Lisa Jackson - Most Likely To Die

Her candid question surprised him.

He met it with one of his own. “You’re lonely?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes. Usually I’m too busy to be, but…well, sometimes.”

“What about…I mean…don’t you have anyone in your life?”

“I’ve got friends, and I visit my parents out west a few times a year, so…”

“No,” he said, “that’s not what I meant.”

“You mean am I involved with anyone?” She refused to meet his eye. “No. Not really.”

“Not really? What does that mean?”

“I should have just said no.” She took a deep breath, let it out. “No, I’m not involved with anyone. What about you?”

“No. I’m not involved with anyone, either.” He slid a little closer on the couch, wondering what the hell he was doing.

Still, she refused to look at him.

Why was he trying so hard to make her?

That wasn’t all he wanted-eye contact. He wanted to touch her.

Outside, in the distance, thunder rumbled.

It seemed to startle her. She looked up at the window, then, at last, at him.

The look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know-for now, anyway.

She was feeling it, too.

He dared to reach out a hand and let it rest on her forearm. Her skin was soft, cool to his touch.

He heard her breath catch in her throat.

“Don’t,” she said, but she didn’t flinch or pull away.

“Why not?”

“It’s not a good idea.”

“You’re right,” he said, “but you and I were never known for common sense when we were together.”

A faint smile touched her lips. “You make it sound like we were together, together.”

“I know. That’s because somehow I keep forgetting that we weren’t.”

“You know what? I keep feeling like that, too. Do you think it’s because of…you know, him?”

Our son.

She still couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“No,” he said, “because I felt that way even before I knew he existed. He’s not the only connection we have. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think I do.”

He kissed her, then…

Later, looking back, he would wonder where he found the nerve.

But he didn’t think about it, couldn’t think at all as his mouth brushed hers lightly, then boldly, then claimed it with a hunger too long denied.

Yes, she was smart.

Smart enough to know better than to waste too much time trying to hunt the kid down in this weather.

It was raining like hell, thundering, lightning. It wasn’t safe to be out there, poking around in the woods, looking for Lindsay and Wyatt’s son.

Anyway, he was really just a little detour from the main journey. An added means of making Lindsay Farrell suffer.

She didn’t really believe losing a child was a fate worse than death.

What could be worse than death?

Particularly the death she had in store for Lindsay Farrell.

It had taken her well over ninety minutes to get back to the city. Traffic was horrendous, accidents everywhere, flooding, trees down in a few places, too.

She could only hope that if Lindsay had left Wyatt’s place when Leo failed to show up, she hadn’t yet made it home.

I have to stay a few steps ahead of her. That’s the key. A few steps ahead, and everything will work out just fine.

For the second time in her life, Lindsay Farrell found herself lying naked in Wyatt Goddard’s arms.

This time, though, the sheets that entangled them were soft, imported white cotton rather than worn, nubby blue polyester. The mattress was a luxurious king-sized pillow-top, not a lumpy twin bunk.

Only the rain that steadily pelted the roof overhead was the same.

The setting didn’t matter, though. Nothing mattered but how he made her feel when he made love to her.

And afterward.

Even now, when she should be utterly spent, lingering ripples of pleasure refused to ebb entirely.

Propped on his elbow, the naked length of his body stretched alongside her own, he ran a fingertip down her bare rib cage.

“Stop,” she said, not meaning it.

“Why?”

“Because when you touch me like that, you get my hopes up all over again.”

“Really.” He did it again, and his hand came to rest on her hip.

“Really. And you can’t possibly follow through…again.”

He grinned wickedly. “You don’t think so?”

She shook her head, and he took her into his arms and kissed her again. And again.

This time, his lovemaking was languid, as opposed to the last, when they had fervently found their way up here, pent-up passion erupting like a volcano.

Now, she felt as though she were filled with molten lava as he trailed a lazy tongue across the taut slope of her belly. She moaned when it dipped lower, lower still, clutching his hair and gasping his name as he brought her to the brink, then beyond.

“You don’t have to get home tonight, do you?” he asked with a grin.

“No,” she said, still panting. “I definitely don’t.”

“Leo? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Ma,” he said, and shoved the soggy tissue into the pocket of the jeans he’d changed into when he arrived home. He grabbed the latest issue of Sports Illustrated from the floor and hurriedly opened it. “It’s me.”

He heard footsteps, then she poked her head into his bedroom and saw him lying there on his bed. “You’re done working early tonight.”

“Yeah.” He tried to remember where he’d stashed his sodden suit when he stripped it off. On the floor by the closet? At the foot of the bed?

“How come?”

“Slow night.” He forced himself to look at her. Her graying hair looked damp from the rain, and her round face was accentuated with make-up. She was wearing a pair of dress slacks and the comfortable shoes she liked to wear when she went to Manhattan. It was an eight-block walk from the subway to Aunt Rose’s apartment. “How was your day, Ma?”

“Good. Aunt Rose is feeling great. She looks great. She’s putting everything behind her and she and Uncle Paul are planning a trip to Myrtle Beach next month.”

Leo did his best to muster some enthusiasm. “That’s good. Where’s Mario?”

“He ran into Jose downstairs and went over there to play PlayStation.” Betty Cellamino fixed her older son with a worried gaze. “Are you okay, Leo?”

“Yeah, just tired.”

“Did you eat? Aunt Rose sent some manicotti for you.”

“I’ll have it later.”

His mother hesitated in the doorway, then shrugged and went to her own room.

Alone again, Leo tossed the magazine aside and rolled morosely onto his back again, wondering what to do.

He couldn’t tell his mother what had happened-that was for sure.

Nor could he tell the police, because they would tell Ma, and she would be devastated.

Why hadn’t he stopped to think about that before he agreed to meet his birth parents?

Because he was carried away by the fantasy, that was why.

Because he believed that he was actually going to meet them.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he have fallen for such an obvious Internet hoax? You read about stuff like that all the time-on-line predators who preyed on teenagers.

He’d never thought it could happen to him, at his age. He’d never thought he could be so recklessly idiotic.

But how did she know about me? About the adoption?

You moron. How do you think?

People could find out anything on the Internet.

But that hadn’t occurred to him then. No, he had actually thought he was talking to his biological mother-not some fraud who had conned him with a picture of some woman who happened to look a lot like him.

What was she going to do to him when she drove him up to the boondocks on the pretense of taking him to meet his birth parents?