And two, they weren’t alone. “I’m assuming there’s a suite here where Alan stayed, just like the others.”
“Yes.” Bailey eyed the buildings, which had been designed and built in a slow-arching half circle around a natural bay, only feet from the waves.
The hotel itself was one building, with a series of bungalows, all undoubtedly pricey and absolutely showy, and all clearly designed for the Hollywood celebrity crowd.
“One of those bungalows was built as a prototype, to show off during tours while construction went on.” Her voice changed, almost indelibly so, but he knew her now, and he heard it.
A new tension.
“This way,” she said before he could figure out what exactly was wrong. She got out of the Blazer.
He followed, and ignoring the sun, the heat, the salty air, hooked a hand around her elbow and pulled her back around.
She avoided looking at him.
Ah, hell. “What is it?”
She merely pulled free and turned her back on him, and a full five-alarm raced up his spine.
She was omitting again, which didn’t bode well.
Chapter 22
“Bailey,” Noah said quite calmly to her back. “What’s wrong?”
What was wrong? Was he kidding? Bailey whirled around to face him. “You mean other than my life is in shreds, and that I have guys with guns after me, and oh, yes, let’s not forget the fact that my brother is very likely a lying, thief bastard to match my dead husband and father.”
“Yes,” he said without giving in to her. “Besides all that.” He caught up to her, and in a gesture she hadn’t expected but should have, one that tugged hard at her poor heart, he took her hand and looked right into her eyes. “Something else is getting to you.”
She turned away and studied the resort. How did he see everything?
“Have you been here before?”
Ha! If he only knew. She’d honeymooned here. “You might say so,” she managed, her gaze on the bungalows lining the beach.
“Might you say exactly?”
Shrugging out of his grip, she began walking toward the beach. He followed her. Of course he followed her, but he was a smart man and didn’t say a word. She had no idea where he’d learned such a useful tactic, holding his tongue so effectively, so that the silence filled the air, her head, and drove her absolutely insane with the urge to fill it, but he could teach government officials volumes on how to get information out of the bad guys. “I honeymooned here,” she finally admitted, and glanced up at him. “And when I say I, I mean me, myself, and the television set. Alan got called away the moment we arrived.”
“So Alan was an even bigger idiot than I gave him credit for.”
They walked closer, and she had to admit, looking up as they moved into the shadow of the building, the place had a certain charm. If one was into ostentatious, over-the-top expensive beach resorts.
They bypassed the large hotel and moved toward the bungalows, specifically Alan’s.
Oddly enough, the door wasn’t locked. They pushed it open, and could immediately see why. The place had been pillaged and pilfered through. Tiles missing, trim gone, door handles, even whole windows…The finished suite was no longer “finished.”
They stood in the middle of the main room, which had once held gleaming wood floors and beautiful furniture, but was now empty. “The local builders must have used this place as a freebie,” Bailey said in disbelief.
Noah was looking around, quiet, alert, braced for trouble.
“I don’t think it’s here, Noah.”
“Yeah. You know, I’m beginning to think it was never here.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense to take it out of the States, where it wouldn’t be safe.”
They left the bungalow and stood on the beach. Bailey sighed and rubbed her temples. “Another dead end.” Which was going to lead to a very dead her. “Let’s get out of here, away from one of my most unfortunate mistakes.”
He touched her cheek. “Yeah, I’m with you on the leaving part. But about the mistake.” He waited until she looked at him. “Sometimes they just have to be made. It’s a part of the experience; it makes life real.”
Tipping her head up, she looked directly into his warm eyes, and her heart squeezed. “I’ve never thought about it like that.”
“Maybe you should.”
“But I was-”
“What, young? In love? You were entitled, Bailey. We’re all entitled to our mistakes.”
“Really?” Going up on tiptoe, she cupped his face, bringing it down close enough to gently kiss him on the lips. “Even you, Noah?”
His eyes shimmered as he stared at her, silent again.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Even you.”
His voice was low, and just a little bit husky. “You undo me, you know that?”
She let out a low laugh. “Is that a good thing?”
Instead of answering, he turned his gaze to the building behind them, and frowned.
“What?”
“Go back to the car,” he said, and turned her in the right direction.
“What? Why-”
“Go.” He added a small but inexorable push this time.
She didn’t stop to question him, but before she’d taken a step, her gaze locked on the parking lot where they’d parked, and the two men there, one at either corner, watching her, watching them.
Stephen’s men.
“Damn,” Noah said very softly, and pulled her back to his side. “Okay, you’re with me.”
Good.
“Stick close.”
Uh huh. “Like glue,” she promised.
They ran toward the large building. She really had to stop wearing her cute little shoes. Her feet were killing her. All this running for her life was exhausting business.
Noah pulled her into the alley between Alan’s resort and the hotel next to it. Now they had some cover, that being lots of overgrown bushes, some blown and scattered trash, and two stray, mangy-looking dogs who lifted their heads but didn’t even bother to growl.
Noah held Bailey behind him and peeked around the corner, looking back to the lot while Bailey took the time to huff like a woman who hadn’t put nearly enough time into her cardio workouts. She’d change that.
Assuming she lived, that is.
A sobering thought, so instead she concentrated on Noah’s body, and what it could tell her.
And what it told her, with his broad but stiff shoulders, and tense, tight profile, was that once again, they were in deep trouble.
He didn’t say a word as he pulled her through to the front of the resort. As before, at Mammoth and also Catalina, the glass doors were now broken. So they had the two goons in the parking lot, and who knew how many more within somewhere.
Waiting.
Noah swore again, quite colorfully, and in Spanish to boot, which was pretty impressive. They went back through the alley to the neighboring hotel this time. The parking lot here had plenty going on: cars, buses, taxis, people walking, talking, staggering with drinks in their hands.
Using the chaos, Noah and Bailey headed through the lot toward the beach, where every inch of sand was covered with cabanas, chairs, lounges, towels, carts with people selling sandals, hats, towels…
Noah kept them moving.
“As far from the guns as possible.”
Her heels sank uncomfortably in the sand, and she struggled to both keep up and keep her mouth shut as the complaints racked up in her head. Hot. Toes cramped. Thirsty.
Terrified.
They moved past the hotel and came upon yet another, this one smaller, more accessible, and even more crowded.
They let the people sort of swallow them up. Finally Noah came to a stop in the middle of an outdoor cantina. The barstools were all filled, as were the spaces in between. Everywhere were bodies in bikinis and swim trunks, shirt and shoes optional.
Noah nodded to the bartender, and two beers appeared, the chilled bottles already weeping condensation. Bailey grabbed hers and brought it up to her lips, grateful for the cold liquid soothing its way down her parched throat. Far before she’d sated her thirst, Noah tugged her away, and damn it, they were on the move again.