The Legend of Smuggler's Cave (10 page)

Oh, hell,
Dalton thought.
Why not?
He needed a ride, and whether he liked it or not, the man was his brother. If the situation were reversed...

If the situation were reversed, he realized with some surprise, he’d do the same thing.

“I’ll need your keys, Hale. To get Logan’s car seat out of the truck.”

Dalton handed off his keys. “Tell him I’ll take the ride to the hospital.”

Nix shot him an exasperated look. “For God’s sake, you’re adults. Tell him yourself.” He headed out to the parking lot.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay going to the hospital alone with the chief?” Briar asked.

He slanted a look at her. “I’m a big boy.”

“Remember to tell Doyle thank you.”

Dalton laughed. “I’ll try. It’s a toss-up whether or not we’ll make it to the hospital without killing each other.”

“Do your best.” She laid her hand on his arm, letting her fingers slide slowly down to his wrist before she let go. He barely controlled a shiver as her light touch sent tremors up and down his arm.

“Ready to go?” Doyle pushed away from the wall as they approached. He looked pointedly at Dalton. “Am I carting your butt to the hospital or what?”

“Your brotherly devotion is touching,” Dalton murmured.

Doyle shot him a smart-alecky look, and Dalton realized he was getting to the point that he could predict the chief’s reaction to his words.

Almost like a real brother.

* * *

I
T
WAS
WELL
after nine when Dalton finally called Briar to tell her he was coming up the front walkway. She hurried to unlock the door and let him in. She waved to Doyle, who waited in his police cruiser until Dalton was safely inside. “All stitched up?”

He nodded. “Want to see my wound?”

Smiling, she shook her head. “You hungry? Logan and I had chicken soup for dinner. I can heat some up for you.”

He caught her hand as she moved toward the kitchen, his fingers warm and firm around hers. “Doyle and I grabbed a burger on the way home.”

“How’d that go?” She waited for him to let go of her hand, but he twined his fingers with hers instead, leading her over to the sofa. He sat heavily, tugging her down beside him.

“It went...better than I expected. He wasn’t a complete smart-ass, and I tried not to be a defensive jerk. So...progress.” He gave her hand a light squeeze. “Logan asleep?”

She looked down at their twined hands, her gaze drawn by the intersection of her fair skin and his tanned fingers. “About thirty minutes ago. We had to read a couple of extra stories, and he was worried that you weren’t home yet, but I explained you had to go somewhere with your brother. I also promised you’d look in on him before you go to bed. You don’t have to, though. Once he falls asleep, it takes a bulldozer to wake him. He wouldn’t know you were there.”

“I’ll know,” he said, turning his head toward her.

She met his gaze, a ripple of pure feminine awareness rolling through her, setting off a dozen tingles along her spine. Despite the weariness in his eyes, the faint pallor beneath his healthy tan, he was still one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen.

Man
being the operative word,
she thought as she drowned a little in his warm green gaze. He was a man, flaws and all, in a way Johnny never had been. Though she was still in her twenties, giving birth to Logan had changed her from a girl to a woman almost overnight.

But was she woman enough to deal with a man like Dalton? A man who’d lived a life of privilege she couldn’t even begin to imagine, much less understand? A man with his own demons that made her day-to-day struggles seem like bumps in the road in comparison?

She’d worked hard over the past few months to simplify her life, to focus her attention completely on her son and his future. Letting herself get involved with another person had never figured into her plans.

But she knew, with a certainty that sent heat blazing into the center of her sex, if he dipped his head closer, she would close the distance between them and take whatever he chose to offer.

“Last night,” he murmured, “I wanted to kiss you.”

She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by his raw honesty. “I know.”

“I still do.”

She opened her eyes and leaned closer, even as her self-protective instincts screamed at her to get up and walk away. “It’s a bad idea.”

“It really is.”

She brushed her fingertips against his chest, tracing the contours of his muscles. He was well built for a man who worked in an office, with lean, defined muscles. He kept himself fit.

“Do you know why I never called Lydia back today?” he asked, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

“Because you’re a heel?” she asked, her own gaze sliding over his mouth, noting—not for the first time—the tempting fullness of his lower lip.

That lower lip curved upward at the corners in response to her remark. “I suppose I can’t deny it, can I? You saw the whole scene play out.”

“You should have told her the truth.”

His eyes flickered up away from her mouth, and his gaze leveled with hers. “I don’t think she’d have liked the truth all that much.”

“Which was?” she prodded, knowing she was playing with wildfire.

“That I forgot all about her the minute I saw you that first night at the hospital.” He dipped his head toward her. “You’re all I seem to think about. How to keep you safe. How to protect Logan. Whether I can do it or not.”

He always seemed so confident and controlled. To hear him express uncertainty was a sobering experience. “What a messy situation you’ve gotten yourself into.”

His lips twitched upward again. “I have a knack for it these days.”

“How was lunch with your mother?”

He lifted one dark eyebrow. “How’d you hear about that?”

“I tried to call you around lunchtime but you were out. Your secretary mentioned you were having lunch with your mother.” She couldn’t stop herself from snuggling a little closer. “How is she holding up?”

“Better than I thought she would.” He sighed, leaning away from her and laying his head back on the sofa cushions. “They were so wrong about her, you know. My father and grandfather. They claim they were protecting her, but she’s so much stronger than either of them gave her credit for.”

“How long has it been since you spoke to your dad?” Briar asked.

He rolled his head toward her. “Why?”

“I lost my daddy when I was ten. I wish I could talk to him now.”

He reached out to touch her cheek, grimacing as the movement apparently pulled on his stitches. He fell back, gazing up at the ceiling.

If she’d been thinking more clearly, she probably would have gotten up right then and headed up to bed. But the night had been nearly as harrowing for her as it had been for him. And she wasn’t quite ready for it to end.

Slowly, she lifted her hand to his face, cupping the curve of his jaw. His gaze slid down to meet hers, the green of his eyes warm and liquid, like a mossy mountain pool. “I’m going to kiss you,” she whispered. “It doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to mean.”

His hand sliding up her back to tangle in her hair, he pulled her toward him, his breath hot against her cheek. She angled her lips across his, a light exploratory touch. Dry, warm, closed-mouth. Almost chaste.

Almost.

His lips parted under hers, the slick heat of his tongue brushing over her bottom lip, teasing it lightly at first, then with a demanding intensity that shook her to her suddenly burning core.

And any thought of chastity went right out the window.

Chapter Ten

Briar straddled Dalton’s thighs, sliding forward until he felt the soft heat of her sex settle flush against his growing hardness, flesh separated from flesh by a couple of layers of clothing. The sensation rocketed straight to his brain, exploding like fireworks and spreading molten pleasure to every part of his body. Convulsively tightening his trembling fingers in her tangle of curls, he flattened his other hand against the small of her back, urging her hips forward to increase the delicious friction building between their bodies.

He nuzzled his way down the curve of her throat, his lips brushing lightly over her skin. He kissed the skin beneath her jaw, the delicate curve of her chin, then lightly nipped his way back up to her mouth.

Her lips parting beneath the pressure of his own, she surged toward him, flattening her breasts against his chest. Her fingers skimmed his rib cage through his shirt, exploring the ridges as if seeking to map every contour. Her actions sparked a fresh surge of heat through his blood and fire along the path her fingers traveled, until his whole body felt on the verge of combustion. He didn’t even care when her gentle touches tugged the still-tender skin of his wounded side.

Somewhere in the depths of his desire-addled brain, he knew what they were doing was a mistake. But he couldn’t seem to quell the primal urge to bury his hardness in her soft heat, and her sweet, fierce response to his touch drove out what remained of his good sense.

So easy,
he thought. So easy to bury himself inside her and forget about everything else. Forget the tatters of his life. The danger gathering like a firestorm outside the walls of their sensual cocoon.

So easy to drop his guard.

Just as he’d dropped it earlier tonight in the parking lot.

With another groan, he dragged his mouth from hers, his breath coming in harsh, rapid gasps. He caught her hips in both hands and moved her carefully away from his own hips. “Briar, this isn’t a good idea.”

She dropped her head forward, let it fall against his shoulder. Her curls whispered against his cheeks. “I know.”

For a long moment, they just breathed together, hitching, syncopated gasps that slowly ebbed into gentle sighs. Finally, she rolled away from his lap, slumping back against the sofa cushions. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Her words surprised him so much that he couldn’t stop a soft huff of laughter. “For what?”

“For...that.”

He couldn’t quite stop himself from teasing her a little. “For riding me like a cowgirl in a rodeo?”

She flashed him a look that made him laugh a little harder.

“Come on, Briar. We’re adults. No harm done, right?”

Except he wasn’t so sure about that, was he? He wasn’t a man prone to indulging his body’s urges without consideration and thought. His control, in fact, was damned near legendary, leading more than one woman he’d dated to accuse him of having ice in his veins instead of blood.

But no ice could have survived the flood of fire that had swamped his body at Briar’s touch. He didn’t know why she had evoked such an uncharacteristic response in him, but he couldn’t deny it had happened. And he had a bad feeling that if he gave it too much more thought, he wouldn’t find the answer reassuring.

But whatever his reason for losing control, he was certain of one thing: he would be a fool to let it happen again.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” she ventured after another moment of silence. “I don’t— This isn’t something I do. You know?”

“I wasn’t expecting it, either,” he admitted.

“I know it’s the twenty-first century and women are free to embrace their sexuality, but...” Her gaze lifted, finally, and settled on his face. “I just don’t do this.”

“Believe it or not, neither do I. Not out of the blue this way.” He hadn’t meant to admit that fact to her. He could have shrugged it off with jaded humor, as if he went about seducing women every day. Better than admit that her touch had damned near unraveled him.

“So we agree?” she asked.

He gave her a wary look. “About what?”

“That we don’t need to do this again.”

What he needed, he thought, barely tamping down a shudder of raw need, was to strip off those snug little jeans of hers and sink into the softness hidden between her sleek thighs. That’s what he needed.

Aloud, however, he said, “Agreed.” He pushed himself up from the sofa and looked down at her. “I need some sleep. I bet you do, too.”

She stared up at him, her eyes dark and liquid. The urge to seduce her all over again, to take her up to his bedroom and finish what they’d started, damned near overwhelmed him once more.

But she rose to her feet with steady, unhurried dignity and took a step away from him. “If you’ll make sure the alarm is set, I’ll check all the locks.”

Working in silent accord, they kept their distance from each other as they fortified their defenses against the danger outside. But as Dalton found his gaze straying toward Briar’s slim figure over and over, he realized there might be no way to defend himself against the unexpected danger of Briar Blackwood living under his roof.

* * *

T
WILIGHT
CAST
A
deep indigo gloom over the convenience store parking lot, broken only by the flash of cherry lights spinning atop the fire department emergency bus. A crowd had gathered, vultures circling a fresh kill. They stood in a writhing knot of anticipation near a pickup truck parked not far from the store entrance.

Briar made her way through the throbbing mass of onlookers, her pulse racing so frantically that she couldn’t make out individual beats, just a cacophony of terror building to incessant white noise in her ears.

The crowd seemed to go on for miles, rolling around her like waves in the ocean, prolonging the dread. But finally, she reached the center of the throng to look upon the spectacle that had drawn them.

He lay facedown on the dirty parking lot pavement, utterly still. Beneath him a river of red spread in lightly undulating waves, the ripples slowly dying away to nothing, the memory of his life pulse fading into stillness.

She tore her gaze away and looked at the ground beside him. A torn bag lay next to him, spilling its contents on the edge of his pooling blood. A jug of milk. A box of cereal. Both stained red.

And beside the torn shopping bag, a turtle-shaped backpack, straps severed, as if someone had ripped it off the little boy who’d worn it.

“No,” she moaned, but the words felt as if they stuck in her aching throat. She crouched beside the fallen warrior, heedless of the blood staining her hands. “Please, please—” She lifted a shaking hand to his pale face, touched his cold cheek.

His eyes snapped open. “Briar?”

She jarred awake, her heart rat-a-tatting against her breastbone. It was still dark outside, the only light coming from the open doorway.

In the rectangle of light from the hall, Dalton’s tall muscular silhouette stood over her. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said quietly, glancing at the sleeping little boy by her side. “I have to leave for a while.”

She squinted at the travel alarm she’d set on the bedside table. Not even six yet. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s my father,” he answered. “He had some sort of attack. He’s in the hospital in Maryville.”

She pushed her tangled hair out of her face, the jangling sensation in her sleep-addled brain finally subsiding. “How bad?”

“He’s stable, but nobody’s been able to give me any information beyond that. I just didn’t want you to wake up and wonder where I’d gone. And maybe we should call Nix or someone to come stay with you?”

“No need to bother Nix. Those hillbillies can’t get to me here the way they can out in the woods. And if they try, well, I’m armed and lookin’ for a little payback.” She pushed off the covers and rolled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, relieved she’d decided to wear sweats to bed the night before. Of course, considering how close they’d come to getting naked together the night before, her attack of modesty was a little tardy. “Have you eaten anything?”

“No, but—”

She stood and wrapped her hand firmly around his arm, nudging him toward the door. “You can’t go to Maryville hungry. Not in your condition.”

He didn’t protest as she led him downstairs to the kitchen. He even sat quietly at the breakfast bar and let her take over. She darted a look at him as she searched the cabinets for his cookware, seeing in the glare of the kitchen light what the shadows of his bedroom had hidden.

He was in emotional shock.

She put down the frying pan she’d just retrieved and crossed to the bar, reaching for his hands. They were cool to the touch.

His haunted green eyes rose to meet hers. “I told him I was ashamed I’d ever called him my father. That’s the last thing I said to him.”

She tightened her grip on his hands. “So tell him you made a mistake.”

“What if he’s—”

“You just said he’s stable.”

“That could change. It could change before I get there.” He looked down at their clasped hands. “Briar, he could die before I get there.”

She wished she could go with him. Give him the moral support her friends had given her that night as she waited for word on her aunt’s condition. But she had to stay with Logan.

“Let me call somebody to go with you,” she suggested.

His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “There’s no one. Mother can’t—I don’t want her there until I know more.”

“There’s your brother. Or your sister.”

He closed his eyes. “I haven’t exactly given them any reason to want to hold my hand through this mess.”

“Family doesn’t need a reason.”

The vulnerability in his eyes when they met hers made her heart ache. “I can’t ask them.”

Maybe not,
she thought.

But she could.

* * *

“I
T
WASN
’
T
A
HEART
ATTACK
.” The E.R. doctor had introduced himself as Dr. Treadway. He was a short stocky man in his early forties with thinning hair and a kind smile. “His blood pressure was elevated when he came into the E.R. and his heart rate was up. He was hyperventilating a bit, but we were able to get that under control with a sedative. We’re doing more tests to be sure, but the signs are pointing to an anxiety attack.”

Dalton covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, his body tingling with relief. “Can I see him?”

“There’s a guard posted outside his room. You’ll have to clear it with him.”

Of course. His father was still a prisoner. The judge in Barrowville had refused to set bail, considering Paul Hale a flight risk and a potential danger to Dana Massey.

But he didn’t look like a dangerous man, lying pale and groggy in the hospital bed. The guard turned out to be a man Dalton had met several times in his job as a prosecutor. He’d allowed Dalton into the room without protest.

Paul Hale turned his head at the sound of Dalton’s footsteps approaching the bed. Color flushed through his cheeks, driving out the pallor. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

Dalton pulled up a nearby chair. “I didn’t expect to be here.”

“They say I’ll live.”

“I’m glad.”

Paul’s gaze narrowed. “Are you?”

“I’m sorry about what I said to you before.”

“Which thing? You said a lot of things.”

Dalton felt a flurry of anger beating in his chest like bats flushed out of the dark bowels of a cavern. “You tried to shoot my sister.”

His father’s gaze snapped up to meet his. “Your sister.”

“That’s what she is.” The words flowed easily over his tongue, surprising him. But he felt a glimmer of freedom in saying the words aloud.

“I’ve never heard you call her that.”

“I haven’t called her that before.”

His father’s expression shifted to curiosity. “Why now?”

“I guess because I’ve had enough time to accept the truth of it. She’s my sister. Doyle Massey is my brother. Tallie Cumberland gave birth to me.”
And your father-in-law stole me from her and gave me to you and your wife. And then made sure Tallie didn’t live to tell me the truth.

“Tallie Cumberland wasn’t your mother.”

“She wasn’t given the chance to be.”

Paul shifted restlessly in the hospital bed, the movement rattling the cuff chaining him to the bed. “That was your grandfather’s doing.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Have you talked to the old man?”

Dalton shook his head. “I don’t expect to. He’s not talking to anyone but his lawyer.”

“How’s your mother? Does she know?”

“About your being here? No. I’ll call her later this morning to let her know.”

“Don’t let her come here. I don’t want her to see me this way.”

“She knows you’re in jail. Seeing you shackled to the bed won’t come as a surprise.”

“She trusted me to be her protector. Her rock.”

And he’d failed her, Dalton thought, trying not to think of his own near failure the night before. Trying not to remember how close he’d come to letting the man with the knife rip Briar Blackwood’s life into shreds.

“I can’t stay here long,” he said, reaching out to straighten the rumpled edge of the sheet covering his father.

“Late for work?” His father’s tone wavered between self-pity and a hint of admiration. Paul Hale had been enormously proud of Dalton’s work as a prosecutor. Ironic, really, given his current state of legal woes.

“I’m working from home today.” He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t quite trust his father enough to share Briar’s problems with him, or his own part in trying to keep her and her son alive. “But I have things to attend to.”

“I see.” His father’s chin lifted, vestiges of the old Hale pride evident in the set of his jaw and the steely coolness of his eyes.

“I’ll visit you when you’re out of here.”

“Back in jail, you mean.”

Dalton sighed, more disappointed than angry at his father. Progress, he supposed. “You did a terrible thing. Regardless of your motives, you could have killed Dana. She didn’t do a damned thing to deserve it.”