Covert Cootchie-Cootchie-Coo

by Ann Voss Peterson

  After passing along their thanks, Reed motioned for Josie to follow. Once outside, they headed up the hill. She made her 911 call, asking for a squad to be sent as they moved deeper into Chinatown.

  The wind hit cold. Josie flipped up the visor and snuggled the baby’s blanket tighter around him. He was full-out whining now, his hunger ramping up right on schedule. But as bad as she felt for him, they didn’t have time to stop for a bottle any more than they dared stop and wait for the police. Not until they could get somewhere safe.

  She blinked against the needle pricks of rain on her cheeks. Surely there was an empty taxi somewhere in this town. But until they found one, they would get lost among the checkerboard of streets running up and down and across the steep slope. They would get lost amid the jumbles of shops and restaurants.

  They covered two blocks. Three. Her thighs burned with the climb. She squinted into the wet wind, checking to make sure Troy was still bundled tight. She loved San Francisco weather. It was never hot. Always invigorating. But when it rained, especially a cold, windy rain like this, she doubted there was anyplace more unpleasant in the world.

  A flash of yellow car caught her eye on the street ahead. The dark silhouette of the driver hulked behind the wheel. The rest of the vehicle looked vacant.

  “Taxi!” She threw her hand in the air and vaulted into the street. She waved, frantic, edging as close to the meager stream of traffic as she dared. “Taxi!”

  The car swooshed past them and flowed down the hill. She turned her head to watch it go and looked straight into the eyes of a man standing twenty feet away, next to a family of tourists…the man who’d attacked Missy.

  JOSIE REACHED INTO HER handbag.

  Reed followed her line of sight and saw him. Damn. The guy’s leg was cocked, his weight balanced on one cowboy-boot heel as if ready to spring forward. His arm hovered at his side. He held something in his fist. His gaze flicked away from Josie and focused on Reed. No. Lower. On the baby carrier in Reed’s hand.

  “Take the baby. Get out of here. I can hold him off.” Josie pulled her hand from her bag. A lethal-looking gun filled her palm. She wrapped her second hand around her first, arms straight in front of her, barrel pointing to the ground.

  What did she think she was going to do? Make a last stand? “We’ll all go.”

  “I can hold him off.”

  “And hit innocent bystanders? Or get hit yourself?” He’d only just met this woman, but the thought of her hit by a bullet, hurt, or killed…“We can’t sit around and wait.”

  “I’m trained to use the gun. I can—”

  “You can’t stay behind.” Reed sprang off the curb. Grabbing Josie’s sleeve, he pulled her with him. She stumbled backward, holding the gun low in front of her. The people around them erupted in gasps, staring at the weapon.

  Where the hell were the cops?

  A car’s tires screeched. A horn blared. They reached the other side of the street before the man moved.

  “Run.” Reed tightened his grip on Josie’s hand. She spun and ran beside him. They rounded the corner of a building.

  A siren cut the air. Still too far away.

  “Go. I’ll keep him here until the police arrive.”

  The rumble of a cable car niggled at his ear. He turned to see the Powell-Mason line trundling up the hill toward them. “We’ll jump on the cable car. Put some distance between us.”

  She looked back toward the corner of the buildings.

  She wasn’t listening. He could tell. “You can’t stay behind. You can’t stay. I need you.”

  Her eyes flicked back to him.

  “I don’t know if I can jump on while holding the baby. Not without hurting him.”

  Her chest rose, drawing in a shaky breath.

  “Here it comes.”

  She slipped the gun back into her purse.

  If they did manage to board, would the car move fast enough to get away? Would the cops reach them in time to deter the pursuer? Reed wasn’t sure. He saw the gray coat round the corner just as the cable car crested the hill. “Run.”

  Josie took off, running easily along the tracks. He followed, trying to keep the baby seat steady. The little guy flailed his arms, his complaints turning to all-out crying.

  There would be time to comfort him once they put some distance behind them. Right now, all Reed could do was pray they’d make it. That the cops would arrive. That the gripman wouldn’t stop the car and toss them off. That the man behind them was as reluctant to start gunplay in the streets as they were. Anything.

  The cable car moved past him and caught up to Josie. She grasped one of the brass bars and leaped onto the steps. Twining a leg around the bar, she reached toward him.

  Gritting his teeth, he hefted the baby seat to her hands. He had to run faster. Had to keep up. Pushing his legs to move, he reached her hands. Her fingers closed around the handle, and the weight lifted from his arms. An older woman helped her bring the baby safely on board. Others stared, not moving from their spots.

  Now it was his turn.

  Josie pointed past him. She shouted something, something he couldn’t make out.

  He tensed, waiting for the sound of a shot, the force of a bullet to slam him from behind, waiting for the strength to go out of his legs and leave him lying in the street.

  The shot never came. He leaped for the cable car. His hand grasped cold brass. His foot found purchase. He pulled himself onto the car next to Josie and the baby just as the car crested the hill and started its plummet down to the bay.

  WHEN THE DETECTIVE Reed had talked to the previous day heard about their newest brush with the man in the gray coat, his attitude was very different. After responding to Reed’s call, Detective Martinez had picked the three of them up from Reed’s apartment and had driven them to the precinct headquarters. Now they sat in a small conference room that smelled of body odor and furniture wax and waited for Martinez to return and provide them with a chance to flick through mug shots in an effort to identify the man who’d chased them through Chinatown.

  Reed held Troy against his shoulder the way Josie had shown him and patted the baby’s back. Holding him felt awkward, as if his hands were way too big and clumsy. But he was doing it, and the baby wasn’t crying or complaining or thrashing around. In fact, if Reed had to guess, he’d say Troy was falling asleep.

  “Do you want me to take him? I can set him in his infant seat so you have your hands free.”

  Unsure if he could master that maneuver himself quite yet, Reed nodded. “Thanks.”

  Josie lifted him from Reed’s shoulder and snuggled him gently into his seat. The baby’s head lolled to the side. “He’s out.”

  Reed wanted to chuckle at the obviousness of the statement, but the laugh wouldn’t come. “It’s no wonder. He went through a lot.”

  “We did, too.”

  He couldn’t argue there. He still hadn’t absorbed all that had happened in the past two days. But he did know one thing. Everything had changed. And their close call in Chinatown had made it clear to him that he could no longer deny that fact. “I have to talk to you. Tell you something.”

  She glanced up from the baby.

  Now that her attention was on him, all the eloquent words he’d planned to say fled from his mind. All he could focus on was the questioning slant to her brows, the guarded look in her eyes and what expectations might be behind both. He swallowed into a tight throat. “This morning you said something to me. You told me to be a man.”

  Josie settled back into her chair, a sheepish look on her face. “Listen, I’m sorry. I—”

  “Don’t be. It’s true. I was acting like this situation was going to go away, resolve itself on its own. Or with the results of a test. Or by returning Troy to Honey.” Pressure built behind his eyes.

  He thrust himself from his chair and walked the length of the cramped room, buying time, space. He didn’t know how to explain this to her, what he’d realized when he saw her with that gun,
when he saw her put herself on the line, try to take control, even when there was no real control to be had.

  “You don’t have to say any more.”

  “Yes. I do.” He forced his feet to carry him back to his chair, but he didn’t sit. He couldn’t relax. He wouldn’t until this mess was truly over. “It’s important to me that you understand.”

  “Okay.”

  Again he groped for the words and came up empty.

  “Just blurt it out.”

  Blurt it out. He could do that, couldn’t he? He pulled a deep breath into tight lungs. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to take care of Troy, to fix things for him. But I just want you to know I’m going to try. Whether he and his sister are mine or not, he is my responsibility now, and I’m going to do right by him.” The whole spiel sounded stupid, canned, stiff. But it was all he could come up with. He just hoped she knew he meant it down to his bones.

  She nodded slowly. The corners of her lips curved upward. “I’m glad. So where do you see us going from here?”

  He didn’t know. And that worried him. It was one thing to promise to do his best and quite another to actually succeed. He just hoped he didn’t let Troy down…or Josie. “I’ve been trying to figure out where Honey might go next. Where she might take Troy’s twin.”

  “And?”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know. She’s from a small town in Dawson County, Georgia, but I don’t know exactly where. And I don’t think she had many ties there. Except for one girl she was friends with in foster care, she never talked like she had any good memories.”

  “You don’t know the girl’s name?”

  He shook his head. Just another detail he didn’t know about Honey’s life. “I just keep coming back to Dallas.”

  “What about Dallas?”

  It was a small detail, and it could easily be nothing, but right now he felt it was the best they had. “The man who was following us. Did you notice his shoes?”

  Josie frowned, that tiny furrow digging in between her eyebrows. “His shoes?”

  “Not shoes, actually. Boots. He was wearing cowboy boots. Now, I’ve yet to see anyone in San Francisco wearing boots like that except me.”

  “But people wear them all the time in Texas?”

  He tilted his head to the side in a pseudoshrug. “It’s more common, anyway.”

  “So you think he followed Honey from Dallas?”

  “Seems to make sense. If he’s from Dallas, maybe whoever hired him is from Dallas, too.” The twins’ father, if they could believe what the would-be kidnapper had told Missy. Although Reed wasn’t sure what he believed anymore. “It also seems whoever this guy is might not expect us to go back to Dallas. Not if he’s intent on looking for us here. And that increases the odds of keeping the baby safe.”

  “You’re taking the baby?”

  “And you, if you’ll agree.” He pulled in another breath and held it. If she turned him down, he didn’t have a clue what he’d do. Committing to try to make things right for the baby and actually taking care of him day to day were two separate things. And in the past two days he’d come to rely on Josie for other things, too. The prospect of delving into Honey’s past was an uncomfortable one. The idea of doing it without Josie’s help seemed impossible. “I’ll pay for the plane ticket, of course. And I have a place to stay when we get there.”

  She curled her lower lip inward and clamped it between her teeth. For a long time, she said nothing. She just stared at the baby.

  “Will you?” Reed prodded.

  She released her lips and raised her eyes to his. “I guess so. You have a lot to learn when it comes to caring for a baby, that’s for sure. And I obviously don’t know how to say no.”

  Chapter Eight

  The plane jolted as it touched down on the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport runway. Josie forced herself to yawn, her ears popping to equalize the pressure. Strapped into his chair in the seat beside her, Troy sucked ferociously on his pacifier. He’d been so good on the flight. Amazing what the little rubber nipple could do. Even the adjustment of pressure hadn’t bothered him.

  Of course, that wasn’t what was bothering her, either. Nor was she tense about leaving San Francisco on such short notice. After their scare in Chinatown, flying a thousand miles away seemed like a good idea. No, the thing that had her stomach feeling like it was tied in a bow was the man sitting in the seat behind her on the 747.

  She was grateful they hadn’t been able to get seats together on such short notice. The flight had given her time. To think. To sort through all that had happened. Not that the few hours in the air had been enough.

  The first time Missy had told her about Reed, she’d known exactly what kind of guy he was. A playboy. A forever bachelor. A man who avoided responsibility. The kind of man she’d fallen for before, and the kind of man she knew she had to avoid at all costs. She’d gone through the roller-coaster ride men like that brought with them. And she knew she risked having her heart completely shredded.

  But this last turn of events she wasn’t sure how to interpret. A man who avoided responsibility wouldn’t feel obligated to a baby, would he? Especially one he didn’t know for certain belonged to him. That man wouldn’t promise to help pay Missy’s hospital bills. That man wouldn’t put his life on hold and travel across the country because he was worried about an old girlfriend.

  For a man who said he wanted to avoid responsibility, in the last few hours Reed Tanner had gone out of his way to take it on his shoulders. It didn’t make sense.

  Unless she had been wrong about him.

  Her head felt light, dizzy with the new revelation. And what it meant. If he wasn’t irresponsible, if he wasn’t the playboy bachelor, if he wasn’t everything she had learned to steer clear of, that made him all the more tempting. And that’s what worried her most of all.

  A squawk ripped from the seat next to her. Troy flailed his hands and complained about the loss of his pacifier.

  She plucked the pacifier from where it sat on his belly, popped it back in his mouth and glanced at her watch. Sure enough. The little guy wanted his meal. His stomach was regular as clockwork. “We’ll get you a bottle as soon as we get off the plane, okay? And if you play your cards right, a clean pair of pants, too.”

  He blinked those big eyes. His fat cheeks gathered upward in a smile.

  A smile just for her.

  A cramp settled deep in her chest. She dreaded more with each passing day the moment when she found Honey and reunited her with Troy. She hated to think what life would be like without seeing his smiles, smelling his sweet baby breath, listening to the little grunts he made while he slept. If she was worried about Reed stealing her heart, she was twice as worried about the child.

  Who was she kidding? There was no point in worrying about that. Troy already owned her heart, and she would be devastated when she had to leave him.

  She gathered the baby bag from under the seat as the plane taxied to the gate. There was only one thing she could do. Figure out who the man in San Francisco was and who hired him, find Honey, and get the hell back to San Francisco before she fell even deeper for this sweet baby…or the man who might be his daddy.

  “IT’S NOT FANCY, that’s for sure.” Reed swung the rental car onto the gravel road and drove under the Double Kay Ranch sign. The tires vibrated over the cattle guard, making the whole car shake. Up ahead, the ranch looked as dismal and depressing as it had when he’d packed up and left. No, even more so. The pipe corral needed paint. The whitewashed barn was missing a few boards, the light of sunset glowing through spaces between the others. The old truck he’d left for dead had picked up a heap more rust. And without a single horse or head of cattle or barking dog on the ranch, the air outside was deathly quiet.

  And too damn hot.

  He hadn’t realized how used to the San Francisco climate he’d become over the past year. But more than any September he could remember, the Dallas area felt like one big blazing ov
en.

  He drove along the barbed-wire pasture fence and came to a stop in front of the boxy-looking ranch-style house. The paint had faded over the last year, changing to an even paler shade of blue. But other than that, the house hadn’t changed a bit. Not the look of it, and not the oppressive feeling of failure that assaulted his chest the closer he came to stepping through its door.

  Josie turned to face forward after checking on Troy in the back seat. She held a hand up to shield her eyes. “It might not be fancy, but it’s kind of cute.” The sun’s orange glow warmed her skin and made her squinted eyes look as though they were twinkling.

  “You’re the one who’s kind of cute.”

  She frowned and averted her eyes.

  He knew he shouldn’t have said it out loud, but it was true. She was mighty cute. And right now, he was very grateful she was with him. Facing the Double Kay, the town of Springton and the whole Dallas/Ft. Worth area with her by his side was a lot easier than doing it alone. Or with only the baby.

  A brief stop at Honey’s apartment had gotten them nowhere. She wasn’t home. Hadn’t been for days, according to a neighbor. Nothing Reed hadn’t already figured out from his one-sided chat with Jimmy. After they’d left her apartment, Reed had thought a green pickup truck was following them, a little bit of paranoia that turned out to be a false alarm. But the thing he’d found most annoying about returning to Texas was the bland pop that radio stations were passing off as country music. He couldn’t wait to get back to San Francisco and his collection of Dale Watson CDs.

  Of course, he had the feeling these were only the first in a series of frustrations heading for him. He might as well get the next miserable experience out of the way as soon as possible. “Let’s go inside.”

  Carrying the baby in his seat, Reed led Josie up the steps and opened the door for her. He ushered her in first and waited for her reaction.

  The hard line of her mouth softened ever so slightly. “It’s nice.”