Page 54 of The Murder Club

“It wasn’t courage that brought me here,” he reluctantly admitted, returning his attention to her puzzled expression.

“Then what was it?”

“I was running so I didn’t have to remember.” His lips twisted. “Trust me, trying something new just for the sake of trying something new is the same sort of avoidance as staying in a rut.”

“Were you running from your father?”

He didn’t know why he was caught off guard by her question. Most people would assume he’d want to put as much space as possible between himself and his criminal father.

“No, Remy is . . . Remy. He’s a shallow, selfish bastard who’s never going to change. I didn’t have to leave France to get rid of him. As soon as he got his grubby hands on my mother’s life insurance he packed his bags and headed out. He didn’t even bother to attend the funeral.”

“Then why did you leave?”

He shook his head, ridding himself of the memory of his worthless father. “I left because of my mother.”

She blinked in confusion. “She’d already died, hadn’t she?”

“Yes. And I don’t know how many years I’ve spent being angry with her.”

“I don’t understand.”

He hadn’t either. Not for a very long time. “I told myself it was because she refused to leave my father,” he told her. “Remy treated her like shit, but she refused to stand up to him.”

“That wasn’t why you were angry?”

“No.” He released a heavy sigh. “I was angry because she died when I still needed her.”

She winced, as if his words hit an exposed nerve. “Yeah.”

He pressed the palm of her hand against his cheek, gazing down at her with a fragile hope filling his heart.

“We’ve both been alone a long time. Now we have each other.”

A tentative smile touched her lips. “That sounds nice.”

“Nice again,” he teased. “We’re going to have to work on that.”

“Is that a promise?”

Her lips parted in silent invitation, and Dom slowly lowered his head. He’d been aching to kiss her since they’d left the house. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to leave at all. The need to hold this woman in his arms and explore every satin inch of her was a ruthless hunger that was becoming painful in its intensity.

The fierce desire, however, didn’t blind him to the fact that they were in a public space and that Bailey was being hunted by a crazed stalker. It was that awareness that forced him to abruptly jerk away as he detected a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

“What’s wrong?” Bailey demanded.

Dom frowned as he tried to pinpoint what had distracted him. He couldn’t see anyone in the parking lot or near the nursing home. Then there was another flicker, and he realized it was coming from the window of an old building on the adjoining lot.

He nodded toward the three-story brick structure with large terraces on the front and a sagging roof. It looked like it had been a school at one time. Or maybe a hospital.

“What is that place?”

“When my grandmother was young she said it was the local poorhouse,” Bailey explained. “Then it was used as the county nursing home until the Donaldsons opened a new one.”

Dom continued to survey the building. The bricks had faded to the color of mud and the paint had peeled from the windowsills, but it looked like someone had recently replaced the gutters, and there was a newly paved pathway that led to the parking lot.

“Is it still used?”

“Just for storage. Why?”