Wilder Days. Linda Winstead Jones
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heard of. From the looks of the guys in the posters, they weren’t exactly into easy listening.
“All clear,” he said, placing the pistol at his spine as he opened the front door and reached out a hand to assist Vic over the threshold.
She nodded her head, obviously relieved, and stepped inside, releasing his hand as she walked through the foyer. Unconsciously, he was sure, her fingertips trailed across the palm of his hand. “Thanks. Should I…do anything? Call the police?” She turned slowly and tilted her head back, looking him squarely and bravely in the eye. “I won’t,” she said. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
He knew how this looked, what she was thinking. With a few words he could set her straight. He said nothing, telling himself it no longer mattered what Vic thought.
“I’ll handle it,” he said, his voice low.
She just nodded. “Thanks for the ride.” It was a neat, almost polite dismissal.
“Coffee,” Del said, brushing past her. “And I need to use your phone.”
“There’s a café on the corner and they have great coffee,” she said quickly. “And they have a phone, too. I think,” she added in a softer voice.
Del turned before he reached the short hallway that led to the kitchen. “Trying to get rid of me?”
Vic nodded.
“I can’t leave you here alone.” Del leaned his shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, relaxing outside even as tension coiled inside him. Vic had been less than forthcoming. “I thought maybe I’d wait around until your husband gets home. Is he at work? You can give him a call and…”
“That’s not necessary,” she said, her voice low and quick, her eyes darting away from him. At least she had the good manners to look a little guilty as she lied.
“What’s his name?” Del asked.
“Preston,” Vic whispered. “Preston Lowell.”
“And when will he be home?” How many chances was he going to give her to tell him the truth?
Her face went pale, once again. Her usually luscious lips thinned and tightened. “We’re divorced,” she finally admitted. “He lives in North Carolina.”
Del smiled. “You forgot to mention that earlier.” He turned and headed for the kitchen. “Pack a bag,” he said as he walked away. “We’re getting out of here.”
He heard Vic’s footsteps behind him, the pad of her tennis shoes soft on the tile floor. “No. That’s not necessary. The bomb blew up, surely those two will think we’re dead. Right?” That last word was tinged with hope.
“For a couple of days,” Del answered. “Eventually they’ll wonder why there’s no mention of the bodies on the news, and they’ll do a little digging. Won’t take them long to find out the building was empty when it blew. You’re not safe here.”
He expected Vic to argue, but his declaration was met with dead silence.
He found the coffee and filters in the most logical place—in the cabinet above the coffeemaker. While Vic watched, he measured out the grounds and got the brew going. When he turned around, he found Vic staring at him so hard he could feel it.
“Why me?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you for sixteen years. It doesn’t make sense that they would kidnap me to get to you.”
He’d had the same thought. Why her? True, the assignment to Birmingham, Alabama, put them in the same geographical area, but still…there had been other women in his life. Women who’d lasted more than a month. But then, Vic hadn’t been a woman sixteen years ago, she’d been a little girl playing with womanly things.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m going to find out.”
She nodded her head and looked away from him.
“How’s the hand?”
She wiggled the tightly bandaged fingers. “Fine.”
An awkward silence filled the air of Vic’s homey, bright kitchen. The coffeemaker gurgled, and outside a bird chirped. The light that broke through the wide window at the breakfast nook bathed Vic in a way that made her look golden, more beautiful than she really was, surely. Del tried to tell himself that he no longer cared for her, that she didn’t grab him somewhere deep inside and hold on.
“They’re going to come back, aren’t they?” Her voice was breathless with fear.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t think so. And they won’t be back tonight, that’s certain. They want to be far, far away when you come up missing or dead. If they decided to come back and swipe your TV or rifle through your jewelry box like common thieves, someone might see them in the area. It’s not a chance they’ll take. You need to get out of here, though, because when they find out you’re not dead they’ll be back. Like I said, we have a little time.”
She nodded. “Noelle’s not supposed to be back for four days.”
“We don’t have that much time. Should we go to Gulf Shores and pick her up?”
Vic’s eyes were condemning, sharp and no longer afraid. “We? No. I’ll go get her myself.”
Del shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.” Dammit, there was no way he’d leave Vic to handle this on her own. He couldn’t.
“Let me?” Vic snapped.
Her defiance was almost amusing. Almost. “You have no idea what you’re up against. I can’t just let you run out of here on your own.”
“What are you going to do, tag along?”
Del sighed, not at all happy with this turn of events. “Yeah.”
Del refused to leave, even when Vic reached the end of her rope and threatened to call the police. He said one night in the house would be all right. The television news had covered the explosion of the abandoned warehouse off of I-65, and while they hadn’t reported anything about discovering bodies inside, there hadn’t been much information at all. The fire had still been too hot for investigators to explore the building.
Maybe right now the kidnappers thought she and Del were dead. That incorrect assumption would not last long.
So come tomorrow morning, she and Del were headed for Gulf Shores to collect Noelle. Then what? Oh, it was not a good idea for those two to be together, not even for a short time. Noelle had Del’s black hair, his blue eyes, his way of finding and embracing trouble. Would he take one look at her and know?
Del finished making his phone calls in the kitchen and walked into the living room where Vic was curled up on the couch. She couldn’t help herself…she was taken aback by how beautiful he was, how unexpectedly tempting. Talk about trouble! Del Wilder was a criminal who had come back into her life with a bang. Literally. He couldn’t stay, and she couldn’t let herself be tempted by what she couldn’t have.
“I’ll hire someone to go with me,” she said, not sounding as confident as she wanted to. “A private investigator, maybe, someone who specializes in personal protection.”
“Still trying to get rid of me?”
“Yes.”
He ignored her, smiled and walked to the mantel where a collection of photographs were carefully placed. Vic’s heart almost stopped when he reached out and grabbed an eight-by-ten of Noelle at the age of nine. She’d been taking dance lessons then, and was wearing a ladybug outfit, complete with wings and antennae. Vic’s heart thudded too hard. What if he looked at Noelle and saw the truth?
“Pretty girl,” he said, smiling as he returned the framed photo to its place.
“Yes, she is.”
“So,”