“Me? And how would I do that?” Her hand moved downward.
“That’s a start. I have a couple of other scars that you haven’t found.”
“Oh?” Her hand went lower. “Here? No, I feel nothing. What about here? No, no scars. What about here?”
Jared gasped as her hand closed over him. “Keep looking,” he said huskily.
An hour later, they fell back on the mattress, not touching. Their skin glowed with sweat. The rain was slowing down, and at last Eden felt sleepy.
Rolling onto his side away from her, Jared reached under a cardboard box and withdrew a bottle of wine and two paper cups and filled them. “No sleeping,” he said.
Eden turned onto her side, facing him, pulled her legs up a bit and closed her eyes.
Jared pulled a blanket over her, then held out the cup of wine. “You’re going to sit up and talk to me.”
“In the morning,” she murmured.
“Do you know the reading-out I got when I was pulled off your case?” he asked. “I was told that if I’d just talked to you more and—”
She opened one eye. “And what?”
“Drooled over you less,” he said, tight-lipped.
“I like that,” she said sleepily. “Not many men have drooled over me.”
“You can’t lie to me, Palmer, I’ve read your file, remember? As far as I can tell a whole lot of men have ‘drooled’ over y
ou. You’ve always dumped them.”
“Scared,” she said, still smiling.
“In my opinion, I don’t think you’re afraid of anything in the world except your daughter.”
That made her open her eyes. “Afraid of my own daughter? That’s ridiculous.”
Jared handed her the cup of wine, and reluctantly she sat up, pulling the blanket up under her arms. He was sitting there naked, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was so exposed. But then, he did have a beautiful body. “How did you get—” she began, but a look from him cut her off. Sighing, she took a drink of the wine. “Okay, so what do you want to know?”
“I don’t know,” he said, an eyebrow raised. “When I saw you tonight you were crying like you’d rather not continue living, so maybe from that I guessed that something was wrong. But I saw some of the tapes of what your daughter was saying to you, so I know some of what’s going on.”
Eden looked down at her cup of wine and tried to compose herself. She tried to keep her face calm. “I assumed that the cameras had been disconnected. But if they haven’t, that means the case is still open.”
“One of the agents watching your house was strangled.”
“Melissa,” Eden said and started for the door.
Jared just managed to catch her wine before she dropped it. Setting both cups down, he pulled her into his arms, but she tried to push away from him. “There are two other agents out there,” he said softly, his lips against her ear. “No radios, no sounds at all. And you can bet that they’re on the lookout. Eden, sweetheart, someone wants something from you to the point that they’ll do anything to get it. I need to find out who and what.”
She pulled away to look at him. “Is that what this is all about?” she asked. “You made love to me just so I’d tell you my secrets?”
The look on his face was enough of an answer.
“Okay, I apologize,” she said, sitting back down and pulling on her clothes. When he gave her a questioning look, she motioned her head toward the outside. She didn’t want a couple of FBI agents bursting in on them. “Are there any cameras in here?”
“What do you think?”
“Okay, again I apologize.”
“I want you to tell me everything that’s happened since I left. No matter how insignificant it is, I want to hear about it. Understand?”