Free Criminal Promises by Nikki Duncan

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her or he would have held to his resolve to not move in.
    Conflicted between worry and anger, suddenly
too exhausted to land another punch, she bit a strip of Velcro with
her teeth to pull off a glove. After removing the second one, she
stretched lightly to keep her muscles from tightening up.
    She wasn’t invisible, boring or willing to be
pushed around. He had another think coming if he thought he could
issue orders and expect her to blindly follow. Whatever kind of
women he was used to being around, she wasn’t one of them.
    Her privacy had been invaded and Harte had
reverted to caveman mode. With the sensation of a hundred fuzzy
spiders running across her exposed skin, impressions of dirty filth
suffused her. She had never felt more violated and scared in her
life. More betrayed.
    The haven she had designed for her children,
their security and peace of mind, had been threatened. If Adalia
had marched into her living room and held a gun to her head, she
could have handled it better.
    “You will answer my
questions.” Or get out. “I’m not playing mind games with you on top of
everything else.”
    Blowing out a deep breath, she assured
herself she could and would remain calm, rational and logical. She
would not become irrational. Well, any more so than she already
had.
    Narrowing her eyes, she studied him and again
waited. Instead of cool caution, his stare remained glacial. Every
muscle in his giant body was taut. His jaw twitched. The bulging
vein in his neck throbbed. He fisted and un-fisted his hands. She’d
done the same things before working the bag.
    Menace vibrated off him and grabbed her by
the throat. His nostrils flared slightly with each breath. As
surely as she knew he wouldn’t tell her everything, she knew he
itched to pound the stuffing out of something. Impatience warred
with logic. She wanted answers, but she may have better luck if she
let him cool off.
    She walked to the cabinet in the wall that
hid the punching bag when she released it from the floor and
ceiling anchors, pulled out a larger pair of boxing gloves, and
tossed them to him. A feral grin spread across his face as he
secured the Velcro fasteners.
    She stepped back and sat on his weight bench.
Once his hackles lowered she would demand answers. Or maybe she’d
take advantage of the distraction the bag provided.
    Like the caged beast had been set free, he
went after the bag. His fists hammered the leather, bouncing the
bag a little. The echo of his power and satisfaction sang in her
body. She’d spent many sleepless nights in the garage with only the
bag for company.
    With each slap of leather against leather,
Harte’s wrath mounted rather than eased. Rolling his shoulders
back, he pummeled the bag. For five minutes the sounds of his rough
breathing and leather slapping the bag dominated the garage.
    He became the distraction. Maggie leaned back
against the barbell and extended her legs on the bench with her
ankles crossed.
    His muscles coiled and released beneath the
power of each precisely delivered blow. He worked out with punching
bags often. Her brain flashed to an image of him working out
shirtless and her breath stuttered.
    Don’t go there. She shook her head clear. “How long have you
known Adalia was out?”
    “Since the first morning I
came here.” He pivoted his hip to put more power behind the punch.
The mounting brackets clanged.
    “Why wasn’t I notified of
her release?”
    The dangerous edge of his
temper surged briefly. His shoulders jerked. His hands fell to his
sides and he stared at the bag with his chest heaving. “She wasn't
released.”
    Maggie leaned forward, not
sure she’d heard him correctly. He’d spoken so quietly. “Excuse
me?”
    “She escaped.”
    Swarmed with building heat,
she gritted her teeth. “The woman killed my husband. Shouldn’t I
have been told?”
    He sighed and turned to
her. Anguish deepened the laugh lines around his eyes. “It wasn’t
my decision.”
    No apologies.