Hot & Bothered (5 page)

Yes, but that was because I was in over my head with you and getting way too involved after giving you my word I wouldn't.
Her heart, her skin, the very core of her throbbed at memories that had a habit of surging to the fore without a hint of encouragement from her. Six long years ago, she'd sneaked out as dawn crept over the Pensacola beach because she'd found herself falling too hard and too fast for a man whose rugged sexuality was far removed from the sanitized men in her world. She'd initially assumed sticking to his rules to enjoy their time
together with no strings attached would be easy as pie. But when every day spent in his company sucked her deeper under his spell instead, it had scared her silly. To preserve her heart before she ended up with something a great deal worse than its already growing ache, she'd slipped away with the sunrise.

She wasn't crazy enough to admit that to the hard-eyed man standing in front of her, however. He bore little resemblance to the charmer she remembered, and she didn't doubt for a moment that he would take full advantage of any weakness she displayed. She met his gaze with faux composure and lied without a qualm. “I told you before, a family emergency called me away.”

“And I plan to be right here should another one suddenly crop up to call you away again.”

Even though there was neither skepticism nor so much as a hint of sarcasm in his voice, she felt mocked—and somehow threatened. It was those eyes, she decided, and longed desperately to defy him.

But Rocket looked at her as if he were prepared to make things truly nasty if she fought him on this. And the fact was, Tori knew, someone had killed her father and it wasn't her brother. So perhaps it wouldn't hurt to have a man in the house who was capable of protecting Esme if the real killer decided to pay them a return visit because this hadn't been a grudge against her father after all.

Unsatisfied with the decision but too tired to figure out what else to do, she said stiffly, “
I
plan to stay exactly where I am until Jared is found. Nevertheless, I will inform Mary to prepare a room for you.”

“Good.” His look said there'd never been any doubt. “Then if you'll supply me with a photograph, I'll get to
work locating your brother.” And he thrust out his hand as if closing the most mundane of business deals.

To refuse his handshake would have been rude, but the minute she accepted it, Victoria knew she'd made a mistake. The chemistry that had existed since she'd first laid eyes on him in a resort bar all those years ago—and had been doing funny things to her pulse as recently as a few minutes ago—was still at work. Her skin heated where it touched the hard brown hand wrapped around her own and nerve endings deep inside sizzled and seethed, dispatching urgent messages to every erogenous zone she possessed.

She broke the contact the instant she could do so without giving away its effect on her.
It'll be okay,
she assured herself.
If you try hard enough, you can make this work, and Esme will emerge the winner.
Victoria would put up with anything to see that happen.

So why, then, couldn't she shake the feeling that she'd just sealed a deal with the devil?

 

J
OHN WAS PISSED
.
S
ERIOUSLY
steamed. “I apologize,” he snarled in a high-pitched falsetto. “That wasn't
civil.
” He climbed into his car, fired it up and reversed in a hard, tight U out of his parking spot. Well, screw Tori's weak foray into sarcasm. Slamming the gearshift into First, he aimed the car down the drive. Not telling him he had a kid the minute he walked through the door was
uncivil.

Fury and frustration boiled in his gut, enticing him to strike out. He wanted to hit someone, to feel the satisfaction of flesh giving way beneath his pounding fists. And, frankly, right this minute he wasn't particular about whose flesh it was.

That was just too freaking reminiscent of his old man
in one of his drunken rages, though, so John sucked it up and contented himself with punching the accelerator instead to send the car shooting through the closing estate gates with barely an inch of clearance on either side. His car fishtailed onto the road before he straightened it out and laid rubber down the highway. He was damned if he'd allow Tori's betrayal to flush years of hard-earned self-discipline down the toilet.

Still. He had to do something or he'd explode. Letting up on the gas until he had the speed down to a more reasonable level, he reached for his cell phone and punched an auto-number.

He was grateful when Zach answered so he didn't have to go through his friend's wife. John adored Lily, but small talk was simply beyond him at the moment, and without any preliminaries, he snarled, “Pass out the cigars. I'm a daddy.”

There was a brief hesitation, then Zach said, “Rocket?”

“Yeah. Hang on a sec. I want to see if I can get Coop, too. I have a real need to vent, but I'm afraid blood's gonna flow if I have to explain this twice.”

“Take your time, buddy. I'll be right here.”

That cooled John's temper by several degrees and he turned his attention to reaching the other number. Within moments he had a three-way connection going with Cooper Blackstock and Zach Taylor, former team members from his reconnaissance days in the Marines and his two closest friends. As succinctly and unemotionally as he could manage, he told them he had a daughter, then laid out the details of how he'd come to learn of her existence.

There was a moment of silence when he concluded his story. Then Zach breathed, “Holy shit,” at the same time Coop said, “I don't believe it. The Muzzler finally has a real name.”

“Victoria,” Zach concurred. “The timing fits.”

“Huh?” Brow furrowing, John lifted his foot off the gas pedal. “What the hell are you two babbling about?”

“Marines don't babble, chief,” Zach said. “Did you think it somehow skipped our attention that six years ago you suddenly embraced total discretion after more than a decade spent regaling us in pornographic detail about whatever girl had ridden the rocket the night before?”

“Give us some credit,” Coop agreed. “The transition was too abrupt not to note.”

“I don't recall either of you ever asking me why.”

“We might have, but you were so damn close-mouthed about it we didn't feel we could. It was so out of character for you to keep time spent with a woman under wraps.”

“Gotta admit, we would have appreciated just a
couple
of details, though,” Zach added. “Ice and I spent a lot of time speculating on who could have taken the bite out of the dog.”

“Great.” The car drifted to a stop on the shoulder of the road, and he slapped the gearshift into Neutral, then yanked on the brake. “That's fucking swell. A pivotal moment in my life and the two of you were giving it a funky label and yukking it up.”

“No,” Coop said flatly. “We weren't. Your silence told us it must be important, so we never laughed, John. But we were curious and we needed to call your sudden change of heart or epiphany or whatever the hell you want to call it
something,
so The Muzzler was born. It seemed appropriate.”

“Yeah.” Burying his frustration with the adeptness of lifelong habit, he looked at it from their point of view. “I guess it was. Something about Tori made me realize there was more to my identity than being good in the sack.”

“Hell, man, I never realized you assumed there wasn't,” Coop said. “You were one of the few, the proud.”

A bitter bark of laughter escaped John. “You met my old man—you didn't think growing up with him might have tilted my thinking a little left of center?” He could still vividly remember his father showing up at Camp Lejeune, drunk on his ass and belligerently vocal about his son's decision to join the corps. “Before I discovered my ability with the ladies, I was just the pitiable kid of that crazy noncom who was always being busted back to seaman first class.”

“Navy asshole,” Coop said scornfully.

“Fuckin' A,” Zach agreed. “The navy is for pussies who can't get into the corps.”

Tactfully neither of his friends mentioned the vitriol his old man had spewed at him that night, or how John had allowed the elder Miglionni to shove him around until he'd finally lost his temper and flattened him. But the truth was, it wasn't the Marines he'd glommed onto to validate his sense of self-worth. He'd liked knowing he had something in his pants that most guys would kill for.

“So now it turns out you've got a kid, too,” Zach said. “Aside from being hacked off over the way you found out about her, how do you feel about that? You always swore you'd never have one.”

“Yeah, but now that the choice has been taken out of my hands, I don't know—I feel like I've gotta get to know her. At the same time, I'm scared shitless to get too close. Jesus, Midnight, she's got a British accent. She sounds like the frigging queen of England!”

“Yeah, I can see where that would unnerve a guy.”

“Is your Victoria a Brit, then?” Coop asked.

“She is not
my
anyth—” He cut himself off, knowing
how merciless his friends would be if he protested too much. “No. Tori's not a Brit. She took Esme there to get her away from her father's influence.”

“That's your daughter's name? Esme?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty,” Coop said. “What's she look like?”

“Little. Sweet. A real girly-girl. She has this wild head of hair like her mother used to have back when I knew her before.”
She's got my eyes.
That just blew him away every time he thought of it.

“Sounds like a cutie to me. Little girls are awesome. I never realized just how cool until I met my niece Lizzy. Get your hands on a camera, pal, and send me a picture.”

They talked a while longer without saying anything of real consequence. John felt better, though, and more in control when he finally disconnected. But as he sat in his car on the side of the road, staring out at the trees, he admitted he was still as confused as ever about his new status as a parent.

Luckily, he had a job to do. When things were out of whack, it was comforting to have something to do that you did well. Figuring out puzzles was something he did very well. So he took off the brake and put the car in gear.

Then he headed down the road to talk to Jared's high-school coach.

“I
WAS INFORMED YOUR
team lost its game.”

Jared Hamilton looked up to see his father in the library doorway. The great Ford Hamilton didn't usually instigate a conversation with him unless it was to catalog his faults, but he appeared almost…interested. He must be to have pulled himself away from the dinner party that Jared could hear going on in the dining room. Stealthily sliding the brandy bottle from which he'd been sipping behind his backpack, he straightened from his dejected slouch, an optimistic kernel of hope unfurling in his chest. Maybe he didn't have to drown his sorrows after all. “Yeah.”

“And I understand it was you striking out that ended the game.”

The hope shriveled and Jared's stomach began to churn, but he rose to his feet and gave his father the bored, insolent sneer he'd perfected years ago. “Yeah, well, what can I say? Shit happens.”

Ford gave him a look of disgust. “Shit does not just ‘happen,' young man. It's a result of sloppy preparation.”

He shrugged, but his gut roiled harder and fiercer. Wouldn't it be something if just once his father didn't take the opportunity to tell him what a huge disappointment he'd turned out to be? Other guys had dads who actually
tossed balls around with them. He had Ford Evans Hamilton, who tossed his son's every mistake in his face. His chin jutted out. “And who do you see giving me a hand with these preparations? You?”

“Don't be ridiculous.” Exuding polish from his expensively barbered hair to his gleaming loafers, the older man strode across the room until he loomed over Jared. “You're seventeen years old—call a baseball camp or hire yourself a coach. Exert yourself for once in your life. A Hamilton strives to excel.”

“Maybe I am striving! How would you know? You've never even seen me play.”

Ford shot his cuffs impatiently. “Is this going to be another whine because I didn't attend your little game? How many times do I have to tell you that business—”

“Takes precedence over sports.” Jared completed the familiar litany in unison with his father's cultured tones. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” A thought popped into his head and left his mouth before he had time to censor it. “Man, you are such a hypocrite.”

Ford stilled. “What did you say?”

The fury in his father's eyes made Jared's heart pound so hard he could barely breathe, but he didn't back down. “I didn't want to join the stinking team in the first place, but you insisted it would build character and turn me into a team player.” And as it turned out, he'd discovered baseball was something he was pretty good at and had ended up loving the sport. But everyone else had family at the games to cheer them on. With Tori and the pip-squeak in London the past couple of years, his own cheering section was diddly-squat. Thrusting his chin a notch higher, he put forth his best I-could-give-a-rip curled lip. “Team player, my ass.” His voice cracked em
barrassingly on the last word and he played with the sleeve of his jersey, uncovering the bottom half of his tattoo to distract the old man's attention from that sign of weakness. “You talk the talk,” he sneered. “But what you really mean is that everyone else oughtta be a team player. Not you, though. You're the frickin' owner of the franchise, always too damn important to waste your time doing anything nice for anyone else.”

“I can't believe I sired you.” Ford's voice neither raised in volume nor exhibited anger. Yet like an arctic wind, it sliced an icy swath through Jared's self-esteem. “You look like some punk off the street, with your tattoo and your earrings, and you've disgraced our good name by being tossed out of three schools.”

“Four,” Jared said, clenching every muscle in his body to prevent his father from seeing the way they'd started to tremble. “You always forget Chilton. And hey. At least I don't keep marrying women young enough to be my daughters.”

Ford's eyes turned more frigid yet. Leaning down, he murmured conversationally into Jared's ear, “I really should have insisted your mother have an abortion. Things would have been so much better all the way around.”

Pain sliced deep and scalding tears rose in an unstoppable tide in Jared's eyes. Feeling as if he were suffocating and would die if his father saw how powerfully the words had wounded, he reached out blindly with both hands to thrust Ford out of his way. He had to get out of there. Please. Just let him get out with a shred of pride left intact. Pushing past, his shoulder bumped the old man's chest.

With an undignified yelp, Ford stumbled back. He bumped a table, scattering its contents across the
Aubusson rug and his arms windmilled before he finally caught his balance. Yet even as he straightened, he took a step back with his left foot and rolled the heel of his tasseled loafer over a corner of the first edition leather-bound, gilt-edged classic that had tumbled to the floor. He pitched backward.

“Dad!” Jared leapt to catch him, but his fingers slid along the smooth, pampered length of his father's hand, and he watched helplessly as Ford crashed onto his back on the floor. There was a sickening thud as the older man's head came into contact with the marble hearth before he lay still.

“Oh, God, oh, man.” Jared squatted down. “Dad? I'm sorry, I'm sorry—I never meant to hurt you.”

His father didn't move and Jared reached out. Ford's head canted awkwardly against the edge of the pale veined marble. “Are you all right? Come on, Dad, wake up!” He felt for injury, but there was no blood from the contact site at the back of his father's head, no soft spot that he could discern. But…that angle couldn't be normal, could it? Bringing his fingers around to the front of his father's neck, he pressed against the artery.

No pulse beat beneath the pounding blood in his own fingertips.

Jared snapped awake, sick horror pumping through his veins. He blinked in confusion at the rows of flowers that hovered overhead on either side of his prone body. Then he blew out a breath. Okay. All right. He knew where he was now: in the gardens of the Civic Center park in Denver.

Swearing under his breath, he sat up. Since hitting town, he'd slept in fits and starts, and then only during the day because he was scared to sleep at night. He lived in constant fear of getting rousted by the cops or—
worse—by someone who'd just as soon slit his throat as look at him. The sun had definitely gone down, though, and not only had he dozed off, he'd had the damn dream again. It seemed like every time he closed his eyes, he relived those awful ten minutes that he wished more than anything he could take back and do over.

But, oh, God, he couldn't, and no spin in the universe could get around the fact he'd killed his own father. Nauseated, he hugged his knees to his chest and buried his face in the notch between his kneecaps, rocking in abject misery.

Almost worse was the way he'd run afterward without even stopping to call 911. It probably would have been too late to save his dad anyway, but he'd never know that for certain because he'd panicked, showing only enough foresight to grab the brandy bottle and his backpack before hauling ass for the front door. He'd had it in his mind that his father's guests were about to walk out of the dining room at any minute. The thought of one or two or maybe even the whole frickin' lot of them staring at him with knowing eyes as they pointed accusing fingers and called him
murderer
had filled him with so much terror there hadn't been room left for anything else.

For a second he desperately wished for his mother, but the desire passed as quickly as it had come upon him. The truth was he'd been so young when she died that all he really knew of her were the stories Tori had told him in an attempt to keep her memory alive.

What he really wanted was Tori. God, he wished he could call her, but not only did he hate the thought of making her an—what?—accomplice or witness or whatever in his crime, he didn't have her number with him and doubted he could get a London number by calling 411.

Besides, what would he say—Sorry, but I offed Dad?

Snatching up his backpack, he leapt to his feet. He had to get out of the park, had to go someplace where other people hung out, even if he didn't talk to anyone. He needed noise to drown out the voices in his head. Exiting onto Colfax Avenue, he headed for the 16th Street Mall.

Lost in misery, he failed to pay attention to the slight figure that detached itself from the shadow of the Greek amphitheater and followed him.

 

V
ICTORIA PAUSED IN THE
doorway of Ford's second office the next afternoon and watched John as he sat with the telephone receiver clasped between his ear and a hunched-up shoulder, scribbling furiously on a legal pad that sat at an angle on the desk in front of him. She didn't understand why her father had felt the need for two offices, but the south wing that housed this one had been added while she was abroad, so perhaps he'd had plans to turn his old office into something else. That wasn't really important, anyway. She only knew she'd chosen this room for Rocket's use because it was farther away from the heart of the house than Father's original study.

Which hardly explained why she was standing there staring at John's muscular shoulders and the bunch and release of the sinews in his forearm as he wrote with the twisted, upside-down awkwardness of a leftie. You'd think she'd never seen silky black hair feathering a guy's arms before. Shaking off a niggle of unease that whispered she'd never found
any
features on another man quite so virile as this one's, she stepped into the room.

And heard him murmur, “You're the woman, Mac. You sure you won't change your mind about running away with me?”

Well, there's a reality check for you.
The guy was a lady-killer and she'd be wise to keep that in mind. Composing her features to reveal nothing beyond polite disinterest, she waited until he'd hung up the phone before saying, “You wanted to see me?”

His head jerked up and she froze as something hot and dangerous flashed in his eyes. Then his face went neutral and, setting down his pen, he reached for his coffee cup. Bringing it to his lips, he took a sip, and looked at her over its rim. “I thought you might like a progress report.”

She took an eager step toward the desk, her momentary discomfort forgotten in a wash of anticipation. “Have you found Jared, then?”

“No, not yet. But I will.”

Swamped with disappointment, she nevertheless gave him an apologetic grimace as she pulled out the chair across from him and sank onto its edge. “I guess it was naive to jump to that conclusion in the first place. I know it's too soon to get my hopes up.”

“It's too soon for me to have much to report, as well, but I've found that most clients appreciate being kept up to date. So if you're interested…?”

“Yes. Please. My imagination has conjured up some truly horrendous scenarios, so to have something—
anything
—else to think about would be helpful.”

“I talked to Jared's friends Dan Coulter and Dave Hemsley. Unfortunately he hasn't contacted them.”

Her disappointment deepened. “Could they be lying? Perhaps they think they're protecting him, or that telling you where he is would break that unwritten adolescent code not to rat out your fellow teen.”

“It's possible, Tori, but I've interviewed a lot of teenagers over the years, and it's taught me to pay attention
to their body language and the nuance in their conversations. Kids are my specialty and these two struck me as a couple of straight shooters whose biggest secret was having attended a rave and a few beer blasts.”

She wanted to be stoic. She
meant
to be stoic. But she couldn't prevent the low moan that slipped past her compressed lips.

“Heeey,” he crooned, leaning forward. “This is not the end of the world. It eliminates the easiest possibility, but it also gives us more eyes and ears around town. I stressed the seriousness of Jared's situation to his friends, as well as the danger he could be in, and asked them to put out the word. Jared doesn't have a girlfriend, which is unfortunate, since teenage boys often tell their girls things they'd never say to their buddies. But kids talk, and Dan and Dave swore they'd call me if he gets in touch with anyone they know.”

“So if he isn't hiding out at a friend's house here in town, what now?”

“I go talk to the cops. I generally do that right off the bat, but decided to talk to his friends first this time instead.”

“The police seemed pretty determined to make Jared their prime suspect when I talked to them.” Her stomach flip-flopped at the memory of that conversation.