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  “It’s something to think about. Highly unlikely he’ll simply sit around doing nothing, isn’t it?” he asked. Knowing Jack, that didn’t sound so far-fetched to Molly.

  He disentangled himself from Sydney and got up, leaving her there while he went to use the phone.

  Molly took the baby out into the backyard to play, distancing herself—and Sydney—from him as much as possible. However, it wasn’t long before he joined them.

  “Would you like to go and have your hair done when Brenda gets back?”

  She reached up and raked through her curls, wincing. “That bad, huh?”

  He laughed and scooped Sydney up, tickling her tummy. “Not at all. Wouldn’t you like a break, just to get out of the house and away from everything for a while? Brenda got so excited when I told her it was all right to go, I wondered if it might do you some good, as well.”

  “Nobody touches this mop until I get back home to my regular stylist. It’s tough enough if they know how wild it is and have cut it before.” She made a face. “Curls are a curse.”

  He reached out and touched her hair, winding a strand around his finger, capturing her gaze just as securely. “It’s beautiful, haven’t I told you?”

  “No,” she whispered, looking up at him. “Thank you.” His face lowered to hers, but at the last second he brushed her cheek with his lips instead of meeting her mouth. She almost reeled with disappointment.

  Then he stepped away, even turned his back to her.

  Here it came, she thought. He was going to say goodbye now. She braced herself.

  He looked over his shoulder. “What will you do if he comes back after I’m gone?”

  “Fight him any way I can,” she said. “Use the gun if I have to.”

  “I need to warn you about that, Molly.” The concern in his eyes told her he didn’t like the idea of her using the pistol. “Unless you’re very familiar with weapons, trained to use them, they can work against you. Never threaten anyone with a gun unless you intend to use it, unless you’re certain you can follow through.”

  “Duly noted,” she said, plunking Sydney down on the grass and tossing the ball for her to chase. “But I can shoot. My aim’s pretty good.”

  He looked at her, his eyes sad. “You’d hesitate. That’s deadly.”

  The lack of confidence he had in her made her furious. “Well, what should I do then?”

  “Run,” Damien suggested. “Run like hell. And scream fire.” He continued, his gaze as serious as she had ever seen it. “When he returns, get your brother to choose the best local self-defense class for women. They’ll show you things like this,” he said, approaching her. “Go ahead, attack me.”

  Molly pulled back to slug him. Suddenly his palm flew straight at her face and she dodged back. He rounded with his other hand and stopped it just short of her ear, his hand cupped.

  “Eardrum. Painful,” he said. “Feint and strike. Then run.”

  “Faint and fall down, more likely,” she said with a laugh. “I think I’d prefer the gun!”

  He sighed and pointed his finger like a pistol. “And aim between the eyes, am I right?”

  “Not right?” she asked, sparing a glance at Syd who had crawled up on the webbed lounge chair.

  “The body. The largest target. Don’t aim, just point as if using your finger and pull the trigger. Don’t wait to see what he’ll do first. Got it?”

  “Got it,” she said, biting her lip, more scared now than she had been before, wondering what else she thought she knew, but didn’t, about defending herself.

  “Now, then,” he said, moving closer and turning his back. “Attack me from behind.”

  Molly grasped him around the neck and felt his heel gently bump her knee. “That should cripple him temporarily,” he said, holding her arm loosely in place where it rested against his shoulder. Without letting her remove it, he turned to face her.

  For a long moment he just stared into her eyes. Molly felt her blood heat. His scent held her captive. His touch burned, a welcome fire that spread well beyond the point of contact. No defense for this, she thought. And ceased to care.

  “I keep telling myself to let it be,” he said softly, “and then you look at me a certain way. That way. It’s difficult not to kiss you. But when I do…”

  “You want me, but you don’t want to want me? You think I’ll expect more from you than you’re ready to offer?” She tossed her head, withdrew her arms and crossed them over her chest. “I wouldn’t.”

  His eyes contradicted her, but he didn’t say a thing.

  Molly went on. “It’s not as if I don’t know the sort of man you are, Damien, the kind of life you live. I understand why you don’t want any ties. And, believe me, I have all the ties I can handle right now.”

  “So you said before. I believed you.” He remained quiet for a minute, stewing over it, she supposed, because when he did speak, he sounded angry. “What do you want from me, then, straight sex?”

  She raised a brow. “As opposed to kinky sex?”

  “Don’t do that, Molly!” he warned through gritted teeth. “Don’t you make a joke about this!”

  “All right. I’m sorry. Really,” Molly admitted, swinging her arms wide in a gesture of frustration. “Sometimes I clown around when I’m nervous. Bad habit.”

  Absently, Damien scooped up Sydney who was about to pitch headlong off the lounge into the grass.

  Molly clasped her hands together to steady their trembling. And to keep from reaching for him. “You really do make me nervous.”

  Sydney cuddled in the crook of Damien’s arm like a forgotten little football. Her huge green eyes darted from his face to Molly’s and back again.

  Molly smiled at her, hoping to reassure her before she set up an ear-splitting howl. If nothing else, it reminded Damien of Syd’s presence.

  He released a pent-up breath and shook his head as if to clear it. “Talking about it only makes it worse.”

  “So what do we do then?”

  Without looking at her, he suggested, “Why don’t we get out of here for a few hours and do something normal for a change?”

  “As opposed to abnormal?” she asked.

  To her relief, he smiled and handed her the baby. “Dinner and a movie? Sensible enough?”

  “Oh, well, there’s an idea. Maybe if we behave like rational people, have an honest-to-God date, it will cure all our ills, hmm?” She bounced Syd on her hip and looked down at her. “What do you think, fuzzy-top? Will that make us rational, y’think?”

  “No,” Syd deadpanned, using her new favorite word.

  Damien blew out an impatient breath and stared off into the distance, a half smile on his face. “I expect she’s right.”

  “In that case, I guess we should go straight to Plan B,” Molly said quietly, giving him a meaningful look.

  Brenda had not returned and it was nearly five o’clock. Though Damien hadn’t said anything to Molly about it, he’d begun to worry.

  On the pretext of buying extra snacks at the convenience store, he walked around town, looking for the car. The local Cut ’n Curl was locked. He jogged back to the house and found the Explorer parked in the driveway.

  “Where did you go?” he demanded the minute he saw her. Obviously, she hadn’t had her hair done.

  She looked up, all innocence. “Oh, the beauty shop was closed, so I thought I’d just run in and see how business was getting along at home. Everything’s fine.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t drive to Nashville!”

  “No! Well, not all the way into the city, just to the antique shop and straight back here.”

  “You should have phoned instead,” Damien told her.

  Brenda shrugged. “Needed to see for myself. You said Jack’s in Atlanta, so I didn’t see how it could hurt to go. Nobody followed me. I was really careful, just like you were.”

  Damien couldn’t be angry with her. She’d been so wonderful to stay here with the baby when she must be worried a
bout neglecting her shop. Still, he went straight to the phone and called Atlanta.

  Jack was still registered at the hotel. His Mercedes remained in the parking garage there and hadn’t been out. All reports said he was holed up, ordering room service and watching pay-per-view movies.

  Relieved, Damien apologized to Brenda for overreacting.

  Molly appeared then, beautifully dressed in a long green flowing skirt and silk blouse that emphasized her height and slenderness.

  Her hair gleamed like satin and was perfectly arranged. That suggestion he’d made about her having it done today had prompted that new style, he knew, and felt a bit guilty about it.

  “Don’t you look lovely!” he said a bit self-consciously, his libido kicking into overdrive.

  To distract himself from lecherous thoughts, he turned to Brenda. “How would you and Sydney like to go the local barbecue place for dinner tonight?”

  “C’mon, Mom,” Molly encouraged. “It’ll be fun. Just the four of us.” Damien heard a noticeable lack of sincerity in her voice that made him want to smile.

  This was the most foolish thing he could remember doing, but he was going to do it, anyway. A few hours, just a few. She wanted that as much as he did.

  “No, y’all run along. Syd and I are going to have our mac and cheese while we watch Cinderella—yet again.”

  “Okay,” Molly said. “Would you mind if we catch a movie while we’re out? Something a little more grown up than bippity-boppity-boo?”

  Brenda laughed. “No problem.”

  “Be sure to lock up,” Damien warned Brenda as he slid an arm around Molly’s waist and ushered her out the door.

  “I’m glad it’s safe now. I don’t mind leaving them here quite so much,” she said, getting into the car.

  He nodded, shut her door, went around and settled in the driver’s seat.

  “You knew she wouldn’t come with us,” Molly said.

  “So did you.”

  Her voice held a slight edge of accusation. “And you’re not hungry.”

  Damien shot her a wry look. “Not for barbecue.”

  “Neither am I,” she said, raising that defensive chin.

  “I noticed you didn’t bother checking the movie schedule,” he continued, backing out of the drive. He needed her to say she wanted him, to declare it outright so there would be no mistake.

  “We aren’t going to the movies.” There, he thought with relief. She’d left no room for misunderstanding. None at all.

  Damien hadn’t deluded himself for a moment about where they were going or why, but a part of him—the decent part, most likely—had prompted him to offer her one last chance to change her mind.

  But she wanted him. Not forever, not even until he had to leave her. Molly wanted him just for tonight.

  Damien agreed they needed to diffuse this powerful urgency that existed between them. At the very least, to take the edge off so they could put it in perspective. If they gave in to it, they might find it was nothing more than simple lust, after all.

  Who the hell was he kidding? What he felt was fist-in-the-gut love as far as he was concerned, and it was unlikely to abate even if he had her every night from now till doomsday. He could continue to fight it, but it wouldn’t matter. He’d still feel the same way. He would always feel this way about her, no matter what happened or didn’t.

  Molly had practically suggested it herself. Since this was all she would allow him to have of her, he would take it. At least he would have held her for a while.

  “Any preference?” he asked with surprising calm, considering the desire surging through his veins like a massive shot of adrenaline.

  “First one with a vacancy,” she answered, a bit breathless.

  He had to admire her boldness. It was damned near as entrancing as the rest of her.

  Chapter 11

  He would get her. Them. Tonight. Jack paid Shorty Simms his little bonus and dismissed him with a gruff word of thanks. Had to keep the riff-raff happy, he thought with a grim smile. He might need him again.

  While Shorty’s brother Billy lived it up at the Marriot in Atlanta on Jack’s credit card, Jack had simply driven back in Billy’s truck and waited around for Molly to turn up back at the house. He’d known that either she or the police would check up on him, make sure he’d gone out of town as he said he would.

  Good thing he’d thought to hire Shorty to cover Brenda’s shop. That antique business was all she had going for her and he’d known she couldn’t leave it alone for long. At least Shorty had had the good sense to tail her when she’d left and call him as soon as he found their hidey-hole. Jack had ’em now.

  Did Molly think he’d tuck his tail and run just because she and that pretty-boy limey of hers had set him up? Stupid, faithless bitch. He’d fix her and that piece of beefcake she’d teamed up with.

  He laughed and finished off the cold beer he’d bought while he’d waited at the all-night service station near Clarkston for Shorty to meet him. With a sniff of satisfaction, he tossed the bottle into the trash by the tanks and lifted the plastic container of gasoline into the back of Billy’s clunker. The old pickup might look like hell, but Billy never drove anything that wasn’t souped up to race. It ought to get him to Clarkston and then on to Atlanta before morning, easy.

  Damien frowned at the Kay-Lee Korner Motel and its blinking sign out front. He drove right past it.

  His peripheral vision caught Molly’s silent laughter. She was obviously nervous. Suddenly the whole venture seemed too premeditated. Now he wasn’t even certain exactly what this was intended to do. Get rid of the tension between them, he’d thought before. Now he didn’t know. If anything, it might increase it.

  “This was a ridiculous idea,” he muttered. “Find the nearest motel, the first vacancy. The very color of that place was loud enough to keep us awake.”

  “As though you planned to sleep,” she said dryly. “Go back.”

  “Not if you hold a gun to my head!” he declared, speeding up.

  “I want to stay there,” she persisted, crossing her arms over her chest. It made her cleavage more pronounced, he saw at a glance, but he was certain that was not her intention.

  He huffed. “I’m not taking you to a two-bit dump, Molly, so just be quiet. There aren’t any four-star accommodations available, but if we’re going to do this, let’s at least—”

  “Turn around and go back,” she said, firmly this time. “I liked it.”

  “Well, I didn’t! However…” He braked, floored the accelerator, and with a squeal of tires, reversed direction in the middle of the road. “You want down-and-dirty night games in seedy surroundings, luv, I can oblige.”

  “There may be hope for you yet,” she said, laughing.

  He swung into the parking lot and pulled up to the archway in front of the office. “Well, here we are, Mrs. Smith. Happy, now?”

  She nodded, fixing him with a look of defiance.

  Leaving her in the car, he registered, plunked down cash for a room and got the key. An honest-to-God key, not a card. To Number Thirteen. Appropriate, he thought.

  “See, it’s not bad,” Molly said when he’d opened the door and clicked the lamp on dim. “Homey.” She trailed her fingers along the bottom of a lampshade.

  It had fringe. Gold. He winced. Otherwise, he had to agree the place was better than he’d expected, clean enough, anyway. Homely, however, rather than homey. The low wattage of the bulb through the gold of the shade washed a soft amber cast over modest motel furnishings that might have seemed worse in a harsher light.

  He’d certainly stayed in more disagreeable places, but he wanted better for Molly. The best. Especially tonight.

  Despite all the rooms he had been in over the years and all the women who had accompanied him to them, Damien knew Molly was unlike any other woman he had ever known. Different, and very special.

  She proved that when she opened her arms to him, negating his need to make the first move. Their accommod
ations forgotten for the moment, he walked into her embrace and held her close, his heart racing with eagerness to make her his, if only for a while.

  “Tonight, you’re mine,” he whispered, threading his fingers through her hair and kissing her as gently as he could manage.

  “Yes,” she answered softly, teasing his lower lip, sliding her hands from his back to his waist and lower, urging him closer. “Just for tonight.”

  Damien deepened the next kiss, tasting her more fully than he ever had.

  “Certain you won’t regret this?” he questioned, just to make her answer, so he could feel her breath on his mouth again.

  “Not if I live to be two hundred,” she answered in short breathless gasps. He could feel the tentative smile, hear it in her voice. “Will you?”

  Damien knew she expected a flip answer. She was trying to keep this glib, uncomplicated, easy to lose. Instead, he stepped back. Carefully he removed her arms from around him, placed them at her sides and reached for the small covered buttons on her silk shirt.

  “No regrets, Molly.” He caught her apprehensive gaze and held it, lying seriously as he slipped the buttons free. “None whatsoever.” For the rest of his life he would regret that he couldn’t have her with him this way permanently. But he couldn’t, and he had accepted that.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, peeling back her shirt, allowing the soft slither of silk to caress her shoulders as he removed it. Carefully he draped it over the back of the nearby chair without taking his eyes off of her. She shivered, but otherwise did not move.

  Reaching around her, he unfastened the button on her skirt and slid the zipper open. The challis fabric fluttered down to her ankles and settled on the floor. She wore only a lace-trimmed, pale yellow satin teddy. One slender strap fell off her shoulder, half baring the most tempting breast he’d ever seen.

  Damien breathed out a low whistle of appreciation that made her blush all over. “My, my,” he growled. “There is much to be said for prior planning, after all. How sweetly seductive you are.”