Thrill Me

by Susan Mallery

  “And you’re good to me. You’re my friend and I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Don’t tell the boys, but I always wanted a daughter. I was so happy when you started dating Del and we became friends. I appreciate that you never cut those ties.”

  “You’re family,” Maya told her. “There were a lot of times that the only thing that got me through was wondering how you would handle a situation. I wanted to be strong like you.”

  Elaine drew her eyebrows together. “Strong? I’m not.”

  “You are. You just don’t see it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “YOU’RE BEING VERY MYSTERIOUS,” Maya teased as she walked into Del’s temporary office.

  He’d texted her earlier and asked her to meet at the studio. All he’d said was that it was important, he hadn’t given any other clues.

  He stood by his desk. There was a stack of DVD cases next to him. She was about to joke that if he was volunteering his butt for Eddie and Gladys’s show, she was going to lose all respect for him, when she realized he wasn’t smiling. He didn’t look upset, exactly, but he was obviously not playing.

  “What?” she asked, hoping whatever it was, he didn’t have a medical issue. She wasn’t sure she had one more secret in her. Not when she was struggling to keep Elaine’s.

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “You have big-deal face,” she said.

  His tense expression relaxed. “No one has big-deal face.”

  “You do, and it’s a little strange with the sexy stubble.”

  Crap, she thought. Double crap. Had she said sexy? It wasn’t her fault. The man looked good in jeans and a worn shirt. The three-days’ growth only added to his appeal. Hmm, the last time they’d kissed he’d been clean shaven for the wedding. Would it feel different now?

  She decided it would, but wasn’t sure if it would be a good scratchy way or a bad scratchy way.

  “Sexy?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

  She pointed to the stack of DVDs. “Explain.”

  He looked from her to the discs and back. “We’ve talked about doing that project,” he began. “You know, a day in the life kind of thing.”

  “Right.” She studied the DVDs. “Did you start it already?”

  “Not exactly. These are videos I’ve done. Interviews with a lot of people—many of them children. I’m on-screen some, talking about where I am and what’s happening there economically or politically.”

  She looked at him. “You want me to watch them?”

  “No, I want to know if you can fix them.” He shoved his hands in his front pockets. “I know what I see in my head, but I can’t make it happen on the screen. After working with you, I’m sure I totally screwed up the settings. The eye line’s going to be all wrong.”

  She’d seen his raw footage from their shoots. “You’re probably missing establishing shots, and there might be issues with the audio.”

  “Thanks for that vote of support.”

  “You’re not a professional. You do a good job with the training you have.”

  “You’re right. Sorry. I don’t mean to be defensive. It’s just this project... It’s important to me.” He pulled his hands free and tapped the stack. “These are what I put together. I have the raw footage on my computer. I know the mistakes I made filming can’t be corrected, but if you could maybe take what I did and work your editing magic.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’d pay you,” he added.

  She waved off the comment. “No way. I’m happy to help. I’ll need to go through what you have. It’s going to take a while, but I’d love to do whatever I can to make the material how you want it to be.”

  He was still touching the DVDs. “No one’s seen these,” he told her. “No one. I wanted you to know that.”

  Maya appreciated the information, even though she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Del was trusting her with something important to him. That made her feel all quivery inside. Of course, it didn’t take much to get herself worked up when it came to him.

  For a second she wished things had been different. Back when they’d both been younger. But she’d been too scared, and there was no way he could have understood what was in her head. Wrong place, wrong time, she thought. But right guy. Funny how it had taken her ten years to figure out he was the one. Funny and maybe a little sad. Because he was leaving and she was staying. Even more significant, he hadn’t hinted he had any strong feelings for her beyond friendship and sexual attraction.

  “I will take good care of your footage,” she promised. “Let me copy it onto my computer so I can work on it.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I won’t keep a copy of it lying around. Eddie or Gladys will find it for sure, and God knows what they’ll do with it.”

  “You’re still pissed about the kiss?”

  “Not pissed, exactly.”

  “Then what?”

  “It went viral. That’s strange.”

  He dropped his arms to his side and winked at her. “I’m a good kisser.”

  “Oh, please. You think you’re the reason the video went viral? What about me?”

  “Riding my coattails.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “In your dreams, mister. You’re lucky I kissed you at all.”

  “Am I?”

  “You are.”

  She waited for the humorous comeback. Instead, Del circled the desk, put his hands on her waist and drew her against him.

  “Maybe we should just see about that,” he murmured right before his mouth claimed hers.

  On a purely intellectual basis, she didn’t think it was a good idea to kiss in the office. People could walk in, it was disrespectful to the workplace. There were other reasons, Maya was sure, but wow, was it hard to think of them. Or be the least bit indignant. Not when his skin was so warm and his lips were so tempting.

  She parted her lips without even thinking about it. He swept his tongue inside. They tangled and teased. She thought about shifting closer, about pressing her body against his. She thought about the desk and how the height seemed just so perfect for what would naturally happen next.

  She put her hands on his shoulders, then slid her palms up and down his arms. More warmth, she thought dreamily. Muscles and man all for the taking.

  Desire burned hot and bright deep inside of her. It radiated out, spiraling through her with every stroke of his tongue. When he moved his hands from her waist to her rear, she knew she was lost. Totally and completely lost. On the heels of that admission came the thought that she had no idea where they might find a condom.

  He squeezed the curves of her butt. She arched against him and her belly pressed against his erection. The proof of his arousal made her shudder. Del had always been her greatest weakness, she thought. The man thrilled her.

  He moved his hands up her sides, toward her breasts. Anticipation hummed through her. Somewhere in the distance her phone chirped insistently.

  She ignored the noise, only to realize that it wasn’t any of her normal ringtones. Nor was it her text notification sound. A second chirping joined the first. She drew back.

  “What is that?” Del asked.

  Without him kissing her, she could think. “The emergency notification system,” she said as she lunged for her cell. “We have a message.”

  “The what?”

  Maya ignored the question and grabbed her phone. The message flashed.

  Missing child. Report to the HERO offices asap.

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him along as she headed for her office to grab her bag. “Mayor Marsha made us both sign up for emergency notifications, remember? We’re volunteer searchers.”

  Del looked at his phone. “A kid? Where do we go?”

  “It’s not far.” />
  * * *

  THE HELP EMERGENCY Response Operations or HERO offices were as close as Maya promised. Del and Maya arrived along with several other people. They parked at the far end of the lot, then hurried toward the main building.

  Inside they found what could have passed for a war room. There were large computer screens showing different parts of the area surrounding the town along with huge maps on the wall. Kipling Gilmore, a tall, blond-haired man, stood in the center of the activity. He was calm and obviously in charge.

  “We have a missing girl,” he was saying. “Shep?”

  A muscled man with dark red hair and piercing green eyes stood next to Kipling. Jesse Shepard, Del thought, remembering meeting him at The Man Cave a week or so ago. He had joined the search-and-rescue program less than a month ago.

  Shep read from a tablet. “Alyssa Paige, age eleven.” He gave them her height and weight. “She and her family were out for a picnic, so she’s not dressed to be out for the night, people. She also doesn’t have food or water with her and she has limited wilderness experience.”

  Near the windows, a woman in her thirties began to cry. The man at her side put an arm around her. Next to them, a boy maybe thirteen or fourteen, wiped away tears. He looked scared and guilty. Del would guess Alyssa was his sister, and he had been the one with her when she’d been lost.

  “I’ll send the info about where she was last seen to your tablets,” Shep continued. “Jacob’s told us as much as he can.”

  The teen flinched as his name was spoken and everyone turned to look at him. Del instinctively started toward the boy.

  As he approached, he heard Kipling speaking on his cell phone. “Yeah, Cassidy went to get her horses. She won’t be back for a couple of days.”

  Del looked at Shep. “Can you give me a minute?” he asked, nodding at the teen.

  “Sure,” Shep said.

  Del turned to Jacob. “Hey,” he said in a low voice.

  Jacob hung his head. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “No one thinks you did anything wrong,” Del assured him.

  “They do. My parents tell me I’m not responsible enough.” Jacob looked at him. “She’s my sister. I love her.”

  “I know you do. Look, I’m the oldest of five brothers. Believe me, I know what it’s like. You’re told to watch them and you do, but they’re as fast as squirrels. You turn around for a second, and bam, one of them is in trouble. Only you get the blame.”

  Jacob sniffed, then nodded. “I know.” The boy’s dark eyes were red from tears. “I was texting with a friend.”

  “Sure. It’s boring out there, right?”

  “Yeah. Alyssa said she saw a baby bunny. She wanted to pet it. I told her to leave it alone, and when I looked up again, she was gone.”

  Tears filled his eyes again. “I called her name and ran after her, but I couldn’t find her.”

  “How long were you looking?”

  “About an hour.”

  “By your phone or it felt like an hour?”

  Jacob flushed. “It felt like an hour.”

  “Great.” He put his hand on the teen’s shoulder. “You did great. Let me give the information to Shep, and then we’ll go find your sister.”

  Del shared what Jacob had told him. Shep input the information to the program while Kipling passed out equipment to the various search teams.

  “You know how to use this?” he asked Del.

  “Sure.”

  Maya moved next to him. “Seriously? You’re familiar with this?”

  “You don’t go exploring in remote parts of the world without some kind of tracking equipment. Not if you want to be found.”

  “I thought the point was not to be found.”

  “It is, unless someone gets hurt.”

  She looked at the map on the wall. “Or gets lost. Are we going to find her?”

  “We’re not going to stop looking until we do.”

  He and Maya joined a group of people from town. He saw that several firefighters and deputies had their own groups. The guys from the bodyguard school were also out searching. The program might only be a few months old, but it was growing. Kipling knew what he was doing.

  He and Maya were joined by Angel, along with Dakota and Finn Andersson. Finn had a satellite phone with him in case the decision was made to call in a helicopter to help with the search.

  “We expect to find her before that’s necessary,” Kipling said. “Good luck.”

  The volunteers drove out in a caravan, with Shep leading the way. Kipling stayed behind to man the command center. The family’s outing had started at one of the campgrounds closer to town, where the trails were well marked.

  “If she went after a rabbit, she could be anywhere,” Maya said.

  When everyone was ready, Shep gave them last-minute instructions, then they headed out.

  They walked in groups of six, spread out and moving forward in the same direction. At regular intervals, they called Alyssa’s name. Del kept track of their progress on the screen of his tablet, and had them make adjustments as they were directed by the search program.

  Maya kept up easily. She scanned the area and when it was her turn, yelled for the girl. The afternoon was hot, but she didn’t complain about the temperature.

  She got the job done, Del thought as they continued to search. She stepped in and did what had to be done. Hyacinth had been willing to work hard for what she wanted, but if the results in question were about someone else, she wasn’t likely to participate. She didn’t believe in putting herself out for other people.

  It had taken him a while to recognize that about her. Once he’d figured out what she was thinking, he’d wondered if it was the result of being successful or simply a personality trait. Not that the answer mattered. Although she had claimed to love him, she wasn’t willing to change to make him happy. Not when she wanted things a different way. Her way.

  Maya was more of a “how can we both get what we want” kind of person. There wasn’t the same level of drama or stress. She was easy to talk to. He respected her. Their night together had been amazing.

  He glanced at her and wondered about the odds of a second go-round. His only hesitation in asking was that he knew Maya wasn’t one to give herself without the promise of some kind of relationship. And while the two of them were friends, he wasn’t sure that was enough.

  There was also the fact that he was leaving and she was staying. Which meant whatever they started would never go anywhere.

  For a second he allowed himself to think it could be more. That she would want to leave Fool’s Gold with him and see the world. That they could continue their partnership in other ways. But could he trust her to be a true partner, to give it to him straight, even when she thought he wouldn’t like what she had to say?

  Before he could take the next mental step, his tablet started flashing and beeping. He looked at it and saw the message.

  “She’s been found,” he yelled. “Alyssa’s been found.”

  Thirty minutes later, they were back at the HERO offices. Alyssa had been reunited with her family and the volunteers had turned in their equipment. He and Maya walked back toward his truck.

  “I’m glad they found her,” Maya said.

  “But?”

  She shrugged. “That was oddly unsatisfying. I guess I wanted to be in thick of things. I know we helped, but it was kind of a letdown.”

  “Since when did you want to be where the action was?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know. I guess you’re having an influence on me. Next thing you know I’ll be taking off to remote corners of the globe.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not that there can be corners on the globe, but you know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  Come with m
e.

  The words came from somewhere deep inside. He toyed with the idea of saying them, but changed his mind. He’d asked Maya to be with him once and she’d said no. As far as he could tell, there was no reason for her to say yes now.

  * * *

  MAYA MET MADELINE outside of Paper Moon. “Shelby texted me that she and Destiny are already there.”

  Madeline laughed. “You don’t think they’ll start having fun without us, do you?”

  “I hope not.”

  The women linked arms and headed toward their destination.

  Rather than meet for lunch, several of them had decided to enjoy a girls’ night out. While each of them had been to The Man Cave before, they’d never been as a group.

  “Think we’ll shock the guys when we stroll in?” Maya asked.

  Madeline wrinkled her nose. “I wish, but no. Now, if we walked in topless, they’d take notice.”

  Maya laughed. “You have an adventurous streak I didn’t know about.”

  “I’m a lot of cheap talk,” Madeline admitted. “The truth is, I’m pretty traditional at heart. I want to fall in love, settle down, get married and have some kids. You know, normal but not exciting. What about you?”

  I want to see the world. The thought came out of nowhere and surprised Maya. See the world? Since when? Sure, she had her scrapbook, but it had been years since she’d added to it. She’d never been all that interested in the world beyond getting into network news. And she’d left that dream behind when she moved to Fool’s Gold.

  It was Del’s pictures, she thought wistfully, remembering the slide show they’d shown the Saplings. So many interesting and beautiful places. She wanted to see them all.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be a hard question,” Madeline told her.

  “What? Oh, sorry. I got lost in something else. I want to be in love with someone who loves me back,” she said.

  “But not home and hearth?”

  “That would be nice, but it isn’t a requirement.” It had been once, she reminded herself. Until a few weeks ago. Was she figuring out a truth about herself, or was being in love with Del messing with her head? Hard to be sure.