He was only now getting used to that feeling whenever he looked at her … a gut punch. How the hell could he be attracted to this woman? Yes, she was beautiful. But how many other beautiful women had he seen since he’d lost Jill and never felt anything but an appreciation of that beauty?
Even Shea, his ex-wife, as much as he loved her as a friend and as lovely as she was, had never caused this gut-wrenching feeling. And as pretty as Honor was, the fact that he still didn’t remember their weekend together and wasn’t the slightest bit attracted to her now was an indication that it wasn’t just Keeley’s outward attractiveness he found so appealing. There was a hell of a lot more to Keeley than just her looks, but he could do nothing about his feelings.
Last night, in her arms, he’d experienced something extraordinary, but damned if it could mean anything more than just a good memory of sexual fulfillment and comfort. He was here for only one purpose. Having any kind of relationship with Keeley would be beyond stupid. If he told her the truth about her husband’s death, she’d hate him.
Stephen Fairchild might have been a lousy husband. That didn’t mean Keeley wanted him dead or that she would want to be around the man responsible for his death. If she knew the truth, she might demand that he be taken off this case. He couldn’t risk that.
This could be his only chance to help this woman. More than anything, he wanted to bring her children back home safely to her. He’d failed his own family … hadn’t kept them safe. And he’d failed this family, too. He’d never let that happen again, no matter what he had to hide.
Until her children were home and their kidnapper caught, he needed to stay as aloof as possible. Yeah, hard as hell when they’d shared the most intimate of experiences, but that could never happen again. He was here to do a job. When that job was finished, he’d be gone from her life for good.
twelve
They stopped at an off-road clearing about five miles from their intended destination. Her knees weak and shaky, Keeley leaned against Cole’s SUV and listened as the three LCR operatives reviewed and confirmed their plans.
Adrenaline, fear, and excitement bounced wildly inside her. This was really going to happen. She was going to get one of her girls back. She refused to believe this child wasn’t Hannah. It had to be her. It had to be!
And despite what she’d been told, she couldn’t help but hope that Hailey was there, too. Admittedly it was a long shot, but that didn’t stop her from hoping.
“Key word is ‘macaroni,’” Eden said. “Once I see the child, I’ll verify it’s Hannah with that word. Jordan, you’ll come through the front. Cole will come through the back.”
Cole double-checked his gun and then slipped it into the holster under his jacket. “We’ll assume they’ll be armed, but no drawing unless absolutely necessary.”
Jordan and Eden nodded. “Agreed.”
“I’ll call Honor.” Cole pulled out his cellphone and walked several feet from where Keeley stood.
Jordan took Eden’s hand and led her away, his face as grim as Keeley had ever seen it. They stopped a few yards away, and from the looks of it, Jordan was giving extra instructions. Eden was gazing up at him with a small, understanding smile and the absolute adoration of a woman in love.
Keeley looked away. Just watching the love they had for each other created an ache she couldn’t comprehend. Almost from the beginning, she had known there was something missing in her marriage to Stephen, though she hadn’t known what it was at the time. She’d mistaken the gifts he’d given her and the girls for love.
After his death, she had acknowledged that their love had never gone as deeply as it should have. Despite the hurt of learning he’d been unfaithful within months of their marriage, deep down she hadn’t really been surprised.
Never having seen her father and mother together, she’d never been exposed to the deep and abiding love a man and woman could have for each other. The kind of love Eden and Jordan had went beyond her realm of understanding and experience, but the knowledge that it existed created a gnawing emptiness inside her.
“You okay?”
She twisted around to look up at Cole. “Just anxious.”
“It’ll be over soon.”
“What did Honor say?”
His mouth lifted in that attractive way of his. “The woman’s got a colorful vocabulary.”
“She’s angry?”
“Yeah, but she’ll get over it. Turns out she’s in Atlanta on another case. She’ll be here soon.”
“Before you go in?”
He gave a full-fledged grin. “Hell no.”
Despite the worry bubbling inside her, she had to smile at him. “If it is Hannah … what’s next?”
“FBI will take it from there. Since this is a hunch, they’re not approving us to go in, but they’re not stopping it either. If it is Hannah, they’ll take over as soon as we give them the info. We get Hannah. They do the arrests.”
“Will they question the people about Hailey?”
“Absolutely. And so will we. Between the two of us, if they know anything, they’ll give it up.”
“Do you think they know anything?”
“Hard to say. Depends on whether they actually knew the man who sold them Hannah.”
Sold. What a cold, revolting word, especially when applied to her babies. Revulsion shuddered through her. In the next second, a warm jacket, heated with Cole’s body heat and smelling deliciously like male musk, appeared on her shoulders. Words of thanks got caught in her throat as she looked at him. She saw gentleness and concern, but also desire and attraction. She shivered again, this time for a completely different reason.
“We ready to roll?” Jordan’s deep voice interrupted the moment. His arm around his wife, he looked more at peace, and Eden had a soft glow in her eyes.
Keeley sent up a quick prayer that Eden would be safe. Yes, she desperately wanted her girls back, but the thought of Eden getting hurt in the process was unbearable.
Cole shot a hard look at Keeley. “Stay in my vehicle. Once we know it’s Hannah and we get her out, one of us will bring her to you. Until then, you don’t move. Right?”
Keeley nodded. The last thing she wanted to do was get in anyone’s way.
She got into the driver’s seat of Cole’s Jeep and watched as he, Jordan, and Eden got into the other one. Once they started moving, Keeley pulled out and followed behind them. She’d driven almost five miles when the lights of the vehicle in front of her blinked—her signal to pull over. Her heart in her throat, Keeley pulled to the side of the road and watched as they continued on. Though the radio transmitter Cole had given her would give her access to everything that was going on, she couldn’t stop the anxious fear that she should be there with them, just in case.
Wrapping Cole’s jacket around her tighter, Keeley gritted her teeth and waited.
After what seemed an interminable amount of time, she heard a small amount of static and then Eden’s voice, soft, low, but very clear. “Okay, guys, stepping up on the porch. Looks pretty damn seedy. There’s a light on at the back of the house … maybe the kitchen. Here goes.”
The distant clang of a doorbell ring and then the squeak of a door opening.
“Yeah?”
“Omigosh,” Eden gushed breathlessly. “I’m so glad somebody’s home. My car broke down about a mile down the road. And my cellphone …” A soft swallowed sob. “My cellphone … I can’t get a signal. Do you have a phone I can use?”
If Keeley didn’t know it was Eden, she would never have recognized her. She sounded young, frightened, and authentically Southern.
A distant female voice said, “Who is it, Bobby?”
The harsh male voice answered, “Nobody, Ava. Get on back upstairs.”
“I need to call my husband,” Eden said. “We’re staying at the Sleepy Time … you know that motel on Jackson Street?”
There was such a long silence, Keeley began to think the transmitter had stopped working. Then the man said
, “Yeah, come on in. We got a phone in the kitchen you can use.”
Eden stepped through the door, resisting the temptation to scrunch her nose at the offensive odor inside the house. A mixture of tobacco, body odor, old grease, and something truly abhorrent assailed her nostrils.
As the door closed behind her, she stood in a small foyer and assessed the area. Living room on the right—sofa and curtains had seen better days. The large area rug, stained and threadbare, had, too. The wide-screen plasma television hanging on the wall and black leather lounge chair in the corner was incongruent with the rest of the sad décor, sticking out like shiny jewels among garbage.
“Phone’s this way,” the man grumbled beside her.
Her gaze taking everything in while she tried to appear anxious to use the phone, Eden stepped over a small pile of toys in the middle of the hallway floor. Dolls, plastic teacups, coloring books and crayons. Definitely a child here … but was it Hannah? She saw no one other than the large, rather obese man leading the way to the kitchen.
“On the wall.” He jerked his head at a phone hanging from a paint-cracked wall.
Pretending she didn’t notice how he was eyeing her up and down like she was a juicy steak, she asked, “Do you have a phone book I could use?”
He turned around and headed out the door. “I think there’s one in the other room. Be right back.”
In his absence, Eden took a quick glance around the kitchen. The sink was filled with dishes, and every available counter was cluttered with something … much of which had no business being in a kitchen, such as the car battery sitting beside the sink.
The door to the left of the oven would be a good entrance for Cole. She murmured into her mic, “Back door leads to kitchen.”
“Here you go.”
Eden twisted around and gave him her most charming smile.
The leering interest gleaming in his eyes told her she should have lowered the wattage on the smile.
“Phone book’s a couple of years old but the number should still be the same.” The words were pleasant enough but would have been less bothersome if his eyes had risen above her chest when he said them.
“Oh, thanks so much.” Eden flipped to the hotel’s number, picked up the phone and began to dial. There would be someone to pick it up and transfer her to a man who would pretend to be her husband. If the man behind her chose to check the number or wanted to speak with her husband, then he would have someone to talk to.
As she sweetly explained to her fake husband what had happened to her car, the man leaned against the counter, eyed her ass, and listened to every word.
In an effort to keep him as unsuspicious as possible, she hung up the phone and offered him another smile, less wattage this time. “Thank goodness he was there. It’s going to take him a few minutes to get here. Mind if I use your bathroom?”
His gaze finally moving to her face, he crossed his arms over his barrel chest and grimaced. “It’s not working.”
That explained the vile odor. “Then I guess I’ll just wait.”
His gaze began a slow up-and-down again. “Where you from? You got the look of one of them Stewart girls from up around Minton.”
“I’m from Raleigh, North Carolina, but my daddy’s family came from around Minton. Maybe they’re some distant kin.”
“How long you been married?”
“It’ll be a year July seventh.” No doubt about it, if she acted the least bit interested, she’d have herself a date or even more. Time for a few questions of her own. “Was that your wife I saw?”
His expression one of deep regret, he nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you have children?”
A wary flicker of his eyes told her she was onto something. Before she could say anything, he glanced at a wall clock. “It’s getting late and I gotta get up early in the morning. You can wait on the porch till your man gets here.”
Since it was just past seven o’clock, she doubted that going to bed early was really on his agenda. Her question had made him nervous.
Her sweetly naïve expression gave no indication of her thoughts. “Mind if I have a glass of water before I leave? I had to walk almost a mile and I’m—”
“Plumbing’s out, water’s off.”
While that could be true, the question about children had definitely made him uneasy. As much as he’d apparently enjoyed staring at her body, he wanted her out of here as soon as possible.
Determined not to leave the house before she found something, she turned to go down the hall and deliberately stepped on one of the small toys. The squeak was amazingly loud in the deadly quiet house.
Eden looked over her shoulder and flashed a bright smile at the man behind her. “Do you have a dog?”
“No.”
“Oh, then you do have a child? How old?”
“You don’t need to know our business. Get—”
“Bobby? Who is it?”
Eden whirled at the soft voice behind her. A haggard-looking woman in her mid-forties stood at the bottom of the stairway. What caught Eden’s attention was the small child she held in her arms. Black hair, light olive skin … about five years old.
Eden gave her a warm, friendly “Oh, hello there.”
The man barked, “Ava, get back upstairs.” He turned to Eden. “Get out.”
Widening her eyes in surprised innocence, Eden said, “But I—”
The man grabbed her arm. “Get out of here. Now.”
“But why?”
Before Eden realized his intent, his fist slammed toward her face. Her arm blocked the brunt of his punch, but he still got in a glancing blow to her jaw. On the way to the floor, darkness closing in, she managed to whisper, “Macaroni.”
Keeley sat up. Her heartbeat tripled in speed. Hannah! Opening the Jeep door, she jumped out and began running.
Cole kicked the back door open and ran through the kitchen. Jordan’s roar of outrage as he slammed through the front door blended with a woman’s shrill scream and the wailing of a child.
Jerking to a halt in the foyer, Cole took in the scene. Eden was pulling herself up from the floor, and Jordan had a heavyset man pinned to the wall. A lank-haired, malnourished-looking woman stood at the bottom of the stairs. In her arms was a crying child—Hannah Fairchild.
The woman’s eyes saucer-wide, she held tight to Hannah as she turned and put her foot on the bottom stair.
Cole grabbed her arm. “Hold it right there. That’s not your child.”
She jerked away and snarled, “You get away from us.”
Hannah’s little face scrunched up with fear and she let out another wail.
Cole snapped, “This child doesn’t belong to you.”
The woman twisted her head and shouted at the man Jordan still held. “Bobby, don’t just stand there. Do something!”
Cole plucked Hannah from the woman’s arms.
Covering her face with her hands, the woman dropped down to the bottom step and sobbed pitifully. Unable to feel any compassion toward anyone who knowingly kept a stolen child, he whispered soothing words to Hannah as he headed to the front door.
“Everything okay here?” Honor Stone appeared at the entrance, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Just a couple of folks here with an abducted child,” Cole said.
Her smile one of delight, she said, “You don’t say.”
The woman’s sobs grew louder and her husband shouted at her to shut up. Blended with Hannah’s cries, the cacophony of noise was ear-shattering. Patting Hannah on her back, Cole strode out of the room, onto the porch. There was only one person who could calm her now.
He halted when he saw Keeley sprinting toward the house. The joy on her face was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. She literally glowed as she screamed, “Hannah!”
The little arms that had wrapped around his neck loosened and Hannah twisted around. “Mommy!”
Cole met Keeley at the bottom step. A lump developed in his throat as her arms r
eached for Hannah. Tears streaming down her face, she gave a soft sob as she wrapped her arms around her daughter and enveloped her in a tight embrace.
And for the first time in a very long time, Cole realized it was good to be alive.
thirteen
Keeley couldn’t stop touching her daughter. After being checked by the paramedics as well as the child psychologist called in by the FBI, Hannah had been given back to her mother. Though dirty, terrified, and confused, she’d been declared in excellent health.
The man and woman, Bobby and Ava Oates, were now in the custody of the FBI and were being questioned vigorously. With Hannah snugly in her arms, Keeley had stood a distance away and watched them being arrested. Ava had cried; Bobby had cursed.
Cole had taken her to the local sheriff’s office and let her hear some of the questioning. It had done little good to listen. Questioned separately, neither acted as if they had any idea who they’d purchased Hannah from, or where Hailey might be. Finally, Keeley had asked Cole to bring her home. She trusted the FBI to get the information, but she was the only one who could take care of her little girl.
She had sat in the backseat of the SUV and held Hannah all the way home. The poor baby had snuggled into her mother’s arms and fallen asleep immediately. Other than asking if they were comfortable or needed to make a rest stop, Cole had said almost nothing. He seemed to understand her need to just hold her daughter and absorb the joy of having her in her arms.
An hour ago, they’d arrived home, and despite her intense desire to put Hannah in a bathtub and wash all the filth and vileness from her child’s skin, she’d restricted herself to using a damp cloth and wiping off only the worst. Hannah had slept through that, too.
Now, propped up on a pillow, she lay beside her daughter and hummed a tuneless song. Thankfulness and happiness intermingled with an anguish she knew would never be diminished until she had Hailey back, too.
Last Chance 05 - Second Chance Page 13
