Memories assailed him like machine gun fire. Another drug deal. His brother Shane taking the cash. Chase begging him to get clean, to go straight. The police raid on their shared apartment later that night and the cops finding Shane’s huge stash of heroine. Shane being hauled to the station in handcuffs, caught with enough smack to put him away for years, especially with his prior record.
Cold sweat broke out across Chase’s forehead and the back of his neck. He slumped against the brick wall behind him and desperately tried to catch his breath. He’d had no choice. He would’ve done anything to save his little brother, done anything to keep him safe. Hell, he’d been keeping Shane safe for their entire lives. Safe from their abusive mother, safe from the dangerous world his younger brother had gotten himself involved in, safe from whatever came at them.
Chase squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists at his sides.
Shane would never have survived in prison and Chase was bound to get less time with his clean record, so he’d lied. Told the cops the drugs were his. Confessed to everything. The police, desperate for a conviction, took it as a slam dunk. Chase had gotten five years, with good behavior. Sure, it had cost him his career, his life, his future. But he’d do it all the same way again, no regrets, no questions asked. No hesitation.
The past slowly faded and Chase blinked up into the starless sky above. A breeze stirred and he rolled his head to the side, spotted one of the figures over the top of the dumpster, a hundred yards or so away. The person stepped into the pool of light near the door and bile rose hot and thick in Chase’s throat.
Shane.
He turned away and pressed his hand to his mouth to keep from retching.
No. Please, dear God, no. Don’t let this be happening all over again. Don’t let my sacrifice have been for nothing.
Chase slid down the wall until his butt hit the asphalt and he wrapped his arms around his knees, tucking himself into a tight ball. Head lowered and eyes closed, he wondered what the hell his efforts were for. What was the point in clearing his name if everything he’d done, if all the sacrifices he’d made for Shane had been worthless?
Seven
“I need this delivered.” Blake plopped a file down on Chase’s desk a few hours later, startling him from the funk he’d been stewing in all morning. In all honesty, if someone asked him how’d he’d gotten here to the office, he couldn’t tell them. He’d been so shocked at seeing Shane again in that dark alley that his actions had clicked into auto-pilot ever since and he'd all but forgotten about searching for evidence of Bryant's real killer.
Shane. My baby brother. The guy he’d taken a life-altering hit for, was back to his same old tricks it seemed. The dull pain in his chest intensified. No. Not Shane. Shane wouldn’t do that to me. There had to be another reason he’d been in that alleyway, had to be another reason for the exchange of cash. Maybe he was working for a delivery company. Maybe he had a friend who worked at the Lucky Ace who owed him money. Maybe…
“Hello?” Blake waved a hand in front of Chase’s face. “Anybody in there?”
“What?” Chase shook his head to clear it and sat forward in his chair. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Just a little distracted this morning.”
Blake narrowed his icy gaze. “Everything all right?”
“Sure. Sure. Everything’s fine.” He stared at the folder Blake had placed before him and did his best not to wince. The words sound false even to his own ears. “What do you need me to do?”
“Deliver those quotes for security camera hookup and video file storage on our servers to a potential new client. Think you can handle that?”
Chase bit back a snarky retort. He needed this job, dammit, and a smart mouth wouldn’t help him keep it. “Yeah, I can handle it.” He flipped open the file and scanned the contents. “Not sure why you don’t just e-mail these though. Wouldn’t that be faster?”
“Do you work for me or not?” Blake leaned his hip against the side of Chase’s desk, his arms crossed. “I want them delivered in person. This could be a good new account for us and deserves some personal attention.” He glanced at the teetering stacks of filing Olivia had placed on Chase’s desk. “Unless you prefer a slow death by paper cut.”
“No.” Chase sighed. “I’ll deliver them.”
“Good.” Blake straightened and rattled off directions for Chase, which he jotted down. “I’d give you the keys to the company car, but you haven’t renewed your driver’s license yet, right?”
No. That was something else on Chase’s Need-To-Do list. He shook his head.
“I’ve got a few hours free next week. If you want, I’ll take you over to the DMV and we’ll get you squared away, all right? Then you can start using one of the company vehicles until you get a ride of your own, okay?”
“Okay.” He pulled on his jacket and grabbed the file. “Thanks, man. For everything.”
Blake shrugged and headed back to his office. “No problem. Consider it an investment in your employment future. You’ll earn it working here, trust me.”
Outside, Chase caught the next bus heading toward North Las Vegas and took another look at the proposal in the file. It appeared to be for an animal rescue center called Paws and Play. Cute name. He flipped to the next page and studied Blake’s security plan. Numerous strategically placed cameras both in and outside the building, plus 24-7 surveillance by Rockford Security’s top IT department.
He was no expert, but he’d learned a thing or two from some of the thieves in prison. The plan Blake had designed seemed solid and the price reasonable. Should be a quick in and out delivery on Chase’s part.
The bus pulled up to his stop and he departed then stared at the modest cinder block building in front of him. A plain rectangular sign with a rainbow-colored paw print in each corner proclaimed Paws and Play Animal Rescue Center. He opened the front door and stepped into a tiny reception area. The floor was checkerboard linoleum, the reception desk square and boxy and crammed full of brochures and small items for sale. The air smelled of disinfectant and wet dog.
A young, college-aged girl sat behind the desk in a cotton-candy pink colored scrub top strewn with cartoon drawings of kittens and puppies. Her short dark hair was streaked with green and blue and held back on one side with a sparkly rhinestone barrette in the shape of a skull. The girl smiled and gazed at him with polite disinterest. Her name tag read Steph. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah.” Chase stepped up to the counter. “I’m here to see the owner. I’m from Rockford Security.”
Steph hiked her chin toward two empty chairs along the wall and picked up the phone. “Have a seat. I’ll let her know you’re here.”
“Thanks.” He did as she requested, aware the receptionist continued to watch him.
“I like your tats,” Steph said after she hung up. “Get them around here?”
“Yeah.” One of the guys in his cell block had run an ink parlor before his tax fraud conviction. Not that he’d tell some stranger that. “I got ‘em around here.”
“Cool.” Steph chewed her gum loudly and picked up her magazine again. “She’ll be right out.”
“Thanks.” He looked closer at the area around him. The place was small and crammed full of stuff, but extremely tidy. The floor sparkled beneath his black boots and a cheerful poster of a little boy and his puppy took up half the space on the wall across from him. Through the open doorway behind the reception desk filtered various yips and meows and barks and screeches of the place’s residents. He wondered how many animals the shelter took in.
Another door opened in the opposite corner of the room and out stepped a woman he presumed must be the owner. Her back was to him, but something about her hair—below the shoulder, blonde, curly—seemed awfully familiar. She turned, and his heart skipped a beat.
Her. The girl from the office. Warren Bryant’s daughter. Shelby.
Son of a bitch.
She seemed to recognize him in the same moment. Her steps faltered and her eye
s widened. “You? What are you doing here?”
He stood and noticed once more how her height was damned near perfect for him. The top of her head would fit right beneath his chin, perfect for cuddling. Perfect for other things too. Chase shook his head, bemused. He was here for work, not to pick up a date. He held out the folder. “My boss at Rockford Security asked me to bring these over. They’re the quotes for your new security system.” He forced an awkward smile and did his best not to blow the job for Blake. “So, you own an animal shelter, huh?”
Frowning, she snatched the file from him. "I didn’t ask him to go through all this trouble. I told him I don’t really have money in the budget for security.”
Suspicion flared inside Chase. He should’ve known Blake was up to something. The guy used to pull schemes like this all the time on their old part-time security jobs. Always trying to set Chase up on blind dates. Always trying to work and angle for his own purposes. Never mind those purposes were almost always for the best interest for everyone involved. The idea of being manipulated rubbed Chase the wrong way. He’d had enough of being under someone else’s thumb to last him a lifetime.
He shifted his weight and shuffled his feet as she glanced up at him again.
“I’m sorry, Mr.?”
“Evans. Chase Evans.’ The fact she didn’t remember him from the other day stung more than he cared to admit. He’d remembered her name, and most everything about her. But then the hint of wariness and attraction in her blue gaze told him she hadn’t forgotten him completely. Huh. Interesting. Hard to get. If that was her game, he’d play along. “And you are?”
Her light brown brows drew together. “Shelby Bryant. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but unless you want to adopt a pet or volunteer, I don’t really have time to chat. I’ve got a ton of work to do.”
The sound of a popping bubble to his left drew their attention.
Steph, who watched their interaction with interest, at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Can you please go back and check on the parrots?” Shelby asked her.
“Yep.” Steph nodded, disappearing through the doorway behind the reception desk after flashing Chase a quick smile. “See you around.”
“See ya,” Once she’d gone, Chase turned back to Shelby. “You really own this place?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” Her posture stiffened. He’d apparently stepped in it somewhere, but wasn’t quite sure where. “For your information, I built this shelter from the ground up without any help from anyone.” Her azure blue eyes blazed with indignation and Chase swallowed hard. If he wasn’t careful, a man could get lost in those beautiful depths and never want to come out. “Well, except for maybe the government grants for non-profits.”
“I’m impressed.” Grant writing took time and expertise, as did running a successful business. She appeared to be good at both. “And all without help from your father or his money.”
She visibly bristled at his words. “I have never taken a cent of Dad’s money. Not then, not now, not ever. And there goes my motive for killing him.”
The steel in her tone buckled under her last statement and his heart ached for her. Regardless of what the evidence showed, he knew deep down that her grief was real. She didn’t kill her father. No way. Hell, judging from the slight tremble in her movements and her pale complexion she looked hunted, haunted, damned close to her breaking point. It was a look he knew well. The same look he’d seen reflected in his mirror every day before they’d shipped him off to prison. His fingertips itched to touch her, to pull her into his arms and offer her comfort, hope, understanding. Except, given their current situation, such advances would probably only earn him a swift kick in the nuts for his trouble.
So instead, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his khakis and rocked back on his heels. “Would you have time to give me a quick tour? I’d love to see how everything operates?”
Shelby eyed him warily for several seconds and he worried she might refuse. Then she gave a slight nod. “Okay. But quick is the key word. I’ve got deliveries coming and an obedience class for the new adoptees later this afternoon.”
“Great. Quickies are always awesome.” Shelby gave him a quick side glance. Heat prickled up from beneath the collar of his shirt once he realized the provocative nature of his words. “Then again, slow is good too.”
Shit.
Open mouth and insert foot, dumbass.
Seemed everything he said dug his hole deeper. Coughing to clear the lump forming in his throat, Chase amended his statement one final time, hoping the third time was the charm. “Whatever you have time for would be wonderful.”
His last mea culpa must’ve done the trick because, at last, she tucked the folder under her arm then gestured for him to follow her behind the reception desk and through the doorway where Steph had disappeared moments before. “This way.”
If he didn’t know better, he’d say from that tiny twitch in her full, pink lips she was amused by his verbal incontinence, but he wasn’t going to push his luck again. He trailed after her into what appeared to be a small zoo, filled with dogs and cats and rabbits and ferrets. Several guinea pigs chomped nervously on lettuce as they passed by and a pair of brightly colored Macaws screeched and whistled from the far corner of the large open space.
“How many animals do you have here?” he asked, stopping in front of a cage containing a small, white, scruffy dog. The mutt reminded him of Skipper, his childhood pet. Man, he’d loved that crazy canine. She leaned in beside him and once more her scent—fresh flowers and warm, clean woman—enveloped him. Her heat penetrated through his denim jacket and cotton dress shirt and if he reached up he could run his fingers through those bouncy curls and see if they felt as soft as they looked.
“About two hundred at any given time.” She reached her fingers through the bars of the cage and coaxed the dog over. “How’s my Growly doing today?”
“Growly?” Chase snorted. “Nice.”
Shelby smiled and his breath hitched at how beautiful she was. “He’s been with me for a while now. It’ll be hard when he gets adopted.”
“I bet.” His gaze lingered on her creamy complexion, her soft lips, the curve of her high cheekbones. He forced himself to relax, to breathe deeply, to ignore the way his body tightened whenever she was around. “Occupational hazard, huh?”
She set the folder on a cage behind her then cooed and whispered to the dog before turning to face him. What he wouldn’t give to have her murmur sweet nothings to him like that. “What do you mean?”
The lingering affection in her eyes was damned near his undoing. His gaze flicked from her eyes to her lips then back again as he inched closer. “Getting too attached. Getting hurt.”
“Yeah.” She swayed slightly toward him, delicate pink color rising in her cheeks. “Getting hurt sucks.”
This close, her warm, minty breath fluttered over his face and he could spot a faint line of freckles drifting over the bridge of her nose. She seemed so clean, so untouched, so far from all the sins of his past. A past he wanted so much to forget. Before he could question his actions, Chase closed the distance between them, capturing her lips with his—once, twice, before holding tight on the third pass—words, a vow, ricocheting in his brain.
I would never hurt you.
* * *
Please, don’t hurt me. I can’t stand to be hurt again. Not now.
His heat and strength drew her closer, had her opening up to him, even though she knew she shouldn’t. Still, as his soft tongue swept into her mouth and stroked hers, she lost herself in his flavor—mint and spice with a hint of coffee and sugar. Delectable. Shelby moaned low in her throat and fought her undeniable attraction to the last man on earth she should want. After all, he could have had something to do with her father's death!
He slid his hand into her hair, cupping the back of her head as he straightened and pulled her in tight against him. She felt every hard, muscled inch of hi
m pressed to her curves and damn if it didn’t feel right. Good. Too damned good.
The sound of a clearing throat had them breaking apart fast. Shelby stepped back, away from him, away from temptation, and wiped the back of her shaky hand over her wet lips.
“Sorry, Miss Bryant.” Steph hovered near a row of rabbit cages. “I just wondered if there was anything else you wanted me to check on back here. The parrots are fine.”
“Uh.” Shelby inhaled sharply and did her best to focus on her work and not the man staring at her with fire in his eyes, like he wanted to have her right here, right now, witnesses be damned. “N-no. That’s all for now. Thanks, Steph.”
“Sure thing.” The girl hustled out of the room, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum and a knowing smile on her young face.
Shelby figured she looked as thoroughly kissed as she felt. Disarmed and disheveled, she waited until they were alone again before confronting Chase. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” His voice was low and gravely and completely intoxicating. She found herself being drawn to him again even though she’d sworn to stay away. “Kiss you? It seemed like the right thing to do. Unless I misread what just happened between us.”
She did her best to ignore the way his gaze snagged on her parted, swollen lips and focused on the facts she knew to try to cool her ardor. He’d broken into her dad’s office. There was a chance he’d been involved in her dad’s murder. There was an even greater chance he’d slept with Katherine. Her stomach cramped. Yep. That did it. Ardor definitely cooled.
“You need to leave.” She walked around a low line of cages to put some distance and obstacles between them. “Now.”
“Hey.” He held up his hands in surrender, his expression an endearing mix of need and remorse. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “I’m sorry for kissing you like that. Honest. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t normally go around grabbing women and kissing them like that. It’s just…” His voice trailed off and he ran a hand through his short dark hair, causing it to spike up adorably. “I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry.”
Treacherous Seduction (The Rockford Security Series Book 3) Page 5