Craving Heat

by Adrienne Giordano

  “At least we know there’s been nothing new,” she said.

  Jayson grunted. “Someone almost killing us is nothing new?”

  The look she hit him with may have been a cross between fuck off and don’t be an ass.

  “I’m trying to find the upshot,” she said.

  The intercom buzzed. “Maggie?”

  “Yes, Blaine?”

  “Uh, we got a problem?”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. A problem. What else was new?

  She rolled her hand at the phone. “What is it, Blaine?”

  “News van. Outside.”

  “Shit,” Jayson said.

  Maggie held up her hand, cutting off anything further he might say.

  “Are they blocking the road?”

  “No.”

  “Then there’s nothing we can do. The second they impede traffic, it’s a safety violation and we can move them along.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  “Do me a favor and find Grif. If he doesn’t answer his cell, run over to the high school. Aubrey is involved with some kind of fundraiser over there. Tell him I’m sorry, but we need to talk.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Maggie hit the button and Jay cocked his head. “What were you saying about upshots?”

  “A couple of news vans is nothing. And, full disclosure, there was a local reporter waiting for me when I came down the mountain. He caught the incident on his police scanner.”

  Goddammit. How did this become his life? But, like everything else, he’d work the problem.

  “I held him off,” Maggie said, “but I had to promise him a head start on any media releases.”

  She had to promise? Without consulting him. Since when did she run his PR? “You shouldn’t have done that. My media team handles press inquiries. There’s a hierarchy when it comes to reporters.”

  “Well, Jay, as sheriff, I’m not obliged to run anything by your people. Tell your team I’m working on the fly and the Steele Ridge News was about to go with a story about you getting shot at—with a semiautomatic—while hiking. Maybe they’d prefer that to the deal I made?”

  One thing about Maggie, she didn’t resort to pouting or yelling when pissed. Her brand of torture? Expertly aimed sarcasm.

  Before firing back with his own smart-ass comment, he took a second to settle his mind. Fighting with Maggie wouldn’t help the situation. And as much as it pained him to admit he’d lost total control of the situation, she was right. “You may not believe it, but this isn’t my life. Not normally anyway. This is a circus. I’m high-profile, but not like this. It’s not relentless.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

  “I want you to feel safe around me. That’s important to me. Vital, in fact, for the people I care about to feel safe.”

  She leaned in and the movement stretched the fabric of her shirt tight across her breasts and—handcuffs. God, her body, all that tight muscle mixed with female curves, drove him to a level of need that should kill him.

  “You may have noticed,” she said, “I can take care of myself. I also carry a fairly big gun.”

  Oh, he’d noticed.

  Mirroring her body language, he leaned in, brought his lips inches from hers. Close enough that if one of them puckered—game over. He studied her lips for a few seconds, then met her gaze. “This is crazy shit. No one has ever taken a shot at me. Never. They almost hit my sister.”

  The one he’d watched over for years now. The one he’d protected by sleeping flush against her bedroom door so his mother couldn’t push it open.

  The thought snapped him from thoughts of Maggie, in handcuffs, on his bed, to the fucked-up mess that had become his life.

  A buzzing sound echoed in the quiet room. Intercom.

  “I have Grif.”

  Maggie sat back, breaking the eye contact, and all he wanted was to rewind, go back thirty seconds to right before he thought about the hell of his childhood.

  The intercom buzzed again. “Grif?” Jay said.

  “Yeah.” Grif’s strained voice shot from the speaker. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Well, my hard-working agent, we got a situation.”

  “Again? What now?”

  “I’m here with Maggie and—”

  “Grif,” she cut him off, “we were up on the northwest side of Britt’s conservation area. You know that clearing where the wolves are?”

  Jay sat, arms folded waiting for her to finish. Something inside him pinged again to Drunk Marlene, constantly interrupting him.

  “What happened? Is everyone okay?”

  “Everyone is fine, but someone took a shot at us.”

  “A shot!” Grif let out a creative group of swear words. “Hunters again?”

  “Doubtful,” Maggie said. “How many hunters use semiautomatics?”

  “Get the fuck out?”

  “The bullet we dug out of a tree was a thirty caliber. Our SWAT snipers use those. We called Reid and he has a visual of a guy from a surveillance camera.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  Maggie shook her head for no one’s benefit but her own, since Grif couldn’t see her and Jay already knew the answer.

  “I haven’t seen it yet. Reid said it’s only a partial and nobody he knew. I’m sending it to the FBI. I’m hoping Cam will run it for us as a favor. Otherwise, it’ll blow up my budget.”

  “I’ll cover it,” Jayson said.

  She finally looked over at him. Yeah, babe, I’m still here. Her forehead creased and she blinked a couple of times.

  “That works,” Grif said. “Tuck can reimburse us.” A slew of voices broke into a shout on Grif’s end. “Hang on.” He paused for a few seconds, obviously in search of quieter space. “Okay, Mags, what else do you need from me?”

  “We already have a news van outside. Xander was up at the site.”

  “Police scanner,” Grif said.

  “As usual. I talked him down by promising him a thirty-minute lead on any updates we do. Jay says his media team won’t be happy with me, but—”

  “I’ll take care of it. What else?”

  “I have a feeling more reporters are on the way.”

  Finally, Jay’s chance to actually say something. “I can do another press conference,” he said.

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Now she wanted to tell him how to manage the media?

  “I agree,” Grif said. “We’ll release a statement saying you’re fine and police are investigating. Hopefully, we’ll find this guy and he’ll be a hunter that we’ll rule out of anything sinister.”

  Why Jayson was even in on this call, he didn’t know. Considering his agent and Maggie had no interest in his thoughts.

  Maggie tapped a finger on the table and he looked up, found her eyeing him. “Grif,” she said, “if you’ll connect with the media team, I’ll deal with the reporters on the street. I’ll get with Reid and see where we are on the video.”

  “Sounds good. Keep me posted.”

  Maggie stood, leaned over the table, and punched off the call while he tilted his head and made a show of appreciating the way her hiking pants outlined her ass.

  Shitty?

  Yeah. But he’d learned early on the best way to get a woman’s attention was to piss her off.

  He wanted to believe he’d grown up some and that years of therapy had taught him another way, but in the last five minutes she’d tripped every goddamned one of his triggers.

  And he was a stupid son of a bitch for allowing fucked-up, emotional garbage to dictate his actions. Worse, none of it had to do with Maggie being good at her job and everything to do with him being emasculated by strong women.

  Thanks, Ma.

  Maggie dropped back into the chair and met his stare. “I’m not sure what your problem is right now, but if you’re pissed that I interrupted you, I’m sorry. I know that mountain. I thought I could explain it faster.”

 
“Not a problem.”

  Liar. The burn in his intestines proved it.

  He needed to cool off. Get his head together. He pushed out of his chair and paced the length of the room. He stopped in front of a photo hanging on the far wall. A statue of a soldier. Civil War, maybe? The uniform looked about right.

  What the hell am I doing here? She didn’t need him. If anything, he needed her and none of that sat right with a guy who’d spent years figuring out life on his own.

  “I’m no use to you here. I’ll head back to Miss Joan’s with Sam. See if we can salvage this little familial visit.”

  “Sure. If that’s how we’re going to play this,” she said from behind him, “go ahead.”

  Having had enough of the soldier, he turned back to Maggie. “What?”

  “I’ve irritated you. Rather than talk about it, you’re going to walk out. If that’s how you handle conflict, we’ll have to find a compromise, because it’s not my style.”

  He shrugged. “All due respect, you don’t want a compromise. You want it your way.”

  For a solid five seconds she sat still. No twitch, no wide-eyed stare or pressed lips. Zippo body language. By now, his mother would be coming at him with her fists—and anything else within reach—flying.

  But Maggie? Nothing.

  Great. Now he’d have to brush up on mind-reading skills.

  Still seated, she crossed her legs and propped one hand on the arm of her chair. “I have been running my ass off cleaning up the messes left in your wake and you think I have control issues? Pardon my language, but you are out of your fucking mind.”

  Yep. Here we go. The situation itself sucked and he couldn’t keep from screwing it up more. Total mess. That was him. Confused and angry and way too in his own head to work through this with her. Best to leave now and get grounded again before this thing went nuclear. He walked to the door and opened it. “I’m not talking about this now.”

  Finally, she stood. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about!”

  The harsh tone tore at him, scraped against every last working nerve. He whipped back, pointed at her. “Do not raise your voice to me.”

  “Jay?”

  Behind him, Sam stood in the hallway, her wide gaze shooting between Jayson and Maggie. Yelling, for his sister, meant hiding. Running for cover. Between the two of them, they were a hot-ass mess.

  “It’s fine,” he told her. “We’re having a discussion. That’s all.” He held one arm out, ushering her toward the exit. “Let’s head back to Miss Joan’s. We can all use a break.”

  8

  After reviewing the snippet of security video Reid had sent her, Maggie walked into his office at the training center ready for a look at the entire segment.

  Reid looked up from his computer and stared at her with glazed eyes. She stole a peek at the monitor. Ah. Spreadsheets were not his favorite thing, to say the least. As a former Green Beret, her cousin preferred the adrenaline rush of action.

  “Hey,” he said. “Did you get it?”

  “I did. Now I want the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  Oh, boy. Laughing, she snapped her fingers. “Focus here. That spreadsheet is frying your brain. All you sent me was the part of the video with his profile. I’d like to see every frame with him in it.”

  Reid shrugged one shoulder and Maggie imagined his T-shirt crying for mercy. That shrug from Mr. Muscles might have pushed those seams to their limits.

  “Sure.” He stood, patted the sides of his cargo shorts and snatched a set of keys from his right pocket. “Surveillance room. You can watch it on the wall monitors.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You could have called me.”

  “I could have.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  She grinned at him. “Very astute for a knuckle-dragger.”

  As usual, he laughed. Being in this family meant plenty of practice at taking a joke. The Kingstons and Steeles played hard and loved equally hard. They may have all been nuts, but with that came unflinching acceptance.

  He waved her to follow him the short walk to the surveillance room two doors down from his office. “What happened with the superstar?”

  “You mean after someone tried to shoot him?”

  “He came back to the house all crabby.”

  Of course he did. Had he calmed down and talked to her like a reasonable adult, they might have avoided the whole argument. If it was even an argument. Who the heck knew? “I think he’s pissed at me.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Oh, ha, ha. We were on the phone with Grif and I interrupted him. I’m not sure he liked that, but I know the area. What would have taken him five minutes to explain took me one.”

  As he walked, Reid offered up a slow nod. “So you took over.”

  Oh, please. Now he wanted to make this an alpha thing? “I didn’t take over. I was trying to save us time. I did apologize for being rude.”

  Why was she explaining herself? Again. She apologized. That should have been the end of it. Instead they had drama.

  Reid stopped in front of the surveillance room door and shoved the key in the lock. He hadn’t looked at her. Had barely turned his head, but his stiff posture and slightly pursed lips told her he had something to say. When it came to opinions, Reid always had one.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Say it. I know you want to.”

  He laughed. “Of course I want to. You probably won’t like it.”

  “As if that ever stopped you? Let’s hear it.”

  “He’s a quarterback. He’s used to being in charge.”

  “Not in a criminal case, he’s not.”

  Rather than answer, Reid opened the door for her. Since their teens, they’d been confidantes, sounding boards for any number of situations. Which, she supposed, was the real reason she’d driven up here instead of calling him.

  He tossed the keys on the desk and dropped his big body into one of the three chairs. On the wall hung six oversized monitors that came to life as soon as he touched the keyboard. For a guy with huge hands, his fingers moved easily.

  “Mags, you’re no dummy. You’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  With his military background, Reid understood body language. And apparently she and Jayson were doing a crappy job of hiding whatever—hopefully sex—it was they had going on.

  “Well, if you’d seen the way he looked at me an hour ago, you’d feel differently.”

  He clicked a file and within seconds a video popped up. A few more clicks brought them to a timestamp of 10:55 a.m. Forty-five minutes prior to the shooting.

  Before hitting play, Reid sat back and swiveled to face her. “Here’s the thing about guys. Guys like him specifically.”

  “This should be good.”

  “Actually, it is. I’m going to enlighten you.” He hit her with the cocky smile. “I get this guy. We have a lot in common.”

  Didn’t that just scare the hell out of her?

  “We’re twisted,” Reid said. “We want a strong woman, but not too strong. We like being the hero.”

  Maggie snorted and Reid put up his hands. “We’re also, in some ways, control freaks. When I was in the Army, I never knew when a mission would go sideways. It freaked me out for a while. Then I figured out I could control other aspects of my life. My clothing, my shaving habits, how I put my socks on. Easy, routine stuff. I see a lot of that in Tuck. He’s neat. Orderly. When he works out, he’s shows up fifteen minutes early and is ready to go when I say. The exception was the day you distracted him. Basically, he’s a control freak with a hero complex.”

  Had she been paying attention, she’d have realized it. She’d have realized that Jayson, who’d almost gotten blown away earlier today, might be suffering some emotional stress from the disruption to his environment. Then, to further complicate that stress, she’d rushed off to chase the bad guy. Leaving him behind.

  Did it make her wrong in her actions?

&nb
sp; No.

  But at least now she understood.

  Maggie blew out a long breath. “Well, shoot.”

  Reid hit play on the video. “Now she’s getting it.”

  Absently, she watched the video scroll. “Not only wasn’t he in control of his environment, he was the intended victim. Then I shanghaied the conversation with Grif.”

  On screen, the shooter appeared in profile, casually walking with a soft gun case hung over his shoulder and something dinged in Maggie’s brain.

  Hang on. Something about him was familiar. Had she seen him before? She studied him for a long few seconds, but…nothing. This guy could have been any average Joe.

  She shook it off as Reid zoomed in.

  “No,” Maggie said. “Leave the wide view. I want to see his hands.”

  He panned wider, getting the shooter’s hands into view. She tilted her head. “Can you zoom in on his right hand?”

  “Sure.”

  “I hear what you’re saying about Jayson, but I can’t apologize for doing my job.”

  “Not saying that. People rely on you. Same goes with him. Once in a while, you gotta throw the guy a bone. Let him be a hero.”

  Oh, whatever.

  This had been her problem with every male suitor in her life. They loved her independence, but hated her lack of neediness. How the hell was she supposed to deal with that?

  No way to win.

  She pointed at the monitor. “Right hand. He’s a smoker.” She backhanded Reid on the shoulder. “Do me a favor and keep watching that. See if he tosses the cigarette on the path.”

  “I’ll kill the fucker myself. I mean, trashing our property? What the hell?”

  “I’m hoping he did.” Maggie headed for the door. “Call me if he tosses it.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find Jayson and then hopefully retrieve that cigarette butt.”

  * * *

  Jayson stood at Miss Joan’s counter mixing Sam’s favorite meatloaf for dinner. His cooking lessons taught him that prepping it early allowed the meat to absorb the spices and enhanced the flavor. Since Sam liked onions and green peppers he’d mix one for her and one for him. Minus the onions.