The Promise of Surrender (3 page)

The sigh that escaped her lips was genuine and filled with annoyance. She dropped her pen and moved over, never looking at him directly. The inattention seemed to really bother him, so that meant he was something of a glory hound as well. It wasn’t often she felt instant dislike for someone, especially another cop, but this guy rubbed her the wrong way.

“Take your stuff out of the box and set it on the counter.”

He did as she asked and she crossed her arms over her chest, wincing as he jostled it with a heavy hand before setting it clumsily on the counter.

Mia had never been accused of being a bad poker player. Her life had depended on her reactions more times than she could count. But to say that she wasn’t surprised would’ve been a lie.

A wooden music box, identical to the one she’d held in her hands only moments before, sat in front of her. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from under the counter and slipped them on before opening the top of the music box.

It was in excellent condition, and even the green felt on the inside had similar age spots to the other. She wound it up from the bottom and the cogs and wheels began turning as
You Are My Sunshine
played. She ran her fingers around the edges and all but took it apart, looking for the tiny stamp mark that authenticated it. But it didn’t have one. Because it was a fake.

“It’s a nice piece,” she said as if she’d never seen one like it. “I’ll give you ten bucks for it.”

He sputtered, “Ten bucks? Are you fucking crazy? It’s gotta be worth at least a hundred and fifty. It’s an antique.”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He hesitated a couple of seconds before answering. “Walker Barnes.”

“Uh huh,” Mia said, raising her eyebrows skeptically. “Well, Walker Barnes, what you have here is a fake. If this thing was made before last week I’d be surprised.”

“I think you’re mistaken. Why don’t you look again.”

“You’re the second person who’s told me that in the last hour. It’s as irritating now as it was then. I don’t make mistakes. Look how new all the metal is. It’s shiny as a copper penny. And thin. They don’t make things the way they used to.”

“Shit,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Listen, I’m in a bind here. I really need to find a box just like this one that’s real. Do you have one?”

Mia arched a brow. Now things were getting interesting. The cops were looking for the same music box as the biker. The question was why. 

“Yeah, because I always keep identical merchandise sitting in my storeroom just for occasions such as this.”

“No need to be a bitch about it.”

“You’re wasting my time. One of us needs to get back to work. And in case you were wondering, that would be me.”

“Look, my girlfriend really loves this music box, but I don’t want her to find out it was a fake. Where can I get a real one?” he asked, taking a different approach.

“Your girlfriend likes it so much you decided to come in and sell it?”

Barnes flushed red. “No, I was just thinking if it was worth something I could trade it in to get her something a little nicer. She likes jewelry too.”

“Can’t help you. Ten bucks. That’s my offer.”

“Listen, I had a friend who said you can get all kinds of stuff. That you’ve got connections all over the place.”

“What friend would that be?” she asked.

Barnes smirked. “He likes to stay under the radar. But he assures me that you can ‘get’ things for people.”

“I get what I know I can sell or what interests me. You have nothing I want to sell and you don’t interest me. So feel free to buy something or leave.”

“So is it true?” he continued. “I might have a few things I want you to look for that went missing. I know a couple people who could help retrieve them if you can find them. Maybe we can work out a deal.”

Mia was done with the charade, and her blood was boiling at the thought that they’d come in and try to…
test
her. That was the only way she could really describe how it felt. As if she were auditioning for a job she didn’t know she was asking for. And what really pissed her off was that she was good at reading between the lines. He wanted to know if she was dirty. How far she’d go and if she could be bought. He was lucky she didn’t take that music box and shove it up his ass.

 “Let me make this easy for you because you don’t seem too bright,” Mia said. “I’m guessing you’re working with the local task force, and I hope to God this is the first and only job they’ve ever sent you on because you’re the worst operative I’ve ever seen. And believe me, I’ve see some bad ones.”

Barnes stiffened. “Hey—”

“I’m not finished. You’re either here for one of two reasons,” she said. “You’re trying to set me up and get me to agree to buy stolen goods, which seems pretty stupid considering I know there are a lot bigger fish to fry in this neck of the woods.”

“I’m getting pretty tired of you calling me stupid,” he said between gritted teeth.

She ignored him. “The second option is you’re trying to see if you can use me for something for your own gain. You need my expertise or maybe even my shop for a setup. You’re wasting your time and mine. If you’d wanted my help all you would’ve had to do is ask. I like cops—with the exception of you. I run a clean place with clean merchandise. I enter all my inventory into LEADS just like everyone else.”

LEADS was a database where pawnshop owners entered the pieces people sold them. The first place cops looked if there were stolen items was in the LEADS database. “And I don’t know what you’re fishing for, but you’re not going to find it here. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Mia moved back to the items she’d been cataloguing, but it was impossible to focus.

He tried smiling and lifting his hands like he was innocent. “Maybe we got off on the wrong foot, but you got it all wrong. I ain’t no cop, and I don’t know what you’re talking about as far as working out any deals. I just thought we could do each other a favor or two.”

“Don’t they have you on a leash? I would’ve thought for sure one of the big dogs would’ve come to rescue you already. You’re drowning.”

His eyes narrowed to hard, mean slits, and she realized maybe he was a little older than she’d originally thought. But she hadn’t been wrong about his personality. A hothead. And he was about ready to explode.

“You’re a real bitch, you know that?”

“You don’t say?” she said, wide-eyed. “I’ve never heard that before.” Mia watched as he tossed the music box back into the cardboard box. She tried to even her temper and she took a couple deep breaths.

“Listen,” she said, calmer. “I don’t know who your commanding officer is, but let me give you some advice. I spotted you as a cop the second you got out of your truck. Go back to patrol. Undercover work is going to get you killed. You’re terrible at it, Walker Barnes.”

He gave her a middle finger and said, “Fuck off.”

“I’m all full of fuck offs for the day, but thanks for caring. I’m a pain in the ass. I’m sure your recon on me and this shop told you that up front. Unless you didn’t bother to do recon and came in blind on your superior’s say-so. And if that’s the case, I’m going to call you stupid again.”

He grabbed her wrist and squeezed, his anger calling the shots now instead of common sense. Bingo. She knew that temper was going to get him. Now maybe she could find out what the hell he really wanted.

“I said I’m tired of you calling me stupid.”

“You’re going to want to let me go. Right now.”

“You think you’re so smart? I got news for you. You’re going to help us whether you want to or not. Or we’ll make sure this cesspool you love so much belongs to the government by the time we’re done.”

“Have you ever heard the saying,
Don’t Write A Check That Your Mouth Can’t Cash?
” she asked sweetly. Then she brought her free hand up and hit him under the chin with the back of her wrist. His teeth snapped together and his head jerked back. She grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face against the counter. And then she leaned over and whispered in his ear.

“Fuck you and everything you don’t stand for, Walker Barnes. Or whatever your name is. You’re a disgrace to the uniform and the badge, and I’m saying this here and now where everyone who’s listening in can hear me. You can take your empty threats and shove them straight up your ass.”

She saw a black Bronco skid to a stop in the parking lot out of the corner of her eye. Mia wasn’t about to be intimidated by anyone. And she knew Sheriff MacKenzie wouldn’t allow it either, even if it meant he’d have to go against another cop. Cooper MacKenzie was the real deal. And he’d always do what was right. Mia wasn’t without connections of her own. She’d been a cop for ten years.

The buzzer at the door rang over and over again, and she let go of Barnes’s hair so he could stand up straight. He stumbled back and looked confused. She released the switch to allow entry and slowed her breathing so the red haze of anger could fade.

The door opened and boots scraped across the hardwood floor. Something in the atmosphere changed—an electric current that was all too familiar. It heated her from the inside out, but chills pebbled across her skin. Her nipples spiked right along with her temper. It had always been that way.

Zeke McBride looked better than she remembered—though he was harder and had more of an edge. He’d always kept his dark hair shaved close to the scalp, but she could see the threads of silver sneaking in, especially around the temples. He’d always had facial hair for as long as she’d known him, but he’d let it grow to full scruff, and there was plenty of silver in that too. The age looked good on him.

His eyes were a dark forest green with flecks of gold, and he had impossibly long lashes for a man. She’d always been jealous. Those eyes never missed anything. One of his eyebrows had a scar running through it. That was new since she’d seen him last.

Zeke had always been big—several inches over six feet and muscled like a bodybuilder. The sleeves of his black shirt fit tight around his tattooed biceps and he wore jeans and a pair of steel-toed black boots. He was one-hundred percent badass, and if she still wasn’t so mad at him she’d have pounced and claimed what was hers.

He’d always loved the undercover life. In his mind it was the ultimate battle of good versus evil. It was a way to feed the adrenaline rush, play within the shades of gray, and ultimately put away the bad guys.

Memories assaulted her—love and fear and chaos and danger and arguments—lots of arguments—and she was suddenly back in the place she’d been seven years before. Hurt and scared and not willing to sacrifice anything more than she already had. And he hadn’t been willing to sacrifice anything at all. Or it least it had seemed that way to her. But she’d been unbending—they both had—so she’d walked away.

“Well, fuck,” she said.

“It’s good to see you too, Mia.”

Chapter Two

Zeke McBride was a gambling man. As any self-respecting, second generation, Irish-American should be.

He’d dealt his own hand. And maybe he’d dealt from the bottom of the deck, but sometimes a man had to go to extremes when the stakes were high. And when it came to Mia, the stakes were as high as it got.

He’d used agency resources, his men, and had made damned sure their mission territory had included Surrender, Montana. He was the commanding officer of a DEA taskforce, and no one questioned the orders he gave. They’d been stuck in the middle of nowhere for three years, building covers and gaining trust within different drug running communities. They were the good guys, but sometimes the lines blurred. They were a law unto themselves, forgotten by their brothers in blue who clocked in with regular shift work—unless someone got killed.

It was Zeke’s job to make sure the men remembered that there was a law and not to blur it too much. And it was his job to make sure everyone under his watch stayed alive.

His men would laugh like loons if they knew part of the reason for this mission was because of a woman. They’d call him pussy-whipped and any other names they could think of as they rolled their eyes. And then he’d have to knock some heads together just out of principal. Which was why his men were never going to find out. 

Sometimes situations were so complicated and pasts so entwined that it was hard to know where to begin to start separating the threads. And honestly, this was the only thing he could come up with.

But he hadn’t been prepared for the jolt that had hit him square in the chest the second he saw her again. She’d occupied his dreams for almost seven years. He’d tried dating other women—Mia was the one who’d left him after all—but he found himself searching for women that reminded him of her. The only problem was Mia had always been unique. There was
no one
like her.

Her appearance had changed, but by the steely look in her eyes, her temper had stayed very much the same. That temper had been making him go rock hard since the moment he’d met her. She could no longer pass for the role of the high school kid she’d played when she’d worked undercover. She was all woman, and a slow scan of her body did nothing to help relieve the throbbing pressure behind his zipper.

She’d always been petite, topping just a couple inches over five feet. Her Italian heritage was strong, with clear olive skin and dark eyes fringed with thick lashes that reminded him of a gypsy that could bewitch with just a look. Her brows were thick and delicately arched, and she had a mane of dark hair that made him long to feel it across his skin once more.

Her hair was longer than it had been the last time he’d seen her. And gone were the waves that had been the bane of her existence. It was thick and straight, and streaks of royal purple peaked between the black. He liked it. A lot. And high on his priority list was getting his hands in it.

She wore a plain black tank top. Her arm was covered from shoulder to wrist with an intricate sleeve tattoo, and he could see she’d added to it since the last time he’d seen her. That arm told an entire story, and he wondered if she’d added him anywhere, or if he’d even mattered enough.