Deep Dark Mire (An FBI Romance Thriller ~ book four) (28 page)

“Confirm that courier is in route to deliver that journal to Elizabeth. I want it there when she lands.”

“On it, boss, and have a safe trip Mrs. B and Mr. W.” With that she disconnected the call.

Ethan pulled into their driveway
and faced them both. “Here’s all I have to say about this. You have three days to find the woman or come home. I can’t explain why the jet, my co-director, and liaison are all MIA. If there’s no stalker and no body by Wednesday, then you have no choice. There are other assignments that take precedent, and we have a job to do that doesn’t involve chasing ghosts. Am I clear?” He looked into Callen’s eyes. There was only so much time that could be bought on this, and he was officially funding it.

“Okay, Ethan,” Whitefox acknowledge. “I’m with you on the timeline. I just need to make sure.”

Elizabeth got out of the SUV and looked back in at Callen. “I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes to head out.”

He nodded, and they both hustled into the house. It was time to get back to work after having
to deal with healing the family.

Whitefox knew that it
would be a welcome distraction, or he hoped it would be. Now his biggest hope was his heart could handle it all in the end.

It was finally time to move on.

Monday Afternoon
 

Whitefox drove as Elizabeth read over the journal entries in Trinity Adare’s handwritten book. It was a mix of a woman’s thoughts, emotions and dreams. It gave really great insight into the frame of the woman’s mind at the time. It was upbeat and positive.

“Well, she didn’t take her own life,” she said
, finally, shuffling the papers in her lap. “There isn't one sad thing in these damn papers. Suicide isn't on the table here, so I guess that leads us to the big ‘M’ or that she was gator food.”

“That’s probably
likely,” he said, glancing over at her. “What else did you find?” he asked, wishing the answers were right in the book. Then they could go back home, and move on with his life.

“It’s hard to read in the car
with the bumps,” she answered grinning. “I think we head back to the bed and breakfast, order some dinner and sit in our room and work on it,” she suggested.

“Works for me. I think there’s a Chinese place that delivers, you want that for dinner?”

Elizabeth was easy when it came to food. When she was pregnant with CJ, all she craved was red meat, but now it was just fuel to her body. Anything worked. “I picked pizza the other night, so you get to pick.”

“It must be love,” he said, grinning.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Now she winked at him. When he pulled into the parking lot, she noticed it was sparsely filled. “I guess there’s room at the inn.”

Whitefox laughed. “Great I won’t have to bunk with sheep and an ass.”

“Funny, I still get the ass.”

Whitefox laughed. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” He offered her a
congratulatory fist bump.

“Yeah,
you may be sexy, but wise to my set ups… not quite there yet. Ethan would have seen that one coming a mile away.”

Whitefox was still stuck on the first part.

“What?” she asked, as he stared at her.

He didn’t know if he should bring it up or not. Maybe she just slipped. “You just said I was sexy.”

Elizabeth looked at him like he had three eyes. “I think that’s pointing out the obvious, isn't it? Sky’s blue, grass is green and you’re sexy.”

Now he didn’t know what to say. When he finally put a sentence together he spit it out. “You’ve just never said it to me before.
That’s all.”

“If it bothers you, then I won’t say it again. I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I’m sorry if I upset you, Cal.”

He started laughing. “I’m not upset; I just was caught off guard. I didn’t think you thought I was, that’s all. I know I asked you the other day, but I assumed you were just trying to cheer me up after Desdemona broke my heart.”

“Are you insane?” She shook her head in disbelief.
“You and Ethan are cut from the same cloth. When I first met you, I didn’t know you were brothers. My first thought was ‘Gee, the chief of reservation police is sexy’,” she grinned. “The more time you're together the more I see the similarities. The smile is identical. Your eyes are just different colors, but you both have the same lips. You have sharper features, but when your shirts are off it’s the same canvas, just different art.”

The knowledge that she’d studied him that much heated his body and made him very aware of how close she was to him in the Escalade. 

“You're very sexy, Cal. Trust me. I’m the expert on it.” She was now laughing. “I spend almost one hundred percent of my time with you or Ethan. I have plenty of time to think about it
, all day long.”

Now
, he was getting overheated. “We better go in,” he blurted rather quickly, and it made her laugh.

“
Think intimate.”

He dropped the keys. “What?” He felt his skin start to flush at her words. There was only one wish in his life, and that was it.

Elizabeth was laughing even harder. “The woman behind the desk thinks we’re married. You know, intimately connected as husband and wife?” The look on his face was priceless. It was somewhere between a blush and horror.

“You know payback is a bitch, Lyzee,” he said, grinning
and finally relaxing.

“I’m not worried. You Blackhawk men are sexy as sin, but slow on the
retaliation.”

Whitefox grinned as they got to the steps of the porch. Before she could enter the doorway
, he swept her off her feet and up into his arms. It drove her crazy when he and Ethan carried her like that. But now he was walking into the bed and breakfast and people were going to stare right at them.

“Look
beautiful! I’m carrying you over the threshold.” Now he was the one laughing. Slow payback his ass, because this victory was his.

Elizabeth plastered a smile to her face but gave him a wicked yank to the ponytail as the woman behind the desk smiled at them.

“Oh Elizabeth, you’re pulling my hair, you must be feeling frisky tonight.”

“Oh, Callen, wait until I get you back to
our room,” she said, grinning. Then, she whispered in his ear. “I’m going to kick your ass like you’ve never seen before.”

“Oh, Mrs. Blackhawk, we had a de
livery for you. I signed for it and here it is,” she said, handing it to Elizabeth. “You too are so completely adorable! I just have to smile when I see you both.”

“Oh, thank you for signing. Darn work follows me everywhere.” She ignored the
adorable part.

“Isn't she just the sweet
est thing you ever saw?” teased Whitefox. If she was going to kill him, he might as well get everything out of it that he could before he took his dying breath.

“Oh
darlin’, you should put me down. I don’t want you to get hurt. You know what pain feels like and it isn't fun,” she hissed between her teeth, glaring at him.

Callen
laughed and put her down, because she would inflict a world of hurt on him without a second thought. “Yes sweetheart,” he said, winking at the woman. As Elizabeth walked away, he slapped her on the ass like she’d done to him many times before. Turnabout was nothing but fair play, and he loved when he could get a few in on her.

To her credit she didn’t flinch. “Can we have a menu for the Chinese takeout place
?” she asked sweetly, heading for the stairs.

Callen grabbed the menu and gave the woman a smile.

Elizabeth loved how he was completely unsuspecting.
Now she was going to remove the smug right off his face once and for all. Payback was going to be hers yet.

When would the mere mortals learn to not screw with her?

It was time to school the man.

Callen stopped on the step below her, a look of confusion cross
ed his face, right before she attacked. Elizabeth kissed him the way she’d kissed her husband. It was meant to blow his mind and make him breathe very heavy. Was it wrong to torture him with it? Yeah, and maybe it crossed a line, but after the last few days the lines were all blurry anyway, plus she loved seeing the look on his face of horror and pleasure. It took his mind off the pain in his heart.

Slowly
, Elizabeth broke away and released his lower lip that was still gently between her teeth. His eyes were glazed over and his chest was rising and falling heavily. Elizabeth leaned over to his ear and whispered. “That’s how I kiss Ethan. Welcome to the club,” and then she turned and jogged up the stairs.

Callen just watched her from the bottom of the steps, and couldn’t believe she just planted that kind of kiss on him. That was something dreams were made of in his book.

Sweaty, erotic, wet dreams.

Now his whole body ached, and he was pretty sure that kiss topped his list of all time kisses.
Never had he felt such a combination of teeth and tongue used as a deadly weapon.

Just holy shit! Whitefox
climbed the steps to their room. Walking in, Elizabeth was still laughing in perceived victory.

“You can laugh all you want. I enjoyed every second of that, and I’ll let you do that anytime you want.”

“What do you want for dinner?” she asked, going up on her toes and kissing him on the cheek. “The usual?”

“Yeah, please. Are we in for the rest of the night? I’d like to get comfortable.”

“I believe so, but where’s the takeout menu?” she asked, looking at his empty hand.

Crap!
“It’s all your fault. That kiss was hard to concentrate through. I must have dropped it on the stairs during that assault.”

“Call the cops and
file a complaint,” she answered, laughing. “I’ll go get it. Get changed and comfortable. It’s the least I can do after manhandling you.” Elizabeth winked at him and went to the door. “Oh, and Cal? The payback wasn’t the kiss; it’s when I tell Ethan.”

Now he stared at her with an open mouth. “You wouldn’t
dare!”

Elizabeth slipped out of the room and was still laughing when she got to the bottom of the stairs. The menu was gone, and she had to ask for it again.

“Would you two like a bottle of wine? You never come down to breakfast, and I feel bad charging you for ‘bed and breakfast’ when it’s really only ‘bed’.”

“
Chinese and wine sound amazing together.” She really wished her husband was there. They always had wine with Chinese in bed. It was kind of their thing. She made a mental note to call him when she returned upstairs.

“Here you go,” she said, smiling.

Elizabeth accepted and dialed the Chinese place, ordering their usual choices. “Can I leave money here again?”

“
Absolutely, Mrs. Blackhawk.”

Elizabeth dropped the cash and
jogged back up the stairs to their room. When she got there, Callen was in his pajama bottoms and lounging on the bed with a notepad and the journal pages.

“Hey, where’d you get the wine? That was too fast for a liquor store run.”

“The nice lady was so completely dazzled by my kiss that she wanted to ply me with booze to make it easier for you to get the upper hand.”

“Will that work? Because if it will
, I’m so going to the liquor store for more,” he said, grinning.

“I’m going to get changed too. Chinese is going to be here in ten minutes.”
Elizabeth started for the Gardenia room where both their suitcases were sitting. Digging through hers, she found her shorts and tank top. “Find anything in the original?” she called from the other room, starting to strip.

Whitefox was lost in the journal and missed
her question completely. Then he looked up to find her reflection in the mirror across from where she was getting changed. Callen knew that he should look away. If Elizabeth caught him gawking like some horny teenager, she’d hand him his ass. But damn it, wasn’t he? Maybe not the teenager part, but the horny definitely. Her body was completely amazing, and he watched her step out of her jeans. Now she was in just the tiniest of panties and lacy bra.

Well holy shit
that was the hottest thing he’d seen in…ever. Then, he thought about his brother and looked back down at the journal, praying for control or divine intervention. “What Lyzee?”

She peeked around the door, shirt in front of her body
and just in her shorts. “I said… find anything in the original?”

He looked up and shook his head. “Nothing yet, and honestly,” he paused trying to concentrate.
Now she had her back to him and was topless, pulling her shirt over her head.

H
is brother’s name ripped him back to reality, as the sense of survival and loyalty kicked in, and he regained his focus.

“The original sucks to read. The scanned copies are actually better.”