Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) (38 page)

              His brows lifted. “Are you shitting me?”

              “I wish I was.”

              Still holding Remy, he paced across the room, breathing through flared nostrils. “Your uncle’s an idiot,” he told the baby.

              He spun back to face Ava. “Really?
Really?
Why the hell didn’t he tell me?” He seemed genuinely wounded, emotion tweaking his face.

              A lump formed in her throat. What was she going to do with her stupid brave husband and her stupid brave brother? “He didn’t want to drag anyone else into it,” she said. “He said because you, and Michael, and so many others have kids…”

              Mercy growled under his breath, the sound more animal than human. “He has a kid now too, damn it.”

              Just a picture in his wallet, but yes, a little girl, growing and developing, waiting to be passed into her daddy’s arms.

              “He made me promise to keep it to myself,” she said, “but Merc, I can’t…”

              “No, you shoulda told me.”

              Because he was going to do something about it. He was a one-man cavalry, the beast; even if the others didn’t join him, he was going to that house, ready to aid his brother.

              “Here.” She opened her arms and he came to her, bent down and let her hug him around the neck. Remy cooed in her ear; she smelled baby and man and she closed her eyes against the pressure of tears. “Please be careful,” she whispered. “I need you to come home to me.”

              They were startled – but not surprised – by the sound of the back door opening. The cold evening wind whistled through the opening, funneling straight into the living room. The draft preceded a stone-faced Ghost, all zipped up in a black hoodie, posture eloquent of the flak vest he wore beneath.

              He looked at Ava, and then Mercy. “She told you?”

              “Yeah.”

              His dark eyes came back to Ava, and though the words were accusing, there was nothing but pride in his voice. “You and your mother…”

              “Annoying?” she suggested.

              He shook his head. Back to Mercy his attention went. “Suit up, son. We’ve got a rescue mission to rescue.”

~*~

“You’re being quiet,” Michael observed over lemon pepper chicken and green beans. Across the kitchen table, Holly was pushing her food around with her fork, locked in her thoughts.

              “So are you,” she said, staring at her plate.

              “I’m always quiet.” While Holly always filled the conversational void.

              She set down her fork and lifted her head, big green eyes troubled. “I’m sorry. I’m just…distracted, I guess.”

              Michael wanted to kick himself. He should never have told her about Tango’s abduction. “Honey, I already told you. Nobody’s coming after you. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

              Her lips pressed together. “Do you think I only worry about myself? You don’t think I might be worried about what they’re doing to Tango?”

              Well shit. He hadn’t thought of that.

              “I’m not that selfish,” she said quietly.

              “I know you’re not, baby.”

              She sighed and stood up, carried her plate to the sink.

              “Hol.”

              She turned around and put her back to the counter, massaged her temples. “I’m not angry with you.” She wasn’t usually, but she was in a bit of a temper tonight. “Sometimes I just hate it, you know? The club,” she added, quietly. “I don’t, not really. But sometimes…”

              Sometimes she wished it didn’t have a hold on him, and that they could be safe, just the two of them, without any outside threats. He knew this because sometimes he thought the same thing.

              She shook her head. “That’s stupid. Because without a club, there wouldn’t be you, and without you…” She took a deep, shaky breath. “There wouldn’t be Lucy…or me.”

              “Hol–” He was out of his chair and headed toward her when someone knocked loudly on the door that led out onto the deck.

              Ghost and Mercy.

“Get armed,” Ghost said. “I’ll explain on the way.”

~*~

Emmie found her husband in the office off the library, frowning at his computer screen.

              “I thought you were done for the day.”

              “Tell me, love,” he said distractedly as she came to perch on the edge of the desk, “is your job ever ‘done’?”

              “I think you know the answer to that.” A barn manager never truly clocked out. It wasn’t the sort of job that lent itself to firm hours. There was always something else to be done, always an extra mile she could go toward making her barn as successful as possible. “Anything I can do to help?” she offered.

              He looked every one of his almost forty years and then some tonight, brow crimped, mouth bracketed by deep lines. “No.” But then he swiveled his chair toward her. “Actually, yeah. You’re pissed at me, I can tell. So you can tell me what’s up with that. That’ll help.”

              It was said mildly, but was still the most openly hostile he’d been toward her.

              Emmie recoiled. “What? I’m not pissed at you.”

              He gave her a flat look.

              “Trust me. You don’t want to talk about this right now.”

              “How about I decide that for myself?”

              She sighed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” When he continued to stare at her, she said, “You don’t want to have kids, do you?”

              He hesitated a beat too long. “I never said that.”

              “But that’s the way you feel.”

              “Did I tell you I wouldn’t have kids with you?”

              This was even worse than she’d thought. “Walsh.”

              They stared at one another.

              “I don’t have anything against kids,” he said at last. “But I don’t have a burning need to become a father, no.”

              She didn’t want it to, but disappointment fell hard in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t say why exactly she wanted children; perhaps it was an overflow of joy that she was no longer alone. Perhaps it was simply biological.

              “Do you–” she started…

              And the doorbell rang.

~*~

Colin lay back on the limp pillow of his dorm room bed and stared up at the ceiling. Same crappy bed, same small room, same gut full of beer he’d had every night here in Knoxville, but all of it rendered irrelevant by the warm female voice coming through the cellphone pressed to his ear.

              “Are you behaving?” Jenny asked.

              He grunted. “I always behave. Usually. Sometimes.”

              Sha laughed. “Let me rephrase that. How are things going with your brother?”

              He frowned and reached to touch the spot on his jaw that was only just now starting to feel normal again. “They’re going.”

              She paused. “Going bad?”

              “Dunno. Whatever. I don’t want to talk about him.” He sighed and forced thoughts of Mercy away on the exhale. “How are you feeling?”

              She took a breath that sounded a little shivery with nerves. He couldn’t blame her; his own nerves crawled under his skin like an army of ants. “I’m starting to be a little green, so I guess
that part
of it’s starting.”

              “Hmm. I’m sorry. Want me to bring you some ginger ale?”

              “All the way from Tennessee, yeah, that’d be good.”

              A flat joke, and they both fell silent afterward. Finally, Jen said, “We’re gonna have to tell Candy soon. I won’t be able to hide it much longer.”

              No, there wasn’t much hope hiding a baby.

              Colin wished he hadn’t had so much to drink; his stomach cramped and he rolled to his side, phone cradled between his head and the pillow. “It’s gonna be okay,” he told her, because telling her anything else wasn’t an option. Even though he was petrified. Even though he’d never wanted kids.

              The good part, though, if there
was
a good part to any of this, was that she hadn’t wanted children either. So it was terrifying for both of them.

              A knock sounded hard against his door a fraction of a second before it opened. Mercy filled up most of the doorframe, wide shoulders blocking the light from the hall. His face was serious, at first. But as he stepped into the room, he spotted the phone in Colin’s hand and grinned.

              “Aw, is that your girlfriend?”

              “Shut the fuck up,” Colin said, sitting upright.

              “What?” Jenny asked.

              Shit. “Not you, baby.”

              “It is,” Mercy said, delighted. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Jenny!”

              “Oh,” Jen said, chuckling. “Brotherly bonding? Hey, Felix.”

              “She says ‘hey,’” Colin grudgingly passed along. “What do you want?”

              Mercy’s expression changed. “Say goodnight, Casanova. We’ve got business.”

Thirty-Six

Sam tightened her hands on the wheel of the Caprice. Her palms were slicked over with sweat and it was a miracle she’d been able to steer at all. As she braked at the gate, she scrubbed her fingers furiously down the short length of her skirt, releasing a deep, tense breath through her teeth.

              “You’re gonna have to calm down,” Jasmine said in the passenger seat, but her voice trembled.

              Sam glanced over and saw the woman had her hands knotted together in her lap, eyes white-rimmed and liquid in the dash lights. “That was convincing,” Sam said with a snort. Apparently, the nerves were making her snappish.

              “Well, I’m not an actress,” Jasmine defended.

              Sam snorted. “I’m a damn professor.”

              They shared a moment of doomed silence.

              “We’re gonna blow this,” Jasmine said.

              “No we’re not. Hush,” Sam said. She couldn’t contemplate failure because she held the superstitious belief that doing so would then cause failure. And not to be melodramatic, but failure wasn’t an option in this scenario. Sometimes, old idioms were true.

              Sam took one last deep breath and said, “Here we go. You ready?”

              Jasmine echoed her shivery exhale. “Yeah.”

              Sam buzzed her window down, leaned out, and pressed the call button on the intercom box.

             
“Yeah?”
a heavy male voice asked from the speaker.

              Sam marshalled her meager acting skills and put on her best flirty girl voice. “Your entertainment for the night’s here, baby.” She cringed inwardly, but pasted a wide smile to her face in case the camera could see her.

             
“Yeah?”
the voice repeated, this time with considerably more interest.
“You must be new. What’s your name, baby girl?”

              Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. “Uh…Honey,” she said, scrambling. “And my friend…” Shit, Jazz already had sort of a hooker name. “Lavender,” she said, and then closed her eyes, bit her lip in total shame and regret.

              “Lavender?” Jazz hissed.

              But the guy on the intercom laughed.
“Honey and Lavender, huh? Come on in, ladies. We’ve been waiting.”

              There was an electronic droning sound and then the gate unlocked with a loud clang ahead of them, slowly slid back on its wheels.

              Sam rolled the window up. “Sorry.” She glanced over at Jazz and took another of oh-so-many deep breaths. “Alright, Lavender, you ready?”

              Jazz shook her head, but said, “Yeah, let’s go get our boy.”

              The driveway was wide, but flanked by stone walls crawling with ivy. Sam felt them closing in as their headlights skimmed a path down to the house; felt the gate closing behind them, sealing them off from the world. Fox had bragged about being able to scale the wrought iron fence around this place, and maybe he could, if what Aidan had said of the Englishman was true – but no way was she going to be able to climb over, should things go south. Especially not in these damn stilettos.

              The driveway ended in a circle around a multi-tiered fountain at the front of the mansion. A mansion that was tastefully illuminated with landscape lighting and carriage sconces on either side of the massive double doors at the top of a steep stone staircase.

              “Jesus,” Jasmine said as they parked behind an Escalade. “Beauty and the fucking Beast around here.”

              “Us being the beauties, I take it,” Sam said, grimly. “You’ve got your gun?”

              “Yep.”

             
Last chance to turn back
, a small voice whispered in her head. She whispered back,
Not a chance
. And climbed out of the car.

              Her heels clipped across the stone pavers and though she shivered in the cold, she didn’t pull the halves of her jacket together. If it could even be called a jacket. Aidan and Carter in tow to ensure “authenticity,” she and Jasmine had pawed through the Goodwill racks in search of proper call girl getups. Sam had finally settled on a clinging black minidress with a faux fur duster over top. She’d found spike-heeled boots and costume chandelier earrings. She’d troweled on the eye makeup and doused herself in perfume.

              Jasmine, she had a feeling, had pulled her own skirt and top from her personal closet, and hadn’t needed to go shopping at all. Whatever. Not judging.

              The red blinking eyes of cameras followed their ascent to the top of the stairs. The door opened before they could knock, Sam’s freshly manicured hand hovering above the panel.

              The man who awaited them was nearly as broad as he was tall, his head shaved, his features small and piggish.

              Sam swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “Hey there.”

              Jasmine, more practiced, popped a hip and gave him a slow grin. “Howdy.”

              He looked between them, inspecting them bottom to top, from heels to hair styles. He grinned and stepped back. “Come in.”

~*~

“Where the hell is Ian?” Aidan hissed under his breath. “He said he was going in with us.”

              “This is why we shoulda made that tosser ride with us,” Fox said. “If he doesn’t show, we move in without him. He’d only get in the way, besides.”

              “Would I?” the man’s accent floated out of the darkness, and Aidan jumped. Inwardly. At least, he hoped it was only inward.

              A thin shadow stepped out of the trees and moved toward them, seeming like nothing more than a trick of the imagination. Then a face suddenly appeared; Ian was drawing his ski mask up, revealing the narrow white jaw and high British cheekbones that made him look feminine in daylight…downright ghoulish now.

              “Jesus,” Carter said. “How long have you been there?”

              “Long enough to know that most of the manpower is currently housed in the outbuildings. They’ll come running to the main house once someone sounds the alarm, but it should be easy enough getting in, at first.”

              Fox snorted.

              “You armed?” Aidan asked.

              “Of course.” Ian almost sounded offended. “You just worry about you, darling. I’ve got myself all covered.”

~*~

Something Aidan had told her cycled through her head as she crossed the threshold:
Pay attention. Be aware. Keep your head on a swivel and don’t get so spooked you don’t pay attention to what’s around you
. She latched onto those words, remembered the earnest look in his eyes, and did her best to block out her terror.

              A stone-floored entrance hall flanked by mirrors. Open floorplan feeding into a massive formal sitting room. White furniture, roaring fire in the marble fireplace. She counted three other men, lounging on the white leather, drinks in hand. They all perked up as she and Jazz entered. The light in their eyes was nothing like the bright spark of interest she got from Aidan; it was flat and mindless with lust. A dozen mental pictures flicked through her mind, nightmares, all of them.

              She had to focus.

              Several case openings allowed an exit from the sitting room. One led down a hallway, she could tell, another fed into what looked like a dining room, a long glass table reflecting orbs of light from the overhead fixtures.

              To the right, an opening led into a slate-floored sunroom. No doors, only windows. But through the sunroom was a restroom…right across from the mud room. And there was an exterior door there, if Fox’s recon work had been accurate. That was her goal: the mud room door. She had no idea how the boys were going to get across the lawn without being seen, but she didn’t have to know. All she had to do was get to that door.

              Without being raped first.

              No big.

              Beside her, Jasmine stepped boldly forward, her walk a rolling, hip-popping gait that dripped pure sex. The woman cast a fast look over her shoulder at Sam, her blue eyes intense, frightening. She nodded, ever so slightly. She was going to be the distraction, she’d decided, while Sam went for the door. Putting herself in the line of fire.

              Sam wanted to hug her. Instead, she nodded back.

              Jazz put on a bright smile and said, “So fellas, I’ve just been awful lonely, and I’m wondering if a couple of you might wanna keep me company.” She strode into the center of the room and posed like a showpiece.

              Sam spun to face the man who’d let them in the house. Her fake sultry smile hurt her face, the muscles around her mouth not used to that sort of expression. “One quick thing,” she said, trying to bat her lashes at him. “Can I use the restroom real quick?” When he frowned, she scrambled to improvise. “You see, I was a little…overexcited about coming to meet you boys tonight” – oh barf – “and I had a little teensy sip of vodka to settle my nerves” – she was talking like her sister, which meant she was going to have a
serious
discussion with Erin about life choices in the near future– “and now I, well, you know.” She forced a high pitched giggle. “Let me just nip in and out and I’ll be
all
ready for you guys.” Oh, major fucking barf.

              But he bought it.

              “Sure, yeah.” His eyes raked over her, lingering on her cleavage. “Right through there.”

              Worried for Jasmine, she skirted around the corner, the casement, and into the sunroom. The room was cold and dark, the windows gleaming with moonlight. Beyond, she could already see a fresh blanket of white frost across the grass.

              She searched through the glass as she walked, looking for signs of approaching bikers. They’d be in all black, and so she saw nothing, and kept moving. Clip-clip-clip across the slate.

              The mud room stank of old cigar smoke, and on the bench beneath the hanging jackets, she spotted lots of empty cups and beer bottles, a few crushed-out cigarette butts. This must be where the goons came to smoke and piss out into the bushes.

              The door had a large glass pane in its center, but an impressive sequence of locks. Locks designed to keep people
out
. She was able to throw all of them from the inside with a release of a chain and a turn of a few bolts.

              Her hand was on the knob when a ghostly face appeared on the other side of the glass.

              She stifled a scream and recognized Aidan.

              He pressed a gloved hand to the pane and spoke through it. “Check for an alarm.” With his other hand, he pointed upward. He was nothing save a face, all the rest of him black-wrapped.

              Heart thundering, she glanced up and saw two plastic rectangles: the sensor and its mated half. Shit.

              “There is one,” she said. “What should I do?”

              Three more dark shapes crowded in behind him: Carter, Ian, and Fox. He shook his head. “You’re gonna have to trip it, and we’re gonna have to move fast.”

              Fox’s voice floated through the door. “It’ll only be the motion detector, love, but they’ll hear it.”

              Right. So. Move fast.

              She twisted the knob and yanked the door open, a blast of frigid air pouring in around the boys as they hustled past her into the house. As predicted, the motion detector gave an electronic chime of alert, but no major alarms went off.

              “Where’s Jazz?” Carter asked.

              “Down the hall, in the sitting room. She was distracting them.”

              He growled something unintelligible.

              Sam glanced out the open door, the cold air stinging her face, and thought she might be sick as she thought about fleeing. That was the plan, sure, but the idea of running away as Aidan was running in, saving herself, when –

              His hands locked on her wrists and he turned her to face him, his dark eyes shining in the moonlight. “Sam,” he said, like he knew what she’d been thinking. “Go. Like we talked about. Go now.”

              “I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered. “But I know. I’m going.” Her eyes stung. “God, Aidan, be careful. Please.”

              “I will.” He kissed her, then shoved her out the door.

              She went three steps before she realized the shoes had to go. She stepped out of them, snatched them up, and fled, light-footed across the grass, gritting her teeth against the cold sting of the frost against her bare soles.

              They had talked this moment to death, and now she was glad for it. Most of Ellison’s property was crowded with trees, but a single wedge of lawn provided access to the pool, pool house, guest cottage, and a section of fence that wasn’t crawling with ivy. The cameras would catch her, undoubtedly, but with the boys inside making a big commotion, what kind of threat was she?