent, aren’t they?”

“I know what it sounds like, Alex. But Lisa hasn’t done a damned thing wrong, then or now, and I don’t want her taking the fall for it.”

“Damn it, Dave, what’s the deal with her, anyway? Why the hell did she call you in the first place? I know you knew her in high school. That was a long time ago, yet the minute she’s in trouble, your name pops up on her radar. Why you?”

He paused. “We were friends.”

“It’s more than that. I asked you before, and I’m asking you now. What went on between you two back then?”

Dave was silent.

“Just how personal are things between you and Lisa?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“So it is personal.”

Dave let out a breath of disgust. “Yeah, Alex, it’s personal. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

“No. I’ve got a pretty clear picture now.”

“Of what? Of your brother thinking with his dick instead of his head? Is that it?”

“Hell, I don’t know what it is! All I know is that Lisa Merrick is bad news. You’ve got to ask yourself how she gets herself into messes like this. You don’t want a woman like her. She’ll only cause you one hell of a lot of trouble.”

Dave felt a surge of anger, flaring up from a place that had smoldered inside him for a very long time. As if Alex were the ultimate authority on what he wanted? As if he or the rest of the family knew anything about him at all?

Alex sighed heavily. “Look, Dave. I know it’s been hard on you these past few years. But you got through it, because you’ve always had your head on straight. Everybody counts on that. So when you go off the deep end like this, we’ve got to wonder why.”

You got through it. You can get through anything.

They just didn’t know. His family, his friends—nobody. They had no idea just how he
hadn’t
gotten through it, how Carla’s death still ate away at him and always would. His family always expected that he’d find another woman just like their glowing image of her, who’d be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, and then he’d settle down and play house all over again.

They thought they knew what he wanted. They didn’t know a goddamned thing.

“It’s just like you said, Alex. I’m the guy with his head on straight. So get off my back. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’ll tell you what you’ve been doing. You’ve been risking your life for a woman you never should have been messing with in the first place.”

“Let’s get something straight here. I didn’t call to ask your opinion, and I’m sure as hell not asking your permission. I just called to tell you I’m going to Mexico. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Just watch Ashley for me until I get back. I’ve got to go.”

As he was hanging up, he heard Alex’s voice. “Dave— wait.”

He pulled the phone back to his ear, gripping it tightly and dropping his forehead to his hand in frustration. There was a long silence.

“I don’t like this,” Alex said finally. “If I told you anything else, you’d know I was lying.” He let out a long breath of resignation. “But I know you, Dave. So I know that somehow you must be doing the right thing, even if I sure as hell can’t see it.”

“It is the right thing, Alex. Trust me on that, will you?”

“Yeah. Just be careful. I don’t want to have to explain to Ashley why her daddy went to Mexico and never came home.”

Dave listened for reproach in Alex’s tone but didn’t hear a bit of it. All he heard was concern.

“You guys take care of her for me.”

“You know we will.”

“I’m staying at Lisa’s apartment tonight, and then we’re flying out tomorrow at dawn. You can’t tell anyone where I’m going or what I’m doing. I don’t want anyone even knowing we’re in Mexico, and I sure don’t want anyone knowing that Adam Decker is alive until we can get him out of there.”

“I hear you. Just keep me posted, will you? Let me know what’s going on?”

“Yeah. I will.

“If you need any help, call me.”

“I will.”

Dave hung up the phone, knowing that his brother was as pissed off at him as he could possibly be, yet at the same time he’d go to the mat for him if things got tough. Lisa had been right.

No matter how bad the situation was, his family was on his side. But nobody was there to be on Lisa’s side.

Nobody but him.

Lisa opened her eyes when she heard Dave come back into her bedroom. He pulled back the covers and slid beneath them, falling to his back and settling his head on the pillow, his arm resting against his forehead.

“Did you talk to Alex?” she asked him.

“Yeah. I talked to him.”

“Had he already heard?”

“Oh, yeah. News travels fast in the Tolosa Police Department.”

“Did you tell him you’re innocent? That it was my fault you were caught up in this situation?”

“I told him the whole story. Then I told him I was going back down to Mexico.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He’s not happy about me leaving my daughter.”

“Understandable.”

“He’s not happy about me getting into another potentially dangerous situation.”

“Also understandable.”

Dave was silent.

“What else?” Lisa asked.

“Nothing.”

“It’s me, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“He knew who I was in high school, and he thinks a man like you shouldn’t be hanging around with a woman like me, desperate situation or not.”

“No. He doesn’t think that.”

“You’re lying.”

Dave let out a breath of frustration.

“Well, you can tell Alex he doesn’t have a thing to worry about. I mean, a little hot sex between friends hardly translates to a ring and a wedding date, now does it?”

Dave turned slowly to face her. “Is that all this is to you, Lisa? Hot sex between friends?”

He looked at her without blinking, and in the dim light of the bedroom his eyes looked dark as coal. Finally she tore her gaze away. She arranged the sheets and blankets mindlessly, then settled back against the pillow again, never meeting his eyes.

“Come on, Dave. Let’s face it. I’m not Carla. I could never be anything like Carla.”

He looked at her with surprise. “Is that what you think? That I want you to be like Carla?”

“That’s the kind of woman you want, isn’t it?”

“Don’t do that,” he said sharply.

“What?”

“Don’t tell me what I want. For God’s sake, Lisa, the whole damned world thinks they know what I want, and I’m sick to death of it.”

He exhaled sharply, staring at the ceiling. She could see the accelerated rise and fall of his chest, as if he was taking angry breaths, but she didn’t know why.

Yes, she did. She’d mentioned Carla again.

Lisa said nothing for a long time, letting the silence settle the air between them. Finally she turned to him and spoke quietly.

“Then what do you want?”

A minute passed, maybe more. Finally he let out a heavy sigh, then slowly turned to her, his face a sparse silhouette in the dim moonlight. Rising on one elbow, he moved in close and spoke softly.

“I want you to be exactly who you are,” he said. “I want you to do outrageous, spontaneous things. I want you to keep me on my toes. I want you to take charge of your own life. I want you to be tough and resilient and think nothing about standing up to the devil himself.”

He stroked his hand through her hair, slowly, thoughtfully. “But when you hit those places in your life when you just can’t handle things yourself, I want you to come to me.”

The sincerity in his voice and the burning look in his eyes took her breath away. All she could do was stare at him, a sudden surge of awareness sweeping through her, the most secure feeling that with Dave in her life it wasn’t all up to her anymore.

As he slid back down to his pillow, taking her hand in his, it struck her that she’d never actually slept with a man in her own bed. If she went to his house, she could make a quick escape afterward so there was none of that morning-after awkwardness. But there would be no awkwardness tomorrow morning. They’d rise at dawn, and once more Dave would do everything he could to help her.

What the future would bring, she had no idea. But for now, this was exactly where she wanted him to be.

chapter seventeen

Until Adam heard Lisa’s voice on the telephone, he hadn’t allowed himself to believe that she really was alive. They’d survived. Both of them had actually survived. And if anyone could persuade Gabrio to come with them, it was Lisa. Never in his life had Adam met anyone as strong-willed, as decisive, as determined as she was. He smiled to himself. If she was driving toward a goal, God help any person who got in her way.

For the first time since he woke in Sera’s bed, his headache had begun to subside, which was a good indicator against the possibility of ongoing complications. His muscles were still stiff and achy, but his bruises from the fall down that hillside had begun to fade to pale purple and yellow rather than black and blue. Pain still shot through his bullet wound every time he moved, but so far there was no evidence of infection.

He sat up and eased his legs over the side of the bed with a soft groan. He paused a moment for the little stars dancing in his head to disappear, then rose and took the two impossibly long steps to Sera’s overstuffed chair. He sank into it gently, his muscles first crying out in pain, then relaxing against the new surface. Sera would object—strenuously—but damn, it felt good to be out of that bed.

It was nearing nine o’clock. Looking out the window, he saw the barn in the distance, lit by flood lamps, where Sera kept her two Shetland ponies. They were all that was left from what had once been a farm full of livestock. More like house pets than horses, they trailed after her like a pair of puppies looking for attention. She’d gone outside to feed them, and he watched her now as she opened the corral and slipped inside. The dappled ponies approached her immediately, sniffing her pockets. She pulled out a carrot, broke off pieces of it, and fed it to them on the flat of her hand.

Adam had been at Sera’s house many times over the past few years, and more than once he’d gone out to the barn with her to feed the ponies. One night in particular, he remembered standing in the corral with her near dusk, listening to the crickets chirping and the swish of the ponies’ tails as they swept away flies. She mentioned that when she eventually moved back to the U.S. she was going to bring the ponies with her. He told her that she’d better get ready to pay one hell of a big pet deposit.

She’d laughed a little, then turned to face him. In that moment, something shifted between them. They stared at each other a long time. Too long. She dropped her lashes for a moment, and when she looked back up at him again something had entered her eyes that hadn’t been there before. A knowing expression. A flicker of desire.

An invitation.

He’d never in his life wanted to kiss a woman more.

Instead, he’d turned away, saying something about the ponies or the weather. . . . Hell, he didn’t remember what he’d said. But from that moment on, he’d stopped looking at her as a colleague or even a friend. That was the moment he started looking at her as a woman.

He watched out the window as Sera went into the barn, and a moment later she emerged with buckets full of grain. She set them down on the ground and the ponies attacked them. With a last pat for each of them, she headed back to the house.

He heard her come back inside, then her footsteps on the stairs. The shower ran for a while, then fell silent. A few minutes later, she came to the door of the bedroom wearing a robe and slippers. Her eyes widened.

“Adam! What are you doing up?”

She hurried into the room, closed the window and pulled the curtains, then turned to face him. “Back to bed.”

“I’m sick of that bed.”

“It’s where you belong. Right now.”

“Damn, you’re bossy.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m in charge here, Doctor, not you. Give me your hand.”