Every Waking Moment

by Meryl Sawyer

“Just a scone, please.”

  “I was expecting Vanessa,” Caleb said, taking Shane by surprise.

  Vanessa? Not Mrs. Maxwell? “She had pressing business. That’s why she sent us.”

  Shane knew Vanessa had spoken with this man on the telephone. Obviously, she hadn’t told him about her failing health. Equally as apparent, this was a guy who liked to get real chummy.

  He was already using everyone’s first name—as if they were his friends. Basset’s friends? Now there’s a depressing thought.

  “We want to verify that your adopted daughter is my mother’s—”

  “Oh, she is. She is,” Caleb cut off Taylor. “We discussed it on the telephone. Your mother agreed that it would be just too much of a coincidence for me to have adopted Renata in such a small town as Titusville just after she’d given birth less than twenty miles away.”

  “Me?” Taylor asked. “Don’t you mean ‘us?’ Weren’t you married when you adopted Renata?”

  Damn good point. Taylor had picked up on his word choice.

  “Of course.” Caleb sounded unfazed. “But Mary Jo has been gone so long now. I’ve been a single father since Renata was five. There hasn’t been an ‘us’ for almost thirty years.”

  “You never remarried?” This from Brianna. “A man of your taste and refinement?”

  Shane nearly choked on his scone and was forced to wash it down with a swig of tea. Caleb went for it, beaming a white-toothed grin at Brianna. Who could blame him? She was a knockout with a ready smile, unlike Taylor who rarely smiled.

  “I was too busy raising Renata and working to bother with romance.”

  Yeah, yeah. Right.

  “What proof do you have that this baby you adopted is Vanessa Maxwell’s daughter?” Shane asked.

  “Proof?” Caleb asked as if Shane were speaking in tongues. “I explained that a fire had destroyed our home. Everything we owned went up in smoke. I couldn’t even save our wedding album or the family photographs.”

  Well, hell. This just kept getting better and better.

  Shane had to give him credit, though. The man sounded sincere, but with this much money at stake anyone could deliver an Oscar-worthy performance.

  “What year was that?”

  It took Caleb a second too long to say, “Nineteen eighty-seven.”

  “That was in Titusville?”

  “No. No. We were living in Brigg’s Crossing.”

  “That’s in Alabama, too?”

  “No. It’s in Arkansas near Little Rock.”

  Shane nodded, thinking it shouldn’t be too hard to verify the fire. Of course, what the family photographs would have shown was a whole other question. He reached into his sport coat’s inside pocket for the small pen and notepad.

  “Look, we’re going to need to verify a few facts before—”

  “That’s not what Vanessa said.”

  “My mother is a little impetuous at times,” Taylor informed Caleb in the same cool tone she used on Shane so often. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “It’s a fact finding mission,” Brianna added in a voice meant to defuse the tension.

  “We need to prove or disprove your claim,” Shane said, again wishing they had time to run a DNA test.

  “I’m not claiming anything,” Caleb said.

  “You contacted Missing!,” Shane reminded him.

  “I thought Renata deserved to meet her real mother.”

  Shane said, “There must be something we could take back to Mrs. Maxwell that would verify your statements.”

  “Talk to Renata,” Caleb said with a wave of his hand toward the garden beyond the window.

  “She’s here? I thought you said—”

  “At this time of day? No. She’s out shopping. But she lives in the slave quarters out back.”

  Beyond the small garden was another house. Even at this distance, Shane could see it had been meticulously restored, unlike the outside of the compound facing the street.

  “When do you expect her to return?” Taylor asked.

  “She usually comes home between four and five.”

  Brianna checked her Rolex. “She’ll be here any minute. It’s almost five now.”

  Caleb smiled at Brianna, and Shane detected more than a casual hint of interest in the older man’s eyes. “Five in the morning. You know, just before sunrise.”

  “She can’t possibly be shopping until then,” Taylor said.

  “Shopping? Of course not. She’ll leave the shops and go directly to the club. Her act starts at eleven and finishes at two.” Caleb crossed his legs and gazed at the toes of his Hush Puppies. “You might want to watch her dance at Puss ’N Boots.”

  The luminous dial on Renata’s watch told her it was almost seven o’clock. How long had she been locked in here? She’d dozed off, losing track of time.

  That terrible man—what was his name—hadn’t left her, had he?

  No. That wasn’t what this jerk wanted. Since she’d bought her first bra at Walmart when she’d been twelve, Renata had known what men wanted.

  Sex.

  Once you got with the program life was simple. Most of the time.

  Dick-breath Caleb could complicate things, but only if she let him. This man was another story. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had kinky sex in the past, but she’d done her level best to stay out of dangerous situations.

  Until now.

  “Hey! Hey!” She banged on the door and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  For all the good it would do. She’d been taken to a shanty supported by rickety wooden stilts deep in the swampy part of the bayou. Nobody was around to hear her except the alligators.

  And the mosquitoes. She’d given up swatting them. They buzzed through the cracks between the shack’s wooden slats even though someone had tried to plug the gaps with flypaper.

  She hadn’t lost her mojo, had she? A dancer at the club told Renata a mojo was a good luck charm that came in the air. You couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it, but your mojo protected you, bringing good luck.

  Where was her mojo when she needed it?

  The dull thud of boots clacked against the wooden floor. A second later the door opened enough to let in a shaft of light from the lantern, the only light in the one-room shack. A fresh stream of air rife with the mossy, pungent smell of the bayou hit her damp body.

  “Ready to do what I say?” asked the gruff voice.

  Fuck off and die! Renata silently swallowed those words.

  “Yes. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  The door flung back, hitting the wall with a splintering sound like wood shattering. A gush of dank body odor engulfed her.

  A meat hook of a hand grabbed her long hair, flung her sideways, then dragged her from the closet. He pulled her across the rough plank floor. A splinter stabbed into her butt with the force of a knife.

  “Ow! Ow! Stop!”

  She couldn’t perform tonight with a red mark on her ass. But he didn’t pay any attention to her. The beast kept yanking on her hair until she thought he intended to scalp her.

  Suddenly, Puss ’N Boots seemed a distant memory.

  He let go of her hair and grabbed her arms, hauling her up to her knees, her face smack against the worn denim covering his crotch. He was fully erect, a bull of a man, suited to whores in Cajun dives along the bayou, not her.

  In her own right, Renata was a class act.

  Using both hands, he kept her face buried against his cock, her lungs forced to inhale the foulness of his body. His chest was bare and slick with oily sweat dribbling down from a damp mat of curly chest hair.

  She opened her mouth wide and bit down on his cock. The denim was worn, but enough protection to elicit a guttural moan of pleasure. She clamped down again and used more force this time.

  “Motherfucker!” He jumped away. “You’ll pay, bitch!”

  “Don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.

  The hulk of a man scooted sideways onto a pallet of straw. Even from a few
feet away, she smelled the rank odor of mildew and sex.

  “Strip,” he ordered, the words coming from between clenched teeth as he gripped his sore dick with both hands.

  She heaved herself to her feet, her legs numb and tingling from being imprisoned in the closet for so long. Swaying from the effort, not from any attempt to titillate, she slowly pirouetted, running her hands down her hips. The splinter in her ass throbbed like a tooth in need of a root canal, but she didn’t dare stop to pull it out.

  “Come on, big guy. Keep that boner up.”

  She flung her sheer blouse over her head and it swished through the heavy air. A kiss of coolness caressed her uplifted breasts, and she sighed, managing to turn the sound into a moan of delight.

  What would satisfy him? she wondered with renewed desperation.

  She unzipped her dress a scant inch at a time, revealing a navel that had become her trademark. Diamond studs circled her outtie belly button, surrounding a larger diamond dead in the center.

  With a flourish that masked a surge of pain from the splinter in her butt, she managed to fling her gown aside.

  “Oh, yeah, babe. Gimme more, else’n I’ll cut your pussy to ribbons.”

  She had no doubt he meant every word. With a few more gyrations, she shed the high heels that had caused blisters on her toes. Could she do this?

  She was down to the demi-bra that shoved her boobs skyward and a G-string. She strutted across the coffin of a room, then pivoted and headed back. A dark cloud of mosquitoes hovered overhead like a curse.

  From the bleak shadows a foot shot out. She stumbled and fell facedown in his lap. That’s when she felt the cold, sharp blade of the knife.

  With one precise flick of the blade, he inserted it between her breasts and slit the clasp on her bra. Her boobs tumbled forward, hitting him in the face. Beneath her tummy, a dangerous erection prodded at her.

  He sucked one nipple into his mouth while his broad hand shot between her legs, then found the opening. He stroked gently for a moment, his lips suckling with the same cadence, and she prayed her mojo had returned.

  “Oh, yes,” she murmured as if she were enjoying this.

  A second later, he flipped her onto her back and one swipe of his knife cut the G-string. He rammed into her like a bulldozer. Something ripped inside her, forcing out the scream she’d promised she wouldn’t let come.

  Tiny pinpricks of light exploded in the darkness behind her closed eyelids. Maybe Caleb was right, she decided.

  Enough of this shit.

  Chapter 5

  Taylor hesitated outside the door to Shane’s room. She didn’t know which was worse, dealing with her mother or with Shane Donovan. Her mother was totally obsessed with Renata Rollins. Vanessa was convinced this woman had to be her lost daughter.

  The last thing Taylor wanted was to have her mother’s final days ruined by charlatans after her money. Since meeting Caleb Bassett, Taylor was positive the man was an appealing impostor who would cause her mother needless pain.

  What did Shane think?

  They’d left Caleb and returned to the Windsor Court Hotel without Shane saying anything much except he was going to check the story Caleb had told them. Brianna hadn’t been helpful either, claiming Caleb was an unusual person, but he just might be telling the truth.

  No getting around it. Caleb Bassett had a way about him. That, combined with his good looks, could very well take in her mother.

  Taylor knocked and waited, listening to the thunder grumbling in the distance, promising more rain. She had her hand raised to knock again when the door swung open. Shane had pulled on a pair of khaki slacks and had zipped them up, but the button at the waist was undone and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  He’d just toweled off from the shower. His skin was still moist and his rebellious hair waved in different directions.

  “Taylor?” he said as if he didn’t recognize her.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  A beat of silence, then he stepped aside and she walked into the room. He had his laptop set up on the small round table in the corner. Even at this distance, she could see screen saver, the initials D. I. A., and an eagle.

  D. I. A.? What did that stand for?

  She turned to face him and found him looking at her in a way that was as blatantly sexual as if he were gazing at her from the same pillow. Meeting his fixed stare with an icy glance, she went into her professional mode, not wanting him to think for a second she’d come to his room for any other reason than business.

  “My mother called. She wanted to know what we thought. I explained how little information Caleb gave us, but she didn’t care. She’s convinced Renata Rollins is her daughter.”

  “That’s what she wants to believe.” Shane combed his wet hair with his fingers, but it didn’t help much. “Is that what you came to see me about? It couldn’t wait until dinner?”

  His teasing tone implied she had some other motive for visiting him.

  “No. I wanted to know if you’d found out anything,” she told him in a breathless rush. “The sooner I can persuade my mother we’re dealing with impostors, the better off she’ll be. I don’t want her last months to be ruined by false hopes.”

  “Don’t count on it.” Shane crossed the room in a few long strides, hit a key on the computer, and the screen went dark. “So far, what little Caleb Bassett told us appears to be the truth.”

  “He didn’t say anything that would prove—”

  “True, but when Peggy Sue Bassett—Renata’s real name if she’s who Caleb says she is—enrolled in first grade, her next of kin was listed as her father and her grandmother, Alma Bassett.”

  “The adoptive mother must have died the way he said,” Taylor replied, a flicker of compassion for Caleb replacing skepticism.

  She crossed the room so she could look into Shane’s eyes. This man was hard to read, and something about him kept disturbing her. She didn’t know how to talk to him except defensively.

  Well, she was going to have to learn. Taylor needed him to thoroughly investigate these people.

  “Alma was on welfare and so was Caleb,” Shane informed her. “It isn’t the profile of a man who could afford an expensive private adoption where you had to pay off a lawyer and the woman who handed over the baby.”

  “The wife’s family may have had money.”

  “There could be some other explanation.” Shane dropped into the chair facing his computer and closed the lid. “Bassett had a daughter, but it doesn’t mean she was adopted.”

  “True. Anything else?”

  “The Bassetts moved to Brigg’s Crossing when Renata was nine, after the grandmother had died. Caleb worked as an insurance salesman. The next year the house they were renting burned down, and they lost everything.”

  Taylor stifled a groan. “You think he’s telling the truth.”

  “What he’s told us so far seems true.”

  “You don’t think that man is charming but a bit off? The way he acted, the way he dressed, that house—”

  “He might have been working with glue a little too much.”

  It took Taylor a second to get it. “Very funny.”

  “You may not like Caleb Bassett, but what matters to me is verifying whether Renata is the missing baby or not.”

  “Unless we can prove they’re lying, my mother is going to want to meet Renata. Mother is already talking about bringing them both to Miami.”

  Taylor heard defeat and desperation in her own voice but couldn’t help it. She gathered her thoughts for a moment, then asked, “You found out all that online?”

  Shane nodded. “You’d be surprised what’s out there in cyberspace.”

  “Like why a seemingly poor man went to an attorney for a private adoption,” she replied, then waited while Shane studied her in silence. “Hold it. How old was Caleb when the baby was adopted?”

  “You’re smarter than you look.” Shane’s impudent grin canted to one side in a way some women might
have found charming or even sexy. It merely annoyed Taylor. “He was twenty-five.”

  “That’s awfully young to adopt a baby.”

  “Not if you knew—for certain—you couldn’t father a child.”

  “Doesn’t it seem unlikely a man that young living in a backwater town would have consulted a fertility expert?”

  “Maybe he had mumps in his teens, and they settled in his testicles. More likely, the mother knew she couldn’t have a baby. Women usually push to have children, not men, especially men so young.”

  “He never had another child, and he never remarried,” Taylor observed, thinking of Paul Ashton and knowing how it felt to lose the love of your life. The flicker of sympathy she’d felt moments ago intensified. Maybe she’d been too quick to judge Caleb Bassett.

  “He still lives near his daughter even though she’s a grown woman,” she said. “Strange.”

  Renata shouldered her way through the back door of Puss ’N Boots with only minutes to spare before her act began. “Buzz, get in here,” she yelled at the bouncer who kept the low life creeps from coming backstage.

  The three-hundred-pound ex-Marine lumbered over to her. “Hey, babe. What in hell happened? Did a trick go south on you?”

  “Sorta’, but I got paid plenty.”

  She grabbed his beefy wrist and pulled him into the makeshift excuse for a dressing room she shared with Cissy LaBuff. Cissy was onstage fan dancing, and as usual, her makeup was strewn across the dressing table. With a sweep of her arm, Renata sent open bottles and jars crashing to the floor.

  “Money talks, Buzz. Real loud.”

  “Yeah? All money ever says to me is bye-bye.”

  Renata almost laughed as she whipped off the red sundress she was wearing. Underneath she was buck naked. She knew Buzz had the hots for her, but seeing her undressed was nothing new. He was backstage all the time, and the girls pranced around naked while getting ready to perform.

  “Whatcha lookin’ for?” Buzz asked when she began to rifle through the drawers in the battered Formica dressing table.

  “Tweezers. Can’t you see that huge splinter in my ass?”

  Behind her Buzz cleared his throat. “They’re over there.” He edged by her and picked up the tweezers from the mess on the floor.