Undercover Obsession (35 page)

Neither did he feel guilty for the extremes
he had to go to to free both of them from Pasquino. It had been
relatively easy seeking out a professional to handle the matter. He
hadn’t asked for details but Doc filled in the gaps for him,
guessing the duo assassins had worked together, planting the knife
before anyone showed up, probably slipping a drug like valium into
his drink, making it easy to lead him out of the room and to a
quick, relatively painless death. Since Charles was still on
Catalina when he got the call about a murder taking place in his
casino, there was no way to connect him to it. The professional hit
team knew how to cover their tracks and his involvement with them
and he was more than ready to put the whole ordeal with Pasquino
behind him. He only hoped he could do it with Piper still an
important part of his life.

Piper hurried down the walk towards Rowdy’s
wondering what was so important that Crack had to see her right
now. She had worked her tail off this past week getting some new
items finished for Haley’s shop as well as fulfilling her mail
orders so she would be free to attend the big retirement bash they
were throwing for Sheriff Norton this weekend. Ever since returning
from Atlantic City four weeks ago, she had been going non-stop
working on her designs and sewing, and when she wasn’t doing that,
she was working outside or trekking through the woods on long
hikes, anything to keep busy. The busier she was the less time and
effort she had to dwell on things she couldn’t change. By falling
exhausted into bed each night, she was too tired to think about how
much she missed Brody, how big her bed seemed without him in it,
how much her body craved to be filled by him again.

Before Brody had re-entered her life so
unexpectedly, she had gone months without sex, without even
thinking about sex. But now, sex with Brody was all she thought
about, that and the way both he and Ian had so protectively,
irritatingly, looked out for her, the possessive way Brody had kept
close to her that weekend at the Empire, the way her pussy would
moisten and clench when he glared at her, the way he looked at her
when he didn’t trust her, the way her body ached to feel his hard
cock slamming into her over and over, the way he smiled at her. And
she had discovered that not even both physical and mental
exhaustion could keep her from wanting him.

Entering Rowdy’s, she vowed, once again, to
put him out of her mind for good. Cole was coming back this way in
another month or two and she’d be ready to resume their
relationship again, the last hurdle to resuming her life.

“What’s up, Crack?” she asked him as she
leaned on the bar, glad to see him despite her busy schedule. “What
couldn’t wait until I saw you tomorrow at Sheriff Norton’s
party?”

“Who, not what,” Crack told her, hoping she
was still smiling when she left here. He had told Charles it’d be
better if he let Piper know he was coming, at least let her know
ahead of time he was alive, but he had adamantly refused. It wasn’t
worth the risk, he had said, of Piper refusing to see him at all.
Nodding towards the back, he said, “Just give him a chance, Piper,
that’s all he’s asking for.”

Piper turned, expecting, or maybe hoping, she
would see Brody, but instead she saw the last person she had ever
thought she’d see again. “Dad?!” she whispered incredulously before
turning shocked, accusing eyes back to Crack. “You knew?”

Nodding his head slowly, he cursed his
long-time friend for making her look at him with such disbelief and
now, mistrust. “He’ll explain. Go talk to him.”

Piper walked slowly to the back booth,
struggling to suppress both the pleasure and the anger consuming
her as she sat across from Charles, her eyes glued to his face, his
eyes shining with some emotion she had never seen before.
“Charles,” she managed to address him softly with little inflection
despite the lump in her throat threatening to choke her. “Welcome
back to the living.”

“Piper,” Charles choked, fisting his hands
under the table to keep from reaching for her, heartbroken that for
the first time she hadn’t called him dad. She looked good, had
matured into a beautiful woman who was the spitting image of her
mother. The pain of seeing her again, of seeing Christine in her,
was almost unbearable. “You look more like your mother than ever.
I’ve missed you, Piper.”

She had managed to get her emotions under
control, enabling her to answer him calmly. “Not enough to let me
know you survived though. I spent a long time mourning you.” That
last came out more as a painful accusation than a simple statement
of fact.

“And I’ll add that to all the other things
I’m sorry about. Will you let me explain?”

He had never looked at her that way, with
such caring and worry, as if he needed her now as much as she had
always needed him and she found that late was better than never.
“Yes.”

Charles closed his eyes briefly as relief
washed over him before he told her how his wounds were worse than
they looked, how he and his good friend Doc had managed to get him
out of the country, not out of fear of the Feds, but fear of
Pasquino and what he would do if he learned he was alive and out of
fear for her if he learned she existed. “When I found out you had
returned here, I imposed on another good friend to keep an eye on
you for me, to let me know if there was ever a sign of a threat
against you.” His eyes went from hers to across the room.

Piper turned, saw Crack nod at them, smile
then shrug as if to say ‘that’s the way it is’. “He moved here just
a few months after I did.” And she had never suspected that the
hard looking, gruff ex-biker she had grown so fond of was a friend
of Charles, there to look after her. “He didn’t mind?”

“No, not at all. I imposed on him at a good
time, he was ready to lead a quieter, less stressful life, and from
what he told me, he has grown genuinely fond of you, which doesn’t
surprise me. What saddens me, Piper, is that I didn’t realize how
much I love you until I saw you at the Empire that night, saw the
fear and devastation that I had caused on your stricken face.
Everything, and I mean everything, I’ve done since then has been,
first, to keep you safe and second, to give me a second chance to
be more of a father to you. Will you give me that chance?”

Piper barely heard him as certain pieces fell
into place. She had been here, at the bar, the night she
disappeared, had felt tired and woozy by the time she left with
Crack and had passed out in his car before they reached her cabin.
“It was Crack who took me until Brody and Ian arrived, wasn’t
it?”

“Yes, him and Doc. You were perfectly safe. I
remembered how you had taken Ambien in college and how it not only
knocked you out, but you were one of the few who suffered the side
effects of lost time and memory. And, before you ask, yes, Doc gave
you a new aphrodisiac, a strong dose of it, when Crack relayed that
Pearce and MacGregor were on their way.” At her recoil, Charles
reached for her hand, desperate now for her to understand. “Please,
Piper. I had to first get them here then I had to make sure the
bond between you and Brody was reinforced to get them to stay until
I could end the threat against you.”

“Pasquino didn’t know who I was,” she told
him as she tried to wrap her mind around how far he had been
willing to go to protect her. It was just dawning on her that he
couldn’t have proven his love for her any more effectively than by
doing that which he found abhorrent but necessary. And really, she
thought pragmatically as she held onto his hand, hadn’t she
benefitted greatly from his mechanisms?

“Not yet, but after seeing a picture of your
mother, I knew it would only be a matter of time until he dug
deeper, found out she had a child and looked for you. I couldn’t
risk that. I’m sorry if what I, we did, caused you any distress.
Tell me now, honestly, sweetheart. Have I lost you anyway?”

How could she walk away from him after
hearing what she had waited so long to hear? How could she turn her
back on him after all he had done to see she was safe here in her
home, with her friends and the life she had made for herself? She
didn’t have Brody, never did, but it just dawned on her that all
this time she had a father. Charles was sixty-eight now and she
wasn’t about to let any more time go by bemoaning past
mistakes.

Scooting over, she wrapped her arms around
him, whispering shakily, “Thank you.”

Piper was still wiping tears from her face an
hour later as she was walking through the wooded path back to her
cabin. Charles, her father, had wanted to come back with her, but
she needed some time to get herself together, time to just absorb
everything he had told her and come to terms with having him not
only back in her life, but a part of her life even though he would
be returning to his casino at the end of the weekend. But this time
when they parted, she knew she would be seeing him again, and soon.
She smiled as she recalled the astonished look on Crack’s face when
she hugged him and thanked him for being there for her all these
years. It wasn’t often she could cause him to blush and he knew she
wasn’t going to let him live it down any time soon.

Now, if only she could have a happy ending
with Brody. But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She hadn’t
heard from him since she fled the casino four weeks ago. Haley told
her, often, that she shouldn’t have taken off, she should have
waited and talked to him, waited to see if he would ask to see her
again. But she knew he wouldn’t. The only reason he had come to her
after five years of having no contact with her at all was because
of Charles. Now that he was no longer the drawing factor in their
relationship, there was no incentive to bring him to her.

Halfway home, the cloudy sky darkened and
threatened rain, but the storm didn’t bother her. Maybe she’d spend
the rainy afternoon with her vibrator even though she had no hopes
of achieving the explosive climaxes that Brody had driven her to,
but maybe it would be a start to putting those experiences behind
her.

“As if that’s possible,” she muttered as she
came out of the woods into her yard.

“Still muttering to yourself, darlin’?” Damn
he had missed her. Brody smiled as he watched her head jerk up, her
eyes widen at the sight of him, her face paling then blushing as
shock, pleasure and then anger suffused her.

“I know I’m not dreaming again,” Piper
snapped, her shocked pleasure at seeing him quickly turning to
anger at her immediate response despite his gall in just showing up
out of the blue again. That nipple tightening, pussy creaming slow
drawl hadn’t changed and neither had her response to it, and him. A
month of no word and there he stood looking mouth wateringly sexy
in tight jeans and an even tighter tee shirt, leaning indolently
against his hot red car, those muscled arms crossed over his broad
chest, his grey eyes gleaming with amusement as he looked her over
in a way that had her pussy clenching in an effort to suppress the
moisture threatening to leak out.

“Not unless I am too, which I assure you I’m
not. In my dreams you’re naked and begging for more, not clothed
and standing ten feet away scowling at me.”

“What are you doing here, Brody?” And then
she realized just why he had shown up. “Charles?” she asked
derisively. The pain that swept through her at the thought of him
returning for the same reason as before was as sharp as a knife.
“He told me you have nothing on him.”

“Sandoval’s here?” Brody hadn’t known that,
nor did he care other than to make sure the man didn’t cause Piper
any more pain.

“As if you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t, not that it matters. The case
against Pasquino is closed, as is the one against Charles. I’m no
longer with the Bureau, Piper,” he told her hoping that would
convince her he wasn’t here because of Sandoval.

“You’re not?” Piper couldn’t be more
surprised if he claimed to be madly in love with her. “Why?” she
asked as she allowed a sliver of hope to blossom in her chest.

“Because I can’t keep working undercover,
being gone for God knows how long stretches at a time when you’re
here. Damn it, Piper,” he swore when she continued to glare at him
skeptically, not making a move to close the gap between them. “I’ve
been crazy about you since I first met you and I’ve already wasted
five years fighting it and trying to do what’s right for both you
and my case.”

“And now you no longer have a case, so you’re
done fighting it and I’m just supposed to say okay?” Piper didn’t
know why she was goading him, he was offering her everything she
ever wanted from him. Maybe it was because after wanting him for so
long she didn’t trust this sudden change or maybe it was because
she was remembering the way he retaliated when she goaded him.

This wasn’t how he imagined her response and
he was at odds with how to convince her of his sincerity. He knew
she still wanted him, her tight nipples pressing against her top
was proof of that, but he wanted more from her than sex this time.
Still, if he had to start from scratch in getting her to come
around, he’d start with sex and work his way back into her good
graces if necessary.

“No,” he answered her softly as he pushed
away from the car and took a step towards her, “you don’t have to
simply say okay. We’ll work around to that eventually. I figure
after about a year or so and I’m still here, you’ll realize I’m not
sticking around because of Charles.”

Piper’s pulse picked up speed as she
retreated a step for each one he made towards her, the happiness
spreading through her threatening to burst. The two most important
men in her life showing up on the same day and giving her
everything she had ever wanted was almost too much to comprehend.
So she’d do what she did best when she was overwhelmed, she’d save
it for another day and take what she could get for now. And now,
from the gleaming intent in Brody’s eyes and the large bulge
pressing against his zipper, she could have Brody.