Wild Rain (3 page)

The wind snapped a branch against the side of the house, bringing Reese sharply, thankfully, back to the present. He started to shove the photo back into the drawer, then changed his mind. Reaching into the bag, he pulled out one of her sweatshirts and carefully bundled the old frame before tucking it in with the rest of her clothes.

Not wanting to put a reason to his motives, he stood, the ache in his thigh a welcome piece of reality to hang on to. He jimmied the drawer back into place and moved to the small bathroom. He quickly
emptied the contents of her medicine chest into another bag and knotted it.

It wasn’t until he turned back to face her bedroom that it hit him. The reason he’d frozen on the doorstep when he’d first stepped into her room, the reason he’d felt so odd as he’d stood there, cataloguing her personal effects, or more precisely, the lack thereof.

The reason it all felt so strange was because it was familiar. Very familiar. Too familiar.

Her bedroom was distant, no connections to anyone here, nothing tying her to past memories, past dreams, fulfilled or otherwise. Except an old photo hidden away in a dresser drawer.

Reese pictured the small, isolated bungalow he lived in on Vaca Key. Every room in that house looked amazingly just like this one. Full of furniture, empty of soul.

Which suited him perfectly. So perfectly he’d never even noticed anything lacking.

Until now, a tiny voice whispered inside his brain.

He ruthlessly snuffed it out. Irritated, and not at all happy about the reasons for it, Reese hefted the two bags toward the hall.

He had to turn sideways to fit the bags and himself through the narrow doorway, then was forced to balance the whole pile on one knee so he could reach back inside to flip the switch. Unfortunately, he forgot about his thigh injury and he wobbled precariously for a split second.

A half second later, the hard muzzle of a gun—his if he wasn’t mistaken—pressed into his lower back.

“What in the bloody hell are you—?”

“Freeze!”

TWO

Reese hung his head. “Christ almighty.” He continued swearing under his breath as he dropped the bags of clothes and slowly raised his hands. This would be funny if it weren’t so damn frustrating. First the alligator. Now he was being held at gunpoint with his own gun, by the woman whose life he was trying to save. Sinclair would laugh his ass off if he ever found out. Which Reese would make damn sure he never did.

No job was worth this sort of aggravation. Reese considered telling her he knew a dozen ways to easily disarm her, most of them painful, then discarded that idea as too time-consuming. He had to admit it though, she had pluck.

He hated pluck.

“I want you to put your hands on your head and walk slowly to the stairs. Then I want you to go
down them and straight out the back door and off my property.”

He didn’t have time for this. Correction.
They
didn’t have time for this. “You’ve been watching too many cop shows.” As he said this, he twisted suddenly and brought his bad leg up, knee bent, knocking the gun from her hand, allowing him to grab her arms and pin her to the wall across the narrow hallway.

He pressed against her narrow frame, hot daggers needling his wound where it had—of course—come into direct contact with the butt of his gun. If it wasn’t for the humiliation factor of the explanation he’d have to give, he’d demand Mrs. Ravensworth pay him double time for this one.

“Don’t hurt me,” she said quietly, her soft voice neither pleading nor demanding.

“Don’t tempt me,” Reese shot back, but he relaxed his hold and moved back a fraction of an inch, his frustration more self-directed than aimed at her. Again his gaze tangled with hers. Wide gray eyes, looking enormous in her small face, stared warily back at him. Her short hair was plastered to her head, her T-shirt wet and clinging …

Wait a minute. She was soaked.

“How did you get out?”

“Climbed through the office window onto the porch. I hadn’t gotten that one covered yet.”

“It’s started to rain,” he said, more to himself. “Ivan’s closing in. We’ve got to get outta here.”

Holding one wrist, he bent down, pulling her
awkwardly with him, and grabbed his gun. He thrust one bag at her, which she grasped automatically, then scooped up the other one. “Did you pack the one I gave you?”

“No, because—”

He was already pulling her toward the stairs. “Tough luck then, your time’s run out.”

“But—”

He heaved a sigh, silently cursing his sore thigh and her in no particular order. “No buts. What is it you Yanks say? No more Mr. Nice Guy.”

She tugged hard but to no avail. “You call this nice?”

He glared at her over his shoulder. “I call this keeping you alive.” He stalked to the back door. “No time for utilities. Probably won’t be anything left anyway.”

“I’m not—”

He turned swiftly and closed the distance between her face and his, stopping her speech as effectively as if he’d covered her mouth with his hand. Or his mouth.

Now where had
that
come from? Reese tore his gaze from her soft lips and pointed it back at her eyes. “You can thank me for saving your life later. Right now, we’ve got to get back over the bridge, across Sanibel and over that bridge as well. My truck is right outside the front gate.”

“Great. Have a safe trip.” Her voice was as flat as her eyes.

Her posture made it clear her survival skills
were well honed. Unfortunately she’d pegged
him
as the threat instead of the storm. “Listen, the rain has started, that means—”

“I know what it means. It means that thanks to you, I’m going to get pummeled by the rain while covering up that last window, and I still have other precautions to take.”

“To hell with the window! The way the wind is going, we’ll be lucky to keep the truck on the road.”

“Then go already!” She pushed her face right up into his. “I’m not stopping you.”

“You’re right.” Knowing his thigh would pay dearly for this, he scooped her up and put her over his shoulder. It was either that or give in to the entirely ridiculous urge to kiss her into submission. He felt her hands grab at the back of his jacket and lift it up, so he quickly shifted his gun to the front of his jeans.

He headed out the back door with both trash bags in one hand, her thighs clamped in the other. And he refused to even think about that tight little piece of her anatomy bouncing next to his ear. The heightened wind and pelting rain was no match for the curses she was hurling at him. He heard every one of them. Quiet and reserved, huh? Regina had apparently been estranged from her daughter for a very long time.

While half of his mind worked to ignore Jillian’s protests and the feel of supple muscle flexing under his hands as she thrashed, the other half kept
a lookout for Cleo. The driving rain made scanning the grounds difficult, but he saw no sign of the creature. He only hoped Cleo’s vision was as impaired as his.

The skies had darkened considerably, not a good sign. The hurricane warning had been posted early that morning and the report he’d heard right before he’d left his truck predicted they had roughly ten hours before it ripped up the lower western coastline. The way things looked now, they’d be lucky to get half that.

He had to bend low to force himself forward, covering little ground with each staggering step. He reached the gate in the high wire mesh fence that lined her property. Shoving with one shoulder, he was able to get it open wide enough to squeeze through, the wind slamming it shut behind him.

Pressing the bags between his hip and the side of his black pickup truck, he opened the driver’s door, tossed the bags in the storage area behind the seat then bent down to deposit her on the bench seat. He grunted at the pain the motion caused, gritting his teeth when her booted toe caught him square in the center of the gash.

“Slide over.”

His answer was a steely-eyed glare. He climbed in and forced her to move or be sat on. She scrambled over the gear shift, and he grabbed at the rear belt loop of her jeans just as her hand hit the passenger side door handle.

He pulled her back and reached across her,
yanking the seat belt across her lap with a bit more force than necessary. Then he turned to her so their faces almost touched. “Do I have to tie you to the dashboard?”

His question met with stony silence.

“Fine, have it your way.” He reached behind him and grappled around until he found a length of rope.

“Don’t even think about it,” she warned.

“And let you jump out the minute I start the truck?” He grabbed at her hands, securing them with the white cord then leaning across her to loop it through the large steering wheel. He left enough slack so he could turn the wheel without tangling the rope.

He started the truck, vowing not to look at her, even briefly, until they were off the island. This wasn’t at all how he’d planned this, but dammit, it wasn’t like he was willingly trying to hurt her. So there was no reason why he should feel the least bit guilty. Guilt was an emotion he’d long ago decided was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Along with trust, faith, love, and a few other human frailties that could get a man killed.

Shoving the gearshift into reverse, he propped one arm on the seat and turned to look over his shoulder as he backed out. His gaze came to a reluctant halt when it met hers.

“Why are you forcing me to do this? I don’t want to go.”

If she’d pleaded with him, or cried or begged
him, he would have been able to ignore her. But her solemn voice, combined with the defeat and pain etched so eloquently in her soft gray eyes gave him pause. Her look as good as said he was all but ripping her life to shreds. That she’d managed to survive all her battles, only to have him step in and toss another one at her feet. No matter the strength of her fight, that trace of what he’d seen earlier in her eyes told him she simply couldn’t handle another loss.

Couldn’t she see that was what he was trying to avoid?

“Because it’s my job to make sure you’re safe,” he answered, his voice for once devoid of the anger and frustration he’d aimed at her since she’d nailed him to the ground in a flying tackle.

“Even if it’s not what I want?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. He stared at her for a long moment, for the first time wondering if he was doing the right thing. Part of him wanted to argue with her that he was saving her life. But an even stronger urge prodded him to pull her into his lap and hold her, tell her he was sorry.

But he wasn’t sorry he was about to save her life. He might have convinced himself she was just a job, but somewhere between accepting Regina’s offer and sitting here in the cab of his truck with her daughter, he’d gone from
wanting
to save Jillian’s life because he was being paid to, to
needing
to save her life because … Because he didn’t want her to get hurt.

Reese abruptly turned his attention to the road behind him, wishing it was as simple as that. Wishing his mind weren’t as fogged as the rear window.

It took all his skills to maneuver the truck toward the single bridge connecting them with Sanibel Island. Jillian hadn’t said a word since they’d backed away from the compound. He’d half expected her to be sobbing by now, but several quick glances told him that she had turned her head to her window, her gaze glued to the large rearview mirror just beyond it and the increasing distance he was putting between her and the house.

“Maybe the brunt of the hurricane will miss it,” he said after a moment, then felt foolish for trying to comfort her when she didn’t answer.

He made the last turn, his attention drawn to his right and a downed tree that almost blocked their path.

“I hope you’re right,” she said suddenly.

“Why?” he asked, then turned to follow her gaze.

Again, she didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

Half of the bridge was gone.

Twisted planks and a crumble of cement were all that remained of their only link to Sanibel and the rest of Florida.

Two things struck Jillian Bonner almost simultaneously. The first was a gut-level response to the scene in front of her, visual proof of the risk she’d taken in deciding to stay. Although it hadn’t really been a choice as far as she was concerned. She’d made a commitment to Cleo.