What's in a Name? (30 page)

Kelli scooted up beside him. “He made
the furniture—that dining room set.”

“
This place was his
catalog. Yeah, he and Bri made almost everything here.”

She squeezed his hand again. “Except
for one chair. The one you were sitting on, right?”

Crap, she could see everything. He
flung back the covers and stormed across the room, slammed his fist
into the wall. “I did that one in high school. It’s not up to his
standards—definitely a learner’s piece. And he left it there, with
all the good ones.”

“
Is that why your
Chicago place is so … different?”

He shook his hand against the pain in
his knuckles. “I hired a decorator. Told her to rip out the walls,
do whatever she wanted, as long as there wasn’t a stick of wood in
the place.” He made a sound that might pass for a laugh as he
remembered. “We did have a bit of a battle about the closet—she
insisted on cedar and I relented.”

“
Come back to bed.
Please.”

He crawled back into bed and snugged
Kelli to him. “When Dad died, Brian got the business, I got the
house. Maybe Dad thought I’d come back for good if he left me this
place.”

“
Will you?”

“
No. When Torrie was
born, I put the property in her name. A trust company handles
everything.”

“
What did Brian
say?”

“
Nothing. I haven’t
told him. I gave him free use of it, since I’m never here.” He
nuzzled her neck. “It’s almost dawn. We should get some
sleep.”

Kelli wriggled against him, pulled his
arm over her waist and sighed. He listened to her breathe,
surprised when he relaxed, then drifted off to sleep himself.

When Blake awoke, the sheets were cold
and empty beside him. He knuckled the grit from his eyes and
stepped into his boxers. A blast of profanity from down the hall
had him wide awake and on the run. Crap, nobody could have found
them.

Kelli sat at the desk, pounding its oak
surface with her fists. Otherwise, the room was empty. He took a
few deep breaths and waited for his pulse to slow. “Shit, Kelli,
you scared me half to death.”

She never took her eyes from the
screen. Her hands alternated between the keyboard and the mouse.
Her cell phone sat next to the mouse pad. Blake stepped behind her,
looking over her shoulder at the screen, which displayed what he
assumed were someone’s bank records.

“
I can’t believe I was
so stupid. Dumb, dumb, dumb.”

“
Whoa.” He put his
hands on her shoulders and she jerked around.

“
Geez—don’t sneak up
on someone like that.”

“
I think you were on
another planet. I didn’t sneak up on you.” He noticed a mug of
coffee on the desk and picked it up. Cold. “How long have you been
up?”

“
Couple of hours I
think. All of a sudden, it came to me. I was looking in the wrong
places.”

He grabbed the back of the oversize
leather desk chair and rolled it away from the desk enough so he
could swivel it to make Kelli face him. “Let’s slow down here. In
words of one syllable, please. What did you find out?”

She ran her fingers through her hair.
From the way it spiked up, she’d been doing that a lot. “It finally
got through my thick skull you’d said Hollingsworth was looking for
me on the sly. So I stopped looking at Hollingsworth Industries,
the company and started looking into Dwight Hollingsworth, the
man.”

“
Can you tell me this
over breakfast? I’m starved.” He pulled Kelli to her feet and
wrapped her in an embrace. She squirmed away.

“
But don’t you see? If
he—or anyone else—was looking for me in connection to Robert, or
whatever his name was, they’d be looking for Karen Abbot, not Casey
Wallace or Kelli Carpenter. When I was with Robert, that’s the name
I used. I didn’t become Kelli until after Robert—”

Blake cut her off before she had to
deal with the rest of that thought. “I think I see. If not
breakfast, at least coffee? Please?” He ran his thumbs along her
cheeks, noting the shadows under her eyes. How long had she slept?
He glanced at the computer monitor’s clock. Nine. If she’d been up
for hours like she said, she’d barely napped. He’d been totally
out—hadn’t noticed her leaving.

She looked over her shoulder at the
computer. “In a bit.”

She wouldn’t stop, no matter how much
it ran her down. “Whatever you’re doing can wait awhile. After we
eat something, I’ll go into town and get some supplies and you can
hack away to your heart’s content.”

“
All right. Two
minutes and the computer will be doing a search.” She leaned into
his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “But I’m going to make
you a list. I don’t like peanut butter.”

Kelli rubbed her eyes. When she heard a
car’s engine shut down, she realized its approach must have
awakened her. Twisting a kink out of her neck, she crept to the
window and saw the green Chevy pickup parked by the service porch
door.

After a breakfast of toaster waffles
and coffee, Blake had gone armed with her list to buy some food.
She’d soaked in a warm tub while her computer ran another program,
then she’d settled down in the recliner in the office to rest her
eyes for a minute. She looked at her watch. An hour ago. A glance
told her the computer was still working, so she went to help Blake
unload the bags.

She smiled as she laid things on the
kitchen table for Blake to put away. Charles had always deviated
from the list, too. Funny—she didn’t get that ache in her chest
anymore when she thought of Charles.

She put the milk and eggs in the
refrigerator. “I don’t remember putting chocolate chips on the
list. Or brown sugar. Or baking powder. Did you have something in
mind?”

“
I felt like cookies.”
Blake stood behind her and buried his face in her neck. His beard
tickled and a pleasant shiver ran down her back. He said, “I read
the recipe on the bag of chips.”

“
And which of us did
you think was going to bake? Don’t tell me the store didn’t have
ready-mades.”

When she turned to face him, he gave
her a puppy-dog grin. “Please? I’ll help.”

“
Lick the bowl is more
like it. But I wouldn’t mind some chocolate chip cookies myself.”
She furrowed her brow and tried to look stern. “You have to do the
cleanup.”

“
Sold.” He reached
into another bag. “Vanilla ice cream, too.”

“
Sounds like a party.
What are we celebrating?”

She saw a flash of something cross his
face, then heard her computer signal it had finished its search.
She squeezed his hand before dashing from the room. “Leave a stick
of butter out,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in a
minute.” She hurried to her computer.

“
It’s about time,” she
muttered to the screen. “All, right, Dwight—let’s see what you’re
made of.” She put her hand on the mouse.

“
Find anything? What
about John Smith’s phone number?”

She looked up to see Blake leaning
against the doorjamb, thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans.
She had to remind herself to breathe. Shit, he was one major
distraction.

She stared at her monitor, avoiding
Blake’s gaze. “No luck with that—seems to be a disposable cell,
like we’ve been using. But I got into Hollingsworth’s banking
records—I’ll need some time to dig.”

“
I never said … last
night … you … “ He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose
and started again. “Thanks. You helped. A lot.”

She looked up at Blake. His face wore
the same expression she’d seen in the kitchen and this time she
recognized it as sadness. His voice had held a somber edge as well,
she realized. Not what she’d expect from someone eager to bake
chocolate chip cookies. Abandoning thoughts of Dwight
Hollingsworth, she released the mouse and pushed away from the
desk.

“
Memory lane’s a rocky
path, isn’t it?” She crossed to him and stroked his beard. “You
okay?”

“
Yeah. I guess.” He
wrapped his arm around her waist and brought her to the recliner.
Perched across his lap, she waited for him to go on. When he did,
his voice was thick.

“
It just hit me. Like
someone jammed a two-by-four in my gut.” His hands gripped the arms
of the chair and she saw his knuckles whiten. “I had this memory …
of my mom.”

She put her hand over one of his,
gently massaging it. “You said she died when you were three. That’s
not too young to have memories.”

“
She used to bake
chocolate chip cookies. Bri and I would help—but mostly I got to
lick the bowl.” He gave a quiet snort. “You were right about
that.”

Her own memories intruded—her and Luke
in the kitchen together, laughing and making messes when he’d tried
to help. She lowered her head into Blake’s chest.

His voice resonated through her. “Once
she let me stir. The dough was so stiff and I sent the whole bowl
crashing to the floor. Smashed into bits. Bri pitched a fit, but
Mom told me it didn’t matter. She cleaned up, made another batch of
dough and put the bowl in the sink for me, so it wouldn’t go
anywhere.”

“
Sounds like she loved
you.”

“
I don’t know why that
came back. I opened the bag of chips and—wham.”

“
The sense of smell is
a powerful trigger for memories. That and everything else you’ve
been thinking about—family—you know.”

“
Guess so. But I think
there’s another problem.”

“
Hmm?” Thoughts of
Dwight Hollingsworth and people trying to kill her were fading
away. She snuggled into Blake’s lap and noticed he probably had
something else on his mind. He adjusted her so their eyes met. Her
breath quickened.

He touched his lips to her forehead.
“I’m in love with you.”

* * * * *

Blake held his breath, waiting for
Kelli’s response. All the possibilities swirled through his
brain.

She’d laugh.

She’d run back to her computer.

She’d tell him she couldn’t deal with
his job.

Or the big one—she’d tell him she liked
him, but as a friend.

When there was only silence, he tried
to ignore the new ache inside. He shouldn’t have said anything—not
yet. Not while they were still trying to figure out why someone
wanted to kill her—or him—or both of them. She’d think it was an
emotional reaction to an even more emotional situation.

He was so busy running what she might
say through his head that he almost missed what she did say. “I
love you, too. I have since you ran up ten flights of stairs for
me.”

Relief and even more love swamped him.
“I knew it by the second floor.” His lips found hers and he kissed
her with a passion that built as though nothing could consume it,
only feed it.

Their tongues entwined, searching,
tasting, hungering for more. Gasping for breath, he reached under
Kelli’s t-shirt, feeling nothing but bare skin. Hot skin, already
filmed with the fire of passion. His fingers found her breasts,
brushed her nipples to taut peaks.

She squirmed in his lap, fumbling for
his zipper. Clutched him, already swollen with desire, through his
shorts.

From somewhere, he found a thread of
control. Took her hand from him. Broke the kiss. More than
anything, he wanted this to be special for her. Last night, she’d
given. Before, he’d let her take what she’d needed. It was his turn
to give and he was going to make damn sure they were both making
love to each other. As partners.

He scooped her up and walked down the
hall, her arms around his neck, his face buried in her hair,
inhaling the scent of shampoo and soap mixed with whatever made it
smell like Kelli. Lowering her to the unmade bed, he took her
hands. Looked into her eyes, grey now. No pretenses. He kissed her
fingers. “I want you. All of you. I want to touch you. Smell you.
Taste you.” He pressed his lips to her neck. “Love you.”

He unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out
of it and peeled her shirt over her head. “Lie back.” Watching her
eyes for any signs of apprehension, he settled down beside her. Her
fingers reached for his belt buckle.

He placed his hand over hers. “Wait.
There’s time for that later. Let me enjoy you for a while.”

Lips, tongue, fingers explored her.
Gentle strokes. Gossamer touches. His own desire skyrocketed with
each moan of her pleasure. His kisses found her belly and she
squirmed with delight. He unbuttoned her jeans and she lifted her
hips. He tugged the denim free.

“
Tell me what you
want,” he whispered. “Where do you like to be touched?”

“
Just keep doing what
you’re doing.”

He kissed her thighs while he continued
to lower her jeans. Kissed her knees, her ankles. Jeans on the
floor, he moved back up her legs. She let one knee fall open.
Squirmed when he kissed the soft flesh of her inner thighs.
Kicking, she clutched at his hair. “Stop.”

Like he’d been struck by an arrow, he
jerked away. He searched her face and saw a smile, not fear.

“
Tickles.” Her eyes
held only pleasure. “The beard.” She grinned and pulled his face to
hers and kissed him long and deep.

“
Consider it gone.” He
propped himself up on an elbow. “Did you mean this
minute?”

“
Later is fine.” She
ran a fingertip across his lips. “I don’t seem to be ticklish above
the waist.”