The Sheriff and the Baby (16 page)

“Yes?”

“Kiss me,” she said, and ran her hands up beneath his T-shirt.

Matt’s body responded to her soft touch, the scratch of her fingernails. “You’re heading into dangerous territory,” he whispered hoarsely.

She blinked coquettishly and said, “Oh?” but continued her onslaught, her nails marching up his chest.

“Don’t do this to me.” He groaned. “A man can only take so much.” He placed his hands over hers to still them. “You’re gonna have to stop that right now,” he growled. “This is sheer torture….”

Beth kissed him, then stepped back. “But you feel
so
good,” she purred.

“You’re stealing my lines,” he protested, and gnawed lightly on her lip.

“Oh, Matt,” she sighed. “If only…”

Matt quirked his eyebrow and grinned. “Yeah, if only,” he said, gazing at her with open affection.

“Let’s make out,” she whispered against his mouth.

H
E SWALLOWED THE LUMP
that had lodged firmly in his throat. What was she suggesting?

Beth clasped both his hands. “Remember back in high school when you used to fool around? Remember how good it felt? How naughty but exciting?”

Not for the first time, Matt’s mouth went dry. “Uh-huh.”

She leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, her
warm breath on his cheek, sending delicious prickles of sensation to where he didn’t need them right now. “Let’s fool around.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, but he made himself shake his head emphatically.
No
. As he’d said, there was only so much he could take.

Beth ran a finger down his cheek. “Come on. It’ll be fun,” she urged, leaning even closer.

Matt gripped her arms. He thought he’d pass out if he didn’t.

“Come on,” she murmured. “Let’s go into the living room and pretend we’re at the movies. We’ll neck and get all hot and bothered.” Matt groaned.

“Don’t you want to?” she asked softly.

“You know I do. But we’re not kids anymore. I don’t want to end up embarrassing myself. And believe me, I know I will. Probably long before we even get near the sofa.”

Beth smiled mischievously. She seemed determined to push him to his limits. As it was, her sexy talk had him at the point of exploding.

She was a temptress, no doubt about it.

Los Angeles

Hennessey cursed when he saw the computer screen. “I go away for the weekend and that’s when the damned woman rears her head,” he shouted, thumping the desk. “Morgan!” he yelled. “Get in here!”

“What’s up?” Morgan sauntered into the office and sprawled in the only other chair the office contained.

Hennessey swung the computer screen around so he could read the details. “What the
hell
have you been up to while I was away?” he demanded.

Morgan looked at the screen and whistled softly. “Colorado? We’ve been searching for her all over California and she’s in
Colorado?
Who does she know there that’d hide her this long? That check I did on her friends was so thorough it included people she was friends with back in elementary school.
Nobody
lives in Colorado.”

Hennessey chose to ignore the fact that Morgan hadn’t caught the information glaring at him from the computer screen. If he’d been this lax in keeping track of any references to Elizabeth Whitman-Wyatt coming through their police computer systems, Hennessey doubted he’d been as thorough as he claimed about the background checks. Someone from the Sheriff’s Department in Spruce Lake,
Colorado, had accessed information about her driver’s license. He needed to get out there, and soon.

With a snort of disgust, he turned back to the screen. Morgan would pay for his mistake once they found her. “Locate this Spruce Lake place. Then book us on the next flight out there.” He snatched up the phone and put through a call to the sheriff’s department in Spruce Lake.

“S
ORRY
, I
CAN’T TELL YOU
anything else, Detective,” Ben Hansen said. “But as I mentioned, Matt O’Malley’s the one to speak to. He helped this woman—Beth Whitman-Wyatt? I could’ve sworn Matt said her surname was something else. She crashed her car the night she had the baby, then checked out of the hospital and disappeared. I know Sheriff O’Malley was looking for her. Why don’t I have him give you a call tomorrow? He’ll be in the office first thing.”

“Don’t bother,” Hennessey muttered. “You’ve told me all I need to know.” He rang off and turned to Morgan. “Seems that goddamned woman changed her name since she moved to Colorado.”

“How can you be sure it’s her, then?”

“The undersheriff confirmed she’d recently had a baby.” He slapped his thigh. “I
knew
I couldn’t trust you to keep on top of this!”

Morgan shrugged. “Hey, you’re the one who took off to Mexico for a couple of days.”

Hennessey had to force himself not to sucker punch the other man. His reasons for heading to Mexico were none of Morgan’s damned business. He had a nice little people-smuggling business going that neither Morgan nor Marcus Jackson were involved in. More than once he’d regretted that the people-smuggling had taken up so much of his time that he’d let Jackson handle the money and drugs from busts
they hadn’t reported. And the profits from their blackmail book…

The week before his death, Jackson had given him a key to a safety-deposit box, claiming that was where their stuff was stored. Only problem was, when he’d gone to use it, the box was empty.

He’d confronted Jackson, things had turned nasty and a bullet through the kneecaps hadn’t convinced Jackson he should hand over the correct key. Unfortunately, his next bullet, which was supposed to glance off the side of Marcus Jackson’s ear, had gone straight into his brain.

Hennessey had cursed the gun he’d purchased from a backstreet dealer earlier that day, wiped off his prints and thrown it into a nearby Dumpster. He’d fired several shots from his service revolver into the air to create a cover story, then called in to report that his partner was down. Within minutes the alley in south central L.A. was crawling with cops who’d raced to assist a fellow officer. He told them he’d pursued his partner’s killer, fired off several shots, then seen the man throw his weapon into the Dumpster. He’d been too concerned about his fallen buddy, he said, to pursue the culprit farther. The murder weapon was duly found and Hennessey was hailed a hero for risking his life trying to save his partner; he’d even attempted the full CPR routine. He’d actually managed to squeeze out some token tears when interrogated over the incident later that evening.

Furious that he had no idea where the key was hidden or which bank it was for, he’d turned their office upside down searching for it. The only conclusion he could come to was that it had to be at Jackson’s house. He’d thought that he’d scared the hell out of Jackson’s wife and she’d hand it over. Instead, she’d given him the slip. When he caught up with her, she was going to pay dearly for her treachery.

“So now we fly out to Colorado and deal with her?”

Hennessey’s head snapped around to Morgan’s. “Yes. Did you book our flight?”

“We’re on the 6:00 a.m. to Denver.”

“Why not tonight?”

Morgan glanced at his watch. “Because the last flight to Denver is probably taxiing down the runway right now.” He looked up with what seemed suspiciously like triumph and said, “Even you don’t have the power to stop that.”

Hennessey forced himself to put aside the happy prospect of disposing of Morgan; for now he needed the little weasel.

“We’ll get into Denver around nine-thirty,” Morgan was saying, “and then we have to drive to this godforsaken place. That’s another two hours. Tomorrow’s soon enough to catch up with her, get the key and get rid of her and the kid.”

Hennessey’s lip curled with pleasure. “I’m looking forward to seeing that little bitch again….”

B
ETH WAS IN THE CABIN’S
kitchen, gazing out into the moonlight, contemplating how to tell Matt she was leaving, when she became aware of his presence.

She turned toward him. Matt smiled slowly and crossed his arms in a gesture she’d come to love. He was dressed only in jeans, his chest bare. He looked magnificent standing there, all rippling muscles, five-o’clock shadow—and masculine need. Marcus had never wanted her that much.

He raked a hand through his hair. “You drive me crazy. Keep looking at me like that and I don’t know how we’re going to wait….”

His need for her found a similar response in Beth, be
cause she wanted him every bit as much as he so obviously wanted her.

She touched his cheek. “You know all the right things to say.”

Matt crossed his arms again, as though needing to do something with them other than hold her. She considered asking him what he was thinking, but was afraid of the answer.

She poured two mugs of hot chocolate, then gave one to him. “Let’s take these into the living room.”

“So we can pretend we’re at the movies and fool around some more?” he teased as he followed her in.

Beth covered her face with her free hand. “I’m so embarrassed I said that! It’s not like me to be so bold.”

Matt leaned toward her and kissed the end of her nose. “I loved it. Every teasing, exciting, wonderful moment of it. Do it again sometime. Anytime.”

A
DEEP SENSE OF
contentment filled him. Would this passion they shared last long into their marriage, the way it had for his parents? He hoped so. He had to believe it would, but in order to do that, he had to believe there
was
a future for him and Beth.

However, any chance of having a future together meant he needed to have the corrupt cops in L.A. brought to justice.
And
he had to do it behind Beth’s back; if she got wind of what he was up to, she’d take off in a second. The one thing in Beth’s favor was that Hennessey didn’t know she was being protected by a cop. And Matt was more than willing to protect her—and Sarah—with his life.

His cell rang. He checked to see who the caller was, then cursed softly. “I told Ben not to call me unless it’s urgent. Excuse me,” he said and went into her bedroom.

A sense of foreboding trickled its unwelcome way
through Beth when he closed her door to take the call. She was ninety-nine percent sure the call was about her. The fact that he’d taken the call behind closed doors virtually confirmed it. Beth
had
to know. Tiptoeing to the bedroom, she put her ear against the door, straining to hear. Matt was being very quiet. What if he’d finished the call and then pulled the door open to find her snooping?

“When was this?” Matt demanded, his tone gruff. “And what did you tell him?”

His next words confirmed her worst fears.

“I wish you hadn’t said anything. You should’ve passed the call to me. In future, if anyone asks, she’s left the county.”

Beth felt as though the air had been crushed from her lungs. The call he was talking about must have been from Hennessey. He’d tracked her down to the sheriff’s office in Spruce Lake and made inquiries! Her legs nearly buckled beneath her.

“It doesn’t matter how I know.” Matt was clearly losing patience. “I’ll be in the office in the morning. If you get any more questions about her, give the caller my number but don’t say anything else. Okay?”

Beth spun away from the door and staggered to the sofa, her heart pounding. She had to get out of here! Hennessey had tracked her to Spruce Lake, and if Matt got in the way he’d kill him, just as he’d killed Marcus.

When Matt returned, Beth clasped her hands together in her lap to still their trembling. Forcing herself to breathe as normally as possible, she smiled up at him and asked, “Business?”

He combed his hand through his hair. “I have to go into town tomorrow to sort out some paperwork,” he said and sat down, taking her in his arms. “It’ll only be a couple of hours. Do you mind?”

Beth shook her head, convinced that Hennessey knew exactly where she was. She had to leave Spruce Lake as soon as possible. If she could get straight on a bus, in two hours she’d be in Denver, or well on her way to Grand Junction.

“I want you and Sarah to come with me,” he said.

“No!”

“Excuse me?”

Beth fought to control her fear. She needed to pack some essentials in order to flee with Sarah. She couldn’t afford to go into town with Matt, waste time there, when she could be making her escape. “I mean…what on earth would Sarah and I do in town for several hours? I can’t be seen in public right now.”

“True. But I’d planned on having you stay in my office.”

“Oh, Matt, a sheriff’s office is no place for a baby. Transporting her there would mean bringing all sorts of things for her comfort. Have you thought of that?”

“Well…no.”

Beth listed everything she’d need to ensure Sarah’s comfort. Diapers, several changes of clothes, blankets, change mat, her travel cot…

Matt raised his hands. “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. But I think you’d be safer with me.”

“We’ll be fine here. The only people who know where I am are Lucy and Will. And they’re not about to tell anyone.” She touched his arm. “Seriously, Matt, we’ll be fine here. I can call you if I don’t feel safe.”

S
HE WAS RIGHT
. If Hennessey suddenly turned up in town, asking questions… The bile rose in Matt’s throat at the thought of Hennessey getting anywhere within a five-hundred-mile radius of Beth and Sarah.

Only when the bastards were behind bars would he feel okay about Beth’s being seen around town, but at the moment it was probably too risky. If Hennessey or his henchmen did show up in Spruce Lake and happened to talk to someone who’d seen Beth driving into town with him, then she and Sarah would be in danger. Hennessey would have a photo of Beth gleaned from her license. It would be easy for someone to identify her from a photograph. He needed to keep them both hidden here.

“Okay, but promise you’ll call me if you don’t feel a hundred-percent safe.”

Beth bristled. “Matt. Don’t treat me like a child. I’ve been living on my own up here for months. I’ll know if something doesn’t feel right and of course I’d call you.”

H
E SIGHED AND NODDED
, but the triumph she felt at manipulating him into leaving her at the cabin was a hollow one. How much more would she be deceiving him in the coming hours?

She almost wept at the thought of leaving Matt, but leave him she must—to protect him and Sarah. Her mind raced as she considered everything she had to accomplish if her plan was to work without a hitch. Her heart broke at the treachery of what she planned to do to a man who’d sacrificed so much for her.

She started making mental notes of all the supplies she needed to take with her on their journey to…wherever.

“Hey, you’ve gone all quiet on me again,” he said and turned his head to plant a kiss on her palm.

Beth looked up and tried to force a smile. “Just tired. It’s been quite a day.” She wanted to tell Matt she loved him. But doing so would make leaving that much harder. She needed to keep her feelings to herself. And to preserve what energy she had. Until she found another safe refuge
for Sarah and her, she knew she wouldn’t be getting any sleep.

When Matt reached over and raised her chin, she wiped at the tear that escaped despite her best efforts.

Matt put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her hair. “Hey,” he said, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “When Hennessey and Morgan are behind bars, we can get on with our lives. You’ll have a whole new family to love and care about you, and you’ll make new friends here in Spruce Lake. When everything in L.A. is cleared up, you can contact your family and friends back there. You won’t be cut off anymore.”

Beth wished she shared Matt’s confidence, but what he’d outlined for her future would never come to pass. She could see herself being a fugitive forever. Maybe she could move somewhere in New England. It seemed about as far removed from L.A. and Colorado as one could get. She could buy a new identity somewhere, another car. She
could
become invisible again. She had to believe that.

As if knowing she needed his strength right now, Matt pulled her into his arms and held her against him. She let the tears flow freely. Matt O’Malley encompassed everything she’d be leaving behind: security, companionship, passionate love. A future for her and Sarah. Acutely aware that she’d be breaking his heart as well as her own, Beth knew that leaving him was the only thing to do.