Лиза Джонс - Hot Secrets

His cell phone started to vibrate on the bedside table and he grabbed it, certain a call at this hour wasn’t good. Lauren’s head popped up. ”What time is it?”

“Late,” he said, answering the call that the ID identified as Bill Smith, the Senator’s staff security person.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, not bothering with ‘hello.’ He untwined himself from Lauren to sit up, anticipating trouble and heading to his closet.

“Senator Reynolds’ house is on fire.”

Royce stopped in his tracks. “How?”

“I’m not there yet but I’m being told it’s obvious arson.”

Holy hell. “Is everyone okay?”

“The senator certainly is, enough so that he’s yelling at me and telling me I need to get my ass over here and start doing my job. He wants you there. That’s an order.”

An order. Right. He didn’t even work for the man. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He ended the call and dialed Luke, managing to get his pants on while it rang. “Get over here, dressed, and ready to leave. And get Blake down here to stay with Lauren.” He didn’t wait for a reply, ending the call and reaching for shirt and pulling it over his head.

“What’s happening?” Lauren asked, on her knees now and clutching the blanket. “What’s wrong? Is everyone okay?”

Damn, he didn’t want to tell her this. He grabbed his boots and headed for the bed. “No one is hurt.” He sat down next to her. “Everyone is completely fine.” He quickly put on his boots and ran his hands down his pants.

“But? I hear the ‘but’. What is going on?”

“I’m going to repeat this to make sure I’m making myself clear. Everyone is okay but there has been a fire at your father’s house.”

“What? How? Oh, God. I have to get over there.” She shoved away the blanket and he shackled her arm.

“No,” he said. “You need to stay here. I need to know you’re safe so I can deal with your father.”

“Why do you need to deal with my father? He’s my father.” She frowned. “Why did he call you?”

“That was Bill, his security guy.”

“I don’t understand. Why did Bill call you?”

He wasn’t going to lie to her. He hadn’t done so before now, and doing so would only make her think worse of him later. “It’s complicated. Too complicated to explain at this moment. I know you’re worried but everyone is safe. It’s you who might not be if you’re there, in the middle of all the chaos, where you’re an easy target.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on.” She shook her head. “I... what aren’t you telling me?”

“I promise you that I will explain everything when I get back.” He caressed her cheek. “Please, baby. I’m begging you here. No caveman routine. No demands. I’m asking. Let me deal with this without worrying about you.”

“I don’t want to stay here.”

“I know. And I wouldn’t ask you to, not under these circumstances, if I didn’t really feel like it was important.”

She considered him a long moment. “Fine. Yes. But only if you call me when you get there. I want to know you’ve seen my father with your own two eyes and that he’s really okay.”

“I will.” He leaned in and kissed her, and his gut clenched. He hesitated, knowing this was the wrong time to tell her how he felt, but afraid not to. She was going to find out about his deal with her father tonight, he just knew it, and she was going to hate him.

Knocking sounded front the front door and he silently cursed. “I have to go.” He kissed her again and took off for the other room, forcing himself to leave her.

***

Lauren walked to the living room, shoving her arms in her red silk robe, only to come face to face with Blake. He stood by the couch, fully dressed, his long hair wild and loose around his shoulders, his eyes blurry with barely escaped sleep.

They stared at each other several beats, before he said, “Not the best circumstances to get to know each other, but I’ve always found the best way to get past niceties and awkward shit is food.” He motioned to the kitchen. “Want to go raid the fridge with me?”

She sighed, surprised and relieved at how easily he’d torn away the tension. “There’s leftover pizza but I get the cheese slices.”

He grinned, his brown eyes friendly, warm. ”Deal.”

A few minutes later they sat at the coffee table, eating cold pizza and drinking soda, both of them with their cell phones lying on the table. “How’s your arm?” he asked.

“Much better. It’s going to scar but I can live with that.” She dropped a piece of crust into the box. “Do you think the same person set the fire?”

“Yes.” He sucked down some drink.

“You don’t candy coat things, I see.”

“Nope.” He reached for another slice of pizza.

“Aren’t you ATF or ex-ATF? Shouldn’t you be at the fire?”

“I don’t know the people involved the way Royce and Luke do.”

“You mean my father.”

“And the suspects.”

“What suspects.” Her stomach fell to her feet. “You mean you think this involves me, don’t you?”

He moved the empty pizza box. “Don’t you?”

She swallowed hard. “I... I didn’t know we thought the fire was intentional.”

“It was.”

The phone in the kitchen rang and Lauren started to get up. “It’s not him,” Blake said. “He never answers that phone or calls it. I don’t know why he has the damn thing.” He reached under the coffee table and pulled out a deck of cards. “You're not going to sleep. We might as well play.”

“I wish he’d call.”

“He’ll call,” Blake said. “But once you get on a scene things tend to get crazy.”

“What if he’s wrong and my father is hurt?”

He grabbed his phone. “I’ll call Luke if it will make you feel better.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Blake.”

Luke answered almost immediately and Blake quickly told Lauren, “Your father is fine. He’s currently yelling at Royce, which is why he hasn’t called us.” He chatted with Luke a moment and then hung up. “Before you ask, I have no idea why your father is yelling at Royce. But yelling means he’s alive and kicking and isn’t that all that really matters?”

“What if his house had been burned down because of me? What if someone would have died?”

“Those things didn’t happen.” He studied her a long moment. “Take it from me, Lauren. ‘What if’ will eat you alive. Don’t do that to yourself.”

He was talking about what happened to his fiancée; she knew he was.

He grabbed the cards. “Since we don’t have ‘Old Maid,’ how about ‘Go Fish’?”

“Go Fish,” she said. “That’s a walk down childhood lane. I’m in.” She’d do anything to keep from climbing the walls. “Let me go put on some coffee first.”

Lauren headed to the kitchen and quickly started to load the coffee pot, realizing just how comfortable she was here, how at home she felt in Royce’s place. He felt right. They felt right. She flipped the pot on and promised herself she wasn’t going to read into what was happening tonight, or his promise to tell her everything, that inferred he’d been keeping something from her.

The phone on the wall rang again about the time that she reached for two coffee mugs in the cabinet, and it hit her that it was the middle of the night. Who called at a time like this? Her nerves prickled, worry filling her. When she would have headed back to the living room, she just stood there, waiting on the machine, certain the ticking clock had found her. The beep sounded and a voice came on the line instead.

“Royce, sugar,” a female purred. “Donna here. Where have you been, baby? Call me so we can do dinner or whatever else you want to do.” Lauren clenched the cups, feeling her chest tighten with emotion, a flashback of finding Roger in bed with another woman turning into an image of Royce with another woman.