Hunt Her Down

by Roxanne St Claire

  That she was so different? “What was your revelation?”

  He slid his gaze away with a sideways smile. “It’s a secret now.”

  “You wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway.” She turned to get more comfortable, the move pressing her breasts against that lovely bicep. “Besides, it doesn’t matter.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  That she was different. “How many fortunes we have,” she said. “Even if we get two more of them, with eight more numbers, we have what? Maybe sixty-four different combinations of latitude, longitude, minutes, and seconds, east, west, north, south?”

  “So we track them all. I have the resources.”

  “You still can’t convince me that all that money’s still hidden after all these years.” She tapped the beer bottle with her nail. “Give.”

  He handed it to her. “Listen, if a hundred million dollars got laundered in the six months Alonso Jimenez has been out of prison, the FBI would know about it, and I would know about it. And these people wouldn’t be going to all this trouble to get your fortune. Someone could be dribbling it into banks and accounts, but not more than five percent of it. There are too many safeguards in place to track that kind of cash.”

  She sipped, then rolled back into the space he’d made for her, balancing the bottle on his solar plexus, keeping one hand around it, her arm resting easily on his stomach muscles.

  “So what do we do next, Irish?”

  He gave her a half smile at the nickname. “In the next few minutes, or tomorrow?”

  “I know what you want to do in the next few minutes.” His pants weren’t totally tented yet, but she could see a bulge growing. No force of nature could stop her from looking at it. Imagining it. Wanting it.

  “Pretty obvious, huh?” He took the beer.

  “Mmm hmm.” She curled her fingers around his bicep. “That’s why I came out here.”

  He finished the drink and set the bottle on the ground next to him. “Really.”

  “To talk.” Liar, liar. “About Quinn.” That ought to quench his passion.

  “Don’t worry, Maggie, I had no intention of blowing your old cover. If he thinks you were a waitress, that works for me.”

  “It’s not ‘an old cover,’ ” she said, hearing the resentment in her voice.

  “It’s not? You were a waitress in Miami? News to me.”

  “I was, for about one lunch rush. Then I got fired. And met Ramon.” She shifted, trying to move away but the chaise was a tight fit. “It’s the story Smitty used to tell people when I worked for him at the bar, and I never contradicted it. Not even tonight, when I should have.”

  “Maggie, listen to me.” He turned to face her. “Not all lies are bad. If your husband wanted to spare your boy the grief of certain things, why not? He wanted Quinn to think he was his father, right?”

  “But that doesn’t have anything to do with what we told him I did before he was born.” The waitress story had been a cover. A benign and shameless change of history.

  “You told him you were a waitress to protect him. His self-image and his pride, right?”

  “Both of their prides,” she said.

  “A lie to protect someone is not a lie.”

  “Straight from the Gallagher Book of Bent Rules.”

  “They’ve worked well for me.”

  “Everything works well for you. You don’t have to change history. You walked away from that parking lot in Miami a hero, while I walked away a pregnant tramp. You went on to glamorous jobs, important assignments, enough money to buy cars I can’t even pronounce, and I’m worried about paying the orthodontist.”

  She sounded bitter, but couldn’t stop. Hell, she was bitter.

  “I’ll pay for the orthodontist,” he said quietly

  “Yes, you will.”

  “And clothes, and college, and cars. Whatever he—and you—need.”

  And then he’d be guilt free. She blew out a breath, not liking being bitter any more than she liked being different.

  “Can I ask you a very personal question, Maggie?”

  “Honey, we’re way past personal. Shoot.”

  “Why did you choose to keep Quinn? You were so young, and you had options.”

  “I know. I considered abortion and adoption, but neither one felt right. And then Smitty said he’d marry me.”

  “So you married a man you didn’t love to give Quinn a father?”

  “I loved him. I wasn’t in love with him, but . . .” He gave her a better choice, and a good life. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Reaching down, he lifted her chin to hold her gaze. “Try me.”

  “He was my friend more than anything. In the beginning, a sounding board and, of course he was my boss. Then he became a really, really good friend. It felt like . . . love. Sort of.”

  “Actually, I do understand that.” His voice was rich with sincerity.

  “Do you?”

  “A boss, then a friend, feeling like love but not quite love.” He gave her a quick smile. “I totally get that.”

  She scooted higher, searching his face, wanting to know more. “Tell me about her.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Because you’d have to be honest, and you’re not capable of it?”

  His jaw loosened in frustration. “No, because I don’t happen to want that person here right now, on this chaise, in my head. I have you. And that’s . . .” He turned more, lining their bodies up. “Really good.”

  “Well, I have no qualms about Smitty being out here on this chaise. He was a great guy, and a terrific father. Quinn loved him, and I often wondered how he was going to take the truth when I told him.”

  “You’d planned on telling him? Before I showed up?”

  “I knew I’d have to, someday.”

  “Why?”

  She rested her cheek on his shoulder, her hand still lying on his chest, her leg almost curled over his. When a long second passed, he repeated the question. “Why would you have to tell him?”

  “Because I put your name on the birth certificate. Well, I put Michael Scott on it.” Before he could ask the obvious question, she held up her finger. “I couldn’t put Maurice Smith on that document because it was a lie, and Quinn would be grown up and maybe dealing with something medical, and he’d think he knew half his DNA and didn’t. I put Michael Scott on that because it was the truth. And because . . .”

  “Because why?” Dan prodded.

  “Because my mother put ‘unknown’ on my birth certificate. You remember my mother, don’t you? I know I talked about her back then.”

  He nodded. “I know she let your grandmother raise you, and when your Baba died, she was supposed to come for you, but didn’t.”

  “You do have an amazing memory. Did I tell you that she called?”

  “When? Recently?”

  “God, no. When Baba died. She called me and promised me she’d come to get me. But she didn’t show. For weeks and months. I was almost eighteen and really didn’t need my mother, but I wanted her.” She remembered that state social workers became the enemy. Along with bankers who put Baba’s house into foreclosure. And neighbors who wanted her out of there. She couldn’t trust anyone. Her mother had no relatives, no friends. School was a nightmare. “So I just . . .”

  “Ran away.” He stroked her arm comfortingly. “You told me a long time ago. You came to find her, but couldn’t.”

  “And that’s why I kept Quinn. I was determined to be a better mother than the one I got.”

  “And you are. You’re a breathtaking mother.”

  She felt a smile pull. “He’d probably disagree sometimes, but thank you. Smitty always thought I was pretty good, too.”

  “How did he feel about the birth certificate?”

  “I never told him.” He’d never asked, either. “I just did what I thought was right and kept the birth certificate locked away. But it’s out there now. Someone stole it when they thought they were getting the fortune in my
lockbox.”

  Dan’s fingers stilled on her arm. “They got much more than that. They got something that could be used against you.”

  “I know,” she said, tucking closer to him. As if by just touching him, she’d be safer.

  He didn’t say anything, but slipped his arm around her, cradling her. He moved his hand to her hair, stroking the curls and letting them twirl around his finger. There was nothing between them but the thin fabric of their clothes and the heavy night air. And a whole lot of history.

  “What were you planning to tell Quinn about Michael Scott?” he finally asked.

  She looked up again, searching his eyes. “That his father was a man who worked undercover for the FBI and was killed in a drug bust. If he wanted to research that and find out who you were, and who I was, that would be his choice when he’s an adult.” She hesitated, searching for the right way to say whatever she had to say. “Guess that’ll be easier now that he’s met you. But I’ll have to eat some crow for all the lecturing I’ve done about lying.”

  She pushed herself up. “Ever since you showed up here and admitted he was yours, I’ve prayed that your ability to lie with ease is not hereditary.”

  “I don’t lie about everything, Maggie. That’s the job I’ve had, working undercover. If I adjust the facts, it’s always with the goal of stopping someone bad or protecting someone good. I do have ethics.”

  “Oh puhlease.” She rolled her eyes and gave him a poke in the arm that rattled her bracelets. “Face it. You. Can’t. Tell. The. Truth.”

  The staccato words were like gauntlets, being thrown one at a time at his feet.

  “I can tell the truth,” he shot back. “Ask me anything, absolutely anything, and I will tell you the unadulterated, honest-to-God truth.”

  “Like truth or dare?”

  “Without the dare. Although”—he pulled her a little closer and entwined his leg with hers—”that idea has merit.”

  It would be so easy to play a game like that. To drop this conversation and do what both of their bodies were primed and ready for. So easy, so much more fun. “You’ll just lie, and I won’t know the difference.”

  “Maggie, come on.” She heard the frustration in his voice. “Give me a chance.”

  “You’ll tell me the truth about anything? No matter what I ask?”

  “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” He raised his right hand. “I swear.”

  “All right,” she said, thinking back to various things that had happened in the past week, and the events and people that made her curious. “Let’s start with Lucy Sharpe.”

  He just smiled. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Is she the boss-friend-almost-love person you don’t want on this chaise?”

  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out and she jabbed him, friendlier this time. “Told ya,” she said smugly. “You can’t do it.”

  He exhaled, defeated. “She is the woman I was referring to, yes.”

  “You love her?”

  “I love her as a friend.” At her look, he added, “That is the truth. I am not in love with her. I never have been, despite rumors to the contrary. I care deeply for her as a friend, and I am happy that she’s found someone.”

  “Ohh.” She gave him a teasing smile. “More than I even asked for.”

  “See? Honest to the core.” He caressed her arm slowly. “When’s the dare part start?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not done.”

  “Fine,” he said, slipping a finger under the sleeve of the T-shirt, getting a rise of goose bumps on her flesh. “Ask away.”

  Okay. If he was finally going to be honest, she was finally going to get some important answers. “What would you have done back there on that rainy night in Miami, if you’d known I was pregnant with your child?”

  He brushed his finger over her skin again, looking like he wished to God he hadn’t promised the truth.

  “I would have done exactly the same thing,” he said quietly. “Only I would not have let you disappear, and I would have taken care of the baby and you. Forever.”

  The word made her heart tumble. Or was it the sentiment? Taken care of ? “You wouldn’t have married me.”

  He swallowed hard. “No, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have let you make it alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” she said simply.

  “Are we done with this game yet, Maggie?”

  It wasn’t a game. “Nope.”

  “What else is left? What else do you want to know, Maggie?”

  She had one last critical, must-know-or-die question. She looked up at him, wet her lips, and asked the question that had kept her awake on countless nights. “Did you care about me? Even a little? Even for a minute?”

  “Oh.” The word slipped out as he pulled her completely into him. “Much more than a little. And for much longer than a minute.”

  She felt his heart hammer against her, as if she were the lie detector machine and his red line just shot off the paper. “You’re lying.”

  “No, I’m—”

  “You just said it. You don’t think it’s a lie if you’re protecting someone, and you’re trying to protect my feelings. Thank you, but I’d rather have the truth.”

  “Here’s the whole truth, then.” He inched his face back to hold eye contact. “Whether you want to hear it or believe it or accept it. I took major, stupid, reckless risks to be with you. I could have gotten my information a lot of different ways, and none of them had to include nights in that shed or secret trysts that endangered my life and yours.”

  Could that be true? “I didn’t seduce you for information, Maggie,” he insisted, his muscles tense from head to toe. “I touched you and teased you and took you because I could not resist you.”

  He moved just enough to press his erection into her, making his point, sliding his hand down her back, over her waist, and letting it settle on the curve of her hip.

  She couldn’t resist him, either. Then . . . or now.

  “I couldn’t be in the same room with you and not get hard. I couldn’t be alone with you and not want to be inside of you. I couldn’t be inside of you and not need to come.” He leaned as close to her mouth as he could get without making contact. “Which is still very much the case.”

  He kissed her, opening his mouth immediately, rolling his tongue into her mouth. She took it and gave him her own, heat spiraling through her as his hands moved over her body, bunching the material of her skirt in his fists to drag it up over her thighs.

  “Do you believe me?” he demanded into her mouth, his hand mighty and strong as he curled her into his hardness. “Do you?”

  “I believe you,” she whispered, letting her body sink into his.

  “You’d better.” He rolled on his back and pulled her on top of him, the skirt nearly up to her hips and the searing contact of his hand on her bare thigh making her gasp.

  She arched against him, opening her legs enough to give his hard-on direct access to her crotch, the rhinestones perilously close to his mouth.

  “No more stupid questions, then,” he growled, one hand under the lace edge of her panties, the other on her head to force her mouth back to his.

  She dizzily kissed him, sucking in a breath as he rubbed the rhinestones over the bare breasts underneath, the roughness instantly shooting hot pangs between her legs.

  He bunched the material and pushed it higher, driving her hips into his and holding her so he could drink in the sight of her breasts. He lifted his head to suck, then lick, then drag his tongue across her flesh to tease the other one.

  Desire twisted and tensed between her legs. He flipped her on her back in one move, reaching behind her to drop the angled head of the chaise flat into a bed.

  “You picked this seat with this in mind,” she said, sinking into the thick, padded cushions, the weight of his body on hers.

  “No.” At her look, a slow smile pulled at his lips. “Maybe.”

  She gave him
the look she saved for Quinn when she asked if he’d folded his laundry.

  “A guy can hope, can’t he?” He walked his fingers over the rhinestones and paused at the hem of her T-shirt, then slid it almost to her chin.

  His gaze dropped to her exposed breasts, scorching them.

  “One more question,” she said, stiffening her arms and denying him the ability to take the top off.

  “No more questions.” He tugged the material, but couldn’t finish the job. Giving up, he lowered his head and his mouth, transferring all his attention to her breasts.

  Pain and pleasure and excitement collided under his tongue and lips, firing sparks through her body, tensing her muscles, making her hips writhe.

  She needed to think, but all she could do was feel. All she could do was tunnel her fingers into his hair, and guide his head to the other breast, and sigh with each wave of sexual bliss that rolled over her.

  There had to be some truth she could wrest from him to douse the fire, because this was headed one place. Fast.

  “I have to know one more thing . . . first,” she panted.

  He lifted his head, his lips wet, his green eyes heavy with arousal. “All right. One more question. Then let me take this top off, Maggie. Let me . . .” He reached between them, sliding his hand down past her bunched-up skirt, low enough to stroke her thigh, then press against the silk of her panties.

  Soaked, sticky silk.

  “Let me.” His voice was rough with need. He followed the lace with one finger, then slipped inside, branding her core with one slow stroke. “Please . . . let me.”

  She rolled against his finger, making him slip in deeper. So easy. It would be so easy, and sexy . . . and stupid.

  So, so stupid. And so, so good.

  “You like that,” he coaxed with a soft voice, his thumb on her clitoris, his index finger circling her sex-slicked opening, his power over her as strong and relentless as ever.

  “One more question,” she said, forcing the words from a mouth that just wanted to moan and plead for more. “And one more truthful answer.”

  “Then . . .” Moisture and heat surrounded his fingertip, making it impossible not to slide deeper. “I want to be in here.” Deeper. “I want you, Maggie.” Deeper. “I want—”