Trust in Me (16 page)

She almost laughed, remembering the militant way she’d purchased her sewing machine. Taking her anger out on it, making nothing but noise and strips of oversewn fabric just because she could.

“I altered a bra for a dress I had, because the edge dipped a little low and I couldn’t find one I liked. He used to make such a big deal about being the one who bought my lingerie. Even then I thought his tastes were a little… Well, I didn’t like it and I didn’t like the way it made me feel wearing it. Since I was making it for myself, I wanted it to be pretty. What I liked. And I wanted it comfortable. You probably don’t realize this, but a lot of the stuff out there is miserable to wear.”

“I’ve always been partial to bare skin, myself…”

She felt his eyes on her. The heat of his stare should’ve been melting the fabric right off her. Okay, so maybe splinters wouldn’t be so bad… “You’ve never seen me in my work.”

“You’ve never offered to model.”

She swallowed, mentally picturing him in a chair, watching her with the same devouring stare while she tried on lacy piece after lacy piece. Just for him… It was all she could do not to start panting. “Maybe I’ll surprise you one of these days.”

Though she was already wondering if it would be worth going out in these sweats to make a quick trip to the store and gather her samples. It was a fast thought. For that stare—and what she knew good and well would come after—she might consider driving to her store without the sweats.

“I like surprises.”

No, he didn’t, but she could tell he was willing to make an exception. Oh yes, definitely worth the run to the store. But she wasn’t leaving yet.

“I wasn’t trying to make a business at first. I just wanted something for me. It made me happy, so I made more. I kept doing it, fixing the designs, tweaking here and there until I realized I had a collection. By the time I decided to move here, I had come up with a plan for a store, a business online, where no one would ever know it was me behind it. And I was going to be unapologetically happy, creating things women could wear just for themselves. Or, you know, as happy as
I
could be.”

She never counted on meeting Locke the second she arrived. Seeing the big, intense-looking man watching her like a wolf eyeing steak on the hoof. She’d been shocked to relish his attention. Shocked, then angry with herself, because she knew better. So she’d turned her back and ignored him. Ignored her heart beating faster and the urge to smile at him. The desire to look back and see if he was still watching.

Two years later, he still was.

Only now, she didn’t have to ignore a thing.

“Ready to go back inside?”

He didn’t pretend not to understand why. The hunger in him all but seared the air. “There’s still one more thing to show you.”

“Now?” When she was already itching to peel off her clothes and climb herself a Viking?

He nodded, turning from her without another word. He clasped her hand and led her out the door again. Only this time, he pulled her up the steps. Curiosity getting the better of her yet again, Susie followed him into what should have been a nice little apartment. Bigger than hers above her shop, but that didn’t take a lot. It was filled with boxes and furniture and more boxes, piled in all directions. It almost looked like a hoarder lived here, which was so incongruous with everything she knew about Locke.

He sighed. “We moved a lot of my parents’ things in here over the years. Stuff we couldn’t use, like office furniture and old stuff from the basement, which the elder twins turned into a home workout area. Nothing particularly sentimental, I don’t think. Just stuff no one wanted to get rid of. The boys didn’t mind moving it, but I don’t think they wanted to spend much time thinking about arranging it. By the time I realized how bad it was, the thought of going through it was more than I was up for.”

“You’ll need a week just to figure out what’s what.” At least the boxes all seemed labeled. She could see the heavy canvas curtains covering the windows, noting that they were on all sides of the room, even on either side of the door they’d entered from. Light from all angles. If the place weren’t filled with junk, it would have been an artist’s dream. Or, considering his father had built it, a drafter’s. “This place would make a good office for you.”

He nodded. “It would make a great sewing room, too, don’t you think? Lots of space and light, plenty of room for the baby to play in while you work.”

Damn him, he was right. Clear it out and the room had a world of possibilities. She was the one who was limited…

Locke didn’t say more, which was good because she wasn’t sure how she might respond. He maneuvered them through a path of cleared boxes, showing her where to step and how to slip past what he thought to be tight areas. Around this, through that, under something else. Finally, they stopped and her breath caught.

“Wh-wha—”

“It’s a crib.”

She looked up at him, then back at the wooden dream before her. A dark sleigh-bed style, the corners carved into thick rounded pillars, matching the ones in his bedroom perfectly. No doubt made by the same hands, the ones that shaped the man behind her as surely as he had the wood in front of her.

“I’ll have to check it over, of course. Make sure it’s safe,” he added gruffly. This, she knew, was what he’d been so eager to show her. The Boathouse was one thing, an important thing, but this crib was achingly important to him. “It’ll need a new mattress, but that shouldn’t be a problem. If you don’t like it—”

“It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.” Dusty, filled with boxes, but still the most amazing gift anyone had ever put in front of her.

He tried to hide his sigh of relief, so she pretended not to hear it. But really, did he think she didn’t know how important it was to him to share his history with his child? To steep her in the knowledge that she belonged?

For just a second, she let herself consider staying, no matter what, just so he could do just that. Shut down her senses and tell herself whatever she had to, just so she could give him the life he was offering her. The life she could almost dare to dream of with him.

But that would be so wrong, in so many ways. She’d do nearly anything for him…but she couldn’t do that to herself. He wasn’t asking, would never ask her for something like that, but in that second, she considered it.

No. Not again.

So she kept her hands at her sides and went no closer to the crib. It would promise too much. She wouldn’t lie to him any more than she would herself.

They looked forward in silence, both seeming to weigh what their words might cost. What-ifs floated around the room like dust motes, each one too painful to ask.

“Come on.” Locke led her back through the maze of things. Convoluted and winding, it felt as if the path was three times longer going out than coming in. She kept looking back for the crib waiting at the end of it, only able to see parts of it here and there, through cracks between boxes and under tables. Just out of sight, just out of reach, unless she followed the exact path back.

That thought stayed with her long after Locke pulled the door closed behind them, locking all that possibility inside.

Chapter Ten

The weekend didn’t last long enough. Neither did the three days afterward. Susie sat in her chair on Thursday afternoon, looking at her computer and wishing she gave a shit about the screen in front of her. She really should too, considering she had been attempting to work on her bills. Instead, all she had on her mind was Locke.

After they left the crib in storage, he’d become quieter, but not distant. He pampered her in ways she was almost ashamed to have allowed. They wallowed in bed most of the time, ordering in their meals, making love, talking about nothing. She talked him into letting her use olive oil to rub down his back, then he returned the favor, with some perks that still had her blushing. All the while, he thought he was fooling her. That she didn’t see the pain when he watched her. That she didn’t know what she was doing to him.

Killing him by degrees.

She rubbed her face, willing courage into herself, but nothing noticeable seemed to happen. She could still feel the fear, like a jagged, frozen stone in her gut. It had been with her so long, she almost couldn’t remember being without it. Except… When she was with Locke, the edges lost their cutting spikes. She forgot about the shadows in her soul. No, that wasn’t it. More like…she could see past them. He made her remember there was more to her than just pain and the dark that haunted her. She wasn’t whole—she didn’t think that would ever happen—but she was…peaceful with him. He gave her hope that she could have a real life, a real future.

The trouble was, the fears always came back when he was gone.

Her mother hadn’t taught her much, but she’d imparted one valuable lesson before she’d thrown her daughter out of their beer-scented trailer. If you couldn’t be happy on your own, no one else could do it for you. Locke couldn’t hold her hand every minute of every day. And she’d hate herself for becoming so weak that she would need him to.

She should have left a long time ago. She should never have let it get this far.

But even that was a hollow admonition. If she had, she wouldn’t be having this baby. She wouldn’t have ever known what it meant to truly love someone, even if that man was exasperating and pushy and broody and completely deaf when he heard something he didn’t want to know. She couldn’t regret it. Not him, not loving him, certainly not carrying his baby.

The only regret was knowing she would have to leave.

You could stay…

She’d had the thought at least a thousand times in the last few days. Malcolm might never come. He might be obsessive, but he was also extremely lazy when it came to things he felt were beneath him. Surely harassing intractable store clerks fell under that criteria.

Maybe Malcolm had changed since she’d left. She scoffed at the vain hope, but it was possible. Maybe he wasn’t looking for her at all…

Unbidden, the memory of his eyes that last night flashed through her mind.

She jerked in her chair, her feet slapping down again, as if she’d been falling and caught herself, though she knew damn well it wasn’t the case.

Those weren’t the eyes of an insane man. Not even one driven too far over the edge. They were the satisfied eyes of a man destroying what he hated most in the world.

No, she couldn’t allow herself even the illusion that Malcolm had changed. Not for a second.

She rubbed her hands over her eyes and sighed.

This is a big fucking mess.

She didn’t have the answers, couldn’t fathom a conclusion where any of them weren’t savaged. The only true protection she had was a file of papers in her suitcase that she couldn’t bear to look at, and those were hardly enough to stop Malcolm. At best, they were a message to whomever might be looking for her if he ever got to her. A three-inch-thick list of her sins and the sins of the man who’d love nothing more than to see her in a bottomless grave.

The bell over the door pried her from those chilling thoughts, but as she craned her head to see who might have wandered in, new chills took its place. A man in a beautifully cut double-breasted suit stood, looking around the store with gimlet eyes. A man she didn’t know. The town had grown, but not so much that she hadn’t seen just about everyone who lived there at least ten times a month. This man didn’t fit in Rancho del Cielo.

Susie scrambled out of the chair, edging as far into the closet next to the desk as she could. The few inches weren’t much, but he wouldn’t see her unless he came looking. Already shaking, she could only hope he wouldn’t do that. It took everything she had in her to stay still and rely on Amanda to hold the man at bay without being asked.

“Can I help you?” Amanda asked from behind the register.

“I’m looking for Susanne Packard, please.” The man had a pleasant enough voice, Susie decided, but there was a definite tremor there. Why would he be nervous looking for her?

“She’s not in at the moment.” God bless her, Amanda could be as suspicious and protective as her brother. “Is there something I can help you with? Would you like to place an order for some of our…custom designs?”

She wouldn’t have thought she’d find anything funny in this situation, but Amanda’s obvious hint and the man’s choked silence almost had her lips twitching.

“N-no, I need to speak with her about some very sensitive information.”

“You’re from that law firm.” Amanda’s tone was so cold Susie almost didn’t recognize it.

“Yes, but I need—”

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t really care about what you need. You people made yourselves very clear about your intentions. And I believe we were very clear about ours. We have no interest in doing business with you.”

“I’m not here on behalf of the firm. Their part of this ended when the loan was paid in full—”

Paid in
what
?

“—tell her I’m willing to pay her fifty thousand dollars for any information she has on Kayla McCormick.”

Susie covered her mouth with her hand, squeezing her eyes shut.
No. Nonononono….

“We don’t
know
any Kayla McCormick,” Amanda replied indifferently. “Even if we did, why would we tell
you
anything about her?”

“I’ll make it seventy-five.”

Amanda’s derisive snort must have upset him because Susie heard a scrabbling noise, something scraping or sliding on the checkout counter before Amanda snapped at the man. “What is
wrong
with you?”

“You don’t know him, lady.” The open desperation in the lawyer’s voice now spoke volumes Susie knew Amanda would never understand. But she did. “He’ll ruin me. He’ll ruin my whole fucking family for losing this lead.”

“If you don’t get out of this store, I’ll call
my
whole fucking family.” Had Amanda ever sounded so viciously cold before? Or was she just that pissed off? “Trust me, buddy, whoever it is you’re so scared of will seem like a pleasant dream when my brothers get done with you. You’ll be breathing through a straw for the rest of your life.”