Chapter Thirty-one

Abbie woke slowly in the dark room and yawned.

Exhausted, but in a nice way.

Three-times-last-night kind of tired. Hunter was amazing, relentless… sweet. Had she really walked away from this man six years ago? No, she’d run.

“Morning.” His deep and rusty voice warmed her. He moved his hand from where his fingers spanned her stomach and toyed with her nipple.

That responded as if he’d trained it to pucker upon command.

She put her hand over his to stop him. If not for worry over her mother, she’d spend a week in this cozy little room, allowing Hunter to have his way with every inch of her body. “What are we doing today? I have to talk to Dr. Tatum.”

“The fog’s still heavy from last night. We’ll leave in about an hour.”

The curtains were closed. How often had he gotten up during the night to look outside? “Then what?”

“We go to Gillette. Next town east of here. I have identification, credit cards, cash… things in a bank vault. We’ll fly from there to Chicago.”

“You have an airplane waiting there?” she teased.

“Not until I get a new cell phone and new credit cards.” He was dead serious. She couldn’t imagine living this way all the time. Never knowing when he had to disappear or escape someone trying to kill him. Had to be a lonely existence. She rubbed his hand. “Can we go to the medical center when we get to Chicago?”

“Ask me in Chicago.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“The best one I have. Would you rather I lie to you?”

No, she couldn’t fault him for that. His fingers started moving beneath her hand, massaging her breast.

“Sweet,” he whispered, then nuzzled her ear. “And sexy.”

“Don’t even think about starting something if you expect me to walk out of here under my own power.”

He chuckled. “Thought you realized by now I’m willing to carry you.”

“Not again. You’ll strain your back.”

He was quiet for a minute, then said, “Don’t say things like that. You were pretty when I met you six years ago, but I like you better this way. I’m not much for skin-and-bones thin.”

Her stomach flipped. She’d starved herself and worked out like a fiend just to be thin for the jerk she’d been engaged to and he’d never said anything so sweet to her back then. “Wish I’d known you before I tortured my body to fit someone else’s idea of attractive.”

Hunter moved his hand to her face and rubbed his knuckles along her cheek. “That why you came strutting into that bar with payback on your mind when I first met you?”

“Was I that obvious?” Her face flamed at how transparent she’d been. “Pathetic, huh?”

“It was obvious someone had hurt you.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead tenderly. “What happened?”

She wouldn’t have told him a couple days ago, but she wanted to now. “The night before I met you I came home to find the pig I was engaged to in bed with another woman, one who came without pesky morals. How clichéd is that?”

“He was a fool to have lost you.”

Okay, that earned Hunter saint level in her book. “My father would have told me he got what he deserved since he married the shrew.”

“Would have?”

“He died when I was eighteen.”

“That’s a tough age to lose your dad.”

Not as tough as feeling responsible for her adoptive father’s death. She’d never know for sure, but the guilt lingered like an unwelcome guest. She’d started researching her birth father one week. Her adoptive father had drowned the next week, the death ruled a suicide, which she’d never believe. Following his funeral, her mother ordered Abbie to stop hunting for her biological father. Said he was a dangerous man.

Abbie hadn’t told anyone she was searching for him and her mother refused to tell her how she knew, but the warning came through loud and clear.

“True, but plenty of other people had their fathers for less time. I’m thankful for what I did have and that he loved me.”

“Why wouldn’t he love you?”

“I’m a bastard. Or I was, until Raymond married my mother after she had me out of wedlock.”

“What happened to your real father?”

“My biological father?” she corrected. “Don’t know. My real father is the one who raised me and gave me his name when he adopted me. In my mind, a parent is more than DNA. It’s the person who’s there when you learn how to ride a bike and helps blow out birthday candles and listens to your problems. A parent is the person who cares about you.”

Hunter didn’t comment. His fingers feathered across her stomach in gentle caresses.

She felt the steady rise and fall of his chest against her back. “What about your family? Ever see them?”

“Saw Todd the other night.”

“That’s your brother? Now that I think about it, he does favor you.” A few more mental gears shifted. “I still don’t even know your last name.”

“Thornton-Payne.”

She’d heard that name bandied around the television station by financial and political analysts. “Is your family involved in-”

“So many things it would take too long to list them,” Hunter finished. “Todd and my dad run everything. I have no claim to their success.”

Hunter wasn’t just wealthy. He came from a dynasty with Fort Knox credit rating. And great genetics to boot. “Which one of your parents do you favor?”

“Physically, I favor my mother. My dad’s short and unattractive, but he’s a decent man.”

Investigating people had taught Abbie to listen to what wasn’t said. “What is your mother like?”

“Was. Mercenary. She made out like a jewel thief handed the keys to Tiffany.”

She wanted to keep him talking but wasn’t sure how far to prod. His voice dipped so heavily with disgust she would have missed the pain riding his words if she hadn’t been listening intently. “Ugly divorce? No prenuptial?”

“No battle. She had a generous prenuptial, but that wasn’t enough.” His hand had curled into a fist while he spoke.

“She wanted custody?” Abbie stroked her fingers along his arm.

Slow to answer, he said, “Only as a negotiating point.”

Getting a bone out of a starving dog’s mouth was easier than dragging anything out of Hunter about himself. “I don’t understand.”

“She thought she had a gold-lined womb and my brother and I were fatted calves. She wasn’t keen on raising kids, one reason they argued a lot. When she demanded a divorce she threatened to fight for custody. He traveled a lot and knew she had grounds to pull it off even though she couldn’t stand us.”

She couldn’t stand us. Abbie couldn’t imagine feeling that way about her mother, but her father must not have liked her from birth to have turned his back on her. “So why did she want custody?”

“Quickest way to add another couple million to her settlement. She told my dad he could pay enough in the divorce for her to hire someone to take care of their two ‘pain in the asses’ or he could have us for a million each. She sold us in the divorce.”

Hunter had told that as if reporting on an enemy.

She asked, “Your dad told you about all that?”

“Didn’t have to. Todd and I watched that last fight from the top of the stairs. I was almost seven and he was five.”

Good God. No wonder Hunter could be so cold at times. Something had died inside him as a child. She had no words to express her anger at a mother who could do that to her children. “Did your father remarry?”

His hand unclenched and started caressing the sensitive skin along her stomach again. “Three years later, but wife number two had heard about the first one through the tabloids. She built a bonus clause into her prenup for any children. She put on a good show of pretend Mom for about six months, but our mother screwed up Todd so badly he had a violent temper. My dad traveled a lot with business. While Dad was out of town, wife number two convinced him to ship me and Todd off to boarding schools. I wouldn’t have hated her for that, but she had us separated. She thought I’d interfere with Todd’s discipline because I kept him out of her reach when he pissed her off.”