Trusting a Stranger (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Keira eyed Calloway
guiltily. He was definitely sleeping this time, his handsome face slack, his breathing even.

Seduction had never been Keira’s strong point, but she’d worked her hardest to wear him out.

Not that it wasn’t rewarding for her, as well. Graham was a fierce and attentive lover. And that made her feel even worse.

But there’s no way he’ll willingly let you out of his sight
, she reminded herself.

She felt that little tug at her heart again, pleased that he cared so much. He’d be mad when he woke up and found out she was gone. Furious, probably. But it was worth it, if she could figure out what it was that Dave was after. Because she had a feeling it was more than misguided morals and Keira felt just as protective of Calloway as he did of her. His story broke her heart. She couldn’t help but wonder how much of
his
heart remained in pieces, as well. Every time he said his stepson’s name, she heard the pain.

I want to fix that.

She knew justice wouldn’t make Calloway whole immediately, but maybe it would start the healing process.

Keira slid her body free from Calloway’s embrace, stood up and stepped to the closet. A stack of board games and her mother’s rejects—the clothes she couldn’t wear anymore but refused to part with—greeted her.

Keira snagged an oversize T-shirt and a pair of leggings, and reminded herself that she wasn’t trying to impress Dave with her fashion sense anyway. That didn’t stop her from cringing at her appearance as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on the back of the door.

Her hair was a disaster, and the wound on her thigh, though held together nicely by Graham’s stitches, was still hideous.

She slid on the clothes and patted her hair. Now she looked as if she’d dressed up as her mother for Halloween.

“Nice,” she muttered aloud before she remembered she was supposed to be keeping quiet.

Calloway stirred, letting out a noisy sigh, and Keira froze, her eyes fixed to his image in the mirror.

Do
not
wake up
, she commanded silently.

He rolled to his side and stretched one arm up, and the bedsheet slid down, revealing a tantalizing amount of skin. Keira’s eyes roamed the exposed flesh greedily for a second before she gave herself a mental kick in the butt and opened the door, cutting off her view.

She moved into the hall, wincing as the first telltale floorboard squeaked. But there was no sound from the bedroom, so she moved on to the stairs.

She went still when a loud knock on the back door reached her ears. Then she heard it squeal open.

What the heck?

With her heart in her throat, Keira tiptoed down the stairs and paused outside the kitchen. Part of her wanted to charge in and tackle whoever was in there. Part of her wanted to wake Calloway for protection.

She steeled herself not to do either.

After all, home invaders didn’t usually knock before they let themselves in. Did they?

Her assumption was confirmed when a familiar voice called out, “Keira?”

Drew.

What was he doing here? He wasn’t supposed to be back from his business trip yet.

She had to get rid of him before he figured out that Calloway was in the house.

Keira took a breath and stepped into the kitchen. She fixed what she hoped was a surprised—and not guilty—look on her face as she greeted him.

“Drew! Where did you come from? How did you even know I was here? You scared the heck out of me!”

He immediately wrapped his arms around her. “
I
scared
you
? Thank God you’re okay!”

She extracted herself from his embrace, marveling at the fact that just a few days ago, she’d been considering pursuing a relationship with this man. She didn’t feel the remotest bit of attraction toward him.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” she asked.

Drew fixed her with a concerned gaze. “Your face is plastered all over the news, Keira.”

“Is it?”

He raised a speculative eyebrow, and Keira told herself she needed to rein in the innocence a bit.

“They said you’d been in a horrible accident on the mountain. That your car went over the side of some cliff.”

They’d identified her.

This is bad.

Did that mean that Dave Stark had given his official statement, or had his plan been circumvented?

Or is he the one that leaked her name?

Drew closed his hand on her elbow. “Hey. You still with me?”

Keira shook her head and moved away. “I’m fine. I just—I was about to sneak out for a quick cup of coffee. You want to come?”

Drew frowned as if he wanted to say no, and for a second she hoped he would. But then his eyes fixed on something just over her shoulder, and Keira followed his gaze to the spot where she and Calloway had abandoned their mugs earlier. Her pulse jumped.

“You sure you want coffee? Looks like you already had some tea for two,” Drew observed.

She forced a laugh. “I guess I was a bit tired this morning when I got in. I made a cup, forgot about it, made another, then didn’t drink either of them.”

“So you didn’t have company?”

“Company?” Keira echoed nervously.

Drew nudged her shoulder. “You know. A guest. Like me, but who doesn’t know where your parents keep the extra key to the back door.”

Keira shook her head. “No guests. Unless you’re
actually
counting yourself. So...coffee?”

Drew nodded, and Keira breathed a big sigh of relief as he held the door open. She followed him out, careful not to let her eyes stray toward her bedroom window.

* * *

W
HEN
G
RAHAM
WOKE
, he reached for Keira automatically. As though he’d been waking up beside her for years instead of days.

But a lot can happen in days
, he thought drowsily.
You can lose a life. Start a new one. Fall in love. Become something you never thought you’d be.

His hand slid across the bed, already anticipating the silky feel of her skin under his palm. When his expectation fell through, his eyes flew open. Her spot on the bed was decidedly empty.

Graham sat up and swung his bare legs to the floor.

“Keira?”

He waited about ten seconds for her to answer, and when she didn’t, he grew irrationally worried.

“Keira!” he called a bit louder.

He snapped up his jeans and T-shirt from the floor, slipped them on without bothering to locate his discarded underwear, and moved toward the door. He cracked it open and paused. The house was ominously silent.

“Hey!”

He made his way downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. The sun was going down, and the main floor was nearly dark. Worse than that, there was no sign of Keira.

Where the hell had she gone?

He stepped from the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen and flicked on the lights. The two nearly full mugs of chamomile tea still sat where they’d left them.

Dread was pooling rather quickly in Graham’s gut.

He walked around the kitchen slowly, trying to find a clue that would give him a hint as to where she’d disappeared to.

And whether or not it had been on purpose. Or for that matter...purposeful.

“She could’ve just needed something from the store,” Graham told himself out loud.

The thought eased his mind for a tenth of a second. Then a little white card on the edge of the counter caught his eye.

He lifted it slowly.

“Sergeant David Stark,” it read, followed by a phone number in bold.

“Well, that answers that,” he muttered.

No wonder she’d dropped the whole ask-Dave issue so easily. She’d already made the decision to disobey Graham’s request.

Did you really expect her to
obey
you?

She’d been nothing but a challenge since the second he pulled her from the wreck. Which he liked. Except right at that second. Graham gritted his teeth. Right that second, what he wished was that she was a complacent pushover waiting for him to make the decisions so he could keep her safe.

He paced the length of the kitchen, then out to the living room, then back again, trying—and failing—to find an outlet for his frustration.

He cursed himself for being played as much as he cursed her for playing him.

And play you she did. Like a damned drum.

Of course, his body had been more than happy to let her have her way with him. She fit in his arms so perfectly, it was as if she was made for him. And when she fixed those green eyes on him, her pupils dilated with need, her mouth parted slightly as she exhaled his name...

Graham shook his head. That kind of passion wasn’t a ploy. That kind of chemistry couldn’t be faked. So, yeah, she might’ve been manipulating him with sex, but she hadn’t been immune to what was happening between them. He was sure of it.

Graham paused on his third run through the living room and ran his fingers through his hair. It really wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it had been when it was still long.

He needed something to
do.
Something to occupy his mind and his hands. His eyes flicked around the room until they found the dimly lit computer in the corner.

It had been a very long time since Graham had used a computer. His brief search on the trucker’s phone was the closest he’d come to that kind of technology since he went into hiding.

Keira looked you up. It’s only fair that you look her up in return.

He smiled a self-satisfied smile. He was pretty damned sure she’d hate the thought of being checked up on.

* * *

D
REW
SET
DOWN
a paper cup in front of Keira. It was chocolate-and-coffee scented and topped with a generous dollop of whipped cream.

“Decaf mocha,” he said. “I know it’s your favorite.”

“Thanks.” Keira took a sip, grateful for the way the hot liquid warmed her and for the extra second it gave her to gather her thoughts.

Drew waited patiently as she slurped off the whipped cream. He didn’t deserve to be lied to the way she was going to have to lie to him. Another tickle of guilt rubbed at Keira’s mind. She covered it with a second mouthful of mocha.

Guilt, fear and desire. Those three things seemed to have dominated her emotions since the second she laid eyes on Graham Calloway.

Drew finally broke the too-long silence. “You want to tell me what happened up there on the mountain?”

She met his gaze from across the table.

He really did know her well. Maybe better than anyone except her closest girlfriends. He’d been a shoulder for her on a few occasions, a great help to her parents on many more. And right that moment, she was selfishly tempted to tell him the truth, even if just to garner his opinion on what to do.

She opened her mouth and then closed it.

It’s not your secret to tell.

And letting the metaphorical cat out of the bag would only ease the pressure of keeping it under wraps temporarily. It would expose Calloway in a way that Keira would never forgive herself for.

“I don’t really remember what happened,” Keira lied softly.

Drew frowned. “You don’t remember?”

“I remember the crash. And the cop who drove me home. Everything between is kind of fuzzy.”

“The cop who picked you up...did he say anything else about what happened up there?” Drew pushed.

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that when they were searching for you, they found some abandoned cabin that might’ve belonged to an accused murderer. That before that cop found you, they thought maybe the killer had got to you. They even issued some kind of manhunt just in case.”

Keira’s vision blurred for a dizzying second and she reached for the table to steady herself. She swallowed, her throat dry. She drank some more of the mocha. It did nothing to ease her parched mouth, and the rush of blood to her head wasn’t letting up, either.

Was it a coincidence, or had Dave Stark taken his betrayal of Calloway a step further and exposed him to the press?

Oh, God. Are they still looking for him?

“Keira?”

“I’m okay,” she managed to get out.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I guess the thought of being that close to a suspected killer... What else did the news say about the alleged murder?”

“Alleged? This guy—Graham Calloway—has been on the run for years. If he was innocent, something would’ve turned up by now. You know, they never even found the kid’s body? And apparently he stole some thirty-million-dollar painting from his wife before he killed her.”

“He...” Keira trailed off, her thoughts suddenly a jumbled mess. “Did they say all of that on the news?”

“Online.”

“I didn’t read anything like that. He didn’t—” Keira snapped her mouth shut.

“Who didn’t do what?”

Dammit. She needed to get ahold of herself. Her tongue seemed to be working faster than her brain. She had to fix that.

“The cop,” she said slowly. “He didn’t say anything about any of that.”

“What
did
he say?”

“To keep to myself. In fact, he’d probably be pretty annoyed with me if he knew I was out in public.”

“I bet he would.”

“What?”

“It’s frustrating when you give someone instructions and they don’t listen.”

Keira sensed something ominous in his words, but she couldn’t pinpoint her worry, so she lifted the mocha up and covered her concern with a gulp.

“I should take you home, I think. Wouldn’t want to anger that cop,” Drew stated.

Keira nodded, the bobbing motion making her head feel funny. Really funny. Weirder than it had since she’d first banged it in the car accident.

She stood up, bumping the table and sloshing around her mocha. She made a move to grab it, but Drew was quicker.

“You’ve probably had enough of that,” he said.

That struck Keira as funny, and a tinny giggle escaped her lips. “Enough decaf mocha?”