Never Let Go

  She raised her head, heedless of the big tears that slipped down her cheeks. His harsh gaze was on her. “I know you like being cruel to me,” she said brokenly. “And I understand why. But please, for just a little while, stop trying to make me hurt worse than I already do. It’s too much right now.”

  She stood, swayed a little, then went to the sink and splashed water on her face. Her whole body ached with fatigue. Dinah put her elbows on the sink’s edges and leaned gratefully on the support, her head bowed.

  To her horror, new tears insisted on finding their way to the surface. She bit her lower lip and dug both hands into her hair in a vain attempt to control the tremors that ran through her. She heard him rise and step close beside her.

  “Dinah.”

  “N-no. Don’t say anything else right now!”

  “Dee.”

  “No!”

  “Dammit, woman.”

  He grabbed her harshly by the shoulders, then turned her toward him. Dinah saw the torment in his face and put her hands against his chest defensively. He cursed and jerked her to him.

  Rucker slid one hand around her waist. The other cupped her head and pulled it to his shoulder. Amazed, Dinah stood stiffly within his embrace, her eyes wide. Then she groaned softly and sagged against him, unable to resist the warmth and strength she had craved for so many months.

  “Words aren’t very safe between you and me right now,” he told her gruffly. “So let’s just be quiet.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  They needed each other on an elemental level that sought solace and understanding through touch. Dinah put both arms around his back and held him tightly, loving the heat and hardness of his big body. She felt muscles contract under his soft plaid shirt as her hands stroked him from shoulder to hip.

  She wanted to tantalize his senses until he realized that they still shared the same life force; the same goals, the same dreams. She wanted to reeducate him, body and soul.

  Dinah slid her hands down his thighs and pulled his pelvis snuggly against her, finding the hard ridge she had expected. She heard his breathing rasp against her ear. Her knees turned weak as pleasure flared from every inch of contact.

  Suddenly he twisted her sideways, reached underneath her legs with one muscular arm, and lifted her off the floor. She looked into his eyes and saw the heavy-lidded hunger of a man who’d slept alone for many months. He hadn’t soothed his needs with another woman; she didn’t have to ask to know that such consolation would have been contrary to everything that was loving and loyal in his nature.

  She returned his hunger with equal measure. Dinah tilted her head up and caught his mouth desperately, making him groan with surprise. She slid her tongue into his damp heat, tasting him wantonly and teasing without restraint.

  He made a thick sound of torment and surrendered, his tongue gliding over hers and penetrating the responsive intimacy she offered. Dinah arched against him, her breasts so hot and full that the contact with his broad chest was nearly painful.

  “Just let me,” she murmured raggedly, nuzzling his mustache. “Just let me have a chance.”

  His chest rose and fell harshly. Rucker raked her with a dark look full of need and conflict. Silently he turned and carried her into the living room.

  The fire burned low there, barely keeping the dark night at bay beyond the room’s windows. Rucker sat down, still holding her, in an overstuffed chair near the crackling embers. Dinah studied the harsh shadows playing on his face and hoped that they were only the fire’s illusion. She put her arms around his neck and began to pull his head toward hers.

  “No.” He bit the word off curtly. Rucker angled his legs so that her rump settled between them. Dinah’s feet hung over the chair’s fat armrest. He withdrew his arm from under her and tugged her arms from around his neck. Rucker covered her hands with a grip that was almost fierce.

  “No more,” he ordered.

  Dinah looked up into his hooded eyes and realized sadly that the harshness had been real. “I won’t hurt you,” she whispered.

  “The hell you won’t.” His breathing was rough, his body taut with resistance. “This is one barrier I won’t let down. I’m doin’ my best not to let you rip me apart again.”

  Her body went slack as desire faded. Dinah wearily pulled her hands away. “Then what are we doing in the same chair?”

  “Playin’ by my rules, for once. If you want to sleep, then sleep. That’s all. I’ll listen in case Laurie needs us.”

  Dinah took several steadying breaths. Wasn’t it enough for the moment to be this close to him? And even his reluctant intimacy was a good sign. Slowly she rested her head against his shoulder. To her amazement, exhaustion overwhelmed her as if she’d pushed a button.

  Life would soon be good again. She was back with her husband, and his bitter words didn’t hurt too much because he curled his arm around her shoulders. He even let one bristly cheek lay against her forehead.

  “Love you,” she murmured, just before her breathing slowed and her hands relaxed into her lap. Her last second of awareness centered on the movement of Rucker’s lips as he formed a silent, secret response.

  Six

  Sam Chase Sr., a lanky, friendly faced redhead, arrived home at dawn and was thoroughly stunned to find his wife in bed with their new son at her breast. His work-scarred hands fumbled nervously as Rucker handed him the baby.

  After Sam Senior nearly dropped Sam Junior, Rucker took the infant back and offered some man-to-man instructions on “baby wrangling.”

  “Put one hand under his head and one hand under his butt,” Rucker explained solemnly. “And don’t get the two ends confused. That’s all there is to it.”

  Dinah cornered him in the kitchen a few minutes later. “I see that you’ve become an expert,” she noted, smiling.

  “Well, I rocked Sam Junior half the night. I earned my credentials.”

  Dinah studied Rucker’s pensive expression and distracted gaze. “What are you thinking?” she asked softly.

  He raised his hands in supplication and nodded vaguely toward the Chase’s bedroom. “Holding the baby. Made me think of Katie. I felt paternal. Protective. Strong.” He paused, frowning. “And impatient. Let’s hit the road.”

  She nodded, her eyes shining. “You’re a father now. Once you see Katie, you’ll understand the feeling even more.”

  His gaze hardened. “When will that be? When will we go to South America?”

  Dinah gave him a slow, incredulous stare. “Do you honestly expect to go back with me?”

  “Honesty doesn’t have much to do with our relationship right now.”

  “Rucker, no.” She reached out, gripped his shirt front, and shook her head firmly. “No. You never cease to astonish me. I’m leaving you here in the States. You’re not coming to Surador.”

  “How are you gonna stop me?”

  Dinah emphasized each word. “Do you want to put your life in danger?”

  “Tell Valdivia that I’m not meddlin’ in his work. I’m only interested in bringin’ my daughter home.”

  A little shaken, she asked miserably, “And your wife?”

  “You have a choice. Katie doesn’t.” He pivoted away from her and stared out the kitchen window. The golden light of sunrise washed over him, illuminating his grim face. “You say that you always planned to come back to me. When? The only reason you showed up on my doorstep two days ago was because you needed money.”

  “I planned to come home after this mission.”

  “What’s special about this one?”

  “It’s the end of a project. Valdivia won’t need me anymore.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “So you were gonna waltz back home and pick up where we left off … until you decided to desert me again.”

  “I won’t ever leave you again,” she said hoarsely. “I swear it.” She touched his back and found the muscles rigid with tension. “Rucker, you can trust me. You have to let me finish this job by myself.?
?? She smiled sadly. “It’s a package deal, partner. You get me and Katie. But on my terms. That’s the way it has to be.”

  His strained voice was barely audible. “Did it ever occur to you that I might not want you?”

  Dinah stepped back, clutching a counter edge for support. “Don’t say that! You don’t mean it!”

  “You’re overlookin’ a key problem. Your cover’s been blown. You’re a felon. You gonna come back to the States with our baby and spend the rest of your life hidin’?”

  The blood drained out of her face and her lips parted in wordless pain. Finally she managed to say, “I’m innocent. And I plan to prove it.” Dinah blinked rapidly, feeling stricken. “I never thought that you might not want me anymore.”

  He cursed softly and shut his eyes. His arms were braced rigidly on the kitchen sink. “You’ve built a life full of secrets. How the hell can you prove that you’re innocent?”

  “I can’t tell you that—”

  Rucker whirled toward her, his eyes fierce. “Exactly. Nothing you’ve done makes a damn bit of sense. I don’t care how you explain it. Everything we shared is gone. It might as well have happened to two different people. I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Maybe we can’t ever go back.”

  She gazed at him in growing despair as understanding stabbed through her. “All the suffering, all the uncertainty. All the bitterness you’ve felt toward me. My explanations may not matter. It’ll be hard for you to forget.”

  “How could what you’ve done ever be forgotten? Hell, how can I know what to think when you won’t tell me anything? All I know is that I am goin’ to South America with you. I am goin’ to get my daughter. There’s no point in discussin’ it.”

  Dinah gazed up into the icy determination that etched his features. Arguing would only jeopardize her mission and make him distrust her more. But she’d never let him follow her into Valdivia’s clutches.

  “There’s a small part of you that hates me,” she whispered. Dinah looked away so that she wouldn’t see that observation confirmed in his eyes. She watched her fingers turn white from gripping the counter edge.

  Rucker inhaled roughly. His problem was precisely the opposite. He couldn’t hate her, he wanted her back desperately, and the knowledge that he was a fool for feeling that way was almost more than he could stand. “Don’t manipulate me for sympathy. Don’t try to get inside me. What I feel about you is none of your business.”

  “That’s no answer. You’re deliberately being vague.”

  “It’s the best answer you’re gonna get. And don’t talk to me about being vague.”

  The blankness that came over her was oddly welcome after months of anxiety and sadness. Dinah gazed up at him again while apathy washed away all expression from her face. Only a dull inner recess of her mind registered the fact that concern filled his eyes as he scrutinized her.

  “You’ll love Katie even if you can’t love me anymore,” she told him in a flat tone. “And whatever happens to me, she’ll be free, and home, and safe. That’s all that matters.”

  She turned and left the room with her shoulders squared, as if everything she’d dreamed about hadn’t just begun to crumble around her.

  Minutes after they crossed the Kentucky state line, light snow began to fall.

  “Lovely spring weather,” Rucker noted. He flipped the windshield wipers on and glanced at Dinah. A fast-food container lay unopened in her lap. Her hands cupped the food box loosely, so still that they might have been carved from stone.

  “You need to eat,” he commented.

  “I’m not hungry. She placed the container next to him. “Here. The way you wolfed your lunch down, I know you must be starving. Take mine, too.”

  “You haven’t had anything but coffee all day.”

  “We don’t have much farther to go. A couple of hours. Maybe I’ll eat then.”

  “You’re runnin’ on empty and you’re gonna be sick.” Rucker let anger mask his growing alarm over her lifeless attitude. His voice rose. “How the hell are you gonna do what you need to do if you don’t take care of yourself?”

  “I have reserves of strength that I never imagined,” she replied calmly. “The past months have taught me that.”

  He guided the truck to the grassy roadside and jerked it into park. Rucker removed the hamburger from its container and thrust it toward her. “We’re not movin’ another inch until you eat.”

  She surveyed him nonchalantly and shrugged. “You win.”

  He watched her dutifully bite into the sandwich. Rubbing his temples, he wearily leaned back in the seat. After a moment he turned the radio on. Dionne Warwick’s voice purred the poignant, lost-love lyrics of “A House Is Not a Home.”

  Rucker suppressed a grimace and snapped the radio dial to another station. Dinah made a choking sound. He looked over to find her setting the half-eaten hamburger on her knee. The unspoken pain was between them. The song had hurt.

  “That’s all I can take,” she said in a small voice.

  “Finish it.”

  Her unfathomable expression never changed. Moving with slow grace, as if she were doing nothing out of the ordinary, she opened the truck door and tossed the hamburger out. She shut the door, clasped her hands in her lap, and faced forward primly.

  “You’re messin’ with the wrong man,” Rucker said in a soft, lethal tone.

  “I don’t want anymore to eat.”

  He put the truck keys in his pocket, got out, walked casually around to her side of the vehicle, and picked the hamburger up. Carefully he brushed little bits of twig and grass from it. Then he wrenched her door open and held the hamburger to her lips.

  “Eat it,” he ordered.

  Color rose in her face. “Absolutely not.” He sank one hand into her thick brunette hair and held her head still. Astonished, she grabbed at his wrists and tried to push his hands away. “Why do you care if I eat or not! No! Rucker …”

  Her next words were muffled by the sandwich he deftly shoved between her teeth. She struggled, her body writhing with anger, and inadvertently took a large bite.

  He pressed the heel of his hand under her chin and clamped her mouth shut, then smiled coldly at her throaty growl of dismay. “You’ve got no choice but to chew and swallow. This is how a vet gets medicine into an ornery cat.”

  She arched a brow at his tactic, her eyes flaring with humiliation, but she chewed. Eventually, she swallowed. He released her chin and dabbed the remaining bite of hamburger against her mouth. “Over the lips and past the gums, look out belly, here it comes,” he chanted sardonically. His hand tightened in her hair, tilting her head back a little more.

  Dinah sighed in resignation and opened her mouth. At exactly the right moment, when his blunt fingertips were brushing her lower lip, she lunged forward and caught them between her teeth.

  “Dammit, Dee!” He jerked his hand away and looked at the trails her teeth had left in the pads of his fingers. His disgruntled gaze rose slowly to her satisfied one. She chewed and smiled.

  Rucker couldn’t help feeling proud of her. “At least you’re not actin’ like a wilted flower anymore. It’s good to see the old fire.”

  “I’m not causing you any trouble. Don’t complain.”

  “No trouble?” he repeated drolly. “Lady, you wrote the book on causing me trouble.”

  “I’ll be out of your life soon, if that’s what you want.”

  Because she’d provoked him, and because he was tormented by conflicting needs to comfort and punish her, he retorted, “That’s the best promise I’ve heard all day.”

  He shut her door and strode back to his side of the truck. When he was seated behind the wheel, he found her gazing out the window again, locked in her silent, subdued world.

  Rucker slammed on the brakes and instinctively threw his arm across Dinah’s body to protect her from the sudden momentum. She latched both hands onto his forearm. They both stared wordlessly at the roadblock in the distance.

  Two Kentucky s
tate patrol cars were angled across the narrow two-lane road, leaving only enough space for a vehicle to pass between them. Two officers stood by the window of a station wagon, apparently checking the driver’s credentials.

  “Could just be routine,” Rucker noted grimly.

  “Looking for expired driver’s licenses and proof of insurance,” she agreed, her breath short. “Or they could be looking for us. Damn. We’re only an hour away.”

  Rucker put the truck in reverse and guided it in a smooth about-face. “We’ll try to find a detour.”

  He gunned the engine and sent the old truck hurtling back the way they’d come. Dinah twisted in the seat and watched behind them, her heart pounding. “We were so close,” she said in a low, frustrated tone.

  “Then you ought to tell me where we’re headed.”

  She hesitated, then offered quietly, “Near Patula.”

  “There’s nothin’ near Patula but national forest land.”

  “And a few homes that were allowed to remain after the government bought the land.”

  His brow creased with thought. “Isn’t that where Dr. Scarborough had a second home?”

  Dinah silently cursed her decision to give him information. “Can’t you drive any faster?”

  A stunned expression came over his face. “Are we goin’ to see Anna Scarborough?”

  Dinah grimaced in self rebuke as she kept her vigil at the truck’s back window. She had said too much, too soon. “Just drive.”

  “What have you and that eccentric old lady got to do with each other?”

  “Who said we’re going to see Anna Scarborough?” she demanded anxiously, her voice rising. Dinah thought she heard the faint wail of a siren. Her palms sweating, she grasped the back of the seat and strained her eyes watching a bend in the road behind them. “That ‘eccentric old lady’ is a reknowned biologist,” she reminded Rucker.

  “And that’s who we’re goin’ to see? Why?”

  “I never said …”

  Her voice trailed off as they both heard the siren. It was closing on them quickly. Dinah turned toward Rucker and placed trembling hands on his shoulder. “We have to get off this road. Anywhere.”