Heartbreaker Read online

  “He’s so jealous he’s insane.” Thinking of Roger made her feel sick, and she pressed her hand to her stomach. “He’s truly insane. He probably went wild when I moved in with you. The first couple of phone calls, he didn’t say anything at all. Maybe he had just been calling to see if I answered the phone at your house. He couldn’t stand for me to even talk to any other man, and when he found out that you and I—” She broke off, a fine sheen of perspiration on her face.

  Gently John pulled her to him, pressing her head against his shoulder while he soothingly stroked her hair. “I wonder how he found out.”

  “Bitsy Sumner,” Michelle said shakily.

  “The airhead we met in the restaurant?”

  “That airhead is the biggest gossip I know.”

  “If he’s that far off his rocker, he probably thinks he’s finally found the ‘other man’ after all these years.”

  She jumped, then gave a tight little laugh. “He has.”

  “What?” His voice was startled.

  She eased away from him and pushed her hair back from her face with a nervous gesture. “It’s always been you,” she said in a low voice, looking anywhere except at him. “I couldn’t love him the way I should have, and somehow he…seemed to know it.”

  He put his hand on her chin and forced her head around. “You acted like you hated me, damn it.”

  “I had to have some protection from you.” Her green eyes regarded him with a little bitterness. “You had women falling all over you, women with a lot more experience, and who were a lot prettier. I was only eighteen, and you scared me to death. People called you ‘Stud!’ I knew I couldn’t handle a man like you, even if you’d ever looked at me twice.”

  “I looked,” he said harshly. “More than twice. But you turned your nose up at me as if you didn’t like my smell, so I left you alone, even though I wanted you so much my guts were tied in knots. I built that house for you, because you were used to a lot better than the old house I was living in. I built the swimming pool because you liked to swim. Then you married some fancy-pants rich guy, damn you, and I felt like tearing the place down stone by stone.”

  Her lips trembled. “If I couldn’t have you, it didn’t matter who I married.”

  “You could have had me.”

  “As a temporary bed partner? I was so young I thought I had to have it all or nothing. I wanted forever after, for better or worse, and your track record isn’t that of a marrying man. Now…” She shrugged, then managed a faint smile. “Now all that doesn’t matter.”

  Hard anger crossed his face, then he said, “That’s what you think,” and covered her mouth with his. She opened her lips to him, letting him take all he wanted. The time was long past when she could deny him anything, any part of herself. Even their kisses had been restrained for the past four days, and the hunger was so strong in him that it overwhelmed his anger; he kissed her as if he wanted to devour her, his strong hands kneading her flesh with barely controlled ferocity, and she reveled in it. She didn’t fear his strength or his roughness, because they sprang from passion and aroused an answering need inside her.

  Her nails dug into his bare shoulders as her head fell back, baring her throat for his mouth. His hips moved rhythmically, rubbing the hard ridge of his manhood against her as his self-control slipped. Only the knowledge that a nurse could interrupt them at any moment gave him the strength to finally ease away from her, his breath coming hard and fast. The way he felt now was too private, too intense, for him to allow even the chance of anyone walking in on them.

  “Nev had better hurry,” he said roughly, unable to resist one more kiss. Her lips were pouty and swollen from his kisses, her eyes half-closed and drugged with desire; that look aroused him even more, because he had put it there.

  MICHELLE SLIPPED OUT of the bedroom, her clothes in her hand. She didn’t want to take a chance on waking John by dressing in the bedroom; he had been sleeping heavily since the accident, but she didn’t want to push her luck. She had to find Roger. He had missed killing John once; he might not miss the second time. And she knew John; if he made even a pretense of following the doctor’s order to take it easy, she’d be surprised. No, he would be working as normal, out in the open and vulnerable.

  He had talked to Deputy Phelps the night before, but all Andy had come up with was that a blue Chevrolet had been rented to a man generally matching Roger’s physical description, and calling himself Edward Walsh. The familiar cold chill had gone down Michelle’s spine. “Edward is Roger’s middle name,” she had whispered. “Walsh was his mother’s maiden name.” John had stared at her for a long moment before relaying the information to Andy.

  She wouldn’t allow Roger another opportunity to hurt John. Oddly, she wasn’t afraid for herself. She had already been through so much at Roger’s hands that she simply couldn’t be afraid any longer, but she was deathly afraid for John, and for this new life she carried. She couldn’t let this go on.

  Lying awake in the darkness, she had suddenly known how to find him. She didn’t know exactly where he was, but she knew the general vicinity; all she had to do was bait the trap, and he would walk into it. The only problem was that she was the bait, and she would be in the trap with him.

  She left a note for John on the kitchen table and ate a cracker to settle her stomach. To be on the safe side, she carried a pack of crackers with her as she slipped silently out the back door. If her hunch was right, she should be fairly safe until someone could get there. Her hand strayed to her stomach. She had to be right.

  The Mercedes started with one turn of the ignition key, its engine smooth and quiet. She put it in gear and eased it down the driveway without putting on the lights, hoping she wouldn’t wake Edie or any of the men.

  Her ranch was quiet, the old house sitting silent and abandoned under the canopy of big oak trees. She unlocked the door and let herself in, her ears straining to hear every noise in the darkness. It would be dawn within half an hour; she didn’t have much time to bait the trap and lure Roger in before Edie would find the note on the table and wake John.

  Her hand shook as she flipped on the light in the foyer. The interior of the house jumped into focus, light and shadow rearranging themselves into things she knew as well as she knew her own face. Methodically she walked around, turning on the lights in the living room, then moving into her father’s office, then the dining room, then the kitchen. She pulled the curtains back from the windows to let the lights shine through like beacons, which she meant them to be.

  She turned on the lights in the laundry room, and in the small downstairs apartment used by the housekeeper a long time ago, when there had been a housekeeper. She went upstairs and turned on the lights in her bedroom, where John had taken her for the first time and made it impossible for her to ever be anything but his. Every light went on, both upstairs and downstairs, piercing the predawn darkness. Then she sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and waited. Soon someone would come. It might be John, in which case he would be furious, but she suspected it would be Roger.

  The seconds slipped past, becoming minutes. Just as the sky began to take on the first gray tinge of daylight, the door opened and he walked in.

  She hadn’t heard a car, which meant she had been right in thinking he was close by. Nor had she heard his steps as he crossed the porch. She had no warning until he walked through the door, but, oddly, she wasn’t startled. She had known he would be there.

  “Hello, Roger,” she said calmly. She had to remain calm.

  He had put on a little weight in the two years since she had seen him, and his hair was a tad thinner, but other than that he looked the same. Even his eyes still looked the same, too sincere and slightly mad. The sincerity masked the fact that his mind had slipped, not far enough that he couldn’t still function in society, but enough that he could conceive of murder and be perfectly logical about it, as if it we