by Elle Kennedy
Growing up, he’d also had the means to do those things.
You have them now, too.
He reached for his cup, needing caffeine to fuel his rampant thoughts. Yeah, he did have the means now. Money. Plenty of time.
He quickly shoved aside the foolish notions running through his mind. Jeez, Lana’s hope-springs-eternal attitude was beginning to infect him. To cloud his judgment.
What the hell else would he do with his life? He was good at being a soldier of fortune. Great at it, actually. Those silly childhood dreams of his had been squashed years ago. They weren’t viable options any longer.
And he needed to remember that.
“Are you sure you can trust this guy?” Lana asked for the tenth time as she hovered behind Deacon’s broad back.
They were climbing a narrow stairwell up to Shane O’Neal’s apartment, and Lana hadn’t been able to fight her unease since the moment they’d arrived in Chicago. It didn’t help that O’Neal lived above a gun store, which he apparently owned and ran. She stuck close to Deacon, wrinkling her nose at the musty stench in the air.
“Yes, we can trust him,” Deacon answered for the tenth time. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “We’ll be in and out, okay? Ten minutes tops.”
They reached the top of the stairs and paused in front of a weathered wooden door that swung open before they could knock. Deacon had discreetly pointed out one of the cameras at the bottom of the stairwell, so O’Neal knew they were here. Apparently Deacon’s “friend” took security very seriously.
Not his appearance, though, Lana noticed, as she laid eyes on the man Deacon claimed to trust. Shane O’Neal had scruffy reddish-brown hair that came down to his shoulders and an unkempt beard that devoured his entire face. He wore camo pants with a red stain on the knee—she hoped it wasn’t blood—and a black T-shirt that boasted at least six holes in various places.
His pale blue eyes were sharp, however, out of sync with his couch-potato looks.
“Were you followed?” was the first thing O’Neal asked in a faint Irish brogue.
Deacon shook his head.
“Good.” The door opened wider. “Come in.”
Lana’s eyed widened as she got a good look at the interior of O’Neal’s flat. There was a surprisingly spacious living area, made all the more spacious by the complete lack of furniture in it. No chairs, couches, coffee table. Evidently O’Neal didn’t spend much time here, unless he came in to admire the vast amount of rifles hanging on one entire wall. The adjacent wall featured a collection of swords. Pleasant guy.
O’Neal led them down a corridor lit only by a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. They passed two doors, both closed, and finally entered a large room filled with computer monitors, metal shelving and enormous steel crates.
“So is this your girl?” O’Neal asked in an indifferent voice as he moved toward a metal file cabinet jammed between two computer desks.
“A friend,” Deacon answered vaguely. “Lana, meet Shane. Shane, Lana.”
She managed a faint hello, all the while irritated by Deacon’s introduction. A friend? Try the mother of his unborn child! Obviously her numerous attempts at conversational connections had failed miserably. He seemed just as determined to keep her at arm’s length. To deposit her on her family’s doorstep and disappear from her life.
O’Neal pulled a fat manila envelope from the cabinet. “I assume this will do?”
Deacon took the envelope and peered inside. Lana craned her neck, raising a brow when she caught a quick glimpse of the thick stack of bills. She forced herself not to ask why O’Neal had huge envelopes of money lying around the house. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know anyway.
The men didn’t say much as O’Neal proceeded to open a crate and rummage through a scary amount of ammunition clips. “Still using the .35 mm?” O’Neal asked.
Deacon nodded. “And the .45.”
O’Neal tossed a dozen clips into a small black shoulder bag, then handed it to Deacon. “Where you headed?” he asked, not sounding too interested.
“Montana,” Lana said before she could stop herself.
She immediately got a dark scolding look from Deacon. Shoot. She shouldn’t have revealed their destination. Deacon might trust this man, but he’d specifically told her in the car not to offer any details.
“And then Oregon,” she added belatedly. “My family has a house on the coast.”
“Uh-huh,” O’Neal said, unconcerned.
At least he didn’t seem to care one way or the other where they were heading. This entire friendship was kind of baffling. These two men had worked together on several assignments, yet they acted like complete strangers. And O’Neal was just handing Deacon money and ammo like they were Tic-Tacs. Without even questioning it.
“I got the car, too,” O’Neal told Deacon. He reached into his pocket and extracted a set of keys. “It’s parked out back. Blue pickup.”
“Thanks.” Deacon put his hand on Lana’s arm and took a sideways step to the door. “I owe you, man.”
“And I’ll collect,” O’Neal said, grinning for the first time since they arrived.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
And then, just like that, they were ushered to the front door, saying goodbye and descending the mildew-scented stairwell again.
“That’s it?” Lana hissed.
“Like I said, in and out,” Deacon replied with a shrug.
She remained dumbfounded. “Yeah, but…he gave us all that money, the bullets, the car, without even asking what we needed it for.”
“That’s how it works. The mercenary community is fairly tight-knit. You’re in a jam, a fellow soldier will bail you out, no questions asked. And then you return the favor.”
They rounded the building toward the gravel lot in the back, and sure enough, a dark blue pickup waited for them.
“So you don’t help each other out of the goodness of your hearts?” she asked, slightly confused.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re assuming we have hearts, sweetheart.” He clicked on the car remote to unlock the doors.
Lana bit the inside of her cheek as she slid into the passenger seat. She didn’t understand this world. These people. When she helped someone, she didn’t expect anything in return. She did it because she genuinely wanted to make things better for the other person. In Deacon’s world, however, nothing came free. Or cheap.
She suddenly experienced a burst of guilt, wondering what Shane O’Neal would demand of Deacon in exchange for this afternoon’s encounter.
“I forgot, I got you something when we made that pit stop in South Bend,” Deacon said after he started the engine.
Surprise slid through her. “You did?”
He twisted his big body around and rummaged through the duffel he’d tossed in the backseat, turning a moment later with a small pill bottle in his hand. Looking awkward, he handed it to her.
Lana stared down at the label, battling between shock and pure joy. Prenatal vitamins. He’d actually bought her prenatal vitamins. Did that mean… Was he beginning to come around about the baby?
“Thank you,” she murmured, her chest tight with emotion.
He shrugged. “I figured you’d need ’em.”
She curled her fingers around the pill bottle, suddenly needing to cling to it. Maybe the tender gesture didn’t have any deeper meaning. Maybe he’d only done it to make himself feel better, to know she’d be taking care of herself after he disappeared from her life.
But she couldn’t help thinking that it did mean something. That Deacon had indeed heard everything she’d been saying and was finally beginning to see that his future could hold so much more than he’d always believed. Not just his future, but their future.
The impulsive notion gave her pause. She fixed her gaze out the window, watching the scenery on Lakeshore Drive whiz past. She suddenly had to ask herself exactly what she wanted from this man. To simply be a father to their child? Or
did she want more?
She closed her eyes, a barrage of images swirling through her brain. She imagined Deacon’s strong arms gently cradling their baby, his rugged face soft with emotion. Deacon talking gruffly to their baby, looking down with pride.
And then the fantasy took a different turn. She pictured herself waking up every morning with her head pressed against Deacon’s rock-hard chest. Whispering to each other as they fell asleep in each other’s arms. Sitting at the kitchen table while he cooked for her.
Her eyelids snapped open. Oh, lord. This wasn’t just about the baby. This was about her. About them.
“Oh, my God,” she blurted out.
Deacon sharply swiveled his head. “What’s wrong?”
She swallowed hard, searching for her voice. “Nothing,” she finally said. “I just never realized how beautiful the view of the lake is.”
His brows furrowed, as if he didn’t quite believe her, or know how to respond. Eventually he just shrugged. “Yeah, it’s pretty nice, I guess.”
Lana glued her gaze to the window again, trying to actually focus on the lake this time in the hope of erasing the terrifying thought that had crashed into her head before her outburst.
But it was impossible to erase. It lingered in her brain, making her a little lightheaded and a lot confused.
Was it possible?
Was she actually falling in love with Deacon Holt?
Chapter 14
Jim Kelley was feeling irritable as hell as he killed the engine of the pickup he’d rented at the airport and stared at the pale yellow glow seeping from the floor-to-ceiling windows of his brother’s ranch house. In the distance, the mountains dominated the horizon, their snow-dusted peaks like majestic castle turrets in the sky. Normally the sheer beauty of the landscape soothed Jim’s soul. As a kid he used to prowl the hills and trails of the property, astride his favorite dun-colored mare, Heidi.
Tonight, though, the mountains only served as a reminder of the towering obstacles in his path. He’d called every contact imaginable on the plane ride here, and hadn’t come up with a single lead regarding Lana’s whereabouts. Many of the contacts he phoned didn’t even know that Lana was missing. Apparently Hank had kept the story out of the press for as long as he could, and the news had only broken a couple of days ago. Jim had encountered more than a dozen reporters milling at the gates of the Bar Lazy K. They’d surrounded his truck like vultures, eager to scavenge any details they could about Lana’s disappearance or the senator’s misdeeds. At ten o’clock at night. Christ, didn’t those people have anything better to do?
Jim slowly uncurled his fingers from the steering wheel and got out of the truck. His boots connected with the dusty earth, kicking up little clouds as he headed for the porch. He entered the ranch house without knocking, and his ears immediately perked at the sound of muffled voices drifting from the doorway of the great room.
He made a beeline for it, throwing open the heavy doors without a care of what he’d find on the other side. What he found, though, startled the hell out of him. His father sat on one edge of the sofa, holding a highball glass filled to the rim with bourbon. Standing near the bookshelf was Gage Prescott, his dad’s bodyguard, but it wasn’t the sight of Gage that threw Jim for a loop. It was his brother Cole, who was plopped down on the other end of the couch, a beer in hand.
Cole willingly sitting with their father?
Jim resisted the urge to shake the confusion from his head. Had hell frozen over?
Three heads jerked up at his abrupt entrance.
“Jim?” Hank said in surprise, the sudden shift of his body causing the ice cubes in his glass to clink together like marbles.
Jim didn’t bother with pleasantries. “What the hell have you done?”
Hank flinched as if he’d been shot. A stunned silence descended on the room.
“Your mother told you about Lana,” Hank finally said in a resigned voice.
“She did,” Jim confirmed coldly. “I shouldn’t be sur prised that you didn’t call me yourself. You’ve always let Mom clean up your messes.”
The barb got him another flinch, along with a surprising frown from Cole. “Cool it, Jimmy.” Cole set his beer bottle on the coffee table and slowly got to his feet, squaring the broad shoulders of his six-foot frame.
“You’re defending him?” Jim said in disbelief.
His brother sighed. “Trust me, we’ve all given him a lot of grief over the past couple of months. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before.”
Jim shook his head, a wave of frustration swelling in his gut. “And he should keep hearing it,” he shot back. “Christ! What are you guys doing, sitting around sipping on beer and bourbon? Lana is out there somewhere! Alone. Scared. Why isn’t this place crawling with Feds?”
“A couple of agents are coming tomorrow morning,” Cole explained in a low voice. “They’re coordinating the exchange.”
Jim went momentarily speechless. “Exchange?” He hissed out a breath, turning to his father. “Mom was right. You’re planning on sacrificing yourself for Lana.”
His father stared at him with remorseful eyes. “Do I have any other choice?”
“Yes,” Jim snapped. “You stay out of it and let the Feds do their thing. Have you offered the kidnappers a ransom?”
“They don’t want one.” Gage spoke from his perch by the bookshelf.
“They want Dad,” Cole answered flatly.
“Why?” Jim ran a hand through his dark hair. “What the hell is going on here?”
The three men exchanged somewhat cryptic looks, and then Cole let out a heavy breath. “You might as well sit down, little brother. This will probably take a while.”
“I’m not sure I like being on the run,” Lana declared as she stepped out of yet another miniscule bathroom, Deacon’s T-shirt sagging down to her knees.
Deacon glanced up from the brochure he was reading and offered a wry look. “Not quite as exciting as the movies portray, huh?”
“You got that right.”
After three days of non-stop driving, and three nights in motels that only seemed to get more dilapidated, Lana longed for her brother’s house in Maple Cove, for the mouthwatering scent of Hannah’s cooking. Even more, she wanted to hear a familiar voice, but Deacon repeatedly warned her it could be dangerous if they contacted any member of her family. Fortunately, they didn’t have much farther to go. Tomorrow morning they’d make the nine-hour drive to Maple Cove, and by tomorrow night, she’d be with her family. Safe and sound.
And Deacon would be gone.
“Did you know there’s a Steamboat Warehouse near here?” Deacon asked, holding up the tourism pamphlet he’d taken from the motel lobby. “It was built in 1883.”
She bent over to towel-dry her wet hair, peeking out from under the towel to scowl at him. “Gee, that sounds so exciting. Please take me there, Deacon.”
He laughed.
Lana nearly dropped the towel. He’d actually laughed. Ever since the night they’d made love, she’d noticed him making a tiresome effort to remain aloof. He spoke in short sentences, avoided her eyes whenever he could, slept on the floor every night.
And although his detachment annoyed her, it had also given her time to think about the shocking realization she’d reached in the truck the other day. The whole L-word di lemma. She’d finally decided that she was being silly. Of course she wasn’t falling for Deacon. So what if the sex had been out of this world? So what if she melted just a little each time he smiled or laughed or showed a sliver of emotion?
That didn’t mean she was falling in love with him. It just meant she liked him. Which was totally natural. A woman ought to like the father of her baby, right?
She finished drying her hair, then headed into the bathroom to hang the towel on the rack. Just as she came out, Deacon was coming in. Their bodies collided, sending an instant jolt of heat through her. Her nipples tightened against the material of her shirt, a reaction that Deacon didn’t fail to notice
.
“I…was going to hop in the shower,” he said roughly.
She swallowed. “Okay.”
Neither of them made a move to pull back from the chest-to-chest contact. Her breasts swelled, growing heavy with need at the feel of his defined pecs pressed against them.
“Uh…” Deacon trailed off.
Their eyes locked. Awareness sizzled between them like an electric current.
Then he coughed, and painstakingly moved back. “Uh, yeah, a shower.”
Disappointment flooded her belly as he sidestepped her and walked into the bathroom. A moment later, the door quietly closed. She heard the faucet creak and the sound of rushing water met her ears.
With a ragged breath, she stepped away from the door and slid under the ugly checkered bedspread, trying to get comfortable in bed. Her hands moved to her belly, stroking it gently. It was probably for the best. Giving in to her attraction to Deacon again wouldn’t lead to anything anyway. He’d made it glaringly obvious that he wasn’t going to stick around. He was simply making amends for the ordeal she’d been through, taking her back to her family as a form of reparation.
Her attempts to get him to open up continually failed. Every subtle nudge, every little reminder that there was hope for his future, had gone unnoticed.
Sex wasn’t going to bring him around. It would only complicate things further, add to the tangled knot of confusing emotions already lodged inside her.
At the mere thought of sex, though, hot flames of arousal licked every inch of her suddenly feverish skin.
“Snap out of it,” she muttered to herself.
Right. She had to get a grip. She couldn’t sleep with Deacon again.
It was a bad idea.
A mistake.
But…
But just one more time wouldn’t hurt, right?
Lana was naked when Deacon walked into the bedroom.
He had to do a double-take to be sure, but yup, naked. She lay on top of the frayed blanket, her pale skin shimmering in the dim lighting of the room. His mouth instantly went dry. His pulse kicked off in a gallop.