B008DKAYYQ EBOK

by Joyce Lamb

  “All of this tells me you’ve been up to no good again. Four years in prison didn’t teach you anything. Neither did the mistakes that cost your father his life.”

  James wanted to scream. If he thought he could have gotten away with it, he would have heaved something heavy and priceless, perhaps the panther sculpture, across the room. Instead, he curled his hands into fists and fought to control the urge to roar his frustration. “Jesus, what do you want from me?”

  Kincaid uncrossed his legs and stood. Walking to the mahogany buffet in the corner, he set down his coffee cup. Glass clinked as he poured himself a drink, his movements unhurried and graceful.

  After one sip, he turned and spoke, his voice low, controlled. “I want you to do the right thing for once in your fucking life, you little piece of shit.”

  Shock froze James.

  “You’ve never thought about anyone but yourself.” Quiet rage poured off of Kincaid in waves. “You’ve always been weak and stupid. Your father is dead because of it.”

  James forced himself to relax his hands as the desire to slam his fist into something unyielding almost overwhelmed him. He’d often wondered whether his father’s good friend would ever voice his true feelings about the accident. On one level, he was glad the moment of truth had finally arrived. On another level, Kincaid’s wrath, only slightly unleashed, scared the living shit out of him.

  Straightening his shoulders, he prepared to hear the words he’d been dreading for five years. He had some of his own he wanted to share.

  Kincaid’s eyes looked black, the lines in his face rigid. “I gave you everything,” he said, his voice betraying the slightest tremor. “When you needed a job, I gave you one.”

  “You made me a crook,” James replied.

  “You begged me to show you the business. I didn’t want to. You know I didn’t.”

  “But you did it anyway. And when you saw how good I was at it, you threw more and more money at me. And that made me an addict.”

  “I never told you to buy drugs with your money,” Kincaid said.

  “But you still made it possible for me to buy them. And it killed my father.”

  “You killed him. No one else.”

  “Yes, I killed him.” He’d accepted responsibility for that a long time ago. “But you played a role. And I protected you. The entire time, I protected you.”

  “I repaid you for that when you got out of prison,” Kincaid said, the quaver gone from his voice. “You wanted a second chance, and I handed it over. I would have given you the money you needed for free, but you insisted on working for it. And then you repaid me by botching the deal.”

  “I told you why I couldn’t go through with it. I was terrified it was all going to begin again, that if I did that one deal for you, I would get sucked back into all of it again. The money, the drugs, the lies. I made a mistake when I didn’t let you know I couldn’t go through with it so you could make other arrangements. But that’s all it was. A mistake.”

  “Your mistakes have devastated the people around you. You’re a self-centered, self-destructive shit, and I’m tired of watching your family pay for it.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” James yelled. “I tried to do the right thing, and I screwed it up. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “Walk away.”

  James froze. “What?”

  “You will always screw it up, James. You’re weak, and you’re stupid. The best thing you can do is walk away before you destroy the only people you have left.” Kincaid stared into his glass of amber liquid, his expression betraying a hint of sorrow. “Frankly, I expected that you would have done that by now.”

  James was stunned. “Is that what all this pressure to repay you has been about? You’ve been trying to run me out of town?”

  “You haven’t had any options but to run away for several days. You’ve hung in there far longer than I thought you would.”

  James took a step toward him. “Did you tell Sam not to lend me the money?”

  “Your low-life loan shark took my advice, yes.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “I’m trying to do what’s best for your family,” Kincaid said.

  “I won’t leave my kid.”

  “I’m not giving you a choice.”

  James gave up trying to sound reasonable. “I don’t give a shit what you’re giving me. I won’t abandon my son.”

  “Austin will be very well taken care of. You know that.”

  “I’m his father! I’m going to be there for him.”

  “You’ll destroy him. And by doing so, you’ll destroy Bailey.”

  “I won’t.” His voice cracked, and he turned his back. “Damn it, I won’t.”

  “It’s your nature.”

  “To hell with my nature.” He headed for the door.

  Kincaid’s words, low and even, made him pause. “If anything happens to your sister or your son, I’ll have a contract out on you within an hour.”

  “Don’t do me any fucking favors.”

  Chapter 26

  Cole jammed the SUV into park and stormed out of it. He swiped his newspaper ID through the card reader with a vengeance, and if the glass door hadn’t had a hydraulic arm, he would have slammed it behind him.

  He found A.J. at her desk, surrounded by piles of newspapers and printouts, her headphones in place as she spoke on the phone. She glanced up as he approached and indicated she’d be with him in a second.

  He reached over and hit the button to cut off her call.

  She jerked off the headphones. “What the hell are you doing? I was talking to the sheriff’s office.”

  He leaned on his hands on her desk. “Where is she?”

  A.J. shoved back from the desk and rose. “What’s your problem, Goodman?”

  “I went to your place, and it appears you had a little trouble recently. Thanks, by the way, for tipping me off.”

  “Who shoved that stick up your butt?”

  “You did.” He got in her face. “Where the hell is Bailey?”

  “Jesus, would you calm down? She’s fine.” She cast a look around to see who was watching them. “And if you don’t chill, there’s no way in hell I’m telling you where she is.”

  He forced himself to take a deep breath. His head was pounding in time with his heart, but he didn’t bother to consider what it meant. As the pounding slowed, he also took stock of whose eyes were on them. Curiosity seemed to be the overriding mood in the newsroom, and he rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling like an idiot for losing his cool. Which he seemed to be doing a lot all of the sudden.

  “Let’s talk somewhere else,” he said in a lowered voice.

  She followed him toward the city editor’s empty office. He started talking as soon as the door was closed. “What happened to warrant the crime-scene tape?”

  “We had an intruder.”

  His pulse started to race again. “Is Bailey all right?”

  “I told you she’s fine. You, however, are freaking me out.”

  He ran a hand through his hair then dropped his head back. Get a grip. When he felt some semblance of calm, he met A.J.’s inquisitive brown eyes and gave her a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry I cut off your call.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “You should be.”

  “If I ask nice, will you tell me what happened?”

  She let her hands fall to her sides, then clasped her elbows as if chilled. “The guy broke in through the balcony door. Busted one of the panes of glass and let himself in. I slept through that part, of course. Luckily, Bailey screamed loud enough to wake me up. I called 911 and went after the bastard with my gun.”

  “You have a gun?”

  “It’s licensed, and I know how to use it,” she said with a trace of defensiveness.

  “Thank God.” He swallowed, refusing to let himself think of what might have happened otherwise. “What was he after?”

  “She won’t tell me.” She perched her hip
on the edge of the cluttered desk. “Says she doesn’t know.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “Nope. I think she has some harebrained idea that she’s protecting me by keeping me in the dark.”

  “She probably is.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” A.J. said.

  He smiled, despite wanting to throttle her for not calling him after the break-in. He really liked A.J. She would come out swinging in defense of her friends, no matter what. “So where is she?”

  “She’s staying with a close friend.” The corner of her mouth quirked up slightly. “A close male friend.”

  “That’s good.” He hoped he didn’t sound as disappointed as he felt.

  But A.J. was shaking her head. “Man, oh, man. You are so transparent.”

  He turned away, jamming his hands into his pockets. He was such a fool. A stupid, stupid fool.

  “Relax,” A.J. said. “He’s a friend of her father’s. She refers to him as her uncle.”

  He faced her, not caring if his relief was evident. “Do you have a number?”

  “If you give her another hour, she’ll be here.”

  “She’s coming to work? Is that safe?”

  “Apparently, she has a bodyguard.” At his look of disbelief, A.J. grinned. “That close male friend has lots and lots of money. Did I mention that?”

  Chapter 27

  Bailey asked Payne Kincaid’s driver to stay in the Town Car in the newspaper’s parking lot, explaining that she’d be perfectly safe because no one could enter the newsroom without a key card. He seemed reluctant but acquiesced. She imagined that he was on the phone with Payne before the security door closed behind her, but she didn’t want him following her around – especially considering her goal.

  In a stroke of luck, she made it to the photo department without running into anyone on the way. Her hands started shaking again as she twirled the combination on her locker, and she paused to clasp them together and count to ten.

  She was nervous, stressed, scared. Someone had taken reckless and destructive steps trying to get his hands on whatever was on the film that she’d stashed in this locker the morning she’d been mugged. Her plan had been to get it developed right away so she could show Austin what he had captured during their time at Payne’s pool and the park the afternoon before the attack.

  Taking a deep breath, she spun the lock’s dial to the last number and lifted the latch.

  “Hey.”

  Stifling a shriek, she whirled, bumping back against the locker door and nearly losing her balance.

  Cole’s hands shot out to steady her, and she stared up into his face, pierced at once by eyes that looked bluer than usual, probably because he hadn’t shaved in several days. She quickly dropped her gaze and pushed at his forearms, alarmed at the heat that seemed to emanate from his hands. “What are you doing?”

  He released her and stepped back, raising his hands, palms out. “Geez, Chase, you’re jumpy.”

  She let out the air she’d been holding. “You snuck up on me,” she said, off-balanced and not entirely sure why.

  “Actually,” he gestured over his shoulder, “I walked through those double doors there and called your name a couple of times as I approached.”

  “You snuck.”

  “Isn’t it sneaked?”

  She huffed at the hair that had fallen across her forehead. “What are you, a copy editor in training?”

  He pocketed his hands, his gaze roving her face as if he searched for something but wasn’t finding it. “Well, hello to you, too.”

  She turned back to the locker, determined not to let him see how unnerved she was. She told herself it had nothing to do with him. Unnerved was her natural state of being at the moment. After two attacks and a trashed apartment, she had every right to be jumpy.

  She spotted Austin’s camera on the top shelf and snagged it. “I take it there’s a reason you snuck up on me.”

  “A.J. told me about the excitement last night.”

  “I wouldn’t call it excitement. More like blinding terror.”

  “But you weren’t hurt?”

  Facing him, she noted the worry that tightened his features. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping much lately. Join the crowd, she thought. At the same time, his concern for her welfare touched her. “I’m fine.”

  “Is that supposed to stand in for the equipment you lost?”

  She gazed at him, distracted by the way the light beard tempered the angles of his face. Or maybe the fact he wasn’t grinding his teeth as he looked at her had softened the usual hard set of his jaw. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. What?”

  He nodded at the old Nikon in her hand. “Did management bust you down to that until you prove you can be trusted with the high-tech stuff again?”

  She glanced down. “Oh. No. This is Austin’s.” She paused. Mentioning her nephew by name to this man who’d been practically a stranger last week should have felt odd. But it didn’t. In a very short period of time, their relationship—if you could call it that—had made a fundamental shift.

  She had expected him to move on. What rational man wouldn’t run as fast as he possibly could? More than anyone in her life, besides A.J., he knew firsthand that she and her family were a disaster. Add the baggage labeled “Daniel” to the pile and what Cole should have had was a mountain of reasons to drive right by the exit marked Bailey Chase.

  “That was nice of Austin to let you borrow his camera for work,” Cole said.

  She laughed lightly. He was trying to put her at ease. Which made her all the more uneasy. “Right.”

  “So … you’re going to look me in the eye at some point, aren’t you?”

  She turned to slam the locker closed. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

  She pretended to concentrate on working the button that would release the door on Austin’s camera so she could take the rewound film out. Feeling Cole’s breath stir the hair at the back of her neck, she shivered. The office wasn’t even close to cool. If anything, it was too warm. Yet, goose bumps prickled her arms. She wished he’d step back so the scent of fabric softener that clung to him wasn’t quite so evident. Downy, she thought. That’s what he smelled like. Downy, and something else clean and crisp, like her favorite rain-scented candle.

  Closing her eyes briefly, Bailey wished he wouldn’t step back after all. Going far, far away would be much better.

  Cole cleared his throat. “I talked to one of the cops about your break-in. He said they got a hit on fingerprints they lifted at your place. You probably should have warned them that your brother has a criminal record.”

  Her fingers fumbled with the release, and she swore under her breath. “Damn.”

  Cole reached around her and lifted the camera out of her hands. “Let me do that.”

  Turning, she resisted the urge to snatch it back. Instead, she watched him pop open the back of the camera with the easy flick of a finger. “What are you doing, Cole?”

  He met her eyes, one eyebrow arching. “There’s some progress. You didn’t snarl ‘Goodman’ like you usually do.”

  “You’re confusing the hell out of me.”

  “Maybe I’m confused, too,” he said softly as he pulled out the roll of film.

  The low timbre of his voice sent a chill racing up her spine. Fear quickly followed. This was a man she could easily fall for. And then what? She’d thought she’d been in love before, and look how that had ended. The number one lesson she’d learned then was to protect her heart at all costs. Being alone was far better than allowing another, possibly careless, man access to the parts of her that were breakable. She had to harden herself to Cole now, before it was too late.

  She took the film he offered. “Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

  She moved to brush by him, but he put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait.”

  She shifted back, rattled when her shoulder blades pressed against the metal surface of
the lockers. She’d never felt claustrophobic here before, but she did now.

  Glancing down, she focused on his hand on her arm. His knuckles were skinned raw.

  He sighed. “Look, I made a mistake. I want to apologize.”

  She had to concentrate on drawing air into her lungs. He smelled like clean sheets, and with a jolt, she realized that that’s where she wanted to be with him. Ever since he’d refused to leave her alone when she’d needed help the most. Ever since he’d carried her up a flight of stairs when she’d been too exhausted to climb them herself. Ever since he’d walked out of his bedroom without his shirt on. Ever since he’d bonded so sweetly with Austin. Ever since he’d yanked her out of a nightmare. Ever since he’d shown up to help her load what was left of precious memories into garbage bags.

  Not only was this a man she could fall for, but this was a man she could fall for hard. Caring, dependable, considerate, strong. Sexy. As. Hell.

  “What mistake?” she asked, mortified that her voice had dropped not just one octave but two.

  “I’m a reporter. I’m supposed to be objective.”

  “Not seeing the mistake yet.”

  Smiling, he braced a hand against the locker behind her, cutting the space between their bodies by half. “You haven’t let me get to it.”

  She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. Nerves up and down the length of her body were on high alert. She imagined that if he touched her, she would spark like an electrified fence. “Go on.”

  “I normally have good instincts, but I ignored them.”

  “You shouldn’t do that.” Her gaze was drawn to his mouth. Such nice lips. Full, pink. They looked soft, and capable.

  “Well, I did. And I was wrong. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

  “I’m still not clear on what mistake we’re talking about.”

  His gaze fastened on her mouth, and she watched it move slowly over her face before his eyes met hers. She couldn’t look away as the air locked in her chest. Good Lord, he was going to kiss her. She fought the first, raging instinct to shove him away. Maybe it would be nice.

  He lowered his head, brushed his lips across hers very lightly. Then he settled his mouth more firmly on hers, and she felt his forearm tense where it rested gently against her shoulder as he braced a hand on the locker. It started out friendly enough, and she was thinking, oh, he’s a pretty good kisser, but her knees weren’t weak or even slightly rubbery. She could live with that. In fact, she was relieved. This was a kiss she could live without. She didn’t need the complications anyway.