Teague could relate to the pain in Seth’s voice. He’d lived it every day for the last three years. A certain amount of guilt nagged in the back of his mind. But either Luke would take Kat away from Seth or Teague would.
“Okay,” Teague said. “That’s doable. Give me the details.”
“I’ll have to call you tomorrow. The atmosphere around here is volatile. Tara’s been under so much pressure. She’s anxious and ... Anyway, I have to play it by ear to gauge everyone’s mood.”
Teague ground his teeth. “Call me by eight to let me know what’s going on. I’m going crazy here.”
“Fine.” Seth sounded distracted. “What are you going to do now? After you see Kat, I mean?”
Teague had more than a little doubt about that moment himself, the moment he’d have to take Kat from Seth and walk away. He only hoped Seth would see the rightness of Teague’s plan.
“I’m still working that out. Just focus on Tara. She’s the one who needs you now.” He closed his eyes and scratched at the new hair growth on his scalp. “I’m sorry it all turned out like this. Sorry it’s been so hard on you two.”
“Not your fault,” Seth mumbled. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
Teague disconnected and stared at the phone a moment. He dropped his head back, closed his eyes and hissed, “Yessssssssssss.”
“What was that about?”
Teague startled back to the present at the sound of Alyssa’s voice. For a moment, he’d forgotten she was even there. But it only took one look at her huddled in that blanket, the firelight playing over her beautiful face and all that dark hair to remember where his mind had been before the phone call.
“That was about something finally going right.”
Alyssa floated out of sleep gradually, like a diver breaking the surface of the water. She didn’t open her eyes, but snuggled into the warmth surrounding her. She knew exactly where she was and whose lap her head rested on. And this time she didn’t wake fearing him.
He’d stayed in the living room with her all night, made sure she was warm, continually monitored her for fever, checked her stitches twice and plied her with ibuprophen and antibiotics. In between, he’d spent long moments with healing fingers stroking her injury, his palm laid over the stitches. Not once had he attempted to take advantage of the situation. Much to her disappointment.
In fact, he’d refused to climb back under the same blanket with her after his phone call and had taken up residence on the other side of the sectional sofa. At some point during the night, he’d fallen into the corner seat and laid his head back. Alyssa had seen the opportunity and scuttled close until her cheek lay against the supple warmth of his thigh.
Now, as she lay curled as close to him as she could get, the most comfortable she’d been in days, Teague’s fingers toyed with her hair. He picked up a strand, ran it through his fingers, then curled the tip round and round before doing it all over again. Continuously.
She didn’t know what it was exactly about the gesture that made her want to purr like a kitten. The touch was sweet and endearing, intimate and loving. It was something no man had ever done before. In fact, none of the other men in her life had ever acknowledged her softer side. No one except her father. Maybe that’s why Teague could see it, because he was the father of a daughter himself. One risking the very freedom he swore he’d never jeopardize to get back to his baby. A fact that twisted her image of the man a hundred and eighty degrees.
Alyssa repositioned her head on Teague’s thigh, rubbing her cheek against the muscle, tipping her nose to his skin and breathing him in. Warm. Masculine. She opened her eyes, and took a moment to let them drift over the small room. Since there was no source of natural light, it looked exactly as it had the night before. “What time is it?”
Teague lifted the cell he held in his hand and looked at the display. “Seven-fifty-seven.”
The tightness of his voice exposed the impatience he was stifling as he waited for his call.
Alyssa looked up at him. His eyes were as sharp as an eagle’s, clear and bright, the color she imagined the sky would be today. His jaw ticked beneath the stubble of overnight beard. The hair on his head was already half an inch long, and it was coming in lighter than she’d expected, more golden than brown.
“Did you sleep at all?” she asked.
“Some.”
“You’re in another talkative mood.”
His eyes flicked down to meet hers, then rolled away. “Don’t tell me you’re a morning person.”
The gesture made her wonder more about his daughter. “Does Kat look like you or her mother?”
He hesitated. “Her mother. Dark hair, brown eyes, fair skin.”
Wow, he’d actually answered her. She felt a sense of accomplishment. Wanted to push forward with questions about Kat’s mother, but knew she’d instantly stop the flow of information.
“Straight or wavy?” she asked.
“What?”
“Her hair. Straight or wavy?”
“Wavy. Curly, actually.” His voice softened. “Hard to get a brush through it some days.”
“Hmm. Turned-up nose? Freckles?”
“No. She’s got delicate little features and perfect skin with these cheeks that are constantly pink.” He sighed. “She’s beautiful.”
The love in his voice tugged at her. “I bet she is. Is she shy or friendly?”
“A social butterfly. She makes friends with everyone she meets. Totally open. No fear. Starts up conversations in the supermarket line.”
“How old?”
“Almost six.”
Which meant she’d been only two when he’d gone to prison. Probably just a baby when the crime occurred. “She’s in kindergarten then?”
“Next fall. Her birthday missed the cut-off.” His voice turned distracted. He lifted the phone and looked at the display, mumbling, “Come on, Seth.”
Alyssa waited, letting the comfort of their conversation sink in. She snuggled against his leg again, but her mind couldn’t stop wondering how he had possibly been accused of killing his girlfriend.
“Who is Seth to you?” she asked.
“A friend.” The clipped tone was back, warning her off the subject.
“And Luke?”
He hesitated. “My former brother-in-law.”
So he
had
been married. “Your wife’s brother. Kat’s uncle, then.”
“Yeah.”
There was bitterness in the word. A world of conflict and hurt between them. It killed Alyssa not to be able to uncover the cause.
“Why is Kat with Luke and Seth and not her mother?” She half expected her question to kill the conversation altogether.
“Because she’s dead.” Teague slid his leg out from beneath her head and shifted to the edge of the sofa. “And before you ask, no, I didn’t kill her. She committed suicide when Kat was a baby.”
Alyssa sat up, but before she could find any words in her shocked brain, Teague’s cell rang. He stiffened, the muscles across his shoulders and back tensing.
He jabbed at the phone and put it to his ear. “Seth?”
The other man’s voice filtered to Alyssa from the earpiece, garbled and inaudible.
“What do you mean, you don’t know where she is?” Teague pressed his free hand to his forehead. “Where in town? How long will she be?”
Seth said something Alyssa couldn’t make out, then she caught: “... will have to call you ...”
“You’re not fucking with me, are you, Seth?”
Alyssa laid her hand on his back. He jumped and twisted toward her, frowning.
“Don’t piss him off,” Alyssa whispered. “He won’t work with you.”
He closed his eyes, tipped his head back and clenched his teeth. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just ... I miss her so much. I need to see her.”
“... couple hours ...” Seth said. “... promise to call ...”
Teague hit the disconnect button with excessive force and swore under his breath. He stood and pulled on his jeans without looking at her.
“Go take a shower,” he muttered. “I’ll make breakfast.”
“With what? There can’t be any fresh food here.”
“I’ll manage.”
She pushed up on her elbow, hugging the blanket to her chest. His physical absence left her chilled despite the fire or the blanket or the fact that the old baseboard heaters combined with the space heaters were finally warming up the cabin. The “hot” part of a shower didn’t sound bad, except she knew the “shower” part would hurt like hell.
“Will the water be hot yet?” she asked.
“Enough for a quick shower, at least.” He wandered into the small kitchen and pulled the refrigerator open, peering inside. “Don’t expect to spend all day in there.”
She pushed to her feet and wrapped the blanket tightly around her body. Teague stood in the kitchen wearing only jeans hanging low on his hips. He reached for an upper cabinet and rummaged through the contents. Alyssa watched the play of muscle beneath his skin, appreciating the taper of his shoulders to his waist, the length of his legs.
“What did he say?” She knew the answer but wanted to see what Teague told her.
“Tara took Kat into town to run errands. He doesn’t know when they’ll be back, so he can’t pick a time or place for us to meet.”
He sounded disgruntled and impatient. But he wasn’t the only one. She looked at the sweatpants laid out on the table in front of the fire where Teague had put them the night before.
“Are my clothes dry?” she asked.
“Not yet. You can look in the closets to see if there’s anything you can wear, but I doubt it. None of the men who came here were small.”
Well, that explained the clearly male décor. “Why didn’t anyone bring his wife or girlfriend here?”
Teague pulled a can from the cupboard, set it on the counter and started searching the next. “It’s a hunting and fishing cabin.”
“No girls allowed.”
“Something like that.”
“Is it yours?” she asked.
“No.”
“Your family’s?”
“No.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “Go take your shower.”
Frustration consolidated into anger. “I know you have a lot at stake here, but so do I. I’ve already put up with a hell of a lot. I really don’t need your attitude. So stuff it.”
Alyssa turned and headed for the hallway, muttering, “Jerk.”
In the bathroom, she slammed the door. In a completely idiotic move, she pushed in the flimsy lock on the handle, which gave her an irrational sense of satisfaction.
Teague obviously didn’t need her. He, evidently, didn’t want her either. And in a matter of hours, if he’d been honest with her yesterday, she’d be returned to her old life and he’d be nothing but a memory.
So, okay. She didn’t need to be banged over the head to take the hint. What she needed to do was stop thinking about him, why he’d done what he’d done or what he was going to do about his daughter and start focusing on her own problems. On the things she could fix. Namely, what the hell she was going to do regarding the mess he’d made of her career.
Alyssa flipped the shower on and shed her blanket. This wouldn’t feel good, but what about the last few days had felt good? For that matter, what about the last few months had felt good?
Her life was screwed.
But that was about to change.
She wouldn’t lose all she’d worked for without one hell of a fight.
T
HIRTEEN
T
eague opened the freezer door and surveyed the contents. His stomach jittered like it had the day Kat was born. He felt all the same crazy emotions at the prospect of seeing her again now, and dreaded the drastic measures he’d have to take to actually get Seth to let her go. The thought of his lifelong friend explaining the loss of Kat to his wife made Teague sick to his stomach.
He tossed bacon in the microwave, telling himself he had to do what he had to do. Kat was his daughter. His
life
. He’d been there for her first diaper rash, her first smile, her first ear infection, her first tooth, her first steps, her first words, her first tantrum. All while trying to keep his career intact and managing Suzanna’s medications and ultimate hospitalizations.
Teague’s mind drifted back to the night before, to the man who’d been at the motel, the same one who’d caught his eye at the pet store, rekindling ugly memories. Lingering questions resurfaced. Suzanna had been struggling with depression for a long time, but she’d gotten progressively worse after that warehouse fire. If he hadn’t been called out that night, would his wife still be alive? He’d never know.
He moved through breakfast preparations in a fog. His mind bounced from Luke to Seth to Tara to Kat and lingered on Alyssa. She was such an intricate, fascinating, frustrating, maddeningly beautiful woman. Yes, he’d been imprisoned for three years. Yes, he’d probably react to any woman. But what had developed between them over the last two days was far more complex than simple physical chemistry.
“Okay, look.” Alyssa’s voice brought his attention around. She stood near the counter, waving a hairbrush in one hand. “I’m not going to keep doing this in the dark. I want answers and I won’t let up until I get them.”
She was wearing jeans that rode low on her hips with her pink-painted toes peeking out beneath the hems. A long-sleeved, deep green, v-neck sweater clung to the breasts that had been pressed against his chest last night and a tight abdomen he’d seen and felt firsthand. Hot damn, she looked good in clothes that fit her cute little body.
“Where’d you get those?” He shifted on his feet to relieve the sudden tension in his groin and turned back to the griddle.
“Bedroom closet. I hate to tell you this, but one of the boys has been sneaking girls into the fort.”
“Seems times have changed.” Teague waved the spatula at the table. “Sit down, food’s ready.”
“Did you hear me?”
“How could I not hear all ninety-eight pounds of you threatening all two-hundred pounds of me?”
“A hundred-and-twenty pounds, thank you.”
“Not even after you ate every scrap of food on that table.”
He set the pancakes down in the only vacant spot on the table. Alyssa stared at the feast in amazed confusion.
“How could you possibly ... ? Where did you get all this ... ?” Her stomach rumbled so loud the sound drowned out the still-sizzling griddle. She put a hand over her belly, her cheeks blushing to a beautiful hue. “Oh, my God. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I saw this food.”
Teague didn’t wait for her. He sat and forked steaming pancakes onto his plate. Alyssa set her brush on the counter and pulled out a chair. She heaped two ladlefuls of scrambled eggs onto her plate, plucked up four strips of thick-sliced bacon, then started in on the pancakes.
“Eggs,” she mumbled around her food. “Where did you get eggs?”
“They’re powdered. That fish food must have worked because you’ve got to be damn good and hungry if you’re eating those without noticing. Your eyes are about twelve times the size of your stomach.”
She pointed at the dark circles embedded in the hotcakes. “What are these?”
“Blueberries.”
She smirked at him. “These can’t be from a powder.”
“No, those are from the freezer. You don’t get out much, do you, doctor?”
“Ha-ha.” Alyssa clopped off a chunk of butter and slathered it over the cakes, gushed on syrup and butchered them as she tried to cut them into bite-sized pieces. Then she heavily salted her eggs. Once the preparations were done, she started eating. Or rather devouring.
With a strip of bacon in one hand, her fork in the other, she started a two-handed method of eating Teague had never seen outside a firehouse. A lopsided grin pulled at his lips as he watched.
She flicked an absent glance his way. “What?”
He chuckled, reached across the table and wiped a smudge of syrup from the corner of her mouth with his knuckle. “You look like a chipmunk hoarding for winter.”
She scowled. “Mind your own food and leave me alone.”
Once she’d demolished the quadruple stack of cakes, she reached for more. And more butter. And more syrup.
“For a doctor, you aren’t very heart healthy.”
She looked up at him through her lashes with a don’t-start expression. “At the moment, the longevity of my life based on my diet isn’t among my top concerns.”
Her quip brought their reality into focus and punched a hole in Teague’s distraction. He set down his fork and started clearing the table.
“Hey.” Alyssa grabbed the edge of the bowl holding the scrambled eggs. “I’m not done with those.”
He set it back down, shaking his head. “You eat as much as two of my biggest firefighters. You’re going to make yourself sick.”
She swallowed a mouthful of food. “What I’m sick of is being kept in the dark. I want to know what you’re planning.”
Teague ignored her demand as he washed the frying pan.
“You’re going to meet Seth and see Kat,” she said. “That much I’ve figured out. I don’t see how you think this will work. You know it’s only a matter of time before you’re caught. When that happens, you’ll be putting your daughter in danger—”
“I don’t need you pointing out the pitfalls of my situation.”
“
Our
situation. You decided to implicate me in a crime.
You
have no choice but to learn to be a team player.”
“Team player?” He swung around to face her. “You’re not clear on what’s going on here. We’re in completely different situations. I’m
going after
something. You’re
fighting against
something. A team has a common goal. We aren’t a team, Alyssa.
“You have to know that no matter what happens now, your so-called salvage process isn’t going to be as simple as holding a press conference and declaring your innocence. This is going to be complicated. There will be repercussions, no matter what. Your brother will tell you that. We’re talking about the State of California here. We’re talking about the prison system. A secret society of guards who’ve made a pact that what happens in prison stays in prison. This is not a he-said, she-said deal. They have teams of attorneys that will blow your brother away. They have union attorneys that will jump onboard. You’re fighting a system of people who watch each other’s backs, a system you won’t—can’t—break into unless you know someone on the inside.”
He turned back to the sink, reliving the gnawing frustration he’d experienced in the search for answers to that life-altering fire—the one he was sure, more sure with every passing day, had put him in this situation. No one could stonewall like the government. And, not for the first time, Teague wondered if Desiree would still be alive if he hadn’t gone to her for help in getting his answers.
He chucked the soapy sponge in the sink. Bubbles puffed into the air, splattered over the counter, and his shirt. With his hands gripping the sink’s edge, he turned his head and met that direct, intelligent, determined gaze of hers. “I’m trying to enlighten you on how the criminal
justice
system works. How the
government
works. Believe what you want, Lys. Just get your shoes on. We’re going out.”
He reached over the counter, pulled a khaki-colored baseball cap off a hook and frisbeed it to her across the kitchen. “And throw this on, too. Cover up that camera-ready face.”
Lys.
His use of her nickname softened another of Alyssa’s many barriers, despite his occasional bark. Growing up with four brothers and a snippy mother had taught her to attach little significance to minor verbal blowouts.
She cast a glance at Teague’s face to gauge his mood now. His brow was tight, mouth thin, fingers flexing over the steering wheel. Tense, as always. That wouldn’t change anytime soon.
They’d been driving twenty minutes, and as they descended in elevation on their way into town, patches of ground showed through the thinning snow layer.
She focused on the strip mall coming up on their right. “What are we doing here?”
“Cruising.” His jaw twitched beneath tanned skin. The creases at the corners of his eyes peeked out from beneath the sunglasses he’d pilfered from the cabin. He could have easily been a model with those rugged good looks. Alyssa could see him as a firefighter, decked out in yellow turnouts, hauling hose, issuing orders, driving into the face of the flames. For as little as she knew of him, somehow she believed that profession suited him to perfection.
“You don’t strike me as a random cruising kind of guy,” Alyssa said. “Why are we here?”
“What kind of guy do I strike you as after our whole fifty-six hours together?”
“Like a guy who has secrets.”
“That’s not news, now is it?”
He turned into the parking lot, his attention scanning each row as he drove. An Albertson’s supermarket crowned the center of the outlet. Other stores included an optometrist’s office, a donut store, a barber shop, a one-stop photo place and a pharmacy. On the streetside, a Taco Bell, a Wendy’s and an AM-PM mini-mart rounded out the center.
A fast food banner set off a craving for comfort food. “Can we go to Wendy’s?”
He looked at her, one brow quizzically dipped below the edge of his sunglasses. “You just ate.”
“I want a frostie.”
“Ice cream at this hour of the morning?”
“I haven’t eaten in two days. I’m making up for lost time.”
“You’re insatiable.” He sighed, and shook his head. “In a minute.”
Alyssa watched people bundled for the weather walk to and from their vehicles. “What kind of car are you looking for?”
“How do you know I’m looking for a car?”
“I’m smart, remember? Four eyes are better than two. What kind?”
He hesitated. “A white 2004 Volvo S70.”
As they passed through another row, Alyssa asked, “What are you going to do if you find them?”
He shrugged.
Unease pinched her stomach. “I don’t want to be part of a kidnapping here, Teague. I’ve got enough trouble to straighten out as it is.”
He didn’t respond. His jaw twitched.
She twisted toward him. “You need to start thinking clearly and stop running on your emotions. You need to start thinking about Kat and stop thinking about yourself.”
He flicked a look at her, then away.
“What do you think it will do to Kat if you steal her away from the parents she’s known for three years? How do you think she’ll react to seeing you out of jail, to you taking her from the security of her life?”
“She’s
my
daughter. She belongs with me.”
“And what are you going to do once you have her? Does she deserve a life of running? Is that the way you want to raise her?”
“We won’t always be running. We’re going to settle ... somewhere. She’ll be with me. I’ll be with her. That’s all that matters.”
“To you, maybe. But I imagine a lot of other things matter to her. Like her favorite stuffed bear and her favorite blanket and her favorite pair of sparkly slippers. Like her morning routine and her friends at school and her teacher—”
“
Stop
.” He shot her an angry look, but Alyssa saw such desperation in his eyes it made her ache. “She’s all I have. She’s all I want. There is no reason to live if I can’t be with her.”
The thought of a little girl living without a father who loved her as dearly as Teague obviously loved Kat was like a knife in Alyssa’s chest. She didn’t know who or where she’d be without her own father. And honestly, she didn’t know where her father would be without her, either.
“I’m not disagreeing,” she said. “But we’re talking about a five-year-old here. You can’t just rip her from her life and whisk her off with no plans.”
“I have plans.”
“And
somewhere
would be the crux of your plans?”
A sound scraped from his throat. “I just want to see her, for God’s sake. I want to set my eyes on her, know where she is—exactly. I need to know her
physical
location. I can’t explain it.”
He didn’t need to. Alyssa understood that, because she wanted to see the little girl, too. She wanted to see the child that had driven such a strong man to these extremes. Kat seemed ethereal in Alyssa’s mind, like a magical nymph that had cast a spell over him.