Bare It All

* * *

THE ROCK-SOLID FIST struck him in the gut, knocking him back into the wall where his head smacked hard. Stars danced behind his eyes, and his guts ached. He thought he might puke.

But Hickson took the punishing blow without fighting back. What other choice did he have?

“One girl dead, and now another on the loose.” The icy gaze drilled into him, driven by disgust and rage. “I should f**king kill you.”

Shaking his head, as much to clear it as to offer a denial, Hickson said, “That wasn’t my fault.”

“Not your fault? You let a woman best you? You let her shackle you to a wall?”

When Woody Simpson, the boss, got in these moods, there was no reasoning with him. But he had to try, anyway. “I didn’t mean for Marcia to die. She flipped out after getting the tat, screaming bloody murder. I only hit her once to shut her up.”

“You hit her hard enough for her to fall and crack her skull on the concrete.”

“Well...yeah.” It’d been plain dumb luck that she’d crumpled like that. In hindsight, he knew he should have just muffled her and waited until he had her in the motel, on the mattress, to smack her around.

Woody backhanded him this time, but with the brass knuckles in place, it hurt the same as a punch. He tasted blood.

Phelps and Lowry snickered, the bastards. They’d been riding his ass ever since they found him bound in the room. “That other bitch had a Taser, and she damn near killed me with it.”

Woody laughed without humor. “Why didn’t you disarm her first thing?”

“I didn’t know she was like that! She looked like a mouse. Like a schoolteacher or a librarian. Said she was lost and just needed to use my phone.”

“You’re a f**king idiot, Hickson. You know that, right?”

He rubbed his goatee and swallowed his pride. “Yeah, I know.”

“I want you to find her.”

“Cheryl, or...the bitch that jolted me?”

“Yes.”

Hickson shook his head again, this time bewildered. “How am I supposed to do that? I don’t know her name. She could be anyone.”

“You said she helped Cheryl? That was all about doing a good deed for the twit?”

“Yeah.” Hickson brightened as he remembered. “Yeah, she got riled up when Cheryl cried.”

“So, go to Cheryl.”

Hickson went blank.

Rolling his eyes, Woody strode to his desk. “Cheryl probably went running home to Mommy and Daddy. I have her address. Get her alone, and get her to talk. She probably knows the woman, or at least knows a way to get in touch with her again.”

“If she doesn’t?”

“Find out what you can.” Woody handed over a slip of paper with an address on it. “Cheryl should at least know the make of her car, if nothing else. You better hope it’s enough for me to extinguish this problem, and fast. Because if it’s not, if that woman causes me any more trouble, you’ll be the one to pay.”

Straightening away from the wall, Hickson accepted the address. He had a reprieve, and he wouldn’t blow it. “When I find her, what do you want me to do with her?”

Woody sat back in his desk chair and smiled. “Bring her to me.”

* * *

REESE REMAINED IN an odd, antagonistic mood. Alice thought it might be from worry, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

She wasn’t a woman who could ignore the pain of others. Never again.

While Reese spent an inordinate amount of time outside with Cash, she’d emailed her family, sending them her love and apologizing for being so distant. She told them she now realized her mistake withdrawing, and promised to visit very soon.

Every so often, she’d peeked out at Reese, but no one bothered him. He sat in the grass, tossing sticks for Cash, playing with the dog, even wrestling with him a little.

Seeing him like that put a lump in her throat and a smile on her face. He was such an amazing man, so caring, so decent—the antithesis of the monsters who had used Cheryl.

When he finally came in, she was ready for bed.

He went into the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth, then into the bedroom. Uncertain, Alice trailed after him, watched him take off a shirt, strip off his slacks. Wearing only those dark sexy boxers, he turned to her.

With iron will, she forced her attention to stay on his face. “Will you stay here with me tonight?”

His brow went up. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I mean here.” She gestured awkwardly at the bed. “In the bedroom, in bed with me, instead of the couch.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.” She nodded hard. “Very much.”

On his way to the bed, he said, “I appreciate that you’re always honest with me, Alice.”

A gibe? Because, seriously, he knew she wasn’t always, entirely honest.

Now, as midnight came and went, Alice knew she couldn’t sleep. Not like this.

Not with Reese still irate.

His body remained tensed, his arms behind his head instead of around her.

Her awareness of him was so keen that she felt the lack of his affection like a douse of ice water.

So unfair.

At the foot of the bed, Cash snored, every so often running in his sleep. The dog jerked again, and Reese moved his foot against him, saying, “Shhh...”

Cash settled.

Alice glanced toward Reese, but in the darkness she couldn’t see much more than his outline. It was torture, being with him like this, but with invisible barriers keeping them apart.