by Linda Bond
She reached out, trying to find the edge of the table, but he dragged her chair, with her in it, away from the table and lifted her into a standing position.
“Dance with me.”
His hands were around her waist already. “What does dancing have to do with trust?”
A Rascal Flats country ballad was playing in the background. The twangy song had a slow, steady beat. She swayed back on her heels, a bit dizzy.
One of his hands moved around her back, and he gently pulled her against his body.
Her arms instinctively looped around his neck, and her cheek found his. The roughness of his five o’clock shadow scraped her cheek. She licked her lips, pressing into him just a little more. This exercise in trust was getting way out of control, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had held her this way. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted a man to do more. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let herself go like this.
“Now tell me what you hear.” His voice had a rougher edge to it.
The out of control beating of my heart. “Rascal Flats, and your voice.”
He continued whispering in her ear. “Tell me what you smell.”
The alcohol on your breath, and the musky smell of your skin. “Stale beer on the floor.”
“And what do you feel?”
Ohmigod, I feel your big hands sliding down my back. “You touching me.”
“And how does that make you feel inside?”
Dizzy, wet, hungry for you to stop whispering in my ear and use those lips to kiss me instead.
She couldn’t believe the desire controlling her body. Maybe this was why her mother had made so many bad mistakes with smooth-talking men. But her instincts told her Zack was so much more than his silver tongue.
Though, she’d definitely take it…
His hands found the curve of her lower back. With a subtle pressure, he moved her hips into his. He didn’t need any words to show her how he was feeling at this moment. His erection was undeniable. His lips nuzzled her neck, and he pressed her against it. “What do you taste?” he murmured.
She inhaled and pulled back just a little bit. “I still taste the mangosteen.”
“I want to taste it, too.”
He moved his lips up her neck, taking his time, pressing his mouth against her throbbing artery. She let the raw emotion of desire sweep over her. Her hand moved up through his hair, hungry for the feel of him. His lips brushed hers, making her knees actually go weak, but abruptly he pulled away. “Damn. I promised I wouldn’t do this.”
“What? Are you kidding me?” No more teasing. No more games. No more exercises. She’d had enough. “You aren’t taking advantage of me.” Oblivious to where she was and who might be watching, she pulled him to her, anxious to crush his lips with hers in a way she’d never tried before.
So, this was what it felt like to let yourself go. Passion. It was turning her core into a roaring fire. She’d always kept this feeling bottled up. Why? It felt so damn good.
After a brief hesitation, his lips pressed down on hers—firm and demanding. She opened her mouth to let his tongue mix with hers, and moaned as his grinding erection pushed against her.
Holy cow, she’d never been kissed like this before. She could taste his need, and feel his desire for her, and the rawness of both made her long for even more. She deepened the kiss, pulling him closer still, amazed at herself for being the aggressor, enjoying every damn moment of it. She wanted this kiss to last forever.
“Hey, kids.”
Fingers tapped her shoulder. She jumped.
“Don’t mean to break up the dance floor grind, but I’ve got someone here with something she says you wanted to see.”
George? She pulled back and whipped off the blindfold. What the hell was her cameraman doing here? And with Rita by his side? Holy shit. Her heart sped up even more.
“Can’t it wait?” Zack had both fists on his hips.
“For your sake, dude, I wish it could.” George grinned at them both, but his smile seemed tight. “Sam, Rita here came knocking on your motel room door and then mine saying you wanted her to bring you this DVD as soon as she got off work.”
“I did.” Sam pulled away, knowing she should be embarrassed to be caught in Zack’s arms, but more interested and concerned about what they were about to find on Rita’s DVD. “Rita, this is Zack Hunter. His uncle died on one of these adventure vacations.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Rita pulled a DVD out of her purse. “Then you’re the one who needs to see this.”
Zack’s jaw clenched and his shoulders hitched up. “What the hell is going on here?” He stepped away from Sam and gave Rita the once over. “Who are you?”
“She’s a waitress I talked to at a diner near our motel while I was doing some work. I actually talked to a number of people, trying to find someone who had come in contact with previous vacation groups, but Rita was the only one who had useful information.”
Zack’s eyes narrowed and his voice lowered. “What kind of information?”
“You’ll be proud of me, partner.” She reached out for Rita’s DVD. “While you and George we’re in those caves searching for evidence, I may have found a clue as to how your uncle died.”
Chapter Nine
Sam glanced around the sparse living room of the mobile home they’d driven to. The rickety, two-bedroom doublewide was hidden off a one-lane dirt road with no streetlights, way outside of town. This was where Rita lived? She pursed her lips. Too bad they didn’t have DVD players back at their motel.
She moved a wadded up T-shirt and a pair of faded black jeans from the couch to the floor and sat down. A weirdly upbeat George sat on her right, and a silent, brooding Zack sat on her left. The conflicting vibes had her stomach in knots.
Rita was fiddling around in her tiny, box-like kitchen.
Sam wrinkled her nose at what smelled like leftover meatloaf sprinkled with a hint of not-so-fresh kitty litter, and stole a quick glance at Zack. After the intimate moment they’d shared at the honky-tonk, she didn’t understand why he’d insisted on driving here alone. Especially when she told him about the DVD. The cool energy he was putting off right now was in sharp contrast to the heated lines his fingers had drawn on her flesh less than an hour ago. She shivered. What was with the guy?
She wanted to touch him and make that connection again, but Zack cleared his throat and yelled toward the kitchen, “Can we get on with this?” He sat forward on the couch, his hands clasped tightly in his lap, looking like a man ready to spring up and run out at a moment’s notice. He still wasn’t making eye contact with her.
“Sorry, Zack, I know you want to see that DVD.” So did she. Rita had told her about it at the diner, but had stopped short with details after her boss had yelled at her about delivering hot food to one of her other tables. “When Rita saw me reading articles on X-Force Adventure Vacations, she stopped to warn me to be careful. At first she wouldn’t say why, but when I told her about Maxwell and Jackson, she told me about hooking up a year ago with one of the X-Force vacationers passing through town, a guy named Michael Flint.”
Zack whipped around to face her, interest firing in his eyes.
Looked like Zack knew Michael Flint. Or had at least heard of him.
“Apparently, this Flint guy had some suspicions about what was going on at the adventure vacation company. Rita told me he wrote down notes in a journal. She also said he’d been diving with a guy from up north who never made it back to the surface.”
Zack’s body tensed. “The timing is right.” His gaze sought the silent, black TV screen.
“I’ve got Bud or Mic Light.” Rita walked into the living room with a beer in each hand.
“Bud. Thanks.” George took the beer, allowing his fingers to linger on her skin.
Rita smiled, her heated gaze traveling to George’s hands.
What was up with that? George was hitting it off
with the waitress? She certainly gave off a friendly air, and up close, she was quite pretty, despite the hole in her apron and the grease stains on her skirt. Her living space gave away her financial situation—desperate.
An avalanche of bad memories along with a pang of sympathy rushed through Sam. How many times had the popular boys called her trailer trash while growing up? And look how far she’d come. With any luck they were all watching her on the evening news from the beat-up sofas in their doublewides.
Not that she was bitter or anything.
“How about you, honey?” Rita’s gaze landed on Sam.
She smiled, but the remnants of Grey Goose and Zack’s bizarre behavior had her stomach in a tizzy, so she declined.
Rita turned to Zack, who was still staring at the TV. “What about you, good-looking? What do you want?”
For a second, Sam thought Zack was so deep in thought that he didn’t hear Rita. Slowly, he acknowledged her. “I want the truth.”
Surprise washed over Rita’s face.
Sam had never heard that tone of voice from him before. “Zack,” she cautioned. If he was rude, Rita could ask them to leave.
“That’s what we’re here for, right?” Gone was the flirtatious playboy. “I’m not here to party. I want to know what Michael Flint knew about my uncle’s death.”
The waitress put the second beer down on the table next to Zack and sat in a chair across from him. “Oh, lordy, I’m sorry.” She kept blinking as she spoke. “I don’t know what Michael knew about your uncle’s death. I just know he thought something bad was going on with the adventure vacation company. He was always asking people to call him if they saw anything they thought might be shady. He never did go into detail.”
When no one spoke, Sam prompted her, “Go on.”
Rita continued. “One night Michael and I were watching a movie here, and he gets this call on his cell phone. He took it in the bedroom, but I wanted to hear, you know, so I put my ear to the door.” She shot a nervous glance at both Sam and George. “I thought maybe it was a wife or girlfriend. Like, I don’t do that shit, y’all. Anyway. I only heard bits and pieces. I think he said he couldn’t pull out now. He didn’t have the proof.”
“Proof of what?” Sam frowned. Now they were getting to the details Rita didn’t have time to tell earlier. “Was he an undercover cop?”
“I don’t know.” Rita shrugged. “Could have been. Had that air about him. Michael came rushing out of the bedroom that night and said he had to go. Then he hauled ass. Never saw him again.”
Sam had spent years learning how to assess people’s credibility in mere minutes. The way Rita leaned forward, the way she used her hands and made eye contact, convinced her Rita was telling them the truth. At least the truth as she knew it.
“Two days after Michael left, I’m cleaning up around here, and I find his backpack on a chair under some of my clothes.” She blushed as she peeked over at George again. “I tried to return it, but when I went to the hotel, the kid at the front desk told me Michael had checked out the day before and left town with the adventure vacation company. I thought it was weird, but I thought maybe he’d left it as an excuse to come back and visit me, you know. But then I thought, hell no. He never needed an excuse. He didn’t want no one to find that backpack. That’s what I think. I was going to track the company down, but the next day I heard on the news that a man named Michael Flint had died during a shark dive off the Bahamas.”
“What?” Sam straightened. Rita hadn’t told her they guy she’d been hooking up with had died! It made sense now why she’d warned her. Sam checked out Zack’s reaction and froze. The guarded expression on his face told her he wasn’t surprised at all. “You knew about Michael Flint dying?” Words flew out of her mouth, prickly balls of anger. “Why didn’t you fill me in that? Don’t you think it’s relevant?”
“Samantha, can we talk about this later?”
She stood and fisted her hands on her hips. A bonfire of bad feelings ignited in her belly. “And I was so excited to share this clue with you.”
Zack sighed. “How did you find this DVD, Rita?”
Rita hesitated, picking at her clothes. “I opened up his backpack and checked out what was inside, of course.”
“And?” Zack scooted to the edge of the couch. Both hands gripped the cushion’s edge.
“I found the journal and the DVD.”
Indignation still burned in Sam’s belly, but curiosity extinguished some of the heat. She took a long, deep breath and sat back down. “You’ve watched the whole DVD, right?” Her mouth had gone dry. She picked up George’s beer and took a swig.
“I’d like to see it. Now.” Zack motioned toward the TV.
Rita looked from person to person. “Do you think we should all watch it together?” Her gaze landed on Zack. “Or do you want to watch it alone?”
Zack’s shoulders sank. “No need. I already know how it ends.”
Rita took the cue and stood.
As she walked over to her small, lopsided kitchen table, the reporter in Sam took over. She fired off questions she hadn’t had a chance to ask earlier. “You kept the DVD all this time? For at least a year? Why didn’t you turn the DVD over to the X-Force Adventure Vacation Company?”
Rita picked up a simple camouflage backpack sitting on one of the kitchen chairs. “Michael obviously didn’t trust the folks working at X-Force Adventure Vacations, so why the hell should I? Plus, Michael ended up dead, and I don’t know if it was an accident or if someone at the company killed him because he’d been asking too many questions.” Rita headed back toward them with the backpack slung over her shoulder. “Where I come from, you keep your mouth shut and your nose out of other people’s business. That’s how you stay alive.”
Silently, Sam applauded her statement. Rita Wright was a smart cookie, with good survival instincts.
The waitress placed the backpack on the coffee table in front of the three of them. Sam stared at it, her suspicion growing by the minute. A Semper Fi patch was sewn onto the right side of the backpack. Michael Flint was a Marine? Military, just like Zack?
She waited, giving him a chance to say something about the patch. He didn’t even acknowledge it. He was too busy opening the backpack and pulling out a black, leather-bound journal. He flipped open the pages and started reading. To himself, of course.
She shot George a look, raising her eyebrows in a silent question. Shrugging, he remained silent.
“Rita.” She pressed on despite the urgent desire to wring Zack’s neck—right after she pulled him out of the trance-like state he’d fallen into. But maybe he would have told her about Michael Flint. George had interrupted them before the promised hour had passed. “Why didn’t you call the police if this DVD showed something incriminating?”
Rita picked up the DVD, and then stopped. “I don’t know that it does. You watch it, and you tell me. Besides, I’m on probation—doesn’t matter why. But if you even think about calling the police, we’re done here.” She shook the DVD at them.
“Play the DVD.” Zack’s eyes had gone dark.
A wave of empathy moved through Sam, washing away most of her anger. Zack was about to watch a beloved uncle die. He deserved a little compassion. Nothing hurt more than losing a loved one, as she knew first hand. Although her mother was technically still alive, in a coma she was more like the living dead. Every time Sam visited her, that harsh reality killed her a little, too.
She reached over and placed her hand on his, curling her fingers over his clenched fist. She gave him a gentle squeeze.
Zack didn’t return the gesture of affection, but he did turn to look at her. She pulled back a bit, startled by the haunted look in his eyes.
No one in the room said a thing as the DVD cycled and began to play.
Chapter Ten
Samantha’s soft touch surprised him.
Zack hadn’t told her about the death of Michael Flint. When Detective Johnson hadn’t mentioned Flint after Wentwo
rth died, Zack had felt no obligation to fill them in.
Would he have mentioned it when he made his full confession after the hour she’d promised him at the bar? Maybe. Probably. Who knew? He’d never gotten a chance to find out just how serious he’d been about trusting her. And judging by the look on her face two minutes ago, he would have bet last year’s salary he’d never get another chance.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
The gentle squeeze of her hand made him want to curl up in her arms to watch the video, the possible clue she’d found for him. Embarrassed, he pulled away from her.
She didn’t reach for him again. Which made him feel even shittier.
The sound of someone breathing through a regulator drew his attention to the TV screen. A diver descended through the waters of the Orange Grove Sink. The date on the screen indicated the dive had taken place on the day his uncle died. Zack tried to swallow, but the invisible obstruction lodged there would not go down.
The water and landscape looked much the same as it had on his dive earlier. Bubbles rose up from below through an increasingly darkening pool of water. The diver shooting the video wasn’t alone. Another diver was swimming below him, letting out air bubbles as he breathed. Michael Flint?
The video had obviously been shot with a helmet cam worn by the first diver. If that man was indeed his uncle, they were now seeing through his Uncle Jackson’s eyes.
He shuddered, suddenly chilled despite the lack of air-conditioning in the mobile home.
A second diver moved in front of the main diver’s helmet camera. His pulse picked up speed. “Can you pause the DVD?”
When Rita did so, he squinted, trying to find something about the new diver that would identify him. The full wet suit, bug eye goggles, and large regulator, along with the murkiness of the deep water, made it impossible to pick out details of a face. He knew what Michael Flint looked like. Flint had been a New York undercover cop, and he’d been investigating Scott Fitzpatrick’s death. It had been such a hush-hush investigation that even the local police didn’t know about it.