Hard as You Can (32 page)

He winked. “You bring out the best in me, sweetness.”

She ducked her chin, hoping to hide the heat she suspected was pinking her cheeks again. Sighing, she pressed the button on her phone to check the time. Just as she thought.

“You said you had
just enough
time for coffee,” he said. “You have to be somewhere?”

Crystal nodded and brushed her hands against her jeans. “Unfortunately. I got called in to work a luncheon. I should leave in twenty minutes.”

Shane twisted his lips, like maybe he was disappointed. “Okay. What did you want to talk about?” he asked, taking another bite of muffin.

“Right,” she said, tucking her loose hair behind her ears. She grappled for the right words, but finally decided to go with the simplest and most direct. “I need your help.”

He reached across the table and covered one of her hands with his. “Name it.”

It was that easy? Sure, he’d offered—several times. But she was so unused to people being there for her that she realized she hadn’t fully believed him until this moment. “Um, okay. Something happened last night and—”

“What? Are you okay? Jenna?” A storm rolled in across Shane’s expression, and his gaze roamed over her face, her bare arms below the sleeves of her top.

She laid her free hand atop his. “We’re both okay, but I realize that we need to start planning a way out.” Instinctively, she lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder. “Now. I thought we could wait, but . . .” Crystal shook her head.

An intensity she didn’t understand poured into Shane’s gaze. “I think that’s smart.”

She might be stupid for asking him this, but she figured anyone skilled and savvy enough to take on the Church gang might know what she needed to do. “I know this is a lot to ask, and I know you might not know anything about this.”

“What? Just ask. If I know, I’ll help. If I don’t, I’ll figure it out with you.”

With?
Not
for,
but with. Like they’d do it together. Like maybe they were partners. She pushed the wishful thoughts away. “Do you know how I can get fake IDs for me and Jenna? And maybe some other paperwork, too?”

An emotion she couldn’t read passed over his expression. “Documentation for a new identity?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Exactly. Whatever that entails.”

Shane frowned. “I think it’s great you’re looking for a way out, Crystal. Truly. But . . .” Shane seemed to struggle for words. “I was hoping . . .” He closed his eyes, gave a rueful laugh, and tugged his hand through his hair, making the lighter blond ends all messy. Totally sexy. “You’d think I was a tongue-tied teenager asking his girl to the prom.”

Crystal smiled, but she was totally bewildered by what he was trying to say. “I don’t understand.”

He leaned forward and grasped both her hands in both of his. “Come stay with me. I have plenty of room for both of you. The guys you met at Confessions that night are what’s left of my Special Forces team. We’re sharing a building right now. We could keep you safe. Both of you. You wouldn’t have to run.”

For a long moment, Crystal’s brain couldn’t process what he’d said. Stay with him? And his—
wait
—his Special Forces team? Because it would be safer. Right. She shook her head. “I couldn’t impose you on and a bunch of others like that. I know you have a lot going on. And I want to get Jenna settled somewhere for real.”

Shane squeezed her hands. “It wouldn’t be an imposition at all. You and Jenna wouldn’t be the only women there, if that’s what you’re worried about. My best friend’s girlfriend lives there, and Becca’s great. She’d love you.” His gaze grew more intense. “This is . . . I need you to know . . . I don’t have any expectations here. I’m offering you two a safe harbor, no strings attached.”

Torn, Crystal shook her head again. The offer was too much, too tempting, too . . . she didn’t even know. But it made it hard to sit still in the booth. It seemed like the kind of thing she’d let herself believe in, then,
poof!,
it would just disappear, and she’d feel abandoned and disappointed. And stupid for having believed in the first place.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Shane, exactly, because she did. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t. But when you learned you couldn’t even trust your own father, it was near impossible to believe a man she’d known less than a week—no matter how good-hearted he seemed—would do something that big and amazing for her.

Bruno seemed safe once, too . . .

And even though her rational mind knew she was comparing apples to machine guns, the thought wound its way around her brain until it rooted deep.

All of a sudden, panic bubbled up in her belly, and she regretted opening her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you,” she said, grabbing her purse, scooting to the edge of the bench seat, and rising. She’d figure out another way to get what they needed.

Shane flew out of his seat and blocked her exit with his big body. “Don’t run away again. Please.” Slowly, he reached for her hand, like he knew she was on the verge of losing it and didn’t want to do something to push her over the edge. “I didn’t mean to pressure you. I’ll help you. However you need. Just know staying with me is a standing offer. Okay?”

Crystal looked into Shane’s steel gray eyes—really looked—and saw nothing but sincerity. She blew out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“Will you stay and talk? For just a few more minutes?” he asked.

Her muscles relaxed as she shifted her knees back under the table, and Shane returned to his side.

“Got a pen?” he asked, grabbing a small stack of brown napkins from the dispenser against the wall. He accepted the ballpoint from her hand. In rapid-fire fashion, he asked her a series of questions about her and Jenna: fake name—Jessica for Jenna and Amanda for Crystal, because another fake name was just what she wanted, birth date, hair color, eye color, city of birth, blood type, social security numbers, and more. When he was done, he folded the napkins and slipped them into the pocket of his jeans. “If I forgot anything, I’ll let you know. But that ought to allow me to get started.”

“Okay. Thank you,” she said. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

“Not sure. Probably not long. Let me confirm when I find some sources and know more.”

“Of course,” she said. And though he was saying all the right things and helping her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d made him unhappy. Or maybe sad. And it put a rock in her stomach that the coffee wasn’t helping. “I’m sorry I don’t have more time today.”

“Maybe later?” Shane said, hope in his voice.

“After this lunch, I have to go back five ’til eleven,” she said.

A weighted pause sat between them. Crystal longed for the playfulness of before.

Shane nodded. “I’ll walk you out.” Outside, he took her hand again and led her to her old red truck. The car beside hers had parked crooked, forcing her and Shane close beside her driver’s door. Then Shane stepped closer still, until he had her pressed up against the steel made warm by the late-April air. “My offer of help is unconditional. Remember that.” She nodded, her heart beating fast against her breastbone. He kissed her. The softness only lasted for a moment, then it was like something snapped inside him—snapped inside
both
of them.

Caressing her cheek, Shane’s tongue swept into her mouth, exploring, tasting, twining with her own. His other hand stroked her long hair, while her hands found his waist and burrowed under the untucked shirt to find the bare, hard muscle of his stomach. He groaned into their kiss as he pursued her again and again, kissing, nipping, sucking on her lips. Intense but gentle, like he was a man with an unending appetite and the patience to match. Against her stomach, the long length of his erection hardened, sending Crystal’s heart into a fast sprint.

It was just a kiss. But it was the kind of kiss that made a woman feel claimed, desired, powerful. And even as he thrilled her, he was the kind of man who made her feel safe—no part of her doubted that if she said
stop,
he’d be off her in an instant. His clean scent, lean muscles, and gentle touch combined to make it impossible to forget it was
Shane
who held her in his arms. And it all allowed Crystal to do something she’d never done before—enjoy, want, and wish for more. Her nipples tightened, and her core clenched, and Crystal would’ve given anything to have had the afternoon free, then to have had the courage to spend it with him continuing what they’d started in the middle of this cloud-covered parking lot.

Shane pulled away, his forehead against hers, his harsh breaths caressing her wet lips. “You better go,” he said, looking at her like going was the last thing he wanted her to do. He retreated a step and gestured for her to move to his other side, then he opened the door for her.

Hating the distance between them, Crystal climbed into her truck and reached for the door, but Shane leaned into the breach.

“I think about you and I worry about you all the time, Crystal. And it’s not just because I want to help you. And it’s not just because I want to protect you. I care about you. A lot. No matter what, don’t forget that.”

I feel the same way,
she thought.
And probably even more.
But she couldn’t give voice to those thoughts. That would make them all too real. And after years of ignoring and boxing up her emotions, she was bad at feeling them, scared of admitting them, and worse at expressing them.

“’Bye,” she whispered, instead. As she started the truck and watched Shane walk away in her side-view mirror, she had the biggest sense of having just lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Silly, really. They’d be seeing each other again. And he’d agreed to help, so she should be happy.

Right? Right. So, then, why wasn’t she?

T
HE BUSINESS LUNCH
was just that—a liquor-laden schmoozefest of three-piece suits trying to impress some mucketymuck by slumming it at a strip club. Harmless and good-tipping. The perfect combination.

They’d finished eating a half hour ago, and Crystal was keeping them well lubricated with top-dollar, top-shelf labels as the girls danced.

Despite the fact that the nine of them were relatively easy to handle and that her tip escalated with every new drink order, Crystal was itching for the men to leave. Because something had taken Bruno and the rest of the Apostles off-site until later this afternoon. This was her chance to try to help Shane the way he was helping her. She spent time alone in Bruno’s office all the time. Nobody thought anything of it.

So she had a very rare, very important window of time.

But she couldn’t do anything until these guys decided to return to their upper-middle-class lives on the other side of town.

Twenty minutes later, the older man at the head of the table finally pulled out his platinum credit card and handed it to her to settle the bill.
Thank God.

At the register near the bar, Walker gave her a smile. “They treat you okay?” he asked.

“Tame as kittens,” she said with a grin. And then she thought,
I’m going to miss you, Walker.
There weren’t many people she would miss from this life, but Walker might be one. He’d always been nice to her, looked out for her—looked out for all the girls, really. As ordinary as that seemed, though, it had been the exception rather than the rule in her life.

Until Shane.

Crystal waited for the credit-card slip to print and wondered who else she’d miss. Howie, the food-and-beverages manager, was another guy around here who’d looked out for her when he could, or offered her cautious words of advice when he couldn’t. But really . . . that was about it. Her feelings for the rest of the people she knew here were either neutral or negative. It was a sad testament to how much she’d been floating through her life the last few years.

But that was about to change.

The printer chugged out the receipt. Crystal placed it inside a leather folder with the man’s card and returned to the table. “Thank you very much, gentlemen. Come again,” she said with a smile and a wink that earned her a few appreciative chuckles.

When they were gone, she set about clearing the table as she would any other day. No faster. No slower. Back at the register, she opened the billfold and nearly shrieked with happiness—the men had not only left her a huge tip but they’d left it in cash. A little of her regret at not being able to spend the afternoon with Shane melted away. At least the time spent had been worthwhile. Quickly, she folded and slipped one of the three fifty-dollar bills into her skirt, securing it with the band of her panties on her hip, then she handed the billfold to Walker. The normal process for accounting for her cash tips so Church could take his cut. Walker accepted it with a quiet nod and Crystal swallowed her usual resentment toward losing income she’d earned for a debt she hadn’t created.

“See you in a few hours, Walker,” she called, forcing normalcy into her voice. With lunch out of the way, she could put her plan to help Shane into action. Which explained why her heart had lurched into high gear. “I’m on at five.”

He pushed his dark hair back off his face. “Right on. See ya.”

Taking a deep breath, she made for the dressing room and quickly changed into her street clothes. She hadn’t had time to pick up Jenna’s prescription from the pharmacy this morning, so she had to get it and drop it at the apartment before her evening shift began. And that wasn’t an errand she could do in her uniform.

Making sure she had everything, she left the dressing room. But instead of turning right to head down the hall to the back door, she turned left, came to the secured door to the senior office suite, and punched in the key code.

The metallic
click
caused another spike in her heart rate. Blood rushed loud behind her ears. Head down, pace normal, she made her way to Bruno’s office like she had so many times before. She often waited in his office for him to take her home after a shift, so no one would think twice about her being there. Nothing unusual here. Nothing going on. At least, that’s what she wanted any security cameras that might be tracking her movements in here to see.