Maverick Sheriff (17 page)

Jessa obviously felt the same way.

She went after his zipper again. He went after hers.

They weren’t exactly graceful when they landed on the sofa. That gracefulness went down another significant notch when she worked her hand into his boxers and took hold of him.

Oh, man. He was in big trouble here.

Her touch made everything seem more urgent, and Cooper rid her of her jeans. Panties, too. And even though he was burning, he still took the time to look at her.

And taste her.

Yeah, she was perfect everywhere.

Jessa made more of those sounds of pleasure. Slow, silky moans that purred from her throat. But there was nothing slow about her touch. She was frantic when she pushed off his boots and jeans, and by the time she made it to his boxers, she was well past the frantic stage.

Cooper was right there with her.

As soon as he was free of his boxers, he caught her and sank deep and hard into her. The pleasure shot through him, robbing him of his breath. He wanted to savor this, too, as he’d done with the sight of her. But Jessa lifted her hips, and savoring was a lost cause.

Cooper moved inside her and Jessa moved with him, keeping up the already desperate pace. That pace would end all of this too soon, but there was nothing he could do to make their bodies slow down. That fierce need pushed them hard to complete this and find mind-numbing release.

Too bad that release wouldn’t last long. But Cooper refused to deal with that now. He only dealt with Jessa, and the frenzied rhythm of the strokes inside her.

“Finish this,” she whispered. “Finish
me.
”

That was the plan. Cooper pushed into her, felt her body give way to the maddening strokes. He felt her
finish.
But she didn’t go alone. Nope. Jessa hooked her arm around his back and pulled him down for a kiss.

That was the last straw for him.

Cooper buried his face against her neck and let Jessa finish him off.

Yeah, he’d been right about the mind-numbing part. Right about a lot of other things, too.

Now all that was left was dealing with the aftermath of the mistake he’d just made.

Chapter Fifteen

Jessa felt the instant change in Cooper. The muscles in his back tightened, and while he couldn’t exactly roll off her without landing on the floor, he did move to his side.

He didn’t say a word. Didn’t need to. She could also feel the fierce debate going on inside him.

Because she was having the same debate with herself.

For days they’d been skirting around this heated attraction, and her body welcomed the satisfaction. The release. But she figured it would come at a high price, and she didn’t want Cooper—or herself—making assumptions that this meant anything. Anything other than great sex, that was.

It’d been so long since she’d been with a man. And never like this. Why the heck had he been just as good as he looked?

Jessa mentally sighed. It would have been so much easier if she just felt indifferent toward Cooper. Or if she’d just left him alone. After all, this was the man who could destroy her life, and here she’d landed in bed with him.

Well, on the sofa, anyway.

“This doesn’t mean I’ll move in with you,” she let him know.

He lifted one eyelid, and it looked as if he tried to glare at her. Hard to do that, though, while butt naked and squished on a sofa together. “Didn’t figure it did.”

Her feelings were all over the place, and while his words were right, they didn’t make her feel so right. Because if he hadn’t used sex to sway her into moving in with him, then that meant this attraction had just gotten the better of both of them. It also meant the attraction would only get worse.

Until it burned itself out.

Then what?

They’d be at odds under the same roof. Maybe Cooper couldn’t see the problem with that now, but he would certainly see it later. And being at odds with her might prompt him to get her off the ranch.

Without Liam, of course.

There was no way Cooper would let her leave with Liam now that he knew the little boy was his son.

“Don’t know if you know this, but your nostrils flare when you’re getting upset,” he drawled. “So other than the obvious, what’s upsetting you?”

She wanted to bring up the argument that she’d just mentally had with herself, but one look at him and Jessa knew he was well aware of what she’d been thinking.

“Just the obvious,” she settled for saying.

Cooper made a sound of agreement and glanced at the baby monitor, prompting her to do the same. Thankfully, Liam was sleeping just as he should be. And it was a reminder she should be upstairs with him.

Jessa moved, forcing herself to get up, and she wished the room was suddenly pitch-black so that Cooper couldn’t see her naked. He seemed to have no such concerns. He stood right in front of her.

Mercy.

The man had a great body.

Perfect. All those toned muscles earned from hard work on the ranch. The rugged face. It didn’t help that she still had the taste of him on her lips.

And just like that, she felt herself go all warm again. A warmth that Jessa tried to push away so she could gather up her clothes and get dressed.

“How bad are you regretting this?” he asked just as he zipped up his jeans.

“Not bad enough.” Especially considering that she was still fantasizing about getting him back on the sofa with her at the same time that she was worrying about his claim on Liam.

Cooper chuckled. Leaned over and kissed her. Not a postsex kind of peck, either. It was a full kiss that reminded her that one round of sex wasn’t going to rid her of this sudden need she had for Cooper.

“How bad are you regretting this?” she asked, throwing the question back at him.

He pushed her hair from her face. Dropped another kiss on her forehead. Then met her eye to eye. Jessa was instantly sorry that she’d opened herself up for this conversation, because the last thing she wanted to hear was Cooper say he would do whatever it took to get custody of Liam.

Even though that was exactly what he would do.

And she would fight him equally hard.

“Let’s table that for now,” he said just as his phone buzzed.

Jessa thought maybe she’d like to table that particular discussion for a lifetime and have things go on as they had been.

Well, minus the danger, of course.

And when she saw Colt’s name on Cooper’s phone screen, it was a stark reminder of not just the investigation but the danger that had set all this in motion.

“I found something,” Colt said the moment Cooper answered the call and put it on speaker. “I’m pretty sure I found the woman who talked to Rosalie’s criminal informant. Sonya Eakins.”

Cooper shook his head. “I don’t know her.” And he looked back at Jessa, who had to shake her head, too. She quickly started dressing in case they had to go to the sheriff’s office to question this woman.

“She lived in a little place just a quarter of a mile from the creek,” Colt added.

Jessa didn’t miss Colt’s use of the past tense. “Sonya Eakins is dead?”

“Yeah,” Colt verified. “SAPD found her body this morning. Killed execution-style.”

Sweet heaven. This just kept getting worse.

Cooper cursed. “You’re sure she’s the right woman?” he asked his brother.

“Pretty sure. Everything you said about her fits. About six months before the flood, she rented the house within walking distance of the creek. She was young, early thirties, and had a long rap sheet for embezzlement and theft.”

And to think Liam could have been in this woman’s hands. At least Sonya hadn’t hurt him, probably because she’d seen him as goods to sell.

“I got access to Sonya’s bank accounts,” Colt continued, “and there was a five-thousand-dollar deposit made less than a week after the flood.”

Well, it wasn’t absolute proof, but coupled with everything else, it was enough to convince Jessa that this woman had sold Liam. That sent her heart racing. Because each piece of this maddening puzzle pointed at only one thing—that Liam was indeed Cooper’s.

“What about our other suspects—did any of them have cash withdrawals around that time matching the deposit amount that was in Sonya’s account?” Cooper asked.

“I checked. Didn’t find anything, though.”

Probably because the buyer had made sure it couldn’t be linked back to him or her, and that would have been easy enough to do for someone rich, like Donovan, or for Hector, who had a thriving law practice. For that matter, Peggy, too, could have had that amount of cash on hand so there’d be no record of it. Now the person—Peggy, Hector or Donovan—whom Sonya had entangled in this black-market-baby deal had likely murdered her or had hired someone to do the job.

Cooper stayed quiet a moment. “I’ll call you back,” he said to his brother. He hit the end-call button and eased back around to face her. “The person who killed her likely murdered the criminal informant, too,” Cooper mumbled. “A person who has murdered twice isn’t likely to stop.”

Jessa wished she could disagree, but she couldn’t. “And now he or she has taken aim at Liam and us.”

The
us
part she could handle. But she seriously doubted this monster wanted to kill Cooper and her and then leave her son alone. No, they wanted to sell him again or at least make sure no one could connect Liam to the illegal adoption.

“We need to do something,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” That was all Cooper said for several long moments. “I have a plan. You’re not going to like it much, but I think this is our best shot at keeping all of us alive.”

Jessa pulled in her breath, not sure she even wanted to hear this, but knowing there was no guaranteed certainty in any plan they came up with.

“Whoever’s behind this wants Liam,” Cooper continued. “And we can make this person think that they can have him.”

“What?” Jessa couldn’t say it fast enough. “We’re not giving them Liam.” She’d die first before she let that happen.

“No, we’re not. But I want this SOB to
think
that, and here’s how we’ll do it.” Now it was Cooper’s turn to take a deep breath. “We can pretend that Liam’s had some kind of complication from his surgery and that we’re taking him back to the hospital—”

Jessa was shaking her head before Cooper even finished. “I don’t want Liam out there, especially at night where we wouldn’t even be able to see our attackers before it was too late.”

“Liam’s not going anywhere,” Cooper corrected. “But I am. I’ll get out the word that Liam’s running a fever and that I’m taking him to the E.R. Then I could make it look as if he’s in the truck with me.”

It didn’t take Jessa long to figure out where Cooper was headed with this, and she didn’t like this plan at all. “And then you’ll set yourself up as bait so the kidnapper will come after you.”

He darn sure didn’t deny it.

“It’s too dangerous,” she said on a huff. “As you pointed out, this person has already murdered at least two people, and I’m sure he or she would love to add you to the list. Good grief, Cooper, this isn’t a smart plan at all.”

“It wouldn’t be, if I didn’t take precautions. Which I will. I can take one of my brothers with me, and he could stay low on the seat and out of sight.”

“While you wait to be ambushed.” Jessa threw her hands in the air. “What if this person just starts shooting? What chance will you have then?”

Cooper caught her shoulders. “I have a better chance of stopping this idiot than he or she does of stopping me. That’s because I’m fighting for Liam. For me this isn’t about greed or covering a crime. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my son safe.”

Jessa felt the same way. Whatever it took. “But this plan could backfire.”

“Possibly,” he admitted. “That’s why I’d make sure the house is well guarded. I could move all the ranch hands near the house. They’d be armed. Plus, we’d set the security system, of course.”

“And if the kidnapper is having the house watched, then he’ll know that something’s up.”

“True,” he answered so fast that it sounded as if he’d already considered that. “But I could keep the ranch hands out of sight.”

Maybe. But Jessa thought of another problem with this so-called plan, and it was a huge flaw. “If I’m not with you in the truck,” she said, “the kidnapper will suspect it’s a trap.”

Cooper stared at her a moment and then started to curse. “No way in hell will I let you go out there.”

She huffed. “But you’d let yourself do this.”

“Because I’m a cop. It’s my job to take risks.”

“This isn’t a risk. It could be suicide.”

“Yeah, if it’s not done right. And the way to make sure it’s right is to be ready. Tucker and I can be armed to the hilt, and if the kidnapper tries to force us off the road or something, we’d be right there, returning fire.”

Jessa threw off his grip from her shoulders and reversed their position so that she had hold of him. She had to make him see that this wouldn’t work.

Well, not without her, anyway.

“If I’m not in that truck, the kidnappers will likely just head here to the ranch. Without you around, they’ll see that as their chance to find out if Liam’s really here. And even if they don’t manage to take him, there’ll be shots fired. Do you really want Liam in the middle of a gunfight?”

“No.” He backed away from her, cursed and then repeated it. “But it’s only a matter of time before they try to come after him again.”

“Agreed.” Though it sickened her to think of her baby being in danger again. “And that’s why I have to be in the truck with you. The kidnapper has to believe this is some kind of frantic rush to the hospital. That’s the only thing that’ll prevent him from coming here.”

She could tell he wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t. Instead, he paced. Cursed. And blew out another of those long breaths. Jessa knew him well enough to hear the argument going on inside his head.

An argument he was losing.

“I can’t ask you to put yourself in that kind of danger,” he finally said.

“You don’t have to ask. Like you, I’d do anything for Liam.” This definitely qualified as
anything.
“So how would we get out the word that we’re on the way to the hospital?”