Warriors,Winners & Wicked Lies: 13 Book Excite Spice Military, Sports & Secret Baby Mega Bundle (Excite Spice Boxed Sets)

by Selena Kitt

  “He was a very high end dealer. He had twelve forged paintings and drawings in his house, but only the Hobbema was from Moon.” The other man winced. “San Diego PD put it down as coincidence. She wasn’t involved in anything else.”

  “Nothing but forging art and stealing jizz.” Nolan flipped through the meager contents of the folder to find the woman’s photo.

  He stared at the picture, but it didn’t have the answers he sought. It was hard to see anything noteworthy in the photo at all, considering the quality of the print. Only the side of the woman’s face was visible and the background was nearly too dark to make out what she was wearing. Still, the curve of her jaw seemed like a match, and the angle of her chin could possibly be the same.

  Maybe…maybe…but the black and white image in his hand didn’t come close to capturing the quiet caution of the woman on camera at the Barre Birth and Reproductive Center. It didn’t sizzle with the hidden vitality of the woman herself.

  Nolan threw the photo down in frustration. “How in the hell do they think anyone could make a positive ID from this?”

  “Ah, Findley, don’t underestimate the technology we have today. Computers have come so far.” The other agent leaned forward to tap the photo in about the spot the woman’s ear would be. “Side profiles are nearly as good as fingerprints, you know.”

  “I need more.” Nolan ran his gaze over the photo again. “This is a good start, though.”

  * * *

  A week later, Nolan found Weslyn Moon’s birth certificate. Another week after that, he found documents giving the state of Pennsylvania custody over her. He was surprised to learn that her mother had tried to remand her three children to the state when Weslyn was only two years old.

  Nolan looked into the paperwork, which took another month to track down. He used all the persuasive charm in his repertoire to get the clerks to let him have a peek, but the effort paid off—for his own curiosity, if not for the unofficial case he was working.

  Just days after a hospital stay in which Welsyn’s mother had been treated for broken ribs, she’d visited Child Protective Services. Over the course of a decade, Weslyn’s mother had also suffered broken wrists, legs, a fractured jaw and a handful of concussions. She was a clumsy woman. She had a terrible, fatal accident just days after the state came for her children. Her husband asked to take his children to their mother’s funeral, and the whole family disappeared for several years.

  Slipped through the cracks.

  When they resurfaced, ten years later and a thousand miles from where they’d started, they were a member down. Weslyn Moon’s sister was found in a ditch—bloody, broken and sexually assaulted before death. Weslyn had a broken leg. The state dug through the little that was known about the family and sent for the old case files from their previous home. Weslyn and her brother were taken from her remaining parent, but father and son were reunited in jail, which, in Nolan’s opinion, was exactly where the two abusive bastards belonged.

  Throughout the next month, Nolan gathered evidence of Weslyn’s time in foster care. Only one of her four homes was deplorable, the rest truly tried to reign in the lost and bitter little girl Weslyn had been. She had a juvenile record as a runaway—and opening those files had taken a lot of string-pulling on Nolan’s behalf. Whatever rebellion she’d possessed in her soul, however, came out in an unusually quiet resistance to authority. She was stubborn and reserved, and tended to stay away from home for days in a row, though she almost always came back.

  As a teenager, she didn’t get into fights, she didn’t steal and she didn’t commit major crimes. Predominantly trespassing, breaking curfew and skipping school, a few slaps on the wrist for being intoxicated in public—until her late teens, when she was picked up, high as hell and carrying a good deal of marijuana. It was enough to have her charged with distribution, but the court sentenced her to rehab instead.

  Thirty days later she got out. A week after that, she was admitted to the hospital with broken ribs. Like her mother, so long before. Her boyfriend was picked up for assault because the quiet little mouse had the brass balls to press charges. Then she fingered him for the weed and testified against him. She moved across country and he got a year in prison.

  The manila folder marked ‘Weslyn Marie Moon’ got thicker. Much thicker. And still Nolan kept looking for more information, more clues as to who the cautious, delicate criminal was. She haunted him day and night, until she was almost a memory, a fascinating companion in his search for the truth.

  He had to know more about her, had to learn everything he could.

  * * *

  “She’s become an obsession for you.”

  Nolan rocked back on his heels and tried not to scream at his superior. “No, sir. I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”

  “Four months, and half the information you’ve gotten has nothing to do with her crimes at the Reproductive Center, Findley.”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out if my ex put her up to this. You know that”

  “I also know your ex has denied any involvement.”

  “She’s known to lie, sir.”

  The Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo field office shook his head, but also started to hand Nolan a sheet of paper, before holding it just out of reach. “I shouldn’t give this to you. I should have had someone else take over your investigation a long time ago, Findley. Four months is way too long to be digging around a woman’s past for no reason.”

  “There is a reason,” Nolan snapped. “I told you, she forges art—”

  “Relax.” The other man shook the paper he held. “I’m giving this to you, aren’t I? That’s her address. Had to push a little, but a family planning clinic in Chicago finally admitted to taking her on as a patient.”

  Adrenaline slammed through Nolan’s body. Lightheaded, ears ringing and hands shaking, he accepted the paper and looked it over. A minor revolt took place in his chest. He couldn’t identify what he was experiencing, didn’t even know if there were enough words in the English language to describe it, but he struggled to keep his fingers from clenching the paper, and he locked his knees against their need to buckle.

  Her image flashed through his head. Quiet and reserved, pretty, fragile and delicate. And possibly pregnant with his child. The same image he’d seen day after day and night after night, haunting his dreams.

  It took three tries to form words. “Family planning?”

  “The clinic also focuses on general women’s health, too, Findley. Remember what that doctor in Vermont told you. It’s almost guaranteed those eggs never took inside her.”

  Still, still. Nolan breathed deep and held it in for as long as possible. His head swam, his pulse spiked. He didn’t want to think about the surge of hope that prodded at his sanity or what it possibly meant.

  He was about to get his own, personal Public Enemy Number One. That was all.

  “I’m going to need some time off,” he mumbled.

  Chapter 4

  The knock on the door had Weslyn Moon freezing in place. After all, when a woman lived alone in a motel room on that side of town, visitors didn’t just drop in. She’d paid for the month, so she knew it couldn’t be management and there was no one else with a reason to come calling.

  The knock turned into a bang.

  She crept toward the door, more aware of the flimsiness of the barrier than ever before. For the pittance she paid every week to stay at the motel, however, she couldn’t expect quality construction materials. Moving slow and steady, she carefully put her fingertips against the painted plywood and lifted to her toes to peer out the peep hole. Nothing. She eased back until her heels were on the floor.

  Somebody was out there. She could feel the stranger’s presence like a thunderstorm moving in—her whole body tingled under an electric force that seemed to pressurize the air in front of Weslyn’s face. Her heart pounded but she took deep breaths, determined to make good use of the breathing techniques she’d learned at t
he free classes she’d been taking. She rejected stress as an unwholesome and unnecessary inconvenience.

  The banging stopped. Weslyn would have relaxed, but for the weighted premonition racing down her spine and pulling her skin into an ugly rash of goose bumps. Without thought, she stepped back and placed her hands over her navel. She held her breath.

  The door burst inward with a loud crack.

  The bottom hinge popped off. The door swung open on the top fastening, with no dramatic shower of wood to underscore the sudden terror rocketing up Weslyn’s throat on a burning tide of acid. She flinched and staggered back, her hands firmly planted on her belly.

  Then she spun around and tried to run. Reflex only, as there was nowhere she could hide in the motel room. A huge, hot hand caught her elbow and yanked her to a stop. She pulled and tugged, mindless and blind in her panic, kicking out and wriggling to make it harder to hold on to her.

  “Stop it!”

  The command only galvanized her. She twisted, but the man’s fingers tightened, and he shook her. Realizing she’d closed them, Weslyn opened her eyes. And nearly threw up.

  Donor A-00176. He was as big as she’d thought, all those months ago when she’d picked his picture from a book. She would know him anywhere, no matter that she’d never met him before. How could she not know? She’d chosen him based on his looks, and had dreamed of having a baby that, perhaps, would look just like him. She’d been haunted by his eyes, his silver-green eyes that held a wealth of kindness and laughter, though just then they were hard, cold and unforgiving.

  Until his gaze dropped to her stomach. Then his eyes softened to silver and the expression within them warmed a hundred degrees. The panic racing through her morphed into some tingling thing Weslyn couldn’t identify.

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “What?” Weslyn literally felt every drop of blood drain from her face.

  The man flashed a badge. Weslyn’s rioting innards bottomed out, then apparently bounced, choking her with new fear. She struggled to breathe, even as she desperately wished the man would let her go.

  Didn’t she? Of course, she wanted him to stop touching her. She didn’t like to be touched, and the stranger’s—the donor’s—hand on her skin was making all the anxiety Weslyn fought against ten times worse.

  Her elbow was too hot, with those strange tingles echoing out from the point of contact and swirling down to numb her fingers. Her heart slammed against her breastbone and spots were dancing in front of her eyes. Her lower belly felt too heavy.

  “Weslyn Moon.” He hauled her closer to his body, finally stilling her struggles with sheer intimidation. And the scent of his subtle cologne. His eyes hardened to emeralds. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Y-you have?” She was surprised she could speak through the iron lock on her lungs.

  “Four fucking months,” he snarled. “There isn’t a goddamned thing I don’t know about you, except one. Are you pregnant with my child?”

  Somehow, someway, she managed to lift her chin, in spite of the agony moving through her. “No.”

  His lip lifted. “Then why the fuck do you have a box of baby clothes and diapers under your bed?”

  “I’d hoped…” she stammered. “But…no.”

  His eyes narrowed, but before she could decode the emotion in his glare, he spun her around. Again she struggled, and was quickly subdued in a textbook hold that pinned her arms behind her back. He leaned against her spine, his chin digging into her shoulder as he looked down her body. She heard him growl in her ear.

  Weslyn bit off a strangled scream and wriggled hopelessly as his hand swept down her torso. He burrowed under her shirt and stroked back up, gentle against the smooth skin of her flat belly.

  A hot hand, sensation streaking over the pathways of her long-deprived nerves. Weslyn held her breath as the warmth traveled up her body in a wave that pulled at her sensitive nipples. They pulsed, but she ignored them, choosing to pretend it was fear that had gotten them so hard—poking out and throbbing painfully.

  She had a harder time dismissing the way the wave of sensation traveled lower, centering between her legs until she squirmed. Her ass rubbed over the bulge pressing between her cheeks and Weslyn fought to stand still.

  “You’re so goddamned skinny you’d probably be nine fucking months along before you started showing,” the man rumbled harshly. “There’s no telling. But I’m going to find out the truth, one way or another.”

  Weslyn closed her eyes, and prayed to a god she no longer believed in.

  * * *

  The pseudo-doctors at the Express Emergency Clinic jumped into action at the first sight of the donor’s badge. They scurried like ants in every direction, rushing Weslyn and her unwanted escort into an empty room, then wheeling in a cart with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos on it.

  When a woman in a white coat came in, the man produced his badge again. “I’m Agent Nolan Findley with the FBI.”

  “Oh, God,” Weslyn groaned. It was the first she’d heard his name, or his place of employment, as she hadn’t stopped to examine his credentials before. She started to lean forward, but her hands were cuffed behind her and shifting them caused some pain in her shoulders. She sat uncomfortably hunched—keeping as straight as possible while trying to hide her face in her collar.

  “She needs an ultrasound to determine if she’s pregnant,” he continued. “This is connected to a case.”

  The P.A.’s mouth worked for a minute, then she nodded. “Well, your, um… suspect… should be able to lie down. So… the handcuffs have to come off.”

  Weslyn held her breath, but Agent Findley was not an easy dupe. He scanned their surroundings, paying close attention to the exam table. Weslyn felt a vicious spurt of amusement at the frustrated defeat that crossed his face—the table had nothing to handcuff her to. But then Findley’s lips tilted up in a smile that sent a nervous flutter through Weslyn’s stomach and he pulled the cuff key from his pocket.

  He was too close as he released her. Once she was free, he only got closer—his hands smoothing over her wrists and pulling them above her head, even as he pushed her back on the table. He was practically lying on top of her, his body’s heat radiating out to cover her like a blanket. Her nipples rose again, tightening under his warmth in a way that seemed impossible considering the room’s air conditioning.

  Weslyn couldn’t breathe. Every nerve and muscle in her body went taut and seemed to rise up toward the heat. Seeking contact. She stared up into silver-green eyes and struggled to pull in oxygen through her parted lips. His nostrils flared and the emotion in his stare sharpened, then his gaze dropped to her mouth.

  “Why me, Moon?” he whispered.

  She rolled her lips between her teeth and closed her eyes. A few heartbeats passed before his fingers shifted, her arms were tugged a little straighter, and the soft click of the handcuffs echoed in her ears. She opened her eyes and tilted her head back—partly in relief as he moved away and partly in curiosity—to see that he’d secured her to a piece of medical equipment that was fastened to the wall.

  Findley took up a position at her head that told Weslyn he wasn’t entirely certain the equipment would hold her, but she wasn’t stupid. There was nowhere for her to run just then, no way to get out before the physician’s assistant or Findley could grab her. No, it was best to bide her time, and see what she could accomplish later, when his guard was down.

  The physician’s assistant started fiddling with the box on the cart. “Have you had an ultrasound before?”

  Weslyn didn’t answer. There was no need to make things easier for her captor.

  “I need you to unbutton your pants and pull up your shirt,” the woman said.

  “How should I do that?” Weslyn asked sweetly.

  Findley grunted. In a similarly honeyed tone of voice, he answered, “Here, let me help.”

  Weslyn’s eyes flew wide. “Shouldn’t she—”

  “No.” He smiled. “I’ll do
it.”

  Weslyn held very, very still as Findley reached for her waistband. Hot fingers scalded her stomach as he grabbed the material, his knuckles trailed over her skin as he wrestled the button free. Her throat closed at the sound of her zipper rasping down, the flow of cool air brushing over her as Findley separated the denim flaps and adjusted her underwear accordingly. Weslyn was certain he tugged her jeans a little lower just for spite.

  Then he turned his attention to her shirt. He could have grasped the fabric and simply pulled it up, but instead he’d done as he had in her motel room. His palms flattened on her lower belly with just a hint of pressure, and yet, when he stroked upward, his touch was extremely gentle. And disconcerting.