“Jay, honey, all I’m saying is this is all new and moving fast. She, better than most, seems to get your life. I see that. But don’t take for granted that she gets it and it won’t be hard and resentments won’t build despite that.”
Jay sighed. “Mom, I love you, but pack up your cynicism and go home. I can’t take any more tonight.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
“Great. I’m happy. I intend to stay happy and a little support and understanding would go a long way to keeping me that way. You not trying to run off my girlfriend would be really great.” The sarcasm only made his mom frown.
“I didn’t try to run her off.”
“No, you went out of your way to point out all the reasons I’m wrong for her, she’s wrong for me, and this will never work. Last time I checked, no one asked you.”
“Fine.”
“Fine. Thanks for feeding the horses.”
“I’m always here for you.”
He refrained from rolling his eyes again. “I appreciate the help.” And yeah, it had nothing to do with the fact she lived here rent-free in exchange for helping him with the horses when he had to work. He should have saved himself the trouble and hired someone. Instead, he’d moved her to his place to keep an eye on things and to make life easier for her.
No good deed . . .
“How long is she staying?”
He eyed his mother, wondering where she was going with this.
“So I know if I need to continue to care for the horses or if my services are no longer needed.”
“Your insecurity is showing.” He hugged the frown and anger off her face, set her away from him, then stared down at her, trying to hold on to his patience while his dinner got cold again. “I need your help.”
His mother found her manners and said goodbye to Alina and Adam, then walked out the front door, giving him room to breathe again.
He took his seat at the table and sighed out his frustration.
“Adam, please go get ready for your bath. I’ll be there in just a minute.”
Jay poked his fork around in his cold potatoes.
Alina put her hand over his on the table. “She loves you. She wants you to be happy, and in her mind that means you don’t make the mistake she made.”
“So I should never fall in love?”
“In her mind, marrying someone in law enforcement means divorce and heartbreak.”
“Then she should be worried about you, not me.” He thought about how that sounded. “Not that we’re getting married or . . . you know what I mean.”
Alina’s soft smile and breathy laugh made the butterflies in his belly flutter.
“She thinks that your job will end your relationship and you’ll be unhappy.”
“I’m not exactly happy with only work in my life. Can I at least be happy for a while before it all gets fucked up?” He tossed the fork down and sat back in his seat, frustrated.
Alina stood, closed the distance, and fell into his lap. She wrapped one arm around his neck and settled into his chest. “How about we see how long we can be happy before we fuck it up?”
Half a smile tugged at his lips. He stared down at her and shook his head. “She doesn’t get to you, does she?”
“A little bit. But if all I’m looking for is the bad stuff, I’ll miss out on the good stuff.”
“Like this.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, letting the kiss go on and on until his muscles went loose and he lost himself in the taste and temptation of her.
She leaned back in his arms and stared up at him. “That’s worth the interruption during dinner.”
“How about me leaving in the middle of the night?”
“What we’re going to do once Adam goes to bed is promise enough to make me want to wait for you to come back.”
He kissed her again, hard with an edge of desperation. “Go put that boy to bed. I’ll do the dishes and meet you in bed. I’ll show you how worth it waiting for me is.”
Chapter Eighteen
After two books that turned into three, one sing-along of “Let It Go” from Frozen, and a ten-minute video chat good-night with Beck and Ashley, Alina finally got Adam to bed. Jay wasn’t waiting for her in their room. She found him in the office, going through his emails. The second he saw her, he closed his laptop, stood, and came to her, picking her right up off her feet in a hug that brought her face-to-face with him. He kissed her the whole way down the hall to their room. They undressed each other without a word. The quiet intensity between them drew them together to fill the silence with something deeper than words.
They spoke with the soft brush of fingertips over skin, sweet kisses that grew into an urgent need to taste every tempting curve and hollow. Gentle hands became greedy. And close wasn’t close enough until they became one, their bodies moving together, hands clasped, hearts pressed together, and all that passion burst like a firework, the sparks twinkling inside of them as they snuggled close and drifted into contented sleep until they woke in each other’s arms this morning, both of them unable to help smiling at each other because they were happy.
Jay made her breakfast. She didn’t complain or even care when he took a phone call that lasted half an hour. She enjoyed her meal and time with her nephew. The morning went by with an ease that felt like they’d spent countless mornings together.
Jay’s concern for her healing injuries touched her.
Alina lounged on the couch, reading one of Jay’s mystery novels, wallowing in self-indulgence as she ate a slice of chocolate cake and sipped her tea. This was her kind of relaxing, made even sweeter because Jay had spent the night and this morning pampering her.
He wanted her to rest, so he took Adam horseback-riding in the pasture out back, giving her time to sit in the quiet, read, or take a nap. Whatever made her happy.
She was happy here. With him.
Being here felt so natural and comfortable.
And if his mother, her brothers, and the outside world didn’t intrude, she’d be happy to stay right here with him. Well, maybe not right here on the couch but in his bed, those big hands moving over her, his body stroking hers into a fever pitch that had her melting into him as they set fire to the sheets.
They were great at that part. Admittedly, this morning had been really great, too. But she really needed to remember that, although one part of their relationship worked well, the rest was still uncharted territory for them.
The door swung open. Jay walked in with a giggling Adam tucked under one arm like a wiggling piglet and the phone to his ear. The serious look in his eyes and set of his mouth didn’t jibe with the way he plunked Adam on his feet, tickled him in the belly, and brushed his fingers over Adam’s golden hair.
“I’m grabbing my stuff and headed out the door right now.” Jay gave her a cursory look, then went into his office, unlocked the tall safe, and pulled out his gun. He grabbed his badge off the desk and strapped both things to his hip while he listened to whoever was talking to him on the phone.
“I’ll get the team together. We’ll surround the truck stop and begin surveillance. You stay on Tandy. I’ll let you know when we get there. We’ll coordinate as we gather intel and figure out what she’s got going besides dealing in the parking lot.”
Jay listened for another few seconds. “I’ll have the note analyzed with the other. We should have something soon.” Jay grabbed his coat off the rack by the door.
“I think he has to go,” Adam said.
Yeah, she got that, but she didn’t like the serious look on his face. Or that he went back to the safe, grabbed two more ammunition clips, and stuffed them in his pocket before closing the safe and making sure it was locked so Adam—or anyone else—couldn’t get into the other guns stored in there.
“Dad looks just like that sometimes. Something big must be going on.” Even at Adam’s young age, he understood the severity of what Beck and Jay did for a living.
She wrapped her hands at Adam’s ch
est and pulled him back into her thighs and held him close. “He’ll be okay. He’s trained just like your dad to arrest the bad guys.”
Jay stared at both of them. “I’m on my way. Call me on the road if anything else comes up before we get there.” He hung up and stared at her for one long moment. His gaze dipped from her down to Adam and back up again. “This has been a strange couple of days. You know?”
Yes. A glimpse at life with them as a couple with a child. But nothing was normal about this situation as most people knew it. She was here for her protection. Adam wasn’t their child. And Jay had to leave, gun locked and loaded, to take down a drug dealer.
She didn’t know what to say. This was their life. Not some ideal most people didn’t live up to in the first place. All they could do was live each day as they came. Today, she spent the morning blissfully happy doing ordinary things with Jay and Adam. Now he had to go do his job.
She didn’t want him to go. She feared something happening to him. But he needed to go because he believed in what he did for a living and for other people. So she did the hard thing, knowing tomorrow wasn’t promised to anyone. She’d hold on to the wonderful memories they made together and let him do what he needed to do.
“Be safe. We’ll be here when you get back.”
He closed the distance, put one hand on Adam’s head, the other on her face, leaned in, and kissed her softly. He backed away just enough to look her in the eye. “You make it hard to go.”
She glanced sideways at the wide-open living room and dining room. “You make me want to stay.”
He growled deep in his throat and narrowed his eyes. He kissed her hard and fast, then bent low to Adam. “You get two scoops of ice cream after dinner if you make sure she doesn’t leave the property this time.”
Adam gave him a thumbs-up.
Jay brushed his fingers through Adam’s hair, stood, and pointed a finger at her. “Stay put.”
“Come home in one piece,” she ordered right back.
One more quick kiss and he was out the door, taking her heart with him. Until he came back, she’d miss him and worry and carry the strange weight that settled in her chest. She didn’t want to think it meant something bad might happen, but the real possibility put a lump in her throat.
Adam grabbed onto her wrists at his chest, leaned forward, and swung himself side to side as she held him.
“Let’s go wash your hands and get a snack.”
“When will Mom and Dad be home? You said today.”
“Not until late tonight. After you go to bed. They’ll be here first thing in the morning to pick you up.”
“Okaaay.” Adam sighed out the word, more than ready to see his parents and go home to his own room and toys.
“Want to watch Frozen again?”
“Olaf!”
She loved that adorable snowman, too. He’d put a smile back on Adam’s face.
With Beck home tomorrow and back to work on Monday, maybe Jay wouldn’t have to spend so much time working with King on his case and he’d stay closer to home. She couldn’t count on that. He worked cases all over the state just like her brothers. The only thing she could count on dating a DEA agent was that nothing would be predictable or normal. Dates would get rescheduled and interrupted. He’d be gone for hours, days, even weeks at a time, depending on the case. She needed to be prepared to face the reality of Jay’s life and how it impacted hers.
She’d have work, friends, and her own interests to fill the time. And she’d have Jay.
Then again, Beck might kill him if Adam spilled the beans about Jay kissing her.
So many things to worry about.
She didn’t care what Beck, Jay’s mother, or anyone else thought about her seeing Jay. They liked each other. Everyone else could just get over it.
First, she should get over it and enjoy it.
“Okay, starting now.”
“Now, what?”
She hooked her hands under Adam’s arms, lifted him in the air, regretted doing so the second her bruised ribs protested, but spun him around anyway. “Fun!”
“Yay!”
Yay was right. She wasn’t going to spend the night worrying about her relationship with Jay, what other people might think, or that he was out there possibly facing life and death.
She’d spend the evening playing with her nephew, and once she had him tucked in for the night, she’d dig in to her research on prescription drug addiction and start working on her proposal to the DEA to set up a drug take-back program in town.
She had things to do. She didn’t need to check her phone to see if Jay called. But she did grab her phone from her purse and kept it close. Just in case.
Chapter Nineteen
Jay didn’t have time to think about the scene at his house, saying goodbye to Alina, seeing her there with Adam, what it made him feel, knowing she’d be there when he got home. But that was temporary, and he didn’t have time to think about that either.
You make me want to stay.
Those words rang in his head, but he had to push them aside and focus on the job ahead even if he wanted to focus on his personal life. It had needed some attention for a long time. He finally had a reason to make it a priority. He had a woman he couldn’t get out of his mind—and had made her way into his heart.
With Beck and Ashley’s return, Adam would go home. He’d have to face his best friend and confess that he’d been seeing Alina. But first he wanted to take her on a date, find a rhythm that worked for them, and let their relationship turn into whatever it would be for them before more people got involved.
His mother was enough to handle.
Beck and Caden looking out for their sister and warning her away from him wouldn’t help at all.
Maybe they’d surprise him and accept that their sister wanted to date him. A fellow DEA agent with a chaotic life. Yeah, right. And hell would freeze over.
His gut twisted at the thought of losing his shot with Alina.
He’d work damn hard to make their date as memorable and amazing as their nights together.
One problem at a time. First, he needed to coordinate the surveillance at the truck stop King suspected was being used to traffic drugs. Work distracted him from the nagging feeling inside that what he and Alina said to each other when he left meant more than the few words they shared.
They seemed to say a hell of a lot without words. Before memories of making love to Alina last night stole his concentration, he called the office and got an update on the agents he’d ordered to assemble for tonight’s mission.
By the time he met the team, went over the plan for the night, and took up his position at the back of the truck stop lot, he had his mind in the game. He’d get this done and go home. To Alina. The thought held a lot of appeal. Maybe too much. The last thing he wanted to do was rush and make a mistake.
Mistakes put lives at risk.
Work first. Personal stuff later.
He scanned the rows of big rigs, the diner doing a brisk business, and the light traffic on the main road headed out of the little town he’d sent King to for his undercover mission. He listened to the other agents check in over the com in his ear. Everyone was in place and ready to go on King’s go. All they needed was for the star of the show to make a move. From Jay’s position, he couldn’t see the coffee shop across the street or Tandy’s apartment over it.
For the last several hours he’d organized the agents and gone over the plan from every angle. He needed to be sure he’d covered everything, but there was still so much unknown about the players.
His phone vibrated with an incoming call. He checked the ID, excited to see the labs number. “What do you have for me?”
The tech got down to business. “Both notes you gave us have the same prints.”
At least he didn’t have more than one person threatening King. “The FBI flagged the same prints for several threatening letters to government officials. The ATF contacted us about prints found on bomb par
ts at a farm and several drug lab bombings.”
“Do they have a name to go with the prints?”
“No, but this guy is big-time wanted by multiple agencies.”
“Send me all the information. I’ll talk to my undercover agent and see if we can narrow down the suspects.”
Jay hung up on the lab and made the call to King.
“Flash.”
“Bennett. I just got the information back on the notes you received.”
“About time.”
Jay put King on speaker and scrolled through the information the lab tech emailed him. “ATF has the same prints on bomb parts recovered at a ranch and several drug lab bombings. The FBI has threatening letters against the governor and other state representatives.”
King swore. “The explosion at the ranch, is it a property owned by Manny Castillo, or at least some shell corporation under the Castillo cartel? DEA confiscated the property after a drug raid.” The urgency in King’s voice pushed Jay to look up the information. Not easy to do on his phone, scanning through pages and pages of information.
He found the address and the deed to the property. “Yes. How do you know that?”
“Because Cara and Manny were supposed to live there together, but after she discovered he’d lied to her and she tried to leave him, that’s when he chopped off her finger. She managed to escape, but he went after her again.”
“Why isn’t this information in any of your reports?”
“What is in my reports is that I believed Iceman tipped off the DEA about that meeting between him and Castillo in order to get us, me, to take Manny out for him, so that he could hold on to the truce between the cartels and blame Manny’s death on us.” King evaded answering directly.
Tempted by Love Page 15
