TAMING KNOX (Gray Wolf Security, Texas Book 3)

by Glenna Sinclair

  He was almost jealous of Knox and Dunlap’s new relationship.

  He remembered when his relationship with Jesse was new. It was kind of cliché, the way they met. He was a sergeant assigned to Fort Jackson, helping with the training of new recruits. She was the daughter of a commanding officer. Kipling didn’t know who she was the first time he saw her, he just knew she was a beautiful woman and he wanted to talk to her. When he found out, he backed off, but then she became the pursuer, chasing him down in the commissary one afternoon to demand to know why he’d been avoiding her.

  They dated in secret for a while, sneaking around base and off base, meeting in clandestine places they’d thought no one would see them. They got caught once, having a picnic under a tree in a deserted field. And then again in the backseat of a Jeep at the base carpool. When they finally went public and told her father and mother, he’d been afraid the excitement of the relationship would wear off. It didn’t. Their desire for each other only grew stronger. That’s when he knew that she was the one.

  They married a year to the day he first saw her. Then Gracie came nine months later. He got a full eighteen months with his new wife, nine months with his daughter. And then he got new orders. They needed him in Afghanistan.

  Three times he went. It was on the third tour that they were murdered.

  He couldn’t shake it; he couldn’t stop thinking about the way their bodies had looked when they brought him in to identify them. His hands physically ached to be wrapped around the throat of the man who did it. Even now, watching the sweet greeting Knox gave to her beau, he had to flex his fingers to keep them from cramping with that horrifying need.

  Mickey Connors was at Huntsville, just a three-hour drive from here. Three hours.

  He said he did it because he needed drugs. He’d been twenty-four hours with heroin and he was desperate. He thought they had a nice house; there’d probably be good stuff in there he could sell. Then Jesse surprised him. He said she pulled a gun on him, but there was no gun found near her body, just the 9mm he kept locked in the safe in the study. And that was still there.

  He didn’t understand. But he’d make that man tell him everything before he killed him. He hadn’t figured it out yet, but he would kill him. He would make him pay.

  And then, maybe, he could put it all behind him. Maybe he could be like Knox, find a new love. Move on with his life. He knew that was what Jesse would want. Morbid as it sounded, they’d talked about it. She wanted him to be happy. But he couldn’t do it until that man was dead and buried.

  Chapter 13

  Dunlap

  “We’re on schedule to finish in October,” the foreman was telling me as we walked through the bottom floor of a four-story office building we’d begun work on in the spring. “Barring any serious weather issues, of course.”

  I nodded, watching as a group of men cut and hung dry wall in what would be the lobby.

  “No problems with suppliers or anything like that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And the change on the windows on the third floor didn’t set you back too far?”

  “No. We were able to adjust without any changes to the schedule.”

  “Perfect.”

  I turned and found myself staring into a familiar face. A man I’d thought was more than a thousand miles from here was carrying a set of pipes up to the second floor. I don’t think he saw me, but I would have known him anywhere.

  What the fuck?

  “When did Henderson come back?”

  The foreman followed my line of sight and shrugged. “A few months ago.”

  I nodded, watching him make his way up the stairs. I hoped he wasn’t here to cause trouble. But again, what kind of trouble could he cause now?

  I turned around again, leading the way out the front door.

  “You’re doing a great job, Anderson. Keep it up.”

  I climbed into my truck and headed back into town, to my office, thoughts of how much work I had left to deal with before I could go see Knox the only thing on my mind. The kids were due back in a few days, so we only had so much time before we would have to go back to sneaking around at her place. She’d spent the night at my house last night and it had been pure bliss to take a long shower with her this morning. I could still feel her warm, soapy hand on my chest, sliding down as she smiled up at me, knowing how dangerous teasing me could be for her. But she made me wait, made me think I wasn’t going to get what I wanted as she perched on the counter and watched me shave. But then she took the razor, finishing the job herself, and then letting her towel fall away, her shapely thighs parting as she tugged me toward her.

  Damn, the woman drove me crazy!

  Tonight I was going to cook for her. I’d been promising for days, but tonight I’d vowed that I was going to sneak out of the office early and run by the grocery store, grab a few things we didn’t have, and make dinner before she arrived. She told me she had a job today, something about a bar and a cheater—I didn’t want details because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like them—but that she should be done by seven. I couldn’t wait.

  I aimed my little car toward the highway on-ramp, my thoughts still a thousand miles away. I needed to get a pickup. This car was great when we couldn’t afford anything else, but a truck would be so much more sensible on the construction sites. And the four-wheel drive would be a hell of a lot of fun when we got one of our springtime rainstorms!

  The car trembled a little as I pushed it up to speed—seventy-five here—but I didn’t think anything of it until I came up on some slower traffic. I hit the brake and it trembled again—more of a shudder really—and skidded a little toward the right side of the road. I frowned, hitting the brake again. Again it skid, but it didn’t slow down. In fact, the brake felt different, moving more freely than it should have. And that skid…I maneuvered around the car in front of me, frightened by the speed with which my car was moving. I hit the brake again, but again nothing happened.

  I grabbed the wheel with both hands, cursing under my breath as I held on. Another attempt with the brake and it skidded to the right again, nearly slamming into the side of a minivan filled with preteens. One of them shot me the middle finger, saying something that I’m sure I wouldn’t have appreciated if I’d been able to hear it.

  What the hell was happening?

  It had crossed my mind that Julep might come after me again. She wasn’t pleased with the way the custody fight ended this time. But she was busy facing her own troubles. I’d heard that the district attorney was going forward with the assault charge stemming from the shooting of the Gray Wolf operative. She’d be in court for months if it went like I expected it would. She didn’t have time for this kind of bullshit. Did she?

  Maybe the car was damaged by driving over the ruts at the construction site. I hadn’t heard anything bang under the car, but maybe…I came up on another slow moving car. I had to maneuver around, but I was getting to a more populated part of the city. Pretty soon traffic would be too heavy for me to go around. What was I going to do?

  I hit the brake several more times, but nothing happened. The brakes weren’t suddenly going to start working again.

  I saw an off-ramp coming up. What if I…? It was my only chance. I cut in front of three cars and pulled onto the off-ramp, speeding down the bumping decline, praying under my breath. As I came to a fairly unpopulated area, I grabbed the emergency break and yanked it up. The car made this horrible sound, smoke immediately billowing up around it. It jerked forward and then it flipped. I’d had no idea what it would do, but it flipped. Over and over again. I prayed, trying not to tense as my body jerked in directions it never should have gone. And then…darkness.

  Chapter 14

  Knox

  I sat on a stool, my legs crossed at the knee. I was wearing a long skirt, but it had a slit nearly to my hip, spreading to show off my legs. They were tan and fit, legs that looked like they belonged to a woman who spent a huge amount of her time out on the
beach. In truth, Ricki had given me a bronzing lotion for the tan and, well, my legs were almost always fit. I liked to run.

  My mark was sitting on the other side of the bar, a beer in front of him as he talked to the bartender about the baseball game on the television in front of him. Alexander was across the room, seated at a table with a camera pointed toward me. It wasn’t long before the mark noticed me, smiling a few times as our eyes met.

  I felt like I was betraying Dunlap in some way just by being here. I hadn’t stepped in a bar since the night I met him. And this, it was just work. I even called him and let him know I was doing this, half expecting him to ask me not to do it. He didn’t. I don’t think he would have if I’d told him everything about this job. He was a good man that way. Trusting. Too trusting.

  Would he change his mind if he ever saw the pictures that came from these sting operations?

  The mark made his way around the bar to my side. He smiled again, gesturing to the stool to my left.

  “Is this seat open?”

  “Of course. It’s a public bar.”

  “Yes, well, I thought you might be expecting a husband or boyfriend.”

  “Don’t have either.”

  “Really? A beautiful girl like you?”

  I wanted to laugh. Nearly every man I’d run this sting on said almost the same thing, almost like cheating husbands were all given a script they felt like they had to follow word for word.

  I pretended to be flattered, raising a hand to my cheek in that old southern fashion my mother used to use. His smile widened as he leaned close to me.

  “It’s a shame, a woman like you sitting alone. I just couldn’t let it continue. I had to come over and see what I could do to help.”

  “Well, I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. I’m a gentleman.”

  I drew my upper lip between my teeth, pretending to study him with apprehension. “You’re not married, are you?”

  “Of course not. Why would you ask that?”

  “Well, the last guy who ran a line like that on me was married, and his wife showed up, and it was a real dark scene.”

  “That won’t happen here.”

  It was a lie, of course, but he told it like it was the honest truth. He leaned closer to me, and we started to talk about the game. I made him think I knew absolutely nothing about the sport so that he would have to explain it to me, a tactic that I’d learned a long time ago went a long way toward making a man feel like a man. The truth was, though, I could probably teach him a thing or two about baseball.

  There was nothing a soldier missed more when overseas than sports. My fellow Marines spent every free second talking about baseball, football, hockey—whatever happened to be playing at the time. I got so tired of it, I wanted to pull the hair right out of my head.

  It took him about fifteen minutes to slide his hand over my thigh. My stomach turned over at the feel of his hand on me. His touch was much rougher than Dunlap’s was—despite the fact that Dunlap’s hands were covered in a working man’s calluses and this man’s hands were soft—as though he just walked out of a salon after a mani-pedi. And then he moved to whisper in my ear, his breath sour with beer.

  “You are so beautiful. What would you say to a little kiss?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, definitely. I can already taste your lips.”

  He moved in and brushed his lips against mine. Again, I felt ill. I didn’t want this man all over me. It had never really bothered me before, but now…I just wanted to slap some sense into him.

  I glanced over at Alexander. He gave me a thumb’s up sign. I couldn’t get off that stool fast enough.

  “I’m going to go freshen up, sweetie,” I said, sliding off the stool before the guy could touch me again.

  “Hurry back,” he called after me.

  I walked quickly to the back of the bar and slipped out the emergency exit, nearly running head long into Alexander as I did.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered. “That guy was all hands.”

  “I don’t know why David keeps taking these kinds of cases. You’d think we’d be beyond this sort of thing by now.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s got bills to pay.”

  “Well, this one should pay well with the pictures I just got.”

  Alexander took my arm and led the way around to the front of the building where his SUV was parked among the Mercedes and BMWs of the after-work crowd. I climbed into the passenger seat, reaching up and sliding my hair into an elastic, returning it to my customary ponytail. Alexander reached over and touched my knee as he climbed behind the wheel.

  “Another one in the bag. Now you can go home and entertain your guy friend.”

  I blushed. “What do you know about that?”

  “I live across the drive from you. I see his car there more often than not.”

  “Like Tierney’s car is often parked in front of your cottage?”

  “Exactly.” He laughed when I shot him an irritated glance. “Do you think I’m embarrassed by that? Hell, I love Tierney, and I’m glad she’s willing to spend time with me.”

  “Do you think David will build onto our cottages if we keep seeing our significant others?”

  “He’s doing it for Ingram.”

  “It’s only fair.”

  Alexander smiled over at me. I found myself smiling back, glad that we could be so easy with each other—even after our one night together. We’d both been drunk when it happened, and it was long before he met Tierney. We both knew it was a one-time thing, but a part of me had sort of hoped that it would become something different. He had a sister with severe agoraphobia, and I often helped out with her when he was on assignment. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. But I hoped. Then he met Tierney, and I saw them together. It was impossible not to see how much she meant to him. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t heart broken. Alexander was a good man.

  But so was Dunlap.

  I found myself wondering what I should wear to go over to his house tonight. It was a casual thing, so jeans wouldn’t be out of the question. But a skirt would make things a little more accessible…and accessible was becoming a very important thing in my life.

  I’d never met anyone I wanted as desperately as I wanted Dunlap. And it was every time, even if we’d just been together, say, this morning. But I was already thinking of laying with him again, of curling up in his arms in that big, sexy bed of his. Or maybe even enjoying the counter in his bathroom again. Then again, he’d said something about making me dinner…

  Kipling McKay, the consultant David had brought in weeks ago, was standing on the front porch of the main house as we pulled to a stop. He was leaning casually against the wall, but he straightened as he watched us climb out of the car.

  “Ms. Adams,” he called to me, “could we speak for a moment?”

  My heart sank. I found myself wondering if this was about that incident with Tony again. I knew that David had elected not to fire me, but I also go the impression that Kipling didn’t always agree with his judgments.

  “What’s going on?” Alexander asked, moving up behind me, his hand a protective presence on my shoulder.

  Kipling glanced from me to him and back again. Then he seemed to decide that he might as well tell me what was going on despite Alexander’s presence. In fact, he seemed to be impressed with Alexander, if the glance he gave him told me anything.

  “There’s been a bit of a development in Mr. Spencer’s case.”

  “Dunlap?” I frowned. “What do you mean? I thought Mrs. Montgomery withdrew her request for our services.”

  “She did. But Mr. Spencer has just hired us.”

  “Why?” Dread’s cold fingers were playing a slow ballad up and down the length of my spine.

  Kipling hesitated, glancing at Alexander again. Alexander’s hand moved down to my arm, gripping me like he was preparing to restrain me.

  “There was a car accident. It seems that Mr. Spencer’s brakes were tampered
with.”

  I shook my head. It didn’t seem possible.

  “He’s okay. He suffered some cuts and bruises, a couple of broken ribs and a slight concussion. But he’s going to recover just fine.”

  I started to pull away, but Alexander’s grip on my arm was firm.

  “Let him finish,” Alex said close to my ear.

  Kipling’s blue eyes were kind as he focused tightly on me. “David has assigned Elliot to his case. They’re preparing to go over to Mr. Spencer’s home right now.”

  “He’s here?”

  “In David’s office.”

  An act of nature would not have been enough to keep me where I was. I ripped away from Alexander and ran into the house, rushing through the corridor until I found myself charging between Elliot and David to face Dunlap. His face was swollen and bruised, one eye nearly swollen closed. His left arm was in a sling and there were cuts patched up all along his arms. His throat, where I’d run a razor just this morning to trim up the errant hairs that wanted to grow there, was bruised where the seat belt had cut up against it in the accident. And there was blood on his collar and on the front of his shirt that was dark as it dried.

  I reached up to touch him, but I was so afraid of bringing him pain that I hesitated inches from his face. He leaned forward, forcing his face into my hands.

  “I’m okay,” he said softly. “The car is totaled, but I’m okay.”

  I nodded, tears rolling down my cheeks despite my attempt at stoicism. He broke into a wide smile that made him groan as the movement caused pain to flash through his eyes.

  “You do care.”

  “Of course I care,” I whispered, stepping into him, pressing my lips to his. “I’ve always cared.”

  We kissed for a long moment. When I pulled back, he wiped at my tears, his thumbs incredibly tender on me. He slid his right arm around me, tugging me close to him.

  “I’m okay,” he said again.

  David cleared his throat. “We should probably get things rolling over at your house,” he said.