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