like to go.” Her dress rustled as she stood.
He turned back to her, which was a mistake. The black silk clinging to her thighs did nothing for his focus. He fought the impulse that was pushing him closer to her. “You can’t.”
“Reid—”
“They saw me leave with you. It won’t take long for them to ask a waiter who you were with in the restaurant. Then they’ll go and ask your boyfriend about you.”
He swore under his breath. Somehow, his cover had been blown. The shooters would connect Lara to him. Her boyfriend was probably being worked over right now. Chances were good the poor bastard wouldn’t live to see the morning.
“I need to go home.”
“By now they know where you live. It’s not safe.” He gentled his voice with effort. “You can stay with me.” Until he could get the authorities to take custody of her and figure out long-term protection. Which, he hoped, could be arranged in the next couple of hours. He had to get back out there and find Jen’s CD before anyone else did.
That CD was his holy grail. The cell’s leader had trusted Kenny with its safekeeping. There had to be something on the damned CD that would provide a clue on the planned attack.
“It’s all over now,” he told Lara. For her anyway. For him, there was still a long way to go. “I’ll make sure you’re protected.”
Instead of thanking him for the offered protection, all hell broke loose as she flew at him.
“Why isn’t it safe to go home?” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, looking ready to tackle him if necessary.
She’d always been a strong woman—had gone to school on a sports scholarship, been sidelined by a knee injury, had taken over her uncle’s butcher shop when the guy had retired.
He captured her wrists, tried to pull her against him to subdue her. Easier said than done. She was almost six feet of wriggling fury.
“They’ll go to your house,” he tried to talk sense into her.
And then she started fighting in earnest, this time to get away from him, her eyes on the door. “Let me go.” Her arms were wheeling like windmill paddles.
“Lara?” He caught an elbow in the chin, and swore under his breath. All he needed was to get his arms around her, but she wouldn’t cooperate.
“I have to get to Zak and Nate.” She kicked him, backward, viciously in the shin.
“Whoever they are, they’ll have to take care of themselves.” How many men did she have in her life?
“Are you crazy?” She screamed the three short words, elbowing him in the chest this time, doing her best to cause permanent damage. “They’re babies.”
Babies.
The guy at the restaurant was probably her husband. A cold sensation spread through his chest. Which was beyond insane. He barely knew her. She was a mistake he’d made two years ago. A momentary loss of control that should have never happened. What did he care if she’d gotten married since then?
He almost had her where he wanted her when, suddenly, she dropped her whole weight in some self-defense trick, and took him to the floor with her. But he was too quick to be shaken off so easily. He was on top of her the next second, his hands restraining both wrists above her head as he used his weight to hold her down in a pose that brought back some old memories and woke up his body.
She strained against him, which didn’t help any. “If anything happens to Zak and Nate, I’ll kill you. Do you hear me?”
He was aware of the curve of her hips under him, her long legs entwined with his. More memories rose and flooded him. His limbs went paralyzed. For a second, he couldn’t move anything from the neck down. And there wasn’t much activity from the neck up either.
For a heartbeat, nothing existed but searing need.
Dammit. He’d thought he was done with this.
Then his body came alive with a bolt of pain as she kicked him where it hurt the most and shoved him off her. She dove for the door.
He couldn’t breathe. He rose anyway and lunged, caught her by the knees and brought her down harder than he’d intended—he didn’t exactly have full control. “Sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t enough.” She kicked at him one more time, missing his face by an inch.
He compartmentalized the pain and somehow got her pinned under him again, more carefully this time, taking no chances. “Stop for a second, would you?”
“Get off me.” She did her best to head-butt him. Her eyes burned with hate and desperation as she wriggled, hissing and threatening murder.
Hot memories aside, one thing was becoming crystal clear: this Lara wasn’t the Lara he still dreamed about sometimes, still fantasized about, the Lara who’d so sweetly surrendered to him.
Where the hell was the timidly curious virgin he remembered?
Chapter Two
She had grieved for him.
Lara fought, blind with fear and anger. She’d grieved for him when his bakery had burned, with him inside, hours after she’d left him that night. And she’d grieved again when she’d found out that she was pregnant, grieved for her babies who would have to grow up without a father.
But he hadn’t been dead. He’d been alive; he just hadn’t cared enough to tell her, too busy taking knockout blondes to dinner. He was involved in some nasty stuff, probably organized crime or drug dealing or something.
God, what an idiot she’d been.
“I go to your grave almost every Sunday, you jerk.” She tried to shove him. Might as well shove a brick wall.
Reid looked taken aback. “I have a grave?”
“The town buried you when no relatives came forward. They paid for the lot. There was a collection to pay for the coffin. I paid for the service. From my insurance money.” Even with him standing in front of her, she could still feel the lingering grief. Obviously, her mind was having trouble catching up with reality.
“I’m sorry.”
She tried to heave him off. “If you say you’re sorry one more time, I swear I’ll kill you.”
He managed to restrain her at last, the bloody bastard. “You’re a lot more violent than I remembered.”
She stilled. Mostly because there was little else she could do. And also because he was right. She was acting completely out of character.
She’d threatened murder twice in the last ten minutes. This wasn’t the kind of person she was. It wasn’t the kind of motherly example she would want to set for her boys.
“Must be rubbing off from you,” she shot back, as confusion, pain and humiliation hit her in quick succession.
