“You awake?”
Rachel opened her eyes in a flash, worried for the briefest of moments that Dane had somehow heard her thoughts. She stared at the wall, trying to tamp down the spike in her adrenaline at his words.
“I am,” she said after a moment. “What’s u—?”
“It was your yellow dress. The one with daisies on it.” His voice had fallen into an even lower than normal baritone. “We were supposed to meet for lunch and try out the new Italian place on Main Street. I’d already been in Darby that morning to talk to the chief, so I decided to stretch my legs and walk the park across from the post office. It being a nice day outside didn’t hurt.”
Slowly, Rachel rolled over to face him. He was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. She dared not speak.
“So I parked next to the post office and walked to the fountain,” he continued. “There was some yoga class going on and I didn’t want to seem like I was creeping, so I kept walking until I got to the other side of the park.”
Even in the dim light from beneath the bathroom door, Rachel saw the man smile. “Then there you were. Across the road, parked outside Sadie’s Bookstore, angry as a kicked hornet’s nest. Your tire was flat, but by God, that wasn’t stopping you. You already had the car jacked up and the bolts off the hubcaps. I instantly wanted to help you, which instantly made me laugh. I knew just about what you’d say if I tried to take over. ‘I’ve done this enough times to know I can change this tire faster than you, Dane Jones.’ After that you’d probably count off all the times you’d changed a tire since your mom had taught you how to do it when you were in high school.” His smile smoothed out. Rachel nearly held her breath.
“And then I was looking at that dress, the one with the daisies,” he said. “I’d never seen it before. I was sure I’d remember it if I had.” Dane turned his head to meet her gaze. “That’s when I realized I was in love with you. And that’s why I had to leave.”
Chapter Sixteen
The entire cast from Game of Thrones could have walked into the bedroom right then and Rachel wouldn’t have even batted an eye. The moment Dane finished his declaration, all Rachel could do was stare.
“I should have told you,” he said. “Instead of just going, but—”
Rachel’s mind took a back seat as her body went into overdrive. She closed the space between them with little effort and pressed her lips to his with little thought.
Dane’s reaction time was slow, but Rachel didn’t care.
She needed to kiss him. She needed to touch him. She needed to let out some of the energy that had ignited within her at his revelation.
Because Dane saying he loved her hadn’t irrevocably changed her. No. What he’d said was better. Because, Rachel realized, she didn’t just want to be friends with the man next to her.
She wanted more.
Much more.
And apparently Dane still did, too.
He answered her kiss with force, pushing his lips against hers with a notable hunger. He rolled onto his side, deepening the kiss with a swipe of his tongue. Rachel responded with her own exploration. Even at the odd angle, Dane threaded one hand into her hair. He was gentle with it, yet she still gasped against him.
His body tensed as he broke the kiss.
Dark eyes she had missed more than she had realized searched her face.
“Are you oka—?” he started, voice husky and raw.
Rachel didn’t let him finish the question.
She was back to his lips and, like on the night before, she entered his embrace. The hand in her hair fastened her mouth to his while his other hand grabbed and pulled her hips closer. Rachel didn’t waste any time showing she wanted more than his lips. She fingered the hem of his shirt and then slid her hands up and underneath it. They explored the hard surface of his stomach and abs. His bare skin electric beneath her own.
Dane made a guttural noise deep in his throat.
It was more than encouraging.
Rachel tugged up on the fabric of the shirt until Dane got the hint. He broke their kiss long enough to pull his shirt off. It was thrown across the room and out of sight. Rachel decided to join in. Or at least she tried.
Dane had other ideas.
He rolled over until he was straddling her and then bent over and worked the buttons of her pajama top. The task of getting her out of her shirt could have gone a lot faster, but apparently he was going for extra credit. Starting at her collarbone, Dane pressed his lips to her skin. The contact was dazzling and only became more pronounced the lower his lips traveled. With each new unfastened button, there was Dane. Trailing his lips and tongue down her newly bare skin. When there was nothing left to unbutton, Dane pulled her up and against him as she shimmied out of the top.
There was a moment when they sat there, bare chests pressed together, hearts beating, breathing, moving against each other, when Rachel felt like they were at some kind of precipice. An important one.
“You said you were in love with me,” she whispered, breathless. “Are you still?”
Dane ran his hand across her cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. In the dim light she could see his smile.
“I never stopped.”
Then his mouth was over hers and he was pushing her back on the bed. The rest of their clothes disappeared as their bodies, and hearts, finally intertwined.
* * *
DANE OPENED HIS eyes and felt the warmth of the woman he’d loved for years tucked safely within his arms. It was like a weight had been lifted from his entire body as he looked at Rachel’s sleeping form. He’d finally told her the truth. The full reason he’d put distance between them.
In the year following David’s death, he’d gone from being a friend to falling in love with her. Dane didn’t know when it had happened or how—he definitely hadn’t been looking for it—but there it was. He was in love with his best friend’s girl.
David had once joked that if anything ever happened to him in the line of duty, Dane should look out for Rachel. Dane could bet he hadn’t meant to fall in love with her a few weeks after the anniversary of his death.
An ache of guilt pushed through him at the thought.
It was like Rachel could sense his turmoil. She stirred in his arms. He pasted on a smile.
“Good morning,” he greeted, eyeing the readout on her phone. It was just after seven. “Sorry if I woke you.”
Rachel stretched her legs and arms out, her body vibrating against his. The movement plus the absolutely naked smoothness of her skin was jarring. Not in any unpleasant way, just not on the same wavelength as the guilt settled in his stomach. Having Rachel so close and in such a vulnerable position was teasing his more primal urges. He tried to focus.
“No, it’s fine,” she said, rolling onto her back to look at him. “I wanted to get up early today anyways.” She smiled and then put a hand in front of her mouth. “But if you’ll excuse me and my morning breath for a moment.”
Dane laughed as the woman wasted no time in escaping from beneath the sheets. She grabbed his discarded shirt, threw it on, and sent him a quick wink before disappearing into the bathroom. He didn’t like the empty spot next to him. However they weren’t on vacation. He had a job to do and bad men to catch. Not lie around in bed, tormenting himself over a woman with denim-blue eyes and a set of lips that rocked his world.
No, he needed to focus.
He swiped his phone off the nightstand. No new texts or emails. No new calls.
Trying to exhume Marcus’s body was a waiting game. One that couldn’t be finished until a judge approved the request. Billy was going to work on that as soon as Judge Deal got to his office. Once they knew for certain one way or the other that his body was what had been buried under a single-named headstone in one of Kipsy’s cemeteries, the lead on him, plus the men from the past few days,
had hit a road block. At least, for Dane it had.
Finding Knife Guy, aka Wyatt, and Levi in the yearbook had been exciting. Yet that excitement had ebbed as the night before dragged on. Neither man was in the sheriff department’s database and neither had a social media presence to follow. Everywhere Dane and the department had looked seemed to be a dead end.
It was like none of the men existed past their names and pictures in one edition of the Kipsy South Academy yearbook.
Which meant either they were really good at hiding their trails or they had the resources to help them keep themselves under wraps.
Or both.
There was also still the question of how Lonnie fit into everything.
Why did Levi want him?
What did Tucker know about it all?
Dane scrubbed a hand down his face. He could feel a headache start to form behind his eyes while the stress in his shoulders became heavier. It was hard to focus on a case that had so many questions but no answers. He rolled his shoulders back, trying to ease the building tension. What he really needed to do was to hit the gym. Work out some of the stress. Try to get his body and mind on the same page again.
The shower came on in the next room. Dane put his phone down as Rachel opened the door. She wasn’t wearing his shirt anymore.
“I’m going to take a quick shower,” she said conversationally. “I was wondering if you wanted to join me.”
Dane couldn’t help smirking.
His body and mind certainly seemed to get on the same page fast at that.
* * *
CHANCE SHOWED UP at lunch. He barely made it into the cabin before his hat was off and he was launching into a story.
“I was trying to figure out where Tucker went when he left the house the other night,” he summarized for them, perching on the edge of the couch. “But I was coming up empty. So I decided to ask some different questions like who the hell this man is. If you know enough about a person, it’s not hard to guess where he might go or do in any given situation. So, who is Tucker Hughes?”
Rachel didn’t know if the cowboy wanted an answer, but she sure wanted one. “Who is he?”
Chance slapped his knee and snapped his fingers, excitement clear in his eyes. “He’s a quiet man who has spent his life staying out of people’s ways. He graduated from high school, got a manual labor job in construction, and has spent the past few decades maintaining a quiet existence.” A wicked grin pulled up the corner of his mouth. “And, according to a high school sweetheart I managed to track down thanks to the yearbook, he’s also an only child.”
“Wait, what?” Rachel asked.
“He’s raising his nephew,” Dane pointed out. “I might be an only child, but I know you need a sibling to have one of those.”
Chance put up his hands to stop them from continuing.
“Listen, believe me, I barked up that tree when she said that,” he said. “But she said she was one-hundred-percent certain that he was a single child. So, without seeming like I was calling her a liar, I asked if she could direct me to anyone else who was friends with him back in the day. She said he was a total loner and he only hung out with her and one other person while they were in high school.” The grin grew. “And that person was none other than Marcus Highland.”
Rachel straightened her back. She felt her nostrils flare. She never would get used to hearing that name. Dane had a similar reaction but then was typing away at his laptop. Rachel couldn’t see what he was looking up. She turned back to Chance.
“So what are you thinking?” she had to ask. “And what about Lonnie?”
Chance was practically beaming.
“I’m thinking that Tucker doesn’t have a brother, but Marcus Highland does,” he said. “Or did.”
The cowboy turned his attention to his friend. Dane’s brows were knitted together, his eyes narrowed and scanning the screen. Whatever he had been looking for was right in front of him. Chance must have sensed that, too. He waited until Dane caught on to his unsaid thought.
“Almost eleven years ago a John Highland was killed in his prison cell by a fellow inmate,” Dane said, still reading the information on his computer screen. “He was there for felony drug possession, although his wife claimed the arresting deputy had planted the drugs. She tried to sue the department. The Riker County Sheriff’s Department.” He paused to finish reading. “She passed away in a car accident before it could go anywhere.” Dane finally looked up. He only had eyes for her. “Leaving behind one child. A baby boy.”
Chance nodded. “Now, I can’t say for certain if John Highland is really related to Marcus, especially since we can’t seem to find any trace of Marcus other than that yearbook, but when I went to look into what happened to that baby boy...well, I came up empty.” Chance shrugged. Then he leaned closer. “But guess when Lonnie started showing up in Tucker’s life?”
Rachel shook her head.
“No way,” she breathed. “It can’t be.”
Chance nodded. “Two months after Jasmine Highland’s death, Tucker Hughes became the legal guardian of Lonnie.”
Rachel shook her head again, trying to come up with another explanation.
“That can’t be,” she challenged. “You can’t just say you’re related to some kid and take him in when it’s not true.”
“With the right papers, the right amount of money, and the wrong people, you can do just about anything.”
Rachel had opened her mouth to try to attack that thought when Dane spoke up.
“Wyatt said Tucker was supposed to keep the boy safe,” he said. “That’s why. Marcus wasn’t just coming for Lonnie for some kind of ransom or leverage to use. He was coming for him because Lonnie is his nephew. Not Tucker’s.” Dane fisted his hand against the tabletop. “And if this is all true, that’s why Marcus was so hell-bent on the idea of corruption in the department back then.” His expression softened. “And why he might have targeted a prison transport van to help make his statement.”
Rachel’s head felt like it was going to explode. “But why? Why do all this? Why not just raise his nephew himself? Why come for him now?” She threw her hands in the air. “I still don’t understand!”
The sound of a phone vibrating made them all turn to the tabletop.
“It’s Billy,” Dane said. He scooped up the phone and answered it. Billy didn’t say much, but it was enough. “I’m on my way.”
Dane was standing taller when he hung up.
“I think it’s about time we get some answers,” he said. “And I think it’s time to get some from Tucker himself. He just woke up and is ready to talk.”
Chapter Seventeen
Rachel picked at the invisible lint on her jeans. Dane put his hand over hers to settle it but kept his gaze straight ahead. She took a deep breath and glanced around the small waiting room.
Chance was leaning against the wall, hat in his hands and eyes closed. Two local officers originally tasked with keeping a watch over Tucker were talking among themselves just outside the doorway. Detective Foster was pacing through the back of the room, head bent over his phone. Occasionally he would make a call, sometimes he would pull Dane over to talk to him.
Breaking out the theory that Tucker Hughes had adopted Marcus Highland’s nephew had given the department a new direction to look into. It had also given the sheriff enough ammo to convince the judge that exhuming Marcus’s body was the right call to make. Illegally adopting Lonnie was one thing. Illegally adopting Lonnie to keep the boy safe while Marcus continued to do devious things was another.
Rachel let out a breath, frustrated.
“Should Lonnie be in there right now?” she asked for what felt like the umpteenth time.
“We can’t prove Tucker isn’t Lonnie’s legal guardian right now,” he reiterated. “Even if we could, Lonnie has been with that man since he wa
s a toddler. He wanted to see him.”
“Tucker tried to leave him,” Rachel muttered. Dane squeezed her hand.
“Don’t worry. Suzy is in there with him,” he reassured her. “She’ll make sure Tucker doesn’t say anything that could hurt Lonnie.”
Rachel knew he was right, but still her nerves weren’t happy. It was nice to have a theory that might get them answers to what was going on, but it was a theory she wasn’t excited to entertain. Marcus had been shot and buried by the state. When no one could figure out his true identity, all he’d gotten was his first name and the date he died on his tombstone. The same date that was on David’s, too.
What if he was still alive?
What had he been doing the past several years?
What was the endgame?
Dane ran his thumb across her wrist.
“I know,” he whispered soothingly. “I know.”
Rachel took a deep breath and then let it out, trying to rein in the excess anxiety making her feel even more crazy in their current situation. As much as he hated it, Dane had told her the truth during the ride over.
Right now was a waiting game. One the entire department was playing. Everyone had a part they were looking into.
“Once we get that first answer, the rest will fall in line like dominoes,” Dane had said.
Rachel understood his confidence. He trusted the men and women in the department with more than just the case. He trusted them with his life. It was nice to know that, while Dane had left his original life plan after David’s passing, he had still found his place in the world. One that included a job he loved and coworkers who were more like family. It was just nice to know he hadn’t been alone for the past few years.
“Here we go.”
Rachel looked up as Suzy rounded the corner, Lonnie at her side. Dane and Rachel stood. Chance started over. Suzy smiled and motioned to the drink vending machine in the corner. She handed the boy two dollars.
The Negotiation Page 13
