ANGEL MEETS THE BADMAN Read online

  Jake looked down at her, shook his head, looked away again.

  "Did you hit him over the head with a crowbar to make sure he wouldn't get up again? Clean out the register and run like hell? What?"

  He still didn't answer.

  "Did you go through his pockets for loose change, Jake?"

  His gaze leaped to hers. "I called an ambulance," he snapped.

  "I know. I know you did, Jake. And then you stayed with him until it got there. You tried to do CPR on him, didn't you, Jake? When you could have run. You could have been long gone, free and clear. Dammit, Jake, why didn't you tell me this in the first place, instead of trying to make me think you were some kind of violent criminal? Why did you make me have to go snooping like some kind of busybody just to learn the truth about your past?"

  "I didn't think you'd bother with the snooping. And I didn't think it would make any difference if you knew the truth. You're still an unspoiled schoolteacher with a cop in the family, and I'm still a convicted killer." He shook his head. "If that wasn't enough, Sara, now I'm a fugitive, to boot."

  "So … so you didn't tell me because you didn't want me to feel anything for you?"

  "I didn't tell you because I wanted you to keep your damned distance. Trouble like you, I don't need. I knew that from the first time I set eyes on you, but you just couldn't take the hint, could you? You had to keep sending me sidelong glances with those doe eyes. You walk around with your secret written all over your face. I'm only human, Sara." He shook his head. "Problem is, a woman like you can't ever accept sex for its own sake. You always have to read more into it. Start attaching silly romantic notions to everything a man does."

  She nodded slowly. "So you thought if I just went on believing you to be a cold-blooded killer, I'd be less prone to … silly romantic notions?"

  "That's right."

  Again she nodded. "I see." Then she shrugged. "Well, I don't know why, Jake, but your plan is just backfiring all over the place. Because I never fell for your big, scary ex-con act. And I knew from the start there was more to the story than you were saying. Even before I went digging on the Internet."

  "How?" he challenged.

  She lifted her chin. "Just like I told Kendall, Jake, I've seen the eyes of a killer. I've stared right into them. I know what they look like."

  He grunted, but other than that, he didn't reply.

  "And I'm not falling for this hostage story you're trying to make me believe, either. You brought me along for one of two reasons. Either you want me too badly to leave me behind, or you're protecting me from that maniac who murdered your cousin." She tilted her head to one side. "Or maybe both."

  Jake stared at her, blinking in what looked like shock. The boat bumped up against something, rocking her a bit, and the mist grew steadily thinner, lighter.

  "I was scared to death last night, Jake," she said. "I let it all come back to me for a little while there. Became the little girl I'd been before. But it was just temporary. I'm not that scared little girl anymore. Just like you, I've had a taste of freedom … freedom from fear. And I'm not going back. I'm not ever going to run or hide from anyone again. And do you want to know why?"

  Wide-eyed, and apparently more surprised with every word she uttered, he shook his head. "No. I really don't."

  "Well I'm going to tell you anyway. It's because I survived. I survived, and in the end I won. I found my brother, and the man who killed my parents paid the price. That's the way it works, Jake. In the end the truth comes out, and the good guys win, and the bad guys pay."

  "That's a fantasy," Jake said.

  "No," she said. "It's a fact. I'm living proof of it. And I'm going to convince you of it, too."

  "Not in this lifetime," he said.

  "No. Not as long as you play their game. As long as you run from that bastard, Jake, he's the one in control. You're doing just what he wants you to do, just like I did for twenty years."

  Jake turned away from her, gripping a tree limb and steadying the boat as he stepped out onto a dry patch of ground. "I tried it that way once, Sara. It didn't work. And I'll tell you something, lady." He reached his hand out, and she took it, letting him help her out of the boat. "I'd far rather spend twenty years on the lamb than in the pen. And those are the choices. Make no mistake about that."

  "You tell me that when Vivienne's killer is behind bars where he belongs and your name has been cleared, okay?" As she stepped onto solid ground, barefoot, his hand still clung to hers, and she met his eyes.

  She saw the doubt in them, but she saw something else there too. It flashed, for the briefest instant, then faded just as quickly. She couldn't be certain, but she thought it might have been hope.

  "You're crazy," he said. But she heard doubt in his voice.

  "I'm right, Jake. You know I'm right."

  He shook his head, muttered under his breath.

  "You made a big mistake bringing me with you, you know. Because I'm going to convince you of it, too."

  "No, hon. You're not. Don't go getting your hopes up."

  "Oh, Jake," she said, shaking her head sadly. "You are so much better than you know you are."

  He looked at her then, an odd little crease between his brows.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

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  Jake hated like hell to admit it, but he liked her this morning. Hell, he'd liked her for a long time now. But this morning he liked her even more. And it was maybe a little bit more than just "like." His admiration for her, even his respect for her, seemed to grow every time she opened her mouth. And the rest of the time there was this soft, tender feeling … this urge to protect her, that kept getting bigger, as well.

  That little speech in the boat—it was chock-full of spunk. And while he didn't like spunk as a rule, he liked the way it looked on Sara Brand. He liked it a hell of a lot better than the fear and panic she'd been sporting last night. A hell of a lot better.

  All the same, she was full of blue mud with her idealistic notions.

  She stood now, bare toes curling on the cool, damp ground, her plush robe almost dragging as she squinted through the mist toward the ramshackle house. Jake had caught only a fleeting glimpse of the black negligee she had on underneath. He hadn't missed guessing that she'd been wearing it last night in her bungalow … while she'd stood by the window trying to decide whether or not she was brave enough, or crazy enough, to light that lamp. She had put it on just in case. She had put it on for him.

  And knowing that didn't help matters, either.

  "So where are we?" she asked softly. Her hair was fuzzy and tangled, and her eyes puffy and tired looking. She had, he guessed, a little bit of a tranquilizer hangover, and he was still wrestling with feelings of guilt for having done that to her. But if he hadn't … well, he would have been in jail before the day was out, and she would have been a sitting duck for the killer.

  "Is that a house over there?" Sara asked.

  Jake nodded, following her gaze to the ghostly looking, crooked house, swathed in mist. "It's abandoned. Great hideout, don't you think?"

  "Yeah, great," she said. "If you happen to be a disembodied spirit."

  He sent her a smirk and tugged the boat up out of the water. "Come here and grab the other end, will you?"

  "Why?" she asked, even as she complied.

  "So we don't leave marks on the ground. Come on, just over here," The boat wasn't heavy, despite the sack of supplies Jake had managed to throw together—mostly from Sara's bungalow. He'd taken her with him on that scavenger hunt. He'd been too afraid to leave her out of his sight even for the few minutes it would take to gather supplies. Especially asleep. Defenseless.

  Together they carried the boat a few yards nearer the house and set it down amid a tangle of undergrowth. Then Jake shoved it deeper into the foliage and moved some ferns and limbs around until the little craft was virtually invisible. He stood back, eyeing it.

  "You've had some experience with this kind of thing, have
n't you?"

  "Only as a kid, playing Huck Finn games. It's not a game now." He yanked up a fallen limb and went back to the water's edge, then brushed the moss and ferns and soil around with it, to cover up their footprints as he walked backward about halfway to the house. Then he tossed the limb aside, turned and saw Sara's skeptical gaze. "Better safe than sorry," he said.

  She shrugged and turned to face the house, studying it for a long moment. "What a sad-looking place."

  Jake felt his brows go up. "It's a dump. It's a hovel. But sad?"

  "Mmm. Sad. And lonely. What kind of people ever lived here, I wonder?"

  Jake shrugged. "Outcasts." He didn't look at her when he said it. And he didn't look at the memories that came crowding in around the edges of his mind, either. He hadn't been back here in twenty years. He'd kept them at bay all that time, and he could damn well continue to do so.

  Nothing had changed. The small, square house still stood on four stilt-like poles, to keep it above the water level when the rains came. It was still a weathered, aged, brown color, built of rough-cut boards with the bark still on their edges, boards that had never been finished. Just slapped with a coat of pine pitch once in a while to keep them from rotting. It was a good place to lie low. Nothing more. This was not a nostalgia trip. This was not a homecoming.

  "Come on inside, it's getting light out." Taking Sara's arm, he led her up the rotting steps, pushed open the screen door that creaked loudly in protest. The screening was hanging loose in one corner and full of holes. The inside door wasn't closed all the way. It had warped and swelled too large for its frame and was stuck in place, even though he could see through the opening. Jake shouldered it open and ordered his mind to keep quiet as he stepped inside, into inky blackness.

  Something scurried away across the floor.

  Jake blinked in the darkness. "Stay right here," he told Sara. "I'll get us some light."

  She didn't move. He would have heard her if she had. The place smelled musty. It had always smelled musty, even when it had been lived in. He crossed the floor unerringly to the shelf on the far wall. If the place hadn't been looted—and he didn't think it had—then the lamp should still be there. And kerosene would last forever. Mamma had always kept the lamp full.

  He reached up, and found it, grimy and dust covered, on the warped shelf on the wall. Blindly he picked it up, moved it in a small circle and heard the liquid sloshing in the base. It still had kerosene, then. Good. Taking off the glass chimney, squatting on the floor to set it down, he hauled a lighter from his pocket. When it flared, he heard Sara suck in a breath. Then he lit the wick, replaced the globe. Soft yellow lamplight spilled into the room. And Jake thought it had looked a whole lot better in the dark.

  "How did you know that was there?" Sara asked.

  "Lucky guess." He set the lamp on the shelf as Sara stepped farther inside. She was looking around now. At the uneven floorboards with their rag rugs, most of which had been chewed by whatever had been inhabiting the house all this time. Litter was everywhere. Twigs and leaves, nuts and half-rotted berries. Bits of stuffing from whatever furniture had been left here. And chewed pieces of the rag rugs. Blankets hung over the windows, letting no light in … or out, which was a condition of which he approved wholeheartedly, given their circumstances.

  Against one wall an old green couch with holes gnawed in its arms and stuffing sticking out all over it stood crookedly. The rest of the furniture—what little there had been—was long gone. The ash-dusted, black potbellied stove in the corner remained, and when Jake saw a vaguely familiar-looking table leg lying beside it, he realized what must have become of the other furnishings.

  Hell. Mamma had to keep warm somehow.

  He swallowed the rush of regret that tried to swamp him. Tried to focus instead on Sara, who was peering through a dark doorway into what had been a kitchen once. Though not much of one, since there had never been power out here. "Not exactly the Ritz, is it?"

  "Not exactly."

  She moved to another darkened doorway. The one that led into what had been his bedroom … until he'd traded it in for a more cheerful one, with bars.

  "Best stick to this room, Sara," he said, his voice seeming thick. "You don't know what shape the rest of the place might be in. I don't want you falling through any holes in the floor and breaking a leg."

  She turned to face him, curiosity in her brown eyes. "Aren't you curious?"

  "Not in the least." He licked his lips and averted his eyes because she was probing them so deeply. "There's an outhouse around back that should be usable. That's all we need be concerned with. I don't plan to be here all that long."

  "No?"

  He shook his head, walked to the ratty couch and kicked it a few times, just to assure himself that none of its current residents were presently at home. Then he sat down. "No. We can hole up here until dark. Then we'll head out again."

  "To where?"

  Jake leaned to the side, peeling the blanket back a bit so he could peer through the grimy window. The mists were starting to burn off now. He could see clear to the water. "This runs along the backside of the highway, farther down. We should be able to make it past the county line—state line, maybe—before the sun comes up tomorrow."

  Sara narrowed her eyes on him. "Which state line?"

  "Texas," he told her.

  She nodded slowly. Then, coming closer and eyeing the couch warily, she finally turned and sat down beside him. "So the big, bad criminal is going to see his hostage safely home before heading for the hills, hmm?"

  He shrugged. "I'm heading in that direction, anyway," he said. But she had it right. Miss Sara Brand, kindergarten teacher, was too damned smart for her own good. Still, Jake figured she would be just as safe as a babe in its own mother's arms if he could just get her back to that family she was always talking about, with all those cousins and that overprotective brother and cops in the family and all. She would be fine. No one could get to her there, with all that protection.

  No? Not even a guy who could get to Vivienne and kill her in the bedroom right next to yours, Jake? Without making a sound? Without waking anyone? Without leaving a trace?

  If only Trent had been home.

  Jake bit his lip, lowered his head.

  "What is it?" Sara asked. "What are you thinking?"

  He looked up at her again. "Just wondering if anyone has called Trent yet. Damn. This is gonna tear him up."

  Sara sat forward, looking tense. "He … he won't believe them will he? He won't think you could have—"

  "Could have what? Killed Vivienne?" Jake shrugged. He didn't think Trent would believe that of him, but who the hell knew? Then he studied Sara's face again. "What I'd like to know is why you don't believe it. You don't even know me."

  Sara looked down at the floor. "I checked your hands, remember?"

  "That doesn't really answer the question, though."

  "I know it doesn't." Then she lifted her gaze to his. "Maybe I believe in you for the same reason you brought me along on this crazy escapade."

  He looked away so fast he knew she would read something into it. The problem was, she would have read more into the rush of … of whatever the hell it was that had just passed through him, if she had glimpsed it in his eyes. And she was too damned sharp to have missed it. He got to his feet, thinking fast of something to say, anything to break the soft web her words had spun between them. "I, uh, had time to pack a few things last night. I'd best bring them inside."

  Then he headed out the door, blinking in the growing light. He just stood there for a minute, waiting for the odd sensations that had twisted his gut up into knots a second ago to fade away. He didn't feel anything beyond fondness for her. And as for the wanting … well, hell, that was just nature. Hormones. Whatever. It wasn't as if there was anything more than a simple, physical attraction between the two of them, no matter what her girlish fantasies might have conjured up. And why the hell would she want to conjure up anything like that, a
nyway? It wasn't as if a woman like Sara Brand could ever see a man like Jake Nash as anything more than a fling.

  "No," he said softly under his breath as he headed down the steps, casting nervous backward glances over his shoulder. "Not a fling. Sara Brand isn't a fling kind of girl."

  Stopping by the boat, he shook his head. What then? he wondered. What could she possibly be imagining?

  Hell, it was impossible to figure her out. He hauled the sack out of the boat, slung it over his shoulder and headed back inside the house where he'd once lived.

  He had been up all night. It was obvious to Sara in the way he sacked out on that filthy couch right after their makeshift breakfast of fruit and water, and fell instantly asleep. But not before warning her not to go outside or light a fire in the old potbellied stove or make any noise or do much of anything at all besides sit there and watch him sleep. He advised her to nap, too, and she really did try, but she was too wound up. Besides, she had slept like a log last night, in spite of all the excitement, which was odd. She wasn't the least bit tired now.

  She looked again at Jake, lying curled up in the corner of that couch. He had left plenty of room for her to join him there, on the other end, if she wanted to.

  She did.

  But not to sleep.

  Sara licked her lips, closed her eyes and turned away. It wasn't like her to want a man the way she wanted this one. It wasn't like her to feel the least bit attracted to a guy like Jake. A guy who was doing his best to play the role of bad boy, a guy who wanted no part of anything real and who was too busy living up to his past to get over it and move on.

  But that wasn't who he really was. She had seen through it all. And she thought his aunt Flossie had, too. And Trent, he certainly had, as close as the two of them seemed to be. Even Jake's solemn, silent uncle Bertram seemed to have realized that there was a good, decent man hiding under the skin of Jake Nash.

  A damned wonderful man.

  Shrugging, Sara decided to explore the house in spite of Jake's warnings not to. It wasn't as if there was that much of it. She picked up the kerosene lamp, gripping it by the slender glass neck of its base, and she held it up high and out in front of her so she could see where she was going.