Cuffed & Claimed

by Lori King

  Five minutes later, she was back in bed, with Sean spooning her from behind.

  “Just to say, I’ve been told I make fabulous French toast,” Mercy offered up.

  “As a connoisseur of French toast, I feel obliged to investigate if your bold statement stands up to proper scrutiny.” Sean said, his voice above her head as she snuggled deeper against his front.

  “Then we have a plan.” Good things happened when a plan was in place. That’s what Mercy’s parents had always told her.

  “That we do, gorgeous.” Sean kissed her hair, and squeezed her tight.

  Neither of them had made any promises about tomorrow except they’d share breakfast. And that was okay.

  After all, there was still so much she still had to learn about Sean. His family. What his goals were for the future. Even his favorite types of music. There was plenty of time to learn about each other. They had already revealed their past relationship mistakes.

  It wasn’t like they had any deep, dark secrets still left to share.

  5

  Aidan woke to the sense of warmth along the front of his body. Mercy. His arms closed around her, drawing her closer against him. Still asleep, she rubbed the side of her face on his shoulder and snuggled deeper. A rush of protectiveness for her swamped him.

  And he was the cop who had lied to her.

  He closed his eyes, and silently cursed himself for the hole he’d dug for them both. He didn’t regret sleeping with Mercy. No fucking way. She was a gorgeous woman with an innate sweetness and a sharp mind that had intrigued him within seconds of them meeting.

  The unease coiling in his gut was for her feelings. He grimaced at the irony. Christ, he was a selfish bastard, but he wasn’t going to apologize for having seized the chance to sleep with Mercy when presented to him. He, Aidan, desired her physically and intellectually. His occupation was secondary to that attraction.

  No doubt his captain would kick his ass for taking such a risk with the case, but Mercy had been conclusively eliminated as a suspect. His partner, Tony Morgan, had checked her bank accounts for any suspicious payments, and she’d come up clean. Mercy’s colleagues and students regarded her with respect, the latter often with a hint of admiration. Aidan had done his homework both at the school and by utilizing police resources. Mercy was in the clear.

  Aidan rubbed his chin on the top of her head. The scent of her hair—fresh with the subtle hint of some herbal shampoo—filled his nostrils, calming him. He lifted his head and studied her. Relaxed in sleep and free of makeup, her face had a creamy, healthy complexion. He traced his fingertip over her cheek, smiling to himself as the corner of her mouth twitched, but she remained lost to her sleep.

  So trusting. And vulnerable to being hurt. His gut tightened with the knowledge he held that power.

  He needed to find the bastards responsible for the drugs and close the case, so he could reveal his identity to Mercy. If he was lucky, she would forgive him, and let them build on whatever connections were left standing.

  If not…he’d have to wear the consequences of losing a chance to get to know her better.

  He checked his watch. 7:00 am. Two hours before he was due for game review at school. He needed to shower and get some breakfast. Good thing he still had his gym bag with a fresh change of clothes and toiletries in his SUV.

  The sweet bundle of woman stirred against him. He glanced down as she opened her eyes.

  “Hey.” Mercy’s sleepy voice and lop-sided smile were all the enticement he needed to claim her mouth.

  She joined him in their intimate greeting, coaxing him with her lips to prolong his exploration.

  God, if she kept this up, he’d find other things to do than shower. With a groan, he eased away. “Babe, I’ve got post game practice and review at nine.”

  The way she pushed out her lower lip gave him ideas of better uses for that mouth. Yeah, he really needed to move. “But I remember the promise of French toast.”

  Her face broke into a smile. “You bet.” She pulled his head down for a quick kiss before sliding out of bed.

  Aidan glimpsed a pear-shaped ass before Mercy’s blue kimono covered her up.

  “Grab a shower and I’ll make breakfast.” She knotted the kimono’s belt at her waist and headed to the kitchen.

  “It’s a deal.” He dressed in his old clothes, got his gym bag from his SUV, and within ten minutes, was showered and dressed.

  Aidan entered the kitchen to the aroma of fresh-cooked bacon, reminding him he had only eaten cannoli last night. “Damn, smelling that bacon’s made me hungry.”

  Mercy looked up as she served breakfast at the small two-seater table. “Glad to hear it. You’re there.” She waved to the chair in front of a plate piled with French toast, strawberries, and bacon.

  He waited as Mercy poured coffee for them both before offering her the jug of syrup. “Mercy, this all looks delicious.”

  “Thanks.” She fidgeted in her seat, her cheeks turning pink at his praise.

  He studied the table covered with a light blue tablecloth, brown and white patterned flatware, and glasses ready for juice if he asked. She had gone to some trouble, setting a nice table. The small things mattered to her.

  Just like his mom and sister when they cooked for family and friends. ‘That’s how you show people matter, son. You make the effort.’ Pleasure washed through him like the spring rains that had filled the stream to overflowing on Grandpa Shaw’s old farm. Was that Mercy’s way of showing he mattered?

  He forked a piece of syrup-covered toast into his mouth and chewed. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding. Best French toast I’ve ever had.”

  Mercy’s grinned and crunched on a strip of crispy bacon. “I’m glad my cooking skills held up to your expert judgment.” She smirked at his chuckle. “You’re still okay to meet Isaac this afternoon?”

  “Absolutely.” He wiped some syrup from the corner of his mouth with the brown napkin. “Tell me some more about him.” The more intel he had, the better chance of not messing things up with the kid. “He’s a senior at Macarthur High, but I haven’t seen him around much.” A few glimpses in the corridors of a tall, lanky kid but that was all.

  “He completed his civics classes last year, and he missed a couple of English lessons last week due to his mom’s being ill.” She shrugged. “Isaac will be eighteen in a couple of months. He’s a good kid, tries hard to be the man of the family.” Her sharp exhale rang with frustration. “That’s what started his problems. Older kids he grew up with knew the family’s struggle to pay the rent and keep food on the table. His mom works two jobs and tries hard, but she suffers from diabetes, which doesn’t help. A few years ago, Isaac was offered money to run errands for his buddies. Unfortunately, part of the job included delivering tiny bags filled with coke to the gang’s customers.”

  Aidan gripped the handle of his mug harder. How many times had he heard of some gutless bastard using kids to do their dirty work? Mercy’s downturned mouth warned the news wouldn’t get any better.

  “Three years ago, Isaac got busted on his deliveries. Did six months in juvie.” She gave him a sad smile. “He’s kept himself out of trouble since, gets good grades at school. But...” She looked over toward the kitchen, as if gathering her thoughts. When she turned back, a frown creased her brow. “I’m worried. Lately, he seems angry, frustrated. I don’t know why, and when I’ve asked, he brushes off my concern.” She wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. “Then, last night at the game, he was talking to a girl I didn’t recognize. And something”—she shook her head—“I don’t know what it was, but something wasn’t right. It seemed like they were arguing and then Isaac looked scared.”

  “Of something the girl said?” Aidan reached for his coffee. “Did you recognize her?”

  “Yes to the first question. No to the last.” Mercy sighed. “I may have misread that encounter, and he was just acting out, but...” She broke off with a shrug.

  “I need to go easy the first
meet. If the opportunity presents itself, I’ll dig deeper.” But he had to be careful. Kids didn’t like snoops, especially kids already familiar with the law. Their self-protective radar was set to high. “You’ll be there for the introductions?”

  “Yep. Three o’clock at the youth center.” Her gaze met his before dropping back to her plate. “I’ll hang around for a bit and check in with some other kids, but I have to leave by four. My friend’s having a bachelorette party.” She smiled as she leaned back in her seat and sipped her coffee. “I’m hoping we don’t end up getting arrested for dancing on tables and generally running amuck.”

  Aidan would give up a week’s paid leave to be her arresting officer.

  “Wild night out with the girls, huh?” He felt a pang of regret he couldn’t ask her out tonight. But he needed to check in with Tony between practice and meeting Isaac this afternoon. Plus, his brother, Derek, was up from Portland this weekend, so he should show his face at his parents’ house.

  “That’s the general idea. Although most of us aren’t huge drinkers and our bride-to-be falls asleep after two wines. We may have to get creative and find other ways to cause mischief.” Mercy forked some more of her toast, leaving Aidan wondering what alternative paths to waywardness she would discover.

  Once he had finished breakfast and kissed Mercy until both of them were breathing heavy, he headed off to the gym. The rest of Aidan’s morning flew by. At lunchtime, he sat across from Detective Tony Morgan at a tavern an hour’s drive away from Macarthur High. He chewed on his burger as Tony updated him on events at the station.

  Aidan’s partner for all of his three years in Vice, Tony was in his mid-thirties and married with two kids who thought of Aidan as an uncle. That closeness never stopped Tony from ribbing Aidan whenever he had the chance.

  “Jack’s not happy you’re interested in a teacher.” Tony referred to their senior sergeant. “I didn’t bother to remind him that he met his wife on a case four years ago, since he was doing such a good job telling me the ways he was gonna kick your ass.”

  Aidan rolled his eyes as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. “She was a suspect in a drug case, right? He cleared her but not before he fell head over heels for the woman. Mercy’s not even a suspect.”

  Tony gave a wry smile. “Not to you and me.” He held up a hand at Aidan’s frown. “Jack’s not saying Mercy Jones is involved, just that you don’t have any suspects right now, and he wants some answers. All we have is one terrified kid in juvie.”

  Michael Willis. “He still not talking?”

  The muscles around Tony’s mouth tightened. “No. He nearly shits himself every time I push him, and the pro bono lawyer is fucking useless. Half the time, Jack and I have to remind the guy when we’ve scheduled an interview.” He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “The kid knows he’s on his own and looking at some serious jail time if he doesn’t cut a deal, but he’s so scared of his supplier, he won’t say a word.”

  Aidan drank from his bottle of water. Normally, he’d have a beer with Tony, but since his next stop was a Youth Center, having alcohol on his breath wouldn’t be appropriate.

  “It’s tough the kid’s so scared, but I keep seeing Heather Raynard in that hospital bed, and my sympathy is with her and her family.”

  “Agreed.” Tony ate a few fries. “So you got anything to share?”

  “No.” Aidan tossed his napkin on his empty plate. “Doesn’t seem like the players know much, or if they do, they aren’t saying. The kids on the team hang around each other. Hernandez had said as much.” Aidan referred to the teacher he’d replaced. “Coach Parker runs a tight ship. I can’t see outsiders getting much chance to infiltrate that group.”

  “We concentrate outside the team?”

  Aidan nodded. “Michael Willis is from a tough neighborhood. Heather was more a good girl slumming it with a bad boy. Michael and any of his friends are my best bet.”

  “Then I suggest you make some inroads. Apart from getting Jack off your back regarding Miss Jones,”—he shot Aidan a pointed look—“it will also buy us ammunition to use on Michael Willis.” Tony grabbed for his napkin and wiped his hands. “Buddy...” he began, and Aidan tensed at the warning tone in the man’s voice. “I mean it about getting some answers. A kid’s in the hospital, parents are complaining their kids are no longer safe at school, and the brass upstairs want to look good. Jack needs something worthwhile to feed them soon.” His shrug was almost apologetic at the end.

  Aidan clenched his jaw. Fucking politics. “I’m visiting the youth center this afternoon. We’ll see if that brings anything.”

  And if not? Christ, there was no guarantee Isaac would even talk to him, let alone have a lead he could develop.

  Via the cover of Principal Frasier, Aidan had organized a presentation by the K-9 sniffer dogs. The team had walked past the seniors’ lockers but the dogs had not registered any trace of drugs. Aidan had studied the students as the dogs had sniffed and scurried around the lockers and doorways of classes. Not one student had registered a flicker of unease. That alone had troubled Aidan. Shouldn’t there be at least one kid amongst all those who had lockers who would have something, even if it turned out to be innocuous, which they thought might be picked up by the dogs?

  After hours, the K-9 unit had performed a more thorough search of various areas within the school grounds and still come up empty-handed.

  He and Tony had instigated follow-up interviews with some friends of Michael Willis—students Mr. Hernandez had named as possible contacts who might know more. But their answers were too vague to be of any help.

  Aidan couldn’t shake the feeling that whoever was behind this network were watching from the sidelines, one step ahead of them.

  One hour later, he parked his SUV outside the Youth Center and entered the brick building’s glass front entry. A counter stood before him with another heavy glass door to the side. An older lady, her jet-black hair streaked with gray, greeted him with a smile. “Hey there, how can we help you?”

  “My name’s Sean Gallagher.” His fake identity rolled off his tongue. It was a skill that had helped him keep his cover more than once. “I’m here to meet Mercy Jones.”

  “You’re here to see Miss Mercy?” a young voice piped up from behind the lady. He spied three little girls, maybe around five years old, staring up at him with huge eyes. One wore a bright green tutu over her pink dress, and her dark brown hair was caught in twists tied with pink and yellow ribbons. “You her boyfriend?”

  He felt his mouth twitch, but was spared answering as the woman behind the desk cut in. “Aisha, don’t you be asking too many questions. Help me hand over the sign in sheet.”

  Aisha moved up to the desk, the lure of being an assistant receptionist quashing her need to grill Aiden. Her two friends stepped closer with her.

  “I’m Gloria, one of the volunteers here. I’ll need your driver’s license for ID.” The woman slid a pen across the desk toward Aiden and nodded to Aisha, who pushed the clipboard with a sign-in sheet in Aiden’s direction. “You’ll have to excuse the kids. They love Mercy, especially when she reads to them during story time. Anything related to her instantly becomes their business.”

  “No problem.” He grinned as he passed over the fake ID, one of many he’d used in the course of his career undercover.

  “He’s really tall and big. Like Thor.” A blonde child, wearing a tiara with plastic rubies, whispered to her friends.

  “He doesn’t have blond hair, silly,” the third girl, her hair covered in a bright pink wig, admonished.

  “Oh, yeah,” the blonde murmured. “Maybe he’s Loki?”

  “But Loki’s a bad dude.” Aisha glanced back at Aiden, this time with a narrowed gaze.

  Aiden had stared down some tough customers in his day, but there was something unnerving about being scrutinized by these little girls.

  Gloria rolled her eyes. “Okay, you three, leave the man alone. Go back to the dress-up box and mak
e yourselves into Disney princesses like you promised me ten minutes ago.” As the kids ran off shouting who was going to be which princess, Gloria chuckled. “Just between you and me, I kinda like Loki.”

  “Me too, Gloria.” Aidan smiled as the woman handed back his license and buzzed him through to the main part of the center. He glanced around what looked like a huge meeting room with offices off to one side. Mercy walked out of one office two doors down, followed by a tall, African-American teenager. Isaac. The kid’s head was shaved and the stud in his ear glinted under the light directly above. His jeans and black t-shirt were clean, if not new, same with his sneakers. He balanced a basketball between his arm and his hip with an easy nonchalance, hinting this was a common occurrence.

  Mercy’s face brightened when she spied him walking toward her. “Hey, Sean.”

  “Mercy.” He kept his smile in place, even as he silently cursed at the sound of his assumed name coming from her lips.

  Christ, what was wrong with him? Hiding his true identity had never been a problem before when undercover. But then he’d never slept with a woman connected with a case before—even someone as loosely connected to this case as Mercy.

  Isaac’s assessing stare locked with Aidan’s as they came to stand a few feet apart.

  “Hey.” Aidan gave a chin lift.

  “Hey.” The teenager rolled the ball over his hip before catching it in both hands in front of him.

  “Isaac’s just been correcting my basketball lingo.” Mercy nudged the kid with her elbow, a move avoided with ease by the young man. “Apparently, that thing ten feet in the air is called a basketball hoop, not a ring.”

  Aidan raised his eyebrows at her. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” Her gaze shone with amusement. “He wouldn’t kid me on something so important.”

  “She asked if I could get the ball to spin around on the ring before it fell in.” Isaac glanced down at Mercy, a look of pity on his face. “I couldn’t risk the chance she’d say something like that in public again.”