All I've Ever Wanted - Adrianne Byrd [36]
“What about your son?”
“He’s safe,” she answered with a nod of her head.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” she said. “But I have to believe it.”
It was Max’s turn to drop his head. Kennedy St. James was as stubborn as she was beautiful, an irritating discovery.
The room fell silent again as Max searched his mind for some type of compromise he could offer, but could find none. “I can’t let you walk out of here, knowing that you won’t make it to see the sunrise.” He looked up.
Her gaze fell and she bit her lower lip in concentration. He wondered if she was thinking where she could lie low. Were there friends that could take her in and protect her? Judging by the way her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears, he concluded that she had no one she could depend on.
He was starting to think that locking her up for the night was the only way he could protect her.
What would happen to Tommy if something were to happen to her? Sure, her grandmother would try to raise him, but she was nearly eighty. She wouldn’t be able to care for him for long.
She tried to think of another solution, but that was difficult to do under Collier’s tight scrutiny.
“Kennedy?”
She lifted her head at the tenderness he used when he called her by her first name. This time, when their eyes met, she saw empathy in his expression.
“You have to trust me.”
For first time since they’d met, she wanted to trust him; wanted to share her burden and receive some type of protection from this craziness she’d found herself in.
Collier retrieved the chair he’d abandoned and placed it in front of her.
Kennedy followed his every move. She caught the faint scent of his cologne and when he spoke, she heard the exhaustion.
“What can I do to get you to trust me?”
She didn’t have the answer to that. She didn’t have an answer to anything. “I just need time to sort all this out,” she said truthfully.
“We don’t have the luxury of time.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. She closed them, ashamed that she’d lost control of her emotions.
His hands encircled hers and an undeniable warmth spread throughout her and had an amazing affect on calming her fears. She resisted the urge to lean forward and rest her head against the broad span of his chest, as she had done earlier at the stadium.
In that singular experience, she had cried until all her tears were spent, and a peace she had never experienced had settled in her soul.
“You can’t go home,” he said softly. “You realize that, don’t you?”
Kennedy nodded.
His fingers gently rubbed the palms of her hands, and something tingled at the base of her spine then spiraled upward.
She pulled her hands away, troubled by what she was feeling—what she had felt since the day she’d laid eyes on him.
He frowned, and then sighed. “Okay. We’ll play this your way. It’s painfully obvious that I’m not going to get you to talk, am I?”
“I can’t, not until I know that my son is safe.”
“And when will that be?”
She remembered when the Warners were due to drop off Tommy. “Noon tomorrow.”
Collier nodded. “All right then. Then we have to hide you for—” he looked at his watch “—twelve hours. I have a suggestion.”
Hope flashed as she stared up at him.
He held up a hand, as if expecting her to reject his idea. “It’s the only way I can keep an eye on you while you wait to find out about your son.”
Suspicion replaced hope, and Kennedy waited for him to drop his bombshell.
Max met her direct gaze. “I think you should spend the night at my place.”
Chapter 17
A waterfall of tears cascaded down Lieutenant Kelly Scardino’s face as she looked down at Dossman’s motionless body. The doctors had assured her that the worst was over. The rest was up to Dossman and his will to live.
She stared at him, unnerved by his coloring. Their last argument echoed in her mind and a sour taste formed in her mouth. Marriage. He had actually proposed marriage.
The cocky laugh she had given him died in her throat. If she’d ever doubted that she loved this man, she stood corrected. She slid