Grace woke to the smell of frying bacon. There were worse ways to greet the day. As a captive, she guessed this was especially true. She was awake after all—alive and unharmed and, presumably, about to be fed.
She stretched sore muscles in the empty bed, her gaze straying to the door. Not only was he gone, but his makeshift pallet was missing, too. It was as though he had never slept in the room. But she knew better, of course. He wouldn’t have left her unsupervised through the night. Not after her bolt for freedom.
She rose from the bed and hurried out into the bathroom, her feet padding quietly over the wood floor.
She slipped on her bra and once again donned the big cotton T-shirt she’d borrowed. It was in better shape than her silk blouse. She pressed a hand against the window above the toilet, feeling the frosty glass. It was chilly inside, but even colder outside.
She slipped the too big boxers back on and returned to the bedroom to search for something warmer. She hit pay dirt. The drawers held quite a few garments. All for men, but she wasn’t picky.
She slipped on a pair of baggy sweatpants, knotting the drawstring as tightly as she could before emerging into the kitchen.
He looked up from the stove, lifting bacon onto a waiting plate. “Morning.”
“Morning,” she returned, easing carefully into a chair at the table as she took in the domestic scene.
“Sorry. No eggs. But we have bacon and toast.” He set a plate in front of her.
“That’s fine. Thanks.” She picked up a piece of toast, convinced she couldn’t eat beneath his watchful gaze, but the moment she took her first bite, she didn’t stop until the last scrap of food was gone. Swallowing the last bite, she looked back up at him. “Aren’t you eating?”
“Already did. C’mon,” he announced, turning away from the sink and moving to the door. She watched warily as he put on his boots.
“Where are we going?” She edged to the door and her shoes waiting there. He arched an eyebrow that seemed to say: Does it matter? You have to do what I say.
He opened the door and gestured for her to precede him, like he was any gentleman she might have met out on the streets back home. Except he wasn’t. He was a far cry from that world. In all her years of private school education, including four years at an all-girls college, she had never encountered an individual like Reid. He represented a world she was never supposed to touch. Unsavory, twisted, and of the criminal variety.
She stepped out on the porch before him, still keeping a careful distance. Everything looked much different in the light of day. Awash in browns and greens, her surroundings hummed and crackled as wind moved through branches and leaves. There was no grass to speak of—trees and shrubs offered the only green. It was raw and compelling and beautiful. In many ways synonymous to him.
The morning was cold, a faint mist clinging to the air. His boots thudded across the porch and then dropped down, hitting the dirt-packed ground. She followed him, her gaze scanning the line of brush, recalling her mad, desperate dash for freedom that had failed so miserably. Really, she was a little embarrassed by it now. If she was going to escape, she needed to be smarter.
“C’mon,” he called, looking over his shoulder.
She hurried ahead obediently, telling herself that for now this was how she would play it. She would follow his instructions, play the beaten little puppy and gain back his trust until a moment presented itself for escape. No more impulsive, ill-planned attempts to break away. The next time she made a break for it, she would succeed. If there was one thing she had learned from watching her father and his staff all these years, it was that strategy was everything.
“Where are we going?” she asked, catching up and following one step behind him as he rounded the back of the cabin.
He didn’t answer, and she wondered if he was still angry at her for yesterday. Would he treat her to perpetual silence now?
He stopped at a shed and opened the door. Ducking inside, he emerged moments later with a fishing pole, tackle box, and net. He extended the net to her. “Carry this.”
Bristling at his bossy tone, she accepted the net and followed him through thick shrubs that snagged and grabbed at her legs.
She addressed his back. “We’re going fishing?”
“You ever fish for your dinner before, princess?”
She bristled at the nickname. “No.”
“First time for everything, then.”
She stared at his broad back, her eyes following the play of muscles working under the thin cotton of his shirt. She couldn’t see his face but she could hear the smirk in his voice. He thought he knew her. He thought he had her pegged. Her determination to beat him, to escape him, only intensified.
She heard the water before they reached the edge of a midnight blue pond. Her lips parted on a tiny gasp. It was the kind of thing photographed in nature magazines.
He squatted in front of the tackle box, flipping it open. She took the time to study him, scanning corded-tight muscles moving like fluid beneath his clothes. This guy had escaped from prison. That meant he was more than some ripped meathead. There were dimensions to him. He was intelligent. Cunning.
The mist had melted away and sunlight gilded his hair into dark gold as he baited the hook with a colorful bit of plastic tackle that reminded her of something her mother teased the cat with.
Satisfied, he stood and walked out on a ridge of rocks, sure-footed, his gait even. Balanced perfectly, he tossed out his line.
Unsure what to do but pretty certain it wasn’t stare at the way the denim hugged his amazing backside, she sank down onto the ground, still holding onto the net.
She drew her knees up to her chest and sat there for several minutes, intermittently watching him (not his backside) and scanning their surroundings.
He moved with quiet stealth as he fished. Even as strong and deadly looking as he was, there was a natural grace to him—a patience she hadn’t expected. Weren’t criminals supposed to be an impulsive sort? But then, he was a criminal who had successfully escaped prison. That probably put him outside the box of everyday criminals.
As the minutes slid by, the morning mist evaporated. The day was no longer so cold. Still chilly, though . . . a fact he was apparently indifferent to when he reached one hand behind his neck and pulled his gray T-shirt over his head in that move guys always did. Well, no guy she knew, but she watched plenty of guys do it on TV. Her mouth dried and she quickly looked away, her gaze resting on the discarded T-shirt he’d flung onto the bank, anywhere but at him—at the sight of his ripped up, tattooed body.
It was several moments before she looked back at him, and it was as though he felt her gaze. He looked sideways at her. Heat punched her chest and flared outward, but she didn’t look away. She held his ice gaze.
He finally spoke. “Bet you’ve never had fish as fresh as you’re going to get tonight.” Was he trying to make small talk?
She pulled a dried-up bit of root from the parched ground. “You know this place well,” she stated.
He nodded affirmation.
Her mind groped on some memory, some bit of knowledge about captives making a connection with their captor. It was to her benefit if they could forge a connection, a relationship. Ostensibly, it would be harder to harm a person you actually knew . . . you actually liked.
She winced. Time had proven that she was not very likable. The last poll had established that America was not a fan of First Daughter Grace Reeves.
Deciding she needed to try, she cleared her throat and asked, “So you came here a lot . . . before you were incarcerated?”
His lips pressed into a firm line and his hazel gaze hardened as he gazed out at the glasslike water. Well, that didn’t take long. She’d gone too far. Asked something that brought his walls crashing down.
Then, suddenly, he shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t matter. This place won’t be a secret for long. Not after you’re free.”
The breath eased out of her. Free. Just hearing him say that as a foregone conclusion made her shoulders relax and the air flow easier past her lips. “You think I’ll tell people about this place?”
“You won’t have to,” he said as though unaffected. “You’ll tell them about me. With the resources available to the FBI and Secret Service, it won’t take them long to close in on this place.”
After she told them about him: Reid. Escaped convict. That’s all she would need to say. They would figure out the rest. And of course, she would tell them. Why wouldn’t she? He was a dangerous criminal. Just because he wasn’t as dangerous as the rest of the men who took her didn’t mean he should get off scot-free. If he was really heroic, he would have taken her straight to the authorities. He needed to be brought to justice for his crimes.
“You know I can help you . . . put in a good word for you with the authorities.”
He smirked as he reeled in his line. “That so, princess?”
“If you let me go, sure. I would do that, of course.”
“Still angling for me to let you go?” He threw out his line again. It plopped cleanly in the water. “Already told you. I can’t do that just yet.”
“Should I stop trying, then?” she snapped.
“By all means, keep trying. No one likes a quitter.” His smirk was a full-fledged smile now and it did stupid things to her insides. She fought it, trying to quell the flip-flopping of her stomach.
“Don’t you want to help yourself at all?”
“There’s no helping me, princess. It’s cute you think I’m redeemable, but I’m a lost cause. So it doesn’t really matter if you tell them my name.” He waved out at the water. “Or about this place.”
He ceased smiling. He simply stared out at the water, and despite the day’s growing warmth, she shivered. It really was pointless trying to reach someone who had nothing to lose.
She propped her chin on her knees. “I wish you would stop calling me princess.”
“Isn’t that what you are? Closest thing to royalty we got in this country.”
She snorted. That would seem true, except for the fact that the media has dubbed her “Graceless Reeves.” She was no princess, to be sure.
“I’m not . . .” Her voice faded. Maybe he hadn’t heard about her in prison—or seen any footage of her fumbling awkwardness. None of the Saturday Night Live skits. For a moment, that perked her up, but then he filled in the gap of silence.
“You’re the closest thing to a princess I’ve ever met.”
“And what’s your definition?” she asked, still feeling that prickle of annoyance and knowing she wasn’t going to like the rest of what he had to say.
“Pampered, spoiled . . . you probably have servants—”
Of course he would think that. “I don’t have servants. This isn’t the eighteenth century. I have . . . employees . . .” Her voice faded under his sharp scrutiny.
“Yeah? And what is it you do, ‘princess,’ to have these ‘employees’? Besides being your father’s daughter?”
She stared at him, hating how, in that moment, he suddenly made her feel guilty for being born into a life of privilege. Her life wasn’t all roses, but this man who had only ever experienced the harshness of the world and led a life of crime would never understand that. “I was a student,” she began, hating how lame she sounded, trying to give her life value and purpose. She shouldn’t feel compelled to make this argument to him, but she was doing just that.
“Was?” he cut in. “But not anymore? So what is it you do, then, to have these serv—oh, sorry, ‘employees’? And your nice clothes? Do you work to earn the clothes on your back? I bet that nice blouse of yours cost more than most people make in a week.”
Her blood simmered. He did not know her. He didn’t know anything about her at all. Who was he to judge her? God only knew all the awful things he had done in his life.
He continued, “You haven’t got a clue. And that, ‘princess,’ is why I call you princess. You don’t know what it’s like to have to work your fingers to the bone for something, to take orders, to have absolutely no freedom, no say over when you get to come and go. Where and when you eat, when you can take a piss.”
She snorted. Was he for real? It was like he was describing her life to the letter. She snapped. “You suck.”
He blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. You suck!” She shook her head. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to have my every move monitored . . . my every word planned out for me? Those clothes I wear that you seem so interested in? I don’t even get to pick them out.” She grabbed a hunk of her hair. “I don’t even get to say how I want my hair cut. I don’t know the last time I styled it any way I wanted.” She flattened a hand over her chest. “Maybe we have more in common than you think, huh?”
He stared at her, his cat-gold stare inscrutable. “Maybe,” he finally allowed, his eyes skimming her where she sat on the bank, warming her. She felt a sudden uneasiness under that appraisal. Was she really holding herself up to him and finding similarities? Did she want him to see them as alike? It was dangerous ground.
Grace inhaled a shaky breath, suddenly determined to insert a little distance between them. “Except that you had a choice. Right?” She nodded once, jumping from one cliff to another, this one dangerous in a different way, maybe even more precarious, but she couldn’t help herself. “You got yourself put behind bars. No one did that but you.”
A ripple of something passed over his face and his eyes sparked green-gold. Even across the distance, she could see his scarred knuckles turn white as his hand tightened around the fishing rod. “Oh, and you don’t have a choice then, princess?” He laughed harshly. “I call bullshit. You’re in control of your fate. You don’t like being a princess, then don’t be.”
He made her want to scream. She never remembered a time when her father wasn’t an important man. A senator. Governor. Vice president, and finally, president. She’d been in the spotlight all her life. Short of getting herself legally emancipated (yeah, fat chance), she never had much of a choice in anything. “Go to hell,” she got out before she could reconsider the wisdom of insulting him.
He chuckled. “How do you work in politics with that temper?”
She inhaled, battling the temper he accused her of having. Which was crazy because she never lost her temper. He was the only one that made her feel like stomping her foot.
“First of all, I don’t work in politics.” Even though it often felt like she did. Okay, it felt like that all of the time. “Secondly, I don’t normally talk like that . . . I don’t act like that. It’s you making me crazy.” She picked up a smooth rock near her shoe and tossed it into the water. “You bring it out of me.”
“Interesting. I make you lose control?” He nodded slowly, thinking God knew what.
“Don’t look so flattered.” She reached for another rock. “It’s not such a leap that I would act out of character around my kidnapper.”
“Maybe you act like the real you with me.”
She froze at that suggestion, clutching the rock in her hand. Could there be some truth to that? Had this scenario forced her to drop all her walls and just be who she truly was? Who even was that? It had been a long time since she did any self-examination. She had simply been living on autopilot. Her gaze narrowed on him, resenting that he was prompting such thoughts. It was tempting to fling that rock at him.
“And last time I checked, I’m not your kidnapper,” he added. “I didn’t abduct you.”
“Maybe not initially, but you can’t claim innocence. You’re holding me captive right now. You’re not letting me go.”
His lips flattened, and she knew he didn’t like the reminder. “I told you. You’ll get home, and I think you can give me a little bit of your trust since I was the one who protected your pretty little neck back there.”
Pretty little neck? A flush of heat washed over her. It was probably just an expression. Still, it felt intimate. She shifted where she sat, glancing around her.
A number of things had been said about Grace in recent (and not so recent) years. Her father had been in the public eye a long time. Even before the presidency. No one had ever described her as pretty. Even her grandmother had bemoaned that she lacked the Artigas beauty. The beauty that her mother possessed had come in very handy to catch her father. She had been a beauty queen. There wasn’t a pageant in South Florida she hadn’t won. The media still loved to flash pictures of the First Lady in a bikini with Miss Miami emblazoned across her chest. When your mother resembled Sofía Vergara it was enough to give you a complex.
She gave herself a swift mental kick. Hey, Stockholm-syndrome-freak-girl, stop getting off on his unlikely and unwanted interest in you. Her appearance didn’t matter. He’d established that she wasn’t his type. And he certainly wasn’t her type.
A sudden splash pulled her attention to the water.
“I got one!”
She jumped to her feet and pranced up and down along the bank excitedly. “What do I do? What do I do?”
“The net!” His biceps bulged as he worked to reel in the fish. For someone who knew nothing about fishing, she thought whatever was on the end of that line was big.
She hopped across the pond, haphazardly using the rocks he had used as a path, but not nearly as skillfully. She slipped several times, sinking to her knees in the freezing water. By the time she reached him, he was reeling in a gorgeous fish, shiny red on the back with a white belly.
“What kind is it?” she asked, as if that would hold any significance to her.
“Red drum, I think.”
It was big, bowing half of his rod. She anxiously stretched out the net. He lowered it inside with a triumphant shout, grinning in a way she had never seen from him. It was a grin of victory. He looked . . . happy, and she couldn’t tear her gaze from him. The grooves along the sides of his face actually looked like dimples.
“Eleven years,” he declared, “but I haven’t forgotten how it’s done.”
“Must be like riding a bike,” she laughed in turn, her cheeks starting to ache from the stretch of her smile as she adjusted her grip on the now heavy net.
He chuckled. “Or fucking.”
And just like that it got awkward.
Her smile melted. Nervous, she met his stare. He had stopped laughing. His eyes—sweet God, his eyes actually changed color—went from gold to green as they locked on her with laser-hot focus.
“Guess that’s true,” she hedged, floundering. Fucking. She bet with him that’s what it was. Sex wasn’t sex. It was fucking. Hot and messy and rough. She wouldn’t know anything about that.
They stood close together, but she didn’t take a step back. It would be like calling uncle—or being the first to blink in a staring contest. She didn’t want to be the one to capitulate.
“It’s the kind of thing you never forget how to do,” he added, his voice deep and thick, like the drag of soft fur against her skin.
She fought to swallow the boulder-size lump in her throat, nodding dumbly, still trying to act like everything was normal, like her pulse wasn’t racing and her breasts didn’t feel heavy and achy, straining inside her bra.
“Yeah,” she agreed nervously. As though she did in fact know. As though her relationship with Charles or her college boyfriends had taught her anything about fucking. She was ignorant when it came to that kind of thing. None of those guys had taught her anything about orgasms either. That remained the stuff of fairy tales.
They remained where they were, connected by the net she was holding with the fish in it that was still hooked to his line. She told herself that was the only thing linking them, the reason she couldn’t break away. The reason she couldn’t stop looking at him . . . stop her heart from pounding in her chest.
“Sometimes it’s even better than you remember,” he uttered, not looking at the fish. Looking only at her.
It didn’t feel like he was talking about the fish at all. Staring at her, she felt stripped naked. His gaze dropped. Was he looking at her mouth now? No, she had to be projecting. Imagining his gaze on her mouth. Imagining he was on the verge of stepping closer and kissing her like this was some old romantic comedy that would end with the two of them together. Nothing about this was funny. It was life and death and she was sitting here acting like she was Meg Ryan.
She broke eye contact and looked down at the fish flopping inside the net. “What do we do now?” She squeezed her eyes tight in a long blink. That, too, sounded like she could be talking about something else besides fishing. “With the fish, I mean. What do we do with the fish?”
He took his time answering, but when he did, his voice was carefully modulated and unaffected. “I clean it.” He took the net from her and moved to the bank. Bending, he grabbed a knife from the tackle box. She followed him and stood silently as he worked.
At least he didn’t require her help. There was no further conversation as he quickly gutted the fish and cut it into clean fillets. He worked so quickly and efficiently, like he did this every weekend and hadn’t been locked up for years.
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Clean a fish? My grandfather taught me, among other things.” A smile played around his mouth. “This was his place. He used to bring my brother and me here before he died. He was a good man. He tried to be there for us, you know . . . but my parents . . . Well, you’re stuck with the hand you’re dealt. You can’t do much about who your parents are, can you?”
Something about the way he said that made her chest ache. It was more what he didn’t say, what he left out about his parents that convinced her his childhood was not something out of a Norman Rockwell painting—no matter how quaint the cabin.
“No,” she agreed. “You can’t.”
He paused, not looking at her, but she felt as though her simple acknowledgment was telling him something about her, too. It reinforced her early point that they weren’t so totally unalike.
“When did he die?” she asked, before she could reconsider the wisdom of having a personal conversation with him.
“I was seventeen. He had a stroke. He went fast, which was good, I guess. His life wasn’t left for my mother to decide.” He snorted. “She couldn’t even take care of herself or her kids. My grandfather wouldn’t have wanted his fate left to her.” He chuckled, and the sound was lacking all humor. “She would have made a mess of that for damn sure.” He sent Grace a quick glance before looking back down at what he was doing. “I’ve only been back here a few times since then.” Another pause fell, in which she watched him. The afternoon sun glinted off his hair, casting it dark gold. “The place has a lot of good memories.”
“And now it has new memories. Of me. Your hostage.” She angled her head and sent him an arch look.
“Funny.”
Her mind worked, calculating. His grandfather died when he was seventeen. He had to have gone to prison soon after that. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-one.”
He went to prison when he was just twenty. So young. What had happened in the years between seventeen and twenty that charted him a course straight to prison?
Finished, he stood. “Come on.”
He stepped past her, his manner brusque again. Gone was the laughing guy who’d reeled in a fish. That brief flare of chemistry between them had vanished, too. If it had even existed at all. Maybe it was all one-sided. Just in her head . . . or long-ignored libido. Or something that was the result of their isolation together. Either way, it was a good thing that it was gone.
She followed him, trekking back to the house, water squishing out from her wet shoes. He stopped at the shed near the cabin, depositing his tackle box. She left the net there, too, and kept moving. At the porch, she stopped and looked back at him. Who was this guy who liked to fish and share stories of his grandfather?
He’d broken out of prison for a reason, and she wasn’t certain it was to rejoin his old criminal network. Nor did she think he was trying to forge a life of freedom for himself. If that were his goal, he wouldn’t be holding her hostage. He’d be headed to Mexico. He was this close to the border, after all. He’d told her he was going to end up back in prison. That didn’t sound like a guy trying to start over clean.
He wanted to meet with this Sullivan person. She’d heard him insist on that with the others when they were leaving yesterday. That was his goal . . . she just didn’t know why. He was an enigma.
Shaking her head, Grace turned and stepped inside the house, putting him out of her sight. For the time being at least. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. Still, she shouldn’t be spending so much time trying to figure him out. He didn’t matter. Not his hotness or how dimples had appeared when he smiled and made him look younger. More approachable. Not how fun it was to learn to fish with him. Not his background or his motivations. She didn’t want to know him.
She needed, instead, to figure out how to land herself out of this mess. One thing was for certain. His goal was this Sullivan guy. Not her well-being. Not getting her home. No, that was entirely up to her.