Dade Read online

  That stomach knot quickly turned to raw anger. Preston had been a big guy, muscles on top of muscles, and he’d used his wife for a punching bag. Dade cursed some more and then nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the sound.

  A loud thump.

  He came off the sofa, drew his gun and hurried in the direction of the sound. Dade braced himself to come face-to-face with a gunman or maybe even Charles Brennan.

  But it was a naked Kayla against the wall.

  Okay, she wasn’t naked exactly. She had on a silky white bathrobe that had shimmied off her shoulder all the way to the top of her breast, and it was that naked part of her that grabbed his attention more than the clothed parts.

  “I slipped,” she mumbled and quickly righted the bathrobe. No more peeks at her breast and that tattoo. “My legs are like jelly.”

  Dade understood that. He suddenly felt a little wobbly, too. And aroused. Something he quickly pushed aside. But he did reholster his gun and catch onto her arm to steady her.

  “It’s the adrenaline crash,” he let her know. “You should probably try to sleep it off.”

  She nodded, raked her hair from her face. “I just need a drink of water first.”

  Kayla eased out of his grip and stepped around him. At least she tried. But the hall was narrow, and they brushed against each other despite their efforts to avoid one another. Heck, she might as well have kissed him because that’s the punch he felt in his body.

  Dade put some distance between them and followed her. Best to get back to work. But he didn’t succeed with that either because Kayla suddenly froze, her attention knifing right to the photos on his computer screen.

  She made a sound, something small and helpless that came deep from within her throat. It was a split-second response before she steeled up again.

  “Why are you looking at those?” she asked, but her voice wasn’t nearly as steely as she was trying to appear to be.

  “I was going through your files.” And Dade left it at that. It seemed a sick violation of her privacy, but those pictures told him more about Kayla than he’d ever wanted to know.

  She swallowed hard and went to the fridge to get a bottle of water. She gulped some down as if her throat were parched. “Preston had a mean streak,” she mumbled.

  Yeah. And even though it was stupid, Dade wished the mean-streaked moron was still around so he could beat him to a pulp. “So why did you stay with him?” Dade asked before he could stop himself.

  Her forehead bunched up, and the corner of her mouth lifted. A dry half smile. “What you really want to know is why I let him do that to me.” She drew in her breath. “Because at first I loved him. I thought he would change. And then I began to believe I deserved to be hurt.”

  Even though it pulled at his arm wound, Dade put his hands on his hips. “You thought you deserved that?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Because you didn’t. No woman deserves it.”

  She nodded. Hesitated and then nodded again. “I figured that out eventually and was in the process of filing for a divorce when he was killed in the car accident.”

  Again, Dade had to adjust everything he knew about this woman. Here she’d been a battered wife, pregnant, and yet she’d planned to divorce a man who would have likely tried to kill her.

  “I’m sorry he did that to you. Real sorry,” Dade mumbled.

  She tried to shrug and then blinked hard. The tears were right there, threatening to spill. He debated if he should do anything, but his feet started toward her before the debate even had a chance.

  Kayla whispered a soft “no” when Dade reached out. But she didn’t step back, and that made it easy for him to ease his good arm around her and inch her to him. She went board stiff but still didn’t move to stop him.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” she reminded him, even though she was sniffing back tears.

  “Yeah. I don’t always lean toward the good idea approach. I’m more of a go-with-your-gut kind of guy.” And with that, he pulled her to him.

  “I don’t want your sympathy,” Kayla insisted, still sniffing.

  “Okay, because I’m also not good with that. This is just a little human kindness, that’s all. You’ve been to hell and back, and I’m guessing that started a long time before today. Before those pictures were taken.”

  “That sounds like sympathy to me,” she complained.

  Dade didn’t argue and he didn’t let go of her. “Then we’ll strike a deal. We can still dislike each other. Heck, it can border on hate. I won’t give you any sympathy, but we’ll call a truce.”

  She made a sound of disagreement and eased back so they made eye contact. “A truce that involves hugs.” Now, she stepped back, but that didn’t seem to make her any happier. “I’m very vulnerable right now. I’m scared, and I have a horrible knack for allying myself with the worst person possible.”

  Dade cocked his head to the side. “You talking about Preston now or me?”

  She froze a moment. “You. Preston can’t hurt me anymore, but you, well, you can.”

  And he instinctively knew she wasn’t talking about physical violence. He had never hit a woman, and if he got his hands on Kayla, the last thing he’d want to do is hit her.

  “I would be a mistake,” he said, but he didn’t say it under his breath as he’d intended. It was plenty loud enough for her to hear.

  The corner of her mouth lifted just a fraction and then lowered just as quickly. “The worst kind.”

  Yeah. He was in trouble the size of Texas here. Because now they weren’t indirectly talking about something beyond truces and protective custody. They were talking about this damn attraction.

  And sex.

  Dade cursed. “I wish to hell I hadn’t seen your tattoo.”

  Or those pictures on the computer. And while he was at it, he wished her scent would stop sliding through him. She smelled like a fairy princess, all flowery and soft.

  A smile barely touched her lips. “The tattoo is a relic from my youth. And I wish you hadn’t seen it, either.”

  That was what she was saying, but her eyes were warm now. Not that riled spicy blue. This was more like the color of the sky. Calmer. Welcoming.

  She opened her mouth, closed it and then motioned toward the hall. “Good night, Dade.”

  He didn’t argue. He’d already said enough stupid things, and if she stayed, there would only be a greater opportunity for more stupidity. However, she only made it one step before Dade’s phone buzzed.

  “It’s Grayson,” he said, glancing at the screen. Dade answered it and hoped like the devil this call was good news. Any good news would do.

  “Thanks for the email about Mrs. Brennan’s juvenile record,” Grayson started. “Her prints were there, and we were able to do a quick comparison. It’s her prints on the cell, and the account is in her name.”

  It was exactly as they’d expected, and it certainly didn’t make her guilty of anything other than owning a cell phone. “Any other prints?” Dade didn’t exactly pray that there would be, but he considered it.

  “Just smudges,” Grayson let him know. “Nothing we can match.”

  Damn. Not good news because the phone was pretty much a dead end. If Kenneth had indeed had the cell when the gunman called, then that was a secret that Kenneth had taken to his grave.

  Dade locked eyes with Kayla who was hanging on to his every word. “What about the dead gunman’s cell? Anything on it that’ll help?” he asked Grayson.

  “No breaks there. We’re still looking for Danny Flynn. But we did locate the other person the gunman called.”

  “Misty Wallace?” Dade questioned, and that drew Kayla’s full attention. She walked closer, and Dade went ahead and put the call on speaker.

  “Yeah. San Antonio PD picked Misty up about twenty minutes ago,” Grayson let Dade know.

  SAPD. That meant his twin, Nate, had likely been involved in that pickup. Dade hated that Nate had to be part of this, but of course, he would be. Brenna
n was possibly the man who’d murdered Nate’s wife. There was no way his brother would step back from this investigation.

  “Nate will bring Misty here tomorrow morning so we can question her,” Grayson added.

  Kayla’s fingers were trembling when she touched them to her mouth.

  “Is Misty talking?” Dade immediately asked.

  “Not to SAPD, but she says she’ll talk to us. And she has a message for her sister. Misty wants you to tell her that she’s sorry.”

  “Sorry about what?” Kayla said under her breath. It wasn’t very loud but apparently loud enough for Grayson to hear.

  Grayson grumbled something under his breath, too. “She wouldn’t say, but I intend to find out.”

  Chapter Six

  Kayla heard the sound, and her eyes flew open. It wasn’t the sounds of bullets like those in her nightmares. This was laughter. And it was coming from the other side of the house.

  “Robbie?” she called out and then remembered Connie had come and gotten him when he woke up earlier. The nanny had told Kayla to get a little more rest, and apparently she had.

  She threw back the covers and spotted the sunlight speckling across the room from the tiny gaps in the blinds. She checked the clock on the nightstand—already seven-thirty. Not late by many people’s standards, but she’d overslept.

  How the heck could that have happened?

  Here they were in the middle of a dangerous situation, and she’d slept in like the diva Dade already thought she was.

  Kayla changed out of her gown and put on the dark blue pants and top that she practically ripped from her suitcase. She used the hall bathroom to finish dressing and raced toward the laughter. She soon found the source.

  Her son.

  Dade was at the kitchen table, Robbie in his lap, and her son was giggling because Dade was playing airplane with the spoon of oatmeal. Her son devoured the oatmeal the moment it made it to his mouth.

  Kayla made eye contact with Connie who was near the stove pouring herself a cup of coffee. The nanny, who looked as if she had also dressed in a hurry, simply shrugged.

  “Mommy’s up,” Dade announced, and he sent another spoonful of oatmeal Robbie’s way. Another giggle. And her son lapped it up.

  “I’m sorry,” Kayla told Dade. “I should have been up to feed him.”

  Dade just shrugged as well. “I have a niece, Kimmie, who’s just a little bit older than Robbie, and I feed her a lot of mornings.”

  So that explained why the bad-boy cowboy looked perfectly natural with flecks of oatmeal on his jeans and chest-hugging black T-shirt. Robbie hadn’t escaped, either. He had oatmeal smeared into his blond hair.

  “I can take over,” Kayla insisted. But when she looked in the bowl, she realized that Robbie had finished.

  “Da-da-da,” Robbie babbled, and he slapped his hands on the highchair tray.

  Kayla was mortified and was about to launch into an apology for that, as well.

  “He’s trying to say Dade,” Connie quickly explained.

  Dade lifted his shoulder again. “That seems a little easier to say than Deputy Ryland.”

  Maybe, but it was downright unnerving to hear those sounds come from her son’s mouth. More unnerving to see the big grin that Robbie doled out to Dade.

  “Let me get him washed up,” Connie insisted.

  “I can do it,” Kayla offered.

  But Connie glanced at Dade. “I think the deputy and you have some things to discuss.”

  Yes, they did. Misty, for one, because her sister had been brought in for questioning and had issued that vague I’m sorry. Kayla had tried to call her sister more than a dozen times before she went to bed, but Misty hadn’t answered.

  Connie eased Robbie out of the highchair and brought him over to Kayla so she could get a morning kiss. She got one all right, complete with oatmeal smears and a smile that could have lit up the night. Kayla had no choice but to smile back.

  “I love you,” she whispered to her son, and Robbie babbled back a string of sounds that could have meant anything. But Kayla knew he was telling her that he loved her, too.

  “He’s a fun kid,” Dade said, and he got to his feet.

  “Yes, but he’s usually shy around strangers.” Probably because Robbie hadn’t been exposed to many, but he’d taken to Dade as if he’d known him his whole life.

  Dade looked at her, as if waiting for more, but she didn’t want to talk about how good he was with her son. Kayla also didn’t want to stare. She failed at that. She stared. And wondered how anyone could look that good with flecks of oatmeal on them.

  She reached up and plucked a piece of it from Dade’s hair. “Robbie’s a messy eater.”

  “Not as bad as Kimmie. Once she crammed a handful of strained peaches in my ear. Couldn’t hear for hours.” With that, he smiled.

  Oh, mercy.

  He was hot with his usual bad-boy scowl, but that smile made her weak at the knees. Kayla stepped back, cleared her throat and changed the subject. “When will Grayson question Misty?”

  Dade’s smile faded as fast as it’d come, and he checked the wall clock over the table. “Soon. They’re setting up things now so we can watch. My laptop is already on, and I’ve connected to Grayson’s computer at his office.”

  She glanced at his computer screen to verify that it was indeed on, and there on the screen was what appeared to be an office. An empty one.

  “Watch?” she challenged. “But I thought I’d be able to see Misty in person.”

  “Not a chance,” Dade informed her. “We aren’t leaving this safe house unless it’s an emergency.”

  Of course. That made sense for security reasons. But Kayla had wanted to see her sister and not through a computer screen.

  “We’ll be able to hear and see them,” Dade verified. “They can hear and see us, as well.” He grabbed a cup of black coffee from the counter and headed to the sofa.

  Kayla poured herself some coffee, but when she joined him, she immediately saw the dilemma. The sofa wasn’t that large, and with his computer perched on the coffee table, the only way she would see the screen was to sit right next to Dade. So, that’s what she did, and Kayla tried not to react when her arm brushed his.

  He reacted, though.

  Dade winced. And that’s when her attention shot down to the bandage. “I should check that.”

  She didn’t wait for him to agree because he wouldn’t have. Kayla eased back the bandage, afraid of what she might see. The gash was an angry red color and the area around it was swollen.

  “I’m taking antibiotics,” Dade reminded her.

  He tipped his head to the prescription bottle on the end of the coffee table. It was sitting on top of a first-aid kit. Kayla dug through the kit and came up with a tube of antibiotic cream.

  “This isn’t necessary,” he complained.

  “It is,” she complained right back. “You wouldn’t have been shot if you hadn’t been protecting me.”

  That was true, and Kayla didn’t regret her decision to tend his wound. But what she hadn’t considered was that touching Dade posed some problems of their own.

  His arm was rock-hard, and even though he wasn’t heavily muscled, he was still lean and solid. A cowboy. And for some strange reason that made her smile.

  “What?” Dade questioned. He dipped his head so his eyes could meet hers.

  Not a good idea, either.

  Because it put them breath to breath and nearly mouth to mouth.

  Everything seemed to freeze. Except her heartbeat. It jolted like crazy, a reaction she quickly tried to get under control.

  Dade didn’t tear his attention from her. Kayla didn’t move either. She just sat there, her fingers smeared with cream and poised over his arm. And in that moment, she had a terrible thought.

  What would it feel like to kiss Dade?

  A glimmer went through his cool gray eyes that let her know he was thinking the same thing.

  “Is there a problem?” s
omeone asked.

  Kayla jerked back so fast that her neck popped.

  There, on the screen, was Lieutenant Nate Ryland. She recognized him from the investigation and from his picture in the newspaper. This was Dade’s fraternal twin brother. A brother who no doubt hated her to the core. And God knows what he must have seen in Dade’s and her eyes.

  “Kayla was checking my arm,” Dade volunteered. “How much longer until the interview?”

  Nate didn’t answer right away. He kept his attention on Kayla. Was it disgust she saw? Or worse, was it that painful for him to look at her?

  “A few more minutes,” Nate finally said. “I was just checking to make sure we’d be able to see and hear you. We can,” he mumbled. “By the way, Grayson had to give your location to the D.A.”

  “Why?” Kayla and Dade asked together.

  “Winston said he had to talk to her about the trial.”

  Dade didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing their location. Judging from Kayla’s expression, neither did she. “Can’t it wait?”

  “Not according to Winston,” Nate answered. “He has to file some papers in court today or it could jeopardize the case.”

  Well, Dade didn’t want that, but he also didn’t want to put Kayla at further risk. “Warn Winston to be careful,” Dade insisted.

  “I will,” Nate assured him. “For now, though, I’ll get Ms. Wallace in here.”

  “Wait,” Kayla blurted out. But then she fumbled with what to say. “I’m sorry about your wife,” she finally got out.

  Nate stood there, his jaw muscles working against each other. It felt like an eternity. Finally, he nodded. “Thank you.” And he walked out of camera range.

  Kayla held her breath, wondering if Dade was going to blast her for daring to bring up the topic of Nate’s dead wife. But he merely pressed the bandage back in place, reached over and muted the sound on his computer. He also handed her a tissue so she could wipe the ointment from her fingers.

  “I’m very protective of my brother,” Dade threw out like a warning.

  “I understand.” And she did. Kayla often felt that way about Misty. “But Nate doesn’t appear to be a man who needs protecting.”