In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite) (8 page)

“As I told you, some of Wade’s friends might come looking for him,” Brooks replied.

Behind him, five men stepped out of the SUVs. Abby saw the barely perceptible nod Brooks gave them. Two of the men moved toward the pastures.

“I really don’t think this is necessary—”

“Believe me, Abby, it is. This man is dangerous.”

“I don’t understand. There’s no reason for anyone to come looking for Wade so long after his death, let alone someone who could be dangerous.”

“This man is more than dangerous. He needs to be stopped.”

“Is he one of your officers?”

“He was,” Brooks replied, scanning the barnyard. “We’ve been tracking him for over a year.”

“Since Wade died?” she asked, trying to mask her surprise at Brooks’s revelation.

Brooks’s gaze shot to her. “Yes.”

“What did he have to do with Wade?” She hoped he couldn’t see through her pretense.

Brooks paused, staring down at her as if deciding what to say or whether to answer at all. “They were partners for years. Worked together. Wade recruited him.”

Partners?
If that was true, why hadn’t JP told her?

Because he’d lied
.

“Start with the barn,” Brooks said to the three men who didn’t go toward the pastures.

“No!”

The men spun around at her cry. She had to stay calm. Had to think. “We have a mother cat and kittens. Don’t disturb—”

“We’re not here to hurt kittens, Abby,” Brooks replied with exaggerated patience.

“Let me show you where they are,” she said, praying she wasn’t making everything worse.

She led the way inside, holding Cole’s hand, and pointed. “Up there, behind those bales.”

“Be careful,” Brooks ordered the men.

One man climbed onto the bales, another began a methodical search of the stalls. The third moved toward the back, where the corral was.

“Wait!” Abby said before she could stop herself.

“What is it now?” Brooks asked.

“He needs to be careful of the bull.”

“Petunia is a bad boy,” Cole said, climbing back up toward the kittens.

“He’s in the corral,” she said. “Tell your man to be careful.”

Brooks’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded and began walking toward the back. Abby followed.

“Holy shit!” the officer outside said. “Get a look at that.”

Petunia lifted his head from the hay she’d thrown on the ground, turning his massive neck in their direction.

“What the hell happened to him?” the officer asked.

“He got caught in a barbed wire fence.”

“That must hurt like a—” He cut himself off when he saw Brooks’s admonishing glance. “Hurt a lot.” He walked up to the pen and rested his arms across the top rail, at shoulder height.

“I wouldn’t—” she began.

Petunia spun, and ran at the metal rails, snorting. The officer jumped back just as the bull hit the rails with his shoulder. The contact sent a clanging sound reverberating through the barn.

“Let him out into the pasture,” Brooks ordered.

“He’s more dangerous in the pasture than he is in here,” she said.

“She’s right,” the officer agreed. “He’d be able to chase us down out there.” He nodded his head at the corral. “Just keep him there, he’s doing our job for us. Nobody could move without that beast coming after ’em.”

Brooks looked around the pen. Petunia leaned into the corral rails. “Can he get through?”

“He never has,” she replied. “But he’s not usually around this many people.”

The bull bellowed. His call shook the air around them, echoing in the heat of the day.

“Help Adams search the barn,” Brooks said, gesturing toward the other officer. The man jogged back inside, relief evident on his face.

Abby didn’t dare look toward the trough. Instead, she walked into the barn. Brooks followed.

The agents continued their methodical search. The one who had checked the stalls came over to Brooks and pointed to Wade’s workshop. “We’re gonna search the building over there.”

“Wait a minute,” Abby said. “You did this before. Why are you doing it again?”

“I told you. The man we’re looking for is dangerous,” Brooks replied. “We have to search for him everywhere.”

As she followed him out, Cole by her side, Steve drove up in his pickup, pulled close to the barn, and got out.

“Steve,” Brooks said, extending his hand.

“What’s going on?” Steve demanded, ignoring Brooks’s outstretched hand, but meeting his gaze. Steve had taken a real dislike to Brooks the year before, one he had no problem displaying.

“We’re looking for an ex-officer. He’s armed and dangerous,” Brooks said.

“Why would he come here?” Steve asked.

“He was Wade’s partner,” Brooks replied.

“I’ve told him Wade never brought anyone from work home,” Abby said to her brother.

“We know that,” Brooks said testily. “But this man is desperate. He’s been on the run for a long time.” A flash of irritation shot through his eyes as he stepped away to talk to the man who’d checked outside the barn.

“You okay, Abby?” Steve asked.

She nodded.

Brooks and two other men strode toward the workshop.

“You know what’s really going on?” her brother asked.

“All I know is what Brooks tells me.”

Steve turned toward the shop. “I wish we knew more about what Wade did, but he was always so close-lipped about work. He never said anything to me about a partner, and we were together a lot.”

And I was married to him
.

“You have Cole’s things?” Steve continued.

She nodded. “Cole’s backpack is in the living room back at the house. But I think I should stick around here until Brooks and his men leave.”

Steve looked down at her. “I’ll wait, too. I don’t like the idea of some crazed agent running around anywhere near you.”

Crazed agent
.
Officer
. Whatever. Was that what JP was?

Had Wade been crazed, too? Was that why he’d died?

She convinced Steve to go ahead and get Cole’s things. The last thing she needed was more people around with JP hiding in the corral.

With a million memories of Wade flitting through her mind, she waited with Cole in the barn, playing with Muffin and her kittens as the men searched. Hopefully she and her son both appeared unconcerned.

Finally, one of the men stuck his head in. “All clear,” he told her. “Sorry about this. We didn’t disturb anything.”

“I still don’t understand.” She climbed down from the hay bales. “Why do you think this man would come here? If they were partners, wouldn’t he know Wade’s dead?”

The question seemed to catch the man unprepared. “I, um—”

“I’m worried about your safety, Abby,” Brooks said, coming through the barn door. “I’m sorry to say there were some indications that Wade and his partner compromised national security.”

“Not Wade,” she said, and immediately remembered JP’s words.
They think I…was a bit loose with some CIA secrets
. And her reaction to them.
Then that must be what Wade did
…

“I’m sorry,” Brooks said when he reached her. “Evidence points in that direction.”

She straightened. “What evidence? And why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell me last year?”

“We were still investigating then. Now we’re trying to capture a rogue officer. Are you sure you don’t remember anything Wade might have said about his work?”

“Wade would
never
do anything wrong.” She took a breath, more sure of how to speak to Brooks than she had been last year. “You should have told me last year you had this insane idea.”

“There was no need for you to know.”

“But now there is?”

“With JP Blackmon running loose, there is.”

Had Brooks meant to give her JP’s name? Or was it a slip of the tongue?

“What could this guy do?” she asked.

Brooks looked at her, his face drawn. “Anything,” he said. “He’s capable of anything.”

…

Steve came back from the house with Cole’s bag, ready for their trip, just as Brooks and his men finished their search. With nothing more than a nod toward her and Steve, Brooks gathered his men and left.

Frantic to get JP out of Petunia’s feed trough, Abby hoped she didn’t look as harassed as she felt.

As soon as Steve said they’d stop for burgers, Cole asked, “Unca Steve, can Stevie and me have ice cream for lunch?”

“Steve, that’s not—”

“Good Lord, Abby. I’m going to feed them right. Beth would have my hide if I didn’t.” Her brother mitigated his tone with a gentle smile as he mentioned his wife. “He’ll be fine.”

They turned at the sound of a vehicle approaching from the highway. It was Pete Avery in Sam O’Neil’s veterinary pickup.

Great, just great! The whole damn county was showing up, and JP was still stuck in the corral with a bloodthirsty bull. But she pasted on a smile she hoped looked sincere.

“Steve, Abby,” Pete Avery said, joining them. “I think I left my gloves out back earlier. I just stopped to get them since I was passing by.”

“I’ll help you look,” she said, hurrying ahead of him but trying to look as though she wasn’t in a panic. But she didn’t want Pete Avery anywhere near the corral. Thankfully, she found the gloves on a bale of hay inside the barn. After rushing back, she handed them to Pete, who was still talking to Steve.

“Thanks,” the young vet said.

“Mommy!” Cole called. He stood next to Pete, beside the veterinary trailer hitched to the back of the truck.

“Cole,” she said, reaching her hand out toward him. “Uncle Steve’s ready to go.”

“But Mommy,” Cole replied, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Do you need to potty, honey?”

Pete got into the truck, waved at them, and pulled away.

“No,” Cole said, looking back toward the pickup and trailer.

She squatted next to her son. “Cole, do you want to stay home?”

“No,” he said emphatically, shaking his head.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“No,” Cole replied. “You’re going on a grown-up bacation.”

Guilt rushed through Abby. A grown-up vacation with friends intent on having her meet “a sexy guy to heat up your life,” they’d said. Her friend Rachel had even talked her into going back on her birth control pills when they’d first planned the trip a few months earlier. “Just to be really careful, buy condoms, too,” Rachel had said. Condoms! What was she thinking? One-nighters with strangers were so not Abby.

And now she was letting her baby go off all alone, without his mother there to—

No
. He was going with her brother who knew him and would take good care of him.

Cole leaned toward her, as if to whisper something in her ear.

“Cole knows you don’t like to fish, Abby,” Steve said before she could ask what Cole meant to tell her. He bent and picked up his nephew. “We’re going to fish and hike, and you and Stevie can play. You’ll have fun.”

Cole smiled and held on tight as her brother swung him around. “I know, Unca Steve. I can’t wait!”

“Then let’s get you in your car seat.” He put Cole down.

Abby bent and gathered her son close in her arms. She didn’t want to let go. “You take care of Uncle Steve and Stevie. Remember to be polite to Uncle Steve’s friend.”

“’Kay,” Cole said, hugging her back. Then he wriggled out of her arms and climbed into his car seat.

She fastened him in and gave him one last kiss on his forehead.

“Mommy, is Mr. John still a secret?”

“Yes, baby. Please don’t tell anyone about him, okay?”

“’Kay. But—”

“Ready, buster?” her brother said, standing beside her.

At Cole’s nod, Steve closed the back door and turned to give her a hug.

“Call me,” she said, her words muffled by her brother’s shoulder.

“I will, I promise, but only if there’s a problem. You need this time for yourself.”

“Thanks, Steve. Love you.”

“Love you, too, sis.”

Then they were gone and she was alone.

And free to pursue her answers.

Answers she wouldn’t like. Not if what Brooks said was true. Not if JP Blackmon was “capable of anything.” What did
anything
mean? That he’d hurt her? Worse?

No way.

The gentleness he’d displayed with her and Cole told her that wasn’t possible. He’d helped her, not hurt her. But common sense also told her she couldn’t know for sure. It could just be an act. After all, Ted Bundy had charmed countless people until the day he was executed.

Stop it
, she ordered herself as she strode through the barn, headed toward the corral. She was letting her imagination run amuck. But when she got to the corral, Petunia wasn’t munching straw in the middle of the corral. He had his head buried in the trough.

Oh, God
.

Her pulse tripped into a fast staccato. Amazed she could make her mouth behave, she whistled loudly. The big animal looked up, and then came toward her. With a shaky voice, she spoke nonsense as she climbed up on the metal corral rails. The bull snorted as she held on, balancing herself near the top rails in order to see into the trough.

Her heart stalled.

JP wasn’t there
.

Chapter 6

JP hid in the back of the vet truck and jumped out when it turned slowly onto a dirt road. He then hitched a ride into the tiny town closest to Abby’s where he bought an old pickup from a farmer. Three hours later, he drove into Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Wade had always called the small Gulf Coast town “the Springs” in his lazy Texas drawl. JP had met him here once, a couple of years ago, when Wade had gone to visit an old Ranger friend who’d since died. JP also knew some of Wade’s aliases. With the help of the phone book, he found one of the aliases and the address of Wade’s house.

Fifteen minutes later, JP was idling outside the house. It was exactly the kind of place his partner had liked. Nondescript, with clear views of the surrounding area. Everything he’d always told JP he should find for himself.

JP sat in the truck, familiarizing himself with the terrain and location. The bayou flowed south, into the bay. He’d followed the road around it as he’d been looking for the house. It was surrounded by an ocean of grass with enough flow in places to allow a small boat to pass through. He figured the bottom was thick with mud, snakes, probably alligators. Basically, a three-sided moat.