Ransom Read online

  He flashed back to Tyler and to the words Blake had said to him when it had become clear Tyler was getting in too deep with the widow who had owned the Christmas-tree farm.

  Someone’s gonna get hurt. They always do.

  Good advice he should heed. He went back to scrubbing dishes.

  Before he could retract his words, she spoke. “My second year of college I fell head over heels for a guy in my econ class. Joe. He was very charismatic, and I was over the moon that he was paying attention to me to the point he was all I could think about. I couldn’t stand to be apart from him and my grades slipped.”

  She let out a dry laugh. “Then Jillian pointed out I was just like Dad. Putting everything into this one person.” She put the clean dishes back in the cupboard. “That’s what our father did. He had no real identity apart from Mom, and didn’t want any. So when she died he was beyond devastated. He didn’t know who he was or how to live without her.”

  “But isn’t that how love is supposed to go?”

  “No, love wants the best for the other person. Losing my identity to Joe wasn’t love. It was more of an obsession. Then when I broke up with him, he became obsessed with me and finally backed off when my godfather, Sheriff Ward, had a talk with him.” She shrugged. “Since then I haven’t wanted to get close to anyone for fear of losing myself.”

  “It’s a blessing you had the sheriff in your corner.”

  “Yes, Sheriff Ward has been a blessing to our family.”

  It was good to know she was as leery as he was of anything deeper than what they already had, though he wasn’t sure what to call what they had. He wasn’t really her bodyguard, nor her jailer.

  Yet, he’d take a bullet meant for her without thought. He liked to think he would for anyone—his job was to protect, after all—but somehow the thought of Liz in peril tore him up inside.

  He reached for her before he thought better of it. She came willingly into his arms. She was so slight and delicate, he was almost afraid of holding her too tightly.

  She reached up to trace the line of his jaw with her soft, gentle fingers. “Who hurt you?”

  His first inclination was to deny answering, but for some reason he wanted to open up to this woman. “I was engaged once years ago.”

  Liz held still in his arms, her gaze never wavering.

  “We were a few months away from the big day when I discovered she’d been lying to me about so many things.” He shook his head. “Stupid things, too. Like spending more money on clothes than she’d admitted. We weren’t married so what did it matter how much she spent? Yet she’d make a big show of saying she spent only so much money, then asking to borrow money from me because she couldn’t pay her Visa bill. Of course I helped her out but when I saw the bill I realized she’d fabricated how much she’d actually spent. And then she’d lie about where she was or where she was going. She’d lie about who she was with. That hurt the worst. I finally had to realize and come to terms with the fact she was a habitual liar. But she didn’t see it as an issue. I did.”

  “She didn’t want to get help?”

  “No, she said it was my problem, that I couldn’t accept her as she was,” he shrugged. “She was right. I couldn’t. Not like that. So I broke it off.”

  “That’s understandable.” Liz laid her hand over his heart. “It would be hard to marry someone who you could never fully trust.”

  He liked that she understood. “Yes, that’s exactly it.”

  She peered up at him, her eyes guileless and searching. “Trust is important to you.”

  Wariness invaded him. “It is. Very much so.”

  A tiny smile lifted the corners of her lips. “You’re a very good man, Agent Blake Fallon.”

  The wariness seeped away to be replaced with yearning. He wasn’t sure that her statement was true about him, but he was definitely sure he wanted to kiss her right now.

  His thought must have shown on his face because her lips parted in invitation. He nearly groaned. Did she even understand what she did to him? How irresistible he found her?

  Slowly, he lowered his head just as the sound of the front door opening froze him in place a mere fraction from her delectable mouth.

  Drew and Sami entered the condo. Face heating, he stepped back, his relief at not having given in to the uninvited yearning matched by the relief on Liz’s face. They’d almost let the situation take a turn neither of them wanted to take. Clearly they were in agreement.

  That should be a good thing, right? So why did he feel as if he’d missed an opportunity that might never come again? Why did he still want to know so much more about her? Why did his mouth still crave the chance to touch hers?

  SEVEN

  Liz moved away from Blake, grateful to see Sami and Drew entering the condo. With each step putting distance between her and him, she breathed easier. She’d nearly let Blake kiss her. And she’d wanted him to. With everything in her she’d longed for his kiss. Wow, where was her head? She forced her attraction to Blake to the farthest reaches of her heart.

  It was bad enough she’d told him about Joe. For years she’d refused to entertain thoughts of that part of her past because she was embarrassed by the way she’d acted, by the fact that she’d lost herself even if it had been for a short period of time.

  She didn’t want to be that person ever again. If she ever decided to give her heart for a second time, she would go slow and be methodical about her choice. Which meant she had to resist the temptation to fall for Agent Fallon. Their lives had intersected for this short period of time, but their paths would diverge as soon as Jillian was free and Santini in jail. There was no future for them.

  But what if there could be? A little voice inside her head asked. Her pulse skipped a beat at the question.

  She didn’t have an answer, wasn’t even sure she wanted to let her mind go there. Blake had a power and charisma about him that scared her and yet at the same time drew her to him. Best not to contemplate something as dangerous as a life that included Blake, despite how much she was coming to respect and admire him.

  Liz helped Sami off with her coat. “You two must be famished. There are several cans of soup in the pantry and all the fixings for a salad that need to be eaten before they go bad.”

  Sami grinned. “Wonderful. I’m starved. We haven’t eaten since breakfast.” She shivered. “But first I need to change into dry clothes. It’s freezing out there.”

  Drew set a large bag on the floor. “We found a sporting goods store, but they didn’t have everything we needed.”

  Blake stepped up behind Liz. Awareness shimmied up her spine. He was so close she could smell his aftershave. The woodsy scent had teased her all day. She glanced at him, noting the darkening of stubble marking his jawline. Some men needed the scruffy look to strengthen their jaw, but not Blake. With or without the shadow of a beard, strength was inherent in his face, his demeanor. He was a man other men envied and women fawned over, like the cashier at the convenience store had.

  Though Liz knew better, she longed to reach up and run her hand over the angles and contours of his handsome face. Instead, she shoved her fists into the pocket of her zipped-up sweat jacket, the soft material doing nothing to alleviate her yearning to feel the roughness of his beard against her palms.

  She needed something to do before she broke down and gave in to her attraction to Blake. “I’ll put on the soup.”

  She retreated into the kitchen while Blake and Drew moved into the living room. The tension in her chest eased. She really needed to get a grip and keep control of her emotions. Especially when it came to Blake. She’d never had this problem before. None of the men she’d dated after Joe had made her heart race and her common sense desert her, the way Blake did. And that scared her.

  “We’ll need to hold off on raiding Santini’s lair un
til the storm subsides,” Drew stated. “There’s no going anywhere in this blizzard. It’s a mess out there. We barely made it here. We had to trudge the last few blocks on foot.”

  “Same here. And if that’s true for us then it has to be true for Santini,” Blake said. “I’d still like to get eyes on the house. I’ll contact Nathanial and see what he can do.”

  Blake disappeared down the hall. Drew warmed his hands at the gas fireplace. Liz turned the burner on simmer and walked into the living room. “Do you believe my sister is safe?”

  Drew lifted his gaze to her. “I do. Santini’s no fool. He’s greedy. If anything happens to her, he’ll never get his diamonds, and that’s what matters to him. Money is his motivator.”

  She was glad to hear him say essentially the same thing Blake had told her back in the airport interrogation room. Though only forty-eight hours had passed since the day she’d walked off the plane and had been stopped by Blake and Nathanial, it seemed as if all of that had occurred a lifetime ago. She had a hard time visualizing what it would be like to return home and to never see Blake again. A strange hollowness invaded her, making her ache deep inside.

  But once Jillian was safe, Liz would return home and go back to the life she’d made for herself in South Carolina. Why she was having to remind herself of that she couldn’t fathom. It wasn’t as if Blake had declared his undying love for her. Yeah, so he’d almost kissed her, but that didn’t mean anything more than he felt the same pull of attraction.

  The fact they’d exchanged their past hurts only meant that...well, she really didn’t know what it meant. She wouldn’t let it mean anything.

  When Blake returned to the living room she had a hard time not moving to his side.

  “Nathanial’s going to do recon on Santini’s house,” Blake informed them.

  “Won’t it be dangerous for him to be out in this storm?” Liz asked. Why would anyone want to brave a whiteout like the one raging outside the window?

  “He was born and raised in this type of weather,” Blake replied, his gaze bouncing to her and then away.

  Still, she worried about the Canadian officer. “Should he go alone?”

  “Nathanial is a bit of a lone wolf,” Drew commented. “I’m sure he’d rather not have company. He can move faster on his own.”

  That made sense in some ways, but if anything went wrong, he’d have no safety net. She sent up a silent prayer for his safety. “How long have you worked with Blake and Nathanial?”

  Drew shot Blake a grin. “Blake, a year or so. However, Nathanial and I have been acquaintances for several years. He’s as solid as they come. But he certainly has a way with the ladies.”

  Blake made a noise in his throat. “You got that right.”

  Drew nodded with a lopsided smile. “I’m just glad Sami met me first.”

  Liz couldn’t imagine Sami falling for anyone but Drew. The two seemed so well matched. “Does Nathanial have a family? A wife?”

  “No, he’s the quintessential bachelor,” Drew informed her. “The woman who tames him will have to be someone extremely special with a strong personality to see past his charm to the real man who would lay down his life for any one of us in a heartbeat.”

  She wanted to ask if Blake was the same way. She slanted him a glance. Would it take someone special to tame him? Was she special enough? The wayward thought locked her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

  Liz was grateful when Sami joined them dressed in comfortable yoga pants and a tunic sweatshirt. Liz took the opportunity to return to the kitchen on the pretext of removing the soup from the burner.

  “Thank you,” Sami said as she followed her into the kitchen. “You don’t have to wait on us.”

  “I know,” Liz said. “But it helps me to have something to do while we wait.” She began chopping more veggies for their salad. Keeping her hands busy kept her from thinking too much about Blake. “I can’t help but worry about Jillian. If something happens to her...” She couldn’t stop the burn of tears at the back of her throat.

  Sami rubbed a hand on Liz’s shoulder. “You have to stay positive. Have some faith in us. We know what we’re doing.”

  “I keep praying for her. For all of us.” Though Blake was high on her list.

  “Prayer is good. God will see us through this. He’ll see you and Jillian through this.”

  Knowing Sami believed in God warmed Liz’s heart. “Thank you for saying that. You’re right, I have to stop imagining the worst.” But how did she control her imaginings?

  The sound of a phone ringing echoed off the condo’s high ceilings.

  Blake walked into the kitchen with Liz’s ringing cell phone in his hand. He held the call display up for her to see. “It’s Jillian calling.”

  An anxious flurry spread through her, cooling her blood and making her palms sweat. “Maybe she escaped?”

  The doubt on Blake’s face didn’t require him to answer.

  “It’s most likely Santini. I’ll put it on speaker,” Blake said, then depressed the answer button and then the speaker button. He nodded to Liz.

  Her mouth went dry and her voice deserted her for a moment. Finally, she managed to squawk out a “Hello.”

  “Lizzie,” Jillian’s shaky voice filled the kitchen.

  Liz grabbed the phone from Blake but left it on speaker. “Jillian, are you okay?”

  “Yes. But he wants the necklace or he’ll—” She let out a sob. “Lizzie, he’ll kill me.”

  The weight of responsibility pressed down on Liz’s chest, making her heart heavy with panic. “I’ll give it to him. But the storm—”

  “Will be gone by tomorrow.” Santini’s voice came over the line. Apparently he’d taken the phone away from Jillian. “We’ll try this again. And this is your last chance. Bring the necklace to Queen Victoria Park at ten p.m. tomorrow night. I know you’ve brought the cops in. But they better not show up tomorrow or your sister will take a nosedive off the top of the falls.” He hung up.

  An uncontrollable tremor made Liz drop the phone. It clattered on the hardwood floor. The mental image of her sister falling into the freezing waters of the Niagara River made Liz dizzy with fear. Her lungs refused to draw in air.

  Blake gripped her by the shoulders, his big hands warm and comforting. “Hold it together, Liz. Nothing is going to happen to Jillian.”

  “He knows about you,” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper. She gasped for breath. Would her worst nightmare come true?

  “He does, and he hasn’t hurt your sister,” Blake pointed out. He slowly rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “That’s good news. He wants the necklace more than he wants to shed blood.”

  She needed to believe his words, but the worst-case scenario thinking that seemed so ingrained into her psyche wouldn’t relent. She pictured her sister’s body plunging into the frozen river, breaking through the ice and plummeting to the bottom.

  Blake gave her a gentle shake. “Stay with me, Liz. You can’t let the fear win. I need you to be strong and ready to be reunited with your sister.”

  Staring into his obsidian eyes, she saw her pale reflection, but she also saw concern and care. She planted her palms on his chest and felt the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. He made her want to be strong, made her want to rise above the terror threatening to drag her down into despair. For Jillian, Liz would do anything—even face this ordeal with bravery.

  With effort she filled her lungs with oxygen, clearing her head and infusing courage into every fiber of her being. She inclined her head. “I can do this.”

  Blake tipped his head down slightly to capture her gaze. “You’re not doing anything other than staying out of the way.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Excuse me? Didn’t you just tell me I had to be strong?”

  “And you do. Th
e last thing we need is you falling apart now.”

  She stepped back, out of his reach. “I’m not going to fall apart. I’m taking the necklace to the park tomorrow night.”

  The thunderclouds in Blake’s dark eyes rivaled the raging storm outside. “No way.”

  “Yes, way.” She looked to Sami and Drew for help. They regarded her with a mix of respect and concern. “What do you two think?”

  Drew shrugged and looked at Blake. “I’m inclined to let her make the exchange.”

  “Me, too,” Sami piped in. “She’s proven she can handle herself. If Santini sees anyone other than her there, he may follow through with his threat and then flee. This is our best opportunity to catch him.”

  “And if he sends one of his minions again?” Blake ground out. “I say we raid the house the minute the storm breaks enough for us to leave here.”

  Drew nodded. “Agreed. That’s our first option.”

  “The only option,” Blake stated in a flat voice. “I will not put Liz in any more danger.”

  Though a part of Liz appreciated his concern for her well-being, she wouldn’t let him control her. No one controlled her. “That’s not your choice to make.”

  Blake glowered at her. “This is my operation, my call.”

  Liz fisted her hands on her hips. “Not if I walk out that door.”

  “Go ahead,” he called her bluff. “But the necklace remains with us. It’s evidence. Then what, Liz? What will you have to bargain with?”

  Annoyance crowded her chest. But she had to grab her temper by the edges and keep it from flying loose. Fighting with him wouldn’t get her very far. “Do your raid. If that fails, then you let me do what I have to in order to save my sister.”

  That he wanted to argue with her was clear in the way his upper lip drew back. But she wasn’t afraid of him or his anger. One thing she knew as truth was Agent Blake Fallon was a man of honor and integrity. Any doubts she’d had to the contrary were long gone. She held her ground and his gaze. He clamped his teeth together so tight a muscle jumped in his jaw. She doubted he’d appreciate it if she suggested he get a bite guard for times like this.