The Wild Side Read online

  “I live in Framingham these days.” He put his hand over his heart and beamed proudly. “I’m a cop. A lieutenant. Just like I always said I would be.”

  “A Lieutenant!” She gave a near-hysterical giggle. “I am so happy to hear that.”

  “Hey! Are these guys your friends?” He grinned at the two suddenly uncomfortable-looking men and hauled Rose against his side. “Sorry to hog this little gal to myself. I’m just so damn glad to see her after all this time. Always was crazy about her.”

  “Uh, no problem. We were just leaving.” Broken Nose backed away a few steps.

  “Have a nice reunion.” Gel Man took a few more steps back, pinning Rose with a warm smile that left her icy. “We’ll see you later, Rose.”

  They turned and hurried back through the station toward the street, where they’d undoubtedly take up watch for her again. Rose shuddered, stepped reluctantly out of Slate’s secure hold and smiled ruefully up at him.

  “Thank you. For lack of anything remotely adequate to say…thank you.”

  He nodded, all the gosh-’n-by-golly gone from his manner, and stared at her from his over-six-foot height. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “I…apparently.” Her body started to tremble. “Apparently, I am. Are you really a cop?”

  “Nope. But they don’t know that.” He took her elbow and led her over to a nearby chair. “Sit and try to relax. If your body wants to shake, let it. I’ll get you something to drink.”

  He strode over to Auntie Annie’s Pretzel Stand, counted out exact change for a bottle of water, and strode back, the picture of take-charge efficiency. Rose accepted the water gratefully, his attitude even more gratefully, and gripped the bottle to keep it steady.

  Slate lowered himself into the seat next to her and watched her drink. “Maybe I should have gotten you something stronger.”

  She shook her head. “This is fine. This is wonderful. Thank you.”

  He put one hand on the back of her chair, the other on the table in front of her, and leaned toward her, so that she felt further bolstered and embraced by his presence. “What did they want, Rose?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the horror of it.” She gestured helplessly. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. I must have done something, pissed someone off. I don’t know, honestly.”

  His blue eyes narrowed slightly, considering her. She returned his gaze as earnestly as she could, willing him with everything in her soul to believe her. Right now, in the crowded bustle of the station, she felt as if this beautiful stranger who’d risked who-knew-what to help her was her only link to humanity.

  “Have you been to the police?”

  “Yes.” She turned the half-empty water bottle around and around with hands that still shook. “They can’t help me. Nothing’s happened to me yet.”

  He nodded grimly, then leaned closer, eyes intent. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’d like to help you.”

  His voice was low, quiet, reassuring—a voice to gain the trust of a wounded animal. Rose shook her head, wanting to shout yes, please, anything, just get me out of this place in one piece.

  “What about your friend?”

  “His train is due soon. He’s visiting a bunch of us—no problem if he stays with someone else.”

  “But I couldn’t ask you to—”

  “You’re not asking. I’m offering.” He touched her shoulder, a brief warm pressure. “Will you let me help you?”

  His gentleness undid her. She shivered and blinked fiercely to beat back the tears.

  “Thank you. Again, thank you. But only if you happen to know of a place in the absolute middle of nowhere where I can disappear for a couple of weeks.”

  His mouth spread slowly into a wide grin. He took the bottle from her fingers and drew her to her feet. “Believe it or not, Rose, I know just the place.”

  RILEY EASED THE OAK BOARD up against the fence on his table saw and made a guided, controlled pass, slicing a cut exactly on his measure, precisely perpendicular. A satisfied smile curled his lips. Yes. Clean lines, square angles. Another perfect drawer front for the dresser he was making his nephew, Leo. Just what he needed to balance this strange mood.

  “What the…”

  He stared at the wood in his hands, unable to believe his carelessness. He’d cut the perfect drawer front from a piece already measured and cut for the side of the dresser. When was the last time he’d made a mistake that stupid? Not since he’d been a rank beginner, almost two decades ago. He should have known better than to try anything needing concentration when he was feeling so uncharacteristically…unsettled.

  Two hours since he’d gotten back from seeing Rose—or whatever the hell her real name was—and he was still rattling around his house like a teenager during summer vacation. Nothing appealed. Paperwork left him cold. Brooding and pacing were unconstructive. Sleep was out of the question.

  In short, the woman had made him crazy.

  He chucked the wood on his scrap pile, tore off his safety glasses and stalked upstairs from the basement. In spite of his absolute certainty that someone like Rose wouldn’t be able to work her manipulative womancraft on him, he’d fallen for it, for her, for the entire picture. Sucked in by the transparent wiles of a woman he’d taken thorough pains to arm himself against. Not a notch better than Captain Watson’s “whipped” police detective, who’d earned Riley’s immediate scornful disrespect.

  From the second Riley walked into the room, Rose had him off balance. She was twice as beautiful and sexy as he’d imagined, because she was so damn unexpectedly wholesome and natural. Her “innocence” had awakened his tenderness, something he rarely allowed himself to feel toward women. And in that one, heart-cracking moment when tears dripped down her face, he’d wanted to protect her, make sure no other man could ever hurt her. He wanted to give her the safety she needed, the sexual journey she craved, make her his. Hell, he’d even kissed her like a real lover.

  Riley laughed bitterly. Horseshit, all of it. She’d had him where she wanted him nearly the entire evening. Right up until the moment his fingers pressed against her heat, when the whole act fell apart. When she spread eagerly to receive him, lay back and gave herself over to her own pleasure, grasping greedily for her climax like the seasoned veteran she was.

  After that, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. The transition completely blindsided him. For all his training and discipline, he wasn’t able to reverse emotional gears nearly as fast as she could. She was an artist, a master, a Jezebel.

  Riley stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and clenched his fists. After all those years pushing himself to the limit, sidestepping his father’s footprints by ditching Princeton and traveling the world on pennies a day, facing life and death head-on in the military, he had emerged knowing himself inside out. No surprises. He knew what he wanted from his life, knew what made him tick, how far he could be pushed. He knew his entire emotional landscape, inside out.

  Until he’d walked into the tacky, overdecorated apartment of one manipulative man-eating bimbo and got chewed up and spit out in the space of an hour.

  He slammed his fist against the door. And damn it all to hell, he wanted her still. In the most primal, arrogant, male way possible, a way that shamed him and what he believed. He wanted to own her, master her, control her the way she’d controlled him—a repeat of the horrifying glimpse into his baser instincts when he’d practically forced himself on her. After she’d taunted him with that little-girl kiss on his mouth. For one red-hazed minute, he’d given in to the primitive male need to dominate, pulling back only when he sensed her fear.

  Probably the only genuine emotion she’d displayed all evening.

  The refrigerator gave a protesting squeak as he yanked it open and stared inside, desperately needing a long cool drink—something to cool his mind, his body, his attitude. But there probably wasn’t anything that powerful on the market.

  He gulped the last of the oran
ge juice, crumpled the carton, lobbed it into the trash and headed to his bedroom to change clothes, pushing Rose firmly from his mind. He pulled on shorts, pushed Rose firmly from his mind and ran back down to the basement. Exercise would work off his stress, restore some equilibrium.

  Warm-up. Stretch. Heavy weights. Squats, lunges, abdominal crunches, push-ups, triceps dips, biceps curls. He immersed himself in the carefully planned, carefully controlled routine, all the familiar patterns, on and on until his muscles shook.

  Cool-down. Stretch. Done.

  He headed back upstairs, chugged a quart of water, showered, pulled on clean boxers and slid into bed, holding tight to the hard-won discipline over body and mind he’d come to rely on.

  Warm air blew over him from the open window, carrying with it the noises and smells of summer in Brookline. The occasional whoosh of a car, the laughter of neighbors walking their dog down Willard Road.

  Relax. He cleared his mind, pushed distracting thoughts firmly away. Light. Clean. Heading toward sleep.

  The slide into unconsciousness weakened his control, and she came immediately. She stole over him, smiling, whispering, vulnerable and secretive, then taunting, teasing, sliding her soft lips down his belly, cupping him between his legs, lowering her mouth to suck him dry.

  Riley jerked awake and stared at the ceiling, muscles clenched, his erection like granite under the sheet.

  Damn.

  The cooling breeze dwindled; humidity climbed into the room. Perspiration coated his body. He flipped over onto his stomach, hands at his temples as if to block out the picture his dream had implanted, and found himself pushing rhythmically into the mattress, instinctively trying to ease the aching pressure behind his groin.

  No.

  He flipped back and restarted his relaxation routine, instructing the seductive images to leave him alone, instructing his brain to banish Rose and leave him in peace.

  The air thickened; stubborn, insistent, the images flickered again through his mind, making relaxation efforts useless. He put his hand up to his face, wishing her scent still lingered on his fingers, remembering the way she’d arched her slender body, offering her wet center as if she wanted it to belong to him more than to her.

  Hell.

  He reached into his boxers, pushed them down and out of the way with the other hand. She’d won, damn her. He couldn’t even resist her memory.

  His orgasm came almost immediately, long, shuddering, shockingly intense. He lay still until his breathing slowed, then got out of bed and stood in the shower again, willing the warm, soothing flow of the water to cleanse the woman from his mind.

  Enough. Time to stop wallowing in his mistake and start over. He flung back the shower curtain, pulled a towel over and around himself, caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror and almost laughed.

  Regroup, Riley. He finished drying himself and arranged his towel neatly on the rack, grinning and shaking his head. She’d roughed him up. Yeah, but he’d been roughed up before. He’d grown complacent, thinking he knew everything that could rattle him and what it would take to adjust to or avoid the reaction. Rose was merely something new to get used to. Like every crisis, the episode would soon settle into perspective. His mission was to find stolen art, not play Tame the Hedonist.

  Before the next visit he’d be doubly prepared, tied tight enough to cut off all emotional circulation. He’d focus on the fact that she was a manipulative bitch who polished off grown men at snack time. Focus on finding the portrait as fast as possible so he could leave this sick situation behind. The woman could have only as much power over him as he gave her.

  From now on, he would give her none.

  ROSE BURROWED DOWN under her blankets, dimly aware that it must be morning and she was in Maine now, in Slate’s cabin, but unwilling to face waking up. Life was so deliciously warm and simple alone in bed. You were either asleep or you weren’t. It wasn’t until you stepped out that decisions had to be made, appearances kept up, responsibilities shouldered or put off, relationships developed or severed. Not that she’d be facing the same kind of unpleasantness here that she’d left in Boston.

  Last night—or rather, early this morning—she’d climbed out of Slate’s pickup into the most total darkness she’d ever encountered, and taken in a rapturous lungful of the light, fragrant air. At that moment the break-in, the thugs and the probably traitorous Senator Mason seemed like a nightmarish part of a long-ago dream. She had Slate to thank for that.

  He’d taken her plight—and the necessary steps to escape swiftly and unseen—in stride, as if he did this kind of thing all the time. Of course, being a high school teacher, he wasn’t likely to. At the station, when his friend didn’t arrive on the appointed train, he’d taken Rose boldly out the front entrance, goons be damned. They’d run down the steps to the T and on a riotous trip—subway lines, cabs and on foot—until they were laughing, breathless and sure no one had been able to follow them. From there they’d retrieved Slate’s truck and a few of his personal items, and hit the highway.

  She owed him a tremendous amount. Quite possibly her life.

  How you went about repaying someone for saving your life was beyond her realm of experience, but she knew a thing or two about making men happy. Slate wouldn’t regret helping her.

  The metallic groan and clank of the wood-burning stove closing came clearly into her bedroom. Slate had lit a fire last night to take the unlived-in chill out of the house. He must have lit another to warm up the morning.

  She yawned and sat up reluctantly, taking in the plain pine walls lit dappled yellow by the sun streaming in through the trees; it had been so dark last night she hadn’t thought to close the shades. A chickadee sang outside and a startled squirrel scolded; waves swished quietly down in the bay.

  Rose grinned and shook her head. Toto, we are not in Cambridge anymore. No Ted’s TV Repair trucks, no tapped phone lines. No phone lines at all, from what Slate had told her, nor electricity. Roughing it in supreme comfort.

  She slid out of bed and pulled on one of the sundresses she’d brought, the sweater she’d worn last night and her heeled sandals. It was lucky Slate had proved himself attracted, when he’d first offered to buy her a drink at the station, because the blonde, sundress look was all she had with her. She pulled on her wig, tucked her hair carefully inside and applied her makeup. All the available armor at hand.

  At the door to the bedroom she paused. Two weeks, twenty-four hours a day in the middle of nowhere with an appealing, complex man she wanted to make glad he’d chosen to protect her. The longest date of her life. She took a deep breath and lifted the door’s iron latch.

  Ready. Set. Go.

  The sunny living room startled her with its drab appearance. Funny how it had looked so charming and magical last night. Maybe because last night she’d felt like a caterpillar embraced in a safe cocoon after days dodging ravenous birds.

  A greenish-gray woven grass rug, chewed in several places, probably by mice, covered the pine floorboards. A few seashells lay on cobweb-covered windowsills; a few dusty works of children’s art, probably Slate’s, hung crookedly on the walls. The floor was clean—obviously Slate had kept up with the sweeping—but the house seemed devoid of something. Devoid of life, devoid of the memories and charm a cabin like this should be full of.

  Slate poked his head in from the kitchen and grinned. “Good morning. Breakfast is almost ready.”

  She pulled her body up straight, tilted her chin and smiled. “Thanks, I’m starving.”

  He ran his eyes over her. Rose stiffened, unable to read his expression. Approval? Disapproval? She could have sworn it was the latter, but he was good at hiding his feelings. A little too good for her peace of mind. He’d had her on edge a good deal last night. On the one hand, he’d acted as if he was making up the rules for their escape as he went along. Underneath, though, she sensed an edge of purposeful power that fascinated her, as if he’d climbed a lot of forbidding peaks in his life, fought many
gruesome battles, regularly peered into the jaws of death without so much as a flinch.

  She stepped into the kitchen, noting the same blandness, the lack of personal touches that would have proclaimed the cabin as belonging to Slate’s family. “Can I help?”

  “No, thanks, it’s all under control.” He spooned out two portions of scrambled eggs, added strips of bacon and an English muffin that had been toasting on a metal rack set over the gas burner. “Have a seat.”

  Rose crossed to the dining room, really an L off the side of the kitchen, and sat at one of the set places on the long table. He liked to do things on his own. Didn’t like help, though he didn’t seem to mind her offering. A take-charge kind of guy; she’d noticed that last night, too. She’d need to lie low while she was here.

  He sat across from her at the table. Rose put on an attentive expression and sent over another welcoming smile.

  “What would you like to do today, Rose?”

  “Well…I’d love for you to show me around a little.” He’d like that. Take the lead, play Master of his Domain. Help her over rocks and around fallen trees. Put his coat over the mud puddles. Men like him ate that stuff up.

  “I’ll have to get you something else to wear. There’s still some stuff my mom kept up here that I haven’t gotten rid of yet. She died recently.” He cleared his throat and shoveled in a mouthful of eggs.

  Rose nodded, her heart squeezing instinctively. She’d bet anything that mouthful of eggs tasted like sawdust. He was grieving for his mom and didn’t want her to see. She immediately turned her attention to her own breakfast. A take-charge guy who hated showing his emotions. Fairly typical, after all. She knew what to do, though she’d never had to do it around-the-clock.

  They finished breakfast, Rose feeding him questions about the property, the wildlife and the sea. Then Slate went upstairs and brought down clothes that smelled like cedar and a faint flowery cologne. He pushed them at her and turned away to clear the table.