Harlequin Intrigue March 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Girl Next Door\Rocky Mountain Rescue\Bridal Jeopardy by Cynthia Eden

Author:Cynthia Eden [EDEN, CYNTHIA/MYERS AND REBECCA YORK, CINDI]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4603-3249-8
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Stacy stared at the suitcase full of money. It didn’t even look real, so much of it all together. “How much do you think is in there?” she asked.

Patrick rifled through the stacks of bills. “Looks like all twenties, in bundles of fifty—I’d guess fifty thousand dollars.”

She sank onto the bed. “What were those two doing with that much money?”

He felt along the side of the case and in all the pockets. “There’s nothing else in here—no notes or ID or anything like that.”

“It’s the kind of thing you see in those TV mysteries,” she said. “The unmarked bag of bills, dropped off in the park to pay ransom. But ransom for whom? Have they kidnapped someone besides Carlo?”

Patrick pulled out his phone. “Let’s see if headquarters knows anything.”

While he waited on hold to speak to who knows who, Stacy looked through the other suitcase—the one with the clothes. She found another science-fiction novel, a phone charger (but no phone) and an open box of condoms. Nothing incriminating or even threatening. Except for the fact that they’d attacked her and Patrick with guns and knives, they might have been any traveling businessmen.

“Let me know what you find. I’ll call back in the morning.” Patrick ended his call and slid his phone back into his pocket. “They’re going to do a trace for large sums of missing cash, but I’m not holding out much hope that that will turn up anything. A team is on its way to the canyon to see if they can ID the guys.”

She studied the open suitcase. “Maybe we could trade the cash for Carlo.”

“We could try—if we knew how to get in touch with whoever has him.” He closed the suitcase and set it on the floor. “I’m going to take a shower. You should try to get some sleep. Maybe we’ll be able to get more information in the morning.”

He took some clothes from the other suitcase and carried them and the plastic bag of toiletries into the bathroom. In a few minutes, she heard the shower running.

Stacy lay back on the bed, on top of the covers. One bed. That was all right. Sleeping with Patrick last night had been nice—even if they were only sleeping. She’d never met a man like him. He could be hard, brutal even—he hadn’t hesitated to kill three men to save their lives. But he’d been so gentle, too, when he was tending her wounds, or when he held her while she cried.

He was the kind of man she wished Sammy had been. But Sammy had never looked at her the way Patrick did—as if she was an intelligent person whose opinions mattered. As if she counted.

And she could never think of Sammy the way she thought of Patrick—that he was a good man who deserved her respect and admiration. All the bad things Sammy had done had blotted out any good that might have remained, whereas the more she knew about Patrick, the more good there was to see.

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