“Well, he’s not going to shoot anybody tonight. Please, Deputy. I’m the one who’ll get into trouble if I allow you to stay in here. Please leave. He won’t be fully conscious for hours yet.”

They left. Thank Christ. Now he could enjoy this erotic dream in peace.

Jordie’s breath had turned uneven. In shockingly explicit language, she begged him to put his fingers inside her. He was all too happy to oblige.

Holy hell. He’d thought her mouth was wet and hot and snug.

She clenched, drawing his fingers deeper. He eased them back, and when she whimpered in protest, he pushed them into her again. Higher. She clenched tighter.

And then in the miraculous way of dreams, he was suddenly on top of her, and it wasn’t his fingers but his cock embedded in her. She was squeezing it each time he thrust into her. God, it felt good.

Never one for prolonged foreplay—or kissing, for that matter—he’d always just as soon skip the preliminaries and get on to the main event. Not this time. Not with Jordie. He was in no hurry. He liked this unrushed fucking.

Best of all, he wasn’t going anywhere. He could keep at this for a long time. Till morning. Hours yet.

Jordie came awake as suddenly as though someone had shoved her out of sleep.

She expected to find herself reclined on a cloth-upholstered backseat, her hands and feet bound. It took several seconds for her to remember that she was in a hotel room. Creature comforts included fresh bedsheets and a pillow stuffed with the softest down. The temperature wasn’t sweltering; instead, she was chilled by air-conditioning.

However, while she was no longer a hostage in a nasty garage, she wasn’t in this hotel suite by choice.

According to the clock on the bedside table, it was four thirty a.m. Throwing off the covers, she left the bed and went into the bathroom. After using the toilet, she closed the lid and sat on it, elbows on her knees, head in her hands.

Was Shaw all right? Would he recover? Was he even alive?

Not knowing his current condition or prognosis was sheer torture.

Gwen Saunders, the U.S. marshal with whom she was sharing the suite, had received calls at various times throughout the long afternoon and evening, but she had never divulged the nature of those calls to Jordie.

When Jordie had pretended to nap, she had intentionally left the bedroom door ajar, hoping to pick up enough tidbits of the one-sided conversations to piece together some solid answers to all the questions plaguing her.

But either Gwen was aware of her eavesdropping or she had an unusually soft speaking voice. When Jordie had given up the pretense of napping, emerged from the bedroom and asked the marshal point-blank if she had received any word on Shaw Kinnard’s condition, her answer had been “The last report, he was still in surgery.”

That was all Jordie had gotten from her, and she had no way of knowing whether or not that was the truth. “Still in surgery” could mean that he had died on the operating table and they had left him there.

The marshal was no more forthcoming about Josh. After Jordie had asked several times if there had been any further contact with him, the marshal told her that Agent Wiley had repeatedly called the number from which Josh had called him. “He hasn’t answered, and he hasn’t called back.”

The story of her rescue hadn’t been reported until the last news broadcasts of the night. Maybe Josh, wherever he was, had learned of it by now. Perhaps he’d tried to reach her directly. With that possibility in mind, she’d asked Gwen if her cell phone had been recovered.

“It was found in Kinnard’s car.”

“But I searched that car. Thoroughly.”

“Apparently he had cleverly hidden it.”

“I’d like it back, please.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Bennett. It was taken into evidence.”

Evidence of what, Jordie wondered. Evidence against whom? Gwen hadn’t specified, and Jordie was afraid to ask for fear of what the answer would be.

In any case, it was doubtful that Josh would be foolish enough to call her phone. He would know the authorities were closely monitoring it in the hope they could use an incoming call to pinpoint his location.

After consulting Agent Wiley, Gwen had permitted her to communicate with her office staff on the condition that she talk to them on speaker. Her employees became uncharacteristically emotional when they heard her voice. They expressed relief and gratitude that she was unharmed.

No one mentioned Josh, so she was spared having to address that issue with them. Nor did she provide them any details of her abduction and rescue, primarily because Gwen had instructed her not to. “Something you say innocently might impede the investigation.”

Jordie didn’t see how that was possible, but she didn’t argue, because she wasn’t ready to talk about those thirty-six hours spent with Shaw Kinnard anyway.

She had no idea when she would be allowed to return to work and resume normal life. After talking with her staff, she felt detached from reality and drained of energy. The remaining hours of the day had seemed to stretch emptily and endlessly ahead of her.

She’d availed herself of the suite’s Jacuzzi tub and had shampooed so vigorously she’d made her scalp sting. She used a spare toothbrush to scrub the caked blood—Shaw’s blood—from beneath her fingernails.

Gwen had collected changes of clothing and toiletries from her house in Tobias, as Wiley had said. Jordie was glad to swap clean clothes for those hopelessly blood-stained, although she was strangely reluctant to hand them over to Gwen when she asked for them. Jordie couldn’t account for why she was inclined to hug them against her chest and not let go.

Since her arrival, they’d ordered two room service meals. Jordie should’ve been ravenous, but she’d listlessly picked at the food. After drinking a half glass of minibar white wine, encouraged by Gwen, she’d pleaded exhaustion and gone to bed.

It surprised her now that she’d slept at all, but she supposed that her body had demanded it whether she’d desired it or not. The sleep had restored her physically, but she’d come abruptly awake with her anxiety intact.

Staring at the cold floor tiles between her bare feet, she thought how badly she dreaded tomorrow and the unwelcome surprises it could have in store. Then she realized that it was tomorrow. She had no alternative except to face it.

When she stepped into the bedroom, Gwen was standing backlit in the doorway that opened into the living area of the suite.

U.S. Marshal Gwen Saunders was of average height, her frame padded by fifteen pounds of extra weight, which she carried well and unselfconsciously. She wasn’t unkind, just…official. She was on high alert even at four thirty in the morning. Not that Jordie could blame her. Josh’s escapade hadn’t inspired much trust between the Marshal’s Service and the Bennett family.

Gwen asked, “Everything okay?”

“I just needed the bathroom.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“No thank you.”

“I received a text from Joe Wiley after you went to bed.”

Jordie’s heart tripped. Shaw?

“He’d like us to be at his office at nine thirty,” Gwen said, dashing her hope, and fear, of getting an update on Shaw. She went on to tell Jordie that she’d ordered a Continental breakfast to be sent up at eight. “Unless you want me to order something else.”