“Yes,” he managed to say, sliding his key into the tiny lock, turning it slowly and feeling the click of a steel cuff disengaging. His gaze lingered on her pale wrist, on the reddened indentation, the slight bruising, and the way her skin had chafed beneath the metal.
Yet another injury his actions had inflicted on her.
Before he could stop himself, he stroked his thumb across the subtle damage gently, an attempt to rub the sting from her impossibly soft flesh.
“No,” she said sharply, her gaze dropping as she turned away and shook her head. “I’m sorry… I can’t—I just can’t do this.”
Rafe felt the perspiration beading on his forehead, felt the burn of shame that made him want to crank the room’s noisy AC down to glacial. Laying a palm atop her shoulder, he gave her what he hoped would pass for a sympathetic squeeze. “I’d be disappointed in you if you could. And more disappointed in myself if I weren’t Ranger enough to control my…”
Control what? His attraction? Because it was definitely more than simple lust that he was feeling. It was the perfect storm of his awareness of her body, his appreciation of the intelligence sparkling in her blue eyes, and his growing admiration for the way she was handling herself in one hell of a tough situation. “Control myself,” he finished. Nodding toward the bathroom, he added, “Go on now, sugar, and get that shower, will you? Before I change my mind.” Or stand here like some idiot, fantasizing about joining you.
Stress—that was all this was. Worry and grief, nothing more. Furious at his failure to maintain discipline, he swore beneath his breath, while Shannon wasted no time hurrying into the bathroom. The door clicked closed behind her, and he cursed again to hear it lock. But he couldn’t say he blamed her, and besides that, he had more important worries at the moment.
Such as where the hell was Garrett? He should’ve checked in by now, at least. Though Rafe hated himself for it, he couldn’t help but wonder if there had been any truth to Shannon’s accusations.
Could a weak-chinned geek like Garrett really have had the balls to screw around on Lissa? Beautiful, sweet Lissa, who had finally turned around after her troubled teenage years and pulled her life together after meeting the straight arrow who would become her husband? But she was no fool, either. She would have known if something had been up with him, would have confided in the big brother who had raised her. And Rafe, when he’d returned from his deployment, would have torn the damned fool’s head off, something he’d warned Garrett of when he’d flown in for the bachelor party. Though they had both been half-drunk that night, Rafe’s warnings weren’t the type that any sane man ever forgot. Especially a guy as “risk-averse,” as Rafe’s CO would have put it, as his brother-in-law had always been.
But as the shower hissed behind the closed door, Shannon’s warnings about Garrett continued to prey on Rafe’s mind, making him wonder how much he really knew about his brother-in-law, who had always claimed he had no family, other than an estranged, alcoholic mother who had abused him for years. No friends, either, Lissa had once complained, other than the tech buddies he spent way too much time bonding with over some shoot-’em-up online game.
“He’s so obsessed with his stupid ‘Battle Bloodcraft,’ I can’t get him off the couch to paint the baby’s room—or do a darned thing to help out when he finally drags home from work.”
Rafe hadn’t thought much about what had seemed like a minor domestic squabble, other than to grin at the idea that he and his fellow Rangers were living the adventure those geeks only dreamed of from their nice safe homes and mamas’ basements. Yet now the word obsessed came back to make him wonder, and his anxiety only deepened when he repeatedly failed to reach Garrett on the prepaid cell phone he was using so law enforcement couldn’t track them.
“This isn’t right,” Rafe grumbled before striding to the bathroom door. “Hurry up in there,” he shouted, banging. “We may have to take off in a hurry.”
But with Garrett driving the borrowed SUV, Rafe would need fresh wheels. Though he hated to compound his crimes, he reminded himself that during a combat mission, ordinary rules were made for breaking. Including the rules against grand theft auto, something he would have to resort to whether he decided to go in search of Garrett or relocate. Because one thing was for certain. He and Shannon couldn’t stay here and take a chance on Garrett giving them away if he’d been picked up by either the local cops or their federal pursuers. And on the slim chance that Shannon’s theory was right and Garrett was somehow wrapped up in Lissa’s murder, the consequences of his defection could be even deadlier.
SHANNON NEARLY JUMPED out of her skin when Rafe banged on the door and demanded she come out. She had barely finished rushing through her shower and hadn’t yet toweled off, let alone had the chance to search the cramped space for anything she might use as a weapon should the opportunity arise. A shard from the mirror, a sharp sliver of chrome broken off the towel rack—she had learned from studying prisoner-made shanks and shivs that almost any item could be turned into a weapon, if one only had enough time.
“Let’s go,” Rafe called. “Unless you want this door coming down on your head.”
She quickly dried herself, absurdly worried less about that threat than the idea that the huge Ranger would break in and find her naked. “Give me a minute. I’m just dressing. What’s wrong?”
“Garrett,” Rafe admitted. “He’s still not back, and his cell phone’s going straight to voice mail.”
Reaching for her clothing, she couldn’t resist smiling. “I thought you trusted him? Implicitly?”
“It’s our luck I don’t trust.” Rafe’s words were hard and empty as spent bullet casings. “Especially not with every law enforcement agent in this part of the country looking to bring us in.”
She dressed in a rush, donning the same tan skirt she had been wearing since that morning, along with the T-shirt she had been given by the older woman. Finally slipping into her wedge-heeled sandals, she raked her fingers through her damp hair and spared herself one last look in the mirror.
She winced at what she saw. With neither makeup nor a brush on her, and a purple lump high on her forehead, she looked like some sort of refugee—or like exactly what she was, the victim of an assault—by stun gun and abduction. No wonder Rafe hadn’t jumped to take the bait when she’d trotted out whatever feminine wiles she could muster.
Thank God. She unlocked and opened the door to find him slinging his duffel over one broad shoulder.
He took one look at her and pulled a comb out of his pocket. “Here you go. Try this. Then we’ll need to put the cuffs back on you.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Forget the handcuffs. You won’t need them. I’ve decided I’ll be helping you. Helping find those babies.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“It’s the fastest way, maybe even the only way, to finish this before another family’s shattered.” Though she had only meant it as an excuse to convince him to leave her hands free, Shannon realized that what she was saying—what he’d tried to make her understand before—was true. Working in a small, targeted unit, with the support of hackers who couldn’t care less about privacy laws, warrants or jurisdictions, they could cut weeks, or possibly months, from a cumbersome and complex official investigation.
They could prevent yet another expectant woman’s murder.
All it would cost her was her honor, her career—and the betrayal of the oath she’d sworn to faithfully discharge the duties of her office. A vow she held as sacred as every hard-won lesson she’d gleaned from her father’s storied career.
Even so, Rafe Lyons clearly didn’t buy her supposed change of heart, because the moment she passed him back his comb, he snapped one of the cuffs onto her right wrist. After making an adjustment to the size, he snapped the other bracelet onto his own left hand—shackling them together before