Chapter Four

“Mommy, you didn’t tuck me in, the way you always do,” Lexi said behind her.

Jenna jumped, clamping a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. She fought back the tears of fear and frustration that burned her eyes as she turned to face her daughter, and tried to smile.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Lexi asked, her lower lip protruding as she studied her face.

“Nothing. You just startled me, that’s all.”

Lexi looked as if she might cry.

“Everything’s fine, sweetie,” Jenna said, leading her back to the other room.

It was so late all she wanted to do was go to bed, but she was determined to try to keep to their usual routine for Lexi’s sake.

But she knew she had to get the money back to Lorenzo somehow, and quickly. Maybe if she gave it back…

She shook her head at even the thought that it would appease her ex-husband. Nothing would placate him but revenge. Still, she had to try. For Lexi’s sake.

The question was how to get it to him. She couldn’t just box it up and send it by UPS.

Lexi scrambled up onto the bed and began to jump up and down. “Three little monkeys jumping on the bed—” She broke off in a fit of giggles. The words were from their favorite book.

“No jumping on the bed! I don’t want you falling off and busting your head,” Jenna said, playing along.

Lexi plopped down, still giggling. “I like it here. I want to live here.”

No chance of that, even if Jenna had shared her daughter’s enthusiasm for the place. They had to keep moving. As much as Jenna hated it, they would have to leave the country. Even with the safeguards she’d taken, she feared Lorenzo would find them, though, because in her heart she believed she would never be free of him.

Unless she was dead.

Or he was.

“I want to live here with you and Clarice and Fred and—” Lexi’s lower lip came out and tears filled her eyes “—a new daddy who’s nice.”

Jenna felt her heart break for her daughter. She’d stayed with Lorenzo as long as she had only because she’d wanted Lexi to have a father. She realized now that she’d been hoping that maybe Lexi’s love could change her father. Jenna had been such a fool.

“You have sweet dreams, okay?”

Lexi nodded.

Jenna tucked her daughter into bed and kissed her warm forehead, brushing back a lock of her hair. Lexi had her coloring, the light skin, the dark brown eyes and hair, although Lexi’s hair was darker than Jenna’s, more like her father’s, thick and straight.

Lexi had taken after Jenna in personality as well, and fortunately didn’t have any of Lorenzo’s traits, including his need for perfection or his bad disposition. Jenna was thankful for that.

“Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” Jenna murmured, after Lexi had said her prayers.

The little girl laughed. “There aren’t any bedbugs.”

“No,” Jenna agreed. Not in this hotel. She was feeling better about staying here. Even Fred had come out from under the bed.

The suite, she had to admit, was beautiful, from the rich woods to the soft carpet and elegant furnishings.

Lexi snuggled down in bed, with Clarice tucked on one side and Fred on the other.

Jenna padded to the door and looked back at her daughter. She could hear Lexi carrying on a one-sided, whispered conversation with the rag doll. Her daughter had such an active imagination. She could entertain herself for hours. Lorenzo used to say it wasn’t normal. That they should have another child for Lexi to play with. He’d tricked Jenna the first time. But she’d been too smart for him after that.

Studying her daughter from the doorway, she was just thankful that Lexi hadn’t seemed to suffer, not through the divorce or her abduction by either parent. Since she’d never known “normal,” Lexi didn’t seem to realize that her parents had divorced. Or that she and her mother were running for their lives.

To the comforting sound of Lexi’s sweet voice, Jenna checked the entire suite to make sure there was no one hiding there. Relieved, and finally starting to relax, she went into her bedroom and opened her suitcase.

She hadn’t packed much, just a few clothes for herself, and most of Lexi’s. She’d had to move quickly once she’d gotten the call from the private investigator, telling her that he believed her ex-husband had taken Lexi back to the home Jenna had shared with him.

“Let the police handle getting your daughter back,” the private investigator had advised.

“I’ve already tried that route.” The man obviously didn’t know Lorenzo Dante. “This is something I have to do myself.”

Stripping off the black clothing now, she tossed it aside and put on the complimentary thick white, terry-cloth guest robe hanging in the closet. She pulled it around her, snuggling into the warmth, trying to chase away the chill that ran bone deep, as she looked at the duffel bag full of money.

Hurriedly, she zipped it closed and stuffed it into the back of the closet. Tomorrow she would figure out a way to get it to Lorenzo.

In the meantime, she and Lexi were safe, she thought, repeating it like a mantra. At least for tonight.

She couldn’t wait to soak in the huge old-fashioned tub. Maybe tonight, for the first time in a long time, she would be able to sleep.

Or maybe not, she mused, as she sensed that same strange charge in the air that she had earlier. It breezed past her, a brush of icy breath against her bare skin, leaving her with that sense of a presence in the room with her.

She checked the whole suite once again, unable to stop herself. There was no one there, just as there hadn’t been earlier.

Back in her bathroom, she began to fill the enormous tub with hot steamy water and almond-scented bubble bath, compliments of Fernhaven.

She shied away from thinking about Lorenzo. Or the money in the duffel bag in the back of her closet. To her surprise, her thoughts veered to the man in the old black-and-white photograph from the hotel’s opening night. Funny how she thought she could smell the smoke from his cheroot….

With a shudder she realized that the man in the old photograph resembled the one she’d thought she’d seen at the window of the third-floor hotel room tonight.

But that wasn’t possible. There was no one else in the hotel, Elmer had said.

Jenna frowned. Lexi was the one with the overactive imagination, not her.

Exhaustion, she decided. What else could it be?

A low hissing sound directly behind her made her whirl around. Fred was crouched in the doorway of the bathroom, his wide-eyed gaze boring into the corner of the window seat across from her.

Jenna stared at the spot where Fred’s eyes were transfixed. There was no one there, of course.

She snatched up the cat.

“Fred, I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said as she carried him back to Lexi’s room. He protested as she started to close the door so he couldn’t get out. “I’m not going to have you waking me up all night with that foolishness,” she whispered.

He just stared at her with those big eyes, then looked past her, jumping as if someone frightening had just come up behind her.

She swung around, knowing even as she did that no one would be there. Then she glared down at Fred, who had stopped hissing, but seemed to be watching the doorway, as if whoever had been there had left.

“Honestly, Fred, you’re really starting to annoy me,” she whispered, scratching his ears. He began to purr, pushing against her fingers, golden eyes closed in contentment. “Oh, how quickly you change your tune, you old faker.”

She moved to the bed to reassure herself that Lexi was sleeping soundly. The child’s face was angelic in sleep. She had Clarice tucked in the crook of her arm. Jenna leaned down, needing to touch her daughter, to assure herself that she was real, that she was here, that she was safe.

Jenna pressed a soft kiss on her baby girl’s cheek, then remembered the water running in the tub in her bathroom. Closing the bedroom door, she rushed back and hurriedly turned off the faucet before the tub overflowed. Then, unable not to, she looked at the spot Fred had freaked over. Nothing but an empty, sparkling tile bench.

That’s what she hated about cats. They jumped at nothing and generally spooked her. Darn that cat. She couldn’t help herself, but now she was scared again. She rubbed the back of her neck, unable to throw off the memory of that cold draft, and Fred’s odd behavior.

But it wasn’t just the cold. Or the cat. It was the feeling of being watched.

She stared down at the tubful of steamy water and glistening bubbles, smelled the almond-scented bubble bath and yearned to sink into it.

“You aren’t going to keep me from this bath,” she said to the empty room, then directed a challenging glare at the tile bench.

Still, she disrobed hurriedly, stepping in and sliding down into the hot water until all but her head was under the bubbles. Her gaze went to the corner of the window seat again as she tried to assure herself that she was alone in the bathroom, that no one was sitting in the corner, watching her.

HARRY BALLANTINE SAT ON the tile bench, idly watching the woman through the steam.

The cat had sensed him. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, any more than he was sure why he was here, in this room, with this woman.

The cat had spooked her. But she was no more aware of him than before, he thought with a disappointment he should have gotten over years ago.

She didn’t know he was here. No one did.

Except maybe the cat. But who could tell with cats? They reacted to all kinds of things that weren’t there.

Harry studied the woman.

He’d always been good at sizing up people. Had to be in his former line of work. He had been able to tell a lot by the way they dressed, their body language, their actions, the way they talked.

But his skills were rusty from lack of use.

She glanced toward him again, her big brown eyes dark and a little afraid.

What is your story?

Earlier, he’d watched her search the suite three times. Who did she think she was going to find here? Harry couldn’t help but wonder what monsters she feared were hiding in the closet, waiting for her to turn out the light.

She was running from something. Someone. He’d bet everything he had on that. If he had anything to bet.

She was humming softly to herself now. Probably her version of whistling in the dark, since it was a child’s song she was humming.

He’d seen the way she was with her daughter, love shining in her eyes whenever she looked at the child. He’d felt something like loss as he’d watched her. He couldn’t remember his mother ever looking at him like that.

Not that she’d been mean to him. She hadn’t. She’d just been too busy cooking, cleaning and taking care of nine kids, along with working in the fields with his father.

Jenna moved on to Broadway show tunes. He smiled, watching her hum away, her breath making the soap bubbles glide across the water’s surface like tiny white sailboats.

He could see she was beginning to relax. Steam rose off the water, making her dark hair curl around her face. She brushed it back from her cheek.

She was pretty with her hair wet, her face bathed in steam. Her eyes were a different brown. He tried to think of the color as she blew out a breath and sent more bubbles scooting across the water.

He wondered what kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into. And why he felt so strongly drawn to her.

Harry slid off the seat and moved to the side of the tub. Steam rose from the hot water. She looked soft and lush in all that warmth, her head tilted back against the white porcelain, eyes closed, her dark hair wet and slick, falling like a waterfall down the side of the tub.

He couldn’t help himself. She looked so young, so appealing, so vulnerable. Her skin was fair, dotted with a faint sprinkling of golden freckles across her cheekbones. He brushed his fingers over her warm, wet cheek, trailing them like falling stars. He’d forgotten what warm skin felt like.

Her whole body went rigid, her brown eyes widening.

He touched a finger to her full lips to see if they were as soft as they looked.

She jerked up into a sitting position, her breasts bobbing above the bubbles, full and round, the peaks dark and dripping wet.

She had felt his touch!

He quickly stepped back as she looked in his direction, even though he knew she couldn’t see him.

Her pulse throbbed in her slim throat. Her eyes were wide and dark, reminding him of a thunderstorm. She pressed a hand to her collarbone. He could see her listening like an animal, alert, prepared to fight. Or run.

She bit down on her lower lip. Her eyes filled with tears, and after a moment, her fingers came out of the bubbles to cover the spot where he had touched her lips. Tears threatened to spill over just before she ducked under the water and bubbles.

She had felt him! How was that possible?

He watched her dark hair float on the surface as he waited for her to come up for air.

Her head burst up out of the water and she gasped for breath, flipping her mane of wet hair back in a wave of warm scented water that splashed onto the floor.

Her eyes were closed, the lashes dark on her pale skin, as she wiped soap bubbles from her face.

In all these years, he’d never wanted to have substance and warmth—all the things that had once made him human—more than he did at that moment.

He stepped back, surprised not only by the strength of that long-suppressed emotion, but by something else that had been foreign in him: desire.

He watched her grope for the towel hanging on the rod within inches of her fingers. Without thinking, he pulled it down so it fell into her hands.

Her whole body went rigid again. Holding the towel out of the water, she sat up, wiped the soap from her face and opened her eyes to look anxiously around the room once more.

Keeping the towel in front of her, she stood up in the tub. He backed out of the room. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the feel of a woman’s skin. Jenna Dante’s cheek had been soft and warm, just like her lips. God, how he’d missed warmth.

In her bedroom, the covers were turned down. A long black nightgown lay across the pillow. Silk. He heard her pull the plug in the tub. The water began to drain noisily. Even the bedroom smelled of almond from her bath. He inhaled the last of the scent as if it was water and he was a man dying of thirst.

He felt a strange intimacy with this woman. Why, after seventy years of a kind of hell?

Her purse was on the nightstand. He could hear her in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. He knew without looking that she had dried her body quickly and wrapped herself again in the guest robe.

In her purse he found the usual female stuff, along with two grand in traveler’s checks. Her driver’s license said her name was Jenna McDonald. Not Johnson, the name she’d registered under.

In a manila envelope in her purse he found copies of vaccinations and medical histories for herself and her daughter. Also in the purse were her birth certificate and one for her daughter, Alexandria, two plane tickets in the names Nancy and Alicia Clark, and two passports with the kid’s and her photographs, in the new names. The woman had to have a connection to get these—a criminal element.

He glanced toward the bathroom as she finished brushing her teeth and shut off the water. She was running away all right. Far away, from the looks of it, and not planning to come back. From the husband?

A quick search of her suitcase turned up nothing of interest. He glanced in the closet and spotted a large, heavy-looking, navy blue duffel bag on the floor. Interest piqued, he took a look.

The duffel was filled with hundred dollar bills, used ones, banded together in what he would guess were ten or twenty thousand dollar stacks.

He’d never seen that much money in one bag before, but he’d always wanted to. He felt that old pull like a bad ache. Once a thief, always a thief.

Her black clothing had been thrown over the chair near the bed. He picked up the jacket, wondering what was so heavy that it pulled down one pocketed corner.

A gun. The woman had a gun! He didn’t need to pick it up to see that it was fully loaded.

For all he knew she was running from the cops. Or even the feds, given that wad of money in the closet.

What kind of trouble was this woman in?

She came out of the bathroom wrapped up tight in the bathrobe, just as he’d known she would be. Nor was he surprised when she checked the suite again. He watched her open her daughter’s bedroom door.

He could see the relief in Jenna’s body as she knelt over her child, tucking the little girl in with a tenderness that touched him.

All these years he had felt nothing. Why now? And for a woman who was in more trouble than Harry wanted to know about?

He hovered beside her bed, watching her fall asleep. Watching the rise and fall of her chest, the slight flutter of her eyelashes on her pale skin.

Her cheeks were still flushed from her bath. She smelled heavenly. At least what he thought heavenly would smell like.

He’d never really noticed her mouth before. It was bow-shaped. There was a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and a tiny brown spot, like a fleck of chocolate, just below her left ear.

He wanted to touch her. He felt drawn to her in ways he didn’t understand. But something told him he’d been waiting a lifetime for her.

He joined her on the bed, lying next to her, listening to the steady rhythm of her breathing, content for the first time in seventy years.