Riding Shotgun

by Joanna Wayne

  He walked over and took both her hands in his. “Try me.”

  “Please, just let this go, Pierce.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Because you’re a former navy SEAL?”

  “Because I care about you. I care about you a lot, and judging from your kisses, I think you like me, too.”

  “I care about you, Jaci and Esther, which is why I can’t drag any of you into my private terror.”

  “You aren’t dragging me. I’m begging to be included.”

  “You’ll be sorry.”

  “Fine. Tell me what’s really got you scared half to death, and if I want out, I’ll let you know.”

  “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. You’ve asked for it, but first I need a shower.”

  “I’ll wash your back.”

  “We’ll save that until you know what you’re getting into.”

  He could live with that. He ached to kiss her, but somehow the timing didn’t seem right. This was about a lot more than a moment of passion. He had a feeling his whole life was about to change.

  He just wasn’t sure in what direction it was heading.

  * * *

  GRACE WAS AN emotional train wreck when she stepped out of the shower. The images from the nightmare refused to go away.

  All dead. All dead. All dead. A mantra straight from her hellish past, a thread that had echoed through her mind and soul for the past six years.

  But then there was Pierce Lawrence, a man who represented everything her heart longed for. She’d promised him the truth and he’d get it. She owed him that much.

  She buffed her body and then her hair with a fluffy white towel. Her body trembled as she pulled on the clean cotton nightshirt she’d brought into the bathroom with her and then slipped into a pair of matching pink panties.

  Neither was particularly sexy, though she was keenly aware of the sensual temptation every time she was near Pierce. But tonight even that was overshadowed by the terror of her past.

  She applied some of the ointment the doctor had given her to the scratches on her hands and arms and checked the bandage on her temple. Satisfied she hadn’t ripped out her stitches, she worked a comb through the tangles in her damp hair.

  She joined Pierce in the bedroom to find that he’d remade the bed and turned down the covers—on both sides of the bed. The pillows on both sides were also piled against the headboard.

  She’d assumed he would sit in the chair while they talked. Sitting in bed, side by side, would make this even more difficult for her. But once Pierce knew the truth, the sizzling attraction between them would go ice-cold.

  He’d be over her. She’d be gone.

  “There’s still time to run for the hills,” she said.

  “Not a chance, but I was beginning to think you’d slipped out the bathroom window and did that yourself.”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “I would only hunt you down.”

  “I figured that. Thanks for straightening the mess.”

  “It wasn’t that difficult. I took the busted lamp and its parts to the kitchen trash and found clean sheets on the top shelf of the bedroom closet.”

  “You make a neat bed.”

  “Military-style. We don’t mess around.”

  She walked over and crawled into bed, pushed her back and head against the pillows and pulled the covers up to her knees. Pierce slid in beside her.

  There was nowhere to start except with the mistake that had thrown her life into disaster mode.

  “My name is Grace, but the last name is not Addison. It’s Lacoste. I was married for a time to the infamous Tom Lacoste.”

  “The name sounds familiar.”

  “Wilbert Lacoste was Tom’s father. He was the head honcho of the New Orleans drug dealing operations during the last decade.”

  “Now that you mention it, I do remember something about that. Was that the notorious drug-running family taken down by a college coed?”

  “Right.”

  “Wait. That was you. You were that coed. That’s why you’re on the run.”

  “I wasn’t actually attending college when I testified, but I was when I met and married Tom Lacoste.”

  He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. “There’s a lot more to the story. If you give me the least bit of sympathy, I may never get through this.”

  And for some reason, now that she’d admitted that much out loud for the first time since the trial, she needed to say these disgusting truths out loud.

  Pierce put his hands behind his head. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Deal. I’ll start at the beginning. Perhaps you can get a better grip on this than I ever have.”

  Though it was difficult, she tried to let her mind drift back to a time before she’d invited a charismatic, wealthy, powerful cold-blooded killer into her life.

  “I grew up in the little town of Decatur, Mississippi. I don’t remember my parents. My mother died of a drug overdose when I was two. There was no father’s name on my birth certificate. I was raised by my grandparents, two of the most loving, giving people on the face of the earth. A lot like Esther.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  Grace squeezed her eyes shut to fight back gathering tears and then blinked them repeatedly as the past pulled her into its depths.

  “My grandmother died of cancer my senior year in high school, right after my academic success earned me a full scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans.”

  “So you were a brainiac.”

  “A very naive one who had no experience with big-city life. I was still grieving for my grandmother when I left for college. Within two weeks of reaching the Big Easy, I was introduced to the very active music and bar scene in and around the university area.”

  “And no doubt that’s where you ran into Tom Lacoste.”

  “I did. Only, he was the rescuer that night. He claimed he saw one of the male students I was with slip a powder into my drink. He had the guy thrown out and then moved in on me himself.

  “I was so naive I not only bought the lie about the powder but quickly fell in love with this sophisticated and charming older guy.”

  “How much older?”

  “I was eighteen. He was thirty-two. I suppose in his own way he fell in love with me, too. We were married less than a month later in a chapel in Las Vegas.”

  “And you had no idea what he was involved in?”

  “No. A possibility like that never crossed my mind. I knew the family was incredibly wealthy and thought it a bit strange that they never talked about their work. I would have never married a cold-blooded killer, had I had even an inkling of the truth.”

  “When did you find out what he was really like?”

  “About a month after we returned from our honeymoon in Italy. By then I was more in love with him than ever. I wanted to bring my grandfather down to meet him, but he kept putting me off. So I went to see my grandfather to break the news to him that I was married and dropping out of Tulane.”

  “How did that go?”

  “Not well. I could tell he was really worried about me, but I thought he was just upset that I was dropping out of school. I left Mississippi two days earlier than planned to get back to my new life and Tom. That was the last time I ever saw my grandfather alive.”

  Pierce pulled her trembling body into his arms. This time she didn’t pull away.

  “You don’t have to say more tonight. We can finish this discussion in the morning after you’ve had some rest and time to regroup from the nightmare.”

  “No. I have to get through this now.”

  She told him about the doorbell ringing in the mi
ddle of the night. Tom had ordered her to stay in the bedroom until he returned no matter what she heard. She had stayed through the loud, angry voices and the sound of more people arriving.

  And then she’d heard gunshots. Rapid-fire like it had been today. She screamed and went running to the back of the house where the men had gathered.

  Blood pooled on Tom’s office floor. Two men lay dead, their brains spilling out of their skulls. Tom ordered her to stay out of it. She cowered in the corner and watched while he raised his gun and put a bullet through his best friend’s head, too.

  The words spilled from her mouth now. How she’d threatened to go to the police. How she’d been locked in an upstairs bedroom for weeks, raped and tortured in ways it still made her sick to talk about. In an instant she’d gone from wife to imprisoned sex slave.

  “As bad as that was, the worst was the day Tom walked in and tossed a photograph onto my bed. It was my grandfather’s body, slumped over in his wheelchair, a bullet through the front of his head.”

  Pierce sputtered a string of curses. “Sorry. I couldn’t hold that in any longer. If I ever get my hands on Tom Lacoste, I’ll kill him. I swear, I’ll kill him. But surely the Lacostes are still in prison.”

  “Yes, and hopefully he’ll remain there until the day he dies. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have goons on the outside still eager to do his bidding.”

  Pierce eased his arm from around her, stood and started pacing the room. “So you’ve been living in fear for what? Six years? Seven?”

  “Almost six. I was in protective custody throughout the trial and for the first two years after Tom was convicted. Other members of the Lacoste family were still being prosecuted at the time. I’ve been on the run on my own since then.

  “Relying on fake IDs. Staying as low-key as possible. Avoiding personal relationships. Changing my appearance as much as possible. I even considered cosmetic surgery to change my nose and chin, but I couldn’t afford it.”

  “What made you leave where you were before driving to Texas?”

  “Mostly intuition,” she admitted. “I was working in a library in a small mountain town in Tennessee. I ran into a stranger a couple of times and something about the way he stared at me made me nervous. The final straw was when he came into the library where I worked and I caught him taking my picture with his phone.”

  “I can’t believe every man you’ve ever met doesn’t follow you around and want your picture, but under the circumstances I can see why you became suspicious. The shooting in Winding Creek must have terrified you.”

  “It didn’t help any. But that’s why I can’t stay here and share your wonderful Christmas. My being here puts you all in danger. The Lacostes don’t just murder in cold blood the people they think double-crossed them. They kill their enemies’ friends and family members, the same way they killed my grandfather. My staying here puts you all at risk.”

  Pierce spun around and stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “Your leaving is all about protecting us?”

  “Yes. It makes sense.”

  “It’s insane. You can’t keep running from this lunatic your whole life. You’ve paid your dues. You deserve a life, a real life where you can stop punishing yourself for doing the right thing.”

  This was what she’d been afraid of all along. Instead of kicking her out, he wanted to save her.

  Pierce walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge on her side.

  “Listen up, sweetheart. You’re not going anywhere, at least not out of fear of some has-been incarcerated criminal. I can assure you I’ve taken on tougher than him.”

  “But there’s not just you to consider, Pierce. There’s Esther and Jaci.”

  “I’m considering them. That doesn’t mean I’m throwing you to the wolves. Families stick together.”

  “I’m not family.”

  “Give me time. I’m working on that. It’s late and you need your rest. We’ll talk more about this in the morning, but don’t try anything stupid like going on the run again. If you do, I’ll be the one tracking you down.”

  “What sense does it make for me to stay here?”

  “’Cause we’re going to have the mostest best Christmas ever,” Pierce said, playfully mocking Jaci, even though he sounded dead serious. “And because I owe you a horseback riding lesson.”

  He leaned over and kissed her, sweeter and more gentle than before. Then he walked over and lay down next to her.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to seduce you, Grace. When we make love for the first time, I want it to be so special we remember it for the rest of our lives.

  “Tonight I’m just going to lie here until you fall into a peaceful sleep. It’s time for those nightmares of yours to ride off the edge of a cliff.”

  “You’re an amazing man, Pierce Lawrence.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  * * *

  PIERCE WOKE AT sunrise to a pleasurable throbbing in his groin. It took only a second to realize the reason for that. The soft weight resting on his thigh was Grace’s leg. The silky brown hair haloed across his left shoulder belonged to her, as well.

  He’d known it would be risky when he’d shed his jeans in the middle of the night. But the scratchy denim, while it didn’t come close to the more serious problems robbing him from sleep, was the only distraction he could safely do anything about.

  The marvel was he’d fallen asleep at all lying this close to Grace. His unwanted erection swelled. If he didn’t get up now, his body was likely to override his brain.

  He’d meant what he said last night. The first time they made love with each other should be memorable—for all the right reasons. Not as an act of frustration on the heels of a devastating nightmare.

  Struggling to control his libido, Pierce eased away from Grace as gently as he could, stopping and holding his breath for a second when she stirred. Her eyes never opened and her breathing fell right back into a rhythmic pattern of sleep. After last night, she had every reason to be exhausted.

  Her bizarre and frightening revelations came back to him in gory detail as he wiggled back into his jeans. The thought of her being sexually abused and tortured by that monster of a husband filled Pierce with rage.

  Prison was too good for the pyscho. A slow, painful death was too good as well, but at least that would make Grace feel a hell of a lot safer. And if Pierce was the one doing the killing, he would definitely feel justified.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d ever killed a human being. He’d done it before in battle to save lives, but it was something a man never fully got over. His SEAL teammates felt the same.

  So how could a man like Tom Lacoste kill and torture so casually? Was it a gene defect? Greed? An experience in his youth? Or did some people have a malfunction in their brain that spewed hate and evil?

  Pierce stopped at the door and looked back at Grace. She was naturally beautiful inside and out. Proof of that was in the way she’d bonded with Esther and Jaci.

  Pierce wasn’t exactly sure how he’d handle this yet, but he knew he’d give his life to keep her safe if it came to that. He hoped it wouldn’t. He planned to spend the rest of his days enjoying his life with her. And his nights? Well, those would be heaven.

  All he had to do was convince her of that.

  He crept through the house hoping not to wake anyone else. He made a pot of coffee, took a mug to his room with him and turned on his computer. A few seconds later Google had responded to his command and supplied him with countless references to Tom Lacoste.

  He zeroed in on the first one and double clicked. The headline punched him below the belt. His wish to face Tom Lacoste head-on might be granted.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tom Lacoste, part of the murderous Lacoste family who ruled the New
Orleans illegal drug market for years, is being released from prison. Convicted on seven different counts of murder in the first degree and of imprisoning and torturing his teenage wife, Lacoste was informed that his life sentence was cut short today.

  His release was ordered after Judge Wallerton determined that evidence used in his trial was obtained without proper warrants.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Pierce slammed a fist against the desk. What a bunch of garbage. He muttered a few curses that he couldn’t hold back.

  How could that have happened? Grace’s testimony alone should have been enough to keep the man in prison until he was gasping for his last breath.

  Pierce checked the date of the article. It had been written eight days ago. That meant Tom Lacoste had been walking the streets a free man for over a week. Grace would freak out when she heard this.

  He’d love to keep it from her until he had the chance to check out a few details, like where Tom Lacoste was now and if there was any surveillance in place.

  Keeping anything from Grace at this point would be a bad decision. She’d finally trusted him enough to spill her guts to him. He didn’t want to lose that trust.

  He’d tell her right after they got back from the hunt for a perfect Christmas tree. No use to spoil that for her. She’d been robbed of enough Christmases already.

  Grace’s first impulse on finding her ex was walking the streets a free man would be to run. A few minor mechanical adjustments to her car’s engine could make sure that didn’t happen. In fact, Pierce would take care of that right now.

  The easy way is always mined.

  One of Murphy’s laws of combat. Why in hell was that popping into his mind right now?

  * * *

  JACI JUMPED FROM the backseat of Pierce’s truck and threw up her hands. “This must be the North Pole?”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re still in Texas,” Grace said, correcting her but loving her exuberance.

  “Then how come there’s so many Christmas trees here?”

  “They’re not actually Christmas trees,” Pierce said. “They’re evergreens, which just happen to make beautiful Christmas trees. But you’re right. It does seem like these trees should be near Santa’s workshop.”