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Jade craned her neck uncomfortably to look over her shoulder at the single bed, the fork digging into her side. “Uh, about that. I’m assuming there isn’t a guest house? A separate bedroom in the attic?”
“We’re stuck together.” Max looked at the double bed, then back to Jade. “I told you before. This wasn’t planned. I wanted to talk to you.”
She jiggled her shackled wrist. “So you just happen to have handcuffs in case of random kidnapping emergencies?”
He met her gaze again. “I got them in a sex shop when I did a story a few years ago. It was about suburban kink.”
“Oh boy. I feel much better now.”
“Don’t worry. I’m way too tired to bother you even if I wanted to. Hell, I’ve been following you for two weeks.”
“I had the feeling someone was stalking me.”
“Stalking.” He winced. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“I have news for you, Max. Kidnapping sounds a lot worse.”
“Kidnapping. Murder.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “You’re my only hope. How’s that for ironic?”
“I see your point, but I swear, I can’t help you.”
“No?”
She sighed with disgust. Delusional but earnest, she’d give him that. But his conviction made him dangerous and she had to remember that, too. “How did you avoid the detective?”
“Some of it was luck. But I’ve been an investigative reporter for a long time. Generally I know what I’m doing. Although for the past few weeks, I’ve felt as if I’m in a David Cronenberg film. Very Kafkaesque, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I’m a little out of my reality zone, myself. I should be home, wrapping presents. Sipping a cup of sugar-free cocoa.”
He looked over at her TV dinner, shook his head. Opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he got up, tossed his dinner in the trash bag under the sink and then unlocked the handcuffs.
When she stood, he moved the chair in front of the television and then re-cuffed her. Then he pulled the desk chair next to her so that her cuffed hand was closest to him. He looked tired, exhausted. As if he wouldn’t make it through the opening headlines. “Pay attention,” he said yawning. “Maybe you’ll catch your fifteen minutes of fame.”
Her interest piqued. God, she hoped it had been reported that she was missing. “Just for my own edification, how long do you plan to hold me prisoner?” she asked, her attention fully on the tube.
“As long as it takes me to prove Geotech paid off your father and give the cops another direction.”
“Besides you.”
“Wait.” Max raised his hand as his image appeared on the screen.
“…new development in the Werner Edwards murder that shocked the capital.”
His picture flashed on the screen. He looked like a normal guy, a nice-looking man, in fact. Not in the least crazy.
“Nice pic,” Jade said.
“Hush.”
“Travis is accused of breaking into Washington Post security files. Coworkers still maintain his innocence, although his editor admitted that his fleeing did look suspicious. In other news…”
Max got up and turned the television off. “Damn it. I’ve got to call Herb.”
“Leave it on.”
He frowned. “Obviously they don’t know I’ve grabbed you, or they would have reported it. They’ve accused me of everything else.”
“Yeah, but don’t you want to know if they’ve discovered I’m missing?” He flipped the television back on, but there was no mention of Jade. When the broadcast turned to sports, he shut it off.
Jade sighed. She’d been tired when she’d left the office—God, was it only a few hours ago? Now she was exhausted. She was painfully aware of the fork secreted in her bra and felt she had only enough energy for one more escape attempt.
Max stood mutely for a few seconds, then turned to his open suitcase. He pulled out a set of men’s blue flannel pajamas. “Here.” He dumped the top in her lap.
She looked at the lanky, muscular man standing tiredly before her, then at the flannel pajama top. “What about the bottoms?”
“This is all I have.” One side of his mouth lifted. “Unless you want me to sleep naked.”
Damned if she’d take the bait. She rattled the handcuffs. “I’m not sure this is gonna work.”
He hesitated, his mouth settling in a grim line before he undid the cuffs and hung them on the arm of the desk chair.
Jade rubbed her wrist, picked up the pajama top and headed slowly for the bathroom with Max close behind her. She stood in the doorway and looked at him. “Can I take a shower?”
He gave her a long hard look. “Pull another stunt like you did earlier and you stay cuffed, period.”
Holding her tongue, she closed the door. As soon as she stood alone in the tiny bathroom, she pulled the fork from her bra and set it on the sink. She took a deep breath and tried to relax.
Okay, she’d have to at least run the shower, or he’d get suspicious. What the hell, it might wake her up. She looked around for a hanger, but of course there wasn’t one.
There was, however, a hook on the back of the door, and Jade stripped off her clothes and hung them up. There were two bath towels on the rack, and she wrapped one around herself then quickly brushed her teeth, as aware that her kidnapper was standing only a few feet away as if there were a window in the door. She stepped to the shower and adjusted the water.
MAX LEANED AGAINST the wall opposite the bathroom door. He closed his eyes, listening to her move behind the thin walls and thinner door of the bathroom. Oddly, he got a little excited imagining how she looked as she hung her clothes on the back of the door. When the water began in the shower, his thoughts took an even more vivid turn. He pictured her bending over, turning the faucets…
He shook off the thought, angry at himself and his idiot libido. To say now was not the time was a major understatement. Five minutes, ten, and he could finally sleep. Christ, maybe it had been a mistake, grabbing her. He should have just let Peter keep digging.
Too late for should haves. He’d run out of options. She was his only hope, and, assuming she wasn’t up to her eyeballs in it, she had to believe him. He wished he had more.
None of it mattered to Werner. Or his wife. His grandchildren. They’d lost him, all because Werner had tried to do the right thing. Max was sure the man had had evidence. He wouldn’t have approached Max on a hunch alone.
But now his own course was set. Tomorrow, if not tonight, the powers-that-be would realize Jade was missing and that his car had been abandoned in the mall parking lot.
And he thought things were bad now.
Max laughed without humor. He wished he could call his father and reassure him, but even if the police hadn’t tapped that phone yet, Geotech probably had.
The sound of the shower lulled him, and he let his eyes close again, imagining the steam rising from Jade’s shoulders, her wet hair streaming darkly across her breasts….
His eyes clicked open and he realized the shower was no longer running. He’d fallen asleep standing up and had no idea how long he’d been out of it. At least the bathroom door was still closed.
He heard her move around, probably drying herself, then slipping into the pajama top. He should give her the bottoms, too. Hell, he didn’t need the distraction of her long bare legs.
The door opened, and he had a view of green eyes surrounded by dark ringlets of damp hair, surprisingly tanned flesh and the soft curve of breasts peeking from the V-neck of his pajamas. He blinked at the vision as she drove forward with all her strength, slamming him against the wall and stabbing at his face with a fork.
Max’s left hand came up reflexively and the four tines dug into his forearm. He swung his right fist upward, caught himself at the last second and grabbed her wrist, then twisted until she let go of her makeshift weapon with a sharp animal cry.
Ignoring his pain, he grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder, then carried her across the room as he felt her stretch to reach the gun at his waist. He threw her on the bed, then turned and smoothly plucked the handcuffs from the chair arm and turned back to her.
Jade scrambled to regain her feet, but he pushed her back onto the bed and straddled her, fighting for control of her left arm. She tried to hit him again, but he managed to secure one cuff on her wrist and quickly snapped the other end to the brass headboard, then stood, panting, as she struggled for a second and then gave up in despair.
“Please,” she said, gasping for air.
His eyes dark with fury, his breathing ragged, he said, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
MAX CAME OUT of the bathroom bare-chested, a strip of fabric tied clumsily around his arm, the gun in his other hand. The pajama bottoms rode low on his hips, and his stomach was flat and well defined.
Although he still had a five-o-clock shadow, she could see that his chin was a strong support for the rest of his face and that even haggard, he was a good-looking guy.
He eyed her intently, then walked to the other side of the room to the table. After a moment’s hesitation he put the gun down. Running a hand through his dark wet locks, he approached her as she lay on her side on the bed. Anger lingered in his gaze as it locked with hers.
“Sit up.”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
His look made her struggle to a sitting position, her heart pounding, her breath trapped in her throat. She knew she’d really pissed him off. “What are you going to do?”
“Frisk you.”
She swallowed, trying to clear the way for air. “I don’t have anything else. No weapons. No forks.”
“For your sake, I hope not.”
“This is hardly necessary.” She mumbled as he placed his hands on her shoulders, then eased them down to her ribcage. She held her breath as his fingers grazed the outside curves of her breasts.
Her face heated as he continued his search, touching her sides, her back, the curve of her behind.
“Okay,” he said, stepping back and yanking down the covers. “Go ahead and lie down.”
“But I—”
“That wasn’t a request.” His mouth set in a grim line, he hardly looked receptive to argument.
She did as he asked and, to her surprise, he tucked the covers around her shoulders. She stayed quiet and watched him move about the small area, turning off lights, then saw him approach as a darker shadow in the night. He crawled across her, touching her as little as possible, and snuggled in under the covers himself.
She shrunk away from him but he didn’t seem to notice. In seconds his breathing slowed into the steady rhythm of sleep.
Sleep refused to come so easily to her. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, replaying the day in her mind, wondering if she couldn’t have done something, anything to have stopped this before it had started.
She wondered if her father was still awake. He’d undoubtedly missed her when she hadn’t returned to the house. Had he called the police? The FBI? Had he told them she’d been stalked?
She peered over at the man beside her. What if Max Travis wasn’t the madman he appeared to be? Despite her escape attempts, he hadn’t molested her or really harmed her in any way.
Once they were in the cabin, she hadn’t felt terribly threatened. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. She’d read about Stockholm Syndrome, where kidnap victims came to display a strange association with their captors, identifying with them while fearing those who sought to end their captivity. Only, that tended to happen after a much longer period of captivity.
The thing was, she knew Max had his facts all screwed up, but if he truly believed what he was telling her, then his actions made a kind of twisted sense. Of course her father wasn’t involved in any gambling and he certainly wasn’t being blackmailed. The only reason she could possibly come up with to lend credence to Max’s accusations was the fact that her father had shifted his opinion on Geotech. With his change of heart, the rest of the committee was certain to give the massive energy contract to the company.
Although she’d been surprised by his actions, it wasn’t unprecedented. As her dad had explained, he’d done more research and when he’d learned more about the company, he’d decided to change his position. It was one of the great things about him, his willingness to learn, to change, to admit publicly that he had made too quick a judgment. But to someone on the outside, who didn’t understand his integrity, it could look suspicious.
Tomorrow, Max was going to show her his evidence. She’d use the opportunity to enlighten him about her father. If she was reasonable, listened respectfully, perhaps Max would come around. She still wasn’t sure he hadn’t killed his father’s friend, so she’d have to watch her step, but he hadn’t acted like a psycho or anything. Delusional, yes. Dangerous? The jury was still out, but her instincts said no.
Then again, Ted Bundy had supposedly been a real charming guy.
Ah, hell, she was too exhausted to think. She tried to listen for the sounds of distant traffic, but could hear nothing but a faraway airplane. And Max’s breathing.
She snuggled down under the covers, a breath away from him, his heat helping to warm her. Tonight she’d force herself to sleep. Tomorrow there’d be another chance for escape.
Chapter Four
Light. Almost blinding light. And something else—her bladder ached. God, she shouldn’t have had that last cup of coffee.
She started to get out of bed and remembered—the abduction, her escape attempts, the handcuffs.
Max.
She rolled as best she could and poked him in the ribs with her free hand. “Max. Wake up.”
He snorted and turned his back to her.
She poked him again, hard. “Max. Damn it. Wake up.”
He rolled back toward her, shading his eyes from the onslaught of light. “Huh?” He blinked several times as though he, too, were catching up on recent events.
“If you don’t get me to the bathroom in a very short time, we’re both going to be sorry.”
He sat up and rubbed his eyes, and Jade stared at his bare chest, sharply defined pecs, a light mat of curly black chest hair.
“C’mon. Move it.”
“Okay, okay.” He pushed the covers down and crawled across her, landing on the throw rug next to the bed. From there he stumbled to the chair where he’d draped yesterday’s clothes and fumbled in his pant pocket.
“Would you please hurry?”
He grabbed the gun before he turned back. As he moved toward her, she noticed the bulge in the front of his pajamas. She turned her head. Too much information about a man she didn’t want to know. He fumbled with the handcuffs, finally getting them unlocked, and she was off the bed and scurrying to the bathroom before he’d taken the key out of the cuffs.
Max walked into the living room area, his feet cold on the bare wood. He shed his pajamas and pulled on his pants, tucking the gun behind his back, suddenly aware that he, too, needed to use the facilities. “Don’t take all day,” he called. He couldn’t hear her response clearly, but was sure there was a “back off” in it somewhere. He sighed and debated turning on the news.
The toilet flushed, and Max headed for the bathroom door again, only to hear the sound of water running in the sink. “What’re you doing?”
“Brushing my teeth.”
