Marry Me, Major

by Merline Lovelace

  Stifling another snort of laughter, Alex let him lead her out to the patio. He took a few moments to reset the hot tub’s controls. She used the interval to peel off her clothes. After getting the water bubbling and tinkering with the temperature settings, Ben followed her example. Not for the first time, his muscled shoulders, flat belly and lean flanks stopped the breath in Alex’s throat.

  “You,” she murmured, her voice low and throaty as she closed the distance between them, “are an artist’s dream.”

  “Not hardly,” he said on an embarrassed huff.

  “Yes, hardly.”

  She skated her hands from his shoulders to his chest, then teased the fine hair that arrowed down to his belly. His midriff hollowed at her featherlight touch. All parts south went on instant alert.

  The involuntary reaction sent a bolt of sheer feminine satisfaction through Alex. The mere thought that she could stir him with just her touch was incredibly intoxicating. Before she could wallow in her triumph, though, he hauled her against him for a kiss and her own body betrayed her.

  The muscles low in her belly contracted, hard and fast. Heat raced through every vein. She hungered for this man. Ached to take him into her body and join with him in the rawest, most elemental way a woman could with a man.

  Something was different, though. She couldn’t pinpoint what, with her senses spinning and desire closing her throat. The heat seared her. The now-familiar hunger gnawed at her. Yet the stop at the cemetery... Her instinctive feeling that identified Ben with the Eagle Dancer... The fact that he was so much more complex, so multifaceted...

  When he swooped her into his arms and carried her to the hot tub, her traitorous mind shot back to her conversation with Chelsea yesterday morning. Suddenly, she understood that funny little twist in her heart earlier. She loved this man. Loved his generosity, his quirky sense of humor, his dedication to his job, his easy self-confidence.

  And she ached with the sudden, shattering realization that their too hasty, too casual arrangement wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted it all.

  The thought stabbed into her as he hunkered down on a corner seat and arranged her so they were face-to-face, her hips straddling his. He was as hard as a rock, every muscle in his body taut with need.

  “Ben...”

  “I know, sweetheart. I know.” Grunting, he shifted and slid his hand between her thighs. “Just let me...”

  “Ben, wait.”

  He raised his head, and the sexual haze clouding his blue eyes set her heart pounding. Later, she decided, her breath as ragged as her pulse. She’d tell him later that she couldn’t hold him to their casually negotiated marriage. Couldn’t hold either of them. Right now, though...right now, she would take everything he wanted to give her. Every kiss, every touch, every taste.

  “You okay?” he asked. “Is the water too hot?”

  “It’s fine. I just, uh, needed to catch my breath.”

  “Caught it yet?”

  When she nodded, the crease between his brows disappeared and his voice dropped to a teasing growl. “Then let’s see what we can do to make you lose it again.”

  Making love in a hot tub, Alex decided during her second immersion in as many days, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The pulsing jets produced some decidedly delicious sensations but the internal heat her body generated made the water seem too hot against her skin. Ben adjusted the temperature several times but they ended up exchanging the tub for one of the oversize loungers that had done such yeoman duty yesterday.

  From the lounger they transitioned to the bed and then, after a long, drowsy recovery, to the sitting room. Fully clothed again, Alex steeled herself for the discussion she hadn’t had the nerve to initiate naked.

  Curling up on one end of the sofa, she tucked a leg under herself and accepted one of the bottles of chilled water that Ben retrieved from the suite’s refreshment center. He claimed the other corner and twisted off the top of his bottle, then chugged about half the contents.

  Her fist tight on her dew-streaked bottle, Alex watched the muscles play in his throat. Her own was tight when he lowered the bottle and angled toward her.

  “Any place special you want to go for dinner? Since we’ll be joining the Saturday night crowd, we should maybe ask the concierge to make reservations.”

  “I picked the French bakery for brunch. You choose dinner. But first...” she dragged in a long breath “...we need to talk.”

  Ben didn’t alter his relaxed slouch. He did, however, cock his head and send her a half curious, half wary look. “About anything in particular?”

  “Our marriage. Or more correctly, our sham of a marriage.”

  Again, he didn’t change his position. But it felt to Alex as though the temperature in the room suddenly dropped at least ten degrees.

  “Funny,” he said with careful deliberation, “I’ve been operating under the impression we’d passed the ‘sham’ stage.”

  “Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best word choice.”

  Alex gnawed on the inside of her lower lip. She’d gained enough of an insight into Ben’s personality by now to know he wouldn’t consider his commitment to her and Maria as anything particularly noble, much less a self-sacrifice. She also knew he seemed perfectly content with their domestic arrangements.

  Content might work for some people. Maybe if they were bent and doddering and long past the passion of their youth. Or less concerned about their partner’s feelings than their own. But Ben deserved more. She deserved more.

  Finding the words to tell him so, however, was one of the toughest things Alex had ever done. She dragged in another deep breath and made herself look him square in the eye.

  “Do you remember when we talked about...?”

  The chirp of her iPhone interrupted her carefully crafted beginning. Not sure whether she was more relieved or annoyed, Alex glanced at the photo that came up on the screen.

  “It’s Chelsea. I’ll let it go to voice mail.”

  “Go ahead and take it.”

  “I can get back to her later.”

  “Take the call,” Ben instructed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  That sounded more like a warning than a reassurance. Particularly since Ben’s expression had grown as cool as his tone.

  With a sense that she’d already bungled this conversation badly, Alex hit the talk button. “Hi, Chels. What’s...?”

  “You have to come home. Now!”

  The panic in her friend’s voice brought Alex bolting upright. Water sloshed from the bottle still gripped in her other hand. Fear sliced into her heart.

  “What’s happened?”

  Ben reacted to her shrill demand by jerking around to face her more squarely. She barely registered his narrowed eyes or the sudden tautness to his neck and shoulders.

  “Chelsea, tell me what’s happened!” Before her friend could answer, a cry ripped from deep in Alex’s chest. “Is it Maria? Has she been hurt?”

  Please let it be a minor injury. Please, please, please, pl—

  “She’s missing, Alex.” Chelsea’s voice broke on a sob. “She’s missing.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “When? How? Oh, God, how long has she been gone?”

  Alex gripped the phone so tight the edges cut into her palm. Beside her, Ben barked a quick order.

  “Put the phone on speaker.”

  Thoroughly panicked, she barely heard him. Her whole being was concentrated on the torrent pouring out of Chelsea.

  “Sox got out. She slipped through the front door. Maria and I were leaving to go to the park. We chased...”

  “Put the phone on speaker!”

  Blindly, Alex stabbed at the speaker button.

  “...after her, but she darted up a tree. That piñon next to the driveway. Then she couldn’t get down. The tree’s not th
at tall,” Chelsea gasped, “but the branches are thick and I couldn’t—”

  “Forget the tree! What happened to Maria?”

  “I went back in the house to get your stepladder. When I came out again, both she and Sox were gone.” Her voice broke on a sob of guilt and fear. “I couldn’t find the ladder, Alex. Not right away. But I wasn’t in the house more than a few minutes. I swear it.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About twenty minutes ago. All I could think was that Sox jumped down and ran off. I...” Close to hyperventilating, Chelsea gasped for breath. “I figured Maria had chased after her, so I shouted for her. Then I searched up and down the street. The alley behind the house. I pounded on your neighbors’ doors, Alex! No one saw her. They’re all out helping me search now.”

  “What about the police?” Ben cut in. “Did you call 9-1-1?”

  “Just did. They’re on their way.”

  “So are we,” he told her grimly. “We’re leaving right now. Keep us posted.”

  Alex’s hand was shaking so badly it took three tries to hit the button. By then Ben was already off the sofa and throwing their few things into their bags.

  They didn’t bother to check out at the front desk.

  “They’ve got my credit card,” Ben said as they rushed for the Tahoe parked in the tiny lot behind the hotel.

  * * *

  The drive back to Albuquerque was the longest of Alex’s life. The speed limit on I-25 was seventy-five mph. Ben pushed that to eighty and still it wasn’t fast enough for her. Getting them both killed in a car accident wouldn’t help Maria. Alex knew that. Still, she had to bite her lip to keep from urging him to go faster.

  She was straining against her seat belt, both fists clenched, when Ben pressed the talk button on the Tahoe’s steering wheel and brought up his cell phone’s voice assistant via the high-tech communications console.

  “Siri,” he barked, keeping his eyes on the road, “call Dingo.”

  The ex-cop, Alex remembered, her heart thudding. She held her breath through five long rings until a laconic drawl came through the speakers.

  “Yo, Cowboy. How’s it hanging?”

  “We’ve got a situation here, Blake.”

  The drawl disappeared, and the reply came sharp and fast. “Speak to me.”

  “Maria, the kid Alex has temporary custody of, has gone missing. It happened about a half hour ago. She and I were up in Santa Fe. Maria was staying with a friend.”

  “Have the police been notified?”

  “Yes. Tell me what we need to give them.”

  “A photo, as recent as possible,” he rattled off crisply. “A detailed description of what she was wearing when she went missing. A copy of the custodial agreement. A list of her friends. Access to her room and any electronics she uses. There’s more, but they’ll lay it on you once they assess the situation.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m in El Paso. I can have my folks turn our plane around and be there in two hours.”

  “Thanks.” Ben’s gaze cut to Alex and the phone buzzing in her hand. “I’ll call you as soon as we talk to the police.”

  “Roger that.”

  Ben ended his call at the same moment Chelsea’s nerve-racked voice jumped out of the speaker on Alex’s phone.

  “The police are here. They want a picture of Maria.”

  “There’s one on the fridge.”

  “I gave it to them,” Chelsea reported, her voice shaken and wobbly. “And I zapped them the one I took of her and Sox yesterday.”

  She added that they were now searching places she hadn’t thought to check—inside the car Alex had left parked in the garage, under shrubs and bushes, even the crawl space under a neighbor’s house.

  “They went through the house, too. In case she came home and I missed her. We checked the closets, under the bed, inside...inside the freezer.”

  Oh, God! Every awful statistic in the parenting books Alex had read about accidental deaths in the home came back to haunt her.

  “The police will need a list of her friends,” she told Chelsea grimly, “in case she decided to visit one of them without telling you.”

  “She wouldn’t do that...would she?”

  “I don’t think so. But have them contact Dinah Madison and her mom, Pat. And Jason Hernandez. His mom’s name is Elena.” Alex rattled off their phone numbers, then scrubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead as she tried to remember all Maria’s young friends. “I’ll scroll through the address book on my phone and call you back with additional names.”

  “Her school,” Ben interjected. “Tell them to contact Maria’s teacher. She can give them a class roster.”

  When Alex supplied the teacher’s name, Chelsea confirmed she’d pass it to the police. “I’m also supposed to secure Maria’s room. And give them access to any computers or electronic devices she uses.”

  “She’s got an iPad and gets on my computer but only if I’m there to supervise.”

  Alex gave her the password for each and told her to provide the police anything they ask for. Anything! Then she skimmed the roadside markers flashing by outside her window for a milepost or exit sign.

  “We’re just passing the exit for Bernalillo. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  * * *

  They’d covered barely another mile when Alex’s phone buzzed again. Unknown Caller flashed up on the ID. Praying for good news, she jabbed the speaker button again.

  “Alexis Scott.”

  “Hey, Lex.”

  Her brows slashed together. The voice was vaguely familiar but she couldn’t pin a face to it.

  “Who is this?”

  “What, you don’t recognize your own bro-in-law?”

  It took a few seconds for that to cut through the fear crowding her mind. “Eddie?”

  “Got it in one, babe.”

  She shot Ben a disbelieving glance. “What did you do? Break out of jail?”

  “Didn’t have to. Bleeding hearts on the parole panel let me out.”

  “But I thought... My lawyer told me...”

  She could hardly breathe through her suffocating fear, but every instinct in her body was now screaming that Eddie’s call was tied to his daughter’s disappearance. She shook her head to clear the numbing paralysis.

  “My lawyer told me your parole hearing wasn’t scheduled until next month.”

  “They got me in early.”

  Dammit all to hell! The New Mexico Parole Board should’ve notified her or her lawyer. Summoning every ounce of courage she possessed, Alex asked the question now eating at her soul.

  “Is Maria with you?”

  “Yeah. Her and her ratty little cat. They’re playin’ just a little ways away from where I’m sitting.”

  Alex slumped against her seat. Tears stung her eyes. Thank you, Lord. Thank you!

  “Where are you?” she asked when she pulled herself together again.

  “Not far from your place.”

  “Where, Eddie?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m keepin’ a close eye on her. More than I can say for you, Lex. I went by your house and there she was. In your driveway, practically bawling ’bout her cat getting stuck in a tree. I got it down for her and was an instant hero. Yep, that’s me,” he bragged smugly, “daddy hero.”

  Her vision still blurred by tears, Alex glanced at Ben. His face showed the same profound relief still gushing through her. But it was tempered by a swiftly gathering grimness as her former brother-in-law continued in a too chatty, too smarmy tone.

  “Almost didn’t recognize the kid,” he related. “She’s grown so much. A real cutie, too. Takes after her dad. She didn’t recognize me, either, till I showed her the picture of Janet and me and her. Then she was all smiles and hugs.”

  “The pol
ice are looking for her, Eddie. They think... We all thought she’d gone missing.”

  “Yeah? Well, she sure as hell coulda been snatched. Not too smart, letting a kid her age play outside. All alone. No supervision. You shoulda been watching her.”

  “We were up in Santa Fe for the weekend. Chelsea’s looking after her.”

  “Well, well. Wonder what Judge Whazisface will think of you leaving my kid in the care of a stripper with big tits and zero brains?”

  Alex didn’t bother to counter the ugly insult. The one and only time Janet and her husband had visited Alex in Vegas, Eddie had drooled all over the generously endowed showgirl. He’d also hit on her. More than once, according to Chelsea. Mercifully, she’d refrained from kneeing him in the balls. She’d pretty much ripped his ego into tiny little pieces, though.

  “And who’s this ‘we’?” he wanted to know, oozing the sly, tell-me-something-nasty innuendo Alex had despised since the first day she’d met him. For about the thousandth time, she wondered how her otherwise intelligent sister could’ve fallen for such a creep.

  “You shacking up with someone, Lexie? Bet the judge’ll wanna know about that, too.”

  “I’m married, you turd.”

  “Yeah?” Clearly surprised, he demanded details. “Since when?”

  “Since none of your business. Take Maria back to my place, Eddie. Now! Or the police will haul your ass back to jail.”

  “What for?” he sneered. “I got visitation rights, remember?”

  “Those rights were granted before you got busted!”

  “So? They’re still on the books, aren’t they?”

  Alex threw Ben a helpless glance. She’d talked to her lawyer about going back to court to revoke the visitation rights. But with Eddie in prison and the adoption hearing coming up fast, they’d decided not to rock the boat. She bitterly regretted that decision now.

  “Guy gets outta jail, he wants to see his kid,” Eddie continued in the same sneering tone. “That’s all I’m doing, sis. Visiting my kid.”

  “You’re supposed to notify me first,” Alex reminded him through clenched teeth. “Get my permission.”