UndeniablyHisE (14 page)

I didn't want to open the door, but I wanted electricity and the breaker was in the garage. Lord only knew what waited in that space.

Feral things waited.

Stopping, I laughed at my sudden cowardice.

Feral things -- really? I had been in a limo that had a bomb explode alongside it. I had been in Collin Stark's arms and I had just told the meanest damn bastard in the entire county he couldn't extort three hundred dollars from me. How afraid could I be over a momma raccoon?

I turned the inside lock, grabbed the handle and threw the door open, bracing for an inward rush of vermin. When nothing came at me, I knocked the branch back and forth in the doorway, letting it bounce off the frame a few times to wake any creatures.

Satisfied with the continued silence, I crossed the garage and flipped the breaker switch then double-timed it back into the kitchen and relocked the door. I turned on the ceiling light, the bulb's filament popping. Thankfully, I had come prepared for such an event, having stopped on the drive in to pick up basics like lightbulbs, matches, candles, and toilet paper, among a few other items.

Reaching the refrigerator, I plugged it in, set the temperature and closed the doors that had been blocked open. Back in the living room, I tried the ceiling light, another set of filaments popping. I decided to retrieve the box of bulbs from the car and change them before venturing into the rest of the house. If I needed to beat a hasty retreat from the bathroom or bedrooms, shrieking like the girl I was, I didn't want to trip over the furniture in the shadowy living room.

I replaced the lights as I went, living room and kitchen first, then the hallway, then the bathroom, where I propped my branch against the door from the inside and took my first pee in my old/new home. I flushed with trepidation, the toilet gasping and gurgling as it refilled. The pipes were the same when I turned the bathroom sink on to wash my hands. Rust-filled water spurted against the porcelain for a good thirty seconds before it was clear enough to put my hands under the faucet.

Finding the water cold as ice, I reminded myself to check the electric water heater in the utility closet after I looked at the two bedrooms. It hadn't had time to heat the water since I flipped the breaker switch, but I needed to make sure it was safe to keep running. Mice could have chewed through the cord or any number of other things could have happened in six years.

The master bedroom had weathered my absence in the same fashion as the front of the house -- dusty, with no working lightbulb, but otherwise intact. My nose told me something was wrong with the spare bedroom the instant I opened the door. With the smell of mold assaulting me, I cast the flashlight up at the ceiling. A water stain covered a third of the area. Moving the beam down the wall, my heart shriveled in my chest.

I had left the room completely empty six years ago. With a life estate left to me under my mother's will, no one else had a right to use the space. Yet "someone" had brought in boxes and trunks. The writing on the labels belonged to a dead hand -- my mother's.

Reading the descriptions, I could guess at the contents. "SJ Oak/Cit"
had to be pictures and other mementos from my father's years at Oakridge Military Academy and at college in South Carolina.

Its weight pushed down a water-warped box marked "Wedding." My mother had married Evan in the Caribbean, just the two of them while I stayed with my maternal grandmother. Whatever pictures they had taken, the volume wouldn't fill a box, meaning the decaying contents were more memories of my father left to rot.

I didn't care about the box at the bottom of the pile, the one marked "Mia Kindergarten." But other boxes sent the tears that had threatened at the corner of my eyes streaming down my cheeks -- the wedding dress my mother had worn when she walked down the aisle to join hands with my father, family bibles and genealogy records from both sides, photos of the stables over the year, albums filled with generations of pictures.

All of it likely ruined.

Half my tears were pissed. Evan had refused when I asked to remove the items from the main house and put them in plastic bags inside plastic bins with other deterrents to the elements or any creature big or small that might damage them. He had refused because he wanted a chance to value each item. Not that he had said as much, but I could see, my flashlight picking out the labels my mother had written so long ago that here, in this damaged room, were all the things too "valueless" for him to sell.

Leaving the burnt out light unchanged, I backed quietly from the room and shut the door.

Collin

"Out." Walking into Trent Kane's office, I jerked my thumb at the man sitting in the visitor chair. Neither a client nor tactical team leader, whatever business he had with Kane could wait. I watched him slowly gather his papers and inch past me, my temper threatening to boil over at the sloth-like pace. When I slammed the door behind him, the man jumped.

I turned to Kane, the growl lodged in my throat barely kept in check. "You've had twenty-four hours to find her."

His cheeks colored. He was pissed, no doubt, at being tasked with my little "playmate" after four months of Reed Henley and a four-man security team keeping tabs on Mia. Those five were equally clueless as to her location, all of them vying for the top spot on my shit list.

I didn't care that Mia had left the Merritt Island facility during a shift change between the two units, leaving on foot through the main entrance on a supposed nearby errand and not in the company car with its locator chip. They had lost four hours because the team didn't realize Mia was missing until six p.m. and called Reed to see if she was working late. Another twenty minutes passed while Reed scoured the building and checked with security, only to receive the envelope indicating Mia had checked out permanently.

They could have intercepted her during those four hours. Instead, they arrived at her townhouse to find that she had already cleared out her clothes. One unit stayed on watch in case she returned, while Reed and the second team began checking the airports, taxi companies, and the bus and train stations.

Kane touched the screen on his laptop, his bottom jaw grinding side to side. "Reed got another envelope from Mia in the evening mail, stamped from the Orlando airport."

"And?" I shoved my hand in my pocket, my finger seeking out the ring hidden inside. Up until yesterday, I had worn it on a chain around my neck. Finding my hand constantly drifting to the chain after the call that Mia had gone AWOL, I moved the ring to my pocket. Kane already wanted to throw me in a padded cell as far as she was concerned. He didn't need to see me toying with the damn ring every five minutes.

"TSA isn't cooperating, neither are the airlines."

"Shuttles...cabbies...one of them--"

Kane shook his head. "It looks like she might have caught an unregistered cab."

My chest tightened at the possibility. Even on the relatively prosperous peninsula that was Merritt Island, unregistered cabs could be dangerous for passengers, especially women. Mia would have entered the cab upset and thus vulnerable, I knew that much from Reed's review of the office security cameras. She had started her flight away from the building and me after entering the reception area and catching news coverage of me and Kessa, the woman who had replaced her as my secretary.

Only as my secretary. I had taken no one to bed in Mia's absence, played with no one, waiting, perhaps, for Mia to find another lover first.

"Keep looking," I barked, turning to leave. My hand on the door handle, I stopped and looked back. "You checked the airports around Keeling, right? If that was her destination, it would be a hell of a lot easier to get someone at a little county airport to talk."

Kane's cheeks colored for the second time and I knew the possibility hadn't yet occurred to him. Without answering, he started typing on his keyboard, hit enter then reached for his phone.

Before he could punch in the first airport's number, I interrupted him. "Do I need to take over?"

His brows narrowed and his mouth turned into a thin white line as he stared me down. "Do you think you can?"

Blinking first, I turned from the room. We both knew he was right. I couldn't keep my hand off the ring in my pocket long enough to marshall an effective search for the woman I loved. I had lost her twice and, this time, I might not get her back.

Mia

I made the hardware store my first stop. Overall, the house had stood up to six years of neglect except for the two trouble spots on the roof. I would start with some heavy tarps over the spare room while I arranged for quotes from a few roofers. I also needed a breathing mask before I returned to the spare room, and something to treat the mold on the walls before I repainted them, as well as a few tools.

I hadn't intended to walk out of the store smiling -- with a job!

Nothing permanent, three months maximum because the store was going out of business. There was both office work and clerking to do as things wound down. Knowing Keeling like I did, I would be hard pressed to find anyone hiring outside of Walmart within the city limits. I already anticipated having to look for a regular job in Greenville while I tried to build a consulting business online. The job in the hardware store seemed perfect while I got my bearings -- some cash coming in, a discount on everything I would need to fix up the guesthouse and no long-term commitment.

I hit Walmart after the hardware store for groceries, more cleaning supplies, dishes, towels, bedding that didn't smell six years old and a very inexpensive laptop and printer. I cringed at the dent I made in my savings account. It didn't matter that I had four months' of too much pay from Stark or that the job at the hardware store would keep me in groceries and utilities while it lasted -- I still needed to find a used vehicle and the business would need additional software, a website, maybe some advertising.

Head spinning at how much I had to do and half my torso stuck in the trunk of the rental as I stored my Walmart purchases, I heard someone call my name.

"It is you, isn't it?"

I couldn't quite place the male voice with its local accent. I maneuvered my way out of the trunk without denting my skull and looked up to find a long, lanky figure dressed in the uniform of a county deputy. Hazel eyes, dirty blond hair trimmed close to the sides, a generous mouth, a few years older than me if I had to guess -- the man was totally unfamiliar.

I tried to keep my glance at his name tag as discreet as possible.

J. Gillie

I'd known a Madeline Gillie back in high school, blonde like the man standing in front of me. She and I hadn't really hung out together. Her parents were strictly blue collar and my mom had tried to keep me properly corralled among the country club crowd despite my being too fat for the cool, rich kids and nowhere near rich once Evan started running the horse farm.

"You're Maddie's brother, right?" I smiled, hoping this was a friendly encounter and that Evan hadn't taken my hundred dollars yesterday just to pull some sleazy legal move today to keep me off the property.

"That I am." He thrust his hand at me, grinning. "She'll be glad to hear you're back in town."

I accepted the handshake, my arm getting a good workout as he pumped it up and down.

He released my hand but didn't drop the grin. "Keppler said you're back home -- at the horse farm?"

Keppler was the septuagenarian who owned the hardware store.

I rolled my eyes. "Hard to call it a horse farm when there aren't any horses left."

Deputy Gillie nodded, the grin flattening into something almost grim. "Last of the breeding stock was sold off about a year after you left town."

That meant Evan's money problems had quickly escalated after I left. Sighing, I made a mental note to check the county tax records. I didn't need to lose the guesthouse to back taxes on the entire property. Just the idea made my stomach knot.

"Evan's got a lot of rough traffic going in and out of there." Reaching into his back pocket, Deputy Gillie pulled out a business card. Clearing his throat, he started to hand it to me then hesitated. Flipping it over, he pulled the ball point pen from his shirt pocket and wrote a second number on the back. "You have an emergency, call 911, of course, but if there's anything that just makes you uncomfortable and you want to talk about it, you can call me anytime, Mia."

His mouth pursed as he blew on the ink, his eyes on mine as he made sure the ink was dry before handing me the card.

"Do you think anything illegal is going on?" My stomach clenched another knot tighter as the specter of another type of foreclosure rose up in my mind.

"Lots of woods mixed in with those grazing pastures. He could be cooking meth, could be letting others cook it for a cut of the profits." Deputy Gillie's hands landed on his lean hips, the fingers dancing in contemplation. "We don't have any proof, but I know you, Mia. You're not the type of person who would want anything to do with that."

Gulping, I nodded. Tears sprang to my eyes. I had known coming home would be tough because of Evan. My whole damn childhood after my father's death had been hard because of him, my mother only providing a light layer of protection against his mean spirit. But I hadn't expected to return to an outright criminal enterprise.

"Six years is a long time away, people leave, new ones come in." He placed the card in my hand then squeezed my shoulder, his touch lingering. "I have day shift, so if you want to catch up over dinner..."

He let the words trail off. Looking at him, I saw something more than local law enforcement or my almost friend's big brother staring back at me. Keeping a nod in check, I smiled and dropped my gaze to the card.

Deputy John Gillie.

I gestured at the half of the car's trunk that held the paint, brushes and air mask. "I have a few health hazards at the guesthouse to fix first, but I'd like that."

A grin surfaced at my half-acceptance of his offer. He had nice face, lean but handsome, with hazel eyes it didn't hurt to look into. Protective eyes, not cutting or dangerous. Nothing in his expression reminded me of Collin Stark.

And that was a good thing.

********************

I drove home from Walmart, my suspicious gaze on the trees that lined the lane to the guesthouse and the wooded acres beyond. Parked, I hauled the ladder from the garage then changed into a pair of work jeans I'd bought that day. I would keep all my Stark International clothes buried deep in my closet until I had clients to impress or found a job that suited them or gave up the ghost and donated them. Evan seeing them would only cause me trouble, and I needed to be ready to move the minute he took too strong an interest in making me miserable.

Coming back to Keeling might have seemed like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but, as mean and dangerous a bastard as Evan was, I always knew what to expect from him. Not once had I harbored the hope he could be any kind of replacement for my father. I'd never been stupid with my heart around him, not like I'd been with Collin.

Hauling my butt onto the roof over the spare bedroom, I growled at myself because I couldn't keep Stark out of my head. As precarious as the footing was, I couldn't afford a single brain cell spent on that man.

Focusing on the roof, I pulled out a measuring tape to figure out how much of the tarp I needed to cut. Back down I went, cutting the tarp, hauling it and the one-by-fours and nails up. I nailed some boards to the roof, stapled the tarp to the boards, then sandwiched the tarp between the first set of boards and a top layer nailed through. Two hours later, I was soaked through with sweat and done with that part of the roof.

I wouldn't touch the garage. The branch needed removed first but was partially attached to the tree. I'd seen enough bad snap backs to leave that to the roofer or a tree service if the roofer didn't want to touch it. So I put away the ladder and remaining boards then checked my phone to see if any of the roofers I'd called had left a message. Two had. I called them back, both telling me they would come out the following day.

I tackled the interior of the spare bedroom next. Everything that didn't show signs of water or mold damage I moved into the front room. The other items I picked through with gloved hands, putting them in bins of salvageable versus destroyed before starting on the ceiling and wall.

Hours from being anywhere near finished with the room, I took a shower at eleven p.m., changed the bedding in my room and fell into a deep sleep, my first since returning from Dubai in which the dreams went uncorrupted with images of Collin Stark.