The Angel and the Outlaw

by Ingrid Weaver

  “Volski? You’re certain?”

  “Completely. Once I knew what to look for, I found a large amount of material on him. He’s a very wealthy man.”

  “I’ve heard of him.”

  “Really? What did you hear?”

  “He’s Russian mob. Real bad news.”

  She chewed her lip for a moment. Her hand hovered over the keys. “Stephan Volski owns several manufacturing plants both in Russia and in America, an import-export business in Moscow, a chain of dry cleaners in Chicago and a race track in Kentucky.”

  “And he’s bringing heroin into the country in Oliver Sproule’s outboard-motor parts.”

  She dropped her hands to her lap. “It looks that way, but it’s still only speculation.”

  “It fits.”

  “We don’t have enough to take to the FBI or the DEA. If we just give them a tip, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to arrest Oliver. We need more.”

  “Izzy didn’t find that packet he showed me under his pillow, Hayley.”

  “I realize that, Cooper. You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

  “Who’s being sarcastic? I thought you liked honesty.”

  “Look, I know you’re frustrated because Izzy brought those drugs to the Long Shot, but—”

  “That’s not the main reason I’m frustrated.” He slid off the desk and stood in front of her. “Do you have any idea what it does to me when you nibble on your lip like that?”

  Heat sizzled through the room. What had been under the surface since he had arrived had burst into the open. She rolled her chair backward and got to her feet.

  He didn’t move closer. He didn’t make a motion to touch her. All he did was look at her mouth. It was a bold gaze, filled with knowledge as well as promise.

  The memory of their kiss tingled on her tongue. The scent of soap and his skin filled her lungs. Her pulse skipped. She was achingly conscious of the late hour, how he stood only one step away, how his hands looked so large and steady and how right his hands had felt on her body. She was tempted, oh, so tempted, to forget about being sensible and close the distance she had put between them…

  She curled her nails into her palms to resist the urge to reach out to him. “We were talking about Sproule and the drugs, Cooper.”

  He looked past her, his gaze skimming over the bookshelves. He raked his fingers through his hair, rubbed the back of his neck, then shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He turned his head toward the desk and looked straight at the graduation picture of Adam. “Right.”

  “Cooper…”

  “Your father should have put up a picture of you.”

  The comment was so unexpected, his tone was so fierce, it took her a moment to register what he had said. He had obviously noticed the other photographs of Adam that were scattered around the room. He must have realized there were no photographs of her.

  She was amazed to feel a sudden lump in her throat. After a lifetime of slights from her father, she took them for granted. To have Cooper not only notice but sound indignant on her behalf moved her more than she liked.

  Still, this was one place she didn’t like to go. The roots of this pain went too deep, all the way back to her birth. She tried to deflect the topic. “My dad was very happy when Adam followed in his footsteps, so it’s natural that he’d want to put up his pictures. Same with all the awards Adam received. That’s why Adam gave them to him. Dad enjoyed displaying them alongside his own.”

  “You’re doing a better job of getting evidence against Sproule than the cops ever did.” He walked past her and squatted in front of the file boxes. He bent his head to read the labels, then flipped off one of the lids and looked inside. “Not that they tried all that hard.”

  “Adam tried.”

  He pulled out a folder and spread it open on top of the box.

  “Our dad was very proud of him,” she said.

  “Donny used to be real proud of me, too.” He turned over the first page in the folder. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

  Hayley thought about that. Adam had gone into police work because of their father just as Cooper had been introduced to crime because of his.

  It was ironic. Sad, too. Underneath all the toughness, Cooper was an intelligent—and at times uncomfortably perceptive—man. How different might his life have turned out if he’d had a better start? What if his father had been a law-abiding citizen with a steady job and he’d had a stable family life?

  Then again, Hayley’s life would have been different, too, if her mother had lived and her father could have loved her.

  She looked at Cooper’s back, at the too-long, rebellious hair that curled over his collar, then went to peer past his shoulder at the file. It was the one on Latchford Marine that he had looked through the other day. “Where—” She cleared her throat. “Where’s your father now?”

  He ran his finger down a column of numbers. For a while it seemed as if he wouldn’t answer. When he did, his voice was guarded. “He died five years ago. Lung cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The doctors warned him it was killing him, but he wouldn’t quit smoking. I quit when I was a teenager, but he’d done it all his life so he was hooked bad.”

  She knelt at his side. “That must have been difficult for you, not to be able to stop him.”

  “I couldn’t have done anything for Donny at the end. I was in prison when he died.”

  And Adam had been the one to put him there. Although neither of them voiced the fact, it was as clear as if it had been spoken.

  Yet another reason for Cooper to resent Adam. It wasn’t a logical reason—Cooper had readily admitted that he hadn’t been innocent of the crime he was imprisoned for—but feelings seldom were logical.

  She watched him leaf through the papers, his forehead furrowing as he concentrated. She should probably let the subject drop, but she felt compelled to defend her brother. “I am sorry you couldn’t be there with your father, Cooper, but Adam was only doing his job.”

  “Arresting me got him a commendation. That’s why he got promoted to detective.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s probably on the wall here someplace.”

  She glanced at the commendations and plaques in the study. “It wasn’t personal, Cooper. Adam was very good at what he did.”

  He flipped over another page and paused to read it before he spoke again. “Adam wasn’t that good, Hayley. He wouldn’t have gotten me without my help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not the first Tavistock I struck a deal with.”

  “I don’t understand. Did Adam get you a plea bargain?”

  “Something like that. I made it easy for him. I confessed to hijacking that truckload of computer chips.”

  She sat back on her heels. “You confessed? Why?”

  He splayed his hand over the paper he’d been reading. The edges crumpled beneath the pressure of his fingertips. “With Donny going downhill, I didn’t want to risk a long prison term. Your brother guaranteed that I would get a reduced sentence by cooperating and that I would be out in less than a year. It seemed like the best option at the time, so I pleaded guilty.”

  “What happened?”

  “Things didn’t work out the way Adam promised. I served a full three years. By the time I got released, Donny was dead.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Her brother wasn’t to blame for the sentence—the length of time to be served would have been up to the judge and the D.A.—yet she could understand Cooper’s resentment. Yes, Cooper had been guilty and needed to pay for what he had done, but Adam shouldn’t have promised anything he couldn’t deliver.

  Right and wrong had once seemed so clear, but nothing about this was pure black and white, was it? She touched her fingers to the tattooed eagle on his arm. “Cooper, I’m sorry it turned out the way it did.”

  He looked at her. “I’m not angling for sympathy. I was a sucker for takin
g the deal.”

  “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “No, but I never should have trusted a cop. My old man taught me better that that.” He studied her for a minute, then picked up the paper he’d been reading, folded it into quarters and slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

  Her thoughts were still muddled from what he had revealed. It took her a moment to realize what he’d done. She frowned. “What was that? What did you take?”

  “The schedule for the parts shipments.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “You were right. We need more proof if we’re going to go to the feds. The best way would be to set things up so they catch Sproule the next time he gets a shipment of heroin. Anything less and he’d be able to lawyer his way out of the charges.”

  He had returned to the topic of Sproule and the drugs, just as she had asked him to. She held out her hand. “Let me make a copy of that schedule first. It took me weeks to verify.”

  “No, I’ll handle it from here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Like I said, Sproule’s new pal Volski is Russian mob. That’s bad news. Things could get ugly.” He rose to his feet. “I don’t want you involved in this anymore, Hayley. It would be safest for you if you backed off.”

  “Don’t you dare start that again.” She stood and reached for his shirt pocket. “I’m not quitting.”

  He caught her wrist before she could grasp the paper. “You will if you want me to get Sproule.”

  “You still need my help.”

  “I’ll get by.” He lowered her hand to her side. “And I’ll get Sproule. You can count on it. I want you out now, before you get in any deeper.”

  “You wouldn’t have known that Oliver was involved with Volski if it wasn’t for me.”

  “That’s true. Thanks.”

  “This isn’t fair.” She went for his pocket with her other hand. “You have no right—”

  He grabbed her arm, then pushed both of her hands behind her back, crossed her wrists and circled them with his fingers. “I don’t give a damn about what’s fair as long as I get what I want. You should know that by now.”

  Her pulse tripped at the way he restrained her. With her hands held behind her, her shoulders were thrust back. Each breath she took squeezed her breasts against his chest. She tried to ignore the intimacy of the position. “Then why are you worried about my safety at all?”

  “Because I hate being wrong.” He pulled her closer. “I shouldn’t have agreed to our partnership, Hayley. I knew you didn’t belong in my world the first time I looked around this room.”

  Hayley’s breathing grew ragged. “Cooper—”

  “And I knew it for sure when I saw those drugs in Izzy’s hand tonight.”

  “Was that what changed your mind?”

  “The Long Shot is clean. It’s the first decent thing I’ve had in my life and it’s going to stay that way.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “I don’t want the ugliness to touch you, either.” His gaze moved over her face. “You’re a good woman, Hayley. We never should have teamed up.”

  “If you’re trying to get rid of me just because your deal with Adam didn’t work—”

  “Dammit, you keep throwing your brother between us, but this has never been about you or about Adam for me—it’s about keeping my bar. That’s it. That’s all. The Long Shot, nothing else.”

  “Then why can’t we continue as we have been? As long as no one knows what we’re doing, the risk isn’t any worse than before.”

  “The stakes are too high now. With Volski and his drugs involved, Sproule is more dangerous than ever. Our partnership is over.”

  “I can’t quit. I’m going to finish what Adam was working on.”

  “Then back off and let me do the job.”

  “This is where we started a week ago.”

  “Looks like this is where we end.”

  She blinked, trying to stem a wave of frustrated tears. Her heart was pounding so hard, she could hear her pulse. It was from what he was saying. It was from the way he was holding her, the familiar strength of his body.

  And oh, God, it was from the look in his eyes, that intense spark in the ice blue that had nothing to do with Adam or Oliver or any of the ugliness.

  Focus! she told herself. Think of your priorities. “I’m not giving up,” she said. “Whatever happens, I can handle it.”

  “Hayley—”

  “Go ahead and keep that schedule you took. It’s not going to stop me. I’ll put together another one.” She broke free from his grasp and stepped back. She inhaled shakily.

  And caught a whiff of something foul. She twisted her head toward the study doorway. It was an odor like…rotten eggs.

  Cooper grabbed her elbow. “I smell gas.”

  She jerked away. “I must have left the stove on. I’d better shut it off—”

  “Hayley, no!”

  A blast of air from the doorway hit her face like a fist. A split second later, a ball of flame erupted from the dark hall and knocked her backward into Cooper’s chest.

  Chapter 8

  There wasn’t enough time to blink. Cooper curled himself around Hayley as they were flung across her father’s study. He tried to shelter her, but his muscles wouldn’t move fast enough. The flames roared over their heads, singeing his hair and sucking the air from his lungs.

  He landed on his back in the center of the file boxes. The boxes crushed beneath their combined weight, turning into a slippery mass of paper and cardboard. A second wave of fire licked past the doorframe on the heels of the blast. The hall beyond it was already an inferno.

  Cooper had smelled the gas mere seconds before the explosion. If a gas line was open, it would be feeding the fire like a blow torch, so there was no hope of stopping it. Their only hope was to get out.

  Hayley’s elbow cracked his nose as she tried to scramble off him.

  Cooper clamped his arms around her and rolled toward the desk. This was an old frame house. Whatever hadn’t been ignited by the initial explosion was going to go up in a matter of minutes.

  But where was the gas leak? What had ignited it?

  Not what. Who. Hayley hadn’t left anything on by mistake. This couldn’t be an accident. Cooper was certain of that. Someone must have ruptured the main line.

  But he would worry about who and why later. Right now, he had to get her out. He ran his hands along her arms and over her back. “Are you okay? Can you move?”

  She nodded. He felt it more than saw it.

  “Stay low!” he ordered, dragging her with him as he crawled across the floor. Smoke was billowing into the room more quickly than they could cross it. The explosion had blown out the window. The fresh air pouring in from outside was accelerating the spread of the flames. “We can’t get through the door. We’ll use the window.”

  Her body convulsed with another cough. “The files! I can’t leave them.”

  “Hayley, no!”

  She twisted away from his arm and lunged backward.

  He made a grab for her, catching her by the ankle. She fell face-down, her arms outstretched. Without breaking his grip, he reached up with his other arm and caught the bottom of the curtain that was fluttering in front of the shattered window. He gave it a sharp tug to rip it down.

  Hayley rolled to her side and jerked her foot. “Let go, Cooper!”

  He didn’t have any choice, not if he wanted to get them through the window. His throat stung from the smoke. He had to shout over the roaring from the hall. “Stay put. I’ll have you out in a second.”

  “Okay!”

  He released her ankle and got to his feet. Squinting through the smoke, he wrapped the curtain fabric around his hand to knock out the shards of glass that clung to the frame, then reached back for Hayley.

  She wasn’t there.

  Damn! Cooper looked behind him. Flames were already licking up the side of the b
ookshelf that was closest to the door and curling against the ceiling. One of the frames on the wall ignited in a burst of yellow, then fell to the floor. In the midst of it all, Hayley was on her hands and knees, tearing through the smashed file boxes.

  “Hayley!” He ran back and grabbed her by the waist. “Come on!”

  “Adam’s notebook!” she gasped. She spun on her knees toward the desk. “My computer. We need them.”

  He picked her up, flipped her over his shoulder and started back across the room. Another frame ignited and smashed to the floor.

  She coughed, her palms sliding down his back as she tried to lift her head. “Cooper, no!”

  He reached the window and tossed her outside, then grabbed the top of the frame, pulled up his feet and swung himself through. He landed on the grass beside Hayley just as a crackling whoosh sounded behind them. The fire must have reached the paper on the floor, he realized. One glance back confirmed the entire room was ablaze.

  He scooped Hayley into his arms. Chances were that whoever had caused the explosion would be long gone, but he took the time to scan the area anyway. When he didn’t see movement or the glint of a weapon, he held her to his chest and jogged toward the front of the house.

  She scissored her legs and pounded his shoulder with her fist. “Let me go! I need to go back.”

  He didn’t slow down until he reached the curb. Through the trees that canopied the street, he could see lights coming on in the neighboring houses. The blast had probably been felt blocks away. Someone would have called 911 by now.

  “Cooper, please! Those files.” She choked on a sob. Her breath wheezed. “All my papers.”

  “They’re gone, Hayley.”

  “No. They can’t be. I have to—”

  “Hayley.” He turned so that she faced the house. “It’s too late.”

  She trembled from her head to her feet, one cold, tight shudder. Then she went completely still.

  The fire was spreading with incredible speed. Flames shot out from every window, blackening the clapboard siding. Shards of blown-out glass glinted orange on the lawn and the floor of the front veranda. Smoke poured from the roof, lit from below by roiling billows of fire. Boards split and nails swelled and popped from the heat—the house groaned as if it were alive and knew it was dying.