Out Of Control (27 page)

“Even
though the easiest thing for a predator is to camouflage himself with a costume
and makeup and blend into the activity?”

“Uh
huh.”

“What
else?” Cole asked when she stopped suddenly.

“I
probably should keep my mouth shut, but I have a lot of issues with the way
Nickels handled the whole thing. Why clamp such a tight lid on it? Why not ask
for outside help, like you’re doing? I mean, after two deaths, you’re looking
for solutions, for help, for anything that will find this guy. So why, after two
years of child rapes and murders, did Nickels do nothing?” She heard her voice
rising and tried to temper it. “There’s a lot of whys in this case, Cole.”

Cole
shrugged. “I think those are questions no one ever wanted to ask. Jed’s family
goes back four generations, and he was like the elder statesman of the county,
you know.”

Dana
took a swallow of her soda. “I’ve seen that in other situations. One in Florida
in particular. The sheriff ruled with a big smile and a heavy hand. No one ever
thought to question him about his methods or why he handled that particular
case the way he did. The killer turned out to be his own son.”

“That
wouldn’t work here. Jed doesn’t have a son. Only daughters. Even if he did, those
kids were just babies when all that happened. But Jesus, Dana. What if you’re
right and he actually
did
cover up for someone?”

“Cole,
what if it turns out this is the same man from twenty-five years ago? And now
for some reason he’s moved to older girls.”

Cole
blew out a long breath. “Hell, that makes just about every man in this county
over the age of fifty a suspect.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “And it means
you being here and digging up those old cases really did start him up again. It
puts you in even greater danger.”

“Think
about this,” she went on. “With that kind of predatory personality, how likely
is it he’s just been dormant all this time? He’s had to find some other place
to blow off that steam. Has anyone ever checked surrounding counties?”

“Probably
not, but I’m sure as hell going to.”

“Leanne
had problems with her truck at night and needed help,” Dana went on. “Shannon
would have accepted a ride rather than walk all the way down that road.”

Cole
raked his fingers through his hair. “It makes me sick to think it’s someone I
know. You have no idea how much I hope you’re wrong, Dana.”

“Me,
too.”

“Being
here with you does me a lot of good.”

Her
laugh was shaky. “Even if I did add to your bag of troubles?”

“Even
if.” Cole rose from the couch and reached a hand to Dana to help her up. “I
think we could both use some sleep.”

“You’re
right.” She closed her laptop and stacked her papers.

Suddenly,
it hit her fully she’d be sleeping under the same roof as this man. A man who
pushed every one of her sexual hot buttons. Who starred in her erotic
fantasies. She’d come to High Ridge hoping to get past her hang-ups. She just
hadn’t expected it to happen quite this way. When she straightened, Cole was
right behind her.

“Everything
okay in your room?”

“Uh,
yes.”

“Good.
Well, I’m going to take a shower and get some sleep. Someone’s dropping your
car off. I’ll probably be gone when you get up in the morning. I want to be at
the office early.”

“Then,
I guess, um, good night.” What was the matter with her that she was suddenly
socially clumsy this way?

****

Cole
stood under the shower, letting hot water wash away the stench and grime of the
day. Dana puzzled him. There was something skittering beneath the taut
professional surface.

Fear.
Panic. Maybe both. Whatever it was, it wasn’t from something recent. An old
wound that was festering perhaps or maybe a recent scab that had been torn
away.

He
thought about the few kisses they’d shared. Not mild by any means. Incendiary. But
there again, something wasn’t right. Oh, she’d responded at first, but then
quickly withdrew behind a wall he couldn’t breach.

He
let his mind wander as he dried off and toweled his hair. Had she been raped?
Had an abusive relationship? He dismissed either option out of hand. Those
signs were different. He’d seen enough of them to know what to look for. He was
just damn glad he hadn’t blurted out the details of his erotic dream.

He
pulled on a pair of sweat pants, jerking them up over his hips, then grabbed
his tooth brush and toothpaste. He stared at himself in the mirror while he
brushed his teeth, but it wasn’t his image he was seeing.

Dana.

She
devoted herself to finding answers for other unsolved crimes, hoping to ease
the pain of her own life. And after all this time, something had happened to
push her to confront her past. A failed relationship? More than one?

Something
about this case triggered whatever she was hiding. He was convinced that at
some time she’d been a victim herself. Was that what drove her? Was that why
she was so interested in the old cases? If that was true, he wondered how she
could stand to be in the same room with a man at all.

Hadn’t
she had therapy of any kind to help her?

His
last thought as he fell asleep was that, despite everything, Dana Moretti had
gotten to him. Something was going on between them, and he wasn’t going to just
let her walk away before he figured out what it was. If this thing between them
was to move forward any more, he needed to find the answer. He also knew it
wouldn’t be easy.

A
scream woke him as abruptly as a flood of ice water. Cole sat straight up in
bed, the hair standing up on his arms. Had he imagined it? No! There it was
again.

Had
someone broken in? Attacked Dana? He threw back the covers and ran to the room
she was in, banging open the door. She was alone, but sitting straight up in
bed, her body rigid, head thrown back, the scream still echoing in the air.

Cole
took a deep breath and tried to calm his out-of-control heartbeat as he
approached the bed slowly. Her eyes were wild, unseeing, and the muscles in her
neck stood out.

“Dana?”
He lowered himself to the bed next to her, gently touching her shoulders. “Dana,
honey? Wake up. You’re dreaming.”

When
he touched her, she was clammy with sweat and ice cold. He wanted to pull her
against his body, share his warmth, but he didn’t want to frighten her, either.
As a Marine, he’d seen nightmares before and knew he had to be cautious. He
shook her very lightly, repeating her name over and over. But when she opened
her mouth to scream again, he was afraid he’d have to slap her to snap her out
of it. He dug his fingers into her shoulders and shook her hard. Her head
jerked forward then back again, and her eyes, unfocused, began to clear.

“Wha—Cole?”
She blinked. “What happened? What are you doing here?”

“Darlin’,
you were screaming the roof down.” He slid his hands over her exposed skin. “You’re
covered with sweat, cold as ice, and shaking like a leaf. Let’s get you into a
hot shower.”

“No.
Please. I’m okay. Really.” She pushed against him weakly.

He
pulled her to his body, stroking her back. “You are far from all right. Come
on. You’ll feel better. Then you can tell me what it was all about.”

“I…I
can do this myself.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, but when she
tried to stand, she nearly crumpled to the floor.

Cole
lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bathroom, holding her against him
while he turned on the shower and adjusted the spray. He hesitated a moment,
then shut his mind to everything but necessity and stripped off both her sleep
shirt and his sweats. He took one moment to admire her slim body and full
breasts before pulling her into the shower with him.

As
soon as the hot spray hit her, she came alive in his arms, struggling.

“Damn,
Cole. That’s hot. And I can shower by myself.”

“Not
this time,” he told her, holding her against him while the water beat down on
them. “Consider it purely therapeutic.”

He
stood there with her, letting the steam from the heat surround them until he
felt her stiffen in his arms again.

“I’m
naked,” she said and looked up at him with something like fear in her eyes.

He
grinned. “That’s the usual procedure for showering.” He reached for the handle
and turned off the water. “Come on. I think you’re warmed up enough now.”

He
pulled a towel from a hook, dried her and wrapped her in it. He quickly wrapped
another around his waist and knotted it at his hips before digging a T-shirt
out of his drawer and slipping it over Dana’s head. Lifting her to the counter,
he found another towel to wrap around her head and squeeze out most of the
water.

“I
think that’s the best we can do for now.” His voice was still soft. Calming. He
tossed the towel over a bar, carried her back to bed, put her beneath the
covers, and slid in next to her. She tried to push him away and sit up, but he
kept his arms around her.

“Uh-uh.
You need my body heat. It’s better than medicine after a nightmare.”

She
stiffened again. “I can go back to sleep now. I’m fine.”

“Darlin’,
you are many things, but at the moment, fine isn’t one of them. You have had a
hellacious day, and your mind is fighting back. Just relax. Come on, Dana, let
it go.”

They
lay there for long minutes, his hand stroking the graceful line of her back,
the smoothness of her skin. The swell of her hip. Her breasts pushed against
him through the T-shirt, and he prayed his body would behave. But his cock
seemed to have a mind of its own, swelling and pushing against her soft skin.
He rolled her resisting body over so she faced away from him and spooned her
against him, but his hot erection pressed against the crevice of her ass and
she jumped as if scalded.

“Cole,
I—”

“Shh,
shh, shh. It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” She lay there stiff as a board again.

Cole
sighed. “I promise I’m not going to hurt you, Dana. Or force you to do anything
you don’t want to. I just want to ease you back to sleep.”

“I
don’t sleep with men in my bed.” Her voice sounded very small.

“Ever?”
She was thirty-two years old, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t a virgin.

“Well…hardly
ever.” She cleared her throat. “I have…issues.”

He
waited a heartbeat for her to say more, but when she didn’t he asked, “Want to
talk about it?”

Did
she want to talk about it? Tell Cole about the dreams that never left her? That
plagued her sleep? Hell, no.

Dana
had been back in the barn in her dream, listening to Kylie scream. Feeling the
man’s hands on her. Hurting her. When Cole woke her, she was a shivering mess, once
again terrified by the horror that had haunted her for years. Her collapse was
the only excuse she could find for letting him strip her naked and take her in
the shower with his equally naked body. And for finding herself under the
covers with him.

The
T-shirt and towel weren’t a lot of protection. The heat of his body burned
against hers through the fabric, her senses rioting at the contact. It startled
her that she wasn’t afraid. Why didn’t her body clench and shrink from his as
it usually did at this point? She desperately wanted to figure out why, for the
first time in her life, she was responding to a man.

True,
he was just holding her. He hadn’t made any overt sexual moves, but she was
hyperaware of the very large cock pressed against her. Of his rock-hard body
honed to perfection. Of his muscular legs pressed against hers. And she hadn’t
panicked yet. Possibly…just possibly…Cole Landry could be the one to unlock
that frozen part of her. Maybe.

And
how was it possible, with all the death and destruction raining down around her,
that her body chose
now
to wake up and demand attention?

Or
was it because of that very death and destruction? Maybe she needed this—him—to
wipe all of that away. Whatever it was, Cole Landry was the first man ever who
didn’t frighten her. Whose presence gave her comfort and at the same time woke
up every long-dormant hormone in her body.

Did
she have the courage for this?

She
wet her lips. “Cole?”

“What,
darlin’?”

God,
she loved the way he said that with his deep Texas drawl. It stirred something
deep inside her. “I, um…it might be all right for you to…touch me.”

Please,
please, please. I want to try this.

He
chuckled softly, the sound vibrating against her. “In case you hadn’t noticed,
I am touching you.”

“I
know. I mean…you know…”

She
felt him suck in a breath and let it out. “You mean like this?”

One
hand slid beneath the T-shirt to cup her breast, very lightly at first. Then a
thumb skimmed her nipple. Heat shot straight to her pussy with an intensity she’d
waited all her life to feel. She heard a low moan and realized it came from
her.