Raiden didn’t miss it. I knew it when his frame jerked to a wooden halt and his eyes bored into mine.
“Talk to me,” he ordered, his voice now low and rumbling, but also strangely rough and commanding.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow when you call. Now I really need to get some medication and lie down.”
He lifted a hand and curled it around the side of my neck, dipping his face close to mine.
“Now isn’t the time to start playing games, Hanna,” he warned quietly.
Was he serious?
He was saying that to me?
I looked him straight in the eye and declared, “No games, Raiden. It’s just a headache.” More like heartache. “With me, you get what you see, that’s it. No mystery. No nothing. Just me.”
“You aren’t you,” he told me.
“You don’t know me,” I returned.
Raiden went silent, but he didn’t move away.
Then he murmured, “Fair enough.”
Thank God.
He slid his hand to the back of my neck, pulling me close as his head lifted up and he spoke, “You kiss like that when you got a headache, honey,” he touched his lips to my forehead and they moved there as he finished, “lookin’ forward to havin’ your mouth when you don’t.”
Liar.
Liar.
Liar.
I decided not to respond.
I also decided not to allow myself to think about how wonderful it felt to have Raiden Miller kiss my forehead.
His hand slid to my jaw and his chin tipped so he could catch my eyes.
“‘Night, Hanna,” he said softly.
“Good-bye, Raiden,” I replied.
His eyes flashed at my words, but his face moved in. He touched his lips to mine, moved back, took the afghan from me and sauntered out the door.
Keeping up appearances, I stood in it, and when he swung in his Jeep I waved.
Raiden did not wave back.
Then I closed the door and locked it. I switched the outside lights off and turned off the lights that I’d left on in the foyer. That done, I dashed up the stairs as best I could because I was also tugging at the buckles and straps of my sandals to get them off while I went.
I hit the bedroom, tossed my shoes on the bed and turned on the lamp on my nightstand.
Only then did I hear the Jeep pull away.
He waited until I’d made it upstairs and he knew I was settling, getting ready for bed before he drove away.
That was sweet.
God, I wished he was real.
I dashed back down the stairs and grabbed the phone in the hall. I ran through the dining room into the kitchen, snapped on the light and found the phonebook.
I flipped through it and found the number for the Sherriff’s Police.
Then I called it.
Chapter Seven
Reward
Raid
Raid walked down the sidewalk to the shiny, black SUV parked on the side of the road in town. He pulled open the door and angled in.
Blue and red lights flashed into the cab as they did the same outside, illuminating the street.
“You hear the police band?” Tucker Creed asked.
Raid kept his eyes to the three squad cars and one K-9 SUV all angled in around Bodhi’s bike shop. Then he shifted his gaze down the street where, at a distance of a little over a block, two more squads and another K-9 unit were angled outside the gift shop.
“Raid, you hear me?” Creed asked, and Raid cut his eyes to his partner.
“I heard it,” he growled.
“She called it in,” Creed told him something he already knew.
“I said I heard it,” Raid repeated.
“You know how she knew to call it in? You said she was clueless,” Creed asked, and Raid’s eyes moved back to the flashing squads.
He knew.
She’d played him.
Sweet, shy, cute, goofy Hanna Boudreaux didn’t go out for a breath of fresh air to clear her head and try to get rid of a burgeoning headache like she told him she had.
She’d been the one he heard open the ladies room door.
She’d overheard him.
She’d covered it, came back looking freaked, lied that it was a headache and then spent the next thirty minutes acting jacked because she was freaked that her friends were fucking her over.
Then, minutes after he left her at her house, she’d made a call and blown their whole fucking, eleven month operation.
“This lead’s dead,” Creed declared, and Raid looked back at him. “They got both that Bodhi kid and his girl in custody. May luck out and they’ll flip for the police, but this guy pullin’ the strings, doubt those two goofballs got the breadcrumbs to lay that trail so they’ll probably only give the cops shit we already got.”
None of this was wrong.
Creed kept going, “Headin’ back down to Phoenix. Sylvie’s already pissed I’ve been up here this long. Says I need to haul my ass back to the valley and play Daddy to Jesse, and next time it’s her turn to try and track down drug supplying whackjobs.”
Tucker Creed had been coming up, on and off, a day here, a week there when things got hot, for the last eleven months.
Whenever it got hot it eventually fizzled out, so he went home to his family.
Raid had met Creed’s wife once. She was a relatively new wife, a new mom, but like her husband, she was a seasoned private investigator and ass kicker.
She was the ballsiest bitch he’d ever met in his life.
He’d liked her immediately.
Sylvie Creed had a baby boy named Jesse who she didn’t like leaving, but she also didn’t like her husband leaving. Further, they strangely, considering both of them were badass, consummate professionals and skilled, really hated being apart in a way you could almost taste how much they hated it.
Therefore, the longer this operation went, the more trips Creed took north, the more impatient Sylvie became.
And she was getting antsy down in Phoenix looking after a kid when she’d prefer to be in Colorado cracking heads with her husband, and she wasn’t all fired up about the fact that Creed got to have all the fun.
“You gonna call this shit in to Knight or you want me to do it?” Raid asked.
“You do it,” Creed answered, then his lips twitched. “You gonna wait until tomorrow to lay into your new babe for jacking up our action or are you headin’ there now?”
“She overheard me talkin’. We didn’t say much. She has no clue about the operation.”
Creed smiled. “So you gonna wait until tomorrow to lay your new babe or are you headin’ there now?”
Oh, he was heading there now.
It was fucking uncool she overheard him, came to the table, lied her ass off then pulled that tease shit at her house—whatever the fuck that was about—and called the Sherriff.
He had no idea what was in her head.
He was fucking going to find out.
Then he was going to drag her ass to her bedroom, which he hoped to God was as appealing as the porch and foyer of her house, and then “lay his new babe”.
Thoroughly.
She deserved a spanking for this shit.
But they were new. He had to break her into that.
Raid didn’t answer Creed’s question.
Instead, he asked, “You headin’ to DIA now?”
“Hotel, book a flight, then I’m out.”
“I’ll call it in to Knight, then I’m goin’ to Hanna’s. I’ll update you if we get a new lead and we need you or Sylvie to come back up. Though, advice. I’d throw your wife a bone. Knight says she’s threatening, we don’t find this asshole, then she’s gonna come up and do it on her own so she can stop livin’ the life of a woman without her baby daddy.”
“Right,” Creed grunted, his lips curved up.
“Later,” Raid said.
“Later,” Creed replied.
Raid threw open the door and knifed out. He walked the th
ree blocks to his Jeep, swung in and headed to Hanna’s house.
He did this trying to control his temper, and insanely, he did that by thinking about Hanna.
And he did this because, for weeks, he couldn’t get her out of his head.
And this was because, over the last week and a half, he’d come to understand Hanna Boudreaux was his reward.
He’d thought it the second he saw her in front of Bodhi’s bike shop, looking adorable, jumping around on those long, tanned legs, clapping and crying out excitedly wearing short-shorts and a little white top.
He’d suspected it when she crawled around gathering cat food tins, that sweet ass of hers in the air, making him fight his dick getting hard and giving him ideas for their future.
It came clearer when it just plain came clear that she was one of those women that needed a man. Taking care of her grandmother on her own. Paying her mortgage by knitting fucking afghans. Getting fucked over at a car dealership. Getting taken by her friends.
But he knew it the minute she timidly tossed her afghans over the back of her grandmother’s porch chair and smoothed her hand down the soft wool, yards of nothing that, at her hands, looked like everything. Home. Warmth. Comfort. Nurture. Love.
And if he didn’t know it then, it was cemented when she opened that mouth of hers under his and let him take everything he wanted.
His reward for his sweat.
His blood.
Their blood.
His goddamned nightmares.
Other than visits to his mother and sister, he had no idea that when he came back to Willow—something he never intended to do—that he’d find it there.
Her there.
What he’d earned.
What was his.
What he knew was months ago they’d traced the shipments to Bodhi and his girlfriend in Raid’s own damned town.
That was why Knight had called him in.
That was why Raid came home.
They never got a lock on the supplier. He always sent his minions with the dope, but Bodhi and Heather used the bike shop as a front, shipping it with the bike business as a cover.
Bodhi and Heather were relatively harmless, cogs in a wheel, low-level players they needed to watch and work and hope they led the team to the puppetmaster.
By the time the team was done dicking around with those two and ready to close in on them to try to squeeze them for information, strong arm or blackmail them into a maneuver that might out the big man, Bodhi and Heather got smart with protecting the bike shop and moved the business to Hanna’s shipments.
A local. A third generation Willowite.
Thus a complication.
At that time Raid had no clue who Hanna Boudreaux was. He knew Miss Mildred. Everyone did. He also knew Hanna’s older brother, Jeremy, who was a year behind him in school. All he remembered of the guy was that he was a decent wide receiver and he’d bragged overtly, and nauseatingly frequently, when he’d tapped Lori Kowslowski’s ass.
But he didn’t know Hanna.
Once word got out Bodhi and Heather had moved their operation and involved a local—a local linked to the town’s most beloved citizen, a ninety-eight year old fixture of their society—he’d had no choice but to ask around about Hanna.
He’d heard nothing but good things. She looked after her grandmother. She went to church. She was a quiet girl. She read a lot. She liked to go to the movies. She was sweet. Loyal. Funny. Loving.
An easy mark for those two assholes.
Even though Raid never saw her there, his sister Rachelle told him she came into café all the time.
“But haven’t seen her for a while, bro. You see her, though, you’ll know. Fantastic figure. Pretty smile. Great legs, but uber-mousy, you get what I’m saying? Has no clue, if she put in a teeny-weeny bit of effort she’d be all that,” Rache had said.
But sweet, shy, mousy, reads-a-lot Hanna, who everyone knew and everyone said was always around, had disappeared.
By the time spring hit Willow and Raid first laid eyes on Hanna Boudreaux, weeks before he saw her at the bike shop and took his shot to follow her and “run into her” at the pet store, he didn’t know what the fuck his sister was on about.
Hanna Boudreaux was not mousy.
She was standing with one of her hands on the handlebars of that ridiculous bike of hers, talking to Paul Moyer.
No.
Laughing with him. Her shining blonde head thrown back, her pretty face lit up, her body shaking, her other hand clutching Paul’s arm like she had to hold herself up with the hilarity of it all.
Paul had been watching her tits while she laughed.
Raid had wanted to land a fist in his face.
He held back.
They needed to know if Hanna was clean, then they needed to be certain Hanna was clean, then they could extricate her from the scenario and carry on with the operation.
And after Raid had finally caught sight of her he had decided that he would personally be extricating her because Hanna would be in his bed, under his protection and she’d feel none of that shit.
Fortunately, it took about a nanosecond to figure out that Hanna was being taken.
Unfortunately, before he could get her in his bed, she’d overheard him and blown the operation, so now they had nothing.
No one to lead them to the supplier who fucked with Raid and Creed’s buddy, Knight, who lived in Denver, had a successful nightclub, a questionable side business and a shitload of money with which he could use to throw at problems he wanted solved.
Something he didn’t hesitate doing.
So Knight contracted with Raid, Raid’s crew and Creed to solve it.
Now they had nothing.
Knight was going to be pissed.
Raid already was.
He turned onto the single lane road that led to three houses, the last one being Hanna’s, and pulled over. He yanked out his phone and made his call to Knight.
He was right. Knight was pissed.
He ended the call, pulled back into the lane and headed to Hanna’s house.
The light, upstairs right, was on.
Her bedroom.
So was the light, downstairs left.
The living room.
This meant she was up.
Excellent.
He threw open his door and folded out. He prowled to the front door, put his hand right to the knob and turned.
Fuck.
Now she locked it.
He hit the bell.
Nothing.
He looked to his left.
The lights were on, curtains drawn. He could see no movement.
He hit the bell again then pounded.
He stopped.
Still nothing.
“What the fuck?” he clipped.
He turned and prowled to his car. He opened his glove compartment, got his kit and prowled right back. He squatted by the doorknob, pulled out his tools, and in about five seconds picked her shitty, going-to-be-replaced-tomorrow lock.
He shoved his tools in his back pocket, opened the door and saw her instantly, standing in the foyer, staring at him, her big, pretty blue eyes huge.
He slammed the door behind him.
Hanna jumped.
She was very lucky that she’d changed into an adorable pair of very short drawstring pajama shorts and a skintight ribbed tank, both that left little to the imagination, both in colors that highlighted the golden tan that shimmered on every inch of her skin. She was also lucky she had her hair up in another messy knot his fucking hand fucking itched to yank out or he wouldn’t have had the patience to draw in the breath he needed to calm down.
But he drew in the breath he needed to calm down.
In that time she whispered, “Oh my God. You picked my lock.”
“How’s your headache?” he asked.
Her eyes, which had moved to the doorknob, shot to his.
Then she started backing up.
“Smart,” he murmur
ed as he advanced.
“Raiden—”
“You heard me on the phone.”
She visibly swallowed. Her shoulder hit the doorway to the back hall and she shifted sideways.
Raid followed her. “You came to the table and lied through your teeth, right to my face.”
“I—”
“You told me you had a goddamned headache, which worried me, then you pressed tight to me, giving me your mouth and takin’ it away, a bullshit bitch tease move I didn’t know you had it in you to execute.”
She stopped dead. “I wasn’t teasing you.”
“What was that shit then?”
She stared into his eyes and announced, “A good-bye kiss.”
It was at that Raid stopped dead. “What?”
“Raiden, the gig is up,” she declared, and Raid closed his eyes.
Jesus, how could the woman be so infuriating and so fucking cute all at once?
He opened his eyes and asked, “The gig is up?”
She leaned into him and hissed, “Yes.”
Fuck, he wanted to kiss her.
He also wanted to shake her.
“Baby, it’s jig,” he corrected, and her head jerked, which made that mess of hair on her head jerk, which reminded him he wanted his hands in that hair.
Then elsewhere.
He needed to speed this shit up.
“Sorry?” she asked, sounding confused, and he looked from her hair to her eyes and saw she was, in fact, confused.
Yeah. Infuriating. And fucking cute.
“The jig is up, not the gig,” he told her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? You’re correcting my street lingo?”
“Think that street lingo was the street lingo about eight decades ago, Hanna. So now it’s just lingo.”
Hanna threw up her hands. “Now you’re giving me a street lingo history lesson?”
Raid found what he thought was the impossible happening.
He lost patience with Hanna Boudreaux being cute.
“Why are we talkin’ about this shit?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Why are you here at all?” she shot back.
“I’m here ‘cause I wanna know why you lied to me. I wanna know why you didn’t come to the table and talk to me about what you heard so I could explain it and shit would not right now be totally fucked.”
“I’m sorry, did I mess with your plans, Raiden? Were there more ways you could use me like Bodhi and Heather used me before you threw me away?”
Raid Page 7