Obsession. Lisa Jackson
stars winked high over the mountains. Zane opened the Jeep door for Kaylie, and Franklin hopped onto the passenger seat, growling as Zane ordered him into the back.
“You’re in his space,” Zane explained. The dog jumped nimbly into the back seat, but his dark eyes followed Kaylie’s every move as she climbed inside.
“I don’t know if that’s so safe.”
“He’s fine. He likes you.”
“Oh, right.”
Once back on the road, Zane switched on the radio, and the soft music, coupled with the drone of the engine and the security of being with Zane again made Kaylie feel a contentment she hadn’t experienced in years.
Drowsy from the wine, she leaned her head against the window and glimpsed his profile through the sweep of her curling, dark lashes. His hair brushed his collar, his eyes squinted into the darkness as he drove, staring through the windshield.
The road serpentined through dark forests of pine. Every once in a while the trees receded enough to allow a low-hanging moon to splash a silvery glow over the mountainside.
Kaylie leaned back against the leather seat and closed her eyes. The notes of a familiar song, popular during the short span of their marriage, drifted through the speaker. She punched a button on the radio and classical music filled the interior of the Jeep. That was better. No memories here. She’d just let the music carry her away. Her muscles relaxed, and she sighed heavily, not intending to doze off.
But she did. On a cloud of wine and warmth she drifted out of consciousness.
* * *
Furtively, his palms sweating, Zane watched her from the corner of his eye. He noticed that her jaw and arms slackened and her breasts rose and fell in even, deep breaths.
Ten minutes passed. She didn’t stir. It’s now or never, he thought as he approached the intersection. Turning off the main road and heading into the mountains, he guided the car eastward.
There was a chance she’d end up hating him for his deception and high-handedness, but it was a chance he had to take. He frowned into the darkness, his eyes on the two-lane highway that cut through the dark stands of pine and redwood. Don’t wake up, he thought as the seconds ticked by and the miles passed much too slowly.
It took nearly an hour to reach the old logging road, but he slowed, rounded a sharp corner and shifted down. From here on in, the lane—barely more than two dirt ruts with a spray of gravel—was rough. It angled up the mountain in sharp switchbacks.
He drove slowly, but not slowly enough. Before he’d gone two miles, Kaylie stirred.
The Jeep hit a rock and shimmied and she started. Stretching and swallowing back a yawn, she blinked, her brows knit in concentration. “Where are we?”
“Not in Carmel yet.”
“I guess not,” she said, rotating the crick out of her shoulders and neck as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. “What is this—a park?”
“Nope.”
“Zane?”
He heard her turn toward him. The air was suddenly charged. For a few seconds all he heard was the thrum of the engine and the strains of some familiar concerto on the radio.
Finally she whispered, “We’re not going back to Carmel, are we?”
No reason to lie any longer. “No.”
“No?”
When he didn’t answer, pure anger sparkled in her eyes. “I knew it! I knew it!” she shouted. “I should have never trusted you!” She flopped back in the seat. “Kaylie, you idiot!” she ranted, outraged. “After all he’s done to you, you trust him!”
Zane’s heart twisted.
She skewered him with a furious glare. “Okay, Zane, just where are you taking me?”
“To my weekend place.”
“In the boonies?”
“Right.” He nodded crisply.
“But you don’t have—”
“You don’t know what I have now, do you?” he threw back at her. “In the past seven years I’ve acquired a few new things.”
“A mountain cabin? It’s hardly your style.”
“Maybe you don’t know what my style is anymore.”
“Then I guess I’ll find out, won’t I? I can hardly wait,” she muttered, her eyes thinning in fury. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and waited, then quietly, her voice trembling with rage, she asked, “Why?”
“Because you won’t listen to reason.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re talking about your life, damn it. And you were going to go on as if nothing had happened, as if this—” he reached into his pocket and extracted the tape “—doesn’t exist! Well, it does, damn it, and until I find out if there’s any reason to believe ‘Ted,’ I’m going to make sure you’re safe.”
“You’re what? How?” she asked, though she was beginning to understand. “I think you’d better stop this rig and turn it around, right now,” she ground out.
“No way.”
“I’m warning you, if you don’t take me home, I’ll file charges against you for kidnapping!”
“Go right ahead,” he said with maddening calm. He cranked on the wheel to round another corner.
“You can’t do this!” she cried. What was he thinking?
“I’m doing it, aren’t I?”
“I mean it, Zane,” she said, her voice low and threatening. “Take me back to Carmel right now, or I’ll make your life miserable!”
“You already have,” he said through tightly clenched teeth. “The day you walked out on me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Like hell!” he roared, and from the back seat Franklin growled. Zane flicked her a menacing glance. “You didn’t give me—us—a chance.”
“We were married a year!” Even to her own ears, it sounded as brief as it had been.
“Not long enough!”
“This is madness!”
“Probably,” he responded with deceptive calm, wheeling around a final corner. The Jeep lurched to a stop in the middle of a clearing. “But, damn it, this time I’m not taking any chances with your life!”
Kaylie stared out the window at the massive log cabin. Even in the darkness, she could see that the house was huge, with a sloping roof, dormers and large windows reflecting the twin beams of the headlights. “Where are we?” she demanded.
“Heaven,” he replied.
She didn’t believe him. Her heart squeezed at the thought of being alone with him. How would she ever control the emotions that tore through her soul?
Oh, no, Kaylie thought, this giant log house wasn’t heaven. To her, it looked like pure hell!
“This will never work,” Kaylie predicted as Zane cut the engine.
“It already has.” He walked out to the back of the vehicle, opened the hatchback, unrolled a trap and yanked out two suitcases. Franklin scrambled over the back seat and bounded onto the gravel road.
Thunderstruck, Kaylie didn’t move. His suitcases, for crying