Against the Law (14 page)

“Lark…” he whispered, “baby…” and the heavy ca
dence of his voice and his determined thrusts sent her over the edge.

She cried out his name as the first wave hit her, making her stomach quiver, making her tremble. He drove into her harder and faster and a second climax shook her as he claimed his own release.

For long seconds he just held her, his cheek against hers, her arms around his neck. She felt his lips on the top of her head before he set her back on her feet.

Lark's chest squeezed. She fought not to lean toward him. She couldn't stay. She had a child to think of now and it wouldn't be right for Dev, either.

Reaching down, she picked up her clothes, turned and made her way back down the hall to the bathroom.

When she came out, Dev stood in the living room in his jeans, his feet and chest still bare.

It was past time to go.

Lark walked over and picked up her purse, grabbed her red high heels.

She managed to smile. “Last night, you were…amazing.”

His mouth curved. “
We
were amazing.”

“Yes, I guess we were.” She felt the ridiculous burn of tears she didn't want him to see. “I have to go.”

“I know.”

“This is the last time we'll be alone so I want to thank you again for being there when we needed you.”

He nodded. “That's my job.”

She swallowed past the tightness in her throat, leaned over and placed a last soft kiss on his cheek. She was
surprised to feel the tension in his body, the rigidness in his muscles as he held himself back.

She managed a wobbly smile. “Goodbye, Devlin Raines.”

Something moved across his features. “Goodbye, Lark Delaney.”

She started walking. It was time to go, past time to leave. So why did she feel like turning around and walking straight back into his arms?

She brushed away an unwanted tear and kept moving. Later there would be more goodbyes, one to Town and one to Aida. Dev would say goodbye to Chrissy, but for her and Dev, this night was their final farewell.

Lark shoved through the door and stepped out into a steady, dismal rain. It was over. She would probably never see him again.

The tears in her eyes mixed with the falling raindrops and slid down her cheeks.

A
fter airport delays and a wreck blocking traffic on the freeway, Lark didn't get home from Phoenix until evening. Exhausted and a little depressed, she and Chrissy walked into the condo to find Marge Covey waiting to greet them.

Lark felt cheered at the sight of her. A warm, friendly woman several inches shorter with medium brown hair attractively laced with silver, Marge was everything Aida Clark had promised and more. She and Lark had talked a number of times on the phone so they were comfortable together from the start.

“It's so nice to actually meet you,” Lark said, taking hold of the older woman's hand.

Marge smiled. “You look just like the pictures I saw on your company website.”

Lark grinned. “I'm glad to know Chrissy's going to be spending time with a lady who's computer literate.”

Marge laughed. She seemed to do that often.

Lark knelt down next to Chrissy. “Sweetheart, this is Mrs. Covey. She's Mrs. Clark's good friend. She's going to help me take care of you.”

Chrissy looked up at the woman shyly, her green eyes partially hidden by a row of thick dark lashes. “Hello.” Marge knelt, too. “Hi, honey. You and I are gonna have great fun together.”

Chrissy looked into her face, a kind face, Lark thought, with tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. “Can we bake cookies?”

“You bet we can. Do you like cake, too? Because I make really good chocolate cake with thick chocolate frosting.”

Chrissy's eyes lit up. “I love chocolate cake. Can I help?”

“You bet you can.”

“My nana Lupita didn't know how to bake a cake. We had to buy it at the store.”

“Ours will be better than store-bought,” Marge promised, giving the child a hug. She had an easy way about her and she seemed completely at ease with Chrissy, who seemed to also like her.

Lark heard a noise in the hall and turned at the sound of familiar voices.

“Welcome home!” Her business partners and dearest friends, Carrie Beth Reagan, Scotty Bennett, Delilah Renschler and Dexter Scokim, ran toward her down the hall. Her friends had been helping Marge get the house in shape to accommodate a four-year-old.

“We wanted to give you a minute with Marge before we descended like a wave of locusts,” Carrie Beth said.

All of them hugged. Carrie Beth, with her long, straight blond hair and sophisticated demeanor, had a talent for sales. Scotty, tall and lean and always perfectly groomed, handled media and advertising. Dex, who wore his brown hair in a ponytail and dressed in leather, was the number cruncher for the company. Delilah's shoulder-length hair was black and she looked like a gypsy in long, flowing skirts. She and Lark did most of the design work.

Lark introduced her friends to Chrissy, who grew shy once more, clinging to Lark's jean-clad legs.

“I think maybe she's tired,” Marge said. “It's a long trip from Phoenix. If it's all right with you, I'll get her settled in her room.”

“Good idea.” Lark turned to her friends. “I'll be right back.” Marge lifted Chrissy into her arms and the two women headed for a bedroom down the hall.

With Scott and Carrie Beth's help, one of the twin beds had been removed from the smaller bedroom. Delilah had installed ruffled yellow curtains and a matching bedspread, added a small round table and child-size chairs in the corner, and Dex had hung a mobile of dancing yellow butterflies from the ceiling. An assortment of stuffed animals had been tossed on the bed to make the room homey.

“It's pretty!” Chrissy said. “Butterflies are my very favorite.” She looked up. “Next to kittens.”

Lark laughed, feeling a tug at her heart and overwhelmed by the efforts her friends had made. Leaving Chrissy with Marge to unpack and settle in, she returned to her friends.

“Thank you for everything. This has all been so…” Her eyes welled. “Overwhelming.”

They clustered around her, her very dearest companions.

Carrie Beth handed her a Kleenex. “Everything's going to be fine,” she said. “You have all of us to help with Chrissy. She'll have a real family now.”

In the days after the murders, Lark had talked to each over them over the phone. They knew the situation, knew what had happened, and that now Lark had a child.

“She'll need clothes,” Scotty said with a lift of his eyebrows. “She can't keep wearing that…that
stuff
you bought her at Walmart. You're in the fashion world, dear heart. It's bad for your reputation.”

“That's a good idea,” Delilah said. “We'll go to Beverly Hills. They have some wonderful children's boutiques there.”

Lark just smiled as her friends made plans for the newest member of their small family. They talked to her for a while, but didn't stay long. The faint purple smudges beneath her eyes betrayed her exhaustion.

Fortunately when she made her way down the hall to her bedroom, she discovered she would have the room to herself. The door to Chrissy's room stood open and the child was in bed sound asleep.

“I read her a story,” Marge explained with the faintest
of smiles. “Poor little thing was so tired she fell asleep before I got to the end.”

“In Scottsdale she slept with me. Do you think she'll be all right in here by herself?”

“There's a little butterfly night-light next to the bed stand. We can leave that on and the door open, but I don't think she'll wake up until morning. And if you don't mind my saying so, you look like you could use a good night's rest yourself.”

Lark just nodded. “That's for sure. Good night, Marge. I'll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, dear.”

Moving tiredly, she continued on into her bedroom. She was exhausted, but it wasn't entirely the trip or the pressure of events these past few days. It was the little sleep she had gotten last night. Instead, she had been making passionate, amazing love with Dev.

Her body pulsed at the memory. She had never been with a man who could make her feel the way he did. No man had ever left her completely sated and still ready for more. All the way back to L.A. she had tried not to think of him, but he remained in her thoughts.

His relentless determination. The way he had put himself in danger to protect her and Chrissy. The way he had looked at her when they were making love, as though he wanted her to stay more than anything in the world.

It was an illusion, she knew.

By now Dev had probably forgotten all about her. A single night of passion meant little to a man like him.

You had better get over him,
she warned herself.

But she fell asleep dreaming about him, seeing those
blue, blue eyes and remembering what it had been like to sleep with his lean-muscled body curled around her.

Wishing he was there with her now.

It wasn't until two o'clock in the morning that she awakened with a scream lodged in her throat. Images of the horrors she had witnessed in the Weller house refused to leave her head. Crimson pools of blood and sightless eyes stared up at her from lifeless bodies on the floor.

It was almost morning before she was able to sleep.

 

Dev spent the next few days wandering around the house in a sort of aimless daze.

“You need to get out a little, boss,” Town said. “Maybe go to one of those clubs you like or something.”

“I'm not in the mood to go clubbing. To tell you the truth, I went mostly because my dates wanted to go.”

“Speaking of women, I thought you were going to call that girl you took to San Diego…what was her name? Tawny something? You were going to take her to Vegas, see some shows, relax a little.”

“Maybe later.”

But he never made the call. All he did that day was hit the home gym in the far wing of his house, work out for a while, then put on his swimsuit and lie out in the sun by the pool.

It was all the energy he could muster.

He was plodding back inside at the end of another non-productive day when the phone in his kitchen started ringing.

Dev reached across the counter and picked it up. “Raines.”

“Hey, bro, thought I'd better call and see what's happening.”

“Jackson. Good to hear from you. Actually, not a damned thing is going on.”

“That's new for you.”

Dev released a breath. “I've kind of been laying low, you know? Trying to recoup after all the excitement.”

“Gabe says your lady went back home.”

“My client. Yeah. She and Chrissy are back in L.A.”

“You haven't heard from her?”

“She won't call. Our relationship was strictly business.” He rolled his eyes at that one, thinking of Lark in his bed, remembering the way it had felt to be inside her. Thank God, his brother couldn't see his face. “Now our business is over.”

“You could call
her,
you know.”

“Look, Jackson, the lady has enough on her plate right now. She's got a little girl to raise and a company to run. We both have our lives to live.”

“Aida told Livvy you've been pining away since she left, moping around the house. That true?”

“Of course it isn't true, and I wish those two women would stop gossiping.”

“They're sisters. That's what sisters do.”

“Well, I'm not pining over Lark Delaney.”

“Then I guess I won't worry about you. But I can tell you from personal experience that just because a woman has a child doesn't mean she can't have a man in her life.” Jackson and his wife, Sarah, were raising Sarah's daughter.

“Yeah, well, not this man.” He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Anything new with you?”

“Maybe. I'm trying to convince Sarah to go off the Pill.”

“So you're hoping to become a father, are you?”

“I'm already a father. I'd like to be a father again—but I don't want to rush things too much.”

Dev found himself smiling. “I'm sure she'll agree, sooner or later. She's a great mother to Holly. Besides, you're a Raines, aren't you? Get your wife in bed and you can convince her of anything.”

Jackson chuckled into the phone. “I'll remember that. Think about what I said.”

Yeah, sure, just what he didn't need, advice about Lark from his brother. “Hugs to your girls.” Dev hung up the phone, determined to shove thoughts of her away.

He started toward his office to check his email, but his iPhone starting chiming along the way. He dug it out of his pocket and slid his finger across the screen to retrieve the call.

“Raines.”

“I got that intel you wanted.” Johnnie Riggs's husky voice grated over the line.

“Hey, Hambone. What have ya got?”

John “Hambone” Riggs. A nickname that came from the quantity of food the man could consume without gaining weight. Instead, he was built like a brick whore-house, as solid as a rock and still one tough SOB.

Johnnie grunted. “Glad you're in a good mood, because you are not gonna like what I'm about to say.”

Dev sank down in the chair behind his desk, his momentary good humor already gone. “What is it?”

“Byron Weller wasn't just playing fast and loose with Alvarez's laundered drug money, he was stashing away a bundle planning to end their partnership and go out on his own.”

“I figured it had to be something like that.”

“The bad news is, Alvarez has a worse than mean reputation. They say he holds a grudge and he always gets some kind of payback. Rumor is, he's blaming you for the police crawling up his ass.”

“I didn't have anything to do with it. The trail from Weller led straight to Global Direct. Which eventually leads to Alvarez. The police just followed the trail. Odds are they won't come up with enough evidence against him to do jack shit and even if they found it, they couldn't get to him.”

“Maybe so and maybe he's figured that out, but it wouldn't hurt to watch your back.”

“What about Chrissy? Any problem with Alvarez and the little girl who escaped his hit?”

“None that I've heard of.”

“Keep your ears open, will you?”

“You know I will.”

Dev ended the call and leaned back in his chair. He didn't like loose ends. He needed to know more about Antonio Alvarez. He needed to know how far the man would be willing to go to get revenge for some imagined transgression.

He picked up his phone and called Chaz to put him back on the scent.

“Hey, man,” Chaz said, “you finally get rid of those fools in your front yard?”

“They're off sniffing after some other poor bastard's bad news. Listen, I need you to take another look at Antonio Alvarez. I want to know his history. How he got where he is, who helped him, what happened to the people who got in his way.”

“I'll do some more digging. Lots of articles written about him. I'll forward whatever I come up with and send 'em your way. I've got a couple of other places to look, but it might take some time.”

“Thanks.” The conversation ended and Dev went in search of Town. He found him out in the guesthouse, which he'd once more commandeered, going over some payroll records. Dev relayed Riggs's call.

“I don't think it's a problem,” Dev said. “All I did was find the bodies. Alvarez has to know that. I figure he can't be the head of a major drug cartel and be a dumbass. But it never hurts to keep an eye out.”

“You don't think he'd go after the little girl?”

“I can't figure why he would. He's got enough trouble as it is and she's too young to know anything that could hurt him.”

Town nodded.

But just in case, as Dev left the guesthouse, he phoned Clive Monroe and filled him in. “Keep an eye on them, will you? Maybe give Lark a call just to see how she's doing. I don't think there's anything to worry about, but I'd feel better knowing you're keeping in touch.”