Page 103 of Guilty as Sin
You could get the girl. You could get her good. You couldn’t always keep her.
He took what he could get.
Jace was quiet afterwards, helping her clean up and get dressed again, his touch exactly as gentle as it hadn’t been earlier. He kissed her, his thumb stroking over her cheek, and asked, “All right?” When she nodded, he said, “Good.” And that was all. He stopped by the inn and changed his shirt, then took her to Wildfire, the restaurant by the lake, put his hand on her lower back while they walked through to their table, and let her feel how solid that hand was.
She slid into the booth, looked out at late-afternoon sunlight slanting low over water that was ruffled tonight by the wind, and said, “You know—that’s almost the first time I’ve seen the lake on this trip. That’s crazy.”
She didn’t say,And now I’m leaving again,and neither did he. He made some noise in his throat, and she thought about the near-ferocity in his touch earlier and said, “I hope we can make some progress on your stalker while I’m still here. Did you get your house wired up today?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I did. And before you ask—I went out and took care of the goats and chickens before I came to collect you at the shop. I re-keyed the cabin, too. Just in case. I gave Lily a copy of the key, and the alarm code, too.”
“Oh. You mean because she could still be in trouble if the stalker doesn’t realize that we’re two different people. I need to do the reveal before I go back. If she wants to let her story leak tomorrow about the easement thing… that’s when we’re taking the boards off the windows at the shop. Maybe I should go in there. She could spread the word that she’ll be making an announcement, and we could make a sensation of it. Since I need to fly back Sunday. What do you think?”
“Sounds good,” he said.
The waitress came over, and Jace looked at Paige, his gaze as remote as the stars, and asked, “Would you like wine? Beer?”
“Oh. A beer, please.” She grabbed the menu and chose a local brand at random. What was going on here?
She didn’t find out. Finally, in desperation, she asked him about the books, and they talked about that. Like two people out on a first date, which this almost was. They hadn’t had long enough. She could have brought up that subject, but she couldn’t force herself to. She didn’t want to have a fight or another weepy scene. She wanted to hang out with Jace. She wanted the comfort back, the ease. She wanted to say, “Come visit me in San Francisco,” and to have him say, “Sure.” She didn’t say it, because she was afraid that wasn’t what he’d say back, and she didn’t want to hear it.
Back at the inn, she took a shower, then crawled into bed wearing Lily’s chocolate-brown nightgown, and eventually, Jace took it off her. Whatever he hadn’t been willing to say at dinner, he told her now, or at least she thought that was what was happening. Surely a man couldn’t be that thrillingly tender, that bone-meltingly thorough, or that intensely focused on you unless he wanted you just that much. She thought it, she wondered about it, and then she forgot to think about it, because she had to focus on this.
But when he was buried so deep inside her that it felt like he could touch her heart, when she was going over the top one more time and he was starting up, too, and all she knew was what she was feeling—at that undefended moment, she held his shoulders, called his name, and thought,I love you. I need you. Please stay with me.
But she didn’t say it.
She was already scrabbling in the dark for her phone when it rang under her hand.
“Lily? What?” she asked over the pounding of her heart. Beside her, Jace had sat up fast.
“Somebody’s out there,” Lily said, her voice shaking. “Tobias is barking. I see a light moving around. But the alarm didn’t go off.”
Paige was already out of bed, and Jace was, too. Paige could hear Tobias in the background, a cascade of barking in the distance. As if Lily were upstairs, and Tobias was at the front door. “Do not open the door,” she said. “Call 911 and report a prowler. We’re on our way.”
“No,” Lily said. “I’m going out the back and calling from out there. I’m not going to wait for them to come get me. I’m getting out.”
“Lily. No. Wait.”
“No. I’m not waiting anymore. I’m running to Jace’s house. I’m taking Tobias.”
The phone went dead, and Paige swore, tossed the phone onto the bed, grabbed the clothes she’d taken off earlier from the closet door, because they were the easiest to find, fastened her thigh holster, and told Jace, who already had his jeans on and was pulling on a flannel shirt, “She’s going to your house and taking the dog.”
“Good,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘Good?’” She grabbed Lily’s blue velvet jacket and yanked it on over her tunic. “How is that better? She doesn’t have a car. It’s windy. It’s dark.”
“You underestimate her.” He had his own jacket on, was tying his shoes, and she was still reaching for her boots. “She’s spent enough time trapped. She’s not going to let herself be trapped anymore. She’d rather be in danger taking action than sit where she is and feel helpless.”
Paige gave it up, because arguing about it wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Jace grabbed the duffel that held the shotgun, said, “You can load it in the truck,” and led the way out the door. In another ninety seconds, they were jumping into Jace’s pickup, he was headed up the mountain, and Paige was doing just that. Once she’d loaded it, she sat with it in one hand and her phone in the other and waited for the call from Lily.
“The alarm hasn’t been tripped,” she told Jace, “or you would’ve heard from the company. But Lily said she could see a light moving around. Somebody came onto the property and left, do you think?”
“How did Tobias sound on the phone?”
“Angry. Growling. Barking.”
“Then there was something he really didn’t like, and no kind of false alarm. He doesn’t bark at squirrels.” He was passing the turnoff to his cabin, and Paige wished she could see it from the road. She’d like to have seen lights on, to have known Lily was there and safe. In another minute, Lily’s house came into view. Faint light from inside, and nobody’s truck parked conveniently in the drive, signaling their presence. Jace pulled to a stop and said, “Night-vision goggles in that duffel. Hand me a pair and take one for yourself. I’ll show you how to switch them on and put them in infrared mode so you’ll see heat signatures. That’s what we’re looking for.”
