by Karen Rose
She could be his. Mine. He liked the sound of that.
And then he realized she wasn’t talking to Ford. She’s talking to me. She was telling him how scared the women were, how hard the treatments were on their bodies. And spirits. How devastating it was for the women she served to lose their hair, their curves. Their femininity. How terrified they were to think they might leave their children motherless. And how hard it was to take care of their children when they could barely take care of themselves.
And Joseph knew she was really telling him how it had been for her, helping him to understand all the things he’d need to know. If she decides to belong to me.
‘I was lucky,’ she murmured. ‘I had Mama and Maggie. I always knew that if anything ever happened to me that they’d take care of you. So many aren’t so lucky, and I always said, “Someday I’ll do something about that.” Then Paige started talking about starting her school, offering self-defense classes to the women in Holly’s social center. It brought her back from a dark place where she was afraid all the time. I’d been there too, in that dark place. For a long time I just held my breath, waiting for the doctor to give me bad news. But he didn’t and then he didn’t again, and then years had gone by. I knew the time had come to give back.’ She exhaled on a sigh. ‘When I get to the end of my life, I want to be able to look back and know that my being here made things better.’
And in that moment he knew. I have to have her. Nobody’d better stand in his way. Or threaten to take her away from me. She is the one made only for me.
‘I think you already have made things better,’ he said quietly.
‘Not as much as I will,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a good start. In six months we’ll have facilities for twenty single mothers and their kids. Not all those women will make it, but I’ll be damn sure they leave their kids with some good memories.’
‘Is that why you bought the farm?’ he asked.
She looked up at him, eyes filled with disbelief. ‘Did you really just ask me that?’
He frowned, then winced when he realized what he’d said. ‘Not what I meant. I meant buy the . . . property that the farm is . . . on,’ he finished lamely.
Her lips twitched and he realized she was laughing at him. ‘You’re easy, Joseph.’
With someone else he might have been annoyed. With her, he couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘Not really. I like to at least be taken to dinner first.’
She stared for a moment. Then she swallowed hard, obviously trying not to laugh. He blinked innocently. ‘What?’
She clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She started to laugh, more a release of stress than anything else. Still, king of the world raced through his mind. Her laughter subsided and her eyes changed, darkening. His body immediately responded and he leaned down, needing to taste her mouth.
‘Mom?’
They broke apart like guilty teenagers. Ford’s eyes were struggling to open, his broad shoulders lurching as he threw his body forward, disoriented and afraid. Joseph leaned over Daphne, holding the boy down so that he didn’t yank the IV from his arm.
‘Ford.’ Daphne cupped his jaws in her hands. ‘It’s me. Mom. Open your eyes.’
His lids fluttered open, green eyes filled with confusion. ‘Mom?’
‘I’m here, baby. Right here.’
‘Where?’ It was a pathetic croak.
Joseph hit the call button and hurried to the bathroom to wet a cloth, handing it to Daphne. She dabbed Ford’s cracked lips and squeezed a few drops into his mouth.
‘In the hospital,’ she said. ‘In West Virginia.’
He searched her face. ‘Feet?’
‘Your feet are fine. Hands too.’
‘Kim?’
‘She wasn’t with you?’ When he shook his head, her expression grew pained. ‘We’re still looking for her.’
A sob caught in Ford’s throat. Daphne leaned in until her forehead rested on Ford’s. ‘It’s okay, son. Cry all you want to.’
A nurse ran into the room, stopping when she saw that Ford wasn’t violent this time. She approached, watching carefully, standing by as tears silently ran down the boy’s face. When the wave had passed, his shoulders sagged back to the bed.
‘So tired,’ he whispered.
‘Then sleep, son.’
‘How long?’ he whispered, his eyelids drooping. ‘Gone how long?’
‘A day and a half,’ Daphne said softly. ‘Longest day of my life.’
‘I’ll sleep . . . if you sleep.’ He struggled, his eyes popping open. ‘Mean it.’
‘I’ll sleep. I promise.’
Ford’s eyes closed. ‘You get sick. When you don’t sleep.’
Joseph leaned over. ‘Ford, I’m Joseph Carter with the FBI.’ The boy’s brow creased in confusion, so Joseph added, ‘I’m Jack Carter’s son,’ and Ford nodded. ‘Do you know where you were?’
‘Cabin. Woods. Walked miles. So tired.’
‘Did they say why they abducted you?’
‘Money. Ransom.’ Ford was fading back into sleep. ‘Miss me.’
Daphne kissed his forehead, his cheeks. ‘Rest, baby. I’ll be back. Love you, son.’ She straightened and Joseph pulled her close. ‘I don’t want to leave him.’
‘The hotel is next door. You can be back in two minutes when he wakes. This is your chance to sleep. Besides, you promised.’
Chapter Eighteen
Baltimore, Maryland, Wednesday, December 4, 4.30 P.M.
Having checked on both of his houseguests, Mitch was jogging up the stairs from the basement when he heard the garage door go up. Cole was home from school. The kid ran up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door so hard the house shook. What now? He left his room and knocked on Cole’s door.
‘Go away.’
‘What happened, Cole?’
‘Nothing.’
Which meant it was probably pretty bad. ‘I’m going to find out.’
The door abruptly opened and he found himself looking up into Cole’s angry green eyes. ‘I said, go away, and I meant it.’
Damn. The kid hadn’t just grown tall. He was filling out too. Give him a few years and he might be as big as Ford Elkhart. Who, Mitch’s still-aching back could attest, was as big as a damn ox. ‘Are you suspended?’
‘No.’ But he looked away. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Don’t take that tone with me, boy. I had to take time out of my schedule today to meet with your guidance counselor. She says if you get suspended one more time, you’re out. I’ll have to find you another school. I don’t have time for that just now. So whatever the hell you just did, it better not be a suspendable offence. You got me?’
Cole glared down at him. ‘Loud and clear. Sir.’
Mitch flinched when the door slammed in his face. He knocked again. ‘I’ve got an HVAC job tonight. Office building, so it’s an after-hours job. I should be home by the time you have to go to school tomorrow, but if I’m not, you’d better get your ass out of bed and go to school.’
‘Fine. Whatever.’
Meaning no, Mitch thought. He’d figure out what to do about Cole when he got home. Tonight he would be in West Virginia. Beckett had to have figured out by now that Ford was in the hospital in Wheeling. If I were Beckett and that kid had seen my face, that’s the first place I’d go.
Mitch took out his keys and jangled them in his hand. ‘The van’s having engine problems, so I’m taking the Jeep. I saw a pile of your schoolbooks in the back seat. Do you need any of them tonight, to maybe do . . . I don’t know. Homework?’
Silence met his ears and Mitch felt a dull ache behind his eyes. I wish to God you were still here, Mom. Because that kid’s making me crazy.
His mother still would have been here had it not been for Daphne. Just one more reason she needed to pay.
‘When I get back from this job we need to talk, Cole,’ Mitch said quietly. ‘I want a better path for you than the one you’re on. Please go to school tomorrow.’ More silence met h
is ears and Mitch let out a frustrated sigh. ‘Just don’t get into any new trouble till I get back. Okay?’
His head pounding, he got into the Jeep and left for West Virginia. At least everything was moving in the right direction there. And it was only a matter of time before Mutt’s daddy would be getting a visit from his very unhappy Russian boss.
Things could be a lot worse, all in all.
Wheeling, West Virginia, Wednesday, December 4, 4.30 P.M.
There was something illicit about adjoining hotel rooms, Daphne thought as she watched Joseph slide her key card through the lock. He went in first, put her bag on the dresser, and proceeded to check every window, nook and cranny for . . . for what?
‘I don’t think a killer could fit in there,’ she said when he opened the tiny microwave in the kitchenette.
He slanted her a look. ‘Camera might.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Camera?’
‘He used one to rob Trooper Gargano.’ He checked the cupboards. ‘I’m nervous that we’re here, that Ford was found here, that you used to live here. Feels like a trap.’
She wished he was teasing her. But he wasn’t. He was on high alert and had directed Hector to be as well. The Vice detective was currently patrolling the perimeter of the hotel, checking exits, watching for anyone who looked like Doug.
He checked all the vents, then shut off the lights and pulled the draperies closed, pitching the room into total darkness. ‘I’m looking for pinpricks of light,’ he said, even though she hadn’t asked. ‘Holes that could be drilled.’
‘Wouldn’t they have to know we were staying in this room?’
‘Or they could have bribed the clerk at the front desk,’ he said, as if not believing she could be so naïve. He had a point. She was purposely being obtuse. Defense mechanism, right up there with her Stepford face. He unlocked the door between their rooms, then left through the hall door. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he promised, then shut the door, again plunging her into darkness.
She could sit down, put her feet up. It was a mini-suite, with a sofa and a kitchenette and a bedroom with a separate door. She could move, but she didn’t. She could turn on a light, but she didn’t do that, either.
Because something was going to happen. She could feel it. Blindly she put her purse on the kitchen counter, listening.
Joseph was in his room. She could hear him doing all the checks he’d already done in her room. The deadbolt on the other side of the adjoining door was thrown and . . .
Her heart was pounding and had been since they’d come up in the elevator. His jaw had been clenched, his fists shoved in the pockets of his coat. His expression dark.
She might have thought him angry, but her gaze had dropped to the zipper of his trousers. Not angry. He was aroused. Intensely so.
She might have been surprised, except she’d done her part to get him that way. He’d been about to kiss her when Ford woke up. She’d switched to mother mode, but even as she’d comforted her son, even as she’d wept with him, sharing his relief, even then she’d not forgotten that Joseph was there. And that he’d been about to kiss her.
So when he helped her out of the SUV in front of the hotel, she’d kissed him first. Hard and fast, her hands in his hair. She’d let him go with a single word. ‘Sooner’.
Now, something was about to happen.
Thank God. She’d nearly jumped him on the interstate when he’d seeded her imagination with all the things he’d do to her. Below the waist.
The door flew open and it was suddenly ‘sooner’.
He didn’t pause to chat. Time for sweet nothings was done. In a fluid movement his hand gripped her jaw, lifting her face, taking her mouth with a ferocity that left her lips tender and her lungs empty.
She was hot, her skin tight and tingling in all the right places. She drew her head back to gasp in a breath and he took advantage, thrusting his tongue in her mouth. And what had always seemed . . . puzzling as to its appeal now made perfect, perfect sense. It was a prelude. A promise. What he was doing with his mouth was what he’d do with that rock hard flesh that pressed against her, down low.
He broke away, his voice a growl that made her shiver. ‘Say yes.’
‘Yes.’
He backed her against the door, hands on either side of her head, hips surging against her center. ‘Anything I want. Say it.’
‘Any . . .’ She faltered. ‘What do—’
‘Anything I want,’ he repeated harshly. Then softly, ‘Everything I want will make you feel good. You have my word. So tell me, Daphne. Anything I want.’
She nodded. Found her voice. ‘Anything.’
He kissed her again, gentle plucking kisses that made her want to sigh. He nuzzled her throat, licking a line to where her pulse throbbed. ‘Nervous?’
‘A little. Yes.’
‘Don’t be.’ He rolled his hips and she sucked in a breath. ‘Are you wet?’
A shiver sensitized her skin. Oh God. ‘Yes.’
‘A little?’
She let out a breath. ‘No.’
His exhale was ragged. ‘Good.’ He kept his hands flat against the door on either side of her head and took her mouth in another blistering, hard kiss. She grabbed onto his coat and held on.
‘Unbutton your coat,’ he said. Hands shaking, she did so, dropping it to the floor without a second thought. ‘Now the sweater.’ She pulled it over her head, hesitating when the turtleneck caught her wig, fearing what he’d ask next. Carefully she tugged it free, smoothing her hair as she dropped the sweater on top of her coat.
His mouth descended to hers again, this kiss lush and unhurried, and when he lifted his head she hummed a protest. ‘This time you get to choose what you take off,’ he murmured. ‘Jeans or the bra.’
‘I still have boots on.’
‘I’ll take care of that,’ he said smoothly and she shivered again, all kinds of images flitting through her mind. ‘Take off your jeans for me, Daphne.’
How she managed the snap and zipper she didn’t know, but a shove and a shimmy of her hips sent her jeans to pool around her ankles. His breath shuddered out, warming her shoulder. Which he kissed. He moved to her collarbone, letting his breath warm her skin there, too. He traced the center of her throat with the tip of his tongue and she sucked in a breath.
‘Joseph.’ She felt him smile against her skin.
‘You’re not shy are you, Daphne?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, walking his hands down the door in a prowling motion, his shoulders rolling like a big cat. He kissed his way down her stomach until he was on his knees, kneeling before her, his nose a fraction of an inch from where she was very wet indeed.
He inhaled, the exhale a rough sound that weakened her knees.
‘You make me impatient, Joseph.’
He chuckled darkly. ‘Good. Because you’re driving me crazy. Do you know how good you smell? How much I want to dive in and taste you?’
She had to lock her knees which made him chuckle again. ‘Why don’t you?’
His swallow was audible. ‘Because I want your legs free. The first time I saw you, I imagined your legs over my shoulders, my tongue buried so deep inside you.’ Again the dark chuckle. ‘I bet you had no idea that while I was eating your muffins I was thinking about eating you alive.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No idea whatsoever.’ Her hips had a mind of their own and they tilted toward him. He backed up a few inches, a warning growl in his throat.
‘When I start, I won’t be able to stop. So don’t tempt me.’
‘Then for God’s sake, hurry.’
Abruptly he grabbed her foot and yanked at the boot, sending it flying over his shoulder. The other boot followed. ‘Step out of the jeans.’
She did and he rose, grabbing her butt in both hands and lifting her off the floor. Her knees lifted to grip his hips, hands grasping his shoulders as he spun her around.
‘Hurry, Joseph. Please.’
Seconds later she was on her back on the bed,
her legs over his shoulders, his mouth . . . ‘Oh God.’ He was sucking her through the lace of her panties and she arched, increasing the friction, rolling her hips, finding the rhythm that drove her higher.
Abruptly he pulled away, drawing a protest from her lips. ‘Wait,’ he ground out. ‘Just wait.’ She could see the outline of his body in the darkness. He knelt between her legs, his head bowed, his fists at his sides. His chest rose and fell as he panted.
‘What? What’s wrong?’
He gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Wrong? Daphne, I’m about to come and I haven’t even gotten started yet. I need to slow it down.’ He ran his hands down her legs, then back up again. ‘These have to go.’ He pulled her panties off one leg than the other, then brought them to his nose and inhaled.
‘Oh,’ she whispered.
He tucked the panties in his pants pocket then slowly brought her legs up over his shoulders, dragging her to his mouth. His tongue lapped, teasing, and she thought he was watching her, that even though she couldn’t see in the dark, he could.
‘Joseph. Please.’ She thrust her hips toward him. ‘Please.’
With a groan he dropped back down to the bed, his tongue stabbing deep. She thrust her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer, dug her heels into his back to push herself higher, all while he sucked and licked and sent her flying.
The orgasm took her by complete surprise and she arched off the bed, gasping his name. After . . . She lay on the bed, her fingers still clenched in his hair, breathing like she’d run a mile.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. He’d lifted his head and hung over her, panting.
‘Better than I dreamed,’ he said quietly. ‘And I dreamed a helluva lot.’
She forced her fingers to let go of his hair and flopped back on the mattress. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t know about this.’
He pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh. ‘You say the nicest things,’ he teased.
‘We aren’t finished, are we?’
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘But I’d rather not go off like a teenager.’