Unfinished Business: A Riverton Crossing Novel

by Savannah Maris

  “Sure come on in. Ginger made a whole pot. You had breakfast?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Evan handed Ginger the mug Daniel brought with him. “Cream and sugar?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Both.”

  Ginger handed him the mug as he thanked her before he turned toward the door. “I’ll saddle one of the horses and head out now.”

  “Talk to you when you get back.”

  Once Daniel left, Evan kissed her again before they walked in opposite directions. Ginger’s laptop was in Evan’s room so while she pulled her hair up, she checked emails.

  She received one from a blog she’s worked with several times.

  We received the forwarded email marked personal and confidential. Didn’t open it, but made sure it was virus free. Hope everything is good. When are we getting something new?

  Confused, Ginger opened the email to find an attachment. She didn’t know the sender or how they knew she had worked with that blog. When she opened the attachment, there was a grainy newspaper picture of two men being led away in handcuffs from what looked to be a club. They had on tight black T-shirts that certainly defined their chests and arms and black jeans. The first guy had on black cowboy boots with shiny toe plates. She knew those boots, so she enlarged the picture to see if she could tell any more. The first guy had dark hair and maybe a few days’ growth, but he wasn’t looking at the camera. The guy behind him was turned for a perfect shot. Curly light hair. Nathan.

  She hurried into Evan’s closet and found what she was looking for. When she compared the boots in her hand to the picture, she knew they matched. “Evan!”

  He had just pulled up a spread sheet when he heard Ginger scream. He grabbed his phone and jogged down the hall, but didn’t see her. “Where are you?”

  “Your room!”

  As soon as he cleared the doorway to his bedroom, he saw her standing in front of her laptop with the boots he wore to the clubs. “What’s wrong? Why do you have my boots?”

  She sat the boots down and turned the laptop for Evan to see the screen. “Is that you? I know that’s Nathan, so is that you ‘cause those are these boots,” she said as she pointed from the screen to the boots.

  No secrets, honesty. He knew the picture as soon as he looked at it. ATF had it pulled before the newspaper ever ran it. “Darlin’, where did you get that? I’ll explain everything, but that picture was never public.”

  “It was sent to a blog I’ve worked with and they forwarded it to me.”

  Evan picked up the laptop and called his office. When he minimized the picture, the message read, GET OUT BEFORE YOU END UP HERE! When he pulled the picture back up, an arrow was drawn. It could’ve been pointing toward the club or between him and Nathan. The longer Evan looked at the email the angrier he got so he held Ginger’s stare until his call was answered.

  “Marcus, we have a bigger problem that concerns ATF.” Pause. “Wired or wireless connection?” Pause. “It’s a picture that was never public of Nathan and me.” Pause. “Yeah.” Pause. “I’ll call you back when I get it connected. Thanks, man.”

  As soon as he disconnected the call, he approached Ginger. “I’ll explain it all. I need to hook this up to the secure network in the office. Can I take it?”

  “Yes, but what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out.” He took the laptop to the office and called Marcus. Ginger trailed, but stayed at the door while he followed the instructions to give Marcus access. When he turned around, he held her gaze again while he ended the call. “Let me know when you have something.

  “He’ll call when he does,” he quietly said. She needed to know. No secrets. “Darlin’, there’s a lot you need to know because part of my past is still part of my present.”

  “And that part has to do with that picture?”

  “Yes.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What in your past could affect your present? You told me earlier that you were single and didn’t have a child.”

  “I am and I don’t.”

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “You will. Can we sit?” He held his hand out for her to precede him and followed her to the sofa in the office. As soon as he sat he said, “There’s no apology here, only an explanation.”

  Ginger’s eyes searched his face. She cataloged his features. He knew his eyes didn’t hold the warmth she’d known. His good humor wasn’t present, neither was his passion. For the first time he was distant. He knew she’d wait until he was ready to speak.

  “I’ll get to the picture, but an earlier event put me on that path. For you to understand, you need the whole picture, then you can make your decision about us.”

  “You’re making me nervous.”

  “We said no secrets. I told you I’d tell you about my past by the end of the weekend. I just didn’t realize it’d start so early this morning.”

  He took a deep breath. “We had a job fair at school the week before my mom passed away. I hadn’t told anyone, but I applied to ATF. Kayla had already left, so I was reluctant to tell Mitchell, but a couple months later I received the call to report to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Atlanta. When I finished my initial training, I invited Mitchell to meet me in Vegas. By this time Kayla had been gone about six months, but Mitchell was still moping around.

  “I was pumped and thought I was invincible. We’d had a few drinks and picked up a girl. I jokingly suggested we share her because Mitchell had only ever been with Kayla, and I was just looking for some fun. I expected the girl to freak and bolt, but she didn’t. She was game, so we took her to our room. Mitchell really wasn’t into it, but I told him he needed to work Kayla out of his system.”

  Evan paused, needing to look Ginger in the eyes. “Just so you know, I felt really bad afterward because she’ll never be out of his system. Anyway, we were all making out and getting touchy feely when she said she wanted to take us both on at the same time. We were all buzzed so we did it, and I more than enjoyed it. It was different from anything I’d experienced, and you need to remember that piece of information for later,” he said.

  She hadn’t moved a muscle, but her eyes grew wide.

  “So the girl left that night, and we left the next day. Mitchell was miserable, but I was feeling pretty cocky.” Evan stood and walked toward the window. “About six months later, my Captain asked for guys who weren’t married or in committed relationships to stop by his office.” He chuckled, “That was me so I was first in line. I had been with ATF a few months longer than Nathan, but this was our first undercover assignment.”

  “The sex club,” Ginger whispered.

  Evan nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off of her when he said, “Yeah. We trained in a sex club, and I loved it. Nathan, not so much.” Ginger’s hand covered her mouth. “That picture was from the night of the bust. A group was moving guns through private sex clubs.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that. What do you want me to say?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know. I want you to listen with an open mind, I guess.”

  “Are you still into…that…lifestyle?”

  “You’re the only one I’ve been with in months. Have I done anything you haven’t enjoyed?”

  “No, I’ve loved everything,” she said with a demure smile.

  “Good.” A small smile curved his lips for the first time. “But I need to finish.”

  “How can there be more?”

  He rubbed the side of his jaw. “While Nathan and I were undercover, we shared several women. We trained as Doms, but he was okay with me taking the lead because he knew I enjoyed it. Even though we shared, we were on our own too. I’ve been tested through work as well as privately. I’m clean, darlin’. I’ll get tested again now if you want me to.”

  “That’s why you didn’t want me alone with Nathan, isn’t it?”

  “Part of it. In fact, that night he asked if we were sharing you, and I wanted to kill him beca
use I already knew how I felt about you. I think he enjoyed calling you so much just to piss me off.” He shook his head. “The morning after the Masterson Investments bust when he and Sam stopped by was the first time I think he understood I wasn’t playing with you.”

  Ginger wrapped her arms around herself for a moment. When her eyes met his she asked, “Is there more?”

  “No.”

  “What about this sex club stuff?”

  “What about it?”

  “You said it’s part of your present.”

  “Yes, only in as much as I need the control and wanna experiment with you. Darlin’, I wanna make you happy. The past several weeks have been incredible, and I don’t wanna change anything—inside or outside the bedroom. I won’t deny when we try something new your reactions turn me the hell on.”

  “I’ve enjoyed what we’ve tried so far, but I will never agree to be shared, not even with Nathan. That’s never going to happen,” she said as firmly as he’d ever heard her speak to anyone.

  “I agree. That’s not even on the table for discussion because I want you completely to myself. When I was younger, I thought I knew what love was. I thought I loved the girl I dated in high school, but you’ve rocked my world. If what I’m feeling is close to love then nobody has remotely come close to you.” He walked to her. “Please tell me you’re still in this with me.” This time it was Evan who scanned her face for a clue to what she was feeling.

  She looked him in the eyes and slowly nodded.

  “I need to hear you say it.”

  “Yeah, I’m still with you. Do you still have membership to that club?”

  “Yes.” He pulled a card from his wallet that resembled a credit card to show her.

  “I want it.”

  “Okay. Why?” He had a curious look on his face.

  “As long as you’re with me you won’t be using it, so I’ll keep it safe for you,” she said with a determined look on her face.

  He placed the card in her hand with a smile because he knew he could get in without the card, but if it made her feel better she could hold onto it. “Is that it? You haven’t said much.”

  “I’m still wrapping my head around it. I’m sure I’ll have questions as it all sinks in.”

  “I’ll answer them any time. No secrets.” Tell her everything.

  “No secrets,” she quietly said.

  He pulled her close. As he tilted her head, his phone rang so he stepped back. “Riverton.”

  6

  “What do you want first, good news or less good news.” Marcus’s voice was resolute.

  “Which is gonna piss me off less?”

  “Okay, good news first. ATF wasn’t hacked.”

  “Good to know, Marcus. Now tell me what I need to know,” Evan said critically.

  “Like the first email, this one originated in Riverton Crossing, but it went through random relay hosts.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “Your girlfriend has an admirer with high connections. Whoever sent her the picture has high enough clearance to have access to secure government networks and good with computers. They logged in, got the picture, and cleared any trace of them even being there. They sent the email through different servers from Riverton Crossing to Charleston, Charlotte, Panama City, Memphis, Nashville, Breckenridge, and then out of the country before it went to the blog.”

  “Breckenridge? As in Breckenridge, Georgia?”

  “Yeah, why? Do you know the place?”

  “I don’t, but Ginger does. That’s where she’s from. If they erased their steps, how do you know they were even there?”

  “I said they were good, not great. Any time one of our pictures is downloaded, a signal is sent to another system to keep a tally of which pictures are being used and when. No one knows about it but ATF. Her admirer isn’t one of ours.”

  “Thanks Marcus. I’ll let you know what I find out.” Evan slid his phone in his back pocket as he went in search of Ginger. She was in the living room sipping another cup of coffee. “Hey darlin’. You hanging in there?”

  “Yeah, what’d he say?”

  “The emails weren’t sent the same way, but both were sent from Riverton Crossing. Apparently, it was just coincidence they showed up on back to back days.”

  “Or very well planned.”

  “Yeah, that too. I need to ask you something.”

  “Go ahead. I’m an open book.”

  “And I want to read every page. Some I may read twice,” he said with a smile.

  “Hmm, that sounds promising.”

  He cocked an eyebrow letting her know he liked her way of thinking. He sat beside her and held her hand. “Would you tell me about your hometown and family?”

  “Okay, why?”

  “I wanna know about them anyway, but the email you received bounced through what Marcus called a relay host in Breckenridge. Both of them showing up like this may be coincidence, but that isn’t.”

  Ginger’s fingers tightened around his. “What?”

  “Ginger, I’m gonna meet your family at some point, so I’d like to know something about them before I do,” he said with a sincere smile.

  “Yeah, okay.” Ginger sat her empty mug on the the table and took a deep breath. “Breckenridge is a small southern town much like Riverton Crossing where everyone knows everyone else. My dad grew up there. He was in the army and met my mother when he was stationed at Fort Jackson in Columbia.”

  “Everyone around South Carolina knows about Fort Jackson. It’s a huge training facility,” he said.

  “Exactly. Anyway, he and my mom married when he graduated from basic training. They were assigned to Ft. Benning where my dad became an MP. He did three stints then got out. They settled in Breckenridge where my dad joined the police force.”

  The more Ginger talked about her family, the more her knee bounced. She was nervous. “Just like here, there wasn’t much to do in Breckenridge so by each of our tenth birthdays, Dad had my brother and me shooting. His birthday present to us was to take us hunting with just him. Even though I wasn’t much of a hunter, I loved the time with my dad.” Evan nodded and smiled because he remembered hunting with his dad and Mitchell, too.

  “My mother was a stay-at-home mom. She carted us to school and practices. My brother was into sports, and I was into dancing. She was your typical June Cleaver,” she said with a shrug.

  “Grayson, my brother, is three years older than me. I thought he was the coolest person and wanted to follow him everywhere. Grayson made it known that he’d kick anyone’s ass if they messed with me in high school, so needless to say, I was glad when he graduated and went to college. He went to the Georgia Tech, but dropped out.” She released Evan’s hand and wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to hold herself together.

  Evan pulled her in tight as he whispered, “You’re mine, Gin. Nothing you tell me is going to make me leave.”

  “You need to know Grayson was in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. He was arrested on manslaughter charges, but it was self-defense. Since the wheels of justice move slowly in southern Georgia, it took a while to get him out. With you being in law enforcement, I didn’t know if that’d be a deal breaker for you.” She cut her eyes to Evan as he shook his head. “Once he got out of jail he left town, and I haven’t seen him in over two years. I don’t even know where he is,” she said with tears pooling in her eyes.

  “Anyway, he was already in jail when I finished college and moved home while I looked for a job.”

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “University of Georgia. I stayed in Breckenridge as long as I could. Having a father on the police force and a brother in jail led to a lot of gossip. The way people in town looked at me and snickered behind my back caused me to leave. I had sold a couple freelance stories before I graduated so I had a little money, and my parents agreed to help me until I hit the big time. So with a few thousand dollars in the bank, I packed a couple bags
and went to Tennessee. Between Nashville and Memphis, the human interest stories were everywhere.”

  “You met David in Memphis, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you lived in Nashville, too?”

  “Yeah, for a few months.”

  Evan thought about what Marcus said. “Have you ever been to Panama City?”

  “I covered a Spring Break event there last year. Why?”

  “Charlotte? Charleston?”

  “Yes and yes. I covered events there, too. How did you know?”

  “Those are the cities the relay hosts are in. Have you ever left the country?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Did you date anyone in high school or college?”

  “I dated someone my senior year of high school, but he turned out to be a jerk.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No, last I heard he went to California. I didn’t date anyone seriously in college.”

  Evan nodded before he asked, “What was your dad’s rank when he retired?”

  “Sergeant, I think.”

  “So, not high ranking or real computer savvy?”

  Ginger busted out laughing. “Not hardly.”

  “The person that sent the picture of Nathan and me had high government clearance–could be military or a government employee. He knew what he was looking for, went in, and retrieved it. Do you know anyone who fits that description?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. We’ll figure it out,” he said as he ran his hand up and down her back.

  They cuddled on the sofa while Evan sent Marcus a quick text restating Ginger’s information. When he finished he dropped his phone beside him and wrapped his other arm around her. The silence was almost deafening as Evan contemplated the events of the morning, but Ginger broke into his thoughts when she asked, “Where do you see us going?”

  “I want forever,” he said without hesitation.

  She tilted her head back to look into his eyes. “Even after everything I told you?”