Bailey had nearly succeeded in “forgetting” about that last little item. She’d learned the day before, when the police had contacted Adam with the news the locker she rented had been breached. She didn’t know why the man had ruined every piece of furniture she’d owned when he realized she didn’t have whatever it was he was looking for.
At some point in the future, after all this had been figured out and resolved, she’d have to take a trip back to New York and deal with what some nameless, faceless, soulless bastard had done to the last solid keepsakes she’d had of her mother. But until that day, she was going to continue to put that out of her mind. Maybe she was living in a fool’s paradise, pushing away the bad stuff.
No maybe about it. So, if you’re going to do that, isn’t it a good thing you have two very alpha men who insist on being protective to the point of even taking you to an afternoon tea with a houseful of women who are members of their family?
Sometimes Bailey really hated her inner voice of reason.
It was all she could do not to give them what her mother used to call “the bum’s rush” once Logan pulled the car into the driveway at the Big House. She very nearly told him just to stop the car and let her out. But the words didn’t form, and Logan aimed the vehicle toward the parking area. There were already several cars parked in the large graveled space, so Bailey knew a lot of the women had likely driven themselves there.
“We just want to come in and say hello to Grandma Kate and Aunt Bernice and Aunt Abby.” Chance extended his hand to help her out of the car and eased her into his arms. Logan had gotten out the driver’s side and come around. He cozied up behind her. She had to admit she only felt completely safe and completely whole when these two men had her between them.
Bailey felt her equilibrium return. “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so crabby.”
“You’re not being crabby.” Chance lifted her chin. When her gaze met his, he continued. “Trust me on this. I’ve never seen you crabby.”
“We’re experts on crabby.” Logan kissed her ear. “Our sister, Alice, has the world’s record and probably even a couple of Olympic gold medals in crabby.”
Bailey laughed. “Well, I feel crabby.”
“Maybe what you’re feeling is stressed because there’s still a threat hanging over you. Everyone has an eye out, sweetheart.” Chance leaned forward and kissed her. “I can’t pretend to know how you feel, but I understand that it’s got to wear on you. Hopefully this will be over soon.”
“Let’s get you inside,” Logan said. “Now, sweetheart, promise you’ll text us and wait inside the house until we come to get you when the tea, or whatever it is, is over.”
Bailey rolled her eyes. “Yes, daddy, I promise.”
Logan squeezed her shoulders from behind, an affectionate if short hug. Then he turned her around so she faced him. He had a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“If you put me in the position of an authority figure, then I have the right to spank your naked little ass until it’s nice and pink.” He took her hand and led her toward the porch.
“Oh, wow.” Bailey guessed she should learn to hold back, learn some subtly. But Logan’s threat? Promise? It had the immediate effect of making her nipples go hard and her panties damp.
Chance looked over at her then stopped their forward progress. “Lord, woman, how do you expect us to let you go now?”
Both men brought her hands to their lips. Then they dropped her hands and sandwiched her again, front and back, and she felt the evidence of their arousal. She could see the lust in their eyes. Their rising passion matched hers almost exactly.
“Gentlemen, we won’t be keeping her, I promise. You can have her back, later.” Laughter echoed in Bernice Benedict’s voice.
Bailey felt her face get hot. She hadn’t noticed the door open. Since both Chance and Logan were also blushing, she took advantage of their distraction and stepped out from between them. She took their hands in hers and closed the distance to the porch, mounting the stairs.
Her gaze wandered the homey look of the wide porch. She’d bet it would be really nice to sit out here in the early evening, either in one of the rockers or on one of the porch swings and just be.
“Hi, Aunt Bernice.” Logan quickly kissed the older woman’s left cheek. Chance kissed the right one.
“We thought we’d just step in and say hello to you and Aunt Abby and Grandma Kate.” Chance’s smile was total little boy—Bailey decided he was very good at that look—and Bernice Benedict laughed. “Yes, do come in and say hello. Bailey, I’m so pleased you’re here.”
Bailey, who’d gone a few years now without maternal hugs, simply soaked in the embrace easily offered her by Bernice Benedict. “I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having this get-together. I’ve been looking forward to today.”
Bernice grinned. “So have we. Believe me, it’s been a long time since we’ve all gotten together to…um, just visit and be women, together.”
The faint color that tinged Bernice’s cheeks made Bailey want to laugh out loud. Fortunately, neither Logan nor Chance noticed anything amiss.
The two men followed behind as Bernice led the way into the house, through the dining room and on into what the family referred to as the great room. Its space was huge. She’d been here just once before, with Laci. Then it seemed super enormous. Today, with so many women contained within the four walls, along with the accompanying chatter and laughter, the room didn’t seem all that big at all.
“There you are, Bailey. Welcome, welcome.”
“Grandma Kate!” Bailey made a beeline for the nonagenarian. She closed her eyes as she absorbed her second hug in a few short minutes. One would think, looking at Kate, that her hugs would be gentle, just barely-there embraces. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The woman had amazing strength, and not just physical strength, either. Bailey believed with all her heart that Grandma Kate’s greatest strength lay in the fact that she fully embraced the concept of family and understood, without reservation, how to love.
Bailey stepped back, and when Kate winked at her, she felt bolstered. The woman then turned to greet Logan and Chance. She gave each of them a hug and asked if they were well. Slowly, but most definitely noticeable, conversation in the room tapered off.
Chance and Logan looked up and around the room. It was all Bailey could do not to laugh. If she had to estimate, she’d guess that about twenty or so other women were all staring straight at them—the only Y-chromosome carriers in the room.
“Um…I guess we should go.” Chance looked at Logan, who nodded.
“Yes, we’ll go.”
They each took a moment to give Bailey a small kiss, and then they turned and promptly left. The sound of that solid front door closing reached all the way into the great room. No one said anything for about ten seconds—until the room erupted into laughter.
“I guess we really shouldn’t laugh at them,” Kate said, wiping her eyes. “They are treasures, our men, each and every one of them.”
“Yes,” said Samantha Kendall. “And never so much so as when they make themselves absent when we need them to do just that.” Then she turned her attention to Bailey. “I understand we have a mystery to solve. Good. Let’s get you settled with some tea and cookies and get started.”
Bailey didn’t know if they could figure anything out, or not. What she did know was that she felt empowered. She wasn’t hiding in the shadows, letting the big strong men protect her, though she was grateful they were. No, she felt as if she was doing something, and that doing, whether ultimately useful or not, helped her, for the first time in a long time, to feel in control.
Chapter Seventeen
Everett Forrest drove past the wooden structure that seemed to sit all alone on the side of the road. He continued on, his gaze everywhere, checking out the area, and wondered what the draw could possibly be. He’d asked at the motel. One of the workers there remembered Bailey James and that she’d gotten
a job at this very bar—Angel’s Roadhouse. She had no idea where the woman could be living, though she thought it would likely be in Gatesville. Ev had driven through Gatesville on the way here. He couldn’t check info in small towns as well as he could larger cities. His best bet would be to find the woman here and then follow her home.
She was just a broad. He could move on her at any time. He might as well be smart about it, though, and so that meant he needed to find where she lived, first. Either she still had his shipment or her boyfriend did. He doubted they would have been able to unload five mil of his goods in so short a time.
He’d originally thought the James woman had come to the Waco area to meet a lover, and that could still be true. But would a rich boyfriend make his woman work slinging beer at a tacky honkytonk? He’d read about these places and they were little more than watering holes where a man could get drunk and laid at the same time.
Unless, of course, she was the sort of woman who’d like to be passed around to a bunch of drunken cowboys.
He turned his car around and, instead of passing, pulled into the parking lot. Making a quick scan of the area, he couldn’t see the woman’s car, but that didn’t mean anything. She would either be in there, or she would not. At the very least he’d get a feel for the place, and if he was really lucky, he’d pick up some gossip. The place looked to be busy enough, so he shouldn’t stand out too much—especially in his nerd get-up of off-the-rack slacks, button-down shirt complete with a pocket protector, and his trusty glasses.
The sign said open. Ev took a moment to see that his disguise, such as it was, looked as good as it could be. He’d opted for simple, what he liked to call the nerd look. He’d been practicing the local accent and knew he had it down pretty well. The zippered portfolio, the glasses, the calculator—he could pass as a traveling salesman of some sort. He’d go in, sit close to the largest group of people he could, order whatever, and then listen.
What looked like a Bluetooth device sat in his right ear. It was actually an enhanced listening device, and he’d used it on occasion when he couldn’t get close enough to his targets to listen in without being obvious.
Right, let’s get this show on the road.
Ev stepped into the roadhouse, persona in place, his gaze making a quick sweep. There were about forty people inside, which meshed with the cars in the lot. A girl who looked too young to be slinging beer was in the center of the bar. Her dark hair was up in one of those topknots that seemed popular these days with both sexes, and her focus was on her work.
He chose to sit at the corner of the bar. The scent of food made his stomach rumble. Strangely, the scent of beer wasn’t a heavy pall in the air. That, and the lack of cigarette smoke, forced him to revise his assumption about the place. Maybe it wasn’t a honkytonk.
He ordered a cup of coffee and a burger—a not so unusual lunchtime order—and then he opened his satchel, pulled out some papers, and made it look to anyone who might be watching him that he was completely absorbed in his work. And he was, but not the paper in front of him. He focused his mind on the voices reaching him. Sorting out many conversations was his second greatest talent, next to his blade work.
“Swear to God, if Eli doesn’t put some money into the place and order new fencing, I’m going to quit. Cheap bastard needs to take care of that ranch.”
“If I could, I’d buy him out…”
Ev wondered if Eli knew his hands didn’t like him much. He took a sip of his coffee, his attention snagged, and discarded, as he listened to the conversations of the diners. So far, there was nothing. A woman came out of the kitchen, but she wasn’t the James woman. No, this woman appeared to be in her forties, though she was still a looker.
She took the tray she was carrying into the dining room proper and delivered meals to two tables. Then she headed back to the kitchen. The young woman behind the bar stopped her.
“Hey, boss, what time are Laci and Bailey due in?”
“Not until the supper shift. They’re at that tea party at Grandma Kate’s.”
“The same Kate Benedict who comes in here and has lunch with you sometimes? She’s a nice little old lady. And I heard her house in Lusty is as big as a mansion!”
The other woman laughed at the younger’s observations. “They call it the Big House, and it is all of that. Jenny, you haven’t been here long, just a few weeks. I’ll bet you won’t be thinking of Kate as a little old lady by the time you’ve got three months in.”
Jenny blushed. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. But I heard she was more than ninety!”
“She’s ninety-three. And I can promise you she’s nobody’s little old lady. Did you need something from Laci or Bailey?”
“No, well, all right, yes. I know Bailey’s got that new apartment in Lusty. I thought I’d see if there was another one open in her building. Thought it would be a good idea for me to move closer, you know?”
“I’ll give Jake Kendall a call if you like. He’s the one you’d need to speak with, anyway.”
“Gee, thanks, Angela. I appreciate it.”
Ev kept his head down. He’d learned more than he’d hoped to. All he had to do was find Lusty. It couldn’t be that big a place because it hadn’t shown up on his map. If it wasn’t that big, how many mansions could it have? Likely only the one.
Jenny placed a burger in front of him, and he made quick work of polishing it off. He finished his coffee and then tucked his papers away. He signaled Jenny, who came over and presented him with his bill. He paid with a twenty, told her to keep the change, and then, almost as an afterthought, asked her where Lusty was.
Two minutes later, he was back in his car and headed south.
* * * *
Chance opened the door to the sheriff’s office to encounter not only Sheriff Kendall but Damion Quest and Joe Grant, as well.
“Thanks for coming down right away.” Adam Kendall shook Chance’s hand and then Logan’s. He’d called them just as they’d turned the car down Park Lane, headed toward home. It had only taken a couple of minutes to head back to Main Street. One thing about Lusty, it never took long to get anywhere.
Not present for this meeting were the two private dicks brought in to help coordinate the case.
“You didn’t have any trouble leaving Bailey behind? I’d really rather just have it the five of us for this meeting. Not that I want to exclude her, exactly.” Adam sounded quite serious. It seemed as if Lusty’s sheriff, much like himself and Logan, wanted to protect Bailey, not only from danger but from the sometimes cruel reality of the world of crimes and criminals.
“She doesn’t know you called. You caught us already out of the house. We’d just dropped her off at the Big House. She’s having tea with Grandma Kate,” Chance said.
“Good.” Adam sighed, and Chance didn’t think he was wrong in believing it was a sigh of relief. The notion immediately put him on guard.
“Damion, why don’t you tell the bean counters, here, what you told me?”
“Porter Wells passed on some intelligence he received, thanks to the analysis you conducted on those financial records. It only took one of our agents over in Cairo to do some digging. What he discovered was that, shortly after Townsend secured his last import shipment on a boat home, a very dangerous player was on his tail. They were seen arguing outside the expediters’ office. The man has been positively identified as a player by the name of Everett Forrest. Forrest is a prime example of promotion through merit. The earliest record we have on him dates back to when he was just fourteen and the suspicious death of his father was being investigated. There’s a long list of crimes for which he’s been a person of interest. However, he’s never been arrested or convicted. What caught Porter’s attention was Forrest’s weapon of choice—a very long and very lethal Switchblade.”
Chance looked from Damion to Adam. “Weren’t both Townsend and Sharp stabbed to death?”
“They were and, according to the ME in New York, by the same blade.” Ada
m nodded to Damion again. “Tell them the rest of it.”
“Our man in Cairo was also able to find out that all those trips to Africa Townsend took in the last year led to one place. The Ivory Coast.”
“How many of the items he’s imported to the U.S. were from there?” Logan asked.
“None.” Damion crossed his arms and didn’t flinch from scrutiny.
“None? So what’s so important about the Ivory Coast?”
“Well, they do have one export product they’re, shall we say, known for.” Damion looked pleased, as if pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place for him. Chance realized what that product was at the same time his brother did.
“Diamonds.” Chance thought they sounded good in stereo.
Damion nodded. “What are called blood diamonds.”
Called that, Chance knew, not because of their color but because they were mined specifically to sell to finance local warlords, to fund the terrorist activities and the civil wars that seemed to be rife on the subcontinent.
“So Townsend was dealing in diamonds?” Chance asked.
“No, he was a middleman, a go-between, between the local warlords and the men and organizations supplying arms and equipment to other terrorist factions.”
“Ah, of course. He got money from clients, helped the local warlords by buying their diamonds with that cash, and then those clients used the diamonds to purchase supplies for…” Chance didn’t have the end piece of that puzzle.
“Whoever wanted the goods,” Damion said. “The thing is, our man reports that, in very recent times, Forrest came to the attention of a European operator, one Interpol has been keeping tabs on for some time and that most European governments want to arrest. That criminal’s name is Philip LeClerc. It’s believed that LeClerc very recently made an offer to Forrest that man dare not refuse. Speculation is he was supposed to intercept those diamonds from Townsend, but failed.”
“Philip LeClerc. I don’t think we’ve come across that name in any of our cases before,” Logan said.
Love Under Two Accountants [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 14