He hadn’t been smiling. His expression still fell.
“What...”
“...I will be the provocation used to drive Kenneth Freelander to his rewards.”
There was no other option.
SAM DIDN’T LIKE misleading her. And he damned straight wasn’t going to lie to her. He’d tell her the truth—that there was no way he was letting her get anywhere near that bastard ex-husband of hers again—as soon as he had her safely out of that house.
He made the promise to himself, and silently to her, Sunday afternoon during the entire fifteen minutes it took him to get from the foot of his dirt drive to the fancy winding street that housed the two-acre beach lots where Freelander had brought her to live. With a stop at the room he’d rented to drop off Lucy.
The girl had not been pleased with him. At all. Hadn’t cared a whit about the meaty bone he’d left her. No, she’d been 100 percent into the guilt. Giving him that big brown-eyed stare, the drooped ears and lips.
Just like a female...
Sam shook his head. Lucy was the best. Loyal. A great companion. And best of all...forgiving.
She might be displeased with him at the moment, but she’d be as thrilled as hell when he got back. And she didn’t hold a grudge.
Bloom was not outside waiting for him. Her car wasn’t in the driveway.
In his usual cotton dress pants, shirt and loafers, he stepped out of the car, straightening his tie as he prepared for battle.
When he knocked, she had to unlock the front door to let him in. But she did so. And stood there looking more gorgeous than ever with her long legs mostly covered by the calf-length, short-sleeved, multicolored T-shirt-style dress she was wearing. With sandals.
She’d pulled her hair back, loosely. Was wearing no earrings—though he noted a second piercing in both of her ears—and stepped back to let him in.
He’d have told her he liked what she’d done with the place, except that she’d thrown white sheets over everything minus the shiny wood floors.
“You have bags for me to carry?” He wanted to get this done. With as little conversation—and chance for something to go backward on him—as possible.
“They’re out in my car. And before you tell me I have to leave that, too, I’m telling you right now, I’m not going to.”
The damned Jaguar. “Why you hang on to a car he bought you, I have no idea.” Sam shut his mouth so fast he almost bit his tongue. See, these were the things that could go wrong, he reminded himself.
“Make no mistake, Detective...”
He didn’t like the formality one bit.
“...I paid for that car. Dearly.”
Still, who held on to anything that was a part of, or came from, someone who’d brutalized you so cruelly...
Unless, in spite of everything, she wasn’t really over Kenneth Freelander. Was possibly even still in love with him. It happened. He knew only too well from his work with the High Risk Team.
And if she did still hold feelings for her ex...his job just got that much more difficult.
“I didn’t ever intend for you to give up your car,” he said now, hoping he could backpedal enough to get her safely ensconced in his home.
His temporary ex-home. For as long as this took.
“I just figured you’d need to put some things in my SUV. It’s bigger.”
“I’ve got what I need.”
Had she understood? “You won’t be coming back here. Not even to pick things up.”
“Unless the laws have changed overnight, or I’m under arrest, I can go anywhere I please. Whenever I please.”
True. But...
“However, I’ve agreed to be under protection, with the understanding that I am your bait, dangled in front of my ex-husband under your auspices, not his. And I’m good for my word. I expect, if Kenneth really is out to get me, he’ll take our bait fairly quickly and this will all be over. If not, it will be over anyway because I won’t be in any danger.”
“I don’t expect him to jump on you the second he’s out, Bloom. You know him better than I do, but from what I’ve gleaned, he’s a man who plans carefully before he brushes his teeth in the morning.”
A bit of an exaggeration. But not much.
“That’s true,” she said, eyeing him with something that looked a little bit like respect. It was the first time she’d met his gaze since she’d let him in the door.
“So...if I find I need something I’ve left behind, I’ll let you know and you can come get it for me. How does that work?”
He could live with that. And wanted to leave it alone from there. But...
“Do you at least have everything that means something to you?” he pressed. “As in, if this house were to burn down, you’d have everything that was irreplaceable?”
Freelander had threatened to burn down the place. But he could just as easily trash it, or anything that mattered to her, depending on his mood.
“Most of what I can’t live without, along with my will and all important papers, are locked in a safe in my office.” She’d surprised him again. Wasn’t nearly as naive as she’d been when he’d known her before. But then, she wasn’t drugged anymore, either.
He made a mental note not to underestimate her again.
“I’ve got the rest in the car.”
Picturing the backseat of the Jaguar, he wondered what she’d put there. Wanted to know what she couldn’t live without.
Crazy. Other than Lucy, he wasn’t even sure what he couldn’t live without.
“You ready, then?” He didn’t want to admit to a case of nerves. You had to have nerves to get nervous. But there was no kidding himself. Getting her out of there was the easy part of this day.
“I’ll follow you,” she told him. She had to follow him. She couldn’t very well lead when she didn’t know where he was going.
And she could turn off at any point, which was why Chantel was a half block down, waiting to follow Bloom in the old Mustang Chantel insisted on driving even now that she was engaged to a millionaire. Chantel was as adamant as Sam that Bloom get moved to a safe house.
Sam always had a backup plan. It was the only way to stay alive in his business.
* * *
BLOOM WASN’T AS unsettled as she probably should have been. Leaving the home she loved...
She’d return soon enough. And appreciate it all the more. Absence made the heart grow fonder.
“I’m having an adventure,” she said aloud to the Jaguar’s interior. And wondered if, in the spirit of adventure, when she got back, she should get a bird. Something that would talk back to her on occasion.
Probably not, though. A bird would need care and company and Bloom gave everything she had to her job.
Keeping the detective in sight was proving a bit more difficult than it could have been. There was no way she was going more than five miles above the speed limit—being led by a cop or not. The law was the law.