Too Hot to Handle (19 page)

“You should have just stayed home,” Jack muttered angrily. Forcing Carlos down the country club’s long foyer and out the front hall, he took a deep breath of cool night air. He could smell the ocean. Salty. Tangy.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

“Go on.” Jack shoved the other man forward, biting back a laugh when Carlos stumbled on the gravel drive and fell to his knees. “Get lost.”

“You idiot—”

“Shut up, Carlos.” Jack blocked the doorway, preventing the other man from coming back in. The view from the Black Palm Park Country Club was incredible. In the daylight, he would be able to see all the way down to the beach. At night, he could just make out the streetlights that lined the Pacific Coast Highway. “Just be grateful I’m not dragging your ass downtown.”

“Come on—” Carlos stopped short, suddenly aware of the gravity of his situation. “Fine.” He spat on the ground. “I’m leaving. Give my best to your sister.”

“Uh-huh.” Jack didn’t move an inch. He stood there and watched the other man walk away, enjoying the scenery. The flicker of lights in the distance. The soft rustling of palm fronds moving in the breeze.

A car drove past. A luxury sedan zipping around the side of the building. Jack couldn’t make out the driver, but he could see the passenger.

Honey. Shoulders slumped forward. Her eyes wide. Her face pale. Fear making it so she didn’t even recognize him.

That couldn’t be right. Why would she leave now? And what could make her look so scared?

Jack spun, no longer caring what happened with Carlos. He raced back into the ballroom. He had to be mistaken. His gaze swept the crowd for Honey, searching for a flash of blazing hair or a scrap of that ruby dress. No such luck.

All he saw were the disapproving looks of the Junior League. Fine. He’d been disappointing them since he was nineteen years old.

It hadn’t been a mistake. It had been Honey in the car. Scared. Terrified.

Logan stood beside Jessica. The perfect guest, drinking champagne, holding Honey’s purse, and making polite conversation.

“Logan.” Jack’s throat was dry. He swallowed, trying to regain the ability to speak. “Logan, who did Honey leave with?”

“Leave? She didn’t leave. She’s right here. Right—” Logan glanced around, too, his lips pulled downward by worry. “Honey?” A gnarled voice that had commanded captains of industry and conversed with presidents twisted itself with confusion. “Honey?”

Hell. A dozen possibilities raced through Jack’s mind, none of them good.

Maybe his mother had finally gone homicidal.

Maybe aliens had attacked.

Or maybe he’d been wrong when he’d believed Honey had changed.

Returning a car for money was one thing, but the emeralds around her neck were worth millions. She might not be able to fence them for their full value, but there’d still be enough left over to start her off in a new life.

Only, he couldn’t imagine Honey anywhere except Los Angeles, where it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk and dogs roamed street corners. She was a California girl, like the song.

And the look in her eyes when she’d told him she’d given up theft had been determined, unyielding. She was a different person than she’d been in high school, or even a few years ago. She had a house she needed to get fixed, a garage she ran herself, and a position she’d carved out for herself in the community.

If he crossed her, she’d probably dye his hair blue again, but she’d stick around afterward to make sure he didn’t get any dye in his eyes.

He could count on her. He knew it.

“Jessica, something’s happened to Honey. Who did she leave with?”

“Are you sure she isn’t in the bathroom?”

“She wouldn’t go to the bathroom while there was still the possibility of a fight.”

No, she wouldn’t miss a chance to watch him fight. Closing his eyes, he remembered the last time he’d seen her smiling after a fight. It hadn’t been a boxing match. They’d both been on the playground. There must have been a hundred kids shouting, cheering him on, but the only one he’d seen was Honey.

Jack Ogden,
she’d hollered, hands on her hips.
You beat the tarnation out of that man.

That’s one way to put it.

I could take you.
She’d held up both hands in loose fists.
I know you’re bigger than me, and I know you’re a man. It doesn’t matter. I could still take you. Do you know why?

Because you cheat?

Because you don’t know what you’re fighting for. You’re good, but you won’t be great until you find something worth fighting for.

In retrospect, Jack knew it was true. As a kid, he’d been fighting for recognition and to prove he was something more than his mother’s son. At the time, it had been enough.

His breath caught in his throat. This entire week he’d been so angry, so mad at Honey for leaving. He’d never thought about the good times. He’d never wondered what had made her go.

There was more to life than his name in lights. There was the quiet time in the morning before the world was awake when Honey nestled back into his arms. That was something worth fighting for.

“She’s gone. I saw her in a car outside. Someone else was driving,” Jack said.

She’d looked so damn scared pulling away from him.

“Take a deep breath.” His sister’s voice.

Impossible. He wouldn’t be able to breathe until Honey was back, safe in his arms.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” Jessica said.

“She wouldn’t leave with anyone dangerous,” Logan said. “She’s a smart girl.”

“That’s a major understatement.” Jack said. “Honey’s brilliant.”

She knew things he couldn’t even imagine—and not just street smarts, either. There’d been an essay competition every year at the Black Palm Park Academy. Honey had won twice, and English wasn’t even her favorite subject. She liked science, knowing how things worked.

She could have gone far.

College, graduate school. The fact she’d stopped with high school was a tragedy. When he found her, he’d offer to send her back to school.

Honey was a great mechanic, but she’d be great at anything she did. She deserved to be an engineer or an inventor, someone who did more than take things apart. She deserved the chance to build something new.

“She’ll be okay. She has to be okay.”

All of the confusion he’d felt over the last week left him, replaced by the certainty that he needed Honey in his life. If something happened to her, he’d never be able to live with himself.

“What kind of a car was it?” Jessica asked.

“Expensive. A luxury sedan. A cream-colored BMW, a couple of years old.” There had been something else. Jack closed his eyes, concentrating. “There was a parking sticker on the rear window. A gold medallion.”

“The state seal?” Logan demanded roughly. “Clay has a car like that.”

“Clay Parsons, you’re sure?”

What the hell was going on? Parsons was powerful—a state senator—and rich.

Only, he wasn’t actually rich, was he? He dressed well and drove a fancy car, but everyone knew he wouldn’t have any actual money until Logan died.

Damn. Jack’s breath started to come faster. That was a possibility he hadn’t considered. But he hadn’t known how deep the connection between Logan and Honey went until a few minutes ago.

This possibility was worse than all the others put together. If Parsons saw Honey as a threat to his future inheritance, he’d have a motive for murder. More like a billion motives for murder. There was no telling what he’d do.

“Hell,” Jack swore.

He needed his gun, but he’d left the weapon locked in his apartment. The only resource had had to draw on was the badge in his back pocket, a solid reminder of the power he could summon.

Jack pulled out his cell phone. Dispatch was the third number on his speed dial.

It took him a long minute to explain the situation, but it was time well spent. The call would reach a dozen different law enforcement agencies. Every cop in the area would come running. They had to. Attacking a police officer’s girlfriend—his family—was as bad as attacking a police officer. In a lot of ways, it was worse. Family members were vulnerable, unarmed, and off-limits.

But Honey wasn’t his girlfriend. Ten minutes earlier, he would have happily thrown her to the wolves.

Things had changed. The fear that gripped Jack was all encompassing. It didn’t matter that she was a fighter, one of the rough-and-tumble Moores. He wouldn’t be able to breathe right until she was safe.

“I need a car.”

Without the Super Bee, he’d been stuck using a department car at work. To get to the party, he’d called a cab. His grand plan for the evening had involved catching a ride home from his sister. “Let me borrow your car.”

“Wait.” Logan fumbled in Honey’s purse for a moment, retrieving a valet slip. His hand shook when he dropped it into Jack’s hand. “We drove the Super Bee. Please— Please bring her back safely.”

All this trouble because of a lonely old man. It was Logan who’d gotten Honey into this mess in the first place, drawing her into a world she didn’t understand without even warning her.

Jack wanted to rage at the man, to scream and gnash his teeth, but that wouldn’t be helpful. He grabbed the slip from Logan’s leathery hand.

“I’ll do my best.”

He just hoped his best would be good enough.

The bottom had dropped out of Honey’s stomach the second the sedan’s engine came to life with a throaty purr. There was no going back now, no matter how much she wanted to—no way she could attract attention from the people still floating around the country club’s ballroom like pale moths gathering at the light.

She was on her own.

No one could find her to rescue her. Not even Jack—the hero who haunted her dreams.

“I didn’t want to have to do this. But you had to be stubborn.”

“What can I say? I’ve got a real yen for staying alive.”

Honey tried to calm herself with a few deep breaths. Her uncle had always insisted that was what tripped people up more than anything else—when things started to go wrong, they forgot how to breathe. They’d squirm, stall, and their faces would turn bright red. She’d seen the signs a dozen different times, in barroom fights, holding cells, and fancy dinner parties where people knew they were in over their heads.

Honey knew how to breathe. She just didn’t know what to do next.

Clay kept humming, steering the car along the dark road. With every passing second, they got farther from the country club’s glittering lights.

What had started out as an unpleasant experience was rapidly turning into her worst nightmare.

The steering wheel spun beneath his hands, and the car rocketed out of Black Palm Park onto the dark Pacific Coast Highway.

With mountains rising on one side and the ocean glistening wickedly on the other, the PCH was no place for an angry driver. The stretch of California’s Route 1 that traveled through Ventura, Los Angeles, and Malibu counties was known for hairpin turns, blind corners, and celebrity car crashes on the six o’clock news.

It was the kind of road Honey loved to drive—one foot hard on the gas pedal, classic rock blasting on the radio, and the breeze rushing through her hair.

She hated being in the passenger seat. Her hands curled into fists, nails digging into her palms. All she could think about was the number of times she’d turned on the radio at work and heard about some jerk driving straight off the side of the road.

The posted speed limit was forty-five, but Clay’s car was pushing seventy, whipping back and forth along the two-lane highway to move around traffic. The idiot would get them both killed.

Where the hell was the state highway patrol when she needed them? She paid her taxes. Why weren’t there lights in the rearview mirror and sirens blaring? A burst of righteous indignation gave her the strength she needed to shift her head sideways and look at her captor.

Clay—
freaking
—Parsons.

Her lips twitched uncontrollably. The part of her that didn’t want to scream at the top of her lungs wanted to laugh.

“Stealing the damn Volvo was supposed to give me the money to pay off my debts. And you had to go and steal it back for him. All that money. All that power. You know how hard I’ve worked? All those years spent bowing and scraping for handouts. Asking Logan for just a taste—a glimpse—and when he finally shows me the will, it’s got your name on it.”