by Joyce Lamb
Kathleen nodded. “Once we ID the officers, we can get them to give us a name.” She ran her finger over the date stamp in the corner of the photo. “Is this correct?”
“Yes,” Bailey said.
Cole gave her an impressed look. “I’m surprised you even set the time on the camera.”
She shrugged. “It was easy enough.”
“Yeah, but you said the camera was sitting in a drawer. You must have had to replace the batteries first. Most people wouldn’t have bothered since the plan was to give it to a six-year-old.”
He made her sound like such an anal-retentive loser. The perfect foil for his beautiful, willowy former lover. “I like to have accurate records of when photos are taken.” Damn it, she sounded so prim.
Cole grinned at Kathleen. “She’s efficient,” he said, as if bragging about his prized pooch’s ability to do tricks.
Bailey wouldn’t have minded fetching him a stick of lighted dynamite. Mentally shaking her head, she tried to chill. Such hostility was unlike her. Ever. But, then, she’d never felt such conflicting emotions over a man. Her relationship with Daniel had ended quickly and violently. She’d had no time for conflicting emotions.
But here she was now, conflicted over Cole Goodman. Hot for him one minute, exasperated the next, and touched by how sweet he was the one after that. Damn, did that mean she was falling for him?
Kathleen fished a pen and a legal pad out of her desk. “Why don’t we start with where the photo was taken and what’s happened since?”
* * *
Cole rubbed the back of his neck. They’d been in Kathleen’s stuffy office for two hours now, and at least one drop of sweat had trickled down his back. He’d ducked out once to ask if one of Kathleen’s colleagues could check out the black Town Car that had followed them from the newspaper. The agent quickly got an ID on the car’s owner and went out to chat with the driver while Kathleen grilled Bailey.
Cole had to hand it to Bailey. She had not wilted from the heat or the unending questions. She answered each query thoroughly and without hesitation.
He was especially impressed when she didn’t try to hide what the attacker at A.J.’s had said about James. It was the first time he’d heard about it, but at least she’d told Kathleen.
“What does the reference to your brother mean to you?” Kathleen asked.
Bailey shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
“How about you just throw out some ideas?”
Bailey shifted, obviously reluctant.
“You’re not going to convict him of anything he’s not guilty of,” Cole said.
Bailey didn’t look at him. In fact, she hadn’t even glanced at him since they had settled in Kathleen’s office. Apparently, she held a grudge. And maybe he couldn’t blame her. He never should have treated her past like a news story. Jesus, why did she make him act like such a jerk?
“My brother has had trouble before,” Bailey finally said.
The strain in her voice, as if she’d had to force the words out, made Cole’s stomach clutch.
Kathleen consulted her notes. “You said that in addition to manslaughter he was also convicted of driving under the influence at the time of the accident that killed your father. Does he have a drug problem?”
“Not anymore.”
“Are you sure?” Kathleen asked.
Cole watched Bailey’s profile as she swallowed. Her hesitation spoke volumes.
Kathleen could read between the lines, too. “What about money problems?”
“If he needed cash, he would ask for it,” Bailey said.
“From you?”
“Yes, or a family friend.”
“Do you know any of your brother’s friends well?” Kathleen asked.
“Since he got out of prison, he’s devoted himself to being a good father and preparing for a new job. I don’t know of anyone he socializes with.”
“You said that while James was in prison, you had custody of,” Kathleen checked her notes, “Austin.”
“Yes. After James was released, we shared custody for a while. Last month, the judge determined James could have full custody of Austin on a trial basis, with regular check-ins from social services. If everything goes well, the custody will be—” Her voice wobbled, and she paused a beat. “It will be permanent.”
That break in her voice had Cole massaging the knot at the nape of his neck again as pieces began to fall into place. Austin had mentioned that he’d lived with Bailey while his father “went away for a while.” She had virtually raised him, been a mother to him. And then when James had been released, she’d had to give the child back. He couldn’t imagine what that had been like for her … or what it was like now, watching her brother struggle and knowing the fallout could harm her beloved nephew. The need—and inability—to whisk the boy away to safety, to stability, had to be eating her up inside.
“I still have Austin with me quite a bit,” Bailey added.
“What does James do then?” Kathleen asked.
“Mostly, he’s had classes at the community college. When he wasn’t going to school, he’d hang out with Austin and me. It was nice to have him around, nice to see how close he was getting to his son.”
“Past tense?” Kathleen asked.
Bailey sighed. “He hasn’t spent as much time with us in the past month.”
“What does he do instead? Where does he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t ask?” Kathleen asked, surprised.
“I’m not his mother.”
“But surely you’ve expressed curiosity about the change in behavior.”
“I … I …” Bailey looked down at the hands tangled in her lap. “He’s accused me of watching him too closely. He thinks I’m waiting to attack if he screws up. So I don’t ask.” She rubbed at her temple. “Maybe I should have.”
Cole watched Kathleen scribble a note, then study it as she tapped her pen against the legal pad. After what seemed like a full minute, she looked up. “Anything else?”
Bailey met the other woman’s eyes. “Whatever’s going on here, James isn’t behind it. He … he might be involved in some indirect way, but he wouldn’t intentionally do anything that would endanger Austin or me.”
Kathleen nodded as she rose. “We’ll check in with the police department on the photograph and see where that takes us. And I’ll have our tech guys go over the negatives to see if there’s anything there you might have missed.”
“What about protection?” Cole asked.
“I can arrange for a safe house—”
“That’s not necessary,” Bailey cut in. “I can stay where I stayed last night. I’ll be safe there.”
“How can you be sure?” Cole asked. He wanted to insist that she stay with him, but he couldn’t think of a legitimate reason. I want to kiss the hell out of you again and much, much more probably wouldn’t be the most convincing argument.
She met his gaze for the first time in two hours, and her eyes were cool. “I doubt an FBI safe house has the state-of-the-art security that my uncle’s home has.”
Kathleen picked up her pen. “Why don’t you give me a phone number and address so I know where to reach you when I know something?”
Bailey rattled off Payne Kincaid’s information, and Cole registered that not only was her uncle the richest man in Kendall Falls, but he also owned the Town Car that had been following them. Protection, he realized, and felt a measure of relief. So he wasn’t the only one worried about what was going on. He liked Bailey’s Uncle Payne already.
Kathleen handed Bailey her business card. “Feel free to call me to check in or if you think of anything else. I’m sure we’ll know something quickly on the photo so we can decide where to go from here.”
As Cole opened the door for Bailey, Kathleen said, “Give me a call sometime, Cole. We’ll do dinner. We can revisit old times.”
When he returned her grin and wink, he caught a glimpse of Bailey’s body going
rigid.
In the parking lot, she walked several paces ahead of him, which actually kind of pleased him. Maybe he was getting somewhere with her after all.
“Hey, where’s the fire?” he asked.
She gestured at the black Town Car parked several spaces from his. “That’s my ride.”
He caught her arm. “Can you just wait a minute?”
She stopped, and he gave her points for not jerking away when he drew her behind his SUV so they wouldn’t be in plain view of the Town Car’s driver.
She crossed her arms impatiently. “I have a photo assignment in half an hour, Goodman.”
Goodman. So they were back to that. She wouldn’t look him in the face, either. Her green eyes, dark with an emotion he couldn’t identify remained fixed on something over his right shoulder. He’d hoped for jealousy, but it looked more like anger. He forced himself to put a lock on the desire to haul her up to her toes for a kiss that would knock the breath out of her. He wanted desperately to feel that rush of heat again. He wanted to feel it again and again. More important, he wanted her to feel it. Then there would be no way in hell she could push him away.
Instead, he touched her arm, felt her stiffen almost imperceptibly. Well, damn. “I know that was tough for you,” he said gently.
Her gaze shifted to his face, and as her eyes narrowed, something he’d never seen before flickered in them. The intensity of it startled him, and he almost stepped back. “What?”
She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tugged him forward. He stumbled against her, knocking her back into the passenger side of his SUV. Before he could right himself, alarmed that he might have hurt her, her mouth was on his. Her tongue drove all reasonable thought from his brain.
* * *
Bailey felt the moment his stunned surprise vanished. His weight, pinning her awkwardly against the SUV, shifted. As he eased back, he clamped an arm around her waist to plaster her body against him. His free hand fisted in the hair at the back of her head.
This kiss was as mind-blowing as the first, except this time it was instantly mind-blowing. No warm-up necessary. Just sudden, intense heat that made her entire body hum. She couldn’t think, didn’t want to. She was so very tired of thinking.
God, the man could kiss.
She lost herself in it, lost herself in him as color burst behind her eyelids. Fireworks, she thought dimly. Huh.
Everything was hot: The sun bearing down. His body pressed against her. His mouth, ravaging, destroying her senses. The want that shot through her so sharply she could have moaned with it.
She felt his heart thundering under the palm she braced on his chest before she slid her hands up, wound her arms around his neck and clung to him, hoping, praying that he wouldn’t end it too soon.
She imagined that diving head first out of an airplane at twelve thousand feet felt exactly like this. The punch of terror as you first went into free fall, followed by the heart-in-your-throat thrill, the earth, green and lush, rushing up at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. She wanted to wait until the very last second to yank the ripcord.
And then he gentled the kiss. His fingers in her hair relaxed, and her pulse stuttered, tripped.
Oh God, oh God, don’t let go yet.
He didn’t. But now his lips slid over hers, so slow, so gentle, that she felt as if the air had been sucked out of her lungs. A roar began in her ears. And she began to float.
She couldn’t breathe and didn’t care. Compared to this, breathing was highly overrated.
When he finally shifted back, he didn’t release her, his chest rising and falling rapidly against her. His thigh had found its way between her legs, and a hard bulge rested against her hip.
Her knees threatened to buckle. When she finally managed to drag in some air, she felt as if she’d been held underwater for too long.
Cole kissed her again, quickly, sweetly, before resting his forehead against hers. “What just happened?” he asked.
His voice was so thick with longing that it sent a lash of excitement zinging through her. She did that to him. “I kissed you,” she said, her own voice husky and breathless.
“I wouldn’t call what you just did to me something as mundane as a kiss. But semantics aside, why?”
She sifted her fingers through the soft hair at the nape of his neck. Touching him, letting him touch her, made her feel reckless, daring. She imagined throwing open the castle door and shaking out a welcome mat that was dusty from being folded up in the foyer for far too long. Come on in! “You checked her out,” she said with a shrug.
“Checked who out?”
She laughed low. “Good answer.”
“So that’s all I had to do to get you to melt? Check out someone else?”
“I wanted to deck her when she looked at you like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like she wanted to eat you alive.”
He was obviously enjoying himself. “I didn’t notice.”
“Yes, you did. But I appreciate you saying that.”
“Who knew that the way to Bailey Chase’s heart was through pure, unadulterated jealousy?”
She frowned, smoothing her hand over the front of his shirt, aching to dive in and feel bare flesh under her palms. Her pulse tripped into a gallop. She couldn’t remember ever being so eager to get a man into bed. “It was more than that,” she said.
“I don’t care. I’ve got you where I want you.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re very cute after you’ve been ravished.”
Her heart gave an ominous thud. He’d kissed her nose, for God’s sake. It seemed the man had no clue what he was getting himself into. “I should warn you, Goodman. I’m a mess.”
“Well, I’m in tip-top shape emotionally. No baggage here. No, siree. Not even carry-on.”
She laughed. “No, siree?”
He grinned. “That part a little too earnest?”
Feeling bold, she pressed her hip against the bulge of his erection. “There’s another part that’s pretty earnest.”
He dropped his head back with a shudder. “God, woman. You’re killing me.”
She planted a wet kiss at the base of his throat. “Not so lame and pathetic after all, am I?”
He cupped her face in palms that felt as if he’d held them to a fire. “I think that might have been the smartest thing I’ve ever said.”
She cocked her head. “How so?”
“Bailey, darling, it’s no secret that you can’t stand to pass up a challenge.”
Darling? Oh, Lord.
She’d been managing to hold the alarm at bay—what the hell was she doing?—but it was growing fast. She’d sworn that she would never again make herself vulnerable to a man. But Cole wasn’t a careless man, she reminded herself. And besides, no one here had declared undying love and commitment. Maybe all they’d have was a couple of steamy kisses and perhaps later some phenomenal sex and that’d be the end of it.
Fighting the fear back, she said, “I really do have an assignment in half an hour.”
“More like twenty minutes.”
She smiled, imagining showing up at the retirement home to take photos, looking as if she’d just been kissed senseless against the side of a truck. “Don’t you have work to do today?”
“I’m on the schedule tonight. Cops beat. Bert had the nerve to go on vacation.” He brushed his lips over hers, just barely skimming them. “Though there are certain other things I’d much rather be doing.”
Her heartbeat slammed into the next gear. Oh, God, was she ready for that? Oh, yes, she thought, her mouth going dry as he nibbled his way toward her ear. She was more than ready. But what about afterward? Would she be ready for more or ready to run?
His teeth sank gently into her earlobe, and she opened her eyes to nearly blinding sunlight, surprised that she had closed them without realizing it. “It’s probably best that we take it slow, don’t you think?” she asked, breathless all over again.
He returned to
her lips for a fast kiss, his tongue just glancing off of hers. “Going slow with you … not going to happen,” he murmured against her mouth.
The carnal images that swirled through her head nearly made her moan. No doubt, sex with him would short-circuit her brain far more thoroughly than a couple of passionate kisses.
“You might have to learn some control, Goodman.”
He took her hand and drew her away from the SUV so he could open the door for her. “Chase, if you call me Goodman one more time, I’m going to ravish you right here.”
She shot him a wicked smile. “That sounded like a challenge.”
Chapter 32
Cole couldn’t concentrate. Nothing was going on anyway. The scanner traffic had been dead, other than a fire call that had turned out to be a false alarm.
The newsroom was virtually empty. The only noise came from halfway across the office, where the copy desk folks raced to make deadline, swearing loudly at glitchy computers and stories that didn’t fit. He was used to the din and ignored it.
And thought about Bailey. It killed him that he’d had to work tonight. He would have preferred to whisk her away somewhere and … well, screw her brains out.
He smiled ruefully at the crude thought. He planned to use far more finesse than that when the time arrived, but for now all he seemed able to do was think in such simple-minded sentences. She’d fried his synapses with that kiss.
So unexpected. So unlike Bailey.
He’d seen in her eyes that she’d shocked herself. Within minutes, she’d been trying to work through how to retreat, and no doubt she would have everything figured out by the next time he saw her. But he wouldn’t let her back off. As soon as she started making excuses, he’d plant his mouth on hers and let his tongue do the talking.
That she couldn’t deny.
His phone chirped, and he snatched it up. “Goodman.”
“Cole, it’s Kathleen.”
He sat back in his chair, disappointed. He’d hoped to hear Bailey’s sultry voice. “Hey, Kath. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.” Seven hours had passed since he and Bailey had left the FBI agent’s office. Seven hours since Bailey had made his eyes cross …