A Wicked Seduction

by Janelle Denison

  The waiter arrived, delivering two cups of steaming coffee with their slices of triple-layer chocolate cake. He poured cream into his coffee, then took a bite of the rich dessert which again reminded him of his time spent with Jo, but his mother held off on sampling her confection. Now it was her brows that creased and warned him she had something more serious to discuss.

  “I know I’ve never said as much, but all I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy, Dean,” she said quietly.

  His mother’s words touched him deeply. “It’s taken me a while to figure that out for myself, too, but I think I finally have a handle on what I want and need to do at this point in my life.”

  “Oh?” she asked, seemingly catching the underlying thread of foreshadowing in his tone.

  He washed down a bite of the chocolate cake with a sip of coffee, and didn’t mince words. “I’ve had an offer for the company, and I’ve decided to sell Colter Traffic Control.”

  Instead of the dread or fear he’d anticipated, her features expressed visible relief. “Will you think I’m an awful mother if I tell you that I’m glad?”

  His brows rose. “Why would I think that?”

  “Because I was hoping you’d sell the company from the day your father died,” she said. “I always suspected that you took over the business out of obligation, but I think I always knew deep in my heart that given tangible choices, you wouldn’t have chosen to carry on your father’s legacy.”

  Dean’s jaw nearly dropped at that revelation. “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?”

  A small, apologetic shrug lifted her shoulders. “It’s something you had to come to realize for yourself, and I didn’t want you to resent me for making the suggestion of letting go of your father’s business.”

  He shook his head, stunned. “I had no idea.”

  “I know.” Emotion tightened her voice, and she reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “For all your father’s faults, I do have to say you inherited his best qualities. You’re extremely dedicated and you take your responsibilities seriously once you make up your mind to do something. Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of what you did, and I understand your reasons without even verbalizing them, but it’s time for you to make your life what you want it to be.”

  “And you? You’ll be okay?” he asked, needing to hear from his mother that his decision wouldn’t hurt her in any way or make her feel any less secure.

  “I’m more than okay, Dean.” She inhaled a slow breath before going on. “After living with your father for so many years and never really understanding his way of thinking, I just didn’t know what it was that would make you content and satisfied, if that makes sense. When you took over the business after your father died, I thought you did it because that’s what you wanted. Yet over the years I’ve seen you sacrifice so much to keep the company successful and thriving. Now, as a mother talking to her son, not to the single-minded businessman you’ve been, I’m so pleased to see you finally making your life and future a priority.”

  He smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “And now, I have something to share with you, too.” She toyed nervously with her fork, then revealed, “I’ve been seeing someone for the past few months.”

  More surprises, but Dean supposed this evening was a night for revelations. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You always seemed so busy and distracted, and I never imagined that things would turn so serious so quickly. Like you and your Jo, I’ve fallen in love with Ted, and I think it’s time the two of you met.”

  He grinned broadly. “Mom, I think that’s wonderful, and I’d love to meet him.”

  “He treats me like a queen, dotes on me, and makes me feel so pampered and spoiled.” She blushed like a young girl in the throes of a first crush. “I’m not used to that kind of attention, but I have to say I do like it.”

  Dean laughed, enjoying his mother’s newfound happiness. “You deserve every bit of the attention, so enjoy it.”

  “Oh, I plan to.” Her eyes sparkled with mischievous delight as she sipped her coffee. “So, tell me, what do you plan to do once you sell the company?”

  Dean figured it would take a good four to six months to get all his personal business in order, and then he’d be free to strike out on his own, pursue interests, and start over. “I’m going to move to San Francisco.”

  “To be near Jo?” his mother guessed.

  “Partly,” he said, but knew he couldn’t count on the relocation making any difference with Jo if she wasn’t willing to commit herself to him and a relationship. “I really like the city and I know there are a ton of opportunities there, or wherever I might look. I just have to figure out which opportunity appeals the most.”

  “It seems you and I have finally learned to put ourselves first for a change, haven’t we?”

  “Yeah, we have.” And it amazed him how one very special, stubborn, vulnerable woman could bring about such a huge, life-altering change for him.

  Unfortunately, he faced the possibility of living the rest of his life without her.

  JO TOSSED HER PENCIL onto her desk and exhaled a heavy sigh. If the past two days without Dean were filled with such deep, emotional misery, she didn’t know how she was going to survive the rest of her life without him. She didn’t feel like eating, she couldn’t sleep at night, and her days were filled with distracting thoughts of him and their time together. She was even haunted by his final, parting words to her.

  When you’re ready to let go of the past and embrace the future, you know where to find me.

  Such a simple statement, yet she found it so much easier to bury herself in her work and try to block out the pain of losing Dean. She knew she was in denial, shying away from grasping the courage to believe in everything he offered and represented: a man who loved her, despite her flaws and imperfect past. Using work as an excuse to avoid facing her deepest insecurities was not only ineffective, it was the coward’s way out, she knew. And she abhorred that she lacked the internal fortitude to confront and reconcile her greatest weaknesses—which revolved around the inability to believe in herself, as well as forgive herself for the mistake that had ruled the past two years of her life.

  Closing the file on the new case she’d been working on, she stood and went to the window in her office, trying to shake off her disheartened mood. Unfortunately the bright sunshine and clear view offered no escape from her disturbing thoughts or the more sensual memories of Dean—memories that had a way of edging into her mind when she least expected them.

  “Jo, Roseanne Edwards is on line three for you.” Melodie’s voice drifted through the intercom on Jo’s desk, snapping her out of her bout of regret. “She says it’s an emergency.”

  “I’ll take the call,” she told Melodie, and moved back toward her desk.

  Roseanne, a new client, had arrived first thing that morning and literally begged Jo to take on her abduction case. Yesterday her husband, Michael, had violated the terms of his bail for assault and battery to his wife, blatantly ignored restraining orders, and had kidnapped their eight-year-old daughter, Lily, when she’d gone outside to check the mail. According to Roseanne, she and Michael were embroiled in a nasty divorce case over his excessive drinking and abuse, and she’d expressed fear that her husband might hurt the young girl, since he had violent tendencies. While the police had been informed of the abduction, she’d contacted Jo to secure her services to help track her husband.

  She picked up the receiver. “What’s up, Roseanne?”

  “He finally called,” the other woman said, her tone high-pitched and near hysterical. “I heard Lily crying in the background and he’s threatening to hurt her if I don’t promise to cancel our divorce proceedings. I told him I’d do anything just so long as he lets her go, but he hung up on me and hasn’t called back. Oh, God, what am I going to do?”

  Jo tamped down the apprehension that tightened her own chest. “Roseanne, I’ll do whatever I can to find your daughter, but y
ou have to stay calm and focused for me.”

  “I’ll never forgive myself if he hurts Lily,” she said, her voice catching on a sob.

  “Nobody is going to hurt Lily, not if I can help it.” It was a promise Jo had no right to give, but she was compelled to offer hope and assurance to Roseanne in any way she could. “I need some personal information from you about your husband to try and track him down quickly.”

  “I’ll give you anything I have, just so long as you get my baby girl back.”

  It took Jo another five minutes to soothe the upset mother enough so that she could gather all the necessary account numbers, passwords, and authorization codes to run a trace on recent activity on their joint credit card accounts. The urgency of the case spurred her on, and once she hung up with Roseanne she jumped on the Internet and the phone to pull in long overdue favors from various sources. She contacted informants and even a retired detective her father used to be good friends with until she gained the valuable information she sought.

  Within three hours she’d discovered that Michael Edwards had recently used one of those joint credit cards to check into a low-rate motel in Concord, approximately half an hour outside of Oakland. The trace was a prime piece of evidence, and just what Jo needed to track and find the man holding his own daughter hostage.

  Gathering up her notes, she stuffed them into a file folder that also held Michael’s picture, a faxed copy of the restraining order he’d violated, as well as all the necessary paperwork she needed to arrest the man for breaching the terms of his bond agreement. Just as she reached for her shoulder holster, Cole walked into her office and came to an abrupt stop when he saw her quick movements as she secured her revolver against her left side.

  “Where are you off to?” he asked.

  Jo clenched her jaw in annoyance. She didn’t need an interrogation from her brother when time was of the essence, but she knew from experience that he’d never let her walk out the door without giving him an explanation. She kept it as succinct as possible. “I’m going to check a lead on the Edwards case.”

  Surprise transformed his taut features. “You know where Roseanne’s husband is?”

  Cole had been there that morning when Roseanne had sought Jo’s services, and knew the details of the case. “Possibly,” she replied, treading carefully with her answers. Slipping into her lightweight jean jacket, she adjusted the sides so it concealed her weapon and handcuffs. “I’ll have a better answer for you once I verify the information I was given.”

  He scowled at her. “The man is said to be armed and dangerous, Jo. I’ll have Noah go with you.” He turned, stuck his head out the door, and before Jo could stop him he yelled down the hall, “Melodie, send Noah into Jo’s office immediately.”

  Jo felt her temper rise and resisted the urge to pick up the brass paperweight on her desk and pitch it at her brother’s thick head. “I don’t need or want a baby-sitter, Cole. I can handle this case on my own.” Her tone was adamant, her words succinct.

  He didn’t seem to notice. “I’m not giving you a choice,” he refuted. “You either take Noah with you, or I take over the case.”

  His ultimatum struck her like a physical blow and once again made her all too aware that her brother didn’t trust her to handle things on her own.

  Noah entered the room on the tail end of Cole’s comment, took in the standoff and tension between brother and sister, and frowned. “What’s going on?”

  Cole waved a hand toward Jo, his expression creased with annoyance. “Jo’s following a dangerous lead and she’s going to get herself hurt, or worse.”

  Her cheeks heated with indignation, and she rounded her desk to close the distance between her and her brothers, feeling the onslaught of a long-overdue battle brewing deep within.

  “I’m going to tell you both exactly what’s going on,” she said, reaching deep inside for the kind of strength and fortitude she hadn’t allowed herself to grasp for too long. “I’m tired of being coddled and treated like I don’t know the business or what the hell I’m doing.” She pinned Cole with a direct look. “I just went through all this doubt and upheaval from you with Dean when I wanted you to trust in my instincts. Dean was and is an innocent man, and I was right. Yet here we are having this same conversation, with you questioning what I’m capable of, what I can handle, and if I’ll make the right decisions.” Her voice cracked, and she realized that she was just as much at fault for letting them overwhelm her with their take-charge personalities. Not anymore. “I’ve had enough of your overbearing, dominating attitudes.”

  Cole looked stunned by her outburst, obviously having no clue how she’d felt, while Noah regarded her with equal measures of surprise and amusement. Neither said a word, and she took advantage of the silence.

  “I love you guys,” she said, meaning the heartfelt declaration. “You’ve done so much for me and you’ve always been there when I needed you the most. When Mom died you took care of me, and when Dad passed away you both did your best to raise me. But you’ve also taken that responsibility to the extreme, beyond where it all should have ended when I graduated from college and decided to become a cop.”

  “And look at what happened,” Cole said gruffly, referring to Brian’s death.

  His reference hurt, but she pushed the sting aside, refusing to let anything deter her from this overdue discussion. “How long do you intend to remind me of the mistake I made? I know I screwed up, but I can’t dwell on the past forever. I have to trust in myself and my instincts again and I can’t do that if the two of you are constantly trying to shelter me from harm.”

  “We just don’t want you to get hurt,” Noah tried to explain.

  “And I understand that. I really do.” She swallowed the tight knot in her throat so she could finish. “I might not have given either of you much reason to believe in me because of what happened in the past, but there are some things I have to do for myself. And while I’d really appreciate your support, if you can’t accept my decisions or trust in my abilities, I can go to work for another agency who will. The choice is yours.”

  Cole wasn’t at all pleased that she’d managed to turn the ultimatum back to him, yet there was a glimmer of pride in the depth of his eyes that gave Jo hope. “We don’t want you going anywhere else,” he said, his tone sincere.

  Relief rushed through her, yet she didn’t let her victory show. “Then we start compromising.” Which was the basis of any good, solid relationship, she thought, drawing on the advice that a smart older woman had offered her and Dean. “I’ll be extra careful when I’m out in the field, and you stop doubting what I’m trained to do and quit smothering me.”

  “Fair enough,” Noah said, answering for the two of them.

  “Then we have a deal.” She smiled for the first time in days, and grabbed her folder of information off her desk. “And now, I’m off to check out my lead…on my own.”

  This time, no one stopped her, and it was such a liberating feeling to walk out the door without an argument hanging over her head or her brothers’ words filling her with doubts and insecurities. Now she had a case to concentrate on, and a little girl to bring home to her worried mother.

  She made the drive to Concord in twenty-four minutes, pulled into the shabby motel parking lot where Roseanne’s husband had last made a credit card transaction, and brought her vehicle to a stop in front of the registration office. She entered the building and explained to the young clerk behind the desk the urgency of her situation and that she needed Michael Edwards’s room number. He resisted at first, citing motel policies, but was ultimately swayed to release the information when she’d let him glimpse her holster and weapon and gave a quick flash of her P.I. badge.

  Michael’s room was on the second floor, and Jo silently approached the door and listened for sounds or voices. She heard a man’s rough voice shouting, his words slightly slurred, followed by a loud thump, and a little girl’s painful scream.

  A chill slithered through Jo and
her heart pumped furiously in her chest. She had to reach Lily, knew the young girl’s life was in danger, but Jo also realized that even if she could get Michael to open the door he most likely would keep the safety chain secured so she couldn’t get inside. And she wouldn’t risk antagonizing the violent man and possibly have him take his anger out on his daughter any more than he already had.

  Frustration and fury swirled within her, and she returned to her vehicle to call for police backup from her cell phone. She was assured that a squad car would be there within fifteen minutes. To Jo, that seemed like an eternity when a little girl’s life was at stake.

  Just as she disconnected the line with a muttered curse, a small compact car zipped through the parking lot and came to a stop right below Michael’s room. The neon sign on the roof of the car indicated pizza delivery, and since the parking lot was near empty of guest vehicles she hoped and prayed that Michael Edwards was the one who’d had a hankering for an Italian meal.

  She wasted no time pocketing her Mace and grabbing a wad of cash from her purse, then hopped out of the Suburban and stopped the delivery person as he started up the concrete steps. He was so startled by her sudden appearance that when she asked what room he was making the delivery to, he gave her the number, which matched Michael’s.

  “I need to deliver that pizza,” she told the teenager.

  A skeptical look pinched his features and he shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.”

  She didn’t have time to cajole his cooperation, so she opted for the hard-line approach. “Look, I’m a cop and the man in the room is not only on the run from the law, but he’s prone to violence. Trust me when I say I’m doing you a huge favor by delivering this pizza for you.” Fear lit his pale blue eyes, and she took advantage of his apprehension and retrieved the cardboard box from his grasp, then shoved the bills into his hand. “There’s enough to cover the cost of the pizza, plus a huge tip for you.”