by Skye Jordan
Ignorance was bliss.
When she didn’t pick a fight over how she cared for Jamison, Hank pushed a little further. “All right, then, you go ahead, take him home. I’ll pick him up after work. Then we can all have dinner together—like a family.”
Oh, hell no.
“I’ve got to get back to work.” Her words were careful, deliberate, and measured. Just enough to push Hank back, but not enough to send him into a tirade—at least not with others watching.
The new guy glanced toward Jamison. “Whatcha drawing?”
Savannah recognized the gesture for what it was—an attempt to defuse tension. She also knew it would backfire.
“Picture,” Jamison said without looking up.
“You like baseball?” he asked.
Jamison nodded.
“I’m a Giants fan,” he said. “How ’bout you?”
Her son finally glanced up, his expression flat—something Savannah had dubbed the Hank effect. “I like the Rangers.”
Hank held out a hand to the new guy, pushing his arm right in front of Jamison. He hit their son’s hand and forced his crayon from its path. Jamison frowned up at Hank, but the narcissist didn’t even notice.
“We haven’t met,” Hank said, turning on that good-old-boy grin. “Sheriff Bishop.”
The new guy reached over Jamison’s head, forcing Hank to lift his hand to shake. That one gesture sent Mr. Anonymous to the top of the heap in Savannah’s eyes.
“Ian,” he said, holding Hank’s gaze as he gave a solid shake.
Ian—strong, straightforward, a little different. Kind of like the man himself.
When Ian tried to pull his hand back, Hank held fast, still grinning. “What brings you around?”
Dread coiled in her belly. Her fingers dug into the rag in her hand in anticipation of the confrontation just moments away.
Ian deliberately broke Hank’s grip and cupped his hands around his coffee. “Work, I hope.”
Hank crossed his arms and leaned on the counter with a chuckle and a condescending “Another drifter for the mine.” When Ian didn’t take the bait, Hank pushed. “Might want to rethink that. A man died in those tunnels a few days ago.”
Savannah let out a deliberate, slow breath, grappling with the anxiety Hank always induced. Still fearful the wrong word, the wrong tone, the wrong look would let the devil out.
Ian didn’t seem to notice. He reacted much the way he’d reacted to Savannah when she’d shared the news, with nothing but a nod. Jamison, on the other hand, darted a worried look at his father, then Savannah.
“Please don’t talk about that around Jamison,” she said.
Hank’s gaze cut to her, anger flashing. Her gut jumped in response. “Shielding him from reality isn’t healthy, honey. We’ve talked about this.”
Ian offered up another buffer, telling Hank, “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“I’ll take care of Jamison,” Savannah nudged Hank, needing a reprieve from the angst. “You can go.”
The cook slammed his palm against the bell behind Savannah, and the sound cut down her spine. She jumped and turned. “Jesus, I’m right here.”
He muttered an apology as she grabbed the plate. Savannah collected her frayed nerves before sliding the food in front of Ian. “Here you go. Can I get you—”
“Where you from?” Hank interrupted.
Savannah ground her teeth.
“No, thanks,” Ian answered Savannah first. “I’ve got everything I need.” He set down his coffee, picked up his fork, and looked Hank directly in the eye. “Drifters are generally from all over.”
His answer held just enough sarcasm, just enough challenge, to make Savannah tense again. Her nerves couldn’t take any more trouble for one day.
“Let him eat,” she told Hank. “Go. I’ll have Jamison call you later.”
That cold, sharp gaze of his cut into her again. “You know I like it when you get bossy, but let’s keep that in the bedroom, sugar.” Then he looked at Ian. “Seein’ as you’re new round here, you should know—”
“Hank.” Savannah was sick of this manipulation. Sick of being controlled. Sick of hiding all the ugliness. Sick of the constant fear. “Don’t—”
“Mom,” Jamison looked up, his pretty blue eyes swimming with unease and instantly turning Savannah’s heart to jelly. “Can I have toast?”
Diversion. Their son had taken a play from Ian’s playbook. Jamison’s one question reminded Savannah of just what was at stake. Of just what she had to do to make their life right—stand up to Hank.
“Of course,” she told her son. Before turning to order the toast, she met Hank’s gaze deliberately. “Goodbye.”
The muscle in Hank’s jaw jumped. He turned his gaze on Ian. “I’ll be seeing you around.”
Ian remained focused on his breakfast. “Uh-huh.”
Hank shot one more warning glance at Savannah before turning toward the dining room and taking a seat at Lyle’s table.
Savannah asked the cook for an order of toast, relieved the confrontation with Hank was over.
At least for the moment.
3
No love lost there.
Ian’s mind churned with this new information. Nothing in a file could compare to the nuance gained by witnessing people and situations in person. And there was more than nuance here. One word on paper: divorce, didn’t begin to encompass the very real conflict buzzing through the Bishop family.
He sipped his coffee and watched Savannah move behind the counter. She had a great little figure. Maybe five foot three, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. Her sexy, compact curves made Ian restless.
But Savannah Bishop was out of bounds. Way out of bounds. Besides, she wasn’t the kind of woman who just slept with a man and walked away the next day. No, Savannah Bishop was a forever kind of girl. And Ian was not a forever kind of guy, which was why he was still a bachelor at thirty-six.
“What color are the Giants?” the kid asked, turning his face up to Ian. He had his mother’s sky-blue eyes and a painfully innocent face.
“Orange and black.” Ian dug his fork into the egg on his plate.
The boy had drawn another stick player on the page and picked up his orange crayon to scribble over it.
“Are you going to be a miner?” Jamison asked without looking up from his drawing.
Ian resisted the urge to roll his eyes and picked up his coffee instead. For reasons he couldn’t begin to comprehend, kids gravitated to him—in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Albania, Turkey, every godforsaken Third World country where he dropped his gear. So much so, his team had dubbed him the Pied Piper.
The US was different. Kids didn’t run free, didn’t talk to strangers. But he still got too many stares, smiles, and wayward visits from children as they wandered away from their parents at the airport or the grocery store. They obviously hadn’t gotten the memo that Ian didn’t even particularly like kids. But over the years, he’d discovered how adults overlooked a child’s ability to pick up on all sorts of information—from their father’s secret weapons cache to their community’s planned attack on local military forces.
“Don’t know yet,” Ian told him. “How ’bout you? Are you gonna be a miner when you grow up?”
The kid crinkled his nose in a derisive expression. “No.”
“Right. Probably a sheriff like your dad, huh?”
Jamison cut a look at Ian. “Hell, no.”
Ian chuckled, surprised and amused.
“Jamison.” Savannah’s hushed voice held an edge. One that made Ian choke back his laughter and Jamison cringe.
“My fault.” Ian stepped up to cushion the blow. “I’m not exactly the best influence.”
“Jamison has his own mind, and his language degraded long before sitting at this counter next to you. He makes his own decisions. Don’t you, Jamison?”
“Yes.” He met Ian’s gaze, then his mother’s. “Sorry.”
Savannah reached across the counter, ran h
er fingers through her son’s hair. “I’m sorry you don’t feel good.”
The sweet moment was interrupted by the cook’s “Toast” from the kitchen.
Savannah retrieved the plate and set it in front of Jamison. Once her son was buttering the bread, she settled her gaze on Ian, and a blip of awareness hiccupped through his system.
“I stopped apologizing for my ex a long time ago, but I’m sorry you had to get caught in the middle of that…thing…” Her gaze darted toward the sheriff’s table, then back, with color staining her cheeks.
“Not a problem,” Ian lied. It was a problem. Just the thought of the confrontation raised his protective hackles. He’d always hated bullies. That had come in handy in the military, where he’d been tasked with eliminating tyrants. Now… Now he didn’t know much about anything. “Ex, huh? He’s still wearing a wedding ring.”
“Yes, ex,” she said with finality and frustration. “I’m getting the final papers today. He doesn’t have to believe it to make it real.”
Ian nodded at Savannah’s determination, amused. “Explains your attitude today.”
She caught his sarcasm, and her face eased into a tired smile, followed by light laughter that reminded Ian of warm rain in the jungle. When the woman smiled, she fuckin’ glowed from the inside out.
“Funny,” she said. In the next instant, fatigue fell over her expression. “But true.”
Then she returned to work, treating him with the same pleasant efficiency she offered all her customers.
He picked at his breakfast, absorbing the undercurrents of tension in the café. Savannah repeatedly checked her cell phone. The sheriff watched her like a lion with half a dozen thorns in his paw. And Lyle’s frustration grew with his son’s short attention span for their conversation.
“Why do you like the Giants?” Jamison asked.
“They’re my home team. Why do you like the Rangers?”
Jamison shrugged.
Ian let it drop. He’d never understand the workings of a child’s mind. And he didn’t want to.
He was just settling into the silence when Jamison asked, “Are you scared of working in the mines?”
“Haven’t been down there much.” In fact, he’d only been in a mine once—to locate Mason’s body.
There weren’t a lot of firsts remaining in Ian’s life. He’d been in caves and caverns all over the world. He’d rappelled down mountains, cliffs, and buildings. He’d scouted underwater cities of rock and coral and jumped out of aircraft at every altitude. Damn he missed that fucking job.
Trekking into that subzero tunnel hoping to find an injured undercover operative and finding a dead one instead had been Ian’s first time in a working mine. And his first time leaving a man behind. A fact that gnawed at him.
He glanced at the kid. “How ’bout you?”
“A few times. Don’t like ’em.”
“I don’t blame you.” He took a bite of his bacon. “You’re awfully talkative now that Dad’s not hovering. In fact, you don’t look very sick to me. You don’t have a bellyache, do you?”
His crayon froze. Guilty blue eyes darted to Ian’s face.
When he didn’t respond, Ian nudged. “Having trouble at school?”
Jamison dropped his gaze and shook his head.
“Then why don’t you want to be there?” Ian asked.
The boy cut a look at his father, at Ian, then returned his gaze to his paper.
“Oh,” Ian drew out the word in an undertone. “It’s Dad’s night. But if you’re sick—”
“Don’t tell Mom,” he whispered with a belated “please?”
“Don’t have to, bud,” Ian said with sympathy. He wouldn’t want to be that prick’s son either. “I’m pretty sure she already knows.”
Jamison’s shoulders sagged on an exhale as if the weight of the world had him pinned to the ground.
A son not wanting to hang with his cop father? The quintessential hero? The big fish in an itty-bitty pond? That spoke volumes.
“Gonna get grounded?” Ian asked.
“No.”
“I’d have gotten grounded.”
“Did you get grounded a lot?” Jamison asked.
Ian huffed a laugh. “A lot.”
That made the kid smile. And damn if he didn’t look just like his mother.
Ian pulled his cell from his back pocket to check the time, then called the mine’s office to see if anyone had an ETA on Baulder. He got a recording and hung up without leaving a message. Didn’t look like he was going to be interviewing for the mine today.
He texted his new boss, Roman. Baulder’s a no-show.
All the men at the power table stood to leave. Ian meditated into his coffee as the sheriff said goodbye to his son and took another shot at Ian with “Don’t get lost in those drifts, now.”
Then Bishop called toward Savannah, who was taking an order from an elderly man at the bar. “Have him ready to go,” he ordered. “I’ll be home round seven.”
Savannah never looked away from her customer. Never broke stride in her conversation. But Ian would bet it raked along her nerves the same way it raked along his.
Shake it off.
She was not his concern. His mission centered around uncovering a counterfeiter and a murderer. This time around, he’d have to leave the bully—and the bullied—to their own problems.
When the café door closed behind the men, Jamison looked at Ian. “Do you know what drifts are?”
“No. What are they?”
“The tunnels,” Jamison told him. “Is that what happened to Mason? Did he get lost down there?”
No. Mason had been found—found out.
Ian didn’t plan on answering, but Jamison stared, imploring a response with those frightened eyes. The kid was like a baby bird pushed out of the nest, and Ian just couldn’t leave him there to flail.
“I don’t know, buddy,” he lied again. “How old are you?”
“Five and a half.” Jamison returned his gaze to the paper but just rolled the crayon between his fingers.
Ian finished his coffee and pulled out his wallet to pay. Movement just outside the front doors caught his eye. A car that had been parked at the curb when he arrived slowly rolled forward. By the time he realized there was no driver, the sight of another car’s front bumper came into view.
“What the…?” Ian murmured, trying to understand the bumper-car derby beyond the window. He stood, frowning as the second car stopped directly in front of the café’s front glass doors—a Hazard County Sheriff’s Department vehicle.
“Savannah?” The second waitress—a Misty Klein, according to the mission file—called toward the dining room, and her voice rang with we-have-a-problem tension.
Savannah looked at Misty and followed her friend’s gaze out the doors. Her arms dropped to her sides. Her face crushed into a frown. Her jaw unhinged. “What in the…?”
Ian glanced back to the doors as a deputy stepped from the cruiser.
Savannah marched to the entrance, ripped a random jacket off the hooks from the many hanging there, threw it around her shoulders, and swung one front door open.
“Mom?” Jamison sat up straight.
She shot a stern glance over her shoulder. “Stay inside.”
Then she stepped out and walked to the curb, one rigid finger swinging from her car to the cruiser to the deputy.
“Mom?” The boy turned on the stool, looking out the door.
Ian put a hand on his shoulder. “Your mom’s got things under control.”
But the boy vibrated with tension beneath Ian’s hand. Jamison slipped off the stool and took a step toward the door. “Mom.”
Savannah didn’t hear her son. She was ripping on the deputy. Her voice drifted through the glass, touching Ian’s ears.
“Nothing any of you do would surprise me. The only thing that would surprise me is any of you thinking on your own instead of following Hank like you’ve got rings in your noses. I know exactly what you’
re doing and why, and it’s not going to make a damn bit of difference…”
Savannah went on. And on. The deputy shut the driver’s door and sauntered around the trunk toward the sidewalk with a smirk on his face. He was older, in his fifties, and smug as hell. When he reached Savannah, he rolled back on his booted heels, lifted his chin, and crossed his arms, sending the nothing-you-say-makes-a-damn-bit-of-difference message loud and clear.
“Since you know so much, Savannah, I’m sure you know that parking within fifteen feet of a fire hydrant violates title nine, section nine-dash-sixty-four-dash-one-hundred and seventy of the Hazard County code—”
“I wasn’t parked within fifteen feet,” she yelled, clearly losing her shit. “You pushed my car in front of it. I have a café full of witnesses—”
“Not one of which will come to your rescue.”
Jamison slipped from beneath Ian’s hand and started for the door. “Mom.”
Ian caught the boy’s arm and crouched to Jamison’s level. “Hey, buddy, they’re just talkin’. Your mom’s okay.”
But her son clearly believed something very different.
Customers were watching out the windows, and the cop was right, not one person seemed the least bit interested in getting involved. Not even her friend, Misty, who drifted toward Jamison, clear apprehension on her face.
“If you stay here,” Ian told Jamison, “I’ll go check on things. Okay?”
Jamison offered a quick nod and scrambled back onto the stool.
Ian dropped a twenty on the bar beside his plate while Misty sidled up to Jamison and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay, honey. Your mom knows how to handle those guys by now.”
More nuance not in the file.
Ian moved to the door and reached for his jacket—but it was gone. He glanced around the floor, then out the front—and found Savannah wearing it.
“Now, Savannah…” The deputy hooked his thumbs in his duty belt. “Just calm down. Did you take your medication today?”
“I’m not on medication, and you know it.”
“Maybe you ought to see Doc Brown about that. Maybe that would cut down on all these infractions you’ve been getting lately.”
