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Chapter Six

H is bandages came loose in the shower and the wound burned like a hot brand. His injury was the least of his worries, but he’d have to take care of it all the same.

Lexi Stoltz was too smart for her own good, and too beautiful for his peace of mind.

She’d seen the photograph he carried everywhere he went.

When he was alone, he set it up beside his bed or sleeping bag or wherever he slept.

He liked it to be the last thing he saw before sleep and the first thing he saw when he woke. So he would never forget.

Pain helped him remember. It was his pain, his private pain. Lexi had no business poking around in it. He didn’t want or need to share his grief or his guilt. Especially not with her. She’d invaded his most private place when she’d reached into that pain to put her hand on his shoulder.

An offer of comfort, sure, but he didn’t want her damned comfort. When she’d almost touched the photo of Wendy and the boys …

It was wrong to let anyone touch it. Especially the first woman to stir a healthy lust in him since he’d lost them. And that was wrong, too. He had to keep her away from that sacred memory, that sacred pain.

He bit his lip against the swelling in his throat and the burning in his eyes. His little boys had been his world, and Wendy had been a big part of that world.

This job, this mission was for them. He was going to avenge their deaths.

And Lexi Stoltz posed a threat to that. Somehow, he knew she could prevent him from exacting vengeance and bringing down the elusive Mr. White.

It didn’t make sense to think that, but he trusted his gut.

He couldn’t let her to come between him and his goal.

He stepped out of the bathroom, wearing his shorts and nothing else. Let her be shocked. Let her throw a prissy little fit and he could despise her for being pretentious and phony.

But she didn’t. She lay on the bed, curled up on one side with her back to him. Her long dark hair covered her shoulder, a few wavy tendrils reaching out over the pillow like vines in search of something to twist around. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.

She didn’t move so he figured she’d managed to fall asleep after all. Good. About time.

He fished his medical kit out of the bag and taped up his shoulder. Doing it one-handed was on the edge of impossible, but he did what he could. When she didn’t offer to help, he was sure she was sleeping. She was too softhearted to let him struggle.

He ate. But the whole time, the image of her, lying there in the bed wearing his T-shirt now, with her hair spread around her like dark chocolate satin, haunted his mind.

She hadn’t eaten. She should’ve. She’d need her energy for the trip ahead.

Either she was too fussy to settle for the MREs in his pack or she seriously wasn’t hungry. Probably the latter.

He ought to wake her up and make her eat.

He didn’t.

And when he’d cleaned his guns and loaded them and run out of things to do, he sat there on his own bed and looked at her.

Why did he have to end up saddled with a woman who could make a saint have impure thoughts? He far preferred the usual risks, bullets flying past his head, that sort of thing Why her?

Romano hadn’t had sex with a woman since Wendy had died.

And, frankly, he hadn’t wanted to. That part of him had died with his family.

He hadn’t been aroused since the night when his life had gone up in smoke, and that was fine by him.

He’d planned to just throw himself, body and soul, into the job, until one of these times, the bad guys got the best of him and put an end to this joke that passed for a life.

But work hadn’t made him forget. And with a cloud of suspicion still hanging over him at the Bureau, and Stryker always watching his every move, it had become impossible to stay on the job.

His former partner was convinced of his guilt in the bombing that had killed his family.

Stryker had never been able to back up his suspicions, but he’d never stopped trying. Eventually, work had become impossible.

Hell, he couldn’t even blame Stryker. He’d been in love with Wendy himself. But a drunken night between Romano and Wendy had led to an unplanned pregnancy and they’d decided to get married. If that hadn’t happened, she probably would have ended up married to Stryker.

And maybe she’d still be alive.

Though he never said it out loud, Stryker was a constant reminder of that fact. So Romano had chosen retirement. But that hadn’t worked out, either.

He’d entered stage three now, he supposed. He was living for vengeance. That was all he cared about. There was no room for sympathy or even lust.

So what was it about Lexi that had him feeling … desire? The longer he looked at her, the more he felt it, even after almost a year without a sign of life from his libido.

Made no sense whatsoever. But he could resist temptation.

If he could dodge bullets and battle terrorists, he could fight off a little coup attempt by his reborn sex drive.

He wasn’t going to be unfaithful to Wendy’s memory.

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to get involved with Lexi.

That would interfere with the job he had to do.

So he sat there arguing with his body until an hour before dawn.

That was when she muttered something in her sleep and rolled over, bending one long leg, causing the T-shirt to bunch up around her waist. And he saw the little white cotton panties she wore, and he wanted to go over there and slide them off her.

He was undeniably turned on and disgusted with himself for it.

Fresh air might help. He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and headed out the door, paced in the parking lot, stared up at the fading night sky.

But it didn’t give him any answers and did little to erase this sudden hunger for a woman he barely knew.

A vehicle pulled in, grabbing his attention. The black van moved slowly through the parking lot like a shark on the hunt.

He ducked into the shadows, pressing his back to wall and moving sideways until he could see the van again.

There had been two vans at Lexi’s log mansion.

He’d blown one to hell, but not the other.

This was not some weary traveler looking for a good parking spot. It was White, or more of his henchmen.

How the hell had they followed him here? Had they seen his car? Did they know what to look for?

Didn’t matter. He’d left two alive back there, two who could describe him and Lexi. He should’ve killed them both.

The van came to a stop out front, and someone got out and headed toward the motel office, probably to ask the clerk if anyone matching his or Lexi’s description had been here.

He quickly ducked back into their room, closed the door, and went to the bed where Lexi lay sleeping, her face illuminated only by the flickering orange glow of the damaged neon vacancy sign outside. He leaned over her, touched her shoulder and whispered. “Wake up.”

Her eyes opened, slow and sleepy. She stared up at him, and whispered, “But I don’t even know your real name.”

He swallowed hard, told himself not to dwell on the possible interpretations of that response. “We have to leave. They’re here.”

Her eyes rounded, and she lunged out of the bed almost knocking him over in the process. She quickly pulled on her jeans, stuffed her feet into her sneakers. “Where are they?”

“They’re in the motel office now. If we get out fast, they won’t hear us leave.”

“How did they find us?” She ran around the room, gathering up their things, cramming them into her purse, his duffle, whatever was close. He saw the safe deposit box key tumble from her bag to the floor, then watched her snatch it up quick and shove it into her back pocket.

“Damned if I know.” He scanned the room to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. As he checked the bathroom, he tried to figure it out, talking it through as he did. “I spotted the safe-deposit box receipt in your father’s room. Left it there like a damned rookie.”

He’d snatched up a few things, her watch and their motel-provided toothbrushes, his razor. “Once they knew where we were going and that we were in a hurry, all they had to do was take the most direct route, and start checking motels along the highway. Amateur hour. My mistake. I know better.”

Her brown eyes probed his, narrowing, searching.

It was as if she knew his words had some double meaning, as if she was trying, even now, to see the source of his consuming pain.

The way she looked at him made him shiver, and he was damned if he knew why.

He shoved everything he’d found into the duffel, slung it over his shoulder and took her arm.

He held his gun at the ready in his right hand and opened the door.

Lexi planted her feet when they got to the door.

“I can’t do this. I can’t go out there.” She whispered the words, but Romano pulled her through the door and outside, then quickly around the building to where he’d parked the car.

She moved on legs as stiff as boards, which she figured was just as well.

If her knees bent at all, they’d probably dissolve.

She tried to look around, tried to search the area for men with guns.

It seemed at first that they were everywhere, but it was only that the parking lot was alive as headlights passed on the highway, making the shadows come to life.

There could be twenty men in black lurking out here, and they’d be invisible.

From somewhere on the highway, music came faintly, then louder, then faded again.

Motors purred and sputtered and roared. She could hear the tinny voices and canned laughter of a TV sitcom coming from one of the rooms nearby, and there was a throaty gurgle of rushing water from beneath the grate just under her feet.

Nothing else. But that didn’t mean they were alone.