A woman with a kid.
A really super-terrific kid, whose smile was almost as appealing as his mother’s.
It was one hell of a package deal.
Whoa, Nellie. He put a rein on those horses before he found himself flattened by the pitter-patter of little hooves. There were absolutely, positively no deals to be made here, because he had nothing to bring to the table. He lived in another state. And his job kept him on the road nearly four days out of seven.
Not to mention the fact that he was a confirmed… well, womanizer wasn’t exactly the word. That indicated that he lacked respect for women, which he didn’t. He genuinely admired and liked women. He liked a lot of women. And in general the feeling was reciprocal.
There was absolutely no room in his life for any type of commitment.
“Shit!” Clay almost drove his truck off the Cooper River Bridge when that traitorous thought entered his head. Not that he was afraid of commitment. Exactly. Hell, he’d had relationships before, hadn’t he?
But not after a few days’ acquaintance. And not with a woman who came as part of a set.
Cringing, he vividly recalled busting Justin’s brother Jordan’s chops quite recently for pretty much the same thing.
“Christ, Copeland.” Clay scrubbed his hand over his face and tried to think. What had he consumed today that had turned his mind to mush? It must have been that last, high-intensity spin on the Tilt-O-Whirl, combined with a boatload of sugar and saturated fat that had managed to pickle his brain.
Of course, it hadn’t impaired his second most highly functioning organ, which even now was protesting the fact that he’d done the decent thing and tried to make love to Tate inside. If he’d kept his big mouth shut, he probably could have opened his fly, adjusted her position by a couple inches, and had this whole little dilemma taken care of.
Right now he’d be driving home physically sated, thinking clearly, and… feeling like a total jerk.
Tate was simply too special to be treated like a piece of… hell, he couldn’t even think it. Putting her name and ass in the same sentence made him want to punch his own face.
There was an edge here, and he was walking dangerously close to it. And whatever lay on the other side was scary as hell.
Deciding that he really, really needed to get some sleep, he pulled his vehicle in beside Justin’s, a little cheered that his friend was home. If he didn’t have to work tomorrow night, they’d go out and paint the town red.
Clay opened the back door, which Justin had thoughtfully left unlatched, and wandered in to find his friend sprawled on the leather sofa. He was stripped down to his underwear again – boxer shorts, this time, at least – and watching the evening news. He looked dazed and a little groggy.
Justin looked him over skeptically. “What the hell happened to you? You look like you came out on the losing end of a food fight.”
Until then, Clay honestly hadn’t noticed how much crap his clothes had accumulated. He was smeared with ketchup, chocolate, dust, grease and God knew what else. Plus he had the strange and sudden certainty that there was something lodged between his front teeth.
Shit. Had that been there when he’d been kissing Tate? No wonder she’d told him to get out.
“Carnival food,” Clay explained, as he crashed into the recliner. He noticed there was gum stuck to the toe of his left shoe.
Justin raised one dark brow. “Was it worth it?”
If you called a bad case of indigestion, a fortune spent to win a stupid purple bear, a nice foray into the complexities of trying to seduce a woman while in the presence of her young son, not to mention a brief stopover into everyone’s favorite nightmare – child abduction – worthwhile, he guessed he hadn’t come away empty handed.
Then he thought about the feel of Tate’s soft lips as they raced over his, and the look on Max’s face when he’d called him his deputy.
And the way his stupid frickin’ heart had swelled all out of proportion when he’d walked – just walked – holding both of their hands.
He’d gotten more out of the day then he’d bargained.
“It was fun,” he told Justin with a shrug.
Being a guy, Justin considered the subject dropped and pushed the volume button up on the remote.
Just before the sports could be recapped, an aggressively groomed brunette with a microphone filled the screen. A large Ferris wheel dominated the background, spinning gaily amidst a blinking array of lights. Clay sat mesmerized, a sinking feeling beginning to pull at his already abused stomach. He did a little mental cataloguing, filing this under Things That Did Not Bode Well.
He just knew that woman was going to find a way to drag him into this.
He sat rigidly as the reporter began talking.
“Traveling carnivals are as ubiquitous to the American landscape as baseball and apple pie. But tonight, this slice of Americana set the stage for tragedy, as thirteen-year-old Casey Rodriguez disappeared from the area surrounding this Ferris wheel right behind me, where she’d been waiting for a family member to finish the ride. Law enforcement officials on the scene – which included local sheriff’s deputies and an FBI agent – have declined comment, explaining that their investigation into the girl’s disappearance is still pending. However, sources close to the investigation have indicated that there is suspicion of foul play. Volunteer search teams have fanned out tonight in the woods and fields surrounding the fairgrounds, hoping to find some clue that might lead to the discovery of the lost teen’s whereabouts.”
Here, the camera panned to show several policemen and volunteers on the scene, and then cut to some earlier footage that included Casey Rodriguez’s mother. The reporter kept babbling, but Clay focused in – as did the camera – on an interesting tableau in the background. Clay, with his arm around Max and Tate, was deep in discussion with one of the deputies who’d been among the first responders. The cameraman had the perfect angle to all but zoom in on the badge on Clay’s hip.
Shit, Clay thought again. Wasn’t that just dandy? They’d made it seem like he was a participant in the investigation. So when that little girl’s body turned up in a ditch they could point fingers at the feds.
Then Justin finally woke up to what was happening and cranked up the volume even more.
“Hey man. You’re on TV.” His tired voice was mystified.
As Justin – and the rest of the Channel Five viewing audience – watched with interest, Clay dropped a kiss on the little boy’s head before turning his mouth toward the child’s mother. Then he put his arm around her and squeezed. Possessively.
Justin’s brow raised as the camera panned back to the reporter, who wrapped up the segment with a grim smile. “This is Paige Lowell reporting for Action Five News.”
He turned around and smirked at Clay.
“Fun. Yeah.”
Clay sat there, numb, not because he’d been pretty much name-dropped – those three little initials were like fairy dust sprinkled magically to increase the case’s sensationalism and thus the channel’s ratings – but because he’d just watched his behavior with his own eyes.
And the verdict wasn’t pretty.
He could circle around, backtrack and bluster all he wanted, but he’d just seen the irrefutable evidence.
“Shit.”
It had become his favorite word.
With the sound of Justin’s laughter as an exit score, Clay heaved himself out of the chair and hauled his commitment-phobic, way-too-busy-for-a-relationship, down-for-the-count ass off to bed.
CHAPTER NINE
“WHAT the hell were you thinking?”
Billy Wayne popped the second contact from his gritty eyes, blinking several times before sliding his gaze toward JR. The smaller man was standing across the room, clutching the remote in his fist. If Billy Wayne hadn’t already shaved his hair, the heat of his cousin’s glare would have singed it.
JR rarely lost his temper – he was colder than an Eskimo’s tit – and to
see him so close to boiling was something of a novelty.
Billy Wayne tossed the disposable lens into the trash can next to the sofa, crossing his booted feet on the cheap oak coffee table. The place they were using was a dump, and he missed the luxury of his condo in Atlanta. It had been a long time since he’d lived out in the boondocks like this, and the memories the dingy little house brought back set his teeth on edge.
He didn’t need JR’s attitude to send his own temper simmering.
“I got the girl – a virgin, I might add – and no one made me or followed. Even if some people saw me talking to her, they’re going to describe me as a dark-skinned, brown-eyed man with a full head of hair.” He pointed to his bald head, from which he’d recently removed his wig. “It’s not like they had hidden cameras and facial recognition technology at that damn carnival. Who’s going to recognize me like this?”
Despite the fact that he had an extremely distinct appearance, Billy Wayne was decent with disguises – not as good as JR, who could be old, young, dark, fair and everything in between – but decent. The only thing that really tripped him up was his overabundance of muscles, which he stubbornly refused to do anything about.
It was the one legacy from his piece-of-shit father that he didn’t actually hate the man for. Norman Sparks had beaten and ridiculed him as often as not, but the steroids and weightlifting he’d pushed Billy Wayne into had given him the means to get even.
In fact, he’d taken the first body building trophy he’d won and beat his old man half to death.
Vaguely aware that JR was still glowering, he glanced at the TV. The news anchor had just titillated the audience by dropping hints about the girl’s disappearance, with the full story coming up at eleven.
True, having their newest piece of merchandise bandied about on the evening news wasn’t exactly standard operating procedure, but all in all Billy Wayne thought that JR was overreacting. They already had a buyer lined up to take her off their hands, so it wasn’t like they even had to advertise the girl in their usual circles. They’d simply complete the transaction, the case would grow cold, and that would be the end of the sordid little story.
He said as much, and amused himself by watching steam practically rise from his cousin’s blond head.
Man, he’d charmed a sweet little girl and pushed JR over the edge, while he himself maintained a firm hold on his temper.
Was this a banner night or what?
JR pinched the bridge of his nose and brought himself under control. This was the second inexcusable miscalculation Billy Wayne had made – the first being beating one of the girls to death because he couldn’t get it up for the camera, then selling the footage as a snuff film behind JR’s back.
He was beginning to think his cousin had gotten careless.
Carelessness and a life of crime were two things that didn’t mix.
Yes, this girl was a good find, and yes, they likely already had a buyer. But snatching a kid who would be missed right away was not only risky, it was unbelievably arrogant.
Combine arrogance with carelessness and you have a recipe for disaster. That particular combination brought even the cleverest of criminals down.
And if Billy Wayne went down, he’d try to take JR with him. That was one thing he positively could not allow.
JR watched Billy Wayne watching him, and visibly shook off his rage. Angry confrontations were not his style, as they were usually counterproductive.
Two pairs of blue eyes held each other’s gaze until the newscast began in earnest. When a reporter came onto the screen with a Ferris wheel looming large behind her, JR cranked the volume and then stood, hands on hips, waiting to assess the damage. They might have to cut their losses, get rid of the girl, and pull out of Charleston if this thing attracted too much attention.
The brunette started mouthing off about baseball and apple pie. And about thirty seconds into the newscast, dropped an unexpected bomb.
There was an FBI agent involved in the investigation.
Now, what the hell were the Feebs doing sticking their noses into a missing persons case that wasn’t even three hours old? They had jurisdiction over kidnappings, but there should have been no indication that the girl had left the fairgrounds under anything but her own free will.
Behind him, Billy Wayne began to make angry noises of protest, but JR stopped him with a quelling look.
Then the camera panned out, showing a blond man and what looked to be his family. JR noted the badge on his hip. He was dressed casually – not standard government issue – and was holding onto a dark-haired woman and a sleeping child.
From that JR surmised that the man probably had been off duty. Simply a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Which meant the FBI wasn’t hot on their trail.
Lucky thing for Billy Wayne.
Then, just as JR was about to lose interest – after all, the locals would never be able to catch them – the off duty FBI agent kissed his wife on the mouth. As she turned, JR caught a glimpse of her face.
Memories long buried erupted to the surface.
He tilted his head. Squinted his eyes. He couldn’t be certain.
The last time he’d seen her in person had been outside a crowded courthouse. She hadn’t seen him, of course – he hadn’t wanted anyone to see him, to know that he’d been drawn as helplessly as a fish on a line – so he’d dressed as a homeless bum. It had been his first attempt at disguise.
And he’d kept up with what you could call the main players for a number of years afterward.
Until…
Well. Until there hadn’t been any reason to keep up with them any longer.
Anger crept slowly back in, an unwelcome visitor with muddy feet, messing up the inner rooms he’d swept clean.
The woman turned more fully toward the camera, and doubt fled out the door so recently opened by his intrusive guest. It was her.
Then his gaze slid toward the sleeping child.
A boy.
Tate Hennessey had a son.
An emotion even more foreign than anger caused the remote he held to tremble.
CHAPTER TEN
SHIT.
It was Clay’s very first thought of the morning. Before he’d showered, before he’d had coffee, before he’d even taken a leak, he had his cell phone in his hand.
And what, he asked himself, was he planning to do with it?
Call Tate?
Saying what, exactly?
Hi Sugar, it’s me. You know that man you kicked out of your life last night? The one who has so far managed to drag you into an almost-mugging, give a peep show to your mother and your kid, disabuse any wide-eyed notions you might have about my big, bad FBI abilities to locate a missing teenager, and who all but forced himself upon you in my car’s front seat?
The one who is in town for no more than a few more days and has absolutely nothing to offer other than a couple of dates and some hair-raising sex, and will leave you and your little boy with some nice memories and a stupid purple bear?
Yeah. That’s the one. So do you want to have dinner tonight?
Double shit. He’d lost his ever-loving mind.
Clay wondered exactly when he’d gone from being Clay Copeland, expert on human behavior, easygoing bachelor and master of the fine art of Avoiding Entanglements With Women, to Clay Copeland – total head case.
Maybe he could find a way to engrave those new credentials on his badge.
Forget Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity. FBI – as pertaining to himself – now stood for Full Blown Idiot.
As he lay there in Justin’s guest room watching the morning light dance through the blinds, he realized that somehow, in the past few days, he’d succumbed to what countless hours of putting himself in the mindset of some of the country’s most evil and diabolical killers hadn’t managed to do. He’d gone off the deep end, blown a fuse, gone postal or whatever you want to call it.
Because the first thought he’d had this morning, t
he last notion in his head before he’d succumbed to fatigue – hell, the dreams that had plagued him all night – had all revolved around how exactly he was going to get his hands on Tate.
Not that he’d stop with his hands.
Oh no.
He wanted his mouth, and his tongue, and his… everything to suddenly fuse themselves to her like some kind of parasitic growth.
He wanted to taste her, to consume her, to frickin’ devour her. And then start the entire process again. He wanted… Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted.
Liar. He did, too.
He wanted to have Max crawl into bed with him in the morning, and for it to be perfectly okay for him to be there.
Because Tate would be there.
On a regular basis.
Really regular.
Like every day.
He felt himself freefalling into complete and utter mental chaos. “Shit, shit, shit.”
When the phone in his hand started ringing, Clay nearly did that in his pants. “Copeland,” he sighed into the phone, trying to keep the tone-of-a-man-who-has-lost-it out of his voice.
He sort of hoped it was his boss. Cutting his vacation short. Getting him out of this rabbit hole he’d fallen into so that the world could start making sense again.
“Agent Copeland? This is Deputy Jones with the Bentonville sheriff’s department. We spoke to each other last night?”
Well thank God. Law enforcement. He felt familiar ground begin to grow under his feet. “Yes, this is Agent Copeland. How can I help you, Deputy Jones?”
“Well, Agent Copeland, I understand that you’re on vacation, but I was hoping you might be able to carve out some time today to come down to the station and help us out. We put out some feelers last night to some of the other law enforcement agencies in the area, and, well… we’re beginning to think that we might have a situation that could benefit from your expertise.”
Ask and ye shall receive, Clay thought. It was his job to be on hand to assist the locals if they should need it. And concentrating on work should help keep his mind off Tate. “Absolutely,” Clay answered, sitting up in the bed and glancing toward the alarm clock on the nightstand. Eight a.m. There were still almost twelve hours left in that critical twenty-four hour period. He didn’t hold out a lot of hope that they’d find Casey Rodriguez within that time, but he was thankful that the Sheriff was proactive enough to want to bring him into it.
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