by Rachel Lee
He snorted. “I don’t miss much, but keeping my mouth shut is the way I keep my business. But look at you,” he said, pointing to her bandaged wrists. “They hurt you.”
“Well, Jim didn’t,” she said fairly. “I think he was trying to protect me.” Which was as kind as she was going to be.
“He better have been. I can’t imagine how terrified you must have been.”
“I was,” she admitted. “But maybe not as scared as I could have been. I knew Buck was coming, and I thought the sheriff wouldn’t be far behind. Only it turned out that something was wrong with the cell-phone tower, so only Buck was coming. But he was enough. Quite enough.”
“I heard he killed two of the guys. Is that true?”
Haley hesitated.
“He was protecting you,” Hasty said kindly. “In my book that makes it okay. You don’t have to tell me, but I want all the details.”
“I can’t tell you everything,” she answered. “I’m not supposed to say too much and anyway, I don’t know everything. I guess it’s not all finished yet.”
“Then for God’s sake, give me the outline. I never would have figured Claire for a criminal.”
“I’m not sure she is.” Haley sighed. “It’s a mess, Hasty.”
“Just tell it however it comes out.”
“From what I can tell, Murdock Bertram needed a lot of money.”
“Alpacas,” snorted Hasty.
“That was at least some of it. From what I heard, when he saw Jim come up last spring, he figured out Jim was making a lot of money.”
“That car of his kind of advertises it.”
“It does,” Haley agreed. “So anyway, he put Claire up to getting Jim to telling him how. Getting him in on a deal.”
“I don’t want to know how he did that.”
“Neither did I, but it wasn’t pretty. Anyway, Claire had this thing with Jim, found out what her husband wanted to know. Then Murdock threatened Jim’s family. His mother, actually. Jim loves his mother.”
“Not enough, judging by what happened to his brother.”
“Jim didn’t do that. I don’t think he had any idea Ray would get killed. But somehow Bertram had this contact in Seattle at the trucking company, which helped get the whole ball rolling, and he got Ray a job to keep him quiet about what was going on at the Liston place. Other drivers were involved, though, because it would have been too obvious if only one driver was delivering mixed-up shipments. That’s what Buck is working on back in Seattle. See? I told you I don’t know everything.”
“It’s enough,” Hasty said, leaning an elbow on the counter. “Keep going or we’ll get another wave of drivers in here. So Ray shot his mouth off about coming into money and that’s what got him killed?”
“Evidently. Claire denies she knew she was poisoning him when she poured his coffee that night. She swears Bertram told her it was just some stuff to make him sleepy so he’d pull over somewhere, because they wanted to have a talk with him.”
Hasty shook his head. “If she believed that, she’s dumber than I thought. Then what?”
“Buck came to town. And unfortunately, Bertram’s contact in the trucking company let him know they’d asked Buck to look into things. That put a hold on the shipments of drugs until they figured out how to get rid of Buck. Buck’s supervisor was panicking because one of his bosses wanted Buck pulled out immediately, saying he was exceeding what they wanted him to do and they were afraid of liability issues. So it wasn’t his supervisor, that much I know.”
Hasty nodded. “Someone higher up. Makes sense. The supervisor notices something, wants to get to the bottom of it, and makes enough noise they can’t ignore him. So they drag in some guy who they don’t think will do much to make it look like they’re doing something.”
Haley nodded. “That’s what Buck figures. He said toward the end that he thought he might just have been a cover story. Like I was for him.”
Hasty’s face softened. “He coming back?”
“I don’t know.” She looked down at her plate, biting her lip and fighting back tears. God, she was tired of being constantly on the edge of tears.
“I’ll go find him for you.”
At that a jagged, sad laugh escaped her. “I don’t want him that way, Hasty. You know that.”
“I know.” He reached out and awkwardly patted her shoulder. “So it was drugs?”
“Oxycodone, like Buck figured. Each pill is worth hundreds on the street. And evidently Bertram knew a way to get them into Canada without a border check. So that was what he offered the drug dealer in L.A.” She paused. “You should have seen what was in that bag, Hasty. I’ve never seen so many pills and so much money all together at once in my life!”
“Hard to imagine,” Hasty agreed. “Okay, I think I get it. The supervisor in Seattle figures out something bad is going on. His bosses agree they need to check it out, even though one of them is involved. They send Buck thinking he’ll just breeze through and that will be the end?”
“So it seems.”
“They sure misjudged that man.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “The rest I get, sad to say. End result, your friend Buck helped stop one huge drug operation.”
Haley nodded. “He sure did. They’re going to have a hard time figuring out everyone who was involved.”
“I just wish they hadn’t gotten Ray involved,” Hasty remarked. “That boy wasn’t a bad apple. Now the Listons have lost both their boys. A damn shame, and all over some stupid money. Root of all evil, mark my words.”
* * *
Buck had gone to Seattle as soon as Gage was through with him. The other end of the operation needed to be cleaned out. Haley understood why he needed to go. She understood everything except the part where he neglected to say he’d be back or he’d call.
Apparently he was done with her.
But when she remembered the look in his eyes that night and before he left, she shivered a little. There had been death in his dark eyes, no mistaking it. He was a man who wasn’t going to rest until he’d settled it all. At some point this had ceased to be an intellectual exercise for him, the way it had seemed at first. It had become personal.
Because they had used him? Or because she had been kidnapped? She didn’t know and had no way of knowing, although as the days passed and she heard nothing from him, she began to think she didn’t figure into it at all.
Which wasn’t fair, she told herself a few days later. He had come after her and saved her, and she had no doubt that he wouldn’t have taken action against those guys if she hadn’t been endangered. He’d said so himself. She’d heard it more than once: he was going to find out what was happening and who was involved so Gage could clean it up.
Instead he had needed to start the cleaning himself. Because of her.
Given that White Shirt had kidnapped her simply because she had seen him with Ray, she figured it might well have happened anyway, so she ought to be grateful to Buck for saving her.
But gratitude was hard to feel when she was hurting so badly. She had no regrets, though she couldn’t help feeling used and tossed aside without a backward glance. She honestly hadn’t figured him for that type of man, even though she’d been telling herself all along that he was going to leave.
But leave without a word? Without an explanation? That was the worst cut.
Late in the evening the week before classes started, she sat outside in the twilight, working on looking forward to starting her much-anticipated practical nursing work next week. She was now so close to her dream of working in a hospital and taking care of people.
That was what really mattered, she told herself. Not the restlessness at night when she couldn’t sleep for thinking of Buck. Not the way he had left. Not her aching, breaking heart. She had a whole life ahead of her, and she needed to remember that Buck was responsible for that.
The knock on her door didn’t surprise her. Since news of her kidnapping had erupted throughout the county, plenty of her ne
ighbors had taken to dropping by, often with a plate of dinner, sometimes just to chat for a few. Almost like a wake, she thought with bitter humor. As if someone had died.
Well, people had died, but not her, and the fact that her heart wanted to die was something no one else knew. Not really. Sometimes she saw these unannounced visits as a kind of apology from people who were used to looking out for each other and felt they had fallen down on the job this time. Certainly everyone seemed worried about how she was doing.
And this was the reason she loved living here.
The instant she opened the door, shock froze her, then washed through her in cold and hot waves. She stared at Buck Devlin and went light-headed.
“Haley?” His tone was worried. The next thing she knew, he’d wrapped her in his arms to steady her, kicked the door closed and carried her to the armchair, where he sat holding her. “Are you okay?”
She gasped, shock draining away before a flood of anger. “No,” she said, pounding his chest with her fist on each word. “I. Am. Not. Okay.”
“Haley—”
“How dare you leave like that, without a word or a call? How could you treat me like a disposable tissue? The least I deserve...the least...” Her voice broke and along with it the dam that had been holding it all in. She began to sob, deep, wrenching sobs drawn from the anguish she had been carrying for weeks now.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
“Why?” she demanded on a fresh sob. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t know,” he answered, holding her tighter still.
“Didn’t know? Didn’t know what you thought of me?”
“Didn’t know if I was going to prison.”
The word stopped her between one sob and the next. Her heart grew so still she wondered if it would ever beat again. “Prison?” She could barely squeeze the word out. “How? Why? You never... They... Buck!”
“Shh,” he said, rocking her gently. “Shh. Things got messy. I killed two men, Haley. That never gets overlooked.”
She tilted her head, trying to read his face, but she could see only one side of it. “You saved me!”
“That’s true. But I still killed two men. Then this drug operation was international and it crossed state lines. So the feds got involved, and the Canadians got involved, and the guy in Seattle who was part of this did a pretty good job of setting me up as a participant.”
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“It’s okay now,” he said, squeezing her. “Gage helped a whole lot. So did my boss, Bill. It’s all okay. But it took time, and, Haley, I couldn’t tell you anything. They wouldn’t let me talk to anyone. Even if I could have, I wouldn’t have wanted you worrying about it. I figured if I wound up in jail you were better off not even knowing about it.”
She started crying again, but this time quieter tears as she clutched his shirt, pressing her ear to his chest and soaking up the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. He could have been jailed? The thought horrified her beyond bearing.
“It’s okay now.” He must have whispered the words a hundred times as he held her, rocked her, stroked her hair. Gradually exhaustion and relief took hold, quieting her until she simply lay against him, her cheeks stiffening with drying tears.
“Okay?” she repeated, her voice hoarse.
“I’m a free man again. I just want you to tell me one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Do you want me? Because if you don’t I’d better leave right now. I can’t guarantee anything will ever pry me from your side again. Life is hell without you.”
After so long believing he had left her without a word, it was hard to believe what she was hearing now. She found the energy to push back a little, and this time he turned his head so they stared at one another.
“I mean it,” he said. “So before I lay my heart at your feet and tell you you’ll never get rid of me, this is your chance.”
Her heart began to lift, as if it were filling with helium. “Truly?”
“Truly. I love you. It was hard enough going last time. I’m not sure I can do it again, Haley. So do you want me?”
She lifted her hand to touch his cheek. “Yes.”
“Be very sure. I’ll still be driving. I’ll be gone for days at a time. It’s not the easiest life for a wife.”
“I’m sure,” she said, and threw her arms around his neck to bury her face against him. “I thought I was going to die from losing you. I don’t care if you have to be away as long as I know you’ll come back.”
“I can guarantee that. I love you, Haley Martin. Like I never thought I’d love anyone.”
“I love you, too,” she answered, as sure of that as of anything in her life.
He smiled then, and the man who seldom smiled seemed to light up from within.
A new day was dawning for her and for him.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Colton Showdown by Marie Ferrarella.
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Chapter 1
He wasn’t one of those people who had an obsession about cleanliness. Tate Colton had never had a problem with getting his hands—or any other part of him, for that matter—dirty, if the job required it. That kind of dirt he could put up with and ignore.
But dealing with these subhuman creatures who made their living trafficking in human flesh, in destroying young lives and thinking absolutely nothing of it, was an entirely different matter. It made him want to go back to the hotel room where he was registered under his assumed name and take a shower. A long, scalding-hot shower to wash away their stink.
Once he received the assignment from his supervisor, Hugo Villanueva, he knew that going undercover in order to find and save the Amish young women who had been kidnapped would require him to associate with, in his opinion, the absolute dregs of the earth.
Dregs in expensive suits.
You could dress a monkey up in fine clothes, but he was still a monkey, Tate thought. No amount of expensive clothing could change that, or change the fact that the people he was forced to interact with were lower than scum.
He’d think more about stepping on a beetle than he would about terminating the existence of one of these cockroaches.
To look at the man who had brought him up to this particular hotel suite—his current tour guide to this underworld—someone might have thought the man was a successful businessman or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company instead of the utterly soulless lowlife that he actually was.
Impeccably dressed in what was easily a thousand-dollar suit, his guide to this lurid world of virgins-for-sale smirked at him confidently as he opened the door leading into the suite’s bedroom.
“I’m sure we can find something to pique your appetite, Mr. Conrad,” he said.
Tate scowled at the shorter man. “I said no names,” he snapped, mindful of the part he was playing in this surreal drama.
The other man laughed, enjoying what he considered to be the display of ignorance on the part of this new client.
“Nothing to be worried about. What are they going to do?” he asked, gesturing at the bedroom and the young women being held there. Each and every one of them were dressed in identical long, slinky white gowns. “Post it on the internet? None of them even know what the hell the internet is,” he stressed, jeering at the young women who we
re virtually prisoners in this suite. “They all live in the Stone Age. Trust me.” He patted Tate’s arm and the latter shrugged him off as if he was flinging off an annoying bug—an act that wasn’t lost on the man. “Your name—and your sterling reputation—are both safe here,” he assured Tate.
“C’mon, c’mon,” the man snapped at the young woman he was herding into the room for his “client’s” final review. “He hasn’t got all night. Or have you?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Tate, a lecherous grin spread across his angular face. “You know, if you’ve changed your mind and want to make your purchase now—” He left the sentence open, looking at Tate expectantly.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” Tate answered formally. The deal was that he got to see the young women in person in order for him to finalize his choice, and then the negotiations regarding the pending “purchase” would go from there.
Inside, Tate was struggling to contain his fury. The woman he’d “requested,” “Jade,” was looking at him apprehensively like a mistreated animal afraid of being beaten.
Had she been beaten?
Tate looked her over quickly. “What’s wrong with her?” he demanded, channeling his anger into the part he was playing—a man who wanted the “goods” he was considering purchasing to be perfect. He was well aware of the fact that the blue-gray eyes continued to watch his every move. Tate swung around to confront the other man. “She looks like she’s been manhandled,” he accused angrily.
The man shrugged indifferently. “Don’t worry. Nothing happened that would have left a visible mark on her.” His flat, brown eyes raked over Hannah from head to toe, as if to reassure himself that she wasn’t displaying any sign of bruising in plain sight. “That’s the one rule—other than payment up front—the boss won’t tolerate any visible marks left on the merchandise.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Tate saw Hannah flinch at the label the man had contemptuously slapped on her. Merchandise.
His anger flared.
“She’s a person, not merchandise,” Tate retorted, glaring at the guard.
