WILDER DAYS Read online

  “Psycho?”

  Noelle piled her own plate high. “Yep.”

  “Can you give me some examples?”

  Noelle pursed her lips. “She freaks whenever I mention dating. I can only go out if it’s a special occasion, a double date, and even then I have to go with someone she knows and approves of.”

  Del shook his head. “You’re right. Psycho.”

  His sarcasm didn’t get past her. “I was born on Christmas Eve and she named me Noelle Eve. Noelle Lowell, can you believe that? Everyone makes it rhyme. But I guess I should consider myself lucky. What if I’d been born on Easter, or Valentine’s Day, or Thanksgiving?”

  “Little Turkey Lowell.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Noelle is a very pretty name,” Del said. “Now, eat your pancakes.”

  She did, digging in and dismissing their conversation. His breakfast finished, Del walked into the living room and collected his cigarettes from the end table. When he returned to the kitchen, Noelle had finished eating and sat there with her eyes on the window and the view beyond. She was, no doubt, thinking about her father and his refusal of her request. Poor kid.

  When she saw the cigarettes in his hand, her eyes lit up. “Can I have one?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Again, she stuck her tongue out at him. “Selfish.”

  “I just don’t want your mother to, you know, kill me.” He lit up, and Noelle rolled her eyes. “Besides,” he added, “these things are not good for you.”

  “And they’re good for you?”

  “Think of me as a bad example.”

  Noelle pushed her chair back and gave him a glare that said she wished she could do murder, here and now. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I already do.”

  Vic dabbed at the canvas on the easel before her. The light here on the front porch was great, the scene before her was magnificent, but she couldn’t make herself concentrate on painting. Usually painting saved her, took her mind off of anything and everything. Not today. Del Wilder was stronger, he pulled more effectively at her heart than this vocation she’d lost herself in for most of the past fifteen years.

  Even if the screen door hadn’t squeaked, she would have known that Del was behind her. He charged the air with his very presence, he set every nerve in her body on alert.

  “The kid’s taking a nap,” he said, his voice low. “She didn’t like my suggestion that we take a hike this afternoon, and when I mentioned fishing instead, she told me to...” He took a deep breath. “Well, I think it’s impossible, and even if it was possible it would definitely be unpleasant.”

  Vic set down her brush and turned to face Del. “I’m sorry. She knows better…"

  “Don’t sweat it.” He flashed her a wide smile. “She’s a good kid. Not at all like you were at that age, all sugar and very little spice, but still a good kid. Likes to stir up trouble, doesn’t she?”

  Vic found herself returning Del’s smile. “Oh, yeah.” It would be so simple, right now, to say, “She’s so much like you.” But she didn’t. Her mind was made up. Del was here, for a little while, but he wasn’t staying. And he wouldn’t have the opportunity to break Noelle’s heart. Vic still wasn’t sure about her own.

  He walked closer, took her hand and stared down at the bandages on her fingers. “How are they?”

  “Fine.”

  His head cocked up, his eyes met hers. “Really?”

  She could only nod as Del lifted her hand and kissed the palm. Quickly. Sweetly. That simple contact sent shivers through her body.

  “I understand you’re dating,” he said as he dropped her hand.

  The surprise must’ve shown on her face because Del’s smile grew wider. “Lots of guys,” he continued. “Who wear suits and cut their hair and have jobs.”

  “Noelle.”

  The twinkle in Del’s eyes was the answer. “So, if I asked you to take a nice long walk in the woods, would I be stepping on some man’s toes?”

  “I’m not dating,” Vic said, ignoring his offer of a walk in the woods. “I mean, I have, but not lately.”

  “Why not?” She tried to return to her easel, but Del’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. “Still in love with Presto?”

  “No!” she said, too sharply. “God, no.”

  “You’re a beautiful woman, smart, sexy. I can’t imagine why there aren’t guys crawling all over you.”

  Vic shuddered, just a little.

  “Vic?” Del’s voice was low, comforting.

  She steeled herself and turned, tipping her face up to look him squarely in the eye. “Okay, you tell me why you never got married and I’ll tell you why I don’t date.”

  She meant to scare him away, but her ploy didn’t work. His hand came up to touch her cheek, his eyes went dark. “Why didn’t I get married? There are a few answers to that one.” His fingers traced her jaw. “The job, for one. The job is consuming, at times, and it’s never easy. Takes a special woman to handle what comes with it.”

  “Other law enforcement officers, even those who work undercover, they get married.”

  “Yeah, but it’s hard to make it work.”

  “So that’s why—”

  “That’s one reason,” he interrupted.

  Vic nodded. She should stop this, here and now. The last thing she needed was to be Del’s confidante, to know and cherish his secrets. She said nothing to silence him.

  “Kids,” he said, smiling gently. “You get married, the next thing you know there are babies everywhere you look.”

  “You don’t like them?”

  “I like them fine, as long as they’re someone else’s,” he teased. “I figure if I ever have kids they’ll be just like me. Payback is hell.”

  It was the perfect time to tell him. Then again, maybe not.

  “I suppose the truth is, the right woman just never came along.” His smile faded. “I never met anybody who made me feel...”

  She waited for him to finish. The way you did. The way you do. Like this.

  But a moment later the lilt was back in his voice, and he finished. “Like shackling myself.”

  “Not looking for an old ball and chain,” she teased, grateful he hadn’t gotten more personal. This was tough enough.

  Del shook his head. “No, thank you, ma’am. Your turn.”

  Vic took a deep breath. “I did date a few times, after the divorce. Years after the divorce, to be honest. Marriage to Preston was less than wonderful. Why would I ever want another man in my life?”

  Del’s blue eyes darkened. “Did he hurt you? I swear, if he did I’ll take him apart.”

  “He never hurt me, physically. He broke promises. Lied. Made me feel like I was always, always wrong, no matter what I did.”

  One of Del’s fingers brushed through her hair, a small gesture of comfort. She liked it. “He’s just one man, Vic. We’re not all like that.”

  She shook her head, not looking to argue, just wanting to get this over with. “I know that, but still, when I did date, I was always looking for the lie. What does this man really want? Why is he really here? I never dated any one guy more than three times.”

  “You drove them away before they could hurt you.”

  She ignored that dead-on conclusion. “My father still tries to play matchmaker now and then. That’s the worst, I think. It makes me feel like a little girl trying to live up to Daddy’s expectations. The other attempts at dating weren’t much better. Some of the men I never saw again, a couple actually became friends. But...” She stumbled, and her voice wouldn’t come out right. This was not a discussion she could have with Del, of all people. She didn’t want to be hurt again, and he had hurt her more than anyone else ever had or could. And he didn’t have a clue.

  “Vic,” Del whispered, his lips moving toward hers. “Do you want to know why I’m here?”

  She swallowed hard. “Because those kidnappers...”

  He shook his head. “I could put an army of men
on you and Noelle to keep you safe. I could hire a dozen bodyguards while I go out there and find Tripp and Holly myself. It’s what I do,” he added gently. “I like action, not baby-sitting.”

  “You can go...”

  “I can’t,” he interrupted. “I can’t go. Do you want to know why?”

  Yes. More than anything. Tell me. “No.” After all, it was safer that way, and Vic Lowell was nothing if not safe.

  Her response did not deter him. He kissed her. He stirred her up, with a gentle kiss and a tender hand at her back and a silent invitation she ignored.

  Somehow she ended up with her back against the wall of the rough cabin, her legs slightly spread, Del resting between them as he kissed her. She kissed him back.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They weren’t kids anymore. Hormones could be controlled. Desire could be tamed. Squashed down. Dismissed as what it really was, simple physical attraction.

  So why couldn’t she dismiss this?

  Del backed away. A trickle of sweat ran down his face, down his neck. She felt a drop of perspiration tickle her spine.

  “You always did drive me crazy,” he said, giving her a crooked smile before turning his back on her and walking away.

  Del lay on the torturous sofa bed, wide-awake even though it was almost two in the morning. He had to get out of here, the sooner the better. Like he’d told Vic this afternoon, anyone could keep an eye on her and Noelle until Tripp and Holly were caught. Well, he wouldn’t trust them to just anyone, but there were a large number of qualified bodyguards out there, available at a snap of the fingers.

  So why was he still here?

  After the kiss, things had turned awkward. Even after all this time, he knew Vic too well. She wanted him but she didn’t like the fact, and she was doing her best to deny it. In a way he knew how she felt. He hadn’t been this confused in sixteen years, since Vic had stood there on the front porch of her big house and told him it was over. He hadn’t seen it coming, and the blow had blindsided him. Nothing blindsided him anymore. His life was black and white, good guys and bad guys, right and wrong.

  Physically, he wanted Vic. Emotionally, he was still drawn to her in a way he could not explain. Nothing good could come of a relationship that went beyond bodyguard and woman in trouble. If they slept together, this was bound to end ugly.

  And still he wanted her.

  The reason for his confusion walked into the room, dressed in blue and moving without making a sound, like a tantalizing vision out of a dream.

  “You can’t sleep, either?” Vic asked as she came near the bed.

  Didn’t she know better? She knew he wanted her. Needed her. She had to know that the reason he was here when he could be hunting Tripp and Holly was because he didn’t trust anyone else in the world to watch over her.

  “No,” he said simply. “Can’t sleep.”

  She started to sit down in the chair at the opposite wall, but with the crook of a single finger, Del invited her to sit on the side of his bed. After a moment’s hesitation, she headed over his way, blue robe dancing as she walked, curling hair wild and inviting. He wanted to bury his hands in her hair, and that would just be the beginning.

  She hesitated a moment, standing beside him, and then she sat. The thin, crooked mattress gave under her weight, and Del let himself roll toward her.

  “What you said about getting someone else to watch us,” she whispered, her eyes on a moonlit window and the darkness beyond. “I think maybe that would be a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t want to be here, Del,” she argued. “You’d rather be...”

  “Here,” he said, dismissing the confusion that had kept him awake so late and focusing only on the present situation. “I’d rather be right here.’’

  She looked down at him and her hand reached out to brush a strand of hair away from his cheek. “I don’t understand this.”

  “Sure you do,” he said, trying to make light of this. “I want you. In spite of yourself, you want me. We’re not kids anymore. We understand that attraction and love are not the same thing. They’re both nice, but they’re not the same.”

  He leaned into Vic and kissed her lightly, then again not so lightly. She didn’t hold back, or turn away, and eventually the tension in her body lessened. He felt the yielding first in her lips, then in her body. She drew her lips away, swollen and well kissed.

  “I thought you were a memory,” she said. “Nothing else, and now you’re here and everything is different.”

  “You’ve been fighting it.”

  She nodded.

  “Tired of waging a losing battle?”

  There was a hesitation, but again she nodded.

  “Good.”

  He drew Vic down beside him and she didn’t resist. The length of her body lay close to his, her head rested on his shoulder. When he felt her soft lips on his neck, he closed his eyes and savored the sensations that shot through him.

  Since the moment Tripp had bound Vic to him, he’d wanted her just like this. Her body next to his, her mouth tasting, her hands touching. And reality was so much better than his daydreams. Warmer. Unexpectedly tender. He shouldn’t want her so much, not after all this time, not after the way she’d sent him packing years ago. But he did. Maybe if they got this thing out of their systems, he’d be able to hand Vic over to someone else for safekeeping. She was like an itch he couldn’t reach, a craving he didn’t completely understand.

  This was simple. He didn’t need to understand much at all.

  “Noelle,” he said.

  Vic sighed. “I looked in on her. She’s sound asleep. Once she’s out for the night, it takes a bomb to...” She stopped suddenly, then gave in to a small smile. “Poor choice of words, given the circumstances.”

  Had Vic made sure her daughter was asleep because she’d known she’d end up here in his bed?

  With one hand, he untied her robe and parted the folds. The gown beneath that robe was modest, but the fabric was thin. Running his hands over her breasts he felt her body heat, the inviting softness, the pebbling of her nipples when he touched her.

  She shook. With desire? Or because she was still a little bit afraid of this? He wanted to make sure there was no fear in Vic when he finally made love to her. He didn’t want her to be thinking about anything but the way they came together, the need and the pleasure. Nothing else.

  His own need was close to spiraling out of control. Every touch, no matter how delicate, made his blood pump harder and faster.

  “Do you have a condom?”

  “Yes,” he said, laying his mouth on her throat, sucking gently.

  “Where?” She shuddered, long and deep.

  “In my suitcase.”

  “Maybe you should get it now.”

  He grinned as he rolled Vic over and towered above her. “Not yet.”

  His lips trailed down her throat to the valley between her breasts, where he lingered. Vic’s hands threaded through the long strands of his hair, holding him to her, holding him tight. Her thighs parted. One leg hiked up, just a little.

  He moved his mouth to a breast, brushing the fabric of her gown aside just enough to free the nipple he tasted, and sucked deep into his mouth. Vic moaned deep in her throat, the sound low and enticing.

  “Maybe we should move to my bed,” Vic whispered. “There’s a door and...” She moaned softly. “It doesn’t squeak.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed. “But not right now. I’m not ready to let you go.”

  He touched her, arousing with fingers and the rough brush of his palm, relearning the curves and soft flesh he had once known so well. Vic did the same, running her hands over him, trailing her gentle fingers over his body. When her hand rested on his chest, above his heart, he was glad of the dark.

  He wanted her now, hard and fast, but he took his time. Everything slowed. He tasted her, touched her, pressed his body to hers. He kissed her, again and again, and she kissed him back. Tentative at fir
st, and then with abandon, as if she couldn’t kiss hard or deep enough.

  Her other thigh hiked up until she cradled him between her legs. Clothes still separated them, her panties and his flannel pajama bottoms, and still he could feel her. Hot. Ready. All he had to do was move a few inches of annoying clothing aside and he’d be inside her.

  “Maybe you should get it now,” she said again, more breathlessly this time.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  Before he could move to collect the protection they needed, he heard something that ruined the moment. A stealthily closed car door, outside the cabin. It was far enough away that he might think it was someone headed elsewhere, if it wasn’t two in the morning and if he didn’t know for a fact that there wasn’t another cabin anywhere near this one.

  Vic didn’t hear it. Her arms and legs loosened, releasing him from their gentle grasp, and he rolled from the bed and headed for his suitcase. He came up not with a condom, dammit, but with Shock’s Colt.

  “Vic, baby,” he whispered as he headed to the window and peeked through the curtains. He didn’t see anything. Yet. “I want you to go to Noelle’s room and lock the door, then I want both of you to get on the floor. Stay low, and don’t leave that room or get off the floor until I come to get you.”

  She didn’t waste any time doing as he asked, making her way silently out of the main room and into the hallway.

  Chapter 5

  Vic ran on bare feet to the end of the hallway. She didn’t know what Del had heard to tip him off, but he’d heard something. Someone was out there. In the woods. In the dark. How had they been found?

  “On the floor,” Vic said breathlessly as she burst into her daughter’s bedroom and closed the door behind her. She noticed with a sinking heart that there was no lock on Noelle’s door.

  “What?” A sleepy Noelle barely lifted her head from the pillow.

  Vic grabbed her daughter’s arm and pulled her off the bed. Noelle squealed as she slid across the sheets and off the mattress to tumble to the floor. With an accusing look in her eye, she nimbly worked herself into a twisted sitting position.