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Let me go, Gabe. Please, let me go.
Even as she sent the mental plea, she knew it was useless. He wouldn’t give up so easily. Not yet.
But still she had to try.
She heard him curse under his breath, knew he was already moving after her. She threw open the door, wondering what the odds were that she could outrun him once she was outside.
She ran straight into Blake’s open arms.
She had no trouble recognizing him this time. He’d abandoned the cowboy hat and dark glasses, revealing his thick blond hair and bright blue eyes. He’d changed out of the Western clothing and into a loose white shirt and softly pleated gray slacks. This was the way he’d looked when she’d worked with him in Des Moines.
His hands gripped her forearms tightly, but his smile was deceptively lazy when he looked down at her. “Hello, Page. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting quite such a warm welcome.”
Gabe stepped up behind her.
Caught between the two men, Page sighed and pushed a hand through her hair. “Hello, Blake,” she said tonelessly. “Won’t you come in?”
He chuckled. “Why, yes. I believe I will.” He motioned with one hand, still holding her captive with the other. “After you.”
“I TAKE IT she’s still being uncooperative,” Blake remarked to Gabe as they went back into the cabin.
“You could say that,” Gabe replied.
Page glared sullenly at both of them.
Blake had been carrying Page’s purse and wheeling her suitcase behind him when she’d barreled into him in her futile escape attempt. He’d dropped both to catch her, but he’d retrieved them before coming inside.
He tossed the purse onto the coffee table and set the suitcase on the floor. “I brought these from her car. I thought she might want them. The car’s been towed, by the way, and is being repaired. It seems that something foreign got into the gas ta
nk somehow. Gummed everything up pretty badly.”
Gabe could see Page’s resentment at being spoken about as though she weren’t in the room. But he was in no mood to worry about her sensibilities at the moment.
He shouldn’t have kissed her, he thought. That had been the biggest mistake he’d made yet
The kiss had almost unmanned him. For just a moment she’d responded...and he’d been holding his Page again. And he’d known that the old feelings were still there, still alive. Still painful.
“She hasn’t told me anything,” he said to Blake, trying to think of something besides the all-too-familiar way she’d felt in his arms. “I still don’t know why she’s been hiding out. Who she’s running from—other than me, of course.”
Blake ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “Want me to get out the thumbscrews, boss?”
Gabe looked at Page’s set expression with a mixture of frustration and bafflement. “If I thought it would work, I just might let you.”
Blake shifted his shoulders and slid effortlessly into a James Cagney impersonation. “I can make her talk, boss. Give me five minutes alone with her. She’ll be singing like a canary.”
Page’s eyes snapped with fury. “This isn’t funny.”
Blake touched her cheek and spoke in his own voice. “No one said it was, sweetheart”
She jerked away from him. “I’m not your sweetheart,” she almost snarled. “I’m not anyone’s sweetheart.”
“We’ll debate that later,” Gabe said, moving to stand between her and Blake. For some reason he didn’t like seeing the other man’s hands on Page, even casually.
He motioned toward the chair she’d sat in earlier. “Sit down, Page.”
“I’d rather stand.”
He took a step closer to her. “I’ve had just about all I can take,” he warned her, speaking very softly. “Sit down.”
