Anything for Her(88)

If possible, his smile widened. “But we both know that’s BS, don’t we?”

“Snot.” She flounced toward the porch, where Nolan waited at the top of the steps, one shoulder propped against a roof support. Amusement crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes.

He looked past her. “You know, son, someday she’s going to make you sorry. Very, very sorry.”

“How’s she going to do that?” Sean didn’t sound impressed.

“She’s a woman. She’ll be creative.”

“Bull.” But faint uncertainty had infused his voice.

Nolan winked at Allie, who smiled back.

“Time will tell,” he remarked, and escorted her into the house for a very passionate kiss that ended only when they heard the thunder of his foster son’s enormous feet on the porch steps.

She teased Sean all through dinner and he teased her right back. His obvious acceptance of her made her feel giddy. Maybe he could love her, too. Maybe soon she’d have a real family again.

Nolan walked her to her car at the end of the evening for another passionate kiss. She’d noticed he hadn’t turned on the porch light when they came out. He took advantage of the deeper night in the shadow of an old lilac to slide one hand up under her shirt and gently knead her breast while his hips rocked against hers.

“Damn,” he muttered. “We could sneak out to the workshop.”

She ached for him enough to give brief consideration to the idea. Finally she sighed. “Sean would see my car still sitting here. He’s not dumb.”

“No. Damn,” Nolan said again. Reluctantly he removed his hand from her breast. “How about dinner tomorrow night? You and me. No Sean.”

“I’ll cook,” Allie agreed. She kissed his jaw. “This was fun tonight.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” His smile was in his voice, even if it went unseen in the dark.

Once she was in her car, he bent down to kiss her one more time, lingeringly, before straightening and slamming the door. As she drove away, she saw him in the rearview mirror watching her go, an unmoving monolith lit only by a half-moon.

At home she got all the way upstairs before realizing she’d left her phone in her car all evening. She went back down to get it. Seeing that she had at least one new message, she dialed voice mail and learned that she had three.

“Allie, where are you?” The voice was so hysterical, it took Allie a second to positively identify it as her mother’s. “I got a call from the U.S. Marshal’s office. Someone’s looking for us and has gotten as far as Tulsa. Allie, I think they’re going to move us again.”





CHAPTER FIFTEEN



WHEN ALLIE RANG THE BELL, her mother flung open her front door and drew her in. She wore a robe over her nightgown, but didn’t appear at all sleepy.

“Oh, thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “Why weren’t you answering your phone? Do you know how scared I’ve been?”

“I left it in my car while I was having dinner at Nolan’s.” Who cared why she’d been out of touch for a few hours? “What do you mean, someone is looking for us? What makes them think that?”

“He said they already had some pings because someone was running searches for drivers’ licenses, credit and all kinds of other things dating to the time we lived there. And then your dad called them to say a man had come to his door claiming to be a private investigator. He was asking questions about you.”

“Me?” That made no sense. “Why would anyone be interested in me?”

“Maybe it was an excuse to draw him into conversation. Or maybe they had discovered he and Jason were still in the area and realized you must have disappeared with me.”

“The computer searches—was that me, too?”

“No.” Her mother paused. “I don’t think so. You hadn’t even gotten your driver’s license yet, and you certainly wouldn’t have had a credit record.”

Not bothering to take driver’s ed had been part of Allie’s general apathy during that period. She had finally taken the class as a senior at Lynnwood High and gotten her driver’s license months after her eighteenth birthday.

“Wait,” she said. “Why would we be moved? Is there any suggestion at all that our new identity has been uncovered? How could it be? Even Dad and Jason don’t know our names now or where we are!”