Charmed and Dangerous (27 page)

Bobbie Faye glanced at Trevor, and the second she spun back to Alex, storming over to him, Trevor put himself between her and Alex’s gunmen. She stopped just two feet outside of Alex’s reach.

“Give me the tiara, Alex.”

“Not ’til I get my stuff.”

“Goddamnit Alex,” she shouted, “I don’t fucking have time for this!”

She was breathing hard, itching to pull the trigger just for the satisfaction of wiping the smug-ass smile from his face.

“She’s a pretty good shot,” Trevor said from behind her. “Even if your guys get me first, she’ll still nail you.”

“You’re the idiot who gave her the gun. Like I’m gonna listen to you. Who the hell you think taught her to shoot?”

“I swear to God, Alex. Not. Today.”

“Why don’t you just give Alex his stuff back,” Trevor suggested, and she hated that quiet reasonable tone with every
single cell in her entire being and she very nearly shot him just for being so fucking helpful.

“I don’t know where his stuff is.”

“Au revoir,
chère
. You can have this tiara when I get my stuff.”

“Alex,” she said, flush with fury and heat, “I don’t know where your stuff is! My trailer flooded this morning and the water wouldn’t quit and I got Stacey out and then the trailer kept flooding and my electricity got turned off which is when Roy called to say he was kidnapped and then the trailer fell off its piers and I don’t fucking know where your
love poems
are! So give me Mamma’s goddamned tiara
right now
or I’ll make sure every single fucking one of them gets
published
.”

Alex froze, breathing hard, his face red, and she didn’t know if he was blushing or furious, and honestly, she didn’t care.

The guards at the opposite corner started creeping toward the door, looking all the world like they were both embarrassed for their boss and aware this was something they really weren’t supposed to know. Marcel entered the room from what looked like a closet door and started chuckling until Alex raked him with a heated, furious gaze.

“Sorry, boss,” Marcel said, trying hard to stifle the laugh. “I just . . . you know. Luuuuuuuuuve poems.”

“Say another word and you’re dead,” Alex fumed.

“Poems?”
Trevor asked, incredulous. He swept a look from Bobbie Faye to Alex and back again. “You’re kidding me? This is about
love poems
?”

They were so not kidding. Bobbie Faye and Alex each tried to bore holes into the other with laser-intensity stares.

“They’re mine, anyway,” she announced, never moving her gaze from Alex. “You wrote them for me. You can’t have them back.”

Trevor lowered his gun, arching an eyebrow at her, watching her with an intensity she couldn’t quite define. “You’re still in love with this guy,” he said, as if suddenly understanding.

“Hell, no,” she and Alex said in unison, and then glared at each other again.

“No,” she repeated, evenly this time. “I had sense enough to get off that bus to Hell a long time ago.” She glanced at Trevor. “But they’re very nice poems. They could be on Hallmark cards.”

Alex flinched so hard she thought for a second she’d actually shot him.

“Bobbie Faye,” he said, strained. “Do you have any idea how much poetry
pays
? I’m a gunrunner now. I have a reputation to uphold!”

“Uh, boss?” a guard said, and Alex snapped around to him.

“One word,” Alex said, “and you’re both dead.”

“Uh, no, boss. Not that. This,” he said, indicating something outside the window.

Oh, we always check the
bobbiefaye.com
site for a travel advisory so we know which end of the state is safe for day trips.

—frequent tourists Danette, Joy, and Michael (last names withheld at their request)

Cam could see the shack right where Old Landry had told him it would be, set on an odd little vee of land where two bayous joined. It was just like the old man to dump him off, claim his debt to Cam was paid, rev the airboat up, and scram out of the bayou, leaving Cam there with not much more than his gun and the GPS unit he’d grabbed earlier. It wasn’t cowardice. He’d seen the man handle a bar fight against four men half his age, and they all ended up in the hospital and he didn’t have a single scratch. No, Landry just didn’t want to be anywhere near Bobbie Faye.

One of these days, Cam was going to have to find out what the hell happened when Bobbie Faye shot the old bastard.

After triggering the GPS, signaling his SWAT team, he crouched and absorbed the sounds and smells of the swamp, noting the distinct absence of birds cawing and the complete lack of humming chirps and croaks from crickets and frogs, a sure sign someone had recently passed through the area.
He scanned the ground and tree trunks for any clue. It didn’t take but a few minutes to spy a heel print from Bobbie Faye’s boot, noting the imprint’s worn edges which matched those he’d seen back at the lake earlier this morning. He stayed in his crouched position and noticed grass that had been pressed down as someone passed through; it was rising back into place. They couldn’t have been here very long, and were most likely still in that shack.

He rocked back on his heels and thought about the man with Bobbie Faye. A man who was wanted by the FBI, who was supposed to be an ace asshole, a cold-blooded killer. And yet, this man had hung with Bobbie Faye all morning and hadn’t yet hurt or killed her, and Cam could barely count three men who’d managed that feat, especially when Bobbie Faye was in full-throttle mode. Which made the guy far more dangerous than a rabid bear, because he obviously wanted something. Anyone going to that much trouble to put up with Bobbie Faye at her ballistic worst wanted something
bad,
and anyone
that
desperate worried the hell out of Cam.

He explored the area and found the tiny bateau Bobbie Faye and Trevor must have used; with a swift kick to the belly of the boat, he cracked the wooden hull. At least they wouldn’t be able to slip past him and get away. Now all he had to do was get Bobbie Faye out of that shack.

A rabid bear would have been so much better.

Alex peered around the black-out shades and cursed.
“Je su m’en sacré fou!”

Bobbie Faye scowled at him and Trevor looked from Alex to Bobbie Faye, a question in his eyes.

“That’s Cajun. He just said he’s a damned fool,” she explained. “No huge surprise there.”

Alex glared at her, then back out the window. “I should have known better than to chase after little Miss National Disaster.”

Trevor replaced Alex at the window and frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Bobbie Faye asked.

“Cops.”

“Not just cops,” Trevor corrected Alex. “FBI.”

Bobbie Faye joined him there and squinted through the window. Three guys in military camo moved through the woods toward the shack; each man kept to some sort of cover as they advanced. Bobbie Faye cocked her head as she studied the shorter, blond guy, and then remembered: he was the guy in the Taurus, the one dressed in a nice sports coat. The one who started shooting at them right after the bank robbery.

“How do you know they’re FBI?” she asked Trevor.

“Procurement, remember?” he said, shrugging.

“Beautiful! Man, do I ever know how to pick ’em or what?”

“Hey!” Alex said, his expression dark.

Bobbie Faye ignored Alex and smacked Trevor in the chest with her palm. “You bastard. That guy was shooting at
you
back there at the bank robbery!”

“You robbed a bank,
chère?
” Alex asked, pride suddenly emanating from him. He dove for cover behind his chair as Bobbie Faye whipped around, gun aimed at his head.

“For the last. Freaking. Time. I did
not
rob the bank.”

Trevor pushed her hands down, pointing the gun at the floor. “She’s a little touchy about that one. It was her first time.”

Bobbie Faye glowered at Trevor, who looked . . . amused. They had the FBI, which were somehow connected to
him,
outside the cabin they were holed up in with a bunch of idiot gunrunners and two geeky boys, who, by the smell of it, were having serious bladder control issues, and he was
amused
. She would show him
amused
. Maybe a bullet in his leg would be amusing.

“Bobbie Faye?” a voice shouted from outside. “I know you’re in there. Get your skinny ass out here right this minute.”

Everyone in the shack paused a moment as a wave of shock crossed Bobbie Faye’s face.
Oh, geez. No.
She stomped across the small shack to the window opposite where the FBI were crouched and peered through the black-out drapes.

Sure enough, there was Cam. Gun drawn and ready. Half-hidden by a giant cypress tree, positioned where he’d get a good shot at anyone coming out of the only door. Sonofabitch. She knew he hated her but sweet chocolate baby Jesus, she hadn’t counted on him hating her this much, enough to abandon Stacey. The
bastard
.

Trevor leaned in toward her and peered out the window over her shoulder.

Cam shouted again from his spot near the tree. “I mean it Bobbie Faye. Now!”

“Is there any man in this state you haven’t pissed off?” Trevor asked.

“Nope,” Alex, Marcel, and the guards all said simultaneously.

Trevor checked his watch, pushing fancy timer buttons, then he showed her the countdown: twenty-seven minutes. She caught his expression and understood: he’d set it when she’d gotten the deadline from the kidnapper. Trevor crossed back to the window to the FBI agents spreading out and he turned to Alex.

“I think it’s about time you explained just how you got into this cabin.”

When he saw the Fibbies sneaking around on the other side of the shack, he knew he had to take control. Quick. God only knew what Bobbie Faye was planning inside, but it was his job to bring her in, dammit, and he wasn’t letting the FBI get the jump. He expected his SWAT team to show up in the next five minutes; he could hear their helicopter already, the Huey blades chop-chopping the air. One slight plus to a Bobbie Faye day: the chief practically threw SWAT and any resources he wanted at him with a blessing and a prayer.

Zeke moved to a position where Cam could see him and made a cut-throat motion for Cam to cease calling out to Bobbie Faye. Cam, instead, eased out a bit from behind the tree, his weapon held shoulder high, though still covered from smaller trees and shrubs.

Zeke, livid, motioned him to move back to safety.

Cam ignored the asshole agent.

“Bobbie Faye? I know you’re in there. I tracked you. Old Landry helped, so you’re not going to get to pretend like you don’t hear me. Now get your skinny ass out here or I swear to God, I’m—”

He stopped when the door cracked open an inch. Cam looked back at the FBI’s positions and stepped a little to his right to put himself between the FBI and whoever opened that door. The last thing he needed was for the FBI to go trigger-happy.

The door eased open a bit more and Bobbie Faye stood there, her own gun drawn on him.

Holy shit, did she ever look pissed.

“I cannot believe you got that old bastard to help you track me.”

Cam grinned. Which just pissed her off a helluva lot more. His gloating was short-lived when he got a glimpse of what was going on behind her. Over her shoulder, several men he couldn’t see well and didn’t recognize moved behind Cormier. A gang? Didn’t fit his profile, but they were, from what little he glimpsed, armed. What little Cam could see of Cormier, the man’s appearance was every bit ex-military-turned-mercenary: more dangerous than his photo, and well enhanced by the SIG Sauer the man held.

It looked as if Cormier was aiming at Bobbie Faye’s back.

When Cam looked into the man’s eyes, he sensed an incredible threat.
You fuck with my plans,
the man’s eyes seemed to say,
and she’s dead
. Cam looked back at Bobbie Faye and wondered if she knew just how much trouble she was in.

“I said,” she seethed, “where the hell is Stacey?”

Cam snapped back to the present dilemma, not wanting to admit to himself that he’d just spent a few extra seconds appraising the fact that she was alive, relatively unhurt except for a few scratches and bruises she got running through the swamps, or the way her green eyes lit up the world, or the fact that he was relieved and could breathe, or how that
damned half-a-T-shirt was hugging her and those tight jeans had been his favorites and she looked wild and fierce and sexy as hell and what in the
world
was he doing? He needed to get a grip.

“Did you even check?” she asked. He noted the near-hysteria just below her cracking surface. He wanted to put his gun down, he wanted to walk over there, he wanted to hold her, he wanted this all to be over and fixed.

There was no way to fix this.

“Of course I checked,” he answered her, moving closer to the door. “The FBI has her.”

“No! Ce Ce said they’re saying they don’t have her. Dammit, Cam, I have never, ever asked you for a fucking thing in my whole life.”

He fumed. Of course she hadn’t. It was one of things they fought about routinely: she never would lean on him. Or trust him.

“Except not to arrest Lori Ann,” she amended, so dead pissed, he thought she might actually shoot him, “and now to find Stacey. Do you hate me so much, you’d let her get hurt?”

She looked at him then with a mix of fury and disgust that burned through every nerve like molten lava.

“Don’t you dare,” he snapped back, feeling a deep kick to his gut. She had to know he’d never put the kid in harm’s way. “They’re probably just giving Ce Ce the party line; they’re not going to admit anything while all of this is still ongoing, Bobbie Faye. What the hell have you gotten yourself mixed up in?”

“That’s enough,” Cormier said from behind her, grabbing the back of Bobbie Faye’s shirt and pulling her back into the cabin. Cam reached forward to pull her back out, when Bobbie Faye was suddenly gone from view, leaving him and Cormier, gun-to-gun. Cormier closed the door down to a couple of inches.

He had a much better shot than Cam.