Secrets and Desire: Best-Kept Lies / Miss Pruitt's Private Life / Secrets, Lies...and Passion

She’d considered the question over and over. It had run through her mind in an endless loop from the moment her memory had started working again when she’d awoken from her coma. “I…I don’t know. No one has any reason to hate me enough to kill me.”

“Murderers aren’t always reasonable people,” he pointed out.

“I can’t name anyone.”

“How about the baby’s father? Maybe he found out you were pregnant, is ticked that you didn’t tell him and, not wanting to be named as the father, decided to get rid of you both.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“No?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t certain about many things, but she doubted Joshua’s father would care that he’d fathered a child, certainly wouldn’t go through the steps to get rid of either of them. She felt a weight on her heart but ignored it as Striker, leaning back in the booth, pushed his near-empty basket aside. “If I’m going to help you, then I need to know everything that’s going on. So who is he, Randi? Who’s Joshua’s daddy?”

She didn’t realize she’d been shredding her napkin in her lap, but looked down and noticed all the pieces of red paper. She supposed she couldn’t take her secret with her to the grave, but letting the world know the truth made her feel more vulnerable, that she was somehow breaching a special trust she had with her son.

“My money’s on Donahue,” he said abruptly.

She froze.

He winked though his expression was hard. “I figure you’d go for the sexy-cowboy type.”

“You don’t know what my type is.”

“Don’t I?”

“Unfair, Striker, last night was…was…”

“What about it?”

“It was a mistake. We both know it. So, let’s just forget it. As I said, you don’t have any idea what ‘my type’ is.”

One side of his mouth lifted in an irritating, sexy-as-hell smile. Green eyes held hers fast, and a wave, warm as a desert in August, climbed up her neck. “I’m workin’ on it.”

Her heart clenched. Don’t do this, Randi. Don’t let him get to you. He’s no better than…than… Her throat tightened when she considered what a fool she’d been. For a man who’d seduced her. Used her. Cared less for her than he did for his dog. Silly, silly woman.

“Okay, Striker,” she said, forcing the words through her lips, words she’d vowed only hours ago never to utter. “I’ll tell you the truth,” she said, hating the sense of relief it brought to be able to confide in someone. “But this is between you and me. Got it? I’ll tell you and you alone. When the time comes I’ll tell Joshua’s father and my brothers. But only when I say.”

“Fair enough,” he drawled, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest, all interest in his remaining French fries forgotten.

Randi took in a deep breath and prayed she wasn’t making one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She stared Striker straight in the eye and admitted to him something she rarely acknowledged herself. “You’re right. Okay? Joshua’s father, and I use the term so loosely it’s no longer coiled, is Sam Donahue.” Her tongue nearly tripped over Sam’s name. She didn’t like saying it out loud, didn’t like admitting that she, like too many others before her, had been swept off her feet by the charming, roguish cowboy. It was embarrassing and, had it not been for her precious son, a mistake she would have rued until her dying day. Joshua, of course, changed all that.

Striker didn’t say a word. Nor had his lips curled in silent denunciation. And he didn’t so much as lift an eyebrow in mockery. No. He played it straight, just observing her, watching her every reaction.

“So now you know,” she said, standing. “I hope it helps, but I don’t think it means anything. Thanks for dinner.” She walked out of the bar and up the steps to the wet streets. The rain had turned to drizzle again, misting around the street lamps, and the air was heavy, laced with the brine from Puget Sound. Randi felt like running. As fast and far as she could. To get away from the claustrophobic feeling, the fear that compressed her chest, the very fear she’d tried to flee when she’d left Montana.

But it was with her wherever she went, she thought, her boots slapping along the rain-slick sidewalk as she hurried to her car. The city was far from deserted, traffic rushed through the narrow old streets and pedestrians bustled along the sidewalks. She carried no umbrella, didn’t bother with her hood, let the dampness collect on her cheeks and flatten her hair. Not that she cared. Damn it, why had she told Striker about Sam Donahue? Her relationship with Sam hadn’t really been a love affair, more of a fling, though at one time she’d been foolish enough to think she might be falling in love with the bastard. The favor hadn’t been returned and she’d realized her mistake. But not before the pregnancy test had turned out positive.

She hadn’t bothered to tell Donahue because she knew he wouldn’t care. He was a selfish man by nature, a rambler who followed the rodeo circuit and didn’t have time for the two ex-wives and children he’d already sired. Randi wasn’t about to try to saddle him with the responsibility of another baby. She figured Joshua was better off with one strong parent than two who fought, living with the ghost of a father whom he would grow up not really knowing.

She knew her son would ask questions and she intended to answer them all honestly. When the time came. But not now…not when her baby was pure innocence.

“Randi!” Striker was at her side, his bare head as wet as her own, his expression hard.

“What? More questions?” she asked, unable to hide the sarcasm in her voice. “Well, sorry, but I’m fresh out of shocking little details about my life.”

“I didn’t come all the way to Seattle to embarrass you,” he said as they rounded a final corner to the parking lot.

“That’s how it seems.”

“No, it doesn’t. You know better.”

She’d reached her Jeep and with a punch of the button on her remote, unlocked it once more. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re not finished? That you won’t be satisfied until you’ve stripped away every little piece of privacy I have.”

“I just want to help.”

He seemed sincere, but she’d been fooled before. By the master, Sam Donahue. Kurt Striker, damn him, was of the same ilk. Another cowboy. Another rogue. Another sexy man with a shadowy past. Another man she’d started to fall for. The kind to avoid. “Help?”

“That’s right.” His eyes shifted to her lips and she nervously licked them, tasting rainwater as it drizzled down her face. Her heart thudded. She knew in that second that he was going to kiss her. He was fighting it; she saw the battle in his eyes, but in the end raw emotion won out and his lips crashed down on hers so intensely she drew in a swift breath and it was followed quickly by his tongue. Slick. Sleek. Searching. The tip touched her teeth, forcing them apart as he grabbed her. Leather creaked, the sky parted, rain poured and Randi’s foolish, foolish heart opened.

She kissed the rogue back, slamming her mind against thoughts that she was making the worst mistake of her life, that she was crossing a bridge that was burning behind her, that her life, from that moment on, would be changed forever.

But there, in the middle of the bustling city, with raindrops falling on them both, she didn’t care.

Seven

S top this! Stop it now! Don’t you remember last night?

Blinking against the rain, fighting the urge to lean against him, Randi pulled away from Kurt. “This is definitely not a good idea,” she said. “It wasn’t last night and it isn’t now.”

His mouth twisted. “I’m not sure about that.”

“I am.” It was a lie. Right now she wasn’t certain of anything. She reached behind her and fumbled with the door handle. “Let’s just give it a rest, okay?”

He didn’t argue, nor did he stop her as she slid into the Jeep and, with shaking fingers, found her keys and managed to start the ignition. Lunacy. That’s what it was. Sheer, unadulterated, pain-in-the-backside lunacy! She couldn’t start kissing the likes of Kurt Striker again.

Dear God, what had she been thinking?

You weren’t thinking. That’s the problem!

She flipped on the radio, heard the first notes of a sappy love song and immediately punched the button to find talk radio, only to hear a popular program where a radio psychologist was giving out advice to someone who was mixed up with the wrong kind of man, the same kind of advice she handed out through her column in the Clarion, the very advice she should listen to herself.

First she’d made the mistake of getting involved with Sam Donahue and now she was falling for Kurt Striker…No! She pounded a fist on the steering wheel as she braked for a turnoff.

Cutting through traffic, she made a call on her cell phone to Sharon, was assured that Joshua was safe, then stopped at a local market for a few groceries.

Fifteen minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of her condo. Now away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the dark of the night seemed more threatening. The parking lot was dark and the security lamps were glowing, throwing pools of light onto the wet ground and a few parked cars. The parking area was deserted, none of her neighbors were walking dogs or taking out trash. Warm light glowed from only a few windows, the rest of the units were dark.

So what? This is why you chose this place. It was quiet, only a few units overlooking the lake.

For the first time since moving here, Randi looked at her darkened apartment and felt a moment’s hesitation, a hint of fear. She glanced over her shoulder, through the back windows of the Jeep, wondering if someone was watching her, someone lurking in a bank of fir trees and rhododendron that ringed the parking lot, giving it privacy. She had the uneasy sensation that hidden eyes were watching her through a veil of wet needles and leaves.

“Get a grip,” she muttered, hoisting the bag and holding tight to her key ring. As if it was some kind of protection. What a laugh!

No one was hiding. No one was watching her. And yet she wished she hadn’t been so quick to put some distance between herself and Striker. Maybe she did need a bodyguard, someone she could trust.

Someone you can’t keep your hands off of?

Someone you’ve made love to?

Someone that even now, even though you know better, you’d love to take to bed? In her mind’s eye she saw the image of Kurt Striker, all taut skin and muscle as he held her in front of the dying fire.

Oh, for the love of St. Peter! Hauling her laptop, the groceries, her briefcase and her rebellious libido with her, she made her way to the porch, managed to unlock the door and snap on the interior lights. She almost wished Kurt was inside waiting for her again. But that was crazy. Nuts! She couldn’t trust herself around that man.

“You’re an idiot,” she muttered, seeing her reflection in the mirror mounted by the coatrack in the front hall. Her hair was damp and curly with the rain, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. “This is just what got you into trouble in the first place.” She dropped her computer and bag near her desk, shook herself out of her coat and heard a pickup roaring into the lot. Her silly heart leaped, but a quick glance through the kitchen window confirmed that Striker had returned. He was already out of the truck and headed toward the condo.

She met him at the front door.

“You don’t seem to take a hint, do you?” she teased.

“Careful, woman, I’m not in the mood to have my chain yanked,” he warned. “Traffic was a bitch.”

He was inside in a second and bolted the door behind him. “I don’t like it when you try to lose me.”

“And I don’t like being manhandled.” She started unpacking groceries, stuffing a carton of milk into the near-empty refrigerator.

“I kissed you.”

“On the street, when I obviously didn’t want you to.”

One of his eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “You didn’t want it?” He snorted. “I’d love to see what you were like when you did.”

“That was last night,” she reminded him, then mentally kicked herself. Lifting a hand, she stopped any argument he might have. “Let’s not talk about last night.”

He kicked out a bar stool and plopped himself at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. “Okay, but there is something we need to discuss.”

She braced herself. “Which is?”

“Sam Donahue.”

“Another off-limits subject.” She pulled a loaf of bread from the wet sack.

“I don’t think so. We’ve wasted enough time as it is and I’m getting sick of you not being straight with me.”

“I should never have told you.”

He shot her a condemning look. “I’d already guessed, remember?” He took a deep breath and ran stiff fingers through his hair. “You got any wood for that?” he asked, hitching his chin toward the fireplace.

“A little. In a closet on the back deck.”

“Get me a beer, I’ll make a fire and then, whether you like it or not, we’re going to discuss your ex-lover.”

“Gee,” she mocked, “and who said single women don’t have any fun? You know, Striker, you’ve got a helluva nerve to barge in here and start barking orders. Just because…because of what happened last night, you don’t have the right to start bossing me around in my own home.”

“You’re right,” he said without a trace of regret carved into his features. “Would you please get me a beer and I’ll get the firewood.”

“I might be out of beer. I didn’t pick any up at the store.”

“There’s one left. In the door of the fridge. I checked earlier.” The empty bottle on the coffee table stood as testament to that very fact.

“When you practiced breaking and entering,” she muttered as he kicked back the stool and made his way to the deck. She opened the refrigerator again and saw the single long-neck in the door. The guy was observant. But still a bully who had barged unwelcome into her life. A sexy bully at that. Her worst nightmare.

She yanked out the last beer, twisted off the top and, as he carried in a couple of chunks of oak to the fire, took a long swallow. The least he could do was share, she decided, watching as he bent on the tiled hearth, his jacket and shirt riding up over his belt and jeans, offering her the view of a slice of his taut, muscular back. Her throat was suddenly dry as dust and she took another pull from the long-neck. What the hell was she going to do with him? She’d already bared her soul and her body, then, after insisting that she wasn’t interested in him, kissed him on the street as if she never wanted to stop, and now… She slid a glance toward the cracked door of her bedroom and in her mind she saw them together, wrapped in the sheets, sweaty bodies tangled and heaving as he kissed her breasts. Her heart pounded as he pulled at her nipple, his hands sliding down to sculpt her waist as he mounted her, gently nudging her knees apart, readying himself above her, his erection stiff, his green gaze fiery. Then, eyes locked, he entered her in one long, hard thrust—

He cleared his throat and she was brought back to the living area of her condo where he was still tending to the fire. Turning, she blushed as she realized he’d said something to her. For the life of her she couldn’t remember a word. “Wh-what?”

“I asked if you had a match.” His gaze was on her face, then traveled down the short corridor to the bedroom. Amusement caused an eyebrow to arch and she wanted to die. No doubt he could read her embarrassing thoughts.

“Oh, yeah…” While she’d been fantasizing, he’d crumpled old newspaper and stacked the firewood, even splintering off some pieces of kindling.

She took another swallow, handed him the bottle and hurried into the kitchen where she rummaged through a drawer. Don’t go there. You’re not going to tumble into bed with him. Not again. You’re not even going to kiss him again. You’re not going to do anything stupid with him. No more. She found a pack of matches and tossed them over the counter to him, all the while trying to quell the hammering of her heart. Time to go on the offensive.

“Okay, Striker, so now I’ve told you my darkest secret. What’s yours?”

“None of your business.”

“Wait a minute. That’s not fair.”

“You’re right, it’s not.” He struck a match and the smell of sulfur singed the air as he touched the tiny flame to the dry paper and the fire crackled to life. “But then not much is.”

“You said I could ask you anything when we were in the pub.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Just like that?” she asked incredulously as she snapped her fingers.

“Uh-huh.” He took a long pull from the bottle.

“No way. I think I deserve to know who the hell you are.”

Rocking back on his heels as the fire caught, he looked up at her standing on the other side of the counter. “I’m an ex-cop turned P.I.”

“I already figured that much. But what about your personal life?”

“It’s private.”

“You’re single, right? There’s no Mrs. Striker.”

He hesitated enough to cause her heart to miss a beat. Oh, God, not again, she thought as she leaned against the counter for support. He’d kissed her. Touched her. Made love to her.

“Not anymore. I was married but it ended a few years back.”

“Why?”

His jaw tightened. “Haven’t you read the statistics?”

“I’m talking about the reason behind the statistics, at least in your case.”

A shadow passed behind his eyes and he said, “It just didn’t work out. I was a cop. Probably paid more attention to the job than my wife.”

“And you didn’t have any kids?”

Again the hesitation. Again the shadow. His lips tightened at the corners as he stood and dusted his hands. “I don’t have any children,” he said slowly, “and I never hear from my ex. That about covers it all, doesn’t it?” There was just a spark of challenge in his eyes, daring her to argue with him. A dozen questions bubbled up in her throat, but she held them back. For now. There were other ways to get information about him. She was a reporter, for God’s sake. She had the means to find out just about anything that had happened to him. Newsworthy articles would be posted on the Internet, personal stuff through other sources.

With Sam Donahue she’d been trusting and it had backfired in her face, but this time…Oh, God, why was she even thinking like this? There was no this time! There was no Kurt Striker in her life except as an irritating bodyguard her brothers had hired. That was it. He was here because he was hired to be here; she was a job to him. Nothing more.

“Look, I’ve got to get some work done,” she said, motioning to her laptop. “I’ve been gone for months and if I don’t answer some e-mail and put together a new column or two, I’m going to be in big trouble. My boss and I are already not real tight. So, if you don’t mind…well, even if you do, I’m going to start plowing through what’s been piling up. I understand that you think you’ve got to be with me 24/7, but it’s not necessary. No one’s going to take a potshot at me here.”

“Why would you think that?” Striker drained the rest of his beer.

“Because there are too many people around, there’s a security guard for the condos always on the premises, and most importantly, Joshua is safe with Sharon.”

The expression on his face told her he was of another mind. And wasn’t she, really? Hadn’t she, just minutes ago in the parking lot, sensed that someone had been watching her? She rounded the counter as he straightened and crossed the room.

“Look, I do know that I’m in some kind of danger,” she said. “Obviously I know it or I wouldn’t have taken the time to hide the baby. I came back here to try to figure this out, to take the heat off my brothers, to get on with my life and let them get on with theirs. And yeah, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous, that I wasn’t starting to jump at shadows, but I need to sort through some things, get a handle on what’s happening.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’m thinking that maybe if we work together, we can make some sense of what’s going on.” He was close to her, near enough that she could smell the wet leather of his jacket, see the striations of color in his green eyes, feel the heat of his body.

She couldn’t even make sense of the moment. “That might be impossible. I’ve been thinking about what happened from every angle and I come up with the same conclusion. I don’t have any real enemies that I know of. At least not anyone who would want to hurt me and my family. It doesn’t make any sense.” To put some distance between her body and his, she walked to the couch and flung herself onto the cushions. Who? What? Why? The questions that had haunted her nights and caused her to lose sleep were still unanswered as they rolled around in her brain.

“So what does make sense?” he demanded. “Someone followed you from Seattle and on your way to Grand Hope, Montana, forced you off the road. Why?”

“I told you, I don’t know. Believe me, I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Think harder.” He frowned and rammed stiff fingers through hair that was still damp. “If it doesn’t have to do with the baby, then what about your job? Did you give someone bad advice and really tick someone off?”

She shook her head. “I thought about that, too. When I was back in Montana, I got online and searched through the columns for the two months prior to the accident and I couldn’t find anything that would infuriate a person.”

His head snapped up. “So you are worried?”

“Of course I’m worried. Who wouldn’t be? But there was nothing in any of the advice I gave that would cause someone to snap.”

“You think. There are always nutcases.” He set his empty bottle on the counter.

That much was true, she thought wearily. “But none who have e-mailed me, or called me, or contacted me in any way. I double-checked every communication I received.” He nodded and she realized that he’d probably been privy to that information as well.

“Well, there’s got to be a reason. We’re just missing it.” He was thinking hard; she could tell by the way he rubbed his chin. “You write magazine articles under a pseudonym.”

“Nothing controversial.”

His eyes narrowed. “What about the book you were working on?”

She hesitated. The manuscript she was writing wasn’t finished and she’d taken great pains to keep it secret while she investigated a payola scam on the rodeo circuit. It was while researching the book that she’d met Sam Donahue, a friend, he’d claimed, of her brothers’. As it turned out he hadn’t been as much a friend as an acquaintance and somehow she’d ended up falling for him, knowing him to be a rogue, realizing that part of his charm was the hint of danger around him, and yet she’d tumbled into bed with him anyway. And ended up pregnant.

Which had been a blessing in disguise, of course. Without her ill-fated affair with Sam, she never would have had Joshua, and that little guy was the light of her life.

“What’s in the book that’s so all-fired important?”

Sighing, she walked to the couch and dropped into the soft cushions. “You know what’s in it for the most part.”

“A book on cowboys.”

“Well, a little more than that.” Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. “It’s about all aspects of rodeos, the good, the bad, the ugly. Especially the ugly. Along with all the rah-rah for a great American West tradition, there’s also the dark side to it all, the seamy underbelly. As I was getting information, I learned about the drugs, animal abuse, cheating, payola, you name it.”

“And let me guess, most of the information came from good old Sam Donahue.”

“Some of it,” she admitted, opening an eye and catching Kurt scowling, as if the mere mention of Donahue’s name made Striker see red. “I was going to name names in my book and, I suppose, I could have made a few people nervous. But the thing of it was, no one really knew what I was doing.”