Runaround

by Jay Crownover

  Note to self . . . bikers were not people you want to mess with . . . even if they weren’t the scary, outlaw kind. Old church ladies were much more my speed. If they knew anything about Jolene, I could charm and flirt it out of them in under five minutes.

  I knew my strengths.

  Ten

  Sheriff Case Lawton was a distractingly attractive man.

  No, really . . . he was disarmingly good looking and had a deep voice with a Texas drawl that I could listen to all day.

  I’d had to ask him to repeat what he was saying twice. It should’ve been embarrassing, but I was too busy trying to figure out why the guy sitting across from me, the one who was so very much my type, didn’t flip a single switch. I should’ve been flirting, smiling back, trying to figure out a way to get up close and personal with the beautiful man, but I wasn’t.

  He was tall, way taller than me, which was rare. He had short black hair tucked underneath a black cowboy hat and intelligent blue eyes set in a face meant for movie screens and expensive underwear ads. Handsome didn’t quite cover it. The man was gorgeous but didn’t sacrifice an ounce of masculinity or rugged appeal. He also had a serious, blunt way about him, which I appreciated. Authority and control practically oozed out of his pores. Before Webb tore through my life like a tornado, every single thing about the big, southern sheriff would have had my hormones sitting up and taking notice. He was very much the kind of man I’d always envisioned building a life with, a man so much like Cyrus Warner that it was scary coincidental.

  Only today, I appreciated everything he had working for him and didn’t mind the view in front of me at all, but I wasn’t spinning wild fantasies about him, and I wasn’t trying to picture what he looked like without his denim shirt. Okay, so maybe I did when I first sat down, but that was it. My mind was mostly on Webb and how he was fairing with the bikers. Not everyone found him charming and appreciated his smart mouth. I wanted him back in one piece. Worry was making me antsy and blowing my concentration all to hell. The cop sitting across from me obviously noticed.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about your friend. The club is mostly nonaggressive, all things considered. I doubt they’ll even let him through the gates. That place is a goddamn fortress.” Case Lawton had a good voice. Deep, with a tinge of a drawl, it was a little bit raspy and kind of rough. It suited him, and I wondered if the single women in this town broke the law on purpose just so they could end up in his handcuffs.

  “You seem pretty nonchalant about having a motorcycle club operating so close to your city limits.” Most law enforcement officers didn’t take too kindly to groups that were potentially problematic. They were a headache no one wanted to deal with.

  The sheriff leaned back in his chair, and the corner of his mouth kicked up in a grin. Damn, the man was potent, but still, not even a flicker of attraction sparked to life. When I was alone, I was going to have a very strongly worded talk with myself. There was no way I was letting Webb Bryant ruin me for any other man.

  “As long as they don’t break the law, which they haven’t, there isn’t much I can do about them moving into this area. I went to high school with a few of the members. They were good guys back in the day. Don’t imagine they’ve changed much. Not much around here does.” He steepled his fingers together and placed them under his chin. “I notice when someone new blows through town. The woman you’re asking about was here for a few weeks. The club kicked her out when she tried to score. They have a strict ‘no drugs on the compound’ policy. The guy in charge, Palmer Caldwell, is far from stupid. The guy was Special Forces; he’s a decorated sniper. He knows if the compound gets raided we can shut the entire place down if we find so much as a joint, so they keep the ranch squeaky clean.”

  I nodded as if I understood the finer points of running a motorcycle club. “How do you know Jolene Bryant was trying to score?”

  His dark eyebrows lowered a little, and his mouth flattened into a hard line. “One of my deputies picked her up. She was drunk, causing a scene outside the bar and she let it slip they’d eighty-sixed her. We put her in the drunk tank for a night and turned her over to the church the following day. There are a bunch of old-timers who run a sort of halfway house out of the basement for the lost souls of Loveless. They might be able to tell you where she was off to. All I can tell you is that Jolene demanded a phone call the night we put her in lockup. She called someone and demanded they wire her money for a bus ticket out of town. She didn’t plan on staying.”

  I nodded again. “She called her son. He’s the one trying to track her down.”

  The sheriff frowned and leaned forward slightly so his forearms rested on the edge of his desk. “The son. Now that you mention it, I think I remember the woman rambling about her son. It wasn’t anything good, if I recall correctly.”

  I made a noise and shook my head. “From everything I’ve learned so far, Jolene is a garbage parent. She all but abandoned her boys when they were teenagers, and she appears to have had a baby no one even knew about. Which is why we’re trying to find her. The missing baby is causing all kinds of problems as an adult.” If I ever met the woman, there was a good chance I was going to strangle her.

  Case tilted his head and considered me thoughtfully for a long minute. “What about the dad? If the mom isn’t around to give you the answers you need, maybe you should look across the other side of the genetic aisle.”

  I blinked at him like an idiot. I’d been so focused on Jolene, it never occurred to me to ask Webb or Wyatt about their father. They clearly had the same one. They looked too much alike not to.

  “He’s never mentioned his father. It never occurred to me to ask. I don’t think he’s in the picture.” But what if he was? Maybe Jolene wasn’t the only who could assure Gage that there was indeed a twin out there. Even if we didn’t track down the dad, we could feasibly find a birth certificate or someone who was present when they were born who could attest to the fact Jolene gave birth to twins. “I’ve been chasing down lost hikers and working to prevent forest fires for too long. I’ve lost my investigative edge.” I wanted to smack myself in the forehead, but my super sexy company kept me from making a further fool of myself.

  Sheriff Lawton let loose a full-fledged smile, and it was killer. He was dangerous, and not just because he was huge and armed. “I’m sure it would’ve come to you. You seem pretty sharp. Sometimes when we’re close to the problem, it’s hard to see the whole thing because we’re standing right on top of it.”

  I sighed and climbed to my feet. “It’s more than I had when I left Colorado.” I stuck my hand out for him to shake and thanked him for his time. My eyebrows shot up when he gave my palm a little squeeze. His blue eyes glittered at me, and his smile shifted from friendly to speculative. “The man you’re traveling with, he’s just a friend?”

  Holy shit. The interest in his eyes was clear. And, good Lord, did I want to be tempted. I was only in town for a short time, and he knew that. He was looking for temporary and quick. He was after something fun and easy, both things I excelled at. Only, there was nothing. Not the smallest blip of excitement or anticipation. Sure, I was flattered, but my insides weren’t on fire and tying themselves in knots the way they did whenever Webb carelessly flirted with me.

  I tugged my hand free and forced a smile touched with remorse. “He’s a very good friend. It was nice to meet you, Sheriff. You were a big help.”

  He took the dismissal with good humor, walking me to the front door of the station and pointing me in the direction of the church. It was across the street, located in the center of a small park. A familiar SUV was parked out front. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and noticed Webb had both called and texted several times. His last message stated he was headed to the church and for me to call him whenever I got a chance. I was so glad he was back, unscathed, I let out an audible sigh of relief. I thanked the handsome sheriff again for his time and practically ran the distance to the church.

  When I
pushed through the ornate wooden doors, I was immediately stopped by an older man. He asked what I was doing, and when I explained I was looking for my friend, he smiled and pointed me toward a stairway. “He’s entertaining the girls. I don’t think they’ve laughed like that in years. Your fella is quite the charmer, isn’t he?”

  I agreed and moved to the stairs. It took every bit of my self-control not to skip down them two at a time. Webb was okay. He was still breathing. Nothing bad had happened to him. I still couldn’t stop the painful need prickling under my skin, to see for myself that he was intact.

  The stairs dumped me out into a wide-open space. There were several beds pushed against the far wall, a tiny kitchen against the opposite one, and a long wooden table dividing the room in two. Webb was sitting on one side of the table, his back to me. On the other side, there were three women in their eighties. All of them had towering gray updos, and they were all laughing so hard they were holding their sides and wiping at their eyes. As I approached, one of them reached out and patted the back of Webb’s hand. It was a very sweet gesture, but Webb totally melted my heart when he caught the weathered, fragile hand in his much larger one and brought it to his lips for a kiss.

  I must have made some kind of noise, because four pairs of curious eyes turned in my direction. I placed my hand on the back of Webb’s neck and let my fingers drag through the short hair on the back of his head. “Sorry I didn’t answer the phone. I was in a meeting with the sheriff.”

  He smiled up at me, and I swore all three of the elderly women let out a collective sigh. “No problem. Esther, Gladys, and Amandine have been keeping me company. They’ve been filling me in on all things Loveless.”

  The woman in the middle, whom I assumed was Gladys, smiled at me and adjusted the huge glasses perched on her nose. “Case Lawton, the boy is hopeless. Every woman with a single daughter within a hundred miles has tried to get that boy to settle down since his divorce. All he does is work. Not that it’s an easy job. His father left a mess when he was finally voted out of the position.”

  I offered what I hoped was a friendly grin. “Being a cop is a hard job, and it takes a toll on families and relationships. It takes a pretty special person to put up with the demands of the job. Maybe the sheriff hasn’t found the right person yet.”

  The Golden Girls all tilted their heads and gave me a considering look. Before they could grill me on how I knew what it was like to be involved with someone who risked their life every time they walked out the door, Webb caught my hand and pulled me to sit down next to him.

  “Esther remembers Jolene. She spent a couple of nights here before moving on. The ladies tried to help her out, but apparently Jolene was determined to get out of town. She was worried someone was after her.” Webb gave me a knowing look, and I wanted to kick myself for noticing his eyes were so much bluer than the sheriff’s. “She also had some choice words to say about Wyatt. Amandine has a son who is gay, so she didn’t appreciate Jolene’s less-than-progressive attitude.”

  Amandine had some dark brown in her mostly silver hair. She was still a lovely woman, her skin hardly wrinkled or papery at all. Her scowl was pronounced as she snapped, “You are supposed to love your children no matter what. Your job as a parent is to bring them up and teach them how to be good people. It isn’t to judge who and how they love. I’m here to help anyone who may need it, but I was not fond of that woman.” A speculative gleam lit up her gaze. “You never did say if your brother was single or not. My Max is quite a catch. He’s so handsome; he looks just like my Gerald.”

  I snickered as Webb chuckled. “I don’t think Wyatt’s in the market for a relationship right now. Sort of like your sheriff: he works a lot and his job is dangerous. He goes undercover pretty frequently. Honestly, Jolene didn’t set up either one of us to be the best at relationships.”

  The women all turned their eyes toward me. The one who hadn’t spoken yet gave me a little wink, then said, “All it takes is the right person to turn it all around. As for your mother, she hightailed it as soon as she was able. She didn’t say where she was going, but she did say she wanted to go somewhere no one would ever think to look for her. She seemed genuinely worried someone was after her, but people on drugs, their minds aren’t always right.”

  Webb cleared his throat and gave me a look out of the corner of his eye. “Someone was looking for her. The guy at the gate of the motorcycle club mentioned someone swinging by not too long ago looking for Jolene. He gave up the info because the guy asking after her happened to look an awful lot like me. Seems she’s been pretty popular lately. And her mind was never right, long before the drugs.”

  The women all made noises of sympathy and tried to offer both of us tea and muffins. Webb politely turned them down, and after making each of them blush when kissing their cheeks, we said goodbye and made our way back to the SUV. Webb was quiet, obviously thinking, as he drove us out of town back toward the motel. When the silence got so thick I felt like I could no longer breathe through it, I asked, “Webb, what about your dad? If Jolene is in the wind and we don’t have a starting point to look for the twin, isn’t he the next logical option?”

  Webb’s jaw clenched, and a muscle started to tick in his cheek. “I don’t know who my dad is.”

  “I figured, but obviously you and Wyatt have the same one, and you said the parish you grew up in is small. Someone has to know who he is. Wouldn’t he know if you were one half of a set of twins?” I could tell the questions were upsetting him, but I had to keep pressing onward. “What about your birth certificate? Wouldn’t his name be on that?”

  The tick fluttered faster, and Webb’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “Wasn’t born in a hospital. Mom had us at home with the help of one of my aunts. I didn’t have a birth certificate until it was time to go to school and Jolene was forced to get one. Pretty sure she left the father’s spot blank.”

  I sighed and reached out to run a soothing hand down his arm. The muscles were tense and hard as steel. “What about Wyatt’s? His might have the name of your father on it. Whoever it was, he was obviously in Jolene’s life for a little bit of time considering there are four years between you and Wyatt.” I petted his forearm and ran my thumb over the back of his tense hand. When had it gotten so easy to touch him? When had I started needing the contact? And why did such a simple touch have fireworks shooting off in the center of my chest? “I’m not sure where else to go if we don’t go back to the start. Jolene is smart enough to use cash, and we can’t pinpoint where she went when she left Loveless. I can ask another friend in the FBI to run a check for any arrests nationwide that match Jolene’s description, but that makes our haystack twice as tall as it already is.”

  After a long, strained moment, Webb finally let out a breath, and I watched as he forced himself to relax. “I’ll call Wyatt and ask him about his birth certificate once we’re back at the motel. I need a minute, and then I want to shove some food in my face. The bloody mary from the plane isn’t cutting it anymore. I’m starving.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I was aware of a hollow ache low in my gut. “I could eat. I’m sorry I keep pushing you further back into places you obviously don’t want to go.” My words trailed off in a whisper as he turned his head to look at me. Those blue eyes of his were hot and bright enough, I felt as if the heat could weld me to the spot.

  “I’ve spent my entire life moving so fast the past could never catch up to me. I guess it’s time I slowed down enough to deal with everything I left behind. Can’t move forward with that anchor weighing me down.”

  He flashed his familiar smirk and I settled back in my seat once again wondering how he knew so much more than me. I needed to pay attention. There was a lot I could learn from Webb Bryant. I needed to stop being terrified of the doors he was kicking open and the light he was shining into my relatively dreary life.

  Webb

  “I need to talk to you about something we both promised never to talk about.” A
s greetings went, I could have come up with a better one, but giving Wyatt a chance to think and formulate a response wasn’t a good idea. He could be an evasive bastard when he wanted to be. “I need to know about our father. Aside from knowing we have the same one, I know nothing. Not his name, not where he was from, or where he might be. I have no idea what his connection to Jolene is, or why he never had anything to do with either of us. Jolene is totally in the wind, and the other me was trying to track her down as well. I’m hitting dead end after dead end. It’s time for a new plan.”

  The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. I thought Wyatt hung up on me until I looked at my phone and saw the call was still connected. I heard him suck in a breath and I could picture him pacing back and forth in his boring office back in DC.

  “We don’t talk about him for a reason, Webb.” It wasn’t often my brother let the strain and frustration of our youth bleed through. He was always a tough guy, the stoic one who did what he had to without complaint. In this moment, I could hear every instance of pain and hurt he’d been through at the hands of others when he was too young to fight back. “We agreed to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to the man who is no better than Jolene. In fact, if it’s even possible, he’s worse.”

  I flopped back on the bed in the center of the motel room and stared up at the ceiling. I pressed a hand over my eyes and tried to push back a headache I could feel knocking on the center of my forehead. “I know, but what if he knows about the other brother? Someone out there has to be able to tell the FBI that Jolene had twins, and maybe he knows where the other baby went. If he does, that could give me a place to start figuring out who he is and what he wants with me. I know you don’t want to touch our childhood with a ten-foot pole, and I sure as hell don’t either, but I don’t have a choice. I have to go back to the start to get to the end of all of this.” I was pleading with him, desperate and not ashamed to show it.