Fierce Defender: Book 2, Hard to Handle trilogy (19 page)

******

Sutherland Springs, Texas

Danielle finished unpacking her last box. Finally! The place was beginning to feel like a real home. As she stepped back to admire what she had done, she heard the roar of a motorcycle, and a few minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

Her stomached clenched. She assumed it was Grayson, but she was afraid it might be one of Ayden’s boys.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s me, Grayson.”

Danielle relaxed, but there was still traces of a nervous flutter in her stomach. She prayed he had some good news for her. Something that would get her out of this mess. Opening the door, she found him standing there with a box full of Chinese food and a six pack of beer.

“You my new delivery guy?” she said.

“Yep. I added a twenty-five percent gratuity into the bill.” He grinned. “Can I come in?”

She realized she was still blocking the doorway. “Yes, please. I’m sorry.”

Gray entered and looked around. “Wow, you’ve been busy today. It looks great in here.”

She smiled at the compliment. “Thanks. I guess a person can find the positive in everything, even being arrested for stealing drugs and being suspended from their job.”

“I always thought you were an optimist,” he said as he sat the box down on the table.

Danielle looked at all the food. “Did you think I would be hungry?”

“Damn,” he said. “You haven’t eaten? I would have brought enough for two if I’d known.”

She laughed and pulled out some plates, silverware, and two glasses for their beer.

Gray looked at the glasses and said, “Um, I’m not really as heathenistic as I look, but Texas men don’t drink their beer out of a glass.”

Danielle sat down next to him. “Really? Who told you that?”

“My big brother, that’s who,” Gray said.

“So, your big brother knows all, does he?” Danielle asked playfully as she fixed her plate. She didn’t realize until she looked up at Gray’s face that he was suddenly sad.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” he said. “I just haven’t talked about my brother in a really long time. There hasn’t really been anyone to talk about him to, not anymore, now that my parents are also gone. His name was Conner.”

The grief in his eyes was unmistakable. Danielle felt terrible. “I’m sorry. Is he… I mean, did he…?”

“Yeah, he died,” Gray said. “When I was in Afghanistan. I barely made it home for the funeral. Both of my parents went within a year after his death. I think it killed them, losing a son that way.”

“I’m sorry, Gray. I don’t know how it feels to lose a brother permanently, but I’m definitely empathetic to brother issues in general. If you don’t want to talk about it, though, I understand.”

He smiled at her. “Conner was an amazing guy. He was smart and athletic, and of course, we looked a lot alike, so he was handsome too.”

Danielle laughed. “Was he as modest as you?”

“Not even close,” Gray said with a smile. “He was a football star in high school, and my hero. He went to college on a full ride scholarship in New York. I was so freaking proud of him. When I joined the Navy, it was in part to try and make him as proud of me as I was of him. I hope he was.”

“What happened to him?” she asked.

“He hurt his knee his junior year. They wanted him back; he was the star quarterback. So they put him on a lot of meds, opiates. My mom wrote to me and said they had sent him home six months after that. He was addicted to the pills and refused to get help. My parents thought if he was home, they could help, but he wasn’t ready to get help. I like to think that he would have been… eventually.” He stopped.

Danielle could tell how hard it was for him. “You don’t have to do this, Gray,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he uttered, taking a moment to collect himself. “He started using street drugs when the doctor wouldn’t prescribe him the meds anymore. I came home on leave that Christmas, and he was all strung out. I didn’t even recognize him as my brother. My mom and dad looked like they had aged twenty years; it was tearing the whole family apart. I dragged his ass to rehab, and I told him to get it together. I was so tough, like I knew what it was like. He left rehab two days later and bought a bag of heroin out of a biker bar downtown. They found his body in an alley the next day. The coroner said it was bad stuff, too potent.”

“Wow, I’m so sorry.” Her heart was breaking for him. She couldn’t imagine losing Justin. “Is that why you became a DEA agent?”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he said, then shook his head. “Enough of this depressing stuff. Tell me about your family.”

Danielle took a sip of her beer, straight from the bottle. “I hope you have awhile.”

******

Stockdale, Texas

Late Wednesday Night

By the time Gomez got to the hotel, with Eva and Zack in tow, the Stockdale P.D. was already there in full-force. After today, they’d probably never take another one of his calls again. All day, he’d sent them from one potential crime scene to the next. Gomez wasn’t sure what was happening today, but he had a feeling they were on to something big.

At some point, every scumbag messes up
, he thought.

He didn’t realize how true those words were.

The officer in charge informed him that they had knocked on the door of the man in question, but he had refused to open it. Two officers had gone around back, and they caught the guy climbing out the window in his plaid robe. Since he had ran, that gave them implied consent to search the room. They had found two bricks of cocaine, several cell phones, two suitcases full of cash, and about six handguns with the serial numbers filed off.

“He said his name was Mr. Brown and he was from Brownsville, Texas,” the officer said. “We did find an ID for a Horace Brown, but I suspect it’s a fake.”

Agent Gomez turned to Eva and Zack and asked them to wait in the car while he went up to talk to the man in question. He found the guy sitting in his robe and slippers on the edge of the bed, his hands cuffed behind his back. Gomez couldn’t place it, but he was sure he’d seen the guy before, particularly the scowl of contempt the man bore.

“Mr. Brown, you were in a bakery in Stockdale this afternoon with a tall Mexican-American man.”

“I was?” the man said, trying sound naive.

“I’m almost positive you were. All we came for was the man’s name. Now look at all the trouble you’ve gotten into,” Gomez prodded, indicating the cocaine, cash, and guns they’d found.

“I think perhaps I should seek counsel.”

“As you wish,” Gomez said. “Take him away.”

As the man was being led down the stairs in his robe and slippers, Eva stood near the back of Gomez’s car with Zack. She studied the culprit carefully before revealing, “That’s him.”

Gomez walked up to her. “You’re sure?” he asked.

“Positive,” she said. “Who is he?”

Gomez looked up, watching as the techs brought the evidence they had found out of the room.

“I don’t know yet, but I’m sure he’s not one of the good guys.”

******

Sutherland Springs, Texas

Danielle and Gray moved into the living room after dinner. She made a large pot of coffee. Gray looked wiped out, definitely too tired to ride the bike back to San Antonio without some kind of pick-me-up. She clicked on the TV but left the volume down. While they drank their coffee, she told him more about Justin. She talked about the good times when they were young. The times before their life had fallen apart. She also brought up her dad’s shop, which clearly reminded Gray of something.

“Was there a vault in the shop when you or your dad owned it?”

Danielle hesitated, momentarily looking down at the floor. She hated this! With no choice, she looked Gray in the eye and said, “I’m still his attorney, and as much as the man disgusts me, I still have a moral obligation to keep his confidence.”

“Okay, so it’s something bad?” he said with a grin.

“Is there anything good about Aydan Styles?” she fired back.

His attention suddenly diverted to the TV. “Turn the volume up,” he said hastily.

She did as he asked, watching as the news showed a picture a sketch artist had drawn. Gray couldn’t take his eyes off the image. Danielle wondered what about it captivated him so. The screen then flashed to a scene at a hotel in Stockdale. He leaned in closer as the police lead a man in a robe to the back of a car and put him inside. It took her a minute to realize the man being arrested was the one the sketch artist had drawn.

“That son of a bitch!” Gray exclaimed, sitting straight up. “I’ve worked undercover for seven years. I recognize fake blonde hair when I see it. I can’t believe this! I’m sorry, Danielle. I have to make a call.”

Without taking his eyes off the screen, he dialed a number. “Gomez, do you know that you have Vincent Heston in custody?”

Vincent Heston? Shocked, Danielle listened in. She was so close to Gray on the couch, she could just about hear the man on the other line.

“You’re shitting me,” Gomez said.

“I guarantee you, it’s him. Those eyes are contacts, and that is a terrible dye job. You’re half Mexican, sir. Don’t you recognize what Miss Clairol does to dark hair? Once he’s booked, and you put his prints in the system, you’ll see. It’s him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Gomez cursed.

“That’s what I said, sir,” Gray told him.

With nothing left to say, Gray ended the call. He was both agitated and excited. She knew this was a big break in the case for him. She also knew it meant their nice evening was over.

As expected, he turned to her and said, “I guess I should get going.”

Danielle didn’t want him to leave, but it was obvious that he had to. “Okay, thank you for dinner.”

“No problem,” he said. “Maybe I could take you out for a proper meal sometime? I could try and make up for all the mean things I said to you.”

“And thought about me?” she teased.

“I never thought mean things about you,” he claimed.

“Oh…” she said. And then with a mischievous grin, she added, “Then I’ll have to pay for part of dinner to make up for all the things I thought about you.”

Gray put his hand over his chest. “Ouch, that hurt.”

Danielle did something then that set off events that had probably been building up since the first day she’d met him in court. With everything Gray had been through today, and after hearing about his brother, she didn’t want him to leave feeling like he had no one to talk to. While his hand remained on his chest, she reached out and put her hand over his. She had intended to say something comforting or smart, but suddenly, her power of speech eluded her.

Gray was frozen to his spot. Both their breath came out quicker. Finally, he took her arm in his other hand and pulled her in close. He bent down slightly so his face was close to hers and said, “I want to kiss you.”

Danielle could feel her heart pounding, and she wondered if, while they were pressed together like this, he could feel it as well. Did he know how bad she wanted him? Could he see it in her eyes? She was staring into his, and what she saw there was raw desire. She wanted to give into it, to just meld into him, but her heart and her head were raging a battle within.

She wasn’t a one-night stand kind of girl. But she wasn’t looking to be in a relationship with this guy either, was she? He was so… intense. The funny thing was, the idea of being with Gray repelled her and also turned her on. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to feel his lips crush down on hers… But could they stop there? Would they? If they didn’t, who would wake tomorrow with regrets?

She realized she was still frozen in place, staring at him while a rush of thoughts raced through her head. He grinned at her. Though intense, he also had such an easygoing way about everything, it was both maddening and enchanting. Gray brought out all sorts of dualities in her.

“What?” she said, her voice coming out in an almost breathless whisper.

“You’re analyzing this like an attorney, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know how not to,” she admitted. “I am an attorney.”

Before she could argue her way out of it, he leaned his head down and kissed her lips softy. So lightly, in fact, that it was more like the touch of a feather against her skin. It tickled. “See,” he told her. “It’s just a kiss; nothing earthshattering happened.”

As he spoke, she could feel his warm breath on her face, and his lips were still so close to hers… She leaned forward and kissed him back. Her kiss wasn’t as soft as his, yet she reserved some of the passion she could have thrown into it. She had upped the ante. It was his move.

Meeting her challenge, he lifted her up from the couch and spun her around so that her back was to the nearest wall. He reached up behind her and loosened the clasp that held her ponytail back, letting her hair spill down over her shoulders, the way it was the night before when she’d fallen asleep in his lap. He wrapped his fingers up in its silky length, and then he really kissed her.

His whole mouth covered hers as his tongue explored the warm wetness of her mouth. Their bodies were pressed tightly together, and she could feel the tight muscles in his chest against her breasts, and the harness of his thigh against hers.

He came up for air and smiled at her. She was almost panting by now, and for a split second, she wondered what he must think of her, but the thought was soon pushed out of her brain as he slid a hand underneath the back of her shirt. She could feel his rough hand exploring the soft skin of her lower back. As he did, he slipped his lips down to her neck. He began to kiss, and then nibble, with gentle brushes of his tongue across the tender skin just above her breast line. He worked his way back up to her lips and then slipped his mouth around to her ear and said, “It’s your call. You say stay, I’m a happy man. You say go, and I’m gone.”

Danielle’s analytical brain tried to kick in again, but she reined it in and said, “Down the hall to the right.”

Gray didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He slipped his hands under her butt and pulled her up off the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and they kissed again, almost losing their balance and falling to the floor. When they got to the bedroom, he put her back down on her feet and began undressing her, slowly. As he slipped off her blouse, he kissed her shoulders, down to the top of the tender curve of her breasts. Then, reaching around to find the clasp of her bra, he kissed her mouth again.