Blain stepped in front of her, halting her progress up the drive. Light from inside the house illuminated his puzzled face. “Laid off?”
“Yeah. Put on administrative leave.”
“Why?” he asked, and damn it, there he went looking all concerned for her again. If he kept this up, he’d make her go all soft on the inside, maybe slip under her guard and get her to rethink a relationship with him.
“Remember that comment I made to the news crew earlier today?”
He lifted his eyebrows, only to lower them a second later.
“Yeah, that one,” she said. “They got a little mad at me for that.”
“Lord, Cece, you’re kidding me.”
“I wish I was,” she said grimly.
“So they fired you?”
And though his face remained expressionless, his eyes did not. For a moment, just a brief second, she saw it. Relief.
“You’re happy I might be losing my job,” she accused.
He drew back. “What makes you say that?”
“I can see it in your eyes.”
She expected him to deny it, and so it floored her when he said, “Yeah, well, can you blame me for being happy that you’ll no longer be in danger? And maybe now you can drop the relationship ban you’ve placed on us.”
“I would expect you to understand that that’s part of my job. And there is no ‘us.’”
“That’s what you think, and I do understand about your job, but I don’t have to like it,” he retorted, his Southern drawl more pronounced when he was agitated.
“You sexist pig.”
“Cece, I’m not sexist. I’m in love with you.”
Thump.
That’s what her heart did. Once, twice—harder and harder each time.
I’m in love with you.
“Oh, jeesh.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh, jeesh’,” he repeated, his voice suddenly tinged with amusement. “For the first time in my life I tell a woman I’m in love with her and she says ‘oh, jeesh.’ Tell me that’s a good thing.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You could say you love me back.”
And here it was, the moment she’d half expected, but never dreamed of, certainly not with Blain Sanders.
Blain Sanders was in love with her.
“Oh, Blain,” she said.
“Do I take that as a ‘yes, I love you, too, Blain’?” he asked, stepping up to her, his hands doing what they’d done so many times before—tipping her chin up. Gently, sweetly stroking her.
“I think I do,” she admitted, the flipping of her heart suddenly settling into a warm weight that made silly, girlish tears enter her eyes. “But it doesn’t make my fear subside.”
“I’ll just have to work on that, then.”
She felt the sting of tears again. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Cece,” he interrupted, his hands framing her face again. “It can be easy.”
But could she do it? Could she really let go of her conviction that loving Blain would lead to disaster?
Yes.
“We’ll take it one day at a time,” he said, seeming to read her mind. “One day at a time,” he repeated, the soft brush of his lips causing more tears. Why did she even bother fighting it? She’d been half in love with him since forever, even during her anti-Blain years. Why did she—
And then she stopped thinking, just allowed herself to feel—to remember that this incredible feeling he aroused in her was part of the reason she loved him.
“Were you looking for me?”
Cece screeched. It was as feminine a sound as she’d ever made, her hand reaching for her gun, only to freeze halfway there.
A man dressed all in black, night vision goggles on his head and black paint on his face, stood a few paces away.
Agent Thurman.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that kiss,” he said, his smile a shock of white against his black face. “Especially since I was told to report any romantic activity between you two.”
“You were what?”
He nodded. “We were all told that.”
“How the heck—”
“Did we guess? It’s pretty obvious there’s something between you two. But don’t worry, I’m not going to report it.”
“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” Cece grumbled, stepping away from Blain—and was that a blush she felt on her cheeks? Criminey, what other lost feminine traits had she picked up in recent days?
“What do you mean, it wouldn’t matter?”
“She’s on paid administrative leave.” Blain answered for her.
Thurman looked back at her with wide eyes. “You get busted for flapping your jaw at the TV crew?”
Apparently, Agent Thurman was better informed that she’d thought. “I did.”
He shook his head. “Agent Ashton’s a complete ass. I’m not surprised you lost your temper. The man’s famous for sitting on information too long, usually to the detriment of whatever poor victim is involved. Rumor has it he lost his edge when he acted too hastily on some bad information. Ever since then his dick’s shriveled to the size of a peanut.”
So it wasn’t just her. Cece didn’t know if that made it better or worse. “I tried to tell him today that I think I know who’s behind this, but he won’t return my calls.”
“You know who the bad guy is?”
“I think so. But he doesn’t want to hear it from me.”
“Because of what happened today,” Thurman said with a shake of his head.
“I’m sure of it. But I can’t sit on this information.”
“Tell it to me, then.”
Cece filled him in quickly, happy to concentrate on something other than the way her heart went pitter-patter every time she looked into Blain’s eyes. When she finished, Agent Thurman was nodding, his eyes alight.
“I remember all that,” he said. “But I’d completely forgotten about it until now.”
“It’s worth looking into, isn’t it?” Cece said.
“It is,” he agreed. “In fact, I think I’m going to do just that.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Hey, we’re paid to act on hunches, and this is a damn good hunch.”
And from nowhere Cece had the urge to hug him.
“But it might cost you something,” he said with a smile.
Cece raised an eyebrow. She glanced back at Blain, who looked equally wary. “Cost me what?”
“You? Nothing,” he said, grinning at Blain. “Him, a couple of garage passes.”
“Done,” Blain said immediately, a smile breaking out on his own face.
“Hot passes,” Thurman clarified.
The smile spread. “No problem.”
“Good. Then I’ll be right back.”
IT WAS LIKE Mutiny on the Bounty without the ship. Or Captain Bligh. Or the water. But who cared? The point was that Agent Terrance Thurman had the ability to act on a hunch when Cece couldn’t. What was more, he could bring other agents into the fold, not that they were exactly planning to bust down the door of Lilly Tanner’s house. First of all, they couldn’t do that without a warrant, and Terry, as he liked to be called, would rather err on the side of prudence. Just a few questions of the mom, maybe a few agents watching the house to see what she did afterward, and then they’d see what happened. Cece liked the plan. It helped that Agent Thurman happened to know a judge, one who didn’t mind being called in the middle of the night to see if he’d arrange a wire tap on the phone.
They used Blain’s dining room as a command center, pulling up whatever information they could find on Lilly Tanner while they waited for the judge to give them an answer, and the further they dug, the more promising a lead it appeared, so much so that Cece hardly felt the effects of a near-sleepless night.
“Still no word from the judge?” Blain asked in the wee hours of the day.
“He wanted to wait until morning to make a decision.”
“So
you’re at a standstill?”
“Yup.”
“Did you get any sleep? Maybe you should use one of the rooms upstairs,” he offered, the worried look on his face making her want to slip into his arms. She couldn’t, though, partly because the other agents were still up and in the next room, partly because in recent hours she’d been thinking.
Thinking too much.
She didn’t want to be with him right now. She needed to sort things out. Needed to understand why she was still so afraid.
“Blain, did you really mean it when you said no kids?”
She hadn’t meant to ask the question. Lord, she must be more tired than she thought to be blurting out words, but she couldn’t take them back, so she held her breath and waited for him to answer.
He didn’t reply right away. Instead, he clutched her hand. She released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. She wanted to squeeze his hand in return, to slip off and make love with him like they had the other night. To forget, for a few hours, everything that was far from normal.
“Yeah, I meant it. If that’s what you want.”
Pregnant. Children. With Blain.
She’d never thought about having children before. Well, she had, but not in the way most women thought about it. Cece had merely assumed she’d never have any, and she’d been okay with that. Some women wanted families. Cece had chosen a career. And yet suddenly she wanted Blain’s child with a fierceness that made her heart ache even more.
Which meant no career.
No, it didn’t have to be that way….
“You look upset,” he said tenderly, trying to pull her into his arms.
She resisted, glancing in the direction of the dining room as an excuse. He seemed to swallow it, though he still frowned down at her.
“Cece, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “I’m just tired.”
But that wasn’t it at all. She was terrified, terrified of what being in love might mean. Marriage. Children. Changes.
“Cece,” Agent Thurman said, startling them both. “We’ve gotten approval to go in.”
And this was the problem she and Blain would have. A romantic moment. A phone call. Sorry, Blain, gotta go.
“When are you doing it?”
“We’re assembling a team right now.”
“Does your boss know?”
“Had to call him,” Terry said.
“Well, at least he’s listening to you.”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t pleased to hear you were still around.”
“Tell the bastard that Cece is my guest—he has no say in whether or not she’s allowed to stay.”
Terry shrugged, the skin under his eyes likely as discolored as her own.
“Keep me informed, will you?” Cece asked.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll let you know just as soon as we find out anything.”
And that was that. He turned away without telling her what kind of warrant they’d gotten, whether or not they were bringing Lilly Tanner in for questioning, or had just dropped by as they’d discussed. Nothing. Of course, now that Agent Ashton was back in the picture, Terry had probably been told to button things down.
And if ever Cece had a moment when she realized just exactly what it meant to be suspended from her job, watching Bravo Team leave was it. That was when Cece realized she might never go out on an op again. She might never get to suit up. Might never go out and bring back the bad guys. She’d blown it. Big time.
So when Blain said, “Let’s go upstairs,” her instinctive reaction was to lash out at him and tell him the last thing she wanted was sex. But then he said, “I just want to hold you,” as if he’d read her mind.
I just want to hold you.
And if she’d been the kind of woman to burst into tears, she might have cracked up right then and there. But Cece wasn’t, and so she just shook her head. “I’m afraid I won’t wake up if they call.”
“You that tired?”
“I am.”
“Then maybe some food will wake you up.” And then he gently took her hand, led her to one of his couches and said, “Sit. I’ll make breakfast.”
She sat, resting her head in her hands, realizing at that moment that she was too tense, too upset to fall asleep.
It turned out not to be true.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TO SAY THAT BLAIN was surprised to see Curt Tanner’s grandmother on his doorstep would have been an understatement. He’d seen her around the shop a few times, but her visits had always been short and somewhat strained, especially after her grandson’s death.
“Grandma Matty,” he said, because that’s what he always called her, and because he really didn’t know what else to say when faced with the mother of their number one suspect at his door.
“Well, are you going to let me in?” she asked in that no-nonsense way of hers. She was pushing seventy, gray-haired but still spry, with silver eyes that were every bit as sharp as they’d been when he’d first met her all those years ago.
“’Course. Come on in,” he said, so completely thrown by the events he didn’t know what else to do.
“Place hasn’t changed a bit,” she said as she stepped through. She hadn’t been to his house in years, despite her occasional appearances at the shop.
The shop.
Good Lord—could she be the one….
Blain glanced toward the couch where Cece slept. She was gone.
He stiffened, glanced left, thinking maybe she’d moved to his living room, but she hadn’t. Gone.
At that moment, Blain regretted letting Matty inside. Did she know about her daughter? Why else would she be here?
To kill him?
“How you doing, Grandma Matty?” he asked.
She didn’t look like a killer, and it was her daughter who had the vendetta. Cece and the other agents had found scores of interviews that pointed to Lilly Tanner being the culprit.
“I’ve heard some disturbing rumors, Blain,” Grandma Matty said, stopping just inside the door.
“Oh?”
She had an old lady’s purse, big and brown with wide shoulder straps.
Hiding a gun?
Blain shook his head. No, no, no. Grandma Matty wasn’t the culprit. She couldn’t be. She was an old lady. But Blain had to admit she didn’t look her age. Sure, she had gray hair, but it was the white-blond of someone who took care of herself. Her body had never been bowed by the years; she was still tall and lithe and elegantly clothed. Blain had known her his entire racing career—the Tanners were a second-generation racing family.
And then Blain stiffened. Ah, hell. Matty even knew about Cece. He’d told Matty about the spirited girl who’d blown his doors off as a kid, then gone on to become an FBI agent.
Holy shit.
“Is it true that Barry Bidwell pulled your license?” Matty demanded.
Blain told himself to relax. That’s all this was about. She wasn’t a killer. And she didn’t know about her daughter. Yet. For a second he contemplated telling her, but he had a feeling the FBI wouldn’t approve of that.
“It’s true,” he said, realizing he’d forgotten to answer her question, and she’d started to look at him strangely.
“Those sons of bitches,” she said, reaching for her purse. And despite his self-reassurance, Blain tensed. She opened the flap, reached inside….
And pulled out a cellphone.
When she caught him looking at her, she said, “I’m waiting for a call from Lilly. We’re supposed to go to town together.”
Won’t be doing that today, he almost said, but he held his tongue.
“That’s part of the reason why I’m here,” she said. “Lilly hasn’t been herself lately and I’m thinking something’s wrong.”
Lilly hadn’t been herself. Well, that made sense, given what the FBI suspected her of.
“Mind if I sit down?” she asked.
“Not at all.” He followed her to his wraparound couch,
where Cece had been resting up until the knock on the door.
Where was she? And why was he suddenly grateful that she was somewhere nearby? And armed?
You’re overreacting, Sanders. There’s nothing to fear from Grandma Matty—it’s the daughter you need to worry about.
“Would you like some coffee?” he asked, thinking maybe Cece was in the kitchen. He might catch her there.
“Don’t drink the stuff.”
“Oh,” he said, settling down. But she didn’t follow suit.
“Hell. Haven’t seen that stuff in a while.”
Blain jumped back up and followed her to the trophy room, stealing a glance behind him as he did so.
Where the hell was Cece?
“Must be worth a fortune.”
Blain shrugged. Tried to concentrate. Tried not to be so jumpy. He wasn’t about to be blown away by a gun-toting granny.
Was he?
“I have a bunch of Curt’s old stuff,” she added.
“Yeah?” Blain asked, standing by the archway.
“Probably not worth much now. Not many people remember my grandson.”
“Now, that’s not true,” he instantly reassured her.
She turned on him, and for a second he saw something that made him stiffen. But just as quickly as it came, it was gone. The smile she gave him next was vintage Grandma Matty. “C’mon, Blain, we both know that’s not true. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why I’m here—”
Her phone rang.
Blain glanced at her purse. What if that was Lilly? What if she told her mother what was going on?
Matty reached for the phone.
“IT’S MY DAUGHTER.”
Cece heard the words from her position behind the kitchen door.
No. Not now.
If Matty Tanner found out her daughter was in custody, it would blow everything, because one thing Cece knew for sure.
Matty Tanner was their suspect.
It wasn’t just Cece’s gut that tipped the scales, it was something that had nagged at her throughout their research last night. Lilly Tanner had never signed in at Blain’s shop.
But someone named “Grandma Matty” had.
For a split second indecision warred within her. Should she take the old lady down? Did she have enough probable cause?
“Hello?” the old woman said.
Dangerous Curves Page 20
