let my gaze wander back to where it most wanted to be, as though he were made of gravity. Soap bubbles drifted down the glass door, making it oddly clear. I leaned closer. He wasn’t moving. He stood there with one arm braced on the wall, the other holding his side. It reminded me of our earlier encounter, making him seem almost vulnerable.
“Reyes?”
His head turned toward me, but I couldn’t make out his features. “You fall for my threats too easily,” he said, his voice echoing against the tiled walls.
I leaned back. “Are you saying I shouldn’t?”
“No.” He turned off the water, opened the door, and wrapped a towel around his waist without drying off first, then offered me his full attention. “That would make the entire effort pointless.”
“You do make a mean bluff stew,” I said, glancing away. “Your threats are rarely without merit. But I’ll remember that in the future.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
Remembering who he’d threatened, I offered him my best glower. “Even if you weren’t serious, you shouldn’t have threatened my parents like that.”
“I was desperate,” he said, shrugging an eyebrow.
“I understand you didn’t want to be taken back to prison, but—”
The expression on his face stopped me. He seemed almost disappointed. “No, Dutch, not because I didn’t want to go back to prison. Because I
I blinked, my mind stumbling to grasp his meaning.
“Do you know what could have happened to those officers had they found me? To Bianca and the kids had they seen … that? What I’m capable of?”
His meaning dawned. “You were protecting them. Protecting the officers.” I suddenly felt like the village idiot. Of course he wouldn’t have been taken back. He would have died — or horridly maimed someone — first. And there I stood in that laundry room, thinking of no one but myself. Even looking at it from a different perspective, what would it have done to the kids had they seen Reyes handcuffed and taken away? He didn’t hurt me. He’d never hurt me. He’d literally saved my life on several occasions, and I pay him back over and over with doubt and distrust.
Then again, he had held a knife to my throat.
“I was keeping you quiet,” he said, inching closer. Water dripped down his face, his hair hanging in wet tangles over his forehead. He watched me like a predator watches his prey, his eyes unblinking, his lashes spiked with moisture. He raised a long arm and braced it over my head.
“Would you really hurt my parents?” I asked.
His lashes lowered as his gaze rested on my mouth. “I’d probably go after your sister first.”
Why did I bother? “You’re such an ass.” I would have pushed him away had my hands been free.
He shrugged. “Gotta keep up the illusion. Someday you’re going to figure out exactly what you’re capable of —” He leaned in close. “—then where will I be?”
He removed the towel and began drying off. I turned toward the wall, both hands clutching the bar amidst his deep chuckle. He scrubbed his hair with the towel, then dressed in the loose-fitted jeans and T-shirt Bianca had laid out for him.
“Can I borrow a finger?” he asked.
I turned back. He was holding up the T-shirt and trying to wrap gauze around his waist at the same time. “I thought you had a genius IQ.”
His head whipped up, all traces of humor gone. “Where did you hear that?”
“Just, I–I don’t know, it was in your file, I think.”
He turned from me as if disgusted. “Of course, the file.”
Wow, he really hated that thing. “Uncuff me and I’ll help.”
“That’s okay, I got it.”
“Reyes, don’t be ridiculous.” When he headed for the sink, I lifted my leg and braced my booted foot against it, blocking his path.
He stopped and looked down at it for a long moment. Then he was in front of me, one hand wound in my hair, the other pulling me into him. But he took it no further. He just watched, studied, then said, “Do you know how dangerous that is?”
A loud pounding sounded at the door, and I jumped about three feet into the air. “
As if it took every ounce of strength he had, Reyes dropped his arms and stepped back, his jaw flexing in frustration. “One minute,” he said as he bent down and pulled on the socks and boots Bianca had supplied.
He stood and inserted a key into the handcuffs, the fingers of one hand lacing into mine as he unlocked the restraint with the other. Then we started down the hall, the current that arced through us becoming stronger with each breath, each heartbeat. Amador checked the backyard before waving us forward while he ran to the side of the house.
“Uncle Reyes, are you leaving?”
Reyes turned. Ashlee was peeking out her bedroom window through the storm screen.
“Just for a little while, smidgen,” he said, walking up to her. “Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I can’t sleep. I want you to stay.” She placed her small hand on the screen. He did the same, and my head fought to wrap itself around how fiercely animalistic Reyes could be one minute, then how amazingly tender the next.
She puckered her lips and pressed them to the screen. He leaned forward and offered her an adoring peck on the nose, and all I could think about was the fact that I never have a camera when I need one. Freaking Kodak moments sucked when you didn’t actually have a Kodak.
“When we’re married,” Ashlee said, resting her forehead against the mesh, “we can kiss without a screen between us, huh?”
He laughed softly. “We sure can. Now go to sleep before your mom sees you.”
“Okay.” She yawned, her tiny mouth forming a perfect
“Dude, did you just make out with my daughter?”
Reyes turned to Amador with a grin. “We’re in love.”
“Okay, but you can’t have her until she’s eighteen.” He put a duffel bag on the ground. “No, I know you. Make that twenty-one.”
Bianca rushed out and handed her husband another bag. “For the road,” she said as she rushed over to Reyes and hugged him gingerly, kissing his cheek as they parted. “Be careful, handsome man.”
“For you, anything.”
“Twenty-five,” Amador said when Reyes wriggled his brows at him.
Amador, Reyes, and I raced through the backyard, scaled a fence, and darted through a neighbor’s yard to the next street, where an old Chevy two-door truck sat waiting. All the while, I seemed to be the only one amazed at Reyes’s recovery, and I was the only other person present who could tote a supernatural badge if I wanted to. Amador didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised.
He threw the bags into the bed and tossed Reyes the keys. “Two minutes,” he said, tapping his watch. “Don’t be late this time.” He strode up to Reyes and embraced him hard.
“Let’s hope so. I’m probably going to need His help,” Reyes said.
Amador glanced at his watch again. “One minute thirty.”
Reyes grinned. “I would run if I were you.”
And Amador took off the way we had come.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Reyes climbed into the truck, and I saw the grimace he tried to hide. He certainly wasn’t 100 percent, but he was getting there fast. “A diversion,” he said when I got in.
About one minute later, cop sirens began wailing through the quiet neighborhood as two muscle cars raced
