Ingrid Weaver – Loving the Lone Wolf (страница 8)
Damn Tony and his bargain.
“And just how are you supposed to keep an eye on me, Kelly?” he asked. “I don’t have a Mrs. Rand who would object, but from what I’ve heard about your boyfriend, he wouldn’t look too kindly on either of us if you moved in with me. I’d prefer to keep all the body parts I was born with.”
Her fingers suddenly clenched, crumpling the fabric of the dress she held into a tight ball. “I’m not responsible for what Stephan does.”
Nathan straightened up from the door, surprised by the vehemence of her response.
“And from the way I saw you handle Stephan’s watchdogs just now,” she continued, “I believe you can take care of yourself, whatever happens.”
It almost sounded as if she were trying to warn him. “What does that mean?”
She flexed her fingers to release her hold on the dress and tossed it back on the chair where it had been. “Where did you learn to fight like that, Nathan?” As if it was an afterthought, she moved her lips into a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You moved so fast, I could hardly see it. I hope you’re not that fast with everything. There are some things that are best done…slowly.”
He regarded her curiously. She had gone into her sex-kitten mode in a bid to change the topic, but this time it wasn’t working. He was far more interested in what he’d seen before she’d put on that smile. He walked past the chair to stand in front of her. “I learned how to use the particular move you saw when I was eight.”
“You must have been very precocious.”
“No, just resourceful. My stepfather liked little boys. I didn’t let him like me.”
The smile disappeared like the illusion it had been. Her gaze clouded with horror. “My God,” she murmured. “Your stepfather?”
“Well, he wasn’t legally my stepfather. He never married my mother.”
She touched his arm. “Oh, Nathan. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s like you said. I learned to take care of myself.”
Her hand shook against his sleeve. “Didn’t your mother…” She swallowed. “She must have tried to leave, didn’t she? For your sake?”
“No, she never left. I did.” He covered her hand with his. “Why did you, Kelly?”
“What?”
“Why did you leave home? What made you trade the church choir in Maple Ridge for Volski’s nightclub in Chicago?”
She stared at him, her lips parted in shock, then she pulled her hand away from his so fast she stumbled backward. She came up against the table beneath the mirror, knocking over several small bottles.
Nathan caught her by the shoulders to steady her, careful to keep his grip gentle. He’d wanted to take her off guard with the question—that’s why he’d led up to it by giving her a piece of his past—but he hadn’t anticipated this strong a reaction.
Could his gut be right? Was it possible that beneath the act she put on she was innocent?
He had to find out before she got swept up in the same net that would catch her boyfriend. He leaned down to bring his face level with hers. “Were you running from abuse the way I was, Kelly? Is that why you ended up with Volski?”
“No. My parents are wonderful. They—” She shook her head. A lock of hair slipped loose from the rhinestone clasp and uncoiled at the nape of her neck. “How did you know about me?”
“I have connections. I asked around.”
“My life is none of your business.”
“I disagree. If we’re going to work together, everything about you is my business.”
She was struggling to draw in her emotions, but she wasn’t succeeding. “You’ve got the wrong idea. Our relationship isn’t personal, Nathan. It doesn’t give you the right to ask questions like this. I realize it might have seemed as if I was leading you on last night, but—”
“No, Kelly, I knew what you were doing. It’s why you’re doing it that bothers me.” He felt her tremble under his palms. He stroked his thumbs along her shoulders. “What’s really going on? I could tell by your singing that something was troubling you tonight.”
She made an odd sound in her throat. “What could possibly be troubling me?”
“If it’s something to do with this heroin deal, I need to know before next week. I’m not going to work with you if you’re not a hundred percent on board. Tell me now, are you a willing participant?”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Why won’t you answer?”
“Moving that heroin shipment is important to all of us, Nathan. Stephan knows he can count on me, and I intend to do everything I can to make sure it goes off precisely as planned.”
Had she answered his question? He wasn’t sure. “How did you get from a small town in Ohio to here?”
“I took a Greyhound.”
“Were you running?”
“Yes. From boredom. If you’d been to Maple Ridge you would understand.”
He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. She would have been easier to believe if he hadn’t heard the note of yearning in her voice. “How did you meet Volski?”
“It’s no secret.” She tipped her head away from his touch. “I waited tables by day to pay my rent and sang for tips at a piano bar by night until Stephan offered me a job at this club. I took it.”
“And you stay because…?”
“Because he pays me well and dresses me fabulously. It’s as simple as that.”
He was certain she was lying. There was far more to her story than this. He laced his fingers through the lock of hair that had come loose and cupped her nape. His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Never had he wanted to kiss a woman more than he did now. He couldn’t explain it. The urge was deeper than sex and too primitive for logic. He wanted to fit his lips to hers and taste whatever truth she kept hidden, and it had nothing to do with Volski or the drugs or the debt he had to pay.
His grip tightened. He lifted his gaze to hers and saw that her eyes had darkened, the pupils expanding against a rim of vibrant green. He saw confusion…and a reflection of his own desire.
The moment stretched. It was madness to think about giving in to this attraction. He knew it, and he was sure that she did, too. Yet he leaned closer, his gaze blurring, his senses filling with her nearness, until the soft exhalation of her breath warmed his lips.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He felt the word more than he heard it. “Kelly…”
She slipped her hand between them, steepled her fingers on his chest and pushed him back.
He let her do it, knowing he should be thankful, hating the fact that he wasn’t.
“You still have the wrong idea,” she said. “All I’m interested in from you is business, that’s it. As I told you before, this isn’t personal.”
“If you’re going to spend the next week spying on me, it’s going to get damn personal.”
“It doesn’t have to.” She slipped sideways along the dressing table until she could step clear of him. “Stephan’s estate has eighty-seven acres. The main house has fifty-five rooms and there is enough guest accommodation on the property to house a small army. Unless we have business to do or you need to leave the estate, we probably won’t even see each other.”
“Whoa, what’s this about the estate?”
“I’m not going to be moving in with you, Nathan. It’s the other way around. Until the deal is done, Stephan wants you to stay with us.”
The rhythm of the words was soothing, as familiar and well-worn as the rabbit Jamie clutched. Kelly pitched her voice low, savoring the peaceful hush of the evening routine. She had chosen Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever tonight. She remembered her own mother reading it to her. They would snuggle together on the bed, just as she was doing with Jamie, only that bed had been crammed under the eaves of a bedroom a quarter the size of this one.
Kelly had liked the way the ceiling had sloped over her head. It hadn’t felt cramped, it had felt cozy. In the summer, the breeze through her window had brought the sound of rustling leaves from the big maple in the front yard and the train whistle from the crossing at the bend of the highway. In the winter, she would curl up under the same quilt that her mother had used as a child, the one her grandmother had embroidered with nursery rhyme characters.
“‘I’ll love you forever,’” Kelly read. “‘I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.’”
The words were a chorus that was repeated throughout the story, a song from a mother to her child. Kelly carried them in her heart. Whenever she needed to hear them, she could call up the memory of that bedroom in the house in Maple Ridge and it all came back. Not just the sounds and the images, but the feelings: safety, comfort, belonging and, above all, the persistence of love.
She brushed a kiss on the top of her son’s curls before she turned the page. When she had been a child, she had listened to her mother’s voice more than to the words. She hadn’t understood the emotion she’d heard—it wasn’t until she’d had a baby of her own that she did—yet she hadn’t been too young to understand the power of a voice.
That was when Kelly had first dreamed of being a singer.
Would her mother still love her if she knew what Kelly had become?
She blinked hard to stop the rush of tears. Damn that Nathan Rand for stirring up the past with his questions yesterday. Sometimes she could go for days without thinking about it, but the home and the family she’d left behind were too much a part of her to forget for long.