Dangerous To Love

by Toni Anderson, Barbara Freethy, Dee Davis, Leslie A. Kelly, Cynthia Eden, J. Kenner, Meli Raine, Gwen Hernandez, Pamela Clare, Rachel Grant

  “That far back?” I ask, a little surprised. When we were dating, Mark didn’t talk about his family at all. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if he has a brother or sister.

  “My mom and dad were the cliché of the good girl and the bad boy.”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. He laughs, but it’s not a funny laugh.

  “My mom,” he says slowly, “was the daughter of a United States senator.” He names a man whose name I’ve read in history books.

  My jaw feels like it hits the table.

  “Your grandfather was James Thornberg? The James Thornberg?” Every high school history book has an entire chapter on the guy. Ushered through major legislation on education and agricultural issues. Ran for president and failed a few times, then settled in to be the powerhouse of the Senate back before I was even born.

  “He’s long dead, my grandpa,” Mark says, nodding, “and so is my mom, for that matter. She died a few years ago. Just before I got home from Afghanistan.” His face goes sad. “That was one hell of a meeting with my commanding officer.”

  “Oh Mark, I’m so sorry!” I say. We have two things in common, I think to myself. We both have dead mothers.

  His eyes cloud with memory. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he says quickly.

  I know that feeling. I know that move. That’s what you do when you want to cut off the other person’s emotions, and you cut them off because their emotions trigger your emotions. And you do not want to feel those feelings right now.

  “My mom and dad split up a long time ago, when I was little. My dad was a cop.” He gives me a sardonic look. His grin is a mixture of amusement and something really close to disgust.

  So it runs in the blood, I think to myself. I almost say the words and then stop. There’s something about the look in Mark’s eyes that makes me think saying those words would be a very bad idea.

  “When I was three,” Mark says slowly, the words coming out one by one with careful precision, “my dad went from being a good cop to a bad cop. I didn’t learn all the details until I was an adult and realized I could go to the library and research the newspaper articles. And once I did, I understood why my mom and my grandfather had hidden all the details from me.”

  A cold, numb feeling runs up my body, from the base of my heels, up my calves, behind my knees, along the backs of my thighs. It stops for a moment at the small of my back. It runs up in twin lines below each shoulder blade, reaching to connect back at my neck.

  It feels like a burst of electricity goes through my eyes.

  Whatever Mark’s about to tell me changes everything.

  “My dad took money from the mob. That’s the short version,” Mark says, and then pauses, drinking half of his cup of coffee.

  I startle, realizing before the mug touches my lips, that I’m imitating him.

  “That doesn’t seem so bad,” I say. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not great,” I add, as Mark gives me a deeply skeptical look. “But people do things like that. Cops turn bad.”

  “Not cops married to a senator’s daughter,” he says, his jaw set to the side, tight, nostrils flaring. “Especially Senator Thornberg’s daughter.”

  “Oh,” I say. It sinks in, layer by layer. “And is that why your parents split up?” I ask, my voice going high at the end.

  He nods. “Yeah. My mom remarried when I was six. My stepdad adopted me. I didn’t see my biological father again until about a year ago.”

  “Oh, Mark,” I say. “That’s…more than two decades!”

  “Twenty-five years,” he corrects. “A quarter of a century, and most of my lifetime.”

  “What, what—led you to see him?”

  He closes his eyes and sets his lips in an expression of pain. When he opens them, his eyes flash with the same sort of burn that comes from the kind of eternal flame of knowledge that you can’t snuff out. He sighs.

  “How about first things first, Carrie? Let me try to tell the story, and then you can ask as many questions as you want. I’m just—” He falters. “I’m just not sure I can tell all of it to you, if you keep asking questions while I’m telling it.”

  I don’t know why, but I reach across the table and squeeze his hand. He doesn’t look up. His eyes are fixed on the cup of coffee. And then suddenly he does. The look we share is so raw and honest and real. I don’t want to look away.

  This look makes me realize we all wear masks most of the time. Having Mark take his off is an honor for me.

  “A few minutes ago, you were worried about whether you could trust me,” he says. “But I want you to know that I trust you fully. You are the only person in the world who knows any of this about me, and who knows what I’m about to tell you.”

  “I won’t say a word,” I gasp.

  “I didn’t even have to ask you to keep this private,” he says. “I know you will.”

  A kind of glow surrounds me at his words. It’s more than a feeling of being special. It’s a feeling of having another soul tell you that your soul is good enough for them.

  “My dad disappeared,” he says. “My bio dad, I mean,” Mark corrects himself. “My adopted dad, Jack Paulson, was a business man. Owned a series of car dealerships.” His face softens. “He loved my mom so much.”

  “Did he…is he…?”

  “They both died in a car accident, Carrie,” he says slowly. “No one knows what happened. The car was found in a forty foot ravine off the coast, up in Oregon, when they were on vacation. Someone contacted my commanding officer in Afghanistan before the news story broke. They didn’t want me to see it online before…”

  “Oh, God!” I whisper, squeezing his hand again. “I’m so sorry.”

  I keep saying that. I’m sorry. Those two words are so inadequate right now.

  He gives that weird smile again, the kind that means he’s biting down on so much pain inside. “Thank you,” is all he says.

  “You’re completely alone in the world.” The words come out of my mouth before I realize it. “Just like me.”

  He frowns. “Not quite. I have a half brother.”

  “A half brother?”

  Mark nods. “We have different mothers, but the same dad.”

  “He’s…you…you know him? Your brother?”

  Mark finishes his coffee and stands up abruptly, going over to the kitchen counter. I hear him pouring more. He comes over with the pot and gives me a look as if to say, Do you want more?

  I cover the cup with my hand and shake my head. Mark puts the coffee pot back and sits down.

  “His name is Chase,” Mark says. “We’re eight years apart. When our moms were alive, they tried to make sure that we saw each other a few times.”

  “Your dads—your dad—I mean, your bio dad,” I stumble through, trying to figure out how to say this just right. “He never knew?”

  Mark shakes his head slowly. “No. He never knew that we knew about each other.”

  “Holy shit,” I whisper under my breath.

  He smiles, a genuine look of surprised amusement. “And I’m making you curse.”

  “It’s a lot to take in, Mark.”

  “It’s a lot to live, Carrie.”

  My heart goes out to him.

  “How many times did you see your little brother?”

  “A few. It all stopped when Chase was fifteen. When his mom died.”

  All these dead mothers. It’s starting to feel like a Disney movie.

  “How did his mom die?” I clap my hands over my mouth and nearly scream. “Did your dad…did your bio dad, I mean…”

  “God, no,” Mark says in a voice filled with reproach. “Galt is lots of things, but he wouldn’t murder a woman he loves.”

  “Galt?”

  Mark rolls his eyes. “His nickname. He read a bunch of Ayn Rand novels and goes by that name in his motorcycle club.”

  I cock one eyebrow, then wince. “He’s a biker?”

  Mark just nods.

  I give him a skeptical lo
ok. I may be twenty-two, but I wasn’t born yesterday. “You’re telling me your bio dad was a cop who took money from the mob and now he’s in a motorcycle gang?”

  “Not just in one. He’s the president. Big biker gang that’s deep into drug dealing.”

  A lightbulb goes on inside my head. “And that’s how you came to meet up with him again?”

  Mark just nods. I stop talking. Silence descends over us like a rain cloud. I realize my questions are easy for him. He doesn’t have to give me any information I don’t ask for. Maybe, if I stop asking questions, he’ll be forced to open up more.

  We sip our coffee. The tension rises. Without my questions, all we can do is drink coffee and stare at each other. It sinks in that he is an accomplished war veteran with specialized training to be a federal agent with the drug enforcement agency. He’s deep undercover, pretending to be a university-town cop, and he’s not about to lose a staring contest with little old me.

  I’m pretty outclassed here.

  And yet…he cracks first.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he says with a sigh that contains a thousand more words. He tilts his head as if he’s studying me. Like I’m worth the attention. Blood rushes to my cheeks and heads south as well. I feel like a tight rosebud that has spent years in the shade.

  And suddenly, the sun shines with great love, urging it to blossom.

  My heart is in my throat. My pulse is between my legs. My nipples tingle and tighten. The buried sense of arousal feels so odd. I’ve felt it in bits and pieces since I’ve come home. Sometimes I would conjure it in my memory as I struggled to fall asleep back in Oklahoma. Dreams of Mark filled my slumber many nights.

  This, though, isn’t a dream. Mark is very, very real right now. I can feel his heat.

  Can he feel mine?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The air changes. It has its own pulse. If electricity leaves a scent of ozone and crackling burn, then arousal and passion does, too. I can smell my own need radiating out of me, like fresh, ripe oranges in a grove. Like crushed mint in a glass of cool lemonade on a sweltering day.

  Like a woman who hasn’t been loved enough.

  Mark has a musk, a heady scent of his own untamed want, too. I inhale deeply, knowing the pounding of my blood through my body makes a beat that takes over my senses. I no longer notice any scent. My eyes can see but I can’t make out distinct objects. My skin can feel but it is fixed on one sensation.

  The only thing I can truly sense is him. Us. We are everything.

  Mark clears his throat and stands, then bends down before me. He puts his palms on my jaw, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones. All the air in the room disappears. My mind turns into spun sugar. My blood races to meet his touch.

  “You are the most important person in the world, Carrie. I know you’re waiting for me to tell you my story.”

  “Yes,” I say, my lips swollen and dry. I lick them. His eyes flicker down to watch, then move back to meet my gaze.

  “You want the truth about your father.”

  If Mark had thrown a bucket of ice water filled with pinching crabs on me, he couldn’t have shocked me more. I feel my blood recede, my senses return, and I snap back to reality like a stretched rubber band with one end dropped.

  “Yes.” My heart closes itself back in its little metal box. It doesn’t click the lock, though.

  “The truth is, arresting your father was a huge mistake.”

  I don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t blink.

  He lets out a disgusted sigh. “We were fooled. Completely snowed. I was young and green, new to the DEA. I was stupid,” he adds, beating himself up.

  “And if what you say about those emails in your backpack are true, then we finally have the proof I’ve been trying to track for the past few months.” Mark gives me a sick smile. “It really did take having you come home to figure out the truth about your dad.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Mark’s smile fades. I understand why. My voice sounds about as friendly as an ice pick to the eyeball.

  “We had the intercepted emails between Landau and your dad.”

  “WHAT? You had them all along?” I practically scream.

  Mark holds out his palms. “No, no. Sorry. No—the ones that were used as evidence against Joe. The ones Landau made sure the police always had. The emails that set your father up to take the fall.”

  “Oh.” I feel deflated.

  “Joe was purchasing huge amounts of chemicals used to make meth. We had proof that he was approving trucks full of what we later learned were meth shipments to a dealer out on the Arizona-California border. We knew about a network of biker gangs and small-time bar owners who distributed the drug throughout the southwest. We thought that was our smoking gun, and I…”

  Mark’s words wash over me like acid. He looks at me and frowns.

  I say nothing. My hair feels weird against my neck, so I rake my fingers through it and lift it into a pony tail. My shoulders pull back and breasts thrust forward. Mark’s eyebrows go up and he looks away.

  A completely different kind of sigh comes out of him now.

  “What you’re saying is that Landau set my dad up and you didn’t realize it,” I blurt out. All the parts of me that have felt awkward and worried about moving back home are gone. Long gone. There is a clear sense of the world in the room now. Clarity makes me bold.

  How bold? We’ll have to see.

  Mark makes a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “That’s one way to put it.” His eyes are full of hunger. They rake over my body. I feel a combination of matched lust and intense fury.

  All of it aimed toward Mark.

  “Didn’t anyone investigate Landau?” I ask, my words filled with outrage.

  “Of course we did. Plus, I had the power of federal resources behind me and a great team. But we think Landau beat us to the technology system. Erased the important emails.” Mark’s eyes shift over to my backpack. He looks like a kid on Christmas morning after Santa has delivered his presents.

  I startle, remembering something very, very important. “Hold on. Are you and Claudia really dating?” All my hot skin goes ice cold at the thought. “Or are you just using her to get to Landau?”

  He raises his eyebrows and gives me a weird smile. Then an eye roll. “About that.” He sighs. “I don’t like it, but dating her seemed like the only way to get information about Landau. So…”

  “Hard job,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “Slaving away over a hot chick—”

  “It just reached the kissing stage, Carrie. Right before you moved to town.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that?” I say with a snort.

  His eyes bore into mine.

  I guess I am.

  “There’s nothing sexual going on between me and Claudia. Not…now, and not before. Yes, I kissed her. Yes, we were affectionate. It was part of dating her to get—” He stands, then walks over to me, crouching down. Mark’s head tips up.

  He just made everything in the room shift.

  “Claudia sleeps with so many guys her second nickname is The Mattressback, Mark.” I give him a sour face. “C’mon.”

  He gives me a poker face right back. “If I tell you I didn’t sleep with her, you can believe it. And I’m telling you we didn’t do more than kiss.”

  I want to trust him. I do.

  “And now you’ve saved me from touching her.” His eyes land on the backpack.

  For the first time, I wonder if Effie had more than one motive in giving me those papers. She hates Claudia, and she likes me, so…

  “I should go through those documents in your backpack right now and take photos. Send them to my team. Get them analyzed,” Mark says.

  “Right now,” I echo.

  Silence blankets us again.

  “Yeah,” he says, his voice going husky. “That’s what I should do.”

  A plume of unrestrained passion fills my body so fast my fingertips and toes ting
le. I’m a mixture of rage and hurt, of longing and arousal. I can’t separate out the pieces of me that are furious with Mark and the other pieces that want him so badly. I find myself gripping the edge of my seat, my fingers under my thighs so I don’t do anything stupid.

  I’m about to throw myself at him and either strangle him or ride him.

  I’m not sure which one I want more.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “What do you want to do?” I whisper. I know the words are like throwing a lit match into a five-gallon bucket of lighter fluid.

  “I want…” he says, making a frustrated sound, “…to do the right thing, Carrie.”

  I give him a sad, shy smile. “It’s hard to know what that is.”

  Our eyes lock.

  “No,” he says slowly. He’s still below me, bent down and looking up into my eyes, and he stands, reaching for my hand. “No. I know exactly what’s right.”

  I look at my backpack as he pulls me up. The touch of his fingers against mine feels like a burn. A sweet, wonderful heat.

  “Right. You have to get those documents to the—”

  He’s kissing me suddenly, all warm lips and hot tongue. The pain of torn skin around my lips is dwarfed by passion. My body reaches for his like iron to a magnet, my curves molding to his hardness, his hands on my face, in my hair, caressing my neck and pulling me closer, closer, closer.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmurs as he pulls back from the kiss. “I am so, so sorry, Carrie. I screwed up everything with your father. I drove you away. I couldn’t tell you the truth. I needed to protect you.”

  Lies. All the lies are gone now, aren’t they? I know everything. So many puzzle pieces that didn’t fit are clicking into place. What once seemed impossible to understand is becoming clear.

  I have a choice right now. Right this instant.

  I can push Mark away for all his past lies, or I can embrace him and pull him close for telling me the truth.

  I can cling to the past or look forward to the future.

  I can choose pain or pleasure.

  Revenge or reunion.

  It doesn’t take long for me to decide. Yet it feels like forever.