Desert Ice Daddy (3 page)

“Can he do that?” she asked, feeling the first ray of hope. She rattled off her cell number and he keyed it in.

“Is there anything Jack can’t do?” To his credit, his face showed nothing but confidence.

And he was right. Jackson Champion, shipping tycoon to be reckoned with, a self-made millionaire like Flint and Akeem, wasn’t the type to take no for an answer, not ever.

“Where is he?” Jack was always off somewhere, expanding his business.

“Greece. He’s in the middle of a deal, but he’ll cut the meetings short and come back tomorrow. He wants to be here to help. And he’s sending two choppers with pilots from his warehouse in case we need them for anything.”

Her throat tightened again. The outpouring of help humbled her, just as it had earlier in the day when close to a hundred of her brother’s employees rose as one to drop everything and go find Christopher. She’d been so used to going it alone that the experience left her both grateful and bewildered. That some million-dollar negotiation would be set aside for her was beyond her experience, and yet knowing Akeem’s work, he had to be postponing business, too, to be staying here with her. And he was probably the most driven among them.

Gravel crunched as a car pulled up to the main house. Akeem glanced out the window. “Looks like one of the ranch hands came back.”

Flint must have sent him. He should return at least a handful of men. The horses would need watering in this heat. Everybody had work to do.

“If you need to be somewhere—” She raised her gaze to Akeem. He looked as solid as a rock fortress: calm, self-assured. He was dressed nicely, leather loafers, black suit pants, white shirt with sleeves rolled just below the elbows—had always dressed nicely, even back in college when he had little money.

He always had an inner, emotional strength she envied, and a handsome, noble face. She had developed a serious crush on him the first time they had met.

“I’m right where I need to be.” His voice was quietly reassuring. And his eyes turned a shade darker yet, near black, like she fancied the night sky of the desert might look in the land of his ancestors.

She didn’t know what to say. For the past five years, she’d been utterly alone, marriage or no marriage. Akeem had shown her more consideration in the past hour than Gary had in the whole last year they’d been together.

He was a solid presence next to her. And she knew without a doubt that he meant every word he had said. Trusting herself to him, leaning on him throughout this terrible mess, would have been too easy. A few years back, she would have done just that. But Gary had taught her a couple of hard-learned lessons she could not soon forget. Would never forget, she hoped. Because she had sworn she would never let her life get so far out of her own control again.

Shouting drew her attention and she jumped up to push to the window next to Akeem, aware of his nearness suddenly, but only for a split second. Then cold gathered in her stomach at the sight of the familiar beat
up, green pickup. The man who’d pulled in a few minutes ago wasn’t a returning ranch hand.

She recognized the car, as she recognized the voice. And then as he stumbled out of the main house, lurching down the stairs, she recognized that he was drunk once again. The absolute last person they needed here.

One of the cops followed him out of the house to keep an eye on him.

“Who is that?” Akeem was already going for the door, ready to handle the situation to spare her any upset.

Jaw tight, she held him back. “You stay. I’ll deal with him.”

“I don’t think so.”

But her hand on his arm did make him pause for a moment.

“It’s okay,” she told him, although it wasn’t. Nothing was all right in her world at the moment. But Akeem needed an explanation, and she needed to deal with the man still spewing obscenities in the yard.

“He is Christopher’s father,” she said.

One look at the thunder on Akeem’s face told Taylor she better head off conflict while she could. “Would you mind checking on the officers to make sure everything’s okay in there?”

“You want me to keep them out of this?”

She watched his handsome face harden as Gary kept calling for her outside. Gary could be difficult to handle when he was like this, and Akeem had never been good at suffering fools. She didn’t need a fight on her hands. “Please,” she said.

“And you want me to keep myself out of it.” Akeem held her gaze, then nodded after another second. “Of course,” he said, already walking out the door.

The tension in her shoulders relaxed a little. He wouldn’t cause any problems for her. When had he ever not done as she’d asked him? She could only think of one extremely embarrassing occasion, when she’d turned nineteen and gone to a clam bake at a friend’s house that morphed into a keg party. She’d come home, wasted, in the middle off the night, snuck into the guest
bedroom and practically begged Akeem to take her virginity. He’d been visiting Flint to strategize some deal they were putting together.

Not only had he said
no
—emphatically—but he ran. He was gone by the time everyone got up in the morning, with some business-emergency excuse to Flint. They were wheeling and dealing even back then, in college.

She always traced the awkwardness that had entered their easy friendship back to that night. And she found now that she could still blush at the memory.

She rubbed her hands over her face before calling out an “In here” and watching through the open door as the two men passed and measured each other up in the yard.

They were nothing alike. Gary was blond, Akeem darker in coloring. Gary was the taller of the two but Akeem much better built. Gary had on a stained, olive-green T-shirt with equally stained blue jeans. Akeem wore suit pants with a crisp, white shirt—had probably come from work. But the main difference was in their faces, in their eyes that reflected the essence of each. Gary’s gaze was hazy, anger deepening the lines of his face, his mouth set in a leer, his chest puffed out. Akeem’s stance conveyed effortless power, his gaze holding concern for her as he glanced back.

She put on her “I’m fine here” smile. One dark eyebrow slid up his forehead, but then he nodded again as if to say “As you wish” and kept going.

She closed the door behind Gary the second he stepped over the threshold. Just in time.

“Who the hell is that? Your new boyfriend? What is he, Mexican? Ain’t there a border patrol looking for him someplace?” He laughed at his own joke, smelling of cigarette smoke and beer.

“One of Flint’s friends. Just trying to help.” She backed into the room, putting a small table between them that held a handful of flyers for the next open day at the ranch, and two coffee mugs that had been left out. When the alarm had been raised about Christopher being missing, everyone had rushed out to help.

“The pigs in the kitchen say Chris is still missin’. Shouldn’t have never let you take ’im. What in hell was more important than watchin’ my boy? Playing with your Mexican friend?”

She knew better than to respond to his accusation when he was like this. Her gaze landed on the mugs. “I’m making coffee. Would you like some?”

He took a step forward, none too steady on his feet.

When had he changed from the charming, full-of-life rodeo cowboy to the bitter man he was now, one who regularly got drunk by noon? Once upon a time, he’d been her knight in shining armor, or so she’d thought.

He’d dazzled her with his larger-than-life personality, his outrageous courting and endless promises. Having just inherited money from his father, he’d shown her a side of life she had never known. He’d showered her with gifts and attention when Flint was one hundred percent focused on building a business out of nothing, and Akeem, the man she had a major crush on, always kept himself frustratingly out of reach.

Gary had introduced her to the fast life, and they had been happy for a while. By the time she figured out that they weren’t as much in love with each other as they’d thought, Christopher was on his way. Then Gary had run out of his father’s money and had no idea how to make more. The drinking began. When Flint had become more and more successful, the demands for her brother’s money started. And when after a while she refused, hatred and verbal abuse followed. Then more.

“I miss you, you know,” he said with drunk melancholy and walked around the table, put on that rodeo cowboy smile that used to make her heart beat faster, flashed those strong teeth.

She turned to the coffeepot, hoping some caffeine would sober him up.

“If your brother helped us, we could make it together. We should try again, babe.” He pressed against her back and put his hands on her waist. “We could make that little girl you wanted.”

She slipped out of his hold, away from the stench of stale beer on his breath. “Why don’t you sit down? I’ll get you a cup.”

He followed her to the cupboard, looked around. “We can even live here, if you want to be close to your family. Flint would put up a decent house for you if you asked.”

Here we go again.
She put the dirty dishes into the sink in the corner and set the two clean cups on the table. If Gary was willing to move to the ranch, that meant he must have run up enough debt to have to worry about
losing his house. She felt sorry for him, but she knew now that she couldn’t help him. God knew, she had tried. Truth was, nobody could help him until he was ready to help himself, until he was willing to acknowledge his problems.

Gary didn’t want help to kick his beer habit. All he wanted was money. Flint’s money, to be more specific.

“I know you miss me, babe.” He grabbed her from behind and crushed her to his chest, dipping his mouth to her neck.

His touch was…irritating. She had trouble remembering a time when it had made her feel anything but disappointed that she had fallen for his seduction in the first place. She’d been young and naïve. Time had cured her of both those problems.

She pushed away, had to put effort into working herself loose. She turned to make sure he would see in her eyes how serious she was. “We’re divorced, Gary. I’m not coming back.”

“Why the hell not?” Anger melted the smile off his face. “You screwing someone else?” His voice rose. “That Mexican?”

She tamped down her anger and frustration. She so didn’t need this right now.

“I was generous letting you have the boy.” His blue eyes flashed. “But you ain’t takin’ too good care of him. Maybe when they find him, I’ll take him home with me.”

Her heart clenched, a brand-new wave of fear obliterating all other emotion. She’d been given sole custody, but only because Gary agreed. If he brought it to a fight…

She would smile if it killed her. “Please.” She tried to placate him, the role she’d grown into over the years.

And not for the first time, she considered that maybe she should have been fighting all along. Maybe she should be yelling back that he’d given up Christopher only because he didn’t feel like taking care of him. He didn’t want to be staying home instead of hitting the bars, didn’t feel like giving up his beer money to support his son. But she had, from the beginning, always chosen the path of backing down, of accommodation, because giving Christopher a home with as much peace and normalcy as possible had always been her first priority. So she had compromised, had put on a good face and covered up for Gary as much as she’d been able to.

“Please,” she said again. “We agreed. You don’t have time to watch him. You’re looking for a job. I’ll ask Flint to help.” Preferably out of state. “Please.”

“Please like hell!” he shouted and grabbed the end of the table, sending the two mugs crashing to the floor, tipping the table after them.

The door slammed open the next second, startling her worse than the table had. She had expected
that.
But she hadn’t expected Akeem, who stood in the doorway with the sun at his back. His gaze went to Gary first, then to her.

“You need any help in here?” He stepped inside, his shoulders held rigid, his jaw tight.

A whole new level of tension filled the air as she looked between the two.

A dangerous glint was coming into Gary’s eyes as he stepped forward. “Yeah. You can help by getting
the hell out of my business and staying the hell away from my woman.”

She could smell the fighting hormones in the air and couldn’t fully trust the men to control themselves. “Just bumped into the table. It was an accident.” She stepped between the two.

Akeem said nothing, just straightened the table then squatted for the china shards, placing them in his palm. It appeared that, for her sake, he wasn’t going to push the situation, but he wasn’t going to leave her alone with Gary again, either.

Which meant that Gary shouldn’t stay. She couldn’t count on him not to pick a fight, and she couldn’t handle that now on top of everything else. But she couldn’t in good conscience send him home in his car. He was a jerk, but he was Christopher’s father. And even if he weren’t, nobody should drive in his condition. Him not caring about his own life was one thing, but there were others on the road.

She glanced toward the main house through the open door where the cops were probably all set up for whatever call might come in. God, she couldn’t think about that. She pressed the heel of her palm to her sternum. She wanted to stay here, needed to stay here. She took Gary by the elbow. “I’ll get someone to drive you home.”

He shrugged her off. “Like hell,” he muttered and was about to say more, but her cell phone’s sharp ring cut him off.

Everyone went still, the tension doubling in the room,
which was a feat, all considered. Her fingers trembled as she flipped the phone open and lifted it to her ear.

“I want you to bring the cash to Route 109, keep driving until further instruction. We’ll be expecting you on Thursday morning, at seven. Come alone or your son dies. Tell anyone and your son dies. Be late and your son dies. Get the picture here?”

Her throat was so tight she could barely say the single word, “Yes.”

Today was Monday, was all she could think. She couldn’t bear the thought of them having Christopher for three more days. He was just a little kid. Didn’t they realize what they were doing to him? Didn’t they know that he might never fully recover from this ordeal? And even three days…

“I don’t think I can get that much money that fast.” She knew for sure, in fact. Flint had money and would give it to her without question—and this once, she wasn’t too proud to ask—but he didn’t keep his money in cash. She knew—she handled his accounts. He kept some cash for emergencies but nowhere near two million dollars. His money was in horses and land, neither of which could be made liquid in a matter of days.

“You want your kid back, you get the damn money!” The man was shouting now.

Then Akeem was there, taking the phone from her before she realized what he was doing. Alarm snapped through her. This was her son, her business. She didn’t trust anyone with this but herself. She grabbed after the phone, missed as he turned.
Oh, God.
They couldn’t
afford to do anything to upset the man on the other end. She clutched Akeem’s arm, scared breathless.

“No, I’m not a cop. I’m your money man. You can have the money today. You tell me where, and I’ll bring the ransom,” he was saying.

She couldn’t hear what the man responded on the other end.

“If you want the money, I’ll drive her.” Akeem’s voice was hard power.

He listened again.

This was so not going to work. Whoever had her son was the one calling the shots. They shouldn’t have done anything to make them angry. If this hurt Christopher, she could never forgive—

“That’s the deal,” Akeem was saying, then after a moment, “Okay. We’ll be there.”

“What happened?” Her hand shook as she reached for the closed phone. The call was over. And once again she hadn’t gotten to ask to speak to her son. She could have cried with frustration and fear.

“The exchange will be tomorrow morning at seven. It’s the best he would agree to,” Akeem said.

She caught her breath at the sudden ray of hope and felt the anger leak out of her. He had somehow worked it so that her son would be home sooner. Still, every minute stretched like an eternity before her, could bring new dangers to Christopher. But sooner
was
better.

“I’ll drive you.” Concern for her sat in his eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do better. They wouldn’t let me go alone. They want you there.”

She wouldn’t let him go alone, either. Christopher was her son. A minefield couldn’t have kept her away from him. But there were other obstacles.

“The money—”

“Don’t worry about the money.” He dismissed that with a shrug, as if two million dollars was nothing to lose sleep over.

“I’m the father. I’ll be driving. He’s my son. I’ll damn well be there.” Gary had apparently figured out what was going on, and for a moment he even managed to look together and almost heroic. Then a sly look came over his face. “How much money?”

Akeem said nothing, wouldn’t even look at him.

“Two million,” she said because she knew that ignoring him would make him start yelling once again. “We are paying the ransom.” The idea of having that much money and handing it over to someone was still bewildering, but she would have handed over the Gross National Product—if she could get her hands on it—to save her son.

She couldn’t quite believe that Akeem had that kind of cash lying around and was willing to give it to her, but whether swallowing all her pride and accepting it from him or having to beg, steal and borrow—or sell her internal organs to scientific research—she knew she would have that money come morning.

But she had to deal with Gary first. He was the wild card, unpredictable, with a way of always making things more difficult than they had to be. But she would make sure he didn’t mess this up.

“If we go to the police with this, those people will—” She couldn’t bring herself to repeat the threats. She couldn’t even think of them. She firmly fixed a picture of a positive outcome in her mind. That would be the only thing she would allow herself to focus on. “So don’t say anything to anyone. Okay?”