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Padding barefoot inside, she came around the corner to the living room, the giddy rush to see him turning to a gut-clenching wave of despair as she spotted him staring at Abbie’s picture on the fireplace mantle. The look on his face dashed her hopes that they could make something of their odd pairing, cutting her off at the knees. The profound love etched in every line of his face revealed how deeply he had cared for his wife, a submissive woman eager and willing to do his bidding day and night. And that wasn’t her. She’d grown to embrace and benefit from his sexual dominance, something she still struggled to accept, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t give him complete say so over her life. The month she’d lived under Brad’s thumb and demands had been the most difficult weeks of her life, and not just because of his threats against Liana and her sister’s hopeless condition.
I’ve been such an idiot. How could she hope to compete with what he’d shared with Abbie? She didn’t expect him to gaze at her with such an expression of devotion so soon in their relationship, but she was such a complete opposite of Abbie, of what he really wanted in a significant other, how could she hope he might come to care for her just as deeply? She must have made a sound because his head swiveled toward the door and he beckoned her forward.
“Why are you hovering over there? Come here.” He placed the picture back on the mantle and held his hand out to her.
She walked toward him, her heart thundering in her ears, stopping out of his reach and ignoring his hand as she looked at the picture. “You loved her very much.” Her voice wobbled but she didn’t care.
“Yes, I did. Something wrong, pet?”
Something snapped inside Lillian at hearing Mitchell call her that nickname, the one she’d switched from hating to liking and now, back to hating again. How dare he utter that endearment in that caressing tone seconds after mourning his one and only love? Lifting her arm, she knocked his hand aside as he reached out to her, stepping back with an icy glare.
“If you can’t respect my wishes regarding that degrading epithet then don’t talk to me.”
His lips tightened and he fisted his hands on his hips, giving her a glacial stare she refused to back down from. “If you have a problem, Lillian, tell me and we’ll talk about it.”
God, she despised the sneer in his voice when he said her name. “No problem, just asking for some of that respect you’re always demanding in return.”
She could tell he didn’t believe her and his words confirmed it. “Bullshit. What’s… fuck.” He grabbed his buzzing phone off the mantle, answering with a curt, “Doctor Hoffstetter.”
Lillian wasn’t disappointed when he replied to the caller, “I’m on my way,” and hung up. “Wouldn’t you know it? A trauma case is on its way into All Saints, a car accident. I have to go. We’ll finish this when I get back.” He started out, swung around, hauled her against him and ravaged her mouth in a kiss that left her shaken, needy and desperate to leave before she made a complete fool of herself.
Bryan watched the doctor walk out of his house and drive away just twenty minutes after arriving home, hoping against hope his chance to rifle through Lillian’s car for her camera was finally near. His patience in sitting here, biding his time for an opportunity to move fast without detection had been wearing thin. When he noticed she had started parking in the garage, he almost changed his mind and headed back to Utah empty handed. He had given himself a few more days, tonight being the last, before admitting defeat.
During the day, Lillian was either running around town or left the car in the drive, making it too risky to search it with neighbors so close by. At night, with the doctor in residence and her car locked in the garage, he hesitated to make a move under the new spotlights installed this week. But now, with dusk falling and Hoffstetter leaving with the garage door still open, his luck might be turning.
Casting a furtive scan of the street as he got out of his car, he followed the same route through the neighbor’s back yards to the rear of the doctor’s garage and sidled along the side and in through the open door, crouching until he reached the door handle on the passenger side of the Mazda. Putting his cigarette in his mouth, he breathed a sigh of relief when he found it unlocked. “Bingo,” he whispered, snatching the camera out of the glove compartment and backing out.
A startled gasp behind him drew a low curse as he spun around to see Brad’s ex staring at him wide-eyed, a suitcase in each hand.
“Bryan? What are you doing?” Her gaze went to the camera in his hand, her eyes going to narrow slits of suspicion. “What the hell are you doing with my camera?”
“Fuck!” Striding forward, he gripped her arm, his only thought to get out of there before the doctor returned. As he dragged her toward the back, he saw the moment she put two and two together and faced the fact there was no going back now. Her face paled as she dropped the bags and struggled in his hold.
Lillian shoved her fear aside as enlightenment dawned with the whiff of cigarette smoke. Swinging her free arm back, she slapped Bryan’s face with as much strength as she could muster, knocking the cigarette from his mouth. “You broke in upstairs and caused that fire.” She pulled against his bruising grip, digging in her feet as he kept going. “Damn it, why? Let me go!” she cried out.
Whirling on her, he drew a gun from behind his waist and pressed it against her temple with a snarl. “Shut up and move.”
Terror overruled her anger and she went with him, praying for an intervention before they got far. This had to do with his brother, there was no other explanation. But… shit. “It’s the pictures you’re after, isn’t it?” she panted as they reached a car parked around the corner. “You’re protecting that bastard again, aren’t you?”
Opening the driver’s door, he shoved her in ahead of him and she scooted as far away from him as the other door allowed. Going for the handle, she swore when it didn’t budge and he took off before she could unlock it, speeding down the residential street like a bat out of hell.
Grabbing hold for safety, she glared at him and repeated, “Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he snapped, running a nervous hand through his hair.
Before she could say anything else, he took the next corner with a squeal of tires, throwing her against the door as she saw Nan passing them, likely on her way to Mitchell’s house to return her jacket. Lillian had just enough time to mouth ‘help’ and prayed it would be enough.
Nan slammed on the brakes, turned around and memorized the license plate on the car before pulling over. Grabbing her phone, the image of Lillian’s frantic face as that man sped by giving her heart palpitations, she muttered, “Come on, come on, pick up… Grayson, oh, thank God.” She rushed to tell him what she’d just witness
ed, rattling off the license plate number.
“I’m on it. Get hold of Dan and Mitchell.”
The sheriff’s brusque, no-nonsense tone eased Nan’s trembling as she hung up and called Mitchell and then her husband.
What the hell? Mitchell was halfway to Billings when the hospital called to tell him the victim was D.O.A. and he was no longer needed. He’d barely had time to regret the unexpected death when his phone buzzed again, and Nan’s news turned his blood ice-cold. Whipping around, he sped back down the highway as he put in a call to Grayson on speaker. “Talk to me, damn it,” he demanded as soon as his friend answered.
“He has to be headed out of town and the highway is our best bet. I’ve put out an APB and abduction alert. We’ll get him. If you and I and my backup don’t block him on the highway, someone will spot them and pull him over.”
