Her Dangerous Promise - Part 3: (Romantic Suspense Serial) by Ashley Stryker Page B

and I’ll check in on you later.”
    His fingers closed protectively over hers as he helped her up. A shower of sparks shot up her arm at his touch, followed by a warm humming of comfort. The fear, the anxiety, the guilt she endured like the emotional tentacles of an octopus twisting around her soul loosened its grip after speaking with Nancy and melted away like fog in the late morning in Thom’s loving care. Mary sighed a cleansing breath, tinted with Thom’s rich minty cologne and smiled up at him.
    Mary followed him out of the room, enjoying the familiarity of his hand over hers. It felt right, she decided, as natural as kittens lapping up a saucer of milk or bees pollinating a flower.
    As the door to Nancy’s room closed behind them, Thom said, “I think you might be right.”
    She smiled up at him, wondering if he sensed her thoughts. “About what?”
    “About the suspect, Adam.” Thom guided Mary into a subdued waiting area across from the nurses’ station. A TV mounted from the ceiling droned a sports news channel quietly in the background. Nurses and patients passed by but didn’t disturb the waiting area’s sense of privacy. Thom indicated for Mary to sit on a couch whose overly compressed cushions suffered from years of use and he perched on a wooden coffee table across from her. He leaned in close and spoke softly. “Now that we know who he is, we’ve been able to get a whole history on him. I have a doctor who treated him meeting me here shortly to review his case in greater detail but here’s what we know so far. This hospital diagnosed Adam Fielding with a type of mental retardation mild enough to allow him to function fairly well on a daily basis. For the most part, the interviews with the neighbors indicate that Adam is not usually violent unless provoked. Once provoked, however, he doesn’t know when to stop. The police arrested him twice as a teenager for assault and both times the charges were dropped based on his condition and the fact the witnesses to the incidents reported the other person started the fight. He wouldn’t normally be a candidate for a kidnapper.”
    “So why did he grab me?”
    “By all accounts, Adam depended on his mother to care for him. Up until recently, she appears to have been a good caretaker. When we searched the house this afternoon, we found her body.”
    “You mean he—” Mary recoiled, picturing Adam straggling his mother as he’d done Nancy and herself.
    Thom shook his head. “I thought so at first but no. She died of natural causes.”
    “So he’s on his own now.”
    “For the first time in his life.”
    Mary nodded. Her first impressions about Adam had been right. “So he is trying to find someone to replace his mother.”
    “That’s what I think. Her clothes resembled those you and Nancy wore when you were each taken, that might be why he saw you each as a possible substitute.”
    “Plus we both work at a school.”
    “Exactly. With that child’s mindset, he would still equate a school teacher with a caretaker. He probably didn’t know Nancy’s a librarian and not a teacher.”
    “If he hadn’t attacked Nancy and me, I would almost feel sympathetic.”
    Thom drew little circles on Mary’s kneecaps, sending a zing of excitement across her skin like a blast of broiling air exploding out of an oven on a cold winter day. When he spoke softly to her, his voice purred, melting her insides. He leaned so close to her, so intimately, that she could almost believe that no one else existed in the world but the two of them. She ached for him to touch more than her knees. Mary wanted Thom to stroke his hands all over her. She wanted his mouth on hers and she wanted to lose herself in him.
    Mary laced her fingers behind his neck. “I have not thanked you yet, for everything you’ve done.”
    “The job’s not done yet.” His features softened as his gaze lingered on her lips.
    “I know.” Mary played with his thick, dark hair. “But you saved