Salvation in the Sheriff's Kiss(52)

“I need your help.”





Chapter Thirteen

The towel Hunter used to wipe the water from his face stopped midstroke as he stared at her.

I need your help.

He’d heard those words before, from her father. They were seared into his heart, burned into his conscience that had been blackened with their soot. Those words had been the end of him and Meredith. The end of everything he imagined they could become.

“With what?” He had already agreed to help her track down the evidence her father had against the Syndicate. What else did she need from him that necessitated a trip to his room in the middle of the night?

“I need somewhere to stay?”

“Stay?”

“Just temporarily.”

“Because...” He drew the word out, trying to make sense of what she was saying but coming up empty. She fidgeted, her fingers worrying the buttons of her cape.

“I think someone was trying to break into my room tonight.”

His blood stilled in his veins. Yucton’s warning of earlier echoed in his head. This ain’t over by a long shot. The towel fell from his hands and he strode toward her and gripped her by the shoulders, looking her over head to toe. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

He had hoped Yucton had it wrong, that it wasn’t as bad as all that. No such luck.

She held up a hand and it landed on his chest, sending a sizzle of heat straight to his core. “I’m fine. I escaped out my window and ran straight here.”

Here. Not up the street to Bertram’s, or even back into the front entryway of the hotel where Reggie manned the desk, but here. To him. His heart soared even as his stomach dropped to the hardwood floor he stood on. Images of what could have happened to her rushed through his head in vivid, horrific detail. Why was she so calm?

“Did you see anyone?”

She shook her head. “I only had time to get my boots on and grab this.” She held up her reticule.

“You stopped to grab your...whatever that is? For crying out loud, Mere, why in the hell—”

She cut him off with a huff of what he could only identify as exasperation. She pulled the small bag from her wrist and opened it, reaching inside to retrieve a folded piece of paper. She handed it to him.

He stared at it but didn’t take it. “What is it?”

“It’s the page from a ledger I showed to Bill.”

Their fingertips grazed as he took it from her setting off a deep want into areas of his body he had no business considering right now, but damnation if her presence in his room didn’t conjure up memories he’d never been able to bury.

He walked over to the lamp near his bed, to get away from her and the effect she was having on him as much as to better see what was on the paper. He tipped the page toward the light. It held columns of numbers and symbols, none of which made any sense to him. Nothing else.

He shook his head. “It’s written in code.”

“I know.”

He took a closer look. A sick feeling bloomed in his gut. He had to be wrong. He had to be. Besides, even if he was right, it didn’t necessarily mean anything. The paper itself could mean nothing.

“There was no indication of why Abbott sent this to your aunt?”

“Not really. Pa sent her a note and asked her to keep it in a safe place.”

He looked up at her. Something in her tone caught his attention. “And that’s it?” Her fingers picked at the buttons of her cape again. She dodged his gaze. “Mere?”

She took a deep breath and finally looked at him. “Can I trust you?”

As much as he deserved the question and the uncertainty behind it, it hurt nonetheless. She could trust him with her life, but she didn’t know that, and he didn’t know how to tell her, afraid whatever words he used would sound empty when balanced against his past actions.

“You can trust me,” he answered quietly, willing her to believe him, afraid she wouldn’t. They stood on a tremulous high wire and he feared at any moment she would decide it wasn’t worth the risk, jump off, and he’d lose her forever.

He watched emotions wash across the fine bones of her face—uncertainty, desperation, need—that one caught his attention and hit him hard.

“He claimed there was more, but that he had hidden it somewhere else. He wanted to keep it spread around. I didn’t understand why at the time. It made no sense to me why the page was so important. Now it’s clear. He worried this Syndicate might find it. This way, even if they found one piece, there would still be more hidden somewhere else.”

“Any idea where that somewhere else might be?”

“No. But it has to be somewhere in Salvation Falls. I had hoped Bill might know.”