Hell on the Heart (7 page)

“Come home with me,” he murmured in her ear.

A smile lit her face. The cornflower-blue eyes and silky blonde hair screamed her Anglo-American heritage. Dark, heavily inked lashes fluttered when she shyly nodded. He chuckled deep in his throat. Just the type he liked, eager to please, easy to train. Not like last-week’s brunette.

He closed his eyes and hugged the blonde to him so she couldn’t read the flash of anger that surged through him. Women were commodities, each exactly like the last. So why was he unable to shake the brunette from his mind? She’d occupied his thoughts all weekend long.

Brianna shifted, drawing his attention. “No, sweetheart. I want you to come home with me but not for sex, although I can hardly wait to make love to you. I want you to meet my family. They need to see that I’ve finally met the angel I’ve dreamed about.” He pulled back to study her reaction to his words.

At her startled stare he stroked a finger across her soft cheek. “I’m rushing you. You probably don’t even believe in love at first sight, but I knew the minute I saw you across the room. Something special about you calls to me.” He clasped her hands, trying to manufacture an urgency that didn’t touch his heart. “If you don’t feel the same, tell me now.”

A slow blush, evident even in the honky-tonk’s shadowy lighting, crawled up her cheeks. Unshed tears sparkled in her eyes as she returned the pressure of his squeeze.

“So this is what it’s like to fall in love,” she whispered.

He touched his forehead to hers. “You are too precious. I can’t believe I’ve finally found you. Let’s get out of here.” He rose and pulled her up with him. Tossing an extra twenty on the table for a tip, he wrapped his arm around her and propelled her toward the door.

Eli slouched against the driver’s door of the black limo eying an audio system in the store window next door. Cain tugged the girl tighter to his side and slammed the bar door against the wooden structure. The driver jumped, straightening his backbone and plastering his cap on his head as his attention became riveted on Cain and the girl. Cain scowled at the younger man’s look of surprise.

Eli grinned at the girl, her posture stiffened against Cain’s side. He gave her waist a squeeze of confidence and was delighted when she gazed upward at him with a look of trust in her eyes.

The black limo prowled through the urban streets as silently as a panther on patrol. Only a few miles outside the city limits, the car turned into the entrance of a small airstrip.

“Where do your parents live?” she asked as the car pulled up to the open rear of a private jet.

“About an hour from here. C’mon.” He opened the door and stepped out onto the tarmac, tugging the girl behind him. She handed him her purse as she rose out of the rear seat.

“Of course.” He trundled her toward the stairs. “Watch your step.” Within minutes, he had her buckled in and the door closed. The plane taxied toward the runway.

“I should call my mom.” She hunted for her purse only to discover it was missing. “Have you seen my purse?”

“I think it’s in the car, but I wish you’d said something earlier about using the phone. You’ll have to wait until we land. Would your mom want to hear from you at this hour?” He glanced at his watch, surprised to find it wasn’t that late. A couple of hours of charm and boring small talk took its toll. He ran his fingers through his wavy hair.

“She’d want to hear from me, cause I’m leaving town.” Brianna tried to hide her yawn as she stretched back in the seat.

“Take a nap. We’ll call when we get there.”

She’d barely closed her eyes, when he eased out of the seat next to hers and headed toward the bar opting for a straight bourbon in an attempt to get the taste of her out of his mouth.

Brianna didn’t stir. He nursed the drink, being careful not to over indulge when he still had work to do.

Three hours later, Cain wrapped his arm around the woman and gently shook her awake. “Drink this.” He held it to her lips and watched while she sipped, then scrunched her mouth in distaste.

“I removed it while you slept so you didn’t scratch yourself. Eli is bringing all our stuff, but the van’s waiting. If you want to brush your hair or wash your face, there’s stuff in the bathroom.”

He admired the curve of her ass in her tight jeans as she swayed an unsteady path toward the bathroom. The drugs would kick in almost immediately. By the time she met the “family” her resistance would be minimal. They couldn’t afford to damage the merchandise if she decided to fight.

She opened a lower drawer and withdrew a thick accordion file. Judging by the heavy thud it made when she plopped it on the stainless steel table, she had been thorough in her collection of information. John steeled his face, trying not to look too excited.

“Button-hole camera.” She unwound the string that held the reddish file closed and slid her hand inside. He wanted her to empty the entire contents on the table, but had to satisfy himself with the slender manila file she withdrew.

 “I was doing surveillance on a cheating husband. This guy, right here,” she pointed a long slender finger with ruby polish to an eight-by-ten photo at the top of a neat stack, “sat at the next table pouring beer into an artificial plant. I noticed him when the beer splashed on my leg.”

A photo of the sandy-hair man reminded him of a young Brad Pitt. The girl with him thought so, too, judging by her adoring gaze. “Cain?”

“No.”

He purposely crowded her, making sure his shoulders and hips touched hers as they leaned over the lab table. She tapped the girl’s photo and inched away from his body. “This is Ellie, the girl who was murdered.”

He pushed the picture toward her and closed the distance between them, wanting to keep her off-guard, uncomfortable. “You’re outside. Where is this?”

Her nostrils flared slightly. She sniffed him again. He resisted raising his arm to check for body odor. His plan to keep her on-edge backfired since he felt like a specimen under her lens as she checked him out. Many women wanted to touch his face, but unless they were naked at the time, he refused. He wondered if she’d ask.

As though aware he covertly watched her, she re-focused her attention on the table. “Cottonwood Inn. I’d finished my job and was headed toward the surveillance van when the limo caught my eye.”

“Are these digital? Can we email them to my team?”

Mechanically, she bobbed her head, but he noticed the tension in the way she held her shoulders rigid, her lips pressed together in a tight line. What was she hiding?

“Do you want me to send the fingerprints and the copy of Cain McIntosh’s,” she pointed to another photo, “driver’s license and credit cards?”

“You have that?” He reached in his pocket for his phone. “I’m calling the team in. They can be here in the morning.”

This was what she’d wanted. Dreamed of, actually. To be part of a real investigation. To have access to data she wouldn’t normally have. To solve problems that made a difference. Cheating spouses were repetitive and boring. Without thinking, she clutched his forearm, ignoring the steel band of muscles that bunched underneath his jacket. “Will you let me help?”

He froze, the phone call suspended as he looked at her hand. Immediately she drew back.

“No.”

He’d used her. She’d spilled her guts and now he brushed her aside. This wasn’t right. “You expect me to blurt out everything I know, but you can’t let me be of assistance? I have skills. How do you think I got this stuff? You haven’t even seen the photos of the limo, yet.”

He tilted his head and studied her like a big dog approached an out-of-control kitten hissing and spitting, unsure how to proceed. Something about that gesture made her grit her teeth. Why did men always think they knew better, simply because they were bigger.

“You,” she stepped forward and poked her finger in his chest, “expect to ride in like the hero and scoop up information I risked my life getting.” Maybe a slight exaggeration, but he didn’t need to know that. “And then gallop off to save the day for untold women everywhere. Except I’m the one who’s been threatened.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she cursed her tongue. Just like her cousins, he growled when he wanted answers. “Who threatened you?” He gripped her hand to cease her finger poking. She hadn’t realized the air conditioner had chilled her skin until his warmth seeped into her.

“The guy with the limo.” She struggled to wrench her hand from his, but he didn’t release it.

“Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.” He snagged her second hand and forced both behind her, backing her until the stainless-steel table and the ungiving wall of his body hemmed her in. “Calm. Down.”

“How will that help?”

“Look at me.” He spoke quietly into her ear. Cezi flung her head backwards prepared at least verbally for round two. It was his eyes, she decided. She frequently thought her own looked like the shiny black buttons sewn onto stuffed animals. But his… His were endless deep pools that sucked one closer and held them in thrall. Hypnotic…. Compelling….

She failed to suppress a shudder.

He grinned. Not a little amused smile to taunt her. No, a Cheshire cat grin. And she’d been right. All those little lines radiating from his eyes crinkled. Smiling changed his face, softened it. The Billy Badass look he’d perfected faded and left in its place, a man she’d like to know better. Except he was only passing through Dillo Creek and he was
gajikané
. And that wasn’t the worst of it. An outsider might be tolerated, a Federal agent would never be.

“Goodness there is no pleasing you, is there? If you were killed while working with my team, how would your family react? They’d sue the government and I’d lose my job. And you would still be dead. Not good.” His face remained stern, even though she suspected he was having a laugh at her expense. ‘Goodness?’ What man said that except one who believed in his own infallibility?

“Why does your family care that I’m Indian?”

Cezi bared her teeth at his new direction. Was he an idiot? But before she could respond, the footsteps of the others echoed on the hardwood floors as they came down the hall. He eased his grip on her wrists and pivoted his body toward the door.

She couldn’t see around Mount Stillwater, the human barrier trapping her behind him. In retaliation she kneed his thigh. She was going for a higher location, but couldn’t get enough room to raise her leg that far. His response was a low grunt before he backed up, limiting her movements by crowding her closer to the table.

“Storm’s kicking up,” Uncle Luca said. “Agent Lassiter’s catching a flight for Chicago out of Amarillo. If he doesn’t leave now, we don’t think he’ll be able to get out-“

“How are you getting to Amarillo?” John locked his hands against the table.

“One of my nephews flies a crop duster. If they leave now, he can make the flight. Give me your car keys. We want to move the vehicles off the street.”

His movement to fish the keys out of his pocket gave her the opening she needed to sidle away from her blocked position. Although she struggled with disappointment when John completely ignored her to ask his partner, “You good with this?” He tossed the keys to Luca who caught them in midair.

Her eyes met her father’s, who ignored everyone in the room as he studied her. Satisfied with what he saw, he nodded and gestured code with his fingers.

Bring him home? Was he crazy? She shook her head. Her father smiled in that way that Cezi knew it didn’t matter what was said next, he’d won.

“The Elders want to meet him.”

Not good. This was not good, at all.

The black man took the opportunity to offer Stillwater an explanation. His voice was muted, but Cezi stood close enough to hone in on the conversation.

“Dawg, no one’s called me Binky for thirty years, but if my mother was upset that’s the one name she’d use.”

D’Sean glanced in her direction but turned back when John answered in a low whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

He shifted on the balls of his feet, a graceful athletic move that made Cezi envy his agility. Too bad he was a Fed. He’d make an excellent second story man.

“My sister insisted it was nothing. Minor day surgery. Now I’m not so sure.” He looked in Cezi’s direction for the second time. This time his appraisal lingered, his eyes narrowed and he twisted his lips until they were non-existent.

John clasped a hand on his shoulder. “Good luck. Keep me posted. I’m calling for the team.”

The black man tore his eyes from Cezi and grimaced. “I don’t know how you do it.” He reached into his pocket and whipped out two twenties and slapped them on the cold metal table.

For the first time the men both looked in her direction. One annoyed, one smug. What was that all about?