“You deliberately put yourself into a high-risk situation,” he said, anger lacing his words.
“Well, your captain disagreed with you about the risk.”
“You got lucky. No one was at the site, but you didn’t know that. And neither did he. You could have been shot at. Maybe hit this time, killed. Did you weigh in those factors at all when you dreamed up this idea?”
Her voice raised. “Or I can get hit by a bus crossing the street. If people sit home and assess risks all day, they never accomplish anything.”
“I don’t care about ‘people’,” he bit out, shoving his face to hers. “I care about you! More than I should. Do you know what I went through, waiting to hear from you?”
“I didn’t ask for that,” she whispered. Her throat dried out abruptly, her temper squelched like quenched flame. She took a step away from him, and then another. “I don’t want that.”
She couldn’t be responsible for his feelings. She wouldn’t be. It was bad enough recognizing that she’d gotten involved with him deeper, faster, than she’d ever thought possible. Whatever emotions he dragged to the surface inside her, however, she’d handle them. But she couldn’t handle his. Couldn’t manage the guilt and recriminations that would invariably follow her failure to be what he wanted. Who he wanted. The thought of having to try scared her to death.
“You think I want this?” His face was a mask of frustration. “That I was looking for it? My personal life is a shambles and the last thing I need right now is to fall in love with a woman I just met.”
“This isn’t love,” she interrupted, a little wildly. Denying it loudly enough, often enough, could make the words true.
“The hell it isn’t.” He strode over and caught her arm. “It’s love when I’m sick with fear until you show up safe and sound at the station. And when I think about you even though my mind should be occupied with the case. Maybe neither of us planned on it, but we’re in deeper than we ever intended to go.” She tried to turn away, but his hand on her arm stopped her. “Yes, we are. You can’t deny it and neither can I. Now the question is, what are we going to do about it?”
It must be due to some genetic flaw in her makeup that she preferred his temper to his emotion-roughened voice. His tone had turned low, his touch caressing. As if he understood that his angry declaration had her wanting to flee from his feelings. From her own.
“You can’t run away from it, Delaney. I know you better than that. You don’t run away from much in this life, do you?”
He was crediting her with a bravery she didn’t deserve. The flashbacks of the bombing of the Iraqi hotel weren’t the only memories that had left scars. There were the still-fresh recollections of what it meant to love a man who could only give her leftovers of himself. And what was left of Reid after he’d poured most of his energy and emotion into his work had never satisfied. She wasn’t sure what had scared her more-the thought that someday she would have walked away from him, or that she would have settled. And lost a little of herself in the process.
“Look at you.” Was that amusement in his voice? Her gaze flew to meet his. “You’ll walk into the middle of a war-torn country for a story, but right now you look terrified. Is it that bad, admitting you…feel something for me?”
She didn’t miss that hesitation in his words. And she certainly didn’t mirror his amusement over this scene. “I don’t know how to do this,” she said rawly. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
A measure of tension seeped out of him. His thumb skated over the sensitive skin above her palm. “I don’t want anything you don’t give freely. Nothing has changed.”
But she knew that wasn’t true. Everything had changed with this conversation, not the least being that she was nearly paralyzed with panic. “I need to think.”
“No. You need to quit thinking. So do I.” He drew her closer, his arms looped around her loosely, seeming not to notice the stiffness in her limbs. Or determined to ignore it. “I handled this badly. We don’t have to have this conversation now. We’ll just see where things lead. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”
But he was wrong and they both knew it. Sex was uncomplicated, relationships weren’t. Invariably emotions ruined everything, changed everything. It was only a matter of time before they had to deal with that. The thought pierced her with a sliver of the pain that surely was to come.
But not tonight. She could read the exhaustion on his face. There was no way to solve this now, and really, what was the point? She already knew how it would end. Best to back away from the declaration he’d made and pretend, at least for a time, that it didn’t alter everything.
She strove for a steady voice. “Does this mean I don’t get to see you in your tights and cape?”
“Keep it up, Carson.” He nuzzled her neck. “I may be tempted to show you some of my superpowers.”
“I’d be interested in seeing those myself.” They both jerked, as the screen door opened and a figure stepped inside, pointing a gun in their direction. “Barring that, I’ll settle for a little information.”
“What the…Bruce?” Joe released Delaney and turned toward his ex-father-in-law, automatically placing his body between her and the gun. His mind responded sluggishly as he struggled to reconcile the unfamiliar sight of the mild-mannered schoolteacher with an automatic pistol, complete with silencer.
“You kept me waiting, Joe.” Bruce Glenn moved into the room, his gaze going from him to Delaney and back again. “We could have handled this just between the two of us if you’d shown up at home. As it was, I had no choice but to follow you out here.”
“Whatever this is about, we can still handle it between the two of us.” Carefully, Joe took a step toward the other man, halted when the pistol was raised and pointed toward his chest.
“It’s too late for that. I don’t have much time and you have something I need. So both of you will have to come with me.”
Eyeing the man speculatively, Joe wondered if he’d gone over the edge. His entire demeanor at the NTP station had been off, but he’d figured Bruce had just been upset about his lack of contact with Jonny. He’d showered the boy with attention since his birth. But now…he was acting entirely too comfortable with that gun, and Joe had never known him to have one before.
“Just tell me what you need.” The number one rule in volatile situations like this was to keep the gunman calm. But he also wanted to get the man away from Delaney. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what you want.”
Bruce’s smile was chilly, and completely unlike him. “What I want is my grandson. You’re going to take me to him.”
Joe’s fingers clutched the steering wheel in a grip that made them ache. Bruce had insisted they take the SUV he’d arrived in, one Joe had never seen before. Checking the rearview mirror again, he met the other man’s gaze. “She’s fine,” Bruce said, indicating Delaney, who was seated next to him, bound and gagged. “She’ll remain that way as long as you cooperate.”
He wished desperately that he could shift the mirror’s position to see Delaney’s expression. Professional instincts warred with all-too-personal emotion, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted by it. But emotion had reared the instant the man had stepped into Delaney’s house and pointed a gun at her.
“Why don’t you tell me where we’re going?” he asked with a calm he was far from feeling. “Seems simpler that way.”
“Just follow my directions. You’ve already made things more difficult than they should be.” The man’s voice sounded with frustrated fury. “I know you’ve discovered where Heather took Jonny. Did you call your cop friends when you figured out Heather was no longer in Window Rock? Or did you go looking yourself?”