NO MATTER HOW SHE MADE LIGHT of it, the horror of the situation appalled Spencer. “I can imagine what she thought.”
“Yeah.” Arizona gave a soft laugh. “At first, she figured I was robbing her or something, and she looked ready to jump out of her skin. But then Jerry—”
“Jerry?”
“One of the goons hired as muscle to make sure no one got out of line.” She waved that off as unimportant. “Anyway, he came toward us, all fuming with blood in his eyes. When he pulled out his gun, she put that big rig in gear and rolled right out of there. Of course she wanted an explanation, so as soon as we’d covered a little ground, I told her a guy was trying to rape me. Not really a lie, but not the whole truth, either. I just…I couldn’t see going into all of it, you know?”
“I understand.” And he did. Too many women felt shame at what had been forced on them. Relaying details to a stranger would be painful.
“She wanted to take me to the cops, but I just wanted to be free.”
A small word—that meant so much.
“When she hit a quiet stretch of highway, I thanked her, and bailed.”
On her own? The idea of a seventeen-year-old abused girl finding shelter and safety boggled his mind. It was a wonder she’d survived—but she had, with attitude galore.
“I know what you’re thinking.” She shook her head at him. “But it was okay. Luckily it wasn’t a cold or rainy season. I boosted a car, but I still needed some paper, so I mugged a drug dealer.”
Paper, meaning money. But…she’d tangled with a dealer? “I hope that’s an exaggeration.”
“Nah. He was a little creep, and I let him think I was interested.” She snorted. “He rushed me to his room, and when he got all grabby, I snatched his gun from him.”
Hiding his horror, Spencer asked, “You shot him?”
She looked at him like he was nuts. “A gunshot would’ve drawn attention.”
And that had been her only reason for not murdering the guy? “I see.”
“I went old-school and pistol-whipped the punk.” She made a “clunk” motion with her hand. “Clubbed him right on his melon. I had to hit him twice to really put him out. The first one only dazed him. But when I left he was breathing.”
“And then you took his cash?”
“Yeah. I was hoping for enough to get food, but the dude had five C-notes!”
“Five hundred dollars?” Spencer whistled. Losing that much would put any crook into a foul mood. Thank God she’d gotten away. “You left the area?”
“Scooted right out of there, with his money and his gun.” Proud of herself, she grinned. “Within two days of running, I had a car, plenty of cash and a weapon. I headed to another town, found a place to stay. I figured what worked once would work again, so most of my spending money came from traveling to other areas and robbing drug dealers. Occasionally I cashed up by gambling.”
The idea of her besting an armed thug should have been ludicrous, but he’d seen her in action. Given her size and how she looked, she probably took plenty of guys by surprise. “You learned to fight by fighting?”
“Survival is a good teacher.” She smirked. “Back then, I preferred the gambling.”
“And now you prefer fighting?”
She didn’t answer that. “I win a lot because I’m a good cheat. I’m also a good thief, and I’m really good at picking locks.”
Because she’d spent so much time locked in.
With an effort, Spencer kept his tone neutral. “If those skills are what helped you get by, then I’m glad you had them.”
“Even though I broke into your house?”
Keeping his gaze on his tea glass, he offered, “You could have a key if you want.”
“Seriously? You trust me?”
He didn’t, not really. Not with everything. Definitely not with too much intimacy.
But with his belongings?
He met her mocking gaze. “Would you rob me?”
“No!”
“That’s what I thought. So why not give you a key?”
Skepticism kept her quiet for a long study. Finally she smiled. “That’s real big of you, Spence.”
“Spencer,” he corrected with strained patience. He knew she shortened his name whenever she got annoyed—or felt vulnerable.
“But I don’t need a key.” She turned away with feigned disinterest. “Not like I plan to come here that often.”
Probably not, but he wouldn’t mind if she did. Whether arguing with her, wrestling with her, or having dinner, he enjoyed her company. “Then feel free to break in whenever the mood strikes you.”
“Pffft.” She half laughed. “You just took all the fun out of it.”
Spencer smiled in return, but he in no way felt amused. He couldn’t imagine what kind of guts it took, or how it would shape a person, to live through what she’d described. He knew the basics from Jackson, but while she was in a talkative mood, he wanted to hear it—all of it—from her perspective.
“So how does Jackson factor in?”
“Yeah, that’s the interesting part, huh?” A little livelier now, she leaned forward and smiled at him. “See, the bastards didn’t take kindly to me getting away, but when they finally caught up to me, they didn’t want me for the usual.”
To sell, barter and abuse. Gently, he asked, “Why did they want you?”
“To teach the others a lesson—by killing me.”
Under the circumstances, Spencer let the curse pass. They were bastards—and so much more. In contrast to the awful words, Arizona’s cavalier mood made it all too clear how much it still hurt her.
“They…” She faltered, then rallied again. “They roughed me up. I tried to fight, but they tied my hands behind me, and then…” She hesitated, her brows pulling down in a small frown.
It gave him warning of the awfulness of the details she’d share. He braced himself, but not enough.
Voice quieter now, she whispered, “They tossed me over a bridge into a river.”
Air left his lungs; his muscles bunched. He’d known, but hearing it from her made it more—more vivid. “They wanted to drown you.”
She shook off the melancholy. “It was such a miserable night, storming like crazy with lightning cracking everywhere and thunder so loud, you could feel it. I was so scared that when they threw me over, I barely had the sense to stop flailing and try to land feetfirst, to suck in air before that icy water closed in around me.” Using both hands, she pushed her hair back from her face. “I pretty much figured I was dead.”
“Jesus.” His stomach bottomed out. He desperately wanted to hold her, to draw her into his lap and hug her tight and tell her…what? That nothing bad would ever happen to her again?
He knew she’d never allow that, so he settled on reaching for her hand. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“Yeah, pretty sucky, right?” After one brief squeeze, she pulled away. “I managed to get my head above water, but it wasn’t easy, and I knew I couldn’t do that for long. And even if I found a way to make it to shore, they’d just throw me back in again. Or shoot me.”
Imagining the panic she had to have suffered left Spencer hurting for her.
“For certain they weren’t going anywhere until they knew I was gone for good. See, they’d already told me that they needed the police to find my body. That way, they could tell the other women about it and use it as discouragement—”
“I get the picture.” And he wanted to kill them, all of them. But that satisfaction would be denied him; they were already dead.
“They weren’t counting on Jackson, though.” She propped her chin on a fist and smiled. “Poor guy just sort of stumbled onto the whole mess. I’ll never understand why, but he jumped into the thick of things, annihilated the goons, and then…”
Spencer waited.
She sighed and met his gaze. “Jackson dove in after me.”
Off a bridge during a storm into dark waters. Thank God Jackson had been there. “How many men were there?”
“Three.” She grinned with delight at Jackson’s ability. “But when I think of how he looked that night, I don’t think it would’ve mattered if there was a dozen.”
Spencer couldn’t muster even the most meager smile. “Dead?”
“Eventually.” She flapped a hand. “I don’t know if he killed them or…”
“I know about the group, hon.”
She went still, then tipped her head to study him. After a few seconds, she said, “I’m not your hon, but okay, if you know about them, then you already know none of those cretins survived that night.”
Not touching her wasn’t an option. He reached for her slender hand again and moved his thumb over her knuckles. “I’m glad.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Appearing disconcerted, she glanced down at their clasped hands, cleared her throat and eased away. “So that’s it. You already know that Chandra, the head of the ring, got away that night. Because she hadn’t been in the car or standing there on the bridge, the guys never knew she was there in the first place. I didn’t know that they’d missed her presence, so I assumed she was part of the carnage.”
“She can’t ever again hurt you.”
Arizona directed a frown at him. “Because you killed her, when it should have been my privilege.”
He said, “I’m sorry,” and he meant it.
“Well…now all of them are gone, and I’m left at loose ends.”
Her mercurial mood swings kept him guessing. Yes, he’d shot Chandra, but he’d been tracking her for his own reasons, and it was debatable who had more right to vengeance.
That she felt robbed was a sad consequence of his actions. “Ready for dessert?”
Accepting the switch from morbid history to here and now, she said, “Dessert? Seriously? You do know how to treat a gal, don’t you?”
* * *
ARIZONA WAS THINKING how nice it felt to share with Spencer. He didn’t get all mushy on her, didn’t try to console her or make a move. He listened.
And she knew he understood.
Sure, he’d done that odd hand-holding thing, but then, people did that. They touched. She’d seen it plenty of times with Jackson, Trace, Dare and their wives. She didn’t hate it, but she wasn’t crazy about it, either.
When it was Spencer doing the touching, for some reason, it affected her even more. It wasn’t intolerable, really, but…she didn’t know if she’d get used to it or not.
Then Spencer turned from the fridge—and she saw he held a small but fancy birthday cake.
Stunned, she slowly pushed back her chair and stood on suddenly wobbly legs. “What is that?”
Very matter-of-factly, he replied, “Vanilla cream cake with whipped frosting. I think it has raspberry filling between the layers.” His gaze met hers. “But there are no hidden threats, Arizona. It’s not poisoned, and I promise, it isn’t something you need to freak over.”
“I wasn’t freaking!” But she was. The urge to escape left her heart hammering.
“Bull. You look ready to run away.”
She tucked in her chin. How could he know that? And how dare he say it out loud? “I don’t run from anyone.”
He set the cake on the table in front of her and, with a smile, said, “Sometimes you should. But not now.” Standing too close, all but towering over her, he whispered, “Not ever from me.”
No way would she look at him, not while he sounded like that, all dominant, protective male. Instead she eyed the dessert. It had fancy sugared rosettes and the words “Happy Birthday!” written in pale blue frosting across the top.
A lump formed in her throat. “I told you not to do anything dumb.”
In a touch so gentle it scared her half to death, he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I know. That’s why I refrained from putting candles on it.”
She snorted. “I’d have…”
“What? Socked me? Thrown the cake at my face?”
“Maybe.” His close physical proximity made her jumpy. “Well, get back in your seat then if we’re going to eat this thing.”
Even though she didn’t look at him, she felt his smile. “All right.” He stepped away. “More milk? Or coffee?”
“Milk.” Now that she had some breathing room, she filled her lungs. Grudgingly, she said, “It’s a pretty cake. Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” He refilled her glass. “And for the record, in case you want to reciprocate, my birthday is right before Thanksgiving.”
Even knowing he teased, Arizona imagined how it’d be. Buying a cake for someone, sharing that special day…like she was doing right now.
Such a normal thing to do. “Yeah, okay.”
His smile widened. “I’ll hold you to that.” Using a cake server with a cow-shaped handle, he cut into the cake and put a big piece on a plate for her.
Maybe it was the “not knowing” that made her so anxious, but she couldn’t refrain from trying to dissect his objective. “I told you how I made Jackson that offer.”
Spencer looked up from cutting his own piece of the fancy cake. “The offer of…?”
“Sex.” Giving Spencer a furtive glance, she added, “And he turned me down flat. You know why?”
Nodding, his tone solemn, he said, “You offered out of obligation.”
She’d hoped to again take Spencer off guard with her candid speaking, but this time he rolled with the punches. “He’d done so much for me.” And Spencer wanted to do things for her, too. But why? “Too much.”
Seconds ticked by while he watched her. “I doubt Jackson saw it that way.”
She knew exactly how Jackson saw it. “He felt…pity for me.”
Spencer shook his head. “No.”
“Well, it wasn’t about the rescue.” In a rush, she put voice to the turmoil of her thoughts. “He rescued Alani, too, but that didn’t bother him. He chased her like crazy. That’s because he didn’t pity her.”
Unconvinced, Spencer rubbed his upper lip as he measured his words and, after some hesitation, finally said, “I feel pity for what you suffered, Arizona, for all that was done to you. But I don’t pity you, because I can see you’re a survivor, not a victim.”
Heart pumping hard, she locked gazes with him. “So…you want to have sex with me?”
More hesitation, and then with a shrug, “I’m breathing, aren’t I?”
The words raked over her nerves like talons, stealing her breath and her nerve. “So—”
“Wanting you, and planning to do anything about it, are two very different things. There are a lot of things I want, but men, good men, control themselves. They don’t abuse others, or—God forbid—take by force.” He reached out a hand, palm up, and waited for her to accept him.
Though it felt cowardly, she…couldn’t. She shook her head and crossed her arms tight around herself.
Letting his hand rest on the table, he accepted her decision without comment. “I can’t deny that you’re a beautiful girl—”
“Woman.” Appalled at herself, Arizona bit her lip. Hard. Idiot. “I’m legit now,” she stammered and felt even more foolish. “That’s all I meant.”
“You’re a twenty-one-year-old woman,” he agreed. “And you’re stunning.”
“Stunning.” She made a mocking face. “Whatever.” But she kind of liked that, after all the creeps who’d admired her, Spencer found her appealing, too.
“Most men who look at you are going to admire you, Arizona. And yes, they’ll want you. They’ll think about seeing you naked, about having sex with you. It’s how men’s minds work. We’re visual, and we’re sexual. But that’s not a curse.”
Good God. Talk about blunt. “Sure feels like a curse to me!”
“Even if you were willing, nothing like that will happen between us. Not because I pity you,” he stressed, “but because you’re too young for me, you’ve been through too much to totally understand what you want or need, and you don’t entirely trust me.”
And he was still in love with his wife.
But Arizona wasn’t cruel enough to say that to him. Instead, she touched the cow-shaped handle on the serving knife. “I’m guessing your wife bought this?”
Drawing back, he stared at her—and shut down.
Undeterred, Arizona said, “It looks like the kind of stuff a wife would buy. A good wife, I mean.”
Picking up his fork, he dug into his cake. “What would a bad wife buy?”
“Drugs. Alcohol. I don’t know. That kind of stuff.”
He paused. “Arizona…”
“Will you tell me about her?”
He took two slow breaths and shook his head. “Eat your cake.”
“It’s almost too pretty to eat.” The sugar crystals on the flowers glittered. Between the layers, pinkish raspberry cream dripped out. She scooped up a big bite, ate it and groaned. “Oh, yeah. It tastes even better than it looks.”
She was almost done with the piece of cake when he said, “I know you went through my background.”
There’d be no point in denying it. “Yeah, well—”
“I don’t mind. I attempted to go through yours, too.”
He wouldn’t have found much—but she had. She knew all about his wife, how she’d died, and how he’d avoided any commitments since then.
But she wanted to know more. She wanted to know the small things, the nuances that made a man and woman stay together. Stay in love. Enjoy intimacy. “So you’ll tell me about her?”
Spencer took another drink of coffee and then set the cup down quietly. “No.”
Arizona tried to quell her curiosity, but he’d been so nosy, why shouldn’t she ask? It had been three years, after all. “Was she pretty?”
Slowly closing his eyes in a gesture of resignation, he put his forehead on a fist. He looked like he’d fallen asleep, but then he said, “She was pretty.”
Feeling absurdly blessed that he’d take part in the conversation, Arizona warmed. “I saw a small picture,” she volunteered. “But I couldn’t tell much.”
“Long brown hair.” He straightened in his seat again. “Not as dark or wavy as yours. Brown eyes. Fair-skinned.”
“Stacked?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Understated.” Done with his cake, he left the table and carried his plate to the sink.
Arizona wolfed down the rest of hers and joined him. “I can do the dishes.”
“I’ll only rinse and put them in the dishwasher.”
“Oh.” He bumped into her, gave her a level look, and with an expression of apology, she moved to the side. But not too far away. “She was your first love?”
“She was…everything.”
He made it sound as if he planned to be single the rest of his life, or as if he assumed he’d never fall in love again. “You married young?”
“Right after she finished college.” He closed the dishwasher. Keeping his back to her, his hands braced on the sink, arms stiff, he said, “She was two years younger than me. A dental assistant with a quirky sense of style, as you can tell by all the cow decor everywhere.”
“I like it.” It made everything feel real homey. “It’s a nice house.” Older, small but very neat, with hardwood floors, cove ceilings and tall baseboards.
Spencer nodded. “She loved this house. Loved being married, too, and she loved me. Eventually, she wanted kids. We were thinking another year or so, but then…”
Then her life had been cut short. Taking a cue from Spencer, Arizona tentatively touched his arm, and waited.
As if the gesture surprised him, Spencer stalled but only for a moment. “She stopped at a convenience store one night on her way home from work. Two men—”
“Part of a human trafficking ring,” she supplied, knowing that from the background check she’d done on him.
“Yeah. They were trying to drag a woman out of there, my wife intervened…”
His hands fisted, and Arizona, feeling really, really awkward, moved her hand from his arm to his back. “I’m sorry.”
“A store clerk died that day, too. Another customer was injured.”
“Senseless. But that’s how it always is. Senseless and cruel and—”
He stepped away from her. “Enough about that.”
Her hand dropped. “You got the guys who shot her.”
“I did. But they were only a small part of a bigger operation.” He squared off with her. “I had as much right to go after Chandra as you did.”
Chandra had been the brains behind that particular ring. Arizona knew, since it was Chandra who’d caught her, twice. Chandra who’d trafficked her. Chandra who’d arranged her street education.
Chandra who’d tried to kill her.
“That’s sort of what I was thinking, actually.” Arizona leaned back on the counter. “We have that in common, when usually I don’t have anything in common with anyone. Since we both want the same things, I’d be willing to forgive how you robbed me of personal justice, if we work together.”
On alert, Spencer took a stance and scowled at her. “We are working together. The Green Goose, right? That’s what you’re talking about?”
“Yeah, the bar and grill.” She tried not to look unsure of herself. “But we could do more than that if you wanted. I could find trafficking rings, do some background on them, and you could be my muscle.”
His eyes narrowed—not a promising sign.
“You’re up for it, right?” Trying for a joke, Arizona reached out and squeezed his upper arm.
Solid with strength. And she knew firsthand about his fast reflexes.
No doubt about it: Spencer was a big bundle of raw power and astounding ability. She admired strength a lot. In his case…maybe too much.
Crossing her arms, she tried really hard to look and sound unaffected. “So, Spence. What do you say? You want to partner up with me on a more permanent basis?”