That was stupid, and he wouldn’t do it. Not just because he needed a clear mind in order to ascertain the danger Kit faced, if indeed there was danger, but also because he wasn’t giving her another chance to stomp all over his heart.
His mouth twisting, he tried to forget how she felt against him, how she’d surrendered to his kiss for just that one beat of time. There had never been any question of the sexual chemistry between them. Their problem—her problem—had been that she couldn’t commit. Her accusation that he was too controlling had been true at the time, but that hadn’t been the whole issue.
Sliding his hands along the lip of the car’s frame, he cursed the way his gut jumped at the remembered feel of her full breasts pressed against him, the wicked slide of her tongue against his, the deep wine taste of her.
More memories crowded through his mind, memories of their days together at OU, their nights, that time in the car on the way back from his parents’ place. Rafe slammed a mental door on those thoughts, ruthlessly turned his mind to the task at hand. Around one side of the car, then to the back and around the passenger side. His fingers grazed something. Aha.
He lay on his back and scooted under the car as far as he could. There it was, a little black box with a flashing red light. The bastards. Well, this proved someone was following her. Not that he needed more convincing after finding that bug and camera in her house. How serious these bad guys were had yet to be determined.
Rafe moved out from under the car and stood, walking up to Kit’s car. Her house was relatively old and didn’t have a garage. He’d probably find a tracking device on hers, too. Sure enough, he did.
She rolled down the window. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for tracking devices.”
“And?”
“There’s one on my car.” He knelt, felt around the wheel well, up along the lip of her frame, then moved around to the front of her car. “And there’s one on yours.”
He stood, dusting his hands. He’d been right to insist she come to his house tonight. Now all he had to do was keep his hands off her.
After easing into the driver’s seat, he took the tissue Kit offered and cleaned his hands as best he could.
“What do we do now?”
“Leave the device on your car. You won’t be using it.”
“What about the one on yours?” In the fading sunlight, she looked wan and worried.
He grinned. “We’ll dump it somewhere.”
She nodded, her blue-gray eyes searching his.
“It’ll be all right,” he said, compelled to reassure her.
“I hope Liz is, too.”
Rafe had no answer for that so he started the engine and backed the ’Vette out of Kit’s drive. He turned north on May Avenue and headed toward his house in Quail Creek. Amazing how close they lived to each other. Amazing they’d steered clear of each other until now.
She sat on her side of the car, arms crossed tightly. He figured she was probably still mad about his comments concerning Dizzy Lizzy. That was for the best. The more distance between them, the better.
Still, as he slid a look at her pale golden skin, the finely sculpted profile, his whole body tightened. In all fairness, their breakup hadn’t been entirely her fault. He’d blamed her all these years for not speaking up, but back then he had been too controlling, too insistent on his own way.
Even when he’d proposed, he hadn’t asked her to marry him; he’d simply told her she would and how they would live. The realization jolted him, and he jerked his gaze to the road. That had been a valid reason to turn him down. Besides her keen sense of family responsibility, had his control played a part in why she couldn’t commit to him? The only excuse he had for his domineering behavior was that he’d been young and stupid.
As she looked out the window at passing scenery, holding herself away from him, he realized it didn’t matter now. They’d gone their separate ways.
Spying a police cruiser up ahead, he changed lanes and pulled into the small parking lot of an all-night doughnut shop. She sent him a questioning look and he grinned, slid out of the car and moved around to remove the tracking device from the belly of the ’Vette.
He walked to the black and white, slapped it on the underside of the bumper and got back in his car.
Kit laughed. “That was good.”
“It’ll keep them busy for a while.”
“Until we get to your house?”
“Yeah.”
Her smile faded, and he recognized the shadows in her eyes as memories from the past. Memories she was fighting as much as he was. The silence stretched between them, stilted and unfinished. Regret pricked at him. He was swept with a sudden urge to touch her, reassure her, but about what? The past was past. Best to leave it alone.
He put the car in gear, reversed and pulled onto May Avenue. They drove in silence to his house. His life was markedly different from what he’d planned, even aside from Kit. She, on the other hand, still appeared to be her sister’s self-appointed rescuer.
Despite the years that had passed, Rafe wasn’t willing to play second fiddle to Dizzy Lizzy. Yes, the more distance the better. And that meant keeping his hands to himself. After that kiss, which even now rattled him, he knew she could still affect him like a neutron bomb. He couldn’t allow himself to get close to her again, not physically, not emotionally.
He’d have to protect her, find her sister without letting it become personal. They were over. They couldn’t go back; he wouldn’t go back.
For the fourth time in the last half hour, Kit rose from the supple, navy leather sofa in Rafe’s living room and walked toward the sliding patio doors. He had grilled chicken and vegetables for dinner; she’d cleaned up afterward. And thirty minutes ago, he’d invited her outside, but she’d thought it would be more prudent to stay inside. Away from him.
She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss at her house. It had completely ambushed her senses. And unleashed the curiosity that had been hammering at her since seeing him this morning.
Rafe’s finding that tracking device had convinced Kit that her sister was in danger, no matter what he said. She’d gotten a chuckle out of his putting it on the police cruiser. He was still so darn cute. Which she didn’t need to be thinking about, either.
Still, if they were going to be stuck together, she wanted to know how he’d gotten back to Oklahoma City. It had unsettled her to learn that they lived within five miles of each other and she hadn’t known it.
Finally, prodded by the curiosity she’d been trying all day to deny, she stepped through the sliding glass doors onto the patio and closed the door behind her.
Flagstone tile in variegated shades of cream and terra-cotta formed a far-reaching patio and framed a small rectangular pool. Potted plants in oversize ceramic planters guarded each corner. Bunches of petunias, begonias and
