Authors: EC Sheedy
He knew she meant after finding Phyllis Worth, but the last name he wanted mentioned in context with what was going on with him and April was that one, so he let her statement hang. “Can I take you in there now”—he gestured toward the open bathroom door showcasing a king- size bed—“and start paying off what I owe you?” It was the best he could come up with to give her a choice. “With interest,” he added.
“That’s the thing.” Her brow furrowed as though in confusion. “I shouldn’t, but that’s
exactly
where I want to be—in that bed. You all over me and me all over you.”
“All those shoulds and shouldn’ts must be tiring.” He ran a finger down her cheek, and sensing a win, didn’t hide his grin. “But it’s your call.”
She pulled the towel tight around her, eyed him, then as if she couldn’t help herself, she grinned back. “How much interest?”
“As much as you can take.”
She dropped the towel.
Chapter 25
April woke up in Joe’s arms, her head and one hand on his broad chest, her hair snagged under his arm. She didn’t move, didn’t want to move. This was the finest cocoon she’d ever spun for herself, and she was in no hurry to leave.
God knows it wouldn’t last. She had the nagging sense she and Joe were heading for a major crash and burn. And Phylly would be at the root of it. At the thought of Phylly, her mood darkened, but she didn’t let the worry take hold. She was okay, safe for now, and would be until she and Joe got to her. And like Joe said, worrying, when you couldn’t affect things, was a waste of time. She did wonder though, what Phylly would think of her stolen daughter sleeping with her abandoned son—or that daughter teetering on the brink of falling for him.
She peeked over Joe’s shoulder to the bedside clock—almost six. She should probably get up, repack, and start some coffee. The trouble was she wasn’t in the mood for
shoulds
; she was in the mood for Joe Worth and had been—not from their first meeting when he’d been what Cornie accurately called a jerk—but from the moment he strode into that cheap motel room, trying to pretend he didn’t give a damn about family, even while his stubborn gaze filled up with equal measures of panic and awe on sight of his true sister. He’d acted like a father handed a five-pound newborn, enthralled and terrified at the same time.
Yes, that’s when he had her . . .
And he’d been having her ever since. She had the dull ache between her legs to prove it.
God, what a night . . .
He stirred under her hand and his heart under her ear beat easily. Too easily, considering her heart was ticking like a broken clock. Smiling, she ran her free hand down and over his hard, rippled abs, lower, lower still.
“You know what they say about not going into the kitchen if you can’t take the heat,” he said, his voice morning husky.
“I like heat.” She looked up at him. His beard was rough and dark, and his eyes, peering at her from under narrowed lids, were nickel bright. “Anyway, I was just going to pull up the covers,” she lied, keeping her hand where it was and making circles with it.
“And I believe you, even when those busy fingers of yours are now well below the cover zone.”
“Hmmm. Guess they slipped.” Still smiling, she slid her hand to its final destination, encircled him, and watched his eyes. They closed.
“Jesus, what a way to start a morning.” He lifted himself to her caress.
“We’ve got a few minutes before we have to start getting ready,” she said. “Any ideas what to do with it?” She pumped him gently, loving the way he grew into her hand, his lazy thrusts when he got her rhythm.
“Ideas are a dime a dozen, baby”—he quickly took control, flipped her onto her back—“what you’ve got here is a man of action.”
“April? Are you in there? April, come on. We’ve got to go.”
Cornie.
“April, I know you’re in there. I know Joe’s in there. So get over it. Kit’s made coffee for you guys.”
Joe and April looked at each other, both shock-eyed, both still as rocks. Joe blinked first then sucked in some air. Very noisily. “She hates me, you know that. Why else would she have my sex life wired into her GPS system?”
April tossed the covers back and sat on the edge of the bed. Even though she was as disappointed as he was, and felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on the bed they were in, she had to smile at his irritation. Hell hath no fury like a man denied morning sex—twice. “She hasn’t got anybody wired. She’s just anxious about her mom, and she’s right, we should get going.”
April put her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, she still thinks she’s coming. She’s going to be so disappointed.” Which meant seriously ticked off as only Cornie could be—a condition that brought sass, sulks, and stubbornness to new and glorious heights.
Joe pulled himself up, didn’t bother covering what she’d had her hand around mere moments before. Her breathing hitched. “Disappointed?” he shook his head, ran his eyes over her. “That kid doesn’t know what disappointment is.” He paused. “But I’ll take care of it, don’t worry. It’ll be my chance to get even. I’m pretty sure Julius has a dungeon equipped with various weights of chains.”
She gave him a long look. “Know what?”
“What?”
“You sound just like a brother.”
He looked disgruntled. “Maybe because—like it or not— I am one.”
“You like it well enough.” April thought of Gus. They’d had their fights, she and Gus, mostly because she’d get, as he called it, all pissy and grabby. But he’d always looked out for her, and while he might call her names, God help anyone else who did. If he’d been there the night the black-eyed man came, things might have different. She’d screamed for him—oh how she’d screamed—but he hadn’t come. And for a long time she’d blamed him for that—until she’d grown up, got some perspective, and realized there was nothing a twelve-year-old boy could have done, no matter how he might have tried.
Joe slid back down the bed, snapped his fingers in front of her. “Deprived male here. Hello.”
She smiled at him, brought her attention back to Julius’s beautiful room, the bed with the deprived male in it. “I was thinking how lucky Cornie is to have found you.”
“Hmmm.” He rolled out of the bed, magnificently naked, his hair rumpled, his unshaven jaw a dark sexy shadow, and looked at her with his mother’s silver blue eyes. “She won’t feel so lucky a half hour from now, when I tell her she’s staying here.”
“No, she won’t”—she went to him and wrapped her arms around his narrow waist—“but I’m sure you’ll handle her with your usual diplomacy and tact.”
He enclosed her in a powerful embrace, kissed her forehead. “Uh-huh, right after I have her in those chains.”
Everybody was in the kitchen when she and Joe got there. Kit and Cornie were sitting at the far end of a long table eating cereal. April’s stomach dropped when she saw the bag packed and sitting at Cornie’s side.
When Cornie’s eyes met April’s, the girl raised her eyebrows and glanced at Joe. Her gaze shone with the light of teenage triumph, making April the tiniest bit squeamish. When it came to men, April had always been discreet, particularly around Cornie, and considering her relationships were few and far apart, it had been easy enough—until Joe. With Joe nothing was easy, nothing was the same as before, and Cornie, like it or not, was right in the middle of it.
She’d have to talk to her—but not now, not today. Not only did she not know what to say, she didn’t have the emotional reserves to even begin thinking logically about what was going on between her and Joe.
She’d tried to do that last night, going to her room alone, taking some time to herself, a solo swim. Then she’d sensed him on his balcony, felt his eyes on her—and she’d wanted him so badly she’d shaken with it. All her thinking had only made things worse—or better if she considered what she and Joe had done after the swim. Her body warmed at the memory. She glanced at Joe—talking to Kit now—his clean shaven jaw, his firm mouth, serious this morning and set with purpose. The kitchen light turned streaks of his shower-damp chestnut hair to dark gold, and when he caught her gaze, his eyes glittered with intimacy.
Her knees weakened simply looking at him. She shifted her gaze, told herself her ill-timed attraction to him didn’t matter right now. Priority one was finding Phylly, making sure she stayed safe.
It wasn’t like April to procrastinate, to delay or dither over decisions, but she’d never fallen in lo—serious like with her mother’s son before.
God, all of it together made her head pound.
And coffee. I crave coffee.
As if on cue, Julius handed her a cup, black and steaming, exactly how she liked it. He did the same for Joe.
“I’ve called a limo. It’ll be here in ten minutes,” he said.
“Perfect,” Joe said, taking a solid swig of coffee. “And that other thing?”
April gave Joe a questioning look; he ignored her.
“Done,” Julius said. “There’ll be a parcel for you to pick up, along with your rental car, when you arrive in Tofino.”
Joe just nodded.
Kit glanced nervously at Cornie, then said to Joe, “Your Sea-Tac flights are booked, too. The info’s by the phone.”
He jerked his head toward a phone on a desk area at the end of the granite counter.
The kitchen was as massive as the rest of the house—and a chef’s dream: Hanging pots, bronzed-steel appliances, triple ovens, and enough gas elements to cook for a regiment. April had never dreamed this big, this grand, for the home she hoped to have one day, but she could still appreciate it.
Joe looked at Cornie. “Will you get that, Cornie?”
Cornie took a last spoonful of cereal and went to the desk. She picked up the paper with the flight information, and automatically scanned it—her eyes shot to April, then Joe. “This is for two,” she accused.
April braced herself for the explosion.
Joe set his coffee down, walked over to her, and gripped her arm. “Let’s take a walk.”
“I don’t want to take a walk.” She shook the papers and pulled out of Joe’s grasp. “I want to know about these.”
“And I want to tell you. Outside,” Joe said.
Their gazes locked, new brother-to-be and stubborn-scared teenager. “Talk all you want. It won’t do any good,” Cornie said. “Because I’m coming. She’s my mother. Not yours.”
“You’re right about that last part. Which is why I think you deserve an explanation.” He nodded to the door. “Which is what I’ll give you. Outside.”
Cornie looked at April, her expression angry and confused.
“Go with him, Cornie,” April said. “And remember, everything we’re doing, we’re doing for Phylly.”
She stood there indecisively, then turned her back on them and went out the door. Joe followed.
A half hour later, a limo pulled up outside Julius Zern’s entrance. Ten minutes after that April and Joe were in it. It was a woman driver, and she smiled at them as Joe closed the privacy panel between the front and back seats.
As the limo pulled away, Joe gave a cursory wave. April swiveled to look at the group on the doorstep: Julius, Kit, and Cornie, standing soldier-straight, her arms crossed over her chest. When April waved, she waved back, and nodded her head.
April turned to Joe. “What on earth did you say? She’s positively . . . docile.”
Joe cocked a brow. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“No, really. Tell me.”
“I told her the truth.”
“Your version of which is?” she prodded.
“That we didn’t know what to expect when we got there, and that I was going to have my hands full protecting her mother—and you. I told her having to look out for her increased the risks for everyone—that it might even endanger her mother.”
“And she bought that?”
“Got it in one.”
April’s cell phone rang, and she looked at the call display, barely hiding a sigh of relief. “It’s Rusty’s number at Hot and High,” she said to Joe before hitting the talk button. “It must be Tommy.” It was Leanne. God, the poor woman must be a wreck, losing her cousin, police all over the place, and trying to keep the business running. It was a wonder she could think straight. Something that April also lost the ability to do after the first sentence out of Leanne’s mouth.
It was as if someone suctioned out every energy unit in April’s body. Slumping into her seat, she put her hand on her forehead, let her head fall back. “When?” She straightened up, listened so hard her ears hurt, unable to do anything other than mumble the occasional incoherent reply to indicate she was there. Finally she hung up.
Her eyes felt sharp and dry when she looked at Joe, and she couldn’t make herself speak. She was numb. Totally numb. Joe’s eyes, full of questions, were glued to her.
“Tommy’s dead. They found his body in the desert a few miles out of town.”
His face went cold, not shocked, just flat and still, like a computer taking in information before processing.
“Castor’s dead, too,” April added, splaying her hand over a heart that wouldn’t settle.
“Castor?”
“Some kids were dirt biking—late yesterday afternoon—they found the bodies. The police left Leanne maybe an hour ago. They didn’t tell her much, so she called in a favor—a friend in the LVPD. From what she said, it looked like Castor shot Tommy—he was still carrying the gun—then some ‘unknown person or persons’ killed Castor and shot Tommy again. They said the guns were different calibers.”
“Just what we need—more players in the game.”
“They said Tommy was”—she swallowed, but her mouth was so dry the effort was worthless—“shot several times, knee, shoulder . . . stomach and head. Like he was tortured. My God, who would do such a thing? Rusty, Tommy . . . I can’t believe it. And I don’t want to think about what this will do to Phylly.” She tried not to, but she started to cry. Joe put his hand on her shoulder, squeezed.
“Don’t,” he said softly. “Please.” Then he pulled her to his chest, kissed her hair then stroked it. The limo had tissue in a receptacle behind the driver’s seat; he pulled a couple out and handed them to her.
April rested a moment, daubed at her eyes, and took a deep breath. Tears and fear made a chilling combination and a paralyzing one. They did nothing to help the situation, and she knew she couldn’t afford the indulgence. She blotted some more, lifted her head from Joe’s shoulder, and said, “Sorry.”