On Dangerous Ground Read online

  Sky raised her glass and sipped the tart lemonade. She knew she should suggest they go back to the motel and lock themselves in their separate rooms. Still, she lingered over her half-eaten pie. Just a few more minutes, she thought, and considered dropping a quarter into the small jukebox at the booth and punching in the three selections it would buy her. Anything would be better than the strained silence that had hung between them since they’d left the prison.

  “Need some change?”

  She looked away from the jukebox to find Grant studying her with an intensity that made her toes curl. “I guess the noise level in here is already high enough,” she said over the clink of glassware and heady din of conversation.

  Behind his sandy lashes, his dove-gray eyes did a slow sweep of the crowded diner that sported yellowed linoleum tiles, red vinyl booths and homemade pies in a three-tiered stand on one end of the counter. “Yeah.”

  Sky’s throat ached. Although she had little appetite, she lifted her fork and sliced off a bite of pie. “I’d forgotten about Jason Whitebear.”

  Grant shot her a look at the change of subject. “Jason, aka Spider, was at his dad’s trial every day,” Grant finally stated, then took a sip of his beer. “Sam ran the background check on him. I plan to go back to the file and take a look at it.”

  Sky tilted her head. “Does Jason have a record?”

  “Nothing serious, or Sam would have done more checking on him.”

  “Jason wasn’t happy about my taking another blood sample.”

  “On that point we agree.”

  Ignoring the dry edge in Grant’s voice, she took another bite of pie. “I’ve been trying to put myself in his place. Wondering how I would feel if it were my father on death row and some chemist showed up to stab a needle into his vein.”

  Grant shifted, settled back into the seat. “How would you feel?”

  “If I thought it would help my father’s situation, relief.”

  “And if you suspected the cops were there to set him up to take the fall for some other crime?”

  “I’d be furious, just like Jason.”

  “The question is,” Grant began, idly tracing an index finger along the rim of his glass, “why would we try to set up someone already on death row? What would be the point?”

  Sky picked up her glass, swirled her lemonade and felt her nerves begin to calm. The case was common ground. Something she and Grant could discuss without emotion getting in the way. “Like Jason said, we want to clear an old case by hanging the blame on his father.”

  “That’s lame.” Grant angled his head. “Why do you think he made a grab for your evidence kit?”

  Sky glanced down at the plastic case on the seat beside her. “He doesn’t know we now transfer collected blood onto cards and work from a dried sample. He thinks Ellis’s blood is still in a vial, which would break if I dropped the kit and contaminate the sample so it couldn’t be used.”

  “Exactly. Why?”

  “For the principle of it?” Sky ventured. “Jason thinks we’re harassing Ellis, so he wants to harass us.”

  “Could be.”

  Just then, the middle-age waitress with blond hair teased into a severe beehive appeared beside the booth. A round, laminated button pinned to her frilly white blouse urged them to Attend The McAlester Prison Rodeo.

  “Enjoy your meal?” she asked automatically. Without waiting for a response, she ripped off the check from her pad, slipped it onto the table near Grant, then hurried off to see to other customers.

  Grant took the check, raising a hand in a “Don’t argue” gesture when Sky reached for her purse.

  “I owe you for my motel room and now this meal,” she stated, watching him pull his money clip out of his pocket.

  “Forget it.” Eyeing her, he slid a few bills onto the table.

  Sky shifted her shoulders. “When we get back, I’ll do the paperwork so the department will reimburse—”

  “You have a crumb on your lip.”

  “Oh.” She reached for her napkin.

  “Let me,” he said softly.

  When he reached across the table, the pad of his thumb hovered at the corner of her mouth. Hours…or maybe sec onds later, his thumb did a slow, lazy sweep across the curve of her bottom lip.

  Sky’s breath froze in her lungs while her heart bounded straight into her throat, then back-flipped.

  His fingers curved. With infinite gentleness they cupped her chin as his thumb continued its seductive trace of her mouth.

  Desire pooled, thickening round her like a gossamer spider’s web.

  She knew she should pull back. Knew she should shove his hand away. Still, she sat there, staring into the depths of his gray eyes while the noise of the diner faded into nothingness. Every thought, every feeling, every need focused on his touch. Her lips parted. The warm, musky taste of his flesh flooded her senses. Deep inside her, heat spiraled, stirring a deep-seated, basic physical need. She wanted to touch. Wanted to feel. Wanted him.

  Oh, how she wanted.

  She couldn’t, she reminded herself, trying to think past the hard, thick throbbing of her pulse. Couldn’t chance intimacy. Couldn’t risk again stepping into Grant’s arms, then falling to pieces when panic clawed through her. She couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  But, oh, how she wanted.

  She jolted when he released her chin, breaking the spell. Studying her with a thorough, unapologetic intensity, he held up his thumb for her inspection. “Got it,” he said quietly.

  With her blood still swimming in her head, Sky slid the tip of her tongue across lips that seemed to have burst into flame. “It?”

  “The crumb.” His mouth tightened. “Don’t ever play poker, Sky. Your eyes mirror your thoughts.”

  Heat ricocheted into her cheeks. “I…” Her heart was hammering too fast to allow her to think, much less speak.

  He rose, gazed down at her. “Ready?”

  Her hand trembling, she grabbed the evidence kit, then slid out of the booth. Her legs weren’t quite steady. “I’m going to take a shower, then turn in.” It took every ounce of effort to keep her voice even.

  He raised an eyebrow. “It’s barely seven o’clock.”

  “I know.” If he could stir her by a mere light touch when they were in a diner full of people, she was well aware of what might happen if they wound up alone. “It’s been a long day.”

  “That’s another point we agree on.”

  As they wove their way through a maze of tables and milling customers, Sky tried not to notice all the appreciative female gazes glued to Grant’s backside.

  She wanted him.

  Grant stood in the motel’s parking lot, staring through his sunglasses at the door Sky had closed—and bolted—seconds before. The next instant, the air-conditioning unit that poked out beneath the room’s front window churned on.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and scowled. Back in the diner, he hadn’t intended to touch her. Hadn’t meant to slide that crumb from her lip. Her mouth had been ripe and full and naked and too tempting not to touch. In that brief, heart-stopping instant when he’d indulged himself with a slow trace of her lips, he had watched color flood her cheeks and her eyes go wide and smoky with desire. She wanted him, yet she was doing everything in her power to deny that emotion.

  Muttering an oath, he turned away from the bolted door. Instead of heading to the room next to Sky’s, he started across the black-topped parking lot that, even with the sun slipping toward the horizon, exhaled the searing heat of the day. Since he was without a car, the minimart on the other side of Main Street would have to do as a place to get a couple of toothbrushes, toothpaste and a razor. Grant added a paperback to his mental list, knowing he had a long, sleepless night ahead of him. And while he was shopping, he would do his damnedest to decide what to do about the fact that the woman he wanted in his life climbed the walls whenever he got near.

  All of his senses told him it was more than just the rape that had put the re
cent tormented look in Sky’s eyes. Something more.

  At the edge of the street, he waited for a break in the traffic, then jogged to the other side through a plume of heated road dust.

  It had been his insatiable curiosity and boundless patience that had helped land him in Homicide. Sometimes a part of the job was waiting for a killer to make a mistake. Grant knew how to watch and listen and wait. He could also be relentless when he went after something he wanted.

  The something he wanted now was a chance at the relationship that had barely gotten started six months ago before Sky ended it.

  Pulling open the door of the minimart, Grant gave thanks for the blast of cool air that greeted him. Deep in thought, he walked down an aisle where cans of bean dip nestled beside rolls of antacids. He knew in order to get to that relationship, he had to peel away the defensive layers Sky had built around herself. Get to the heart of her secrets. He would, he resolved. No matter what it took, no matter how long, he would get there.

  What Sky had yet to understand was that this time, things were different. This time, he had no intention of letting her go.

  Fifteen minutes later, Grant strode back toward the motel, his purchases in the plastic sack dangling from his fingertips. The heated evening air had sweat trickling down his back as he walked past a dozen closed numbered doors. He turned a corner and headed down the shaded walkway that led to the far end of the motel. When Sky’s room came into view, the sweat against Grant’s flesh turned to ice. His heart shot into his throat.

  The drapes inside Sky’s room billowed in scarlet tongues of flames that licked the inside of the wide window. Dark gray smoke swirled behind the flames, plumed from beneath the door.

  Grant couldn’t stop the terror from singing in his head. “Sky!”

  Tossing aside the plastic sack, he smashed his shoulder against the locked door.

  Chapter 6

  Grant yelled Sky’s name over and over as he slammed his shoulder against the motel room door. From somewhere down the walkway, a man hollered.

  “Fire! Get help!” Grant shouted just as the door gave way beneath the brute force of his weight. Black, acrid smoke billowed out as he dashed inside.

  “Sky!”

  She had to be all right, he thought frantically, his gaze sweeping the small room from wall to wall. He had one moment of unspeakable horror when he saw that flames had already engulfed the mattress. She’s not there, he told himself, forcing control back in place. She wasn’t anywhere in the room, he realized the next instant. Nor was her evidence kit which, due to chain-of-custody requirements, she kept with her at all times when the kit contained evidence.

  Eyes slitted, forearm pressed against his mouth and nose, he moved past the bed and small nightstand that flames had leapt onto. The thin wedge of light beneath the bathroom door drew him like a beacon of hope.

  “Sky!”

  When he flung open the door, a burst of steamy air hit his face. The movement he spied behind the pink plastic shower curtain sent relief sweeping through him.

  “Fire!” he shouted over the rush of water. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her purse and the evidence kit sitting beside the sink. He grabbed a towel off the room’s only rod, then whipped back the shower curtain.

  His mind had time to register inviting curves and yards of water-slicked flesh before Sky’s bare foot slammed squarely into his chest. The blow sent him stumbling backward, his leather soles nearly going out from under him on the floor’s smooth tiles. The momentum from the blow smashed him into the wall; the towel rod bit into his back as his breath escaped from his lungs in a grunting rush.

  “Grant…?” Face red, eyes wide, Sky clutched the pink curtain around her like a protective shield while gaping at him through rivulets of water and wet hair.

  “This place is on fire!” He panted the warning past the tight throb in his chest while sweeping one hand toward the door where smoke rolled in to join the shower’s steam. Pushing off the wall, he held the towel spread out in front of him as he rushed toward her. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I need my clothes,” she sputtered when he wrapped the towel around her and the shower curtain, then swept her into his arms.

  “Were they on the bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re toast.”

  When he spun around, the curtain ripped from the rod.

  Over the rush of water and hiss of flames, Grant heard the little metal hooks jingling against the rod.

  “Wait!” Sky leaned, nearly sending him off balance on the now-wet tiles when she grabbed the evidence kit and her purse, then clutched them to her chest.

  He bolted for the door, cognizant now of the wail of sirens. In the outer room, flames danced across the bed and the few pieces of furniture, lending an eerie orange sheen to the scalding air.

  Sky gave a compulsive jerk as if she’d been singed by the flames. “Dear Lord,” she murmured, tucking herself closer to his chest.

  Grant tightened his arms around her. As he moved, thick smoke swirled, stinging his eyes, piercing his lungs.

  Seconds later he darted out the door into a blessed spray of water.

  Firefighters continued muscling equipment off a fire engine as he moved swiftly to the outer edges of the parking lot where a police car, an ambulance and sightseers crowded. Farther off, the traffic on Main Street had come to a standstill. Some drivers stood beside their idling cars, watching the drama unfold.

  Sky craned her neck to get a look at what had been her room. “I don’t…believe this,” she said, her uneven words filled with dismay. “I didn’t even smell smoke…when I was in the shower. Didn’t hear… Grant, I…” She shivered. “I don’t…”

  “You’re okay. Everything’s okay.” The soothing words were meant to comfort, but saying them didn’t make his hands any steadier. He shut his eyes against the knowledge of how close he’d come to losing her. Too close.

  A tall, sandy-haired man wearing a white shirt sporting an ambulance company logo jogged over. “You folks hurt?” he asked, transferring a bright red rescue equipment box from one hand to the other.

  Grant inched his head back to get a good look at Sky. Her long, dark hair was slicked off her face, making her blue eyes look extraordinarily wide, her cheeks pale. He was deliriously relieved that he saw no signs of shock. Still, that didn’t mean the enormity of what she had survived wouldn’t avalanche on her in a few minutes.

  “Why don’t you let him check you out?” he suggested quietly.

  “No.” Gripping the evidence kit and her purse, she shook her head. “No EMT, doctor or hospital. I’m fine, Grant. Just fine.”

  “You sure about that, ma’am?” Narrowing his eyes, the EMT peered at her face. “Wouldn’t take me no time at all to check your vitals.”

  “No, thanks. I’m okay.”

  Lifting a shoulder, Grant met the man’s gaze while managing to take his first full breath since he’d spotted the flames in Sky’s room. “I’ll keep a close eye on her.”

  “We’ll be here a while longer,” the EMT advised. “Holler if you need me,” he said, then headed back toward the ambulance.

  “I’m okay,” Sky repeated over the thrumming of the fire engine’s pump. “Really.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Grant pressed a kiss against her damp hair, pulling in the twin scents of shampoo and smoke. “You gave me a scare. A big one.” Now that the adrenaline had begun to seep out of him, he was aware of the soft, damp thigh against his arm, the nearness of the bare throat and shoulders where water still beaded.

  “Grant?”

  He pulled his gaze from her glistening flesh. “What?”

  “You saved me,” she said, the solemn tone in her voice matching the look in her eyes. “You saved my life.”

  He angled his chin, making a snap decision on the best way to remove the strain from her face. “You know, Milano, that’s a first for me.”

  “The first time you’ve saved someone’s life?”
<
br />   He grinned. “First time I’ve ever saved a woman wrapped in a shower curtain the color of a plastic yard flamingo.”

  “Oh.” She looked down, her face turning as pink as the curtain. “I need some clothes.”

  “I’d say that’s an accurate statement,” he said, then headed across the parking lot.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the motel’s office. Delbert might have some clothes to loan you.”

  Sky blinked. “If there’s a Mrs. Delbert, her clothes would probably fit me better.”

  “No luck,” Grant said as they neared the office. “When we checked in, Delbert mentioned he’s a widower. But I caught a glimpse of his teenage daughter. She’s about the same size as you.”

  Grant used a shoulder to shove through the office door into the small lobby that had room for only a few serviceable chairs and tables. The hatch at one end of the registration counter was raised, as if whoever had been on duty had rushed out in a hurry.

  “Delbert’s probably outside in the crowd of bystanders watching your room burn,” Grant commented.

  Gripping the curtain, her purse and evidence kit against her breasts, Sky began to squirm. “You don’t need to keep carrying me around. Put me down so I can look for some clothes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Grinning, he set her gently on her feet.

  In the office’s dim light, he gave her a considering once-over. “You know, Milano, you look pretty good the way you are.”

  She tossed her long damp hair back. “Half-drowned and wearing a shower curtain?” she asked, a line forming between her eyebrows.

  A sudden chill, very brief but very real, ran through Grant’s blood as he brushed a fingertip down her cheek. His grin faded.

  He’d come so close to losing her.

  “Alive,” he managed after a moment. A tremor worked its way into his heart, tightening his chest. He realized then that his feelings for her went far deeper than he’d been willing to admit. How deep, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he would do whatever it took to keep her in his life.