She was acting like an idiot. Ward must think her insane. Trapped inside an elevator with a crazy person, this must be his lucky day.
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HER all of a sudden? She obviously didn’t want him to touch her. But why? He’d felt a rush of adrenaline the moment their skin made contact. He’d swear her body trembled slightly at his touch. It had been a long time since his last failed attempt at a relationship, but could he be that far off the mark? And could he be that much out of practice?
Ward rubbed the sweat off his face and slicked his hair back. That haircut he’d gotten two days ago had come in handy. Less hair, less heat. He could only imagine how hot Hannah must be. Her only concession to the growing inferno had been to remove…hell, he didn’t know what she removed, but it still made him hard.
When she stood to take off whatever bit of feminine cloth she thought expendable, he realized he’d never be able to wipe the imagined scene out of his mind. His body had quickened at the rustling of material, the sound of her nails scraping on the silky fabric. He’d checked his urge to help her.
Brett would laugh his head off if he could see the two of them. His friend said he’d spotted a change in Ward. It seemed his senses finally agreed, but the woman obviously couldn’t bear his touch. She seemed to be keeping herself as far away from him as she could.
Maybe that was in her best interests. His body stirred again as she sat across from him, her perfume coming to him on a puff of air. Pears and strawberry. It made him ache all the more to taste her. She possessed a delicate strength. Something that called out to some primitive instinct he had to safeguard. Where the hell had that urge come from?
It must be the strange circumstance he found himself in. It didn’t make sense to get personal in a case. He saw what losing that narrow-minded focus had done to Brett’s career at the Bureau. He was now stuck at a desk job in a field office in Salt Lake. That wasn’t for him. No way.
Okay, so he’d been noticing her as more than just a suspect. Who wouldn’t notice her auburn curls? Or that dimple in her chin she hated and her full red lips?
“Ward, we haven’t tried to pry the doors apart. I think there’s supposed to be some kind of catch.”
“I thought of that, Hannah, but I don’t want to risk it if we don’t have to. We don’t know where the elevator has stopped. You could break an arm or a leg dropping down. If we climb out and the electricity should come back on while we’re half in, half out of the elevator—”
Hannah shuddered. “It’s okay. I get the picture. How long do you think it’s been? About an hour and a half?”
“About that long.”
She stood and a rush of air circulated his way. “Well, I can’t stand being in these clothes much longer.”
He heard the zip of her skirt and whoosh as it fell to the ground. He swallowed. Hard. He heard another whoosh as what he assumed was her blouse hit the floor. If he heard another, he could only guess what that particular item of clothing would be. Images of a nearly naked Hannah standing before him made his mind go fuzzy and his body grow hard. He didn’t need this rush of heat. He was hot enough already.
Thankfully, he heard no other whoosh.
“Umm. That’s better. This elevator wall actually feels cool against my skin.”
Ward cleared his throat and fought to find his voice. In the end, he gave up trying. A long, dark silence stretched between them.
“Ward?”
“Yes?”
“Talk to me.”
“What about? Cars, movies, advancements in security technology?”
“I don’t care.”
He’d been making a joke, but the steely vulnerability he’d detected in her voice stopped him from making another attempt at humor. She was reaching out to him, and he knew that was unusual for her because he shared the same symptoms. She reached out, but didn’t like the needing to.
Damn, Brett was right. He rubbed his leg and smiled at the irony of it. He was going to have a heck of a time proving this one innocent. Ward couldn’t see her as a true criminal.
And yet, Hannah was his number-one suspect.
Good to see he hadn’t lost his ability in finding the surest method of driving a woman away.
4
“SO, HOW LONG HAVE YOU lived in Gallem?” Ward asked.
Hannah tried not to fall into full-blown panic. It was just a question. A casual question normal people asked other completely normal people every day.
All she had to do was answer it like a normal person.
Ah, and there was the problem.
“I, uh—”
She took a deep, calming breath. Hannah Garrett knew her story backward and forward. Sideways even.
“A little over a year,” she told him. Excellent. No stutter. No hesitation. It’s not as if she hadn’t given out this exact same memorized information a dozen times before. So why was she tongue-tied with Ward?
“Yeah? I’m new to Gallem, too. Where did you live before?”
Okay, another normal question. A zero on the unusual scale. Ward was the security guy, of course he’d ask questions about a person’s background to pass the time.
“Oh, I moved around a lot, probably the same as you did in the military.”
Good. She was following procedure. When conversations grew too personal, turn the focus back onto the other person.
“Your parents didn’t mind?”
“They both died when I was little. I grew up in foster care. Once you’re eighteen, that’s basically it.”
“That’s rough. I knew a few men like that in the military. They couldn’t find anyone for you to live with?”
Kyle hadn’t cared about her past. Only what she could give him in the present. She couldn’t recall a single time he’d asked about her family. His living in the moment had been one of his appeals. Admittedly, she’d been kind of relieved, not really wanting to talk about the group home, her foster mother. Growing up, she’d felt judged her whole life. Kyle had never looked down on her. He was content to have her by his side, the perfect arm candy in a sexy dress and makeup. All that mattered to Kyle was the here and now.
Ward was different, though. She felt an odd comfort in talking about the past with Ward. Since Kyle hadn’t known her origins, she’d opted to keep her real history with this latest identity.
“Hannah, if you don’t want to talk about—”
“No, it’s okay. Actually, there could be a whole slew of relatives out there that I don’t know about. The father’s name on my birth certificate was left blank. I was told I lived with my mother until I was three, but I don’t remember her. She just dropped me off at the daycare center, and never came back.”
“That’s rough.”
“She was only sixteen when she had me. Maybe she thought leaving me would give me a chance to have a better life. At least that’s how I like to think of it.”
“I bet you’re right.”
She smiled in the darkness. Ward agreeing with her was practically erotic. Most people would probably flash her their most skeptical look at her fanciful need to think well of a mother who had abandoned her.
Ward’s sympathy, and more, for her, threw her off-kilter for a moment. Her purse still lay beside her, so she grabbed it, sinking her hand down to the depths. Anything to distract her.
“Hey, I think I found a package of mints at the bottom of my purse. Feels like