"I"ll make sure to remember that the next time I plan on breaking and entering," I retorted sarcastically. He ignored me. I yelped in surprise as he abruptly bent over and hoisted me in his arms.
"What are you doing?" I screeched. There was no way I was going to let him carry me like I was some helpless damsel in distress. "Put me down!" The look he gave me made me hastily shut my mouth but I still glared at him mutinously.
Kade swiftly crossed the lot and deposited me in a decrepit plastic chair outside the office door. He leaned down so his face was inches away, his eyes intent on mine.
"Stay here," he ordered. I pressed my lips together and raised my chin haughtily. For some reason, he seemed to bring out the rebellious side of me. I wasn"t stupid enough to disobey him, however. The mere thought of walking made me cringe. Kade disappeared inside and came back a few minutes later.
"Not the Ritz but it"ll do for tonight," he said. I shrugged, not caring where we stayed so long as I could get some sleep soon. With a sigh, I heaved myself up and had to grab on to the chair again as pain shot through me.
Kade handed me a metal key with a plastic tag attached. I took it, looking questioningly at him, before he again lifted me in his arms. My face flushed and I resolutely kept my face averted from his.
He carried me down the motel walkway, finally stopping in front of a door marked 119 - or rather, it would have said 119 if the nine wasn"t hanging loosely upside down. Kade cleared his throat pointedly and I hurriedly stuck the key in the k.n.o.b and unlocked the door, pushing it inward as Kade carried me inside the darkened motel room.
I grimaced, realizing what a parody this was of my childhood dream of an adoring husband carrying me across the threshold of a beautiful hotel room on our wedding night. Instead, I was being carried by a man who barely tolerated me into a motel that, I was sure, rented rooms by the hour.
He placed me on the bed, the springs complaining loudly, then flipped on the lamp by the bed before closing and bolting the door. I glanced around the room, noting the stark difference between it and the posh suite I"d been in just hours ago. Yeah, this was the type of motel suited to my sad budget. Faded carpet, cheap bedspread, cardboard-like pillows. I sighed. I understood that we needed to lie low, but maybe I could suggest a Holiday Inn or something next time as opposed to a No-Tell Motel?
Kade pulled out his cell phone and turned away as he punched in a few b.u.t.tons and held it to his ear. I strained to listen when he began talking.
"Agent Donovan," he said, "It"s good to talk to you again." A pause as he listened before continuing.
"Yes, it"s done. I"d be interested to know what you found." He listened again, and then his gaze swung to me. I couldn"t read what was in his eyes as the other man talked for a long time. Finally, Kade spoke again.
"No, that wasn"t what I was expecting either," he said carefully. "But enough to shut it down, correct?" The other person must have answered in the affirmative because Kade"s lips quirked upward in a smirk.
"Excellent. Good talking to you, Donovan. Give my regards to your wife." He snapped the phone shut.
"What was that all about?" I asked.
"Sometimes the FBI needs people to do their dirty work for them," he said.
I looked at him questioningly for a moment before it clicked into place. "You mean, you?" I asked. "The FBI wanted you to break into TecSol?"
"Must you act so surprised?" he asked, pretending hurt. Then he abruptly turned serious. "They needed someone to send a trace to them for the network traffic," he said. "But the FBI deliberately monitoring the servers of the company handling online election votes?" He shook his head. "Not good for publicity if they got caught."
"So they had you do it because you"re off the books," I said, my tired brain trying to piece it all together. "They could trust you because you used to be one of them." Kade shrugged with false modesty.
"Blane was the one who caught on to the whole thing and brought me in," he said. "I just helped pull in the big guns to take them down." His self-satisfied smirk faltered a bit.
"What?" I asked. "What"s wrong?"
"Your friend, the girl programmer," he said carefully, his brows drawing together in a frown. "The code she gave you. She told you it would compromise the system?" I nodded.
"Didn"t it?" I asked, suddenly afraid of what he might say.
"It did," he said slowly, watching me, "just not in the way you probably expected."
"What do you mean?" I asked, a sense of foreboding filling me. "Just tell me."
Kade"s expression turned grim. "She lied to you, Kathleen. The code you installed didn"t disable the system, it just installed a secondary path for the traffic."
"A secondary path? To where?" I was struggling to understand the techno-speak.
"The data was being copied to China."
"What?" I reeled in shock. "Why China?"
"Probably so they could get their hands on the encryption algorithm," Kade answered. "It would be useful for espionage purposes, especially if it was used in future elections."
I ran a tired hand over my face, trying to understand. CJ had lied to me. Used me. I remembered her just this morning telling me no one would blame me if I just left TecSol and forgot the whole thing. How could I have been so stupid? I"d just blindly done exactly what she"d wanted me to do.
"Kathleen."
I didn"t hear him, so lost was I in my own dismay and confusion. She"d been the one to save me from James.
"Kathleen!" I looked up then, the urgency in his voice breaking through my haze. His eyes were narrowed as he crouched in front of me, his hand gripping mine.
"It still worked," he said, his face moving closer to mine, as if to emphasize his words. "The fact that the data was being sent outside the country will bring TecSol to its knees."
"But you still don"t know who was behind it here, do you?" I asked shrewdly. He didn"t have to sugar coat this for me. His jaw clenched as if he didn"t want to answer.
"No," he finally said. "But we will. They"ll try again, some other way, and we"ll get them." My eyes searched his, wanting to believe he was telling me the truth, that I hadn"t completely and irrevocably screwed everything up with my blind faith and naive trust in a complete stranger.
"What about the Santini brothers?" I persisted. "They still want me dead." I remembered what he"d said this morning. "Aren"t they going to come after you when they find out I"m still alive? You took their money." His face closed off then and I wondered if he"d told me everything.
"Blane has enough on the Santini brothers to make sure they"ll go away for a long time," he said. "Don"t worry about them." He smirked. "And I was able to relieve them of twenty thousand of their dollars." That coaxed a smile out of me. He sounded like a little boy that had managed to steal candy without getting caught, not a hired a.s.sa.s.sin that had been paid for a hit he hadn"t delivered.
"Don"t spend it all in one place," I teased lightly before glancing at the clock next to the bed. The glowing numbers proclaimed it to be after three in the morning.
I was bone tired, the after effect of the adrenaline wearing off, and my eyes slipped shut. I shoved a weary hand through my hair, stopping when I realized it was still in a ponytail, and roughly tugged it out. I sighed in pleasure when my hair was no longer enc.u.mbered and finger combed it back over my shoulders. My eyes flew open when Kade stood abruptly, turning his back to me.
"Let"s get your feet taken care of," he muttered before disappearing into the bathroom. I heard the sound of water running into the tub. A while later, and I don"t know how long because I"d slumped over sideways on the bed and fallen asleep, I felt hands working at the fastening of my jeans.
With a start, a jerked my eyes open to see Kade tugging my jeans down over my hips.
"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" I asked in shock, disbelief edging my voice. I couldn"t believe he was undressing me. I scrambled for my jeans even as he dragged them down and off my legs.
"I didn"t think you"d want to get your clothes wet while your feet soaked," he said evenly, ignoring my protests as he lifted me in his arms again. I blushed furiously even though he"d seen much more of me earlier tonight.
His face was mere inches away and our gazes caught, his blue eyes staring intently into mine. My breathing hitched anew as I looked at him. Dark brows and long lashes accentuated his eyes, and his face was framed by thick hair that lay in careless waves. A hard, square jaw roughened with a five o"clock shadow framed his lips.
"Don"t look at me like that," he murmured, and my eyes jerked guiltily back up to his.
He sat me down on the closed toilet, swinging my legs over the side of the tub into the hot water. My breath hissed between my teeth as the water touched my skin and my hands balled into fists. Crouching down, Kade took a foot and gently washed it with a cloth. I bit my lip, refusing to make a sound even as my nails dug into my palms.
When he finished one, he moved on to the other, taking particular care with my damaged skin. The silence was thick between us, but not uncomfortable. The water felt good and soothing now, the burning greatly lessened. I wiggled my toes experimentally and was relieved when it only produced a twinge of discomfort.
No longer distracted by pain, I watched Kade"s hands move under the water, his fingers long and graceful. He"d pushed his sleeves up and I was entranced by the fine, dark hairs sprinkled across his forearms. His nearness seemed to make the tiny bathroom even smaller, his chest pressing against my legs as he worked.
Kade reached across me further to pull the plug and the water began to drain. Grabbing a towel, he swung my legs back out of the tub as he sat back on his heels facing me. Studiously avoiding my eyes, he carefully dried my feet and calves.
I tried to think of something else, anything else. He was just helping me. It wasn"t s.e.xual. He was Blane"s brother, for crying out loud. And so what if he"d kissed me once before? I hadn"t known then who he was.
The towel moved up my calves to my knees and I watched as Kade"s eyes followed. His gaze settle between my parted thighs and his movements stilled. Time seemed to halt as I watched him, my breath seizing in my chest.
Jerking his hands away, he stood before picking me up again, an arm under my knees and the other behind my back. I thought of protesting that I could walk by myself, but couldn"t get the words out.
Sitting me down on the bed, he crouched down again to inspect my feet. They were much better now and I felt the need to acknowledge his taking care of me.
"Thank you," I said quietly. "For helping me," I clarified. He looked up at me, his gaze intent through his dark lashes. "And for not leaving me there." This last was said in a much smaller voice.
To my surprise, he leaned forward, turning and resting his head in my lap with a sigh. The stubble of his jaw sc.r.a.ped the skin of my thighs. Hesitantly, I laid my hand on his head, uncertain what to do. His arms loosely circled my hips.
He said nothing, seeming content to just rest there, though I thought for sure the hard floor must be hurting his knees. I moved my fingers slowly through his hair, neither of us speaking. Kade seemed tired. Not just physically, but mentally as well. I wondered if he ever got to let down the guard he kept so carefully in place. Or if there was still the little boy inside whose mother had died and left him alone and whose father hadn"t wanted him. In spite of everything, my heart ached for him.
His voice broke the silence. "Do you trust me now?" he asked quietly, the warmth of his breath brushing my thigh.
"Yes," I whispered without hesitation. How could I not? He"d killed for me tonight.
We sat like that for a long time, his dark hair a stark contrast to the whiteness of my skin, my fingers running absently through the silken locks. Then he turned his head slightly, his lips brushing the skin of my thigh, and the air seemed suddenly charged with heightened awareness.
The shrill ringing of his cell phone made me start and he reluctantly pulled back, pressing his lips to the inside of my knee before he rose to his feet.
"Yeah," he answered the phone curtly, his gaze lingering on me. I watched as he listened to whomever was on the other end. To my disappointment, Kade"s face seemed to gradually shutter as the conversation dragged on, his familiar mask dropping into place.
"Yeah, give me a minute," he said into the phone. He held the phone to his chest as he leaned over me.
"I"ll be right back," he said, brushing the back of his fingers against my cheek.
"Okay," I said uncertainly. He pressed his lips briefly to my forehead. I watched as he grabbed the key and stepped out of the motel room, the door swinging shut behind him.
I waited for a while, struggling to keep my eyes open. Eventually, I got chilly so climbed under the covers. Fighting a losing battle and wondering what was keeping him so long, I finally slipped into an exhausted slumber.
When I woke, hours later, Kade was gone.
Chapter Sixteen.
Kade had left and I couldn"t say I blamed him. What had happened last night, what might have happened if he"d returned, would have been a mistake. The Kade I"d seen last night had exuded a powerful pull on me. It was best he had gone.
My thoughts turned to Blane and I wondered how he was doing, if the gunshot wound was as superficial as he"d claimed. My face heated when I thought of the kiss Kade had placed on my thigh. They were brothers, for crying out loud. I remembered how Kade had said he wouldn"t let a woman come between them. That was the last thing I wanted to do, especially after hearing more of Kade"s story and how much Blane meant to him. He would hate me and as for Blane...well, no doubt, he would as well.
Blane and I weren"t officially together, had never had been actually, and my feelings for him were complicated. I was afraid I was already half in love with him. I dared not hope he felt something for me, though he"d certainly seemed upset when he"d thought I was dead.
Something caught my eye and I realized my suitcase was sitting in the corner of the room. Kade must have retrieved it from the hotel for me. He reminded me of a porcupine, all p.r.i.c.kly and sharp on the outside to keep people away, while underneath, he was a good man whose loyalty to his brother was to be admired. And if there was a tiny bit of truth to the "us" Kade had referred to yesterday, that didn"t mean I had to think about it.
I rummaged in my suitcase, grabbing some toiletries. A shower would do me a world of good. My feet felt much better and my body was only slightly sore from the abuse I"d taken at Stephen"s hands.
Memories of Kade in this bathroom last night a.s.saulted me as I turned on the water and climbed under the shower spray. The care he had taken with me, the way he"d trusted me enough to reveal a hint of his vulnerability, it didn"t fit with the image of him I had in my head. It was definitely for the best that Kade had gotten that phone call.
A few minutes later, I was feeling much better. I wrapped a towel around me and opened the bathroom door, and I nearly fainted on the spot.
Blane sat in a chair by the window, his arms braced on his spread knees as he leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely together. His head came up when I opened the door and our eyes met. My vision immediately blurred as tears filled my eyes.
"Blane," I managed, but could get nothing else past the lump in my throat. I felt like the knots inside me had finally loosened and relaxed. Blane was here.
In a flash, he was in front of me, his arms wrapping around my waist as he hauled me against him. My arms wound around his neck as his mouth found mine, kissing me hungrily. It was many minutes later before we finally came up for air.
"How did you get here?" I asked breathlessly. "How did you know where I was?" It seemed like something out of a dream that he could suddenly be here with me. I remembered with a shudder how I"d last seen him, bleeding and pa.s.sed out in Kade"s car.
He brushed my wet hair back from my face as he answered. "I called Kade last night. He told me what had happened, where you guys were. I got here a couple hours ago." I realized with a start that Blane must have been the call Kade had gotten. The very timely call when he"d kissed my skin and I"d held his head and let him. I hurriedly pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind.
"Where were you earlier?" I asked, confused. "And where"s Kade?" He nodded towards the table by the door where I"d completely missed seeing a white paper bag and two steaming cups.
"Kade left when I got here," he said. "And I thought you might be hungry when you woke up." Well, at least I knew Kade hadn"t left me alone all night.
"Is that coffee?" I said wonderingly. The only thing that could tear me out of Blane"s arms right now was the promising aroma of hot coffee. He smiled a little at me.
"And donuts," he said. I wriggled and he put me down. Eagerly, I opened the bag, grinning in delight when I saw glazed donuts inside. Grabbing one, I folded my legs under me and sat in the chair. The sugary glaze melted on my tongue and my eyes drifted shut.
"They"re amazing," I said, mouth full of donut, as Blane approached to sit on the edge of the bed in front of me. I held my donut out and fed him a bite. I removed the lid off one of the cups and took a careful sip. It was strong but I wasn"t complaining. I finished off the donut, licking the remaining icing from my fingers.
"How"s your shoulder?" I asked. He didn"t seem to be favoring it at all.
"It"ll be fine," he said. "They patched me up pretty quick. A few st.i.tches and some antibiotics. A couple weeks and it"ll be healed."
"Thank G.o.d," I said, relief evident in my voice.
"Kade told me about last night," he said carefully, and I nearly choked on my coffee. Kade had told him about Stephen? My mouth opened and shut but nothing came out as Blane watched me.
"I wish you hadn"t gone into the data center with him," he said, and I blew out the breath I"d been holding. He hadn"t been talking about Stephen. Of course, he"d meant the data center.
"As a matter of fact," he continued, his eyes narrowing, "I distinctly remember telling him to not let you go."
I took another nervous sip of my coffee before I answered, scalding my tongue in the process.
"It"s not his fault," I said. "I needed to come here. Needed to try and do the right thing." I met his eyes, pleading for him to understand. "Please try to understand." He seemed to consider this for a moment before finally sighing.
"You could have been killed," he said roughly, leaning forward and placing his hands on my thighs.
"But I wasn"t," I replied, smiling brightly. I pushed the scene with Stephen to the back of my mind.