Innocent Hostage (18 page)
She set him up at her desk so he could fill out the application forms all over again. This time he flew through them. After all, he had a template to copy from, and the brief application designed for long term serving police officers was a breeze. It was a pity Harley Max hadn’t given him the correct form in the first place, but Max was well known for scorning paperwork from any department except his own. Breck doubted his boss had deliberately set out to make things difficult.
As he folded the papers and tucked them into an envelope, his cell phone crackled and clicked like dice on the gaming floor of a casino. Incoming text message. He read it and yelled “Yes!” before remembering where he was. He sat down and re-read the message. As usual, Abe and Jace had gone for broke. They were not bringing home a son or a daughter. They were bringing home a son
and
a daughter. Boy, would they have their hands full.
“Good news?” Ingrid asked, hurrying towards him.
“Very good news, Aunty Ingrid.” He watched her to see when the penny would drop.
“Abel and Jace?” She bounced a little with excitement and his eyes strayed to the front of her sweater. “Behave yourself,” she hissed.
“Yes, ma’am, Ms. Rowland.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Both. A boy and a girl.”
“Ohhh. Imagine flying for two days from Russia to New Zealand with…how old are they?”
“Ten months and two years. They had a stopover in Singapore. They’re almost home.”
Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Oooo-ee. Uh…I guess Jace won’t get much time to look after Kit now, will she?”
Breck shrugged. Then he grinned. “Hey, I could end up babysitting for them!”
Ingrid laughed. “What a turnaround. So did you get that application done?”
He nodded. “But before taking it into Headquarters, I’ll hang around here for a while.” He was worried as hell about that phone call and there was no point in pretending he wasn’t.
“Now you’re babysitting
me
.”
“Much more fun.” He checked to see if anyone was looking and dropped a quick kiss on her hair. “Okay, water play here I come.”
He spent the next half-hour sloshing with a bunch of kids who were comparing the volume of water in the various containers they had. At times, things got a little obstreperous and everyone got soaked. Breck stepped back every now and again to eyeball the perimeter of the preschool grounds. Nothing untoward so far.
Kit wasn’t playing at the water bath. He was
four years old
, for heaven’s sake, and water play was for little kids. But he kept an eye on his father’s antics as he worked his way through his basic math worksheet.
Ingrid and her two assistants flitted from group to group, supervising, advising and consoling. And he’d thought police work was hard! These women must be worn out after a day’s work here.
Then he got that prickling sensation on the back of his neck that a good cop never ignores. Dropping all subterfuge, he stared at the grove of trees on the hillside behind the preschool grounds. A male figure was half-hidden behind the lower branches of a pine tree. Who or what was he watching? The second he saw Breck staring at him, he melted away into the trees.
“Gotta go,” Breck muttered as he streaked past Ingrid and vaulted over the fence.
“Dad!”
He could hear Kit’s piping voice as he slogged uphill and into the trees. He kept running, assuming that the watcher would be running too. With no time for the niceties of careful tracking, he hurtled along, threading between pine tree trunks until he reached the summit. Then he stopped and examined the terrain. Nothing moved to the south the west or the east. And it was a very good vantage point, so where had the watcher gone? Breck eased back behind the trunk of an extra large tree and hunkered down. He would wait this guy out.
Chapter Eighteen
Forty minutes later he wasn’t so confident. There’d been no sound whatsoever apart from the sough of the wind through the branches and the operatic trill of a blackbird bursting to tell the world that it was almost spring. The ground was littered with pine needles, making footprints invisible.
Giving up, he scrambled to his feet and stretched to relieve his cramped muscles. Either the guy was an expert at cat and mouse, or he was long gone. Could he have passed Breck, going back towards the preschool? Breck’s pulse cantered. While he was loitering around here, were Kit and Ingrid in danger?
He ran back the way he’d come, pausing half way down the hill to check. All looked serene. Stella Martin was playing ball with a group of kids near the gate, but everyone else had gone inside. He jogged the rest of the way downhill and vaulted over the fence.
Ingrid trotted up to him. She was obviously trying not to look as though she was in a hurry, but one look at her face would give the game away. “Breck, what happened?”
He wondered how much he should reveal. He had to tell her
something
so she was aware she needed to be vigilant, but he didn’t want to add to the stress of that middle of the night phone call.
“I thought I saw someone watching the preschool,” he explained, choosing his words carefully, “but I think it was just a guy out for a walk. He disappeared before I could catch up with him. A false alarm.”
Her hazel eyes examined his face. “You’re sugar coating it, aren’t you? You raced out of here like a bat out of hell.”
“After what’s been happening, I had to react quickly.”
He prowled out to the front entrance of the preschool but it was the middle of the day and all was quiet. Most people were at work and the only cars in the area looked as though they belonged to local residents. Just the same, he walked slowly past all the parked vehicles along the road, committing one numberplate to memory. In the backseat of the Taurus he could see a picnic rug that had been tossed over some lumpy material. It might be his overactive imagination, but the rug looked as though it had been purposely adjusted to hide whatever was beneath it. He whipped out his cellphone and took a photo, just in case.
But it seemed as though everyone at the preschool had been affected by his actions. As soon as he walked in the door, twenty-five pairs of eyes homed in on his face. Anxiety boiled in the air. He cursed to himself as he saw the worried look on Kit’s face, and the wary expression on Ingrid’s.
“Oookay now. What’s everyone doing?” God, he sounded like his father, full of false joviality. He joined Stella Martin’s group to play snakes and ladders and fooled around taking photos of the kids with his camera phone.
As soon as everyone had settled down, he whispered to Ingrid that he was taking Kit out of preschool early so he could submit his application form. “And how about we repay your hospitality? Come over for dinner.” Time to pay his dues. Anyway, he
wanted
Ingrid to see more of their makeshift, hopeful way of existence. And if she couldn’t reconcile it with her more orderly life, well then…He drew in his breath as he tucked Kit into his car seat. If that happened, it would not be the end of the world, but it would cut the heart out of him. At least this time he had Kit. Last time he’d been alone.
Breck enjoyed hearing their laughter as he scrubbed saucepans in the kitchen. Made the place seem whole somehow, as if their four cramped rooms kept the world outside at bay. He whistled under his breath as he tossed out the remaining spinach. He hated spinach and Kit wasn’t a fan, either, but he’d figured that from the newsletters Ingrid sent home, healthy food was a priority for her. So he was trying. But he’d bought a packet of parsley sauce to smother as much of the damned vegetable as possible. One thing was for sure. Kit was going to bed
real
early tonight. Breck’s stomach tightened in anticipation. He had it all planned out. He’d get Kit off to bed, and then he and Ingrid would stretch out on the sofa and…things would come naturally. He hoped.
But Kit refused to cooperate. There was no way he was going to sleep while Ingrid was around. “Dadd-ee…” he protested.
“It’s very late, Kit,” Ingrid said. “Remember tomorrow we’re going on a trip to the museum.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Kit, closing the last of the books she’d been conned into reading.
Kit sighed, outnumbered.
With relief, Breck turned out the light and ushered Ingrid out of the bedroom. “See you tomorrow morning, sport,” he called. He stretched. “How about a cup of coffee?”
She was eyeing him but when he caught her looking, she turned away. “I’ll make it. You’ve done all the work tonight.”
He stretched out along the sofa, listening to her finding cups and milk. There was something about women and kitchens. He didn’t know why he found it comforting to hear a woman chinking cups and humming under her breath. Maybe it was because he associated kitchens with Natasha’s warm fuzzies.
“Here you go. Just as you like it. Black, one sugar, right?”
He sat up. Hell, she even remembered how he took his coffee. This woman was a keeper. Why were the two of them playing the wary tango? Well, he knew why
he
was, but why was Ingrid so skittish? He sipped his coffee. Time to stop tangoing and start living. He set down his coffee mug. “So…we’ve finally got some time to ourselves.” Nice one, Marchant. Real intelligent comment.
She smiled and he was a goner. He grabbed her coffee mug, sloshing some of it on the carpet, and dumped it on the side table. Without any finesse he scooted the rest of the way along the sofa, desperate to hold her. “Ingrid,” was all he said, but she came into his arms like a homing pigeon. No finesse from her either, thank God. And this time the kiss was even more amazing. The woman
steamed
, for God’s sake. He felt the bird bones of her shoulder blades beneath his fingers and shook with the realization that this woman was tiny. Because she tended to come out of her corner fighting, sometimes he missed the fragility, the vulnerability. He softened his clasp and leaned over to turn the table lamp down low. “Are you sure?” He had to ask. Showed his vulnerability too, but a man had to ask. He’d been to too many crime scenes where a man hadn’t asked, had taken, and gone too far.
“Been sure for a long time now,” she whispered, raising a hand to his face.
She stroked his skin as if she were sampling the texture of something precious. Then, surprising him, she leaned forward and took the initiative. Her soft lips trembled a little, but she didn’t pull back. And Breck knew that no matter what happened, he would never forget this night. She was so different from those who’d come before. Gentle. Hesitant. But very determined.
“So sweet,” he whispered against her lips and time wound down until it stood still. They explored, they sampled and they laughed a little when they both tried to tug off Ingrid’s sweater at the same time and turned themselves into a conjoint octopus. Breck sank into the sensations, relishing them. This was what making love should be. For a second he recollected Tara’s ferocious, frenzied lovemaking then dismissed it from his mind. She had no place here.
****
Lord, the man was amazing. She’d never been made love to with such…well, devotion. He’d found her most sensitive spots and adored them. Breck Marchant was her ideal lover. He was the one she’d daydreamed about, but never expected to meet. Over the past few weeks she’d surmised, but now she
knew
. She’d said it before and she’d say it again. Tania was a double-dyed idiot. “Mmm,” she murmured as he worked his way down her body dropping a kiss here, stroking there. She gave herself up to the moment and drifted away on a sea of pleasure.
Coolness on her skin brought her out of her trance to discover she had only her panties and bra on. Her shoes and jeans had disappeared. Her shirt lay tangled on the floor alongside his jeans. Smiling, she spread her hands across his warm chest, savoring the intimacy, then stretched her arms around him, holding all that muscle and skin and
man
. He smelled of soap and warm skin. He smelled of Breck.
“Is everything still okay?” he whispered.
“Oh,
yeah
.” Ingrid couldn’t help the heartfelt words.
He snorted a half-laugh that changed to a groan as she rubbed her hands up and down his back and clasped that gorgeous butt to tug him against her overheated skin. He exhaled on a long sigh and took her hand to wrap it around himself. She stroked him from root to tip once, twice, and then found herself flat on her back, skin to skin. He tugged off the last of her clothes and she couldn’t resist smiling a smug smile. He might be diffident, but he was quick. He ripped open a condom packet with his teeth and Ingrid thanked God that Breck had some sense of responsibility. She seemed to have lost hers the minute he’d laid hands on her.
“Slow. We need to go slower,” he muttered.
Damn the man. She was sizzling, but he wanted to do the right thing. The trembling muscles in his arms told her he was forcing himself to slow the pace. She didn’t
need
him to slow down. He nuzzled her neck and then, as if time meant nothing, began a slow assault on every nerve point from her face down, down, down…And when he
finally
got to her breast, she was so strung out she shoved herself into his mouth.
As he folded the papers and tucked them into an envelope, his cell phone crackled and clicked like dice on the gaming floor of a casino. Incoming text message. He read it and yelled “Yes!” before remembering where he was. He sat down and re-read the message. As usual, Abe and Jace had gone for broke. They were not bringing home a son or a daughter. They were bringing home a son
and
a daughter. Boy, would they have their hands full.
“Good news?” Ingrid asked, hurrying towards him.
“Very good news, Aunty Ingrid.” He watched her to see when the penny would drop.
“Abel and Jace?” She bounced a little with excitement and his eyes strayed to the front of her sweater. “Behave yourself,” she hissed.
“Yes, ma’am, Ms. Rowland.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Both. A boy and a girl.”
“Ohhh. Imagine flying for two days from Russia to New Zealand with…how old are they?”
“Ten months and two years. They had a stopover in Singapore. They’re almost home.”
Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Oooo-ee. Uh…I guess Jace won’t get much time to look after Kit now, will she?”
Breck shrugged. Then he grinned. “Hey, I could end up babysitting for them!”
Ingrid laughed. “What a turnaround. So did you get that application done?”
He nodded. “But before taking it into Headquarters, I’ll hang around here for a while.” He was worried as hell about that phone call and there was no point in pretending he wasn’t.
“Now you’re babysitting
me
.”
“Much more fun.” He checked to see if anyone was looking and dropped a quick kiss on her hair. “Okay, water play here I come.”
He spent the next half-hour sloshing with a bunch of kids who were comparing the volume of water in the various containers they had. At times, things got a little obstreperous and everyone got soaked. Breck stepped back every now and again to eyeball the perimeter of the preschool grounds. Nothing untoward so far.
Kit wasn’t playing at the water bath. He was
four years old
, for heaven’s sake, and water play was for little kids. But he kept an eye on his father’s antics as he worked his way through his basic math worksheet.
Ingrid and her two assistants flitted from group to group, supervising, advising and consoling. And he’d thought police work was hard! These women must be worn out after a day’s work here.
Then he got that prickling sensation on the back of his neck that a good cop never ignores. Dropping all subterfuge, he stared at the grove of trees on the hillside behind the preschool grounds. A male figure was half-hidden behind the lower branches of a pine tree. Who or what was he watching? The second he saw Breck staring at him, he melted away into the trees.
“Gotta go,” Breck muttered as he streaked past Ingrid and vaulted over the fence.
“Dad!”
He could hear Kit’s piping voice as he slogged uphill and into the trees. He kept running, assuming that the watcher would be running too. With no time for the niceties of careful tracking, he hurtled along, threading between pine tree trunks until he reached the summit. Then he stopped and examined the terrain. Nothing moved to the south the west or the east. And it was a very good vantage point, so where had the watcher gone? Breck eased back behind the trunk of an extra large tree and hunkered down. He would wait this guy out.
Chapter Eighteen
Forty minutes later he wasn’t so confident. There’d been no sound whatsoever apart from the sough of the wind through the branches and the operatic trill of a blackbird bursting to tell the world that it was almost spring. The ground was littered with pine needles, making footprints invisible.
Giving up, he scrambled to his feet and stretched to relieve his cramped muscles. Either the guy was an expert at cat and mouse, or he was long gone. Could he have passed Breck, going back towards the preschool? Breck’s pulse cantered. While he was loitering around here, were Kit and Ingrid in danger?
He ran back the way he’d come, pausing half way down the hill to check. All looked serene. Stella Martin was playing ball with a group of kids near the gate, but everyone else had gone inside. He jogged the rest of the way downhill and vaulted over the fence.
Ingrid trotted up to him. She was obviously trying not to look as though she was in a hurry, but one look at her face would give the game away. “Breck, what happened?”
He wondered how much he should reveal. He had to tell her
something
so she was aware she needed to be vigilant, but he didn’t want to add to the stress of that middle of the night phone call.
“I thought I saw someone watching the preschool,” he explained, choosing his words carefully, “but I think it was just a guy out for a walk. He disappeared before I could catch up with him. A false alarm.”
Her hazel eyes examined his face. “You’re sugar coating it, aren’t you? You raced out of here like a bat out of hell.”
“After what’s been happening, I had to react quickly.”
He prowled out to the front entrance of the preschool but it was the middle of the day and all was quiet. Most people were at work and the only cars in the area looked as though they belonged to local residents. Just the same, he walked slowly past all the parked vehicles along the road, committing one numberplate to memory. In the backseat of the Taurus he could see a picnic rug that had been tossed over some lumpy material. It might be his overactive imagination, but the rug looked as though it had been purposely adjusted to hide whatever was beneath it. He whipped out his cellphone and took a photo, just in case.
But it seemed as though everyone at the preschool had been affected by his actions. As soon as he walked in the door, twenty-five pairs of eyes homed in on his face. Anxiety boiled in the air. He cursed to himself as he saw the worried look on Kit’s face, and the wary expression on Ingrid’s.
“Oookay now. What’s everyone doing?” God, he sounded like his father, full of false joviality. He joined Stella Martin’s group to play snakes and ladders and fooled around taking photos of the kids with his camera phone.
As soon as everyone had settled down, he whispered to Ingrid that he was taking Kit out of preschool early so he could submit his application form. “And how about we repay your hospitality? Come over for dinner.” Time to pay his dues. Anyway, he
wanted
Ingrid to see more of their makeshift, hopeful way of existence. And if she couldn’t reconcile it with her more orderly life, well then…He drew in his breath as he tucked Kit into his car seat. If that happened, it would not be the end of the world, but it would cut the heart out of him. At least this time he had Kit. Last time he’d been alone.
****
Breck enjoyed hearing their laughter as he scrubbed saucepans in the kitchen. Made the place seem whole somehow, as if their four cramped rooms kept the world outside at bay. He whistled under his breath as he tossed out the remaining spinach. He hated spinach and Kit wasn’t a fan, either, but he’d figured that from the newsletters Ingrid sent home, healthy food was a priority for her. So he was trying. But he’d bought a packet of parsley sauce to smother as much of the damned vegetable as possible. One thing was for sure. Kit was going to bed
real
early tonight. Breck’s stomach tightened in anticipation. He had it all planned out. He’d get Kit off to bed, and then he and Ingrid would stretch out on the sofa and…things would come naturally. He hoped.
But Kit refused to cooperate. There was no way he was going to sleep while Ingrid was around. “Dadd-ee…” he protested.
“It’s very late, Kit,” Ingrid said. “Remember tomorrow we’re going on a trip to the museum.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Kit, closing the last of the books she’d been conned into reading.
Kit sighed, outnumbered.
With relief, Breck turned out the light and ushered Ingrid out of the bedroom. “See you tomorrow morning, sport,” he called. He stretched. “How about a cup of coffee?”
She was eyeing him but when he caught her looking, she turned away. “I’ll make it. You’ve done all the work tonight.”
He stretched out along the sofa, listening to her finding cups and milk. There was something about women and kitchens. He didn’t know why he found it comforting to hear a woman chinking cups and humming under her breath. Maybe it was because he associated kitchens with Natasha’s warm fuzzies.
“Here you go. Just as you like it. Black, one sugar, right?”
He sat up. Hell, she even remembered how he took his coffee. This woman was a keeper. Why were the two of them playing the wary tango? Well, he knew why
he
was, but why was Ingrid so skittish? He sipped his coffee. Time to stop tangoing and start living. He set down his coffee mug. “So…we’ve finally got some time to ourselves.” Nice one, Marchant. Real intelligent comment.
She smiled and he was a goner. He grabbed her coffee mug, sloshing some of it on the carpet, and dumped it on the side table. Without any finesse he scooted the rest of the way along the sofa, desperate to hold her. “Ingrid,” was all he said, but she came into his arms like a homing pigeon. No finesse from her either, thank God. And this time the kiss was even more amazing. The woman
steamed
, for God’s sake. He felt the bird bones of her shoulder blades beneath his fingers and shook with the realization that this woman was tiny. Because she tended to come out of her corner fighting, sometimes he missed the fragility, the vulnerability. He softened his clasp and leaned over to turn the table lamp down low. “Are you sure?” He had to ask. Showed his vulnerability too, but a man had to ask. He’d been to too many crime scenes where a man hadn’t asked, had taken, and gone too far.
“Been sure for a long time now,” she whispered, raising a hand to his face.
She stroked his skin as if she were sampling the texture of something precious. Then, surprising him, she leaned forward and took the initiative. Her soft lips trembled a little, but she didn’t pull back. And Breck knew that no matter what happened, he would never forget this night. She was so different from those who’d come before. Gentle. Hesitant. But very determined.
“So sweet,” he whispered against her lips and time wound down until it stood still. They explored, they sampled and they laughed a little when they both tried to tug off Ingrid’s sweater at the same time and turned themselves into a conjoint octopus. Breck sank into the sensations, relishing them. This was what making love should be. For a second he recollected Tara’s ferocious, frenzied lovemaking then dismissed it from his mind. She had no place here.
****
Lord, the man was amazing. She’d never been made love to with such…well, devotion. He’d found her most sensitive spots and adored them. Breck Marchant was her ideal lover. He was the one she’d daydreamed about, but never expected to meet. Over the past few weeks she’d surmised, but now she
knew
. She’d said it before and she’d say it again. Tania was a double-dyed idiot. “Mmm,” she murmured as he worked his way down her body dropping a kiss here, stroking there. She gave herself up to the moment and drifted away on a sea of pleasure.
Coolness on her skin brought her out of her trance to discover she had only her panties and bra on. Her shoes and jeans had disappeared. Her shirt lay tangled on the floor alongside his jeans. Smiling, she spread her hands across his warm chest, savoring the intimacy, then stretched her arms around him, holding all that muscle and skin and
man
. He smelled of soap and warm skin. He smelled of Breck.
“Is everything still okay?” he whispered.
“Oh,
yeah
.” Ingrid couldn’t help the heartfelt words.
He snorted a half-laugh that changed to a groan as she rubbed her hands up and down his back and clasped that gorgeous butt to tug him against her overheated skin. He exhaled on a long sigh and took her hand to wrap it around himself. She stroked him from root to tip once, twice, and then found herself flat on her back, skin to skin. He tugged off the last of her clothes and she couldn’t resist smiling a smug smile. He might be diffident, but he was quick. He ripped open a condom packet with his teeth and Ingrid thanked God that Breck had some sense of responsibility. She seemed to have lost hers the minute he’d laid hands on her.
“Slow. We need to go slower,” he muttered.
Damn the man. She was sizzling, but he wanted to do the right thing. The trembling muscles in his arms told her he was forcing himself to slow the pace. She didn’t
need
him to slow down. He nuzzled her neck and then, as if time meant nothing, began a slow assault on every nerve point from her face down, down, down…And when he
finally
got to her breast, she was so strung out she shoved herself into his mouth.
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