by Mandy Baxter
Joel took a long drag off the cigarette and blew out the smoke in a rush before tossing it to the ground beside him. A woman sidled past him on the sidewalk. She glanced down at the discarded butt and back at him, her lip curling in distaste.
“The fuck you lookin’ at?” he barked.
Her gaze slid quickly to the ground and she picked up her pace as she raced down the sidewalk and ducked into a real estate office.
God, this place was fucking uptight. Joel cracked his neck from side to side and turned toward Shorty. “You sure no one’s going to notice us at her place?”
So far, Joel had felt the eyes of every curious asshole in the entire town on him. Small towns were full of busybodies and gossips who couldn’t wait to rat out their neighbor for whatever reason. Then again, towns like this were exactly the sorts of places where people’s loyalties could easily be bought. If he didn’t have the FBI and marshals up his ass, he could probably do well in a place like this. If he could stomach the motherfucking snow, that is.
“It’s tucked back in the woods,” Shorty said. “Down by the lake. The other houses on the lane are closed up for the winter as far as I can tell. I watched the place for two days and the only traffic in or out was Kari and her old man.”
“He could be a problem.” Joel knew the type: pussy-whipped with a hero complex.
“Unless he’s got an arsenal and ten hands, he won’t be,” Shorty said with a snort.
“So, what’re we doin’ for the next few hours?” Z-dog asked.
Joel scowled at the prospect who couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut.
Shorty had suggested they bring that idiot Z-Dog along—let him roll with the big boys as a reward for bringing in the intel on Kari. But with every idiotic word out of the kid’s mouth, Joel was starting to reconsider. The kid was wild and unfocused. The second shit went down, Joel suspected he would crumble. Joel wasn’t interested in hiding more than one body tonight—maybe two if Kari’s old man was around—and he’d be damned if he let some prospect disrupt his plan to get his ledger and his life back.
“We’re not doing a goddamned thing.” Joel turned a caustic eye toward the kid and his shoulders slumped. “We’re going to stay nice and invisible. You understand me, son?”
He gave a slow nod. “Can we at least be invisible at the bar?” He jerked his chin across the street. “Get a beer while we wait?”
The last thing Joel needed was his crew to be shitfaced or passed out on a table before they got to Kari. But the bar was a better option for them than hanging out at the cutesy fucking café to their left. At least they’d blend in at the bar. “You can get a beer,” Joel said. Z-Dog turned to leave and he grabbed the kid by the scruff of his neck and spun him around. “But you mind yourself, son. If you fuck up my chances of doing what I came here to do, I’ll bury your ass in a ditch somewhere between here and California. You understand me?”
Z-Dog’s muddy brown eyes went wide. “I get it. Jesus, I just want a beer.”
Joel let him go with a shove. Fucking prospects didn’t have any damned respect anymore.
Shorty and the other three guys they’d brought along fell into step behind Joel. He was so close to tying up his loose ends once and for all. He’d be damned if he let anything or anyone screw it up now.
* * *
Nick molded his chest to Livy’s back. Her body bathed his in heat as she nestled closer. Over the course of a few short weeks he’d lost himself so completely to her that he wasn’t sure he’d ever find his way back. He’d jeopardized his career, his reputation, everything he stood for and he’d do it all again for just another day with her. Another night. Another minute.
He’d meant to confront her when she got home from work. He’d planned to tell her who he really was and why he was there. But his own damned fear at how she’d react silenced him. His own damned fear about hearing the truth from her lips—not her deception or Morgan’s suspicions—had curtailed all of his plans. One look into her beautiful hazel eyes and nothing else had mattered but getting every last scrap of clothing off her and getting her into bed.
Now that the haze of lust had cleared from his brain, a stone of guilt and regret settled in Nick’s gut. He could protect Livy. Help her if she’d let him. He didn’t believe for a second that the woman he’d grown to love so quickly could have had any part in her father’s death. Jesus. The realization hit Nick with the force of a battering ram. He was in love with her. Whether she was Kari Hanson or Oliva Gallagher, or anyone else, it didn’t matter. Nick knew she had a good heart and an even better soul. Whatever sins she’d committed, he could forgive her. At least, he hoped he could.
But he wouldn’t know until he confronted her and got the truth out in the open once and for all. Morgan and a team of deputies would be here in under forty-eight hours. He didn’t want Livy to find out who he was when Morgan crashed through her door. He needed her to hear it from him before shit went down. He needed her to know that no matter what happened after tonight, he’d be there for her. Even if it meant his badge.
Nick wrapped his arms tight around her. She hadn’t fallen asleep yet. Chills danced over his skin as she traced a light pattern up and over his forearm with the silky soft pads of her fingertips. He held her as though worried she might slip away from him. After what he was about to say to her, he was pretty damned sure she would.
He opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. Let out a measured breath that did nothing to slow the frantic beat of his heart. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Goddamn it, he didn’t want what this was between them to end.
“I know who you are, Kari.” The words slipped from between Nick’s lips in a whisper.
Livy’s body went rigid in his embrace and her breath quickened. Her fingers stopped drawing a pattern on his skin. The flush of heat from her body intensified and he kept his arms around her as he felt her begin to pull away.
“I haven’t worked with SWAT for a while.” Nick put his mouth close to her ear as he spoke. Her delicate crisp winter scent filled his nostrils and his chest swelled with emotion. “I’m a deputy U.S. marshal. I can help you. But you have to tell me where Joel is.”
Livy’s breath stalled and Nick’s heart lodged itself in his throat. He’d taken down violent criminals without a scrap of backup. Been shot at more times than he could count. Single-handedly wrestled down guys who were hell-bent on killing him and none of it scared him as much as Livy’s still silence did.
“Help us,” he said. “You can trust me, Livy. Let me help you.”
Silence answered him. Would she deny the truth and make this harder on the both of them? He waited, gave her the time she might need to process everything he’d said to her. No more secrets. No lies. It was time for them to lay everything out on the table. Nick knew it was for the best. He hoped that Livy did too.
“You think I know where Joel is?” Her quiet voice filled the silence, full of disdain. “Jesus, Nick. Exactly who in the hell do you think I am?”
“We know you were in a relationship with him, Livy. Joel’s been looking for you for a long time. Whatever he coerced you to do, whatever he was to you doesn’t matter now. Help us put him away and I’ll do whatever is in my power to help you.”
Livy gripped his arms and shoved them away from her body. She trembled, not with fear, but with anger as she pushed herself up from the bed and turned to face him. “You son of a bitch!” Nick sat up on the bed as Livy searched the floor for her clothes. She pulled on her sweater—the sweater he loved—and a pair of leggings.
“Livy.”
“Don’t call me that!” she spat. “Don’t ever call me that again. If you know so goddamned much about me why bother with the pretense? Is this standard operating procedure for a deputy U.S. marshal, Nick? Get to know the suspect, take her to bed, and then question her post-orgasm? I’ve got to say, your interrogation tactics are stellar.”
Nick scrubbed a hand over his face and let out a gust of breath. He’d handled this
all wrong and he was about to pay the price for it. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen the way it did, but there’s nothing either of us can do about that now. Liv—Kari, this has become a multi-district operation. Hell, maybe even multi-agency by this point. My chief is sending deputies down from Boise to arrest you. I managed to buy us another twenty-four hours but before they get here, I need to know the truth. I need to know how much involvement you had in your father’s murder. You’ve got to be straight with me or there won’t be anything I can do to make this easier on you.”
“You know, Nick,” Livy said. “Your amazing powers of deduction are proving why I didn’t think I could trust the cops in the first place. You guys just make assumptions and run with them. Jesus! I thought you knew me better than this! You think I was Joel’s girlfriend? The man is a pile of human garbage!”
“I know about your dad, Livy. If you were in any way involved—”
“You think I killed my dad?” With each word her voice escalated. Simon let out a warning growl that echoed his owner’s mood before he hopped down from his spot on the bed where he’d been curled up. Her rueful laugh filled the silence. “This just gets better and better, doesn’t it? You think I’m a murderer and you’re okay with that? After all of your honorable, take-the-bad-guy-down bullshit you just hop into bed with me as though your high standards and morals don’t mean shit? I suppose I should be flattered that you thought I was hot enough to set all of that aside.” She let out a derisive snort. “Guess I wasn’t the only one lying about who and what I really was. Vacation my ass. You’ve been staking me out!”
The barb stung but she was absolutely right. Nick had tossed all of his convictions to the side the minute he’d laid eyes on her. But not simply because she was a hot piece of ass that he couldn’t wait to toss. “You have no idea what I think or feel, Livy.”
“I said, don’t ever call me Livy again.”
“It’s your name,” Nick countered. “Kari Oliva Hanson. Or Kari Olivia Barnes Hanson. I know you took your mom’s name and I know that your dad was an even bigger piece of shit than you let on.”
“So you think that justifies my killing him?” she asked with incredulity. “Wow Nick, you really are taking the moral high ground, aren’t you?”
He chose to ignore her sarcasm. She was trying to rile him, to goad him into a fight and he wasn’t going to let her do it.
“I’m not trying to justify anything,” Nick said. “All I want is the truth.”
“You’re not interested in the truth,” Livy said with disdain. “If you were, you wouldn’t have pretended to be someone you’re not.”
“Which is what?” He tried not to let her words get to him, but it was damned tough not to.
“A decent guy who doesn’t have an agenda.”
Nick opened his mouth to protest but he couldn’t deny it. He’d absolutely had an agenda. Denying it would make him look like an even bigger asshole. He wasn’t going to sit by and allow Livy to think that he’d used her, though. “That was before.”
“Before what?”
Nick raked his hands through his hair. “Before you.”
“Give me a fucking break, Nick.”
His temper flared. He understood her anger with him over his deception, but hadn’t she been dishonest as well? Nick had simply done his job in coming here to try to get a bead on Meecum. Livy was the one who was about to be arrested as an accessory to murder. He was sick and tired of defending his honor to her, trying to justify what he’d done when it was Livy who was in the wrong here. She’d turned the tables on him and he’d let her. Not anymore.
“I am giving you a fucking break, Livy. Otherwise, I’d have cuffed you by now.”
Harsh? Maybe. But it needed to be said. Nick had given her a lot of leeway and so far, Livy hadn’t done anything to assuage his suspicions or doubts. He didn’t want Morgan to be right, damn it. But Livy had done little to deny her involvement with Joel or her father’s death. The guilty always professed their innocence. He’d heard the same spiel too many times to count. Or did she simply realize she’d been caught and didn’t see the point? Either way, her continued silence on the matter drove him crazy.
Livy held out her hands. “Don’t let me stop you. Arrest me.”
If he didn’t think she’d take off, he’d get his damned cuffs from his cabin and slap them on her just to make a point. “I need you to start talking, Livy. Or you’re going to give me no choice but to arrest you.”
“Does it matter what I say?” Her eyes narrowed and she wrapped her arms around her torso as though the simple act were the only thing keeping her whole. “You’ve already passed judgment on me. You already think you know what happened. Whatever I say, you’re going to assume it’s a lie.”
God she was stubborn. And frustrating the shit out of him. If she were any other suspect, he would have read Livy her rights by now. He flung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his jeans. Sitting under the sheet, naked, wasn’t going to help him to gain the upper hand.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Nick scooped up his jeans. He stuffed one leg and then the other inside and stood as he pulled them over his bare ass. “I know you’re scared, Livy. I know you’re worried. Let me protect you.”
“Let you arrest me. Isn’t that what you mean?”
Nick felt like throwing something. “If you don’t stop acting like a spoiled kid, then yeah. I’ll happily arrest you if that’s what it takes to keep you safe. You’ve done a damned good job of keeping yourself hidden for the past four years but if I can find you, that means Meecum can find you.”
Livy’s expression changed from anger to stark fear. “Exactly,” she said more to herself than Nick. “Which is why I’ve got to get out of here.”
“That’s not going to happen,” he replied. “You’re not running again. I won’t let you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Nick was right. She couldn’t run.
He was also right that if he’d found her, so could Joel. She’d known it was time to pull up camp when Nick first came to town. She should have trusted her instincts rather than let him get under her skin with his Prince Charming smile and sexy talk. Nick had been her fatal flaw and that scared the ever-loving shit out of her.
Livy let out a bitter bark of laughter. “I can’t believe what an idiot I am. A cop lands right next door and I start to think of it as some sort of blessing! And you were so charming, so good at putting me at ease. I thought I could trust you, Nick! Hell, I was ready to spill my guts to you. You were working an angle the entire time.”
Nick’s expression darkened. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The hurt Livy tried to squash rose up inside of her like a tide. “You know damn well what that means! You fucked me into a false sense of security so that you could pull the rug out from under me when I was good and vulnerable.” His jaw squared and he took a lunging step toward her. Livy didn’t cringe away. She was sick and tired of being afraid. Instead, she stepped right up to him. “Deny it, Nick. I dare you to.”
“You’re goddamned right I’m going to deny it.” Livy had always known that Nick had a dark edge. She saw that darkness now in the anger that shadowed his handsome features. “What happened between us has absolutely nothing to do with this investigation.”
“Is anything you told me true?” She couldn’t keep the tremor from her voice. His betrayal burned in her chest. “Did you make up that story about your sister? To make me think that you were sympathetic? To make me think that I could trust you?”
His gaze further darkened. “A guy just like Joel Meecum attacked my sister when she was a fucking kid.”
She let out a sad chuff of breath. “And you slept with me even though you thought I was the ex-girlfriend of a man who’d do something like that. Looks like you really will do anything to get your man.”
He flinched as though she’d slapped him. Maybe it was a low blow but Livy was too angry to care. Too h
urt to care. So damned devastated by the truth to give a single shit about the words she flung around.
Livy slumped down on the small wicker chair beside the bed. All of the indignant fire drained out of her in an instant. She’d gone too far, accusing him of making up the story about his sister. The depth of hurt in his eyes was proof enough of the truth. She’d been angry with Nick for deceiving her but who was she to judge? She’d been lying about who she was for a long damned time. It was the way he’d wormed his way into her heart that laid her low. To know that he’d gotten close to her in the name of serving justice stung. Livy had thought—had hoped—that Nick wanted her for her. That she meant something to him because of the person she was, not what she could do for him. All of her plans yesterday to come clean and turn herself in had been waylaid by her feelings for Nick. She’d worried about how his feelings for her would change once he knew the truth. She loved him. And all she was to him was a gold star on his arrest record.
That didn’t change the fact that she was ready for all of this to be over. Livy had let her own stupid heart get in the way of confessing the truth to him. The truth hurt. It was time to tear off the Band-Aid.
“I was never in a relationship with Joel Meecum.” She did nothing to curb her indignant tone. Livy cleared the emotion that clogged her throat. She couldn’t meet his gaze and so she kept her own locked on the wood floors. “I didn’t even know who he was until about five years ago. My mom’s hospital bills were out of control and neither one of us had the money to pay them all. I went looking for my dad for some stupid reason.” The vice of bitter emotion squeezed her chest. Livy drew in a shuddering breath as she gave a rueful shake of her head. “I guess I thought he’d feel bad for leaving us high and dry. That his guilt would force him to help my mom since he’d never done a damn thing to help me. What I didn’t realize about him was that he didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself and in the end, that selfishness got him killed.”
