Tempting the Devil (15 page)

She felt his hand on her back and she stiffened. She didn't want to show fear. Not to him. Yet he didn't drop it, and she felt its assurance and warmth flow through her. Darn it, she wanted to turn around and throw herself in his arms and tell him she was scared.

She forced herself to concentrate on the screen in front of her.

Whoever had paid her a visit had opened a number of recent files. Had he copied any of them?

“They were looking for a name. Is there any chance they found one?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I checked this afternoon. I removed anything that could lead to the source.” She didn't add that she'd done it because of his visit this morning, but the implication hovered in the air.

Thank God she had
.

He noticed, though. He raised an eyebrow. “Removed?”

“Yes,” she replied a little defiantly.

“Nothing in your computer files?”

“Nothing concerning the story except some research on Hydra.”

“Can I read it?”

“There's nothing that hasn't already been in the newspaper.”

His gaze didn't leave hers.

She sighed, found the file, and brought it up.

He leaned in and read over her shoulder. She scrolled down the document. He paused when he saw a note she'd made to herself to check into a multiple murder in Rome, a city north of Atlanta. A family. Husband, wife, seven-year-old son. The father had been arrested in a drug case. A local law official said in the paper he believed it was linked to a large drug investigation. There were several articles. Then nothing.

She looked up at him. “A family? An entire family?”

“Yes.” His voice had hardened. A muscle throbbed in his cheek.

“Was it Hydra?”

“We think so.”

“And you want me to give you a name?”

“The dead man wouldn't accept protection. He thought it would mark him.”

“He was going to testify against them?”

Silence, then, “Yes.”

She stared back at the screen.

“That's what they do, Ms. Stuart. They kill people and they do it in such a way that no one else will talk. That's why we need the name of your source. It's obvious he knows something that can help us. And he's safer with us.”

“My source doesn't agree.”

“At least talk to him.”

She nodded. “When my source contacts me.”

“You said an address book was out of place? Did you also have one in the computer?”

She nodded. “Just e-mail addresses.”

“Was your address book personal or business?”

“Personal mostly.”

He frowned.

She questioned him with her eyes.

“They may have photographed the pages.”

He saw the implication register in her eyes. “Then they may have the names of people close to me.”

He nodded. “What other documents were opened?”

“An idea for a novel I'm playing with. Several letters to my sisters. Some features I wrote here.”

She stood awkwardly, only too aware now of the brace, her lack of grace. He was standing near the chair. Close. Too close. The aroma of a very male aftershave was seductive. Darn it, everything about him was seductive, particularly those enigmatic dark eyes.

“I need a cup of coffee.” She hesitated, then asked warily, “Would you like one?”

He nodded.

It was little enough to offer after he'd taken her to the vet.

That's what she told herself. She didn't want to admit his presence was reassuring, that a fragment of fear had lodged inside.

Nor did she want to admit he had a charm that was insidious. Mrs. Jeffers certainly thought so. But then he hadn't condescended to her. It had been obvious he liked her.

Mrs. Jeffers liked to think of herself as a “tough old broad” and Damien as the world's best protector, dismissing the reality that Damien was an ancient, five-pound, snaggle-toothed poodle.

Ben Taylor had ignored the obvious, and she liked that about him. She liked it very much. She found she liked other things about him as well.

She led the way to the kitchen and quickly readied her electric coffeepot.

“Can I do anything?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I warn you, it's navy coffee. I can't seem to make any other kind.”

“Strong?”

“Some say so.”

“Good.”

She gathered cups and saucers, grateful for the activity. She didn't want him to notice the fear she'd been trying to keep at bay.

As the coffee brewed, she turned around, only to bump into him. Darn, but he filled the kitchen with his presence. His eyes met hers. She knew their intensity now, but it still stunned her.

“Ms. Stuart,…”

“Robin,” she corrected.

“Robin … surely you know this break-in could be only the beginning. You could have been here when—”

“But I wasn't, and I suspect he knew I wasn't.”

“If they didn't get what they wanted, they could go after you next. Damn it, you're in danger. Not to mention your source. How can I make it more clear?”

“Clear for you, maybe. Not so clear for someone who trusted me.”

The coffee stopped brewing. She was glad for the excuse it gave her to change the subject, even momentarily. She poured them both a cup. “I'm afraid I don't have cream or sugar.”

He took the cup and took a sip. “Don't use either. It's good.”

“Why didn't you bring in your people?” she asked.

“We're not officially on the case yet. I'll ask for copies of their reports.” He took another sip of coffee. He hesitated, then asked, “Do you have a weapon?”

“I have a gun in a safe-deposit box.”

“That's not much help.”

“I'll get it tomorrow.”

“Do you know how to use it?”

“My father was military. He insisted that his daughters know how to protect themselves.” She didn't add that it had been years since she'd used the gun he'd given her. She kept it because he'd given it to her, but she'd put it in her safe-deposit box the last time Lark had visited with her kids, and she'd never gone back for it.

“You're no competition for Hydra.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“No, I want you alive. I don't think you have any idea what you may be dealing with.”

“I'm learning, Agent Taylor,” she said, forcing a coolness into her voice. She didn't like being treated as if she were a child. Even by someone as damnably attractive as Ben Taylor.

“Not fast enough,” he muttered.

She bit her lip. “I can't trade my safety for his.” She didn't even try to imply it may not be a “he” now. She'd only narrowed it to fifty percent of the population.

He took a gulp of coffee, his eyes willing her to comply.

“Tell me about Hydra,” she said. “I found out what I could but it's not much.”

“They work like a terrorist organization with cells, one unaware of the others. If one is destroyed, the members can't implicate anyone else. It's very sophisticated and very dangerous.”

“Why haven't you—the FBI—been able to break it?”

He hesitated. “We can't get witnesses to talk.”

“Because witnesses die?”

“Those that won't accept protection,” he countered.

“What about extended families?” she asked.

He was silent.

“That's what my source said. He can't leave with just his immediate family.”

“We'll see what we can work out.”

“Including lies?”

“Damn it, don't you know both your lives could be at stake? They didn't hesitate to kill three cops. You think they'll stop at killing a reporter?”

She met his glare. “I'm not a fool. I know I opened a Pandora's box. But I promised, and it doesn't have anything to do with a story. It has to do with integrity.”

“One thing to remember. They know who
you
are.”

She'd already realized that. She didn't like the menace that was settling like a boulder in her stomach.

“I'll be careful.”

“You can ask for protection.”

“Without giving a name?”

“I don't know whether my boss will approve it under that condition. But I'll sure as hell try.”

She wasn't sure she wanted it. How could she do her job with FBI agents trailing behind her?

“We don't even know whether the burglary is connected—”

“You're smarter than that,” Taylor interrupted, frustration clouding his eyes.

She stood there, her coffee cooling as she thought. She wanted a way out. She wanted to warn Sandy, tell him what had happened, transmit Taylor's offer. But the only way she knew to reach him was to call him, and she couldn't call his cell phone. Not now. That might lead both the good guys and the bad guys to him.

He paced the floor of the kitchen, then turned to her. “There's a federal grand jury already impaneled. Chances are you'll be subpoened. It would be much easier if you told me now.”

She'd known it might come to that. “Is that a threat?”

“It's a reality.” His voice was suddenly cool.

“The … person wanted to give you enough information to start looking in some corners,” she said. “You can do that now. Isn't that enough?”

“He obviously knows more. A lot more. Including names. We need that information.”

“No.”

His lips thinned. “You could have been here today. The same thing that happened to Daisy could have happened to you.”

The image of Daisy lying so still came back to her.
She will be all right. She has to be
. She bit her lip.

And then his hand was on her cheek. Gentle. Very gentle. It was disarming. More than disarming. Alluring. Irresistible. She leaned into that hand. There was something so solid about him and at the same time … challenging. Her heart pounded an erratic rhythm.

She balanced herself on wobbly legs. His touch sent streams of sensation through her, and a warmth that overtook the chill of fear she couldn't shake, despite her brave words.

She lifted her eyes to his and his dark eyes seemed to smolder. Electricity sparked and sizzled between them. Sex. Fear. Adrenaline. She felt she was standing in the eye of a storm. Quiet. Even breathing seemed to be trapped. Yet the calm was deceptive. She felt the surrounding storm raging out of control.

Step away
.

She couldn't.

They moved at the same time, each taking a single step toward the other. Then she was in his arms.

With a muttered oath, he tightened his arms around her. Her head came to rest against his chest, and she heard the quickened beat of his heart.

She should move away, yet her legs wouldn't obey. Instead they inched closer to him until she felt the swelling within his trousers and knew a yearning so deep and needy that she thought she would die of it.

His mouth pressed down on hers. There was nothing gentle about the kiss. It was demanding and challenging and angry.

Her lips moved against his, responding with a need that seemed to spur his own, and his tongue played inside her mouth, searching, awakening every nerve ending. Streams of heat surged through her.

She trembled as his lips gentled, caressed rather than plundered. His hands ran up and down her body as if savoring every curve. Then he pulled her so tight against him that she felt every muscle of his body, spreading a fiery craving throughout her body. Her arms went up around his neck, her finger playing with tendrils of hair.

He stiffened for a moment. He groaned, and then she heard a catch in his breath as he stepped back. He dropped his arm and let her go. “
Damn it
,” he muttered. His gaze met hers. “I'm sorry. That shouldn't have happened.”

But it should have. She knew exactly what she'd been doing. She sensed he wasn't going to accept that, though.

“I should go,” he said.

She nodded soundlessly. She was still numb from the kiss, the sea storm of emotion.

She forced herself to take a step back instead of forward. “Thanks for helping me tonight.” She prayed her voice didn't sound as trembling to him as it did to her.

But she took some satisfaction in the fact that he'd been affected as well. She saw it in his eyes. They weren't wary now. They were as full of fire as she thought hers must be.

His eyes raked her. “Think about what I said.”

“I will. I'll be careful.”

She looked up at him again, and the face wasn't as hard as it had been days ago. Worry lines crinkled around his eyes, and she saw a caring she hadn't noticed before.

She suddenly wanted to know so much more about Agent Ben Taylor. Natural journalistic curiosity, she told herself, but she still couldn't tear her gaze from him. It was as if they were locked in some prolonged mating game. She had to fight her overwhelming need to move close to him again, to feel those unexpectedly gentle hands skimming over her body.

But if he stayed …

She walked him to the door, suddenly, desperately, not wanting him to go, not wanting to be alone.

He turned as he went out the door. “Good night,” she said.

His gaze lingered on hers for a long moment before he turned and headed for his car.

She locked the door, realizing again that someone had gained entrance earlier. She placed a chair against the doorknob, did the same with the kitchen door.
A professional
.

The word was cold. Unsettling.

Perhaps she should go to a hotel.

But then she would be giving in to fear. She wasn't going to do that. Otherwise she would spend the rest of her life writing about small-town budgets.

She went to the kitchen and fetched a knife to place on the night table next to her bed. Tomorrow, she would retrieve the gun, as much as she was loath to do so.

A plan of action in place, she headed for bed. She doubted she would sleep, though, and she bitterly resented the aching need in the pit of her stomach.