Free Only Hers by Francis Ray Page A

card even though I had left a message on all their answering machines. Then it got dark and the store closed. There wasn’t another place in town open for anyone to wire money to.”
    She took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. “I thought about staying in the car, but after it got dark some men in a beat-up old truck kept cruising by. I had already asked the lady working in the store about the cheapest place in town to stay and she told me the Paradise. I should have suspected something from the surly way she answered my question.”
    “Why didn’t you call Arthur Ferguson?”
    “I tried. His office was closed and I got another answering machine at his house. So I decided to come here. Knowing how my family and friends would worry, I called everyone back before I left the store and told them I had run into an old friend.”
    “That was very considerate of you,” said Matt coldly, his eyes narrow slits.
    The terseness in Matt’s voice finally penetrated Shannon’s fear. Leaning back, she looked up into his starkly handsome face. His body against hers was as devoid of comfort as the emotionless black eyes that stared accusingly back at her.
    “W-what’s wrong?”
    Matt studied the beautiful tear-stained face. If he didn’t know better, he might think the puzzlement she showed was genuine. She had almost fooled him. Greedy like his ex-wife and a lot of other women he had known.
    If she thought he was going to put her up at one of the hotels on the interstate, she had picked the wrong man to con. It was a good thing it suited his plans for him to be able to watch her or he’d leave her here with the roaches.
    “Get your things,” he ordered.
    The stiffness of Matt’s voice caused Shannon to hesitate for a moment before she rushed to get her overnight case and her purse from atop a rickety table. She didn’t know what had gotten into him, but if he was taking her out of the Paradise that was all that mattered. The place made her skin crawl. “I’m ready.”
    “I see you didn’t bother to unpack.”
    “I don’t think a rat would stay in this place,” Shannon said with feeling.
    Matt glanced around the dingy room, the cobwebs on the one light fixture in the ceiling, the faded and chipped Mediterranean decor, then at the sizable diamonds in her ears. “Not what you’re used to, huh?”
    “No woman should have to get used to this.”
    “You’d be surprised at the number of women who like sleeping in low places.” Taking her case, he grasped her by the arm and led her outside to his truck.
    Unworried about decorum, Shannon pulled up her short skirt and climbed ungracefully inside as soon as he opened her door. Seated, she glanced at Matt’s stiff profile as he slid in behind the wheel and wished the caring man who held her earlier would return.
    She had told him the truth when she’d said she knew she was safe as soon as she saw him. He might make her angrier than she ever thought possible, but she couldn’t deny he was the one person she had prayed would come and find her. And when he had held her in the shelter of his strong arms and soothed her with his deep voice, she had felt as if nothing could harm her.
    At least she now knew Wade was right, that somewhere beneath Matt’s cold exterior he had a heart. She hadn’t missed his remark about a woman sleeping in low places. Had the woman Wade mentioned in his letter cheated on Matt? Was that why he distrusted women?
    Absently, she wondered what kind of woman had taken away his ability to trust and what kind of woman it would take to restore his faith in a woman and make him smile. The sudden urge to be that woman jerked her back to reality almost as strongly as seeing them pass the motel’s office without slowing.
    “Stop!”
    Tires screeched on gravel. “You forget something?”
    “To check out.” She held up the key. “I have to turn this in.”
    “If you think you’ll get a refund, forget it.”
    “I don’t, but I don’t want