Free Always You by Crystal Hubbard Page A

Chiara and lazily drew his hand along the bare skin of her knee. “I’m sure the booze and the cheddar squares are delicious, but why are you here, Chi? Honestly.”
    “I…” The lone syllable trembled from her lips, but then she shook her head and fixed her gaze on his. She had known him for so long, had shared so much with him. She willed him to see the convoluted knot of emotions strangling her from the inside out. The fading footprints had scared her, if for no other reason than they’d brought out a streak of paranoia that she’d never known herself to possess. And Kyla had been obnoxious to her, but that wasn’t unusual. Why had it upset her so much more tonight than it had over the past twenty-five years of her life?
    And that chip…Why did thoughts of the deliberately misplaced master microchip made it feel as though battery acid churned in her stomach?
    She slid off of the chair and into John’s arms, wrapping her own tightly around his neck. He stood, bringing her to her feet, and noticed the shiver in her small frame. He held her, pressing kisses to her hair and murmuring comforting words of nothing to her.
    “I’m in trouble, John,” she gasped, and the desperation in her confession tugged at his heart.
    He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. “I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve heard you say that.”
    Her hold on him tightened. “I’m in real trouble this time, because of Zhou. Because of that master chip.”
    “Baby, you can’t worry about that. You had no idea what Zhou was doing. From the looks of things, he didn’t know what he was doing. You can’t waste your time worrying about something someone else did.”
    “Someone…s-someone followed me tonight,” she said haltingly.
    John took hold of her shoulders and pulled her away just enough to meet her eyes. “What do you mean?”
    “At my mother’s I saw footprints leading away from my car. I think someone was in my rental.”
    John’s eyes flashed as silvery grey as the Arch dominating the view. “Are you sure?”
    “I saw the footprints in the snow, John. They started at my car. They led away from the driver’s side.”
    “Maybe you just parked where someone had crossed the street. There was a lot of activity on your street tonight. Your mother wasn’t the only one having a party.”
    “Maybe…” Chiara admitted, thinking about it. It was entirely possible, really, that she’d parked in a spot that had been freshly vacated by someone else. Her overeager imagination, already sparked to life by John’s possession of the master chip, had conjured a scenario that now seemed impossible: that someone had been in her car or had followed her to her mother’s.
    * * *
    John couldn’t decide which was more beautiful—Chiara as she’d been when he’d first spied her peeking into his mother’s dining room window, or Chiara as she was now, lying nude in his arms, snuggled deep under whispery cotton sheets and goosedown. Her head was pillowed on his chest, her thick, dark hair blanketing his shoulder and neck. Her upper body languidly rose and fell in the telltale way of deep slumber, but John didn’t dare move to see if she were actually sleeping.
    He would do nothing to disturb the perfect peace of this moment.
    Though he kept his gaze fixed on the grayish-pink sky which was sprinkling fluffy, fat snowflakes over St. Louis, he remained acutely aware of the woman wrapped around him. Chiara was one of the most incredible people he’d ever met, and certainly the most remarkable woman. Where she was a complete enigma to her family and even the few people she considered friends, John had always understood her with perfect, unerring clarity.
    At least he thought he had, which was why he’d come to her at the hotel, and why he lay awake now, his forehead tense in thought.
    Chiara, who had always been the stronger of the two of them, the more poised, the more confident, certainly the more fearless, was scared. He’d hardly