by Meghan March
“I prefer it to Tahiti. Less commercial. Plenty of remote places to get lost. Good people too.”
He sounds so sophisticated and I’m . . . not.
“I’ve never left the state of Louisiana.”
This time, he turns to stare at me. “Really?”
I shake my head. “No. We didn’t have the money growing up. Vacation as a kid was a day trip to the city. Watching a funeral parade, maybe. In college, I worked anytime I wasn’t in class or studying. I didn’t have extra cash to go to Panama City or wherever else people went for spring break.”
“You’d love Fiji.”
“I’m sure.” I laugh. “Who wouldn’t?”
He smiles. “You’d probably hate kava, though. At least at first. It looks like dirty water and kind of tastes like it too. It’s a root that’s ground up and put in a bag and soaked.”
“Why the hell would anyone want to drink that? It sounds disgusting.”
As soon as I say it, I regret it because his smile widens and he has dimples. How is this even fair? Oh, right, it’s not.
“After a long day of work, the men gather around as one of them makes kava. They sit and drink bowl after bowl of it. After twenty or so, you get a sense of euphoria with some sedative effects. It’s relaxing, and some say mildly hallucinogenic.”
“Twenty bowls? Of stuff that tastes like dirty water? That sounds like way too much work to get fucked up.”
The dimples reappear again, and I’m caring less and less about Fiji and kava.
“That’s what they have, and it’s an ancient tradition. It’s how they relax and connect. It’s part of their heritage.”
“And why did the village elder gift this to you?”
“I did him a favor.”
“Who did you kill?” The question pops out, and I want to kick myself when his smile disappears.
“No one.” Kane drops his gaze and resumes chopping.
I return the small bowl to the set and leave the living room for the kitchen to stand beside him. “That was a dick thing to say. I’m sorry.”
His hand stills over the stalk of celery. He lifts his eyes to mine, and they flash with intensity. “There’s a whole hell of a lot more to me than what I do. For some reason, I thought you might understand that, but apparently you don’t.”
“I’m sorry.” I suck in a breath and release it. “I . . . I’m not good at this. I don’t have friends. I don’t have relationships. I have my brother. At least, I did.” I shake my head. “I’m not making excuses, I’m just telling you . . . I grew up in a shack on the swamp, taught myself to write the alphabet using a stick and the dirt. When we couldn’t afford the gas to get me to school for a couple years, Ma taught me with books that Rafe stole. I’m not normal, Kane. I don’t know what normal is.”
His features soften and so does the hardness in his eyes. “I don’t know what normal is either, so I guess that means we’re on the same page.”
The knife clatters to the counter and he takes a step toward me, trapping me against the counter.
“Normal’s overrated,” I whisper.
“Damn right.”
Kane tilts his head and skims his lips over mine. “Dinner’s gonna be late, because I’ve been dying to kiss you all damn day. I told myself I’d hold out, but I lied.”
His kiss is an enigma, just like the man. Hard and soft at the same time. Complicated yet simple. And most of all—mind-blowingly delicious.
He doesn’t just use his lips. He uses his whole body. With his hands buried in my hair, he spins me around and walks me backward until I’m pressed against the lower cabinets on the other side of the kitchen.
When he finally releases my hair, leaving it in a tumbled mess around my shoulders, he pulls back. “I’m gonna fuck you right here unless you say otherwise.”
I stay silent. Dinner can wait.
21
Kane
I push away from my desk and glance up at the clock.
Three a.m.
I’ve been digging for hours and haven’t gotten a single hit on Ransom. I have to get in touch with him or this situation is going to be even more fucked.
When Mount called me in, not only did he not realize I already had a connection to Temperance, he also didn’t realize what cargo Ransom hadn’t delivered that started this whole situation.
People.
Ransom stepped in the wrong pile of shit. Took a bad job. Why, I don’t have a fucking clue, because he’s always hated human traffickers.
Now he’s hiding out somewhere with human cargo, because I’m guessing he couldn’t live with himself if he finished the job. Even though I want to knock his teeth down his throat for putting his sister in danger, I can’t blame him.
I still don’t know who was supposed to take delivery of the cargo, but given the disaster on our hands, it’s someone who can’t afford to get caught, hence the high-paying hit and the urgency.
They wanted the job done in two weeks. I countered with six. We settled on a month, but I got the sense they weren’t happy. Which means my exclusivity period might not be worth a shit. If I’m right about how far up this goes, we have a hell of a lot less time before everything goes to shit, and there are more people looking for Ransom right now than just me.
I have to find him first. That’s the only option.
* * *
“I think I have an idea,” Temperance says, her voice startling me as I slide back into bed.
“You should be asleep.” In the dark of the room, I can barely make out the stubborn set of her features.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t know when you disappear in the middle of the night?”
I let the comment pass. “What’s your idea?”
She takes a deep breath, almost as if she’s not sure she wants to tell me. “You have to swear to me that you won’t tell anyone else. Ever.”
That vow is easy to make. “You want a blood oath?”
Now that my eyes are adjusting to the darkness, I can easily see her scrunch her nose. It shouldn’t be so cute, but this is Temperance.
“I try to avoid bloodshed, thanks.”
“So, what’s the idea?”
“There’s a place Rafe might’ve gone. Or if he hasn’t gone there, he might still go there.”
“Where?”
“It’s in the swamp.”
“Give me directions.”
At this, she laughs. “Even if I could give you directions, you’d never find it.”
“Then how the hell do you propose I get there?”
“Not you. We.”
I was afraid she was going to say that.
“First thing’s first,” she says. “We need an airboat, and I have to reschedule my meetings for the day.”
22
Temperance
The airboat skids across the water as we round the turn, and a smile breaks over my face. I forgot how much I love this feeling. It’s like flying.
“You sure you know where you’re going?” Kane yells over the roar of the engine as I slow down enough to make another slight turn before hitting the throttle again.
“No,” I tell him as I laugh. “We’ll probably get lost and have to hunt gator to survive.”
His hand clamps down on my knee as he looks over his shoulder from his seat in front of me. “Tell me you’re lying.”
“Can’t. We’re lost until I find the tree I’m looking for.”
“A tree? That could’ve disappeared since you came here last? Jesus, Temperance. Really?”
“Ye of little faith.” I crow in victory when I spot it up ahead, about a hundred yards away. It’s unmistakable. Years ago, Rafe told me the Indians braided mangroves together to make it into something they could use to find their way. Regardless of whether that’s true or not, it helps me remember this particular landmark. “We turn here and head north for a few minutes.”
Kane gives me a look of disbelief but doesn’t argue. It’s a little like the blind leading the blind, but it’s the best
idea I could come up with to find Rafe. No one knows these swamps like my brother. He’s been living off them his whole life—first for game and fish, and then for smuggling.
I know just enough to get us to one of his cabins—or get us lost. It’s a fifty-fifty shot.
I make the turn up ahead at a stump that looks familiar. Or, at least, I hope it looks familiar.
A heron swoops down in front of us, snatching a fish from the water before landing on the branch of a dead tree. I spot a gator next to a log and tap on Kane’s back to point it out.
“See him? He’s a juvenile still. Got a lot of growing to do.”
“How do you know?”
Normally, I would have tried to hide my knowledge of all things swamp, but something about Kane makes being back here different.
“We’re in my hood.” For the first time ever, the fact doesn’t make me feel like I’m less. It’s just a fact. Maybe he’s rubbing off on me.
I spot the frame of the shack in the distance. “There. Up ahead. See it?”
Kane’s head swivels in the direction I’m pointing as he palms a .45. “Approach slowly.”
I let off on the throttle and give the airboat just enough power to coast toward the cabin. It actually surprised me when he didn’t argue when I told him I was driving.
“It’s not like they won’t hear us coming.”
The airboat engines are deafeningly loud, hence the reason we’re yelling to hear each other through our earmuffs.
“That’s not what I’m worried about.” He’s got the pistol out front, and he’s sighted in on the cabin.
“Don’t shoot my brother.”
“If he shoots first, I make no promises.”
Since I know that won’t happen, I maneuver the boat until we bump up against the pylons supporting the cabin and cut the engine.
When I lift off my earmuffs, the silence is overwhelming at first. Beyond the rustle of the leaves in the breeze and the sound of birds and the lapping water, there’s nothing.
“He’s not here.” I didn’t let myself hope he would be, but that doesn’t stop the stab of disappointment.
“Maybe not now, but he might’ve been.”
Kane jumps off the boat and grabs the bowline to tie us up. I do the same with the stern.
“Wait here.” Kane treks around the outside of the shack before shoving the door open and ducking inside. A moment later, he yells, “It’s clear.”
I hop off the boat and head for the door. As soon as I cross the threshold, I know Rafe was here from the scent of his favorite Cajun spice hanging in the air.
“He couldn’t have left that long ago.”
“And he apparently knew someone would look here.” Kane points at the wall.
Four words are scrawled on the wood, but it’s nothing anyone but me would be able to read. Rafe’s jacked-up shorthand isn’t exactly standard.
“What does it say?” Kane asks.
My heart clenches as I interpret it. “Don’t look for me.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Yeah.” All the hopeful excitement that fueled me on the trip here drains away. “He doesn’t want to be found.”
“That’s too damn bad.” Kane turns and thumps a fist on the door frame. “Fucking Ransom.”
I take in the interior of the cabin, almost as if I’m trying to picture what happened in this space. I close my eyes and inhale the scent, imagining Rafe cooking a pot of gator stew on the iron tripod over a small fire.
“He’s not starving. He’s not hurt. He’s just laying low. But what the hell is his plan? He’s gotta have a plan.” I look to Kane. “He has to know this isn’t going to work. He has to know that he’s dragged me into this too. Right?”
Kane nods. “And he knows Mount won’t let anything happen to you, so he considers you safe.”
“So he thinks.”
“No. He’s right. It’s one thing he’d be able to count on.”
“With my big idea a bust, now what do we do?”
23
Kane
Temperance may have already given up on this part of her plan, but I’m not quite done with my inspection of the cabin. I crouch next to the woodpile and see a scrap of paper. Checking over my shoulder to find her already heading to the door, I snatch it up and glance at it before shoving it in my pocket.
Thank you, Ransom.
I tuck the burner phone I brought with me into the bundle of wood. It has exactly one number on it, so there’s no question who I want him to call.
I rise and follow her. “You think you’ll be able to get us back to the dock without getting lost?”
“Maybe.”
Temperance climbs back onto the airboat, and just like the first time I saw her take the captain’s seat, I’m struck by how damn capable she is.
Other women in my past would have freaked out at the spider she swept off the musty cushion. Temperance calmly points out gators the way other women remark on flowers.
She’s truly one of a kind.
“Sorry to waste your time. I thought . . . just maybe . . .”
“Don’t apologize. In fact . . .” I pull a small notebook out of my pocket. I never go anywhere without it. “Let’s leave him a note. You never know if he’ll come back.”
“What should we say?”
“Do you know how to write his shorthand language too?”
She nods.
I step closer to her and tear out a page, then offer it to her with a pen. “Tell him you’re safe, but you want to talk to him. You need to know he’s okay.”
She turns to use the side of the boat as a desk, then hands both back to me. I glance down at the paper and find the writing looks like complete gibberish.
“Really?”
She stiffens. “I didn’t make it up. I just learned what he taught me.”
“I’m not judging. It’s handy, being able to write something that’s essentially a code no one else can break. I’ll be right back.”
Her lips press together as I duck back into the cabin, doing one more sweep before I tack the note to the wall with a stray nail.
You better call, motherfucker. If you care about your sister at all . . .
With another silent order, I turn and leave.
24
Temperance
“Turn right here. It’s the second driveway on the right. The mailbox is attached to an exhaust manifold.”
Kane raised an eyebrow when I told him there was somewhere else I needed to go after we returned the airboat to the bait shop, but he didn’t argue. Maybe it was the tone of my voice when I asked, or maybe it was because I was subconsciously promising sexual favors. Either way, we were on our way to the scrap yard, and at least for a few hours, I could forget how big of a bust my idea to track down my brother was.
“This one?” He slows when Elijah’s mailbox comes into view.
I still remember the day we made it, and his dad backhanded him for using parts he could have sold. His dad died six months later, and not a single funeral-goer cried. Elijah and I come from the same kind of people.
“That’s the one.”
Before, I would have cringed at the thought of bringing Kane here, but we’ve already been to one of my brother’s cabins in the swamp. He’s experienced my airboat-driving skills and doesn’t seem to be looking at me any differently, so I’m going to chance it.
I’m willing to chance a whole hell of a lot to get my hands on a welding torch and some metal. Like a junkie rediscovering an addiction, I need my fix.
He drives through the open chain-link gate. “So, this is how you got your start? Welding metal together in a scrap yard?”
As he scans the rows of busted cars, I wonder if he sees them as potential, like me, or garbage, like most everyone else.
“Something like that.”
“I’ve spent a fair bit of time at scrap yards over the years. Can’t always find the parts you need to restore something old in a brand-new box.”
&nbs
p; Something about his comment fills me with the strangest hope. He sees possibilities.
“Follow this track around to the metal building. We can park beside it.”
He nods, and we slowly roll through the aisles. “Oh, sweet. Did you see that Wagoneer?” Kane brakes. “It’s in rough shape, but I bet it has some good parts to bring another one back to life.”
“Who restores your vehicles?”
“I do a lot of the work myself. As much as I can, anyway. I don’t love rebuilding the engines, so I’ll farm that work out sometimes.”
“That must’ve taken years.”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal, but to me, it’s a huge deal. “Some I bought restored. Others, I just couldn’t walk away from. Like that Wagoneer. That’d be the start of a fun project.”
Warmth spreads through me.
“Eli would probably let you poke around, if you asked. He’s a shark when it comes to negotiating, though. Especially when he smells money.”
“I don’t think he’s going to smell money.” Kane glances down at his grease-stained T-shirt, torn jeans, and motorcycle boots.
When I first saw him in them this morning, I almost had a minor heart attack. He’s like a chameleon. But this wasn’t some kind of costume, like he was trying to blend into the situation. This is Kane being Kane. And apparently all he has to do is add grease and ripped denim to have me desperate to tear the clothes off him.
“Even in those, he’ll see it.”
“I can handle myself,” he says, and I have no doubt he can. The man is more capable than anyone I’ve ever met before. It doesn’t matter the setting, he gives off an air of confidence that’s sexy as hell.
And if I don’t stop thinking in this vein, we’re never getting out of this Tahoe.
I reach for the door. “Let’s go inside.”
* * *
“What the fuck, Tempe? You know better than to bring anyone here.” Elijah’s tone sounds straight pissed off as he tosses the angle grinder on the workbench and stalks toward us. “Who the fuck are you, asshole?”