He had difficulty reining in his imagination. The sight of Carly like that made him ache for her all over again.
Moving quietly as he’d been trained to do, Hawk came up behind the woman who had rocked his world last night, rocked it the way it hadn’t been, even remotely, these past ten years.
He stood behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. He felt her stiffen as she grabbed for another skillet, her hand wrapping around the handle as if she intended to use it as a weapon.
“Down, tiger, it’s only me,” he whispered against her ear, managing to all but singe her very skin with his warm breath.
Carly breathed a sigh of relief. She released her grip on the skillet, leaving it on the back, dormant burner.
“There is no ‘only’ when it comes to you,” she informed him. Then before he could explore her comment, she told him to “Sit down, breakfast is almost ready.”
Pulling over the two plates she’d set out on the counter, Carly began to divide up the eggs and bacon. She topped it off with the toast that she’d just finished buttering.
She then set the pan down and gave Hawk the larger portion. As she remembered, he always had an appetite first thing in the morning. Conversely, hers always took a couple of hours to kick in.
“By the way,” she said as she set his plate before him, “some FBI agent you are. You didn’t even stir when I slipped out of bed this morning. I thought you guys are supposed to sleep with one eye open.”
He took the fresh coffee she’d just poured for him. It was as black as he imagined Grayson’s heart was. For a second, he savored the heat that rose up from the cup before taking a deep, life-affirming sip.
“You completely wore me out,” he said matter-of-factly, then added, “I’ll have to work on that.”
Was that last part just an off-the-cuff remark, or did he mean something by it, she wondered. “Working on it” made it sound as if she would be there to see if he succeeded.
Don’t read anything into it, she warned herself. This was nice, being here like this with him, but it too was an aberration. The man was here for a reason, and she wasn’t it. He had a job to do, and then he would be on his way.
She had to remember that, Carly silently insisted. Otherwise, she left herself open to devastation. She couldn’t go through that twice, loving him and watching him walking away from her. She wouldn’t survive a second time—if she allowed herself to love him again.
So this time, it’s going to be just fun, no strings.
“You haven’t lost your touch,” Hawk said after taking a hearty bite of his breakfast. He looked at her for a long moment, then added, “Not with anything.”
She could feel warmth creeping up the sides of her neck, reaching her face. Any second now, she would turn a really embarrassing shade of pink, she thought, upset with her inability to bank down feelings.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked abruptly, trying to change the subject. Hawk was exceedingly focused, so if she could just get him to think about his reasons for being here, she thought it was a safe bet that she could turn lime-green and he wouldn’t notice. At least not immediately.
“With Grayson,” she added, in case he thought she was asking about their future together.
She already knew the answer to that one. They had no future together. She’d taken care of that when she’d initially sent him on his way. This was just a lovely, quick trip down memory lane, but she wasn’t going to make herself crazy by thinking that maybe they were getting a second chance to do it right this time.
They were both too far along on their separate paths for her to think that life offered any kind of “do-overs.” It didn’t. One had to live with the consequences of one’s actions, and she was prepared to do just that, even if it felt as if she were swallowing razor blades.
“The plan is that I continue rattling cages, asking questions, trying to get someone to testify against Grayson and to hopefully give us the missing evidence that ties that bastard to the five murders. I know in my gut he did it—or ordered it done—but I can’t prove it.
“So far, the guy’s been a slick devil. We’ve connected the women to Cold Plains, but we haven’t been able to connect them to Grayson—yet.” He thought of Micah and wondered again where the man was. Grayson’s twin still wasn’t answering his phone, but he refused to think that Micah was dead. Men like him brought death to people; they weren’t mowed down by it.
If he could just get a hold of Micah and ask him some key questions, maybe things would clear up a little.
At any rate, it was something he was going to look into—as soon as he finished breakfast. Granted he was indulging himself, but he rarely did that, and who knew when he could get a home-cooked meal again?
“Everything okay?” Carly asked as she sat down on the stool next to his at the counter.
“The meal’s fantastic,” he said in a tone that told her he was leaving out more than he was saying.
Fork raised, she forgot about eating for a moment. Leaning her head against her hand, she looked at him.
“So what isn’t okay?” she asked.
What wasn’t okay was that he suddenly had her to worry about. She wasn’t one of those women who stood off to the side, observing or waiting to be rescued. She was the kind of woman who charged out and took matters into her own hands. She was the kind of woman who made him worry and kept him up at night. Knowing the answer he was going to get, he gave it a shot, anyway. “Any way I can convince you to leave dealing with Grayson up to me?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Not even a repeat performance of last night,” she answered. There might have been a smile on her lips, but her eyes, he noted, were very serious as she added, “I take care of my own, Hawk, you know that. And Mia’s my sister, that makes her my problem.”
“She’s old enough to make her own decisions,” he pointed out again.
“Only if she makes the right ones,” was Carly’s good-humored albeit stubborn response.
It was futile to argue with her. She would only succeed in getting him to lose his temper.
Same old Carly, he couldn’t help thinking.
Despite his concern, Hawk caught himself grinning for the remainder of their time together. It was way too late for them after all these years had gone by—but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t savor the small moment that had unexpectedly been carved out for them at this junction.
He could.
And he would.
Chapter 9
After breakfast, just before he and Carly went their separate ways that morning, Hawk decided to try one last time to talk a little sense into Carly, to no avail.
She listened quietly as Hawk continued to enumerate all the reasons—again—why what she was doing was tantamount to juggling with loaded pistols. When he was finished, he could tell by the expression on her face that he had made no headway whatsoever in making her come around to his way of thinking.
Instead, rather than arguing with him, she pointed out the upside of having her continue to pose as one of the faithful in Grayson’s circle.
“Think of it this way, Hawk. You need to have a person on the inside to be your eyes and ears. I’ll be that person.”
That was all well and good, if she were a trained special agent—and someone else. But she wasn’t trained in undercover work, and she was Carly, someone he didn’t want taking any risks.
So he shook his head and got ready to leave. He looked down into her eyes one last time. “I don’t want to see anything happening to you.”
Carly smiled at his concern. She wouldn’t have been able to explain why, but the very fact that he was worried made her feel safe.
“That makes two of us,” she assured Hawk. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”
He really wished he could believe her, Hawk thought, walking over to where he had left his car last night. But where her sister was involved, Carly would take whatever risks she felt were necessary in order to save Mia.
/> Getting into his vehicle, Hawk blew out a long breath. The best way to protect Carly at this point was to nail Grayson as quickly as possible for at least one of the murders. Once he had that, once he could point to Grayson’s connection to one murder, he had a feeling the rest would fall into place.
Preoccupied, he inserted his key into the ignition. Just as he was about to start the car, he saw that there was a folded piece of paper on his dashboard.
Staring at it, Hawk frowned.
He was positive that hadn’t been there last night when he drove up to Carly’s house. His hand automatically covered the hilt of his service revolver as he looked around slowly, deliberately. But other than Carly’s house, the barn and the corral, nothing was visible for miles. Whoever had broken into his vehicle and left the paper on his dashboard was long gone.
Not knowing what to expect, he took out his handkerchief, and holding it by the edge, he opened the folded paper and read:
“Please meet me at the Hanging Tree at 10 this morning. I urgently need to speak with you. Come alone.”
That was it. Three terse sentences. No signature, no indication what this was about. For all he knew, he was being set up.
But this could also be on the level. It might be one of Grayson’s people who’d had enough, was unable to break away and was willing to trade information for help in getting out of the cult—because at this point, that was what it was. A cult.
Hawk glanced at his watch. The note said to be there by ten. Because he’d lingered over breakfast—and over Carly—he didn’t have all that much time to spare. The reference to the meeting place made him think that perhaps he was dealing with someone who was a native of the area. Outsiders didn’t know about the oak tree’s nickname.
The Hanging Tree had gotten its name because of a story that had made the rounds over a hundred years ago. The biggest branch on it was uniquely bent and actually pointed down. The story had it that an outlaw gang caught the sheriff who had been pursuing them, and that they hung him from the biggest, strongest branch of this massive tree and then just rode away, leaving the sheriff to die. The branch miraculous bent down far enough for him to reach the ground with his feet. Freeing himself, he went on to track down and avenge himself of each of the outlaws who had left him to die.
When he was a kid, Hawk liked to pretend he was that sheriff, hunting down outlaws and dispensing his own brand of justice. After a while, the lines between reality and make-believe blurred a little. He supposed that story had gotten him thinking about becoming a law-enforcement agent.
Before he took off for the appointed meeting place, Hawk called Rosenbloom at the cabin. “I just wanted you to know where I’m going in case I don’t get back.”
“You want backup?” Rosenbloom asked.
The agent sounded eager to get out of the cabin. Hawk couldn’t blame him. But he also couldn’t use him right now. “The note said to come alone.”
He could almost hear Rosenbloom’s frown over the phone. “Since when do you listen to notes?”
Since I don’t want to jeopardize this case, I’m in a hurry to wrap it up and keep Carly safe, because the woman doesn’t have enough sense to stay the hell out of this.
“I didn’t call you to argue,” he told the other man. “I just want you to know where I’m going.”
“Got it.”
Hawk hung up and drove straight to the appointed place. Taking precautions, he got out of the vehicle and slowly circled around. The man he saw standing by the tree and impatiently shifting from one foot to the other was a stranger to him.
But as he drew closer, Hawk realized that this was someone he’d seen recently. But where? And with whom?
Was it a setup? Hawk wondered again. Whoever this guy was, he definitely appeared uneasy. Why? Because he was afraid of being watched? Or because he was afraid he might get cut down in the cross fire?
Dr. Rafe Black looked at his watch. It was three minutes past ten.
Where the hell was Bledsoe, anyway?
He dragged a hand through his black hair. Three months ago, he had been blissfully unaware that Cold Plains, Wyoming, even existed. And then he’d received a phone call from a woman he’d been involved with a little more than nine months ago for exactly one night. At first, when she told him her name, he couldn’t even place her.
And then he remembered. She was a sweet-faced, almost timid young woman.
Abby Michaels had tracked him down and was calling because she thought he should know that he was now the father of a newborn, healthy baby boy named Devin.
Stunned by the news, he took a moment to recover. When he began firing questions at Abby, the line went dead. He tried to shrug it off as a practical joke that one of his colleagues was playing on him, but he had the uneasy feeling that it wasn’t.
And he was right.
A week later, he received a brown envelope with a photograph of a male infant. It could have been his own photograph taken at that age. The child had the same dark eyes, the same dark hair that he’d had. In addition, the baby had his mother’s nose and small, rosebud mouth. One look, and he knew this was his child—and Abby’s.
A letter was included with the photograph. In it, Abby asked him for ten thousand dollars to help care for the baby, instructing that it be wired to a bank in Laramie.
He did as she asked, going down to Laramie with the hopes of finding Abby, his son and some answers. However, none of it materialized. Abby and the baby were nowhere to be found. Wondering if he’d been duped, Rafe nonetheless seriously considered hiring a private investigator to track down Abby and his son.
He was still debating that course of action when he saw the news story about the five murdered women being found in different locations. In all honesty, after a long day at the hospital, he was only half paying attention when he saw Abby’s photo being flashed on the screen. That got his attention immediately. She was one of the dead women.
Rafe had tuned in just in time to hear that all five women, including a Jane Doe, had Cold Plains, Wyoming, in common. He started packing immediately.
Cold Plains was where the answers were. Once he arrived, he went about the business of opening up a practice, thinking it would help him blend in. He was hoping to pick up enough information to enable him to locate his son. After all, people told their doctor things they didn’t share with their friends or families. Maybe he would hear something useful that would help.
He’d hardly been in Cold Plains more than two weeks when he heard that there was an FBI special agent in town looking into the deaths of these women. Into Abby’s death.
Confident that this was the break he’d been looking for, Rafe had decided to contact Special Agent Bledsoe and share what he knew about Abby. However, Rafe instinctively understood the need for caution and secrecy. Apparently, there was a killer loose, and he didn’t want to attract undue attention, which might result in his son being harmed—if the boy was actually here, something he hadn’t established yet.
“Who are you?” A deep, low voice behind him growled out the question.
Caught completely by surprise, Rafe spun around, not knowing what to expect and wishing he’d brought some kind of weapon with him. Half braced to be staring into the face of a killer, Rafe exhaled a loud sigh of relief when he saw that the man facing him was the FBI special agent he was waiting for.
“Damn, but you scared me,” Rafe told him, his hand splayed across his chest.
Hawk made no apologies. “Didn’t know if I was walking into a trap.”
Seeing the ironic humor in the situation, Rafe laughed shortly. “That makes two of us.” He put out his hand to the special agent. “I’m Dr. Black. Rafe Black,” he added.
After a beat, Hawk took the offered hand and returned the handshake.
He glanced over his shoulder at the Hanging Tree. “Well, Dr. Black, I can’t say that this is exactly a typical meeting place. Why did you want to meet me out here and not in your office?” Hawk asked.
&nbs
p; That, at least, was a simple question to answer. “Because I didn’t want anyone overhearing what I had to tell you.”
Hawk was still waiting to find out what this was all about and if it in any way helped to shed some light on the murders he was investigating. “Which is?”
Rafe took a deep breath and then plunged into his story. “I had a relationship with one of the murdered women, Abby Michaels.”
His interest piqued, Hawk continued to scan the area, making sure that they weren’t caught by surprise. So far, they appeared to be alone out here.
“Go on.”
Rafe backtracked a little. “Well, not so much a relationship as a one-night stand.”
Hawk did his best not to sound impatient, but it wasn’t easy. The level of his adrenaline was rising. “Which is it?”
“A one-night stand,” Rafe said definitively. “At least I thought that was all it was. But three months ago, I got a phone call from Abby saying that she’d just given birth to a baby boy and I was the baby’s father.”
Hawk looked at him sharply. This was the first he’d heard about a baby. Would they find yet another, much smaller body somewhere out there? “Did the numbers work out?”
“Yeah, that’s about the time we hooked up. Abby sent me a photograph of my son.” He took it out of the pocket of his jacket and glanced at it before holding it up for the special agent. “This could have been a picture of me as a newborn.”
Hawk took the photograph and studied it for a moment before handing it back to the doctor. “You are aware that most babies look alike.”
Rafe knew what the agent was implying, but he was convinced that this was his son. And just as convinced that he had to find him somehow.
“No, this one’s mine,” he said with conviction. Then because the agent was looking at him a bit skeptically, he added, “It’s a gut feeling. I know he’s mine, Bledsoe,” he told Hawk.
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