Special Agent's Surrender. Carla Cassidy

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СКАЧАТЬ day that had passed without rescue, her fear had grown stronger and now it was screaming like a banshee in her head.

      Enough time had passed since her disappearance that her brothers probably thought she was already dead. Maybe they’d even stopped looking for her. She lay back down on the cot and squeezed her eyes closed. No, they wouldn’t stop looking, but she’d lost the hope that they might find her in time.

      One more and then the real fun begins.

      She knew in her gut that the real fun meant death to all the women that were in the cells.

       Chapter 3

      Dawn was just beginning to break when Jacob awakened. Instantly his head filled with a vision of Layla. When he’d burst into her room the night before in response to her screaming, he’d been ready to protect her with his life.

      As he’d seen her in the bed, the sheet at her waist and the top of the sleek animal print nightgown barely covering her full breasts, a fist of desire had slammed into his gut. When she’d awakened and pulled him into an embrace, that fist had punched him over and over again as he’d held her in his arms.

      He now got up from the recliner and threw a log and some kindling on the hot coals from the night before. Once the fire was blazing nicely, he decided a shower and a change in his thoughts were in order. Stepping into the bathroom he caught his reflection in the mirror above the sink.

      You look like hell.

      Layla was right. He did look like hell. He scraped a hand across his whiskered chin and then turned away from the mirror in disgust.

      Half an hour later he left the bathroom clean-shaven and dressed in a freshly laundered navy turtleneck shirt and jeans. He made coffee, then carried a cup to the living room window and stared outside, his thoughts still on the woman who slept in the next room.

      She was so full of life and seemed determined to bring him out of his isolation by talking him to death. She probably had dozens of men lined up waiting to spend time with her.

      And somebody had tried to kill her.

      He turned away from the window and wished he’d been paying more attention to what was going on in town. He knew his sister and somebody else had gone missing, but whenever his brothers had talked about it, he’d tuned it out, preferring his own drama to theirs. Now he wished he’d listened more carefully to them.

      He glanced at the closed bedroom door and wondered how late she would sleep. Not that he cared. As long as she was sleeping she wasn’t talking.

      She reminded him of Sarah and that was a time in his life he didn’t want to remember, a time when he’d had hopes and dreams and everything had seemed possible. When Sarah had walked away from him she’d stolen his dreams. The final case in his career had shattered his hope.

      It was just before nine when Layla finally emerged. Clad in her nightgown and a short matching robe and her hair sleep-tousled around her head, she gave him a heavy-lidded glance and a quick smile. “Coffee, then shower,” she said as she disappeared into the kitchen.

      His stomach muscles knotted with a tension he recognized. It surprised him that the first real emotion he’d felt for so long was lust. Her long slender legs had looked sleek and sexy beneath the short robe and he hadn’t forgotten how her full breasts had looked spilling over the top of her nightgown the night before.

      He’d assumed she’d grab a cup of coffee and then join him in the living room, but as several minutes went by he realized she wasn’t coming out of the kitchen.

      Leave her be, he told himself. After all, that’s what he wanted from her. He should be enjoying the fact that she was awake and not talking to him.

      Before he realized what he was doing he was on his feet and headed into the kitchen. She sat at the table, her dainty fingers wrapped around a stone coffee mug and her eyelids still lazy with sleep.

      “You’re obviously not a morning person,” he observed as he refilled his own coffee cup. He sat across from her at the table, wondering what in the hell he was doing.

      Her face wore a slightly pouty expression that he found oddly charming. “Mornings should be banned,” she said, then lifted the coffee mug to her lips. She took a sip and eyed him over the rim of the cup. “Nice to see you have a chin beneath all that hair.”

      He rubbed a hand across his smooth jaw. “It was starting to bug me,” he replied. The last thing he wanted her to think was that he’d shaved for her.

      “You have a nice chin. You shouldn’t hide it under all those whiskers.” She took another sip of her coffee and then lowered the mug to the table. “Did you sleep well?”

      “As well as I always do.” There was no way he’d share with her the kind of nightmare images that haunted his dreams. “What about you? Any more bad dreams?”

      “No. Thankfully I slept like a baby once I finally went back to sleep. Is there a phone in the house? I left my cell phone at my office last night and I need to call Tom to see if he took care of the favorite man in my life,” she said.

      “The man in your life?” He shouldn’t be surprised that she had a boyfriend. What did surprise him was the unexpected sharp edge of disappointment that stabbed him. What was that all about? He sure as hell didn’t want anything from her.

      “Yeah, he’s sixteen pounds of calico fur and his name is Mr. Whiskers.”

      “Any men of the human variety in your life?” he asked.

      “Passing ships, not that I care.” She lifted her chin slightly as if in defense of whatever he might say. “What about you? Is there some woman pining for you back in Kansas City?”

      “Nope, I was too devoted to my work to have any real relationships.” It was the easiest way to reply and it was somewhat the truth. After Sarah he hadn’t wanted anything that might somehow involve his heart. “I’m not a relationship kind of man.”

      He could tell Layla wanted to ask him questions about what had happened in his work, about what had brought him back here, questions that he didn’t want to answer. He stood and motioned to the old harvest gold phone hanging on the wall. “Feel free to make whatever calls you need. Just remember you aren’t supposed to tell anyone you’re here.”

      He got up and left her alone in the kitchen. He told himself it was so she could make her call in private, but the truth was something about Layla West had him off balance.

      From the moment she’d breezed into the place the night before she’d brought a spark of life that had been missing. He felt the spark deep in his soul and he wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not.

      For the last six months he’d been immersed in his self-imposed isolation, bitter with memories and drowning in guilt and remorse. He didn’t want to be rescued from himself by anyone.

      He’d just gotten settled back into the recliner when she came out of the kitchen. “Mr. Whiskers is now in the care of Larry Norwood, so all is right in my world, and I’m going to take a shower.”

      The minute she disappeared into the bathroom Jacob was visited by images of her naked body standing beneath a steamy spray of water. He closed СКАЧАТЬ