Runaround Page 9

  Once again, I misjudged Webb’s startling ability to read me. With a lopsided grin, he reached out and ran the tip of one of his index finger down the length of my nose.

  “I know you were going to send me to bed alone tonight, Ten. You’ve been thinking so loud the last couple of hours it made my head hurt.” He bumped my shoulder with his as I playfully narrowed my eyes at him. It was refreshing he could still find a way to lighten the mood and joke around, even with all that was weighing on him at the moment. “I’ve been waiting for a long time for you to give me the green light to start something. Had no idea you were going to make the first move. Have to say, it was a nice surprise considering all the crap that’s been flying my way lately.” My breath caught when he unleashed his lethal simile in my direction. He bent down, and I went still as stone as the tip of his nose lightly touched mine. “Next move is mine, Ten, now that you’ve decided to play. You’ll know when I’m ready to make it. Get some sleep. Tomorrow isn’t going to be fun.”

  “That wasn’t a move. It was an impulsive decision I’m trying really hard not to regret,” I pouted. It was an actual pout, which couldn’t be nearly as effective as it once was when I was younger and much more naïve.

  “Oh, it was a move, however small, but I think it was a huge one for you. I’ll see you in the morning.” He tossed a wave over his shoulder as he sauntered off.

  I muttered a halfhearted goodnight and watched him walk away, shaking my head at the cocky swagger and self-assured way he carried himself. He was far more confident about how all of this was going to go down between us than I was. I headed to my own room, tired of my own screaming thoughts. Webb was right, they made my head hurt, too. I doubted I was going to sleep well. I hadn’t since Webb was picked up by the FBI. Or, if I was being honest with myself, which was a rarity when I dealt with my thoughts about the man sleeping a room over, I had to admit I hadn’t slept well since I’d found him shot to hell on the side of the mountain. Those unmistakable blue eyes of his followed me into my dreams. And now that I knew how strong, defined, and sexily cut his torso and stomach were, I had a feeling the image of Webb without his shirt on would be trailing me into sleep as well.

  The long day, on top of the stress of worrying over Webb’s well-being and battling my own rampaging emotions, took its toll. I was dead to the world the second my head hit the pillow. The deep, heavy sleep didn’t mean I escaped visions of a nearly naked drifter. Webb was there in the dark, all bronze skin, golden hair, and twinkling eyes. I woke up sometime before dawn with my hair sticking to my damp skin, my legs shifting restlessly under the covers, and my hands traveling all over my body chasing a phantom touch. I groaned into my pillow, cursing Webb and my body’s traitorous reaction to him.

  Since I had a room to myself, and both the time and privacy, I allowed the heady fantasies that had been following me around to run free. With my eyes clamped closed and my body already hovering on the precipice of release, it was far too easy to picture Webb’s big, strong body taking up all the available space between my splayed thighs. His shoulders were so wide, they would force my legs to part in a graphically wanton way. I already knew his hair was soft, and his mouth was scalding hot. I wanted to feel both on my skin as he worked himself toward the part of my body already pulling and pounding in anticipation. I could almost feel the rough drag of his fingertips through my sensitive folds, even though it was my own smaller, softer hands touching all the places I wanted Webb’s touch.

  It didn’t take long to fall apart. I gasped Webb’s name when I did, bright blue eyes and a wicked smile taunting me as I shifted around trying to catch my breath. Sleep found me once again after the orgasm wrung me out, and I felt surprisingly well-rested the next morning when my alarm went off. Webb and I agreed to meet at the SUV at seven so we could get an early start on the drive to Louisiana. I tried to give myself enough time to round up breakfast so I could surprise him before we left, but Webb was already leaning against the side of the big vehicle when I left the room. He had a fast food bag resting next to him on the hood and a white cup of coffee in his hand.

  I couldn’t hide the blush I knew was staining my cheeks as I approached him, gratefully taking the coffee cup he passed my way. Proving he was too observant for his own good, Webb arched a blond brow and asked, “Sweet dreams?”

  I really had to work not to spit out the coffee I’d just sipped all over the front of his white T-shirt. I coughed a little as I swallowed and lifted a hand to tap against my chest, trying to catch a breath so I could wheeze out, “Are you ready to go?”

  He chuckled and nodded, handing over the brown paper bag. “Yeah. Let’s do this.” My voice was still raspy from the near miss with the coffee.

  For the first hour or so we rode in companionable silence. I took a few minutes to tease Webb over his erratic, ridiculous playlist pumping out of the SUV’s speakers. He liked everything from old country to classic rock. It was the addition of bubbly, shiny K-pop that threw me off. If he hadn’t bopped his head along to the infectious beats, I would’ve sworn he added the pop songs as a joke. But no, Webb’s musical taste was just as irreverent and playful as the man himself.

  We stopped for an early lunch, then I offered to drive. I thought Webb was going to fall asleep in the passenger seat, but once we got rolling again, he surprised me by turning the music down and asking softly, “Tell me about Gordon. I like to think I’m slowly figuring you out, but that guy,” he shook his head. “I still don’t get it.”

  I sighed, glad I had dark sunglasses on so he couldn’t read my expression. I was sure every ounce of regret and anger I still had over my entire relationship with Gage was stamped all over my face.

  “When I left Wyoming, I did it with a broken heart. I had it bad for Cy, and I told him so. I thought we were going to go off to college together. I honestly believed we were going to be together forever. I had no idea he didn’t even think of me as his girlfriend. I was just one of the many local girls he was killing time with. I had no idea how I could be so blind, but the truth crushed me. Cy went to Boston. I wanted to get as far away from him as I could, so I enlisted in the Army.”

  “What?! I had no idea you are a veteran.” He sounded shocked, and I couldn’t blame him. My military service wasn’t something that came up in casual conversation.

  “Not a lot of people know. I don’t talk about it much. I was only in for four years. I went through basic and ended up in Germany. I ended up being as far away from Wyoming and everything I was trying to outrun. I enlisted so I could join the military police. I knew I wanted to go into law enforcement when I got out. I was accepted into the FBI’s training program almost instantly. It was my dream job, and I couldn’t have been happier with how my life was turning out. I left the ranch, I had a career that mattered, and I was finally over Cy. Gage was in the graduating class ahead of mine at Quantico. He was handsome and sophisticated. He was ambitious, driven, smart as hell, and so different from Cyrus Warner I couldn’t say no when he started to show an interest in me. I was flattered. Gage is from New York. A total big city guy. I thought I’d finally shaken off my small-town roots and evolved into the woman I always wanted to be when he paid attention to me.”

  I still remember how overwhelmed and outclassed I felt when he started buying me expensive gifts. I didn’t have a clue how to act when he wanted to take me to five-star restaurants and the theatre.

  Webb snorted. “He’s still hung up on you. Pretty sure he kept my ass locked up an extra day or so because of those surveillance photos of us together.”

  I sighed again and shook my head. It was possible. Just like he released the picture of the bank robber to all major media outlets without clarifying the FBI wasn’t hunting Webb down like a dog anymore. He knew how to manipulate almost every situation to his own benefit. “He doesn’t like to lose. When I broke things off, he thought I was joking until I moved out of our apartment and quit my job. He couldn’t fathom someone like me leaving someone like him.” />
  I thought I heard Webb growl. “What exactly does ‘someone like you’ mean?”

  I snorted. “A backcountry girl with no class and no manners. Throughout the course of our entire relationship, Gage was trying to turn me into his ideal woman, and I let him. I believed that I needed to be someone different in order to finally be happy.” I shook my head again. “He tried to change the way I dressed, the way I spoke, even the way I thought about things. He started messing with my work. I’ve always been good at puzzles and seeing patterns other people miss. I’m also really good at finding people who don’t want to be found. Gage was encouraging me to take shortcuts, to bulldoze my way through investigations the same way he did. I don’t think he’s ever cared about having the right person behind bars, so much as he cares about having a viable suspect to hang suspicion on. He always closes his cases, and his bosses like the way he works. I hated it. We clashed over a kidnapping case we both got assigned. There had been a rash of them in the area, so it was a big deal, the kind of case bound to lead to promotion if it was solved swiftly. Gage believed the father of the little boy was the culprit. Something was definitely off with the dad, but I didn’t believe he would hurt his own child. Gage ruined his life. Hounded him at work. Stirred up suspicion with the local media. Turned his neighbors and his wife against him. The guy lost everything. I think he confessed just to get Gage out of his life.”

  My hands tightened on the steering wheel remembering the tragic, broken man and the way Gage gloated and celebrated over his confession. My stomach hurt with remembered distaste and despair.

  “The dad was gay. He had a male lover he’d been hiding from his wife for years. That was his big secret. He didn’t have anything to do with his son going missing. It was the goddamn bus driver. He was picking out latchkey kids, ones with working parents, learning their patterns and schedules. It only took me a day to track him down because while Gage had the father in custody, another kid went missing. The bus route was the only thing they had in common. We got the kid back alive, but . . . damaged. The father blamed himself for everything. He committed suicide a week after he was released.” The bitter taste of injustice burned the back of my throat, and I felt my eyes burn. “Gage was promoted to Special Agent in Charge the same week. No one seemed to care that he totally dismantled a man’s life. He was a closer. I broke up with him and quit my job, but when I did that, I realized I had nowhere to go besides home. It was the last place I wanted to be, but, what choice did I have?”

  “And Cy was back as well.” He said it without a hint of censure, but I could hear the thread of jealousy underlying the statement.

  “Yeah. That was the only part of going back that didn’t suck. It was easy to pick up where we left off. I was older and wiser. I knew I wasn’t his one and only this time around. I also knew it was up to me to figure out my life, not just ride someone else’s coattails.” I only had myself to rely on. I was the only one who wouldn’t let me down.

  “Are you still in love with Cy?” Webb asked the question softly, but the weight of it hung suspended in the space between us.

  “I’m not.” For the first time in forever, the words rang true when I said them. “I loved him for a very long time, but watching him with Leo,” I shrugged. “I had to learn to let go. I think loving him became a bad habit; it wasn’t something I did consciously. I did it because it was comforting and reminded me of the woman I was before Gage twisted me into someone I barely recognized.”

  We lapsed into silence, once again my love life lying like a deadweight between the two of us. Thinking back on it, who was I to say anything about Webb hooking up with a woman old enough to be his mother just so he could get himself through high school? It wasn’t like I’d made better choices when it came to my heart and body.

  After several minutes, Webb’s deep voice rumbled through the interior of the car. “I didn’t know you before, but I gotta tell you, Ten. The woman you are now is no one to be ashamed of. You might not be where you want to be, but you can change that if you really want to. What you can’t change, what never changed, is the caring, deeply compassionate woman you’ve always been. You went from the Army, to the FBI, to being a forest ranger. You want to help people. People who often don’t want to be helped. I know, because I was one of them when we first met. Your huge heart makes you so special, and both Cy and Gage were blind if they couldn’t see it. It’s beautiful.”

  Again, I was super grateful for the oversized sunglasses on my face. They hid the tears welling up in my eyes, threatening to overflow. I heard all about how pretty I was. How nice my legs were. How amazing I was in bed. I even heard how badass I was on the regular. Yet, it’d taken me thirty-eight years to have someone tell me my heart was beautiful, as though it was the biggest, best part of me. Where Webb was concerned, I felt like I was made of glass and he was looking right through me.

  “Those words of yours . . . I never know what to do with them.” And it scared me how much I wanted to hold onto them and believe them. I wondered if he could hear in my voice how scared I was of him and everything he made me feel.

  “Believe them. That’s all you have to do.” I guess the sunglasses weren’t as effective as I thought because the next instant I felt the brush of his thumb against my cheek, chasing moisture with a heartbreakingly gentle touch.

  What in the world was I going to do with the man who had no ties to anything in the world, but wrapped me up in gossamer words time and time again? I was such a goner.

  I turned the music back up, humming along to the bouncy K-pop, allowing myself to have fun, because Webb was more fun than anyone I’d ever met. With this man, I was smiling slightly somehow as I blinked away tears.

  Webb

  Ten had a lead foot.

  For someone who had been in law enforcement of one kind or another for the entirety of her adult life, I was surprised by the tiny act of rebellion. She drove like she was qualifying for the Indy 500 and assured me if we ended up getting stopped, she could get us out of a citation for speeding. As a result, she shaved almost an hour off our drive time, and we arrived in the Big Easy a little after lunchtime.

  When it came to finding a place to crash for the duration of our trip, I told Ten it was better to avoid the general noise and debauchery of the French Quarter. Since we’d both already visited and enjoyed all that New Orleans had to offer, I found a smaller, boutique hotel set back in the Garden District and booked adjoining rooms there. It would be the first time I was in the colorful, wild city while I wasn’t specifically looking for trouble. Not that I believed I wasn’t going to find my fair share anyway. New Orleans was close enough to what I remembered as my home, it was an easy place to drift to when I had nowhere else to go.

  The little hotel was actually a converted plantation. There was Spanish moss draped elegantly on the outside and stately columns decorating the entrance way. Ten let out a low whistle and muttered, “Just call me Scarlett.”

  I chuckled and told her she could call me Rhett. There was a flash of surprise in her eyes when I caught the Gone with the Wind reference with ease. I winked at her and let her know the movie was one of Wyatt’s favorites. My badass big brother was a closet romantic. When I was little, and it was just me and him, he used to put on old black-and-white movies instead of cartoons. I was well versed in all the classics: Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Roman Holiday, Sabrina, and From Here to Eternity. Even back then I had my doubts that love was as easy as the movies made it seem. Wyatt was different. He was certain there was a special someone meant for each of us. He told me over and over that it took patience and determination to make love work. He had plenty of both. I had very little of either, until I met the leggy blonde standing next to me.

  Blushing prettily, Ten led the way into the hotel, checking us both in with ease. She asked if I wanted to wait to find Mathias Bernard, but I knew the longer I waited, the harder this little reckoning would be. The man had pretended as if my brother and I didn’t exist for the la
st thirty-two years, so why give him any more time to avoid facing his mistakes? We dropped our stuff in our rooms and headed out to the office building where Bernard’s non-profit was located. It took a little badgering and some pleading to get Wyatt to hand over the info, but eventually he came through. I wouldn’t put it past my older brother to show up out of the blue any minute now. Wyatt was always overprotective, but when he knew I was in over my head, he was something else altogether. I was lucky I hadn’t spent my formative years covered in bubble wrap.

  I let Ten drive us across the city. I was so caught up in my own thoughts, there was a good chance I would have driven us into the murky waters of the Mississippi and not even noticed. She was quiet, letting me sit with my tangled, messy mind until we stopped in front of a sleek, modern building. It stood out garishly amongst all the old, stylishly renovated buildings that lined the rest of the street. It was obvious someone had spent a lot of money on the place, but they missed the mark. It was a building which would have been at home in Manhattan or Chicago. Here in the sleepy, sultry south, it was the ugly stepsister: all flash, no substance or heart.

  Ten and I exchanged a look as we both reached for our doors. “The nonprofit is supposed to help inner-city kids. He started it after Katrina when he moved his family here. A guy worried about underprivileged youth can’t be all that bad, can he?” Ten’s voice was low, and the question was uncertain.

  I grunted and pushed out of the car. “Wyatt and I were underprivileged youths. He didn’t give a shit about us, even though he had the means to make sure we didn’t go hungry. Pretty sure he’s as bad as the regular old rich guy who doesn’t give back to the community. He wants the family name to look good. This is all for show, not out of any real concern for what happens to trash like me.” I sounded bitter and mean. I was feeling both of those things, which meant this conversation wasn’t going to go well. I wasn’t confrontational by nature, but damn if I didn’t feel a huge battle brewing.