Shotgun Daddy

by Harper Allen

  “It wasn’t such a risk. It was never a secret that you’d gone to the Double B and that the Double B was where we were concentrating our protection. He had nothing to lose by keeping an eye on the place on the off chance you might give him an opportunity to get you alone.”

  “Which I did. Like Mac pointed out, one quick glimpse of a ball cap isn’t evidence enough for the authorities to take Steve in for questioning, and now he’s going to be watching his step. My little expedition to see Alice Tahe made your job a whole lot harder, didn’t it.”

  “It gave us something to go on, which was more than we had before. Tomorrow we’ll have you set up with a computer and modem, and you can use the password Jess provided you with when he gave you power of attorney to start looking into the Crawford Solutions’ accounts. Maybe we’ll find an answer there to the question of why Dixon wanted you out of the way.”

  Abruptly he shoved his chair back. “Wrong pronoun. Maybe you’ll find an answer. The option I’m considering is bowing out of this investigation and handing over the reins to Connor.”

  By now her eyes had adjusted completely. Caro stared at him, taking in the rigid set of his jaw, the careful lack of expression on his face.

  “You can’t.” She heard the sharpness in her voice, but dismay made it impossible to soften her tone. “Damn it, Gabe, I won’t let you.”

  “That’s the Caro Moore I’m used to.” His observation was edged. “Look, princess, I told you when you came to me that Jess didn’t deserve to have a has-been handling his abduction, and I’ve proved that all the way down the line. I let him get killed. I didn’t pick up on the Andrew Scott thing. And for a minute today, I was certain that my incompetence had cost you your life.”

  “You had no reason to suspect Scott before now,” she argued. “And I was in danger today only through my own recklessness, as I’ve already admitted. You told me not to leave the Double B, Gabe. I didn’t listen.”

  “Yeah, but I should have known you wouldn’t listen.” He stood. “Let’s stop beating around the bush, sweetheart. You and I have a history. We slept together. That should have disqualified me from taking on this assignment, but instead I tried to tell myself I’d be able to be objective where you were concerned. For some reason, I’ve found I can’t be. You have every right to want to be part of the investigation, and just hearing you discuss the case drives me crazy. No wonder you seized the opportunity to jaunt off by yourself this afternoon and get out from under the cotton wool I’ve tried to wrap you in since you got here.”

  Caro realized her mouth was open. She closed it with a snap. It had all seemed so crystal-clear when she had believed she only had minutes to live. She’d wished for just this opportunity to tell Gabe how she felt, but now that she had it, the words wouldn’t come.

  “We slept together.” That was all their night eighteen months ago had meant to him, a less-than-meaningful history that was inconveniently preventing him from keeping this on a strictly businesslike level. Once she would have masked the pain of that revelation with a coolly cutting remark.

  But I’m not the snow princess anymore, she told herself with a flash of anger. And I’ve had just about enough of Gabriel Riggs’s dismissal of what happened between him and me as a mistake he wishes he could take back.

  Because, whether he knew it or not, he didn’t want to take it back. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t going to be there for her in the future. But what she’d told him the day she’d caught up with him in the desert still held true—he’d been marked by the night they’d had, and he would bear those marks for a long, long time.

  He wanted her. If she couldn’t have anything else from him, she was going to force him to face up to that, at least.

  “For heaven’s sake, Gabe, none of that’s a reason to take yourself off this case. We both know why you can’t be objective about me. Maybe if you admitted a few home truths to yourself, we could start working together to find—”

  “A few home truths?” His narrowed gaze followed her as she got up from the table and set her glass in the sink. “What are you talking about?”

  “The same thing I was talking about the last time you were snapping at me one minute and kissing me the next,” she said impatiently, “the day I tracked you down to that dump of a gas station you were living in. You promised me that when I came to you the third time you’d have the strength of character to turn me down, but then you promptly followed up that impressive-sounding speech with a kiss that was anything but detached.”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “You’ve got the hots for me, Gabriel. You’ve had them since you first laid eyes on me. That’s why you can’t think straight and that’s why you can’t treat me like a partner in this, so why won’t you admit it?”

  He took in a breath, his eyes never leaving hers. “You’ve really decided to kick over the traces, haven’t you, sweetheart?” he said softly. “That’s pretty tough talk, coming from a woman who once accused me of planning a seduction when I told her I didn’t want to risk our lives by driving through a blizzard.”

  “I hope you didn’t get too attached to that woman.” She tipped her head at him. “Because I don’t really miss her.”

  “I can see that.” A muscle moved in his jaw. “Okay, since the new Caro Moore wants it given to her straight, here goes. Maybe I do have the hots for you, honey—your phrase, not mine. Maybe during my stay in the desert I hit the replay button a couple of hundred times on the memory of that night we had, and maybe when you walked into the kitchen earlier this evening I took one look at you and had the insane impulse to hustle you into my bed. I’m not going to. Want to know why?”

  Why didn’t hearing him admit he wanted her take any of the pain away? Caro wondered with a frown. After all, it meant there was one tiny chink in his armor where she was concerned, one area where he had no defense against her, didn’t it?

  But the confession he’d just made wasn’t the one she’d wanted to hear at all, she realized with sudden clarity.

  You want him to tell you he loves you. You want him to tell you he’s not going anywhere, that leaving you would tear him apart, that he’s ready to put down those roots Del was talking about. You want permanence and commitment from the man—and since he’s never been able to find those things for himself, there’s no way he can give them to you and his daughter.

  The smile she gave him felt pasted on. “I can guess why. It’s got something to do with the way it ended so badly between us last time, right? It’s got something to do with you feeling your past involvement with me is distracting you from this job. I told you, Gabe, I’ve changed. The woman I am now is pretty savvy about the way the world works. She doesn’t need things spelled out for her.”

  “Good for her,” he said tersely. “She still doesn’t know the first thing about the man I am.”

  Faint anger overlaid some of her unhappiness. “I know I was just a one-night stand for you. You said it a moment ago—we slept together, that’s all. The morning after we did, you couldn’t wait to see the last of me.”

  He stared at her, the gleam from the porch light outside accentuating the hard ridge of his cheekbones. “The morning after, you couldn’t wait to remind me of the ground rules, princess. The morning after, you asked me to promise to stick to them. It never happened, I wouldn’t call you, and you didn’t have to worry about running into me again, remember?” His jaw tightened. “Why let myself think of it as anything more than a one-night stand, when that’s all it was for you?”

  The last of Caro’s composure fled. “That’s all it ever could have been for me, since when I tried to find you a few weeks later you’d dropped off the face of the earth. Damn you, Riggs—you served a year at the Double B when you were a teen, so you’ve obviously broken the rules once or twice in your life! Why did you have to take them so seriously this time?”

  Dark brows drew together in a scowl. He took a step toward her, the pulse at the side of his neck noticeable even in the dim light. �
��Are you saying you wish I hadn’t?”

  Too late she saw the opening she’d given him. She tried to bolster her defenses with a shrug. “What kind of question is that?”

  He was close enough that she heard his indrawn breath. The thick brush of his lashes obscured whatever expression was in his eyes. “I’ll ask you again, honey. Are you saying you wish I hadn’t kept to your damn rules?”

  “For heaven’s sake.” Suddenly finding it impossible to keep up eye contact, Caro looked away, the words coming from her in a rush. “If you must know, yes. Yes, I wish you hadn’t kept to them, yes, I wish I’d never come up with the stupid things in the first place, yes, yes, yes. Are you happy now?”

  “Delirious, sweetheart.”

  His growl came from far back in his throat. The next moment his outspread hands were on either side of her face, and she found herself forced to meet his gaze.

  “Tell me one last thing.” He ground out the words. “Why do you make me work so hard for everything, Caro?”

  A final spurt of defiance rose in her. “Because I can, Gabe,” she snapped. “Why do you do the same to me?”

  “Oh, hell, princess. Probably because I can, too,” he muttered, bringing his mouth down on hers.

  In the split second that he did, there was just enough time for Caro to reassure herself. She knew how Gabe Riggs kissed, she thought swiftly. Summer lightning. Sparks. Bright heat running immediately through her. She was ready for him, wasn’t she?

  She wasn’t ready at all.

  Suddenly she wasn’t in the kitchen of the Double B, she was falling through a moonless sky toward an invisible ocean. She felt herself slipping beneath the black surface, felt herself plunging endlessly, the water wrapping like ink-dipped silk between and around her legs, her arms, her body.

  There was no summer lightning. There was no light at all. There was just an onrush of darkly urgent desire.

  Gabe’s tongue went deeper. His hands moved down her neck, her arms, to her hips. Through the worn denim of his jeans she felt him harden against her as he grasped the lace-trimmed hems of her pyjama shorts and hiked them upward, his fingers spreading tautly wide on her exposed skin.

  A shiver ran all the way from her heels up to her inner thighs and back down again, as if a feather were skimming lightly over her. Arching against him, Caro let her own fingertips curl against the muscled wall of his chest, and pressed her nails lightly into his skin.

  “Don’t start what you can’t finish, honey,” he rasped, lifting his mouth from hers enough to mutter the warning against her lips. “If we go through with this it’s on the understanding that tomorrow no one gets to pretend it didn’t happen. If you can’t handle that, tell me now.”

  “If I can’t handle it?” Caro murmured back. “Don’t worry about me, Gabe, worry about yourself.”

  She didn’t know where the reckless words had come from, she thought a split-second later. Or maybe she did. They’d come from the woman she’d seen in the mirror earlier this evening, the woman who’d looked tough and competent and edgy. That woman might have wanted hearts and flowers from Gabe, too, but she wasn’t going to let the lack of them stand in the way of taking whatever the man had to give.

  He wasn’t offering forever. But he’d made it clear that this was more than just a one-night stand, as far as he was concerned. For a dyed-in-the-wool loner like Gabe Riggs, that was probably the nearest he could get to commitment.

  And for the woman in the mirror—for me, Caro thought defiantly—it was the nearest she’d ever get to what she really wanted from him.

  One day you’ll walk out of my life again, Gabriel, she told him silently. But you’ll never be able to forget me completely. I’m going to make sure of that tonight.

  “Worry about myself?” There was startled humor in his eyes. “Princess, I can handle anything you can dish out, and then some. I’ll admit you rocked my world the last time we—”

  “I didn’t just rock your world, Riggs, I hit a 9.5 on the Richter scale,” Caro retorted. “This time I intend to bring you to your knees. Want to back out while you still can?”

  A grin ghosted across his hard features. “So that’s how it’s going to be, is it? It’s payback time for every stupid thing I said at the gas station the day you tracked me down, right?”

  “Not for everything you said,” she informed him. “Just the part about me never having had to say please for anything in my life, and how one day you were going to hear that word from me.” She shook her head decisively. “Go ahead and give it your best shot, but I think you’re the one who’s going to end up saying ‘pretty please’ tonight, Riggs.”

  Had this scandalous new Caro always been lurking just beneath the porcelain facade of the woman she’d once been? Caro wondered in brief incredulity. She had to have been, because the teasing dare she’d just flung at Gabe had come from her without any effort at all.

  And the molten amber in his gaze as he took in her challenge was touching off an answering heat in her.

  “You’re on, lady.”

  His growl was hoarser than normal. Brushing past him to the partially open door of his bedroom, impulsively Caro hooked a finger into the waistband of his jeans and gave a tug.

  “Then, what are you waiting for?” she said, lowering her own tone to huskiness.

  Unlike her room upstairs, the first-floor spare bedroom of the Double B was definitely a man’s sleeping quarters, she saw as she entered. A double bed and a small bedside table with a shaded lamp on it took up most of one wall, an unmirrored dresser much of another, and the third was obviously windows, judging from the jute curtains pulled across its length. An oval rag rug provided the only touch of color, since the neatly turned-down sheets and accompanying blanket on the bed were plain white and army green, respectively.

  Definitely a man’s room, Caro thought, her confidence suddenly slipping in reaction to the starkness of her surroundings. In fact, the only out-of-place femininity in it was herself.

  “I didn’t give you a romantic setting last time, either, as I recall.” She turned to see Gabe’s lips curve wryly as he took in her unguarded expression. “A borrowed chalet, your own fur coat on the floor and a blizzard raging outside.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she began, but he shook his head decisively.

  “Yeah, it matters. Close your eyes.”

  The man was a master at keeping her off balance, Caro thought as she dubiously complied. The last thing she would have guessed he was thinking about right now was romance. If she weren’t careful, she might fool herself into believing him capable of giving her those hearts and flowers she secretly yearned for from him, and that would be a mistake.

  “You can look now.”

  All he’d done was to turn out the bedside lamp and part the curtains, she thought in confusion as she blinked against the darkness. She felt his hand grip hers and draw her closer to the opened window.

  “Dineh diamonds, princess.” There was a wry note in his voice. “I’ve seen you throw the other kind away, but I figured even a poor little rich girl like you might be impressed if I surrounded you with these.”

  As he spoke he nodded at the night sky outside. Following his gaze, Caro felt her breath catch in her throat.

  The sky was black velvet, strewn with more stars than she’d ever seen in her life. They twinkled like the diamonds he’d compared them to, and even as she watched she saw one shoot across the sky, followed closely by another. Silently she made two wishes, and then she turned her face to him.

  “They’re beautiful, Gabe,” she breathed. “Did you order them up just for me?”

  “Damn straight, honey,” he agreed. “I thought they’d take the edge off Del’s Marine Corps decor a little if you happened to wander in here for any reason tonight.”

  His tone was light, and she made an effort to match it. “Was there anything else you had planned for if I happened to wander in here?”

  “One or two possibilities came to mind,” he murmu
red. “Should I run them by you to see if you approve?”

  “You’d better.” Thoughtfully she bit her lip. “You know how we ex–rich bitches can be, and you don’t even have a snowbank handy to throw me into.”

  “Good point.” A corner of his mouth quirked upward, but his shadowed gaze held hers intently. “Okay, how’s this? Since you stripped off a sweater for me last time, how about if I return the favor for you now?”

  As he spoke his hands moved to the buttoned fly of his jeans. Caro’s mouth was suddenly so dry she found it hard to speak.

  “No way, Riggs,” she said, putting his hands aside and slipping the first button free. “I was planning to do that.”

  “And you’re the boss?”

  “Something like that,” she answered unevenly, working on the second button and releasing it, as well.

  Starlight gleamed on the washboard ripples of his abs and overlaid the coppery tan of his skin with pale silver, but although shadows darkened the opened vee of his jeans, Caro could feel Gabe’s growing response to her actions by the strained tautness of the denim. She fumbled a third button free, and heard his sudden intake of breath.

  “Princess, I’m begging you,” he rasped. “If I’m going to be any use to you at all, you’re going to have to switch your attention to some other area for a while. I’m not made of stone.”

  The rawness in his voice was borne out by the tightness of his grip as he firmly removed her hands. Disconcerted, she glanced up at his face.

  His mouth was a grim line. His lashes, thick and dark, obscured the obsidian of his eyes. Even as she looked she saw him drag in another tight breath and release it carefully.

  He was the very picture of a man on the edge. And he’d been brought to the edge by her. The realization came to her, hot and sweet and overpoweringly erotic.

  The man in front of her had spent most of his life in situations where only his rigid self-control had stood between him and disaster. That accounted for his seeming lack of emotion at times, his air of unassailable self-sufficiency. Long ago Gabe Riggs had learned not to give himself over to a particular moment, a particular sensation, a particular woman. But somehow with her he forgot those hard-won lessons.