Chapter Four
Somebody outside in the parking lot was drunk. Jane pulled the scratchy blanket over her head and tried to block out the raised voices that could easily be heard through the paper-thin door of her Hideaway Hotel room. Then there was some laughter…quiet…and someone shouted a string of a few curses.
A car door slammed and tires squealed.
Oh God. How much longer would she have to live like this?
The question was so familiar to her, asked so many times, that frustration made her push the covers off and turn on the light. She blinked into the dinginess of her room, her gaze falling on a tear in the cheap grass cloth wallpaper, forcing herself to mentally renovate the room.
Completely reimagining her surroundings had been a coping mechanism Jane McAllen had invented when she’d been ten or eleven and had been moved to yet another of the “homes,” as they called the places they shuffled kids with no families who had to be hidden from their parents. Not exactly fosters, not exactly orphans, but not exactly a member of any family anywhere. Kids who were biding their time until they were eighteen and no longer a burden on the county or child services or even the nice volunteers who brought hot meals at night.
As a young girl, Jane coped by looking at her room, wherever it was, and visualizing something beautiful. Bright colors, cheery curtains, lovely art. As she got older and found a stash of Southern Living magazines at a yard sale, her visions grew more elaborate. She’d put a wall here, add a window there, maybe include a pretty stone fireplace in her imaginary room.
Then she’d mentally decorate with a theme, finding one word or hearing a song that would reflect the mood she tried to create. She started to sketch, to dream, to realize ways to make ugly things and places and situations and people, even herself, more beautiful.
So what would she do with this place? First, she’d—
She startled at the soft hum of her phone on the nightstand. Finally!
“Yes, hello?” she asked breathlessly, pressing the device to her ear.
“It’s Lydia.”
She practically collapsed with relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought you’d never call. It’s been a week, Lydia.”
“And it’s going to be a month, so sit tight.”
“What?” she croaked. “A month? I can’t stay here for a month!”
“Jane, listen to me, because I’m going to talk fast. I’m going to say this once, and you aren’t going to hear from me again until Sergio is arrested.”
“Okay,” she whispered, clearing her head and trying to slow down the hammer of her heart.
“We are very close to getting this man, but a key piece of evidence has been lost. We are rebuilding the case, and it takes time. You cannot return, because he is 100 percent certain that not only are you responsible for his near arrest, but he thinks you have the evidence.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Of course it is, but no one is going to defend you, because one of the people in the organization did take the evidence, and I need to find out who it is. It’ll take us a few weeks, and then we will bring down one of the biggest drug rings on the East Coast.”
Evidence. Organization. Drug rings. How did this get to be her life?
“You being gone is key to our success,” Lydia continued. “So I’ve called to beg you not to come back. I know you want to.”
“I’m running out of money,” she said simply. “Could I go to a local FBI office and get help?”
“God, no. You’re not officially in any kind of program,” Lydia said. “My operation is completely under the radar. Just lie low for one more month. There are jobs that don’t require a background check or Social Security number, Jane. Clean people’s houses and get paid in cash. It’ll tide you over.”
She sighed, considering that, thinking of the few people she’d met who might help her. Brenda the waitress? The guy at the motel front desk? Adam Tucker?
“You’re using the name I told you, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Jadyn McAllister,” she confirmed, hating even the sound of it. “But why can’t I have used your name and license? It would help me get a job.”
“It would help my cover get blown,” she fired back. “Then we’re all screwed.”
Jane swallowed. “Okay.”
Lydia sighed with what sounded like sympathy. “Look, I’m going to try and get some cash to you. Where are you staying?”
“The Hideaway Hotel in Eagle’s Ridge, Washington.” Jane slid her gaze over the dreadful room. “It’s lovely,” she added, layering in some sarcasm.
“I’ll do my best to get someone to bring cash to you. What room?”
“Sixteen,” she replied.
“Jane, listen to me,” Lydia said in a low voice. “This is huge. This is serious. This man is responsible for moving drugs that kill people. People like you who’ve spent their entire lives trying to rise up from a bad situation.”
Jane gasped a little. “How do you know anything about my situation?”
“I work for the FBI, Jane. I know that you were in and out of the Florida Child Protection program most of your childhood. I know who your clients are, your friends, and your entire online fingerprint.”
“Why do you need to know that?” she asked, a low-grade panic rising. “Am I under investigation?”
“Anyone who came near Sergio Valverde was investigated by the FBI,” she explained calmly. “And to put your mind at rest, I posted on your social media pages that you are on a much-needed extended vacation in the South Pacific. I even put up some pictures so your friends don’t start filing missing-persons claims. We had someone call your other two clients and explain that you’d been called out of town.”
The South Pacific? How the hell could they do that to a person? “This is ridiculous, Lydia.”
“Dying is ridiculous, Jane. And if you step foot in Miami, that man will have you dead before you get through the airport. I am not kidding.”
Her heart dropped so hard it was a miracle she didn’t hear it hit the floor.
“We’re doing this for your own protection, I promise.”
Jane tried to swallow against a dry, tight throat. “I know.”
“Now you just find a way to survive for a month, and this whole nightmare will be behind you. Make the best of it.”
Make the best of it. How many times had some child-services professional said those words to her? A dozen? A hundred? Too many to count. And that’s what she did her whole life. She made “the best” of it.
What was one more month? “Okay.”
“Good girl. I’ll call you when I have news.”
On a sigh, Jane hung up and fell back on her pillows. In the distance, she heard a siren wailing, a sound she always found unnerving and frightening.
So she closed her eyes and tried to picture a room to redecorate and found herself wondering exactly what was inside an unfinished boathouse. She put herself to sleep imagining how she might decorate that.
* * *
The morning light peeked through the shutters of the boathouse, fighting and failing to brighten up the place. Sipping coffee after a restless night, Adam stared up the ladder that led to the loft, one more massive thing on his to-do list looming, literally, overhead.
He looked down at the inspection list left by the county manager a week ago and back up at the ladder. Without stairs that met code, he wouldn’t get a certificate of occupancy. Without the CO, he couldn’t open the door to anyone.
Forget the furniture and finishings and appliances, he wasn’t done building this place yet. That’s what he should be doing, while someone else was handling the interior design.
Okay, whatever. So he’d spent yesterday on a wild-goose chase just to have that wild goose bite him in the ass and saunter away. Fine. He had to get help from some friends.
And he had some really good ones, plus Zane. But his brother was up to his eyeballs getting the business ready for the season, and Ryder, who was damn near a real brother now, was busy expanding the airport he’d taken over.
But that wasn’t all of the magnificent seven, as he used to think of the guys he had been in detention with for a whole semester of his senior year. They’d all gone off to different military branches, and some, not all, returned to Eagle’s Ridge. But they stayed in touch, and they helped each other when it was needed.
Who should he call? Top choice for anything, not just construction, would be Wyatt Chandler, whom he considered one of his closest friends. But Wyatt was still serving as a SEAL, and Adam had no idea if and when he’d be back in Eagle’s Ridge.
Jack Carter was a good man, but Jack made himself extremely scarce. Last Adam heard, he was supposed to meet up with Ryder for Founder’s Day last month, but never showed, and no one had seen him in ages. Noah was in DC, or at least that’s where Adam thought his last military assignment was.
Of course, as part of the family that owned Garrison Construction, his buddy Ford Garrison was an obvious choice, but he was currently back in Virginia. Ford had been in the construction battalion in the Navy, and that man would kill a set of stairs. They’d had a good long talk at Baldie’s last month when Ford had been home for Founder’s Day, and Adam had even brought Ford to the boathouse to proudly show off his work so far.
Adam had taken plenty of shit for some of the corners he’d cut and a few mistakes he’d made, but Ford had given him some great advice, too. And he’d said to call if he needed help, so…
Saying the closest thing he knew to a prayer, he hit the button to call Ford.
“Hey, Adam. S’up?” The strong baritone was friendly and familiar, harking back to long Saturday afternoons when seven unlikely friends were forced together to play cards, make stupid bets, and ogle the hottest teacher at Eagle’s Ridge High.
“What are the chances you’re coming back home any time soon?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know.” He drew out the words, and Adam could picture those intense dark eyes as they concentrated on whatever problem Ford set out to solve. Give the dude a hammer, nail, and an engine part and he’d somehow manage to make it run, cut, mow, or fly. “Why would I go back to Smallsville and have to say hi to everyone in sight when I walk into No Man’s Land?”
“Because I need stairs, man.” He squinted up to the loft and did the roughest of rough estimates. “About fifteen of them.”
“I knew the county inspector would nail you for that ladder.”
“Yup. Nailed me like you’re going to nail these stairs for me,” he said hopefully. “Literally. With a hammer.”
“Stairs aren’t that hard, Adam. You need a few boards, a sander, and a basic understanding of geometry.”
“Geometry?” Because something told Adam it was a little more complicated than that.
“Well, you have to take into consideration that the slightest discrepancy between steps can be a tripping hazard. You need to pay extra attention to that.”
No, Ford needed to pay attention to that. Adam needed to go appliance shopping. He muttered a curse.
“I really need help,” he admitted. “I have a ton of stuff to finish and three weeks before chaos hits the river.”
“Tourist season. No, thank you. I don’t want to be there then.”
“We could do this in a weekend,” Adam said. Then, after a beat, he added, “This weekend.”
Ford groaned.
So Adam pulled out his trump card. “I bet Zane that I could do this in three weeks.”
“Oh, in that case…” Ford said, laughing. Then his tone grew serious. “Dude, if my parents or my grandmother catch wind that I’m in town helping you build stuff, there’s gonna be hell to pay. They’ve been all over me since I got out of the service about coming home and taking over Garrison Construction. It’s not gonna happen, but they won’t let it go.”
“They’ll have to get over that eventually, right?”
“You would think,” Ford said with a weary sigh.
“So…are you saying you aren’t up for this?”
Another pause and Adam found himself holding his breath.
“Is there any way a man could get in and out of that town and not be seen?” Ford asked.
Adam’s brows drew together. Ford was a loner, no doubt about it, and he had some tensions with his family, but he really wouldn’t want anyone to know if he was there? He didn’t recall him hiding last time he was home.
“You could stay here, in the boathouse,” Adam suggested. “That’d force me to get the beds. Bathroom’s working, and anything you need would be at my apartment, right upstairs from A To Z, not two hundred feet away.”
“All right, I can be there Friday,” he finally said.
“Awesome, Ford. Really, thanks.”
“I could use a little mountain air,” Ford said, as if he didn’t want to be accused too sharply of being the great guy Adam knew he was. “It’s the people who drive me crazy in that town.”
By people, he meant family. “Hey, I marked out a new trail if you’re up for a hike after we finish the stairs.”
“Stairs’ll take a few days and a ton of work.”
“I thought all you needed were some boards, nails, and basic math,” Adam reminded him.
“Not my stairs,” Ford said. “They’ll be a freaking work of art.”
Adam grinned, so grateful for this friend. “You want to fly into Spokane and take a puddle jumper to ER?”
“That’ll work. I can be there Friday afternoon. And, man, do you owe me.”
“So much.”
When they hung up, Adam felt the closest thing to hopeful he’d felt since he’d walked in here this morning.
At least the stairs would get built this weekend. Now to measure for the beds, then the appliances.
“One step at a time,” he reminded himself, grabbing the ladder rails to climb up to the loft. Now he had to have beds in here, so he’d better measure the space. As he reached the top rung and swung around the railing, the door opened downstairs with a soft squeak.
He mentally swore, knowing it had to be Zane coming over to ask him to cover the desk or take out a tour. Which would be another two hours of his day gone.
“Uh, hello? Excuse me? Mr. Tucker?” The female voice floated up to the loft, a little soft, a little tentative, a little…familiar.
Slowly, without giving away his location, he inched forward to peer over the railing. Holy hell. It was her.
Jadyn McAllister turned, looking around with uncertainty, as if she expected him to jump out at her any second. He took the moment to study her, only a little surprised that she was every bit as attractive from above as in front or behind. Her hair was like black ink, thick and wavy and inviting. Her shoulders were narrow, but squared as if ready for a battle at all times. And her body had curves in the right places, but enough muscle to suggest she was tough inside and out.
Turning again, she pressed her knuckles to her mouth, a whimper that sounded like sheer desperation escaping from her throat and making him frown and lean a little closer. Maybe not that tough.
“Oh God,” she murmured, a crack in her voice that felt like a knife going right through his gut. Still covering her mouth, she hissed in a breath. “Now I’m really in trouble.”
She was?
Battling his inner need to swoop down and save a drowning victim versus the desire to listen and learn more about this enigmatic beauty, Adam stayed frozen in place.
He heard a ragged sigh, saw those shoulders shudder, and watched as she turned around again.
“I don’t know what to do,” she choked softly.
He did. In one easy move, he swung around the railing, came down the ladder three rungs at a time, and jumped down five feet from her, making her gasp and jerk back.
“Oh my God!” she cried out, looking more appalled and terrified than pleased with her would-be rescuer. “I didn’t know you were up there.”
“That’s why I came down.” He took one step closer, searching her face and seeing so much more than he had before. Beautiful bones, ebony eyes, and full lips that didn’t need any color to make them more tempting.
But this time he also noticed the slightest shadows under her eyes and a pallor that even her carefully applied makeup didn’t cover. That kissable lower lip quivered, and the challenge in her gaze was replaced by something that looked entirely…vulnerable.
That gutted him.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I…came back.” She swallowed as if the next words were hard to say. “I want that job.”
That’s not what he’d meant, but he nodded. “Okay. What changed your mind?”
She lifted a shoulder, just as casual as could be. But he’d heard her when she thought she was alone, and he knew there was nothing casual about this decision.
“I thought you’d rather starve than work with me,” he said.
She closed her eyes and deliberately looked past him, then shifted her gaze to the rest of the place. “Wow, you do need help.”
“No kidding.”
She took a few strides, carefully eyeing everything, like an art critic staring at a not nearly finished canvas and, based on the raised eyebrow and slight sniff, finding it wanting.
“Did you talk to someone?” he asked. “Realize what a great opportunity it is? Or just come to your senses?”
She angled her head, still appraising. “You need light in here,” she said. “Light will change everything.”
He immediately went to the wall where the bare light switches were, suddenly remembering that he needed to buy coverings for them. But, covered or not, the switches worked. “This’ll help.”
She scowled when the fluorescents flickered to life in the kitchen area and the light cans in the loft beamed a milky wash over everything.
“Help everyone look their worst,” she said, a hand over her eyes as if she needed to shield them. “You need natural light to bring this place alive and fresh air to get rid of that awful smell of sawdust and chemicals.” She squinted up to the shutters. “There’s a stunning view out there,” she added. “You need to remove those hideous window coverings.”
Which he didn’t have time or money to do. “Jadyn,” he said, letting her name slide off his tongue. “Do you think I didn’t hear you practically sobbing in desperation when you thought I wasn’t here?”
“Sobbing? Because you weren’t here?” She cocked a brow. “Wow, you do think highly of yourself.”
“And you are quite skilled at not answering questions, which you’re going to have to answer before we work together.”
“Why? What difference does it make why I’m here as long as you get what you want?”
He considered the question and decided it deserved honesty, even if he wasn’t getting any from her. “Because I need to trust anyone I work with in any capacity.”
“You can trust me.”
It was his turn to lift a dubious brow. And he could have sworn she paled.
She exhaled in resignation. “I came back because I decided I’d been too hasty. And I didn’t sob, not even close. You must have been hearing things. And I don’t know what other probing questions I’m not answering, but you’re going to have to pay me in cash.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how I work. Fifteen percent on top of any purchase you make that I recommend and a fair hourly rate for my design ideas.”
“I guess.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that a yes or a no?”
Jeez. “It’s a maybe.”
“Not good enough. Cash or no deal.”
“Fine, cash. Anything else?”
“Yes, one more thing.” She put a hand on the first rung of the ladder and swung herself up. “No more personal questions. None. Zero. Ever.”
Adam didn’t move a muscle, stunned and speechless as she started to make her way up the ladder.
When he didn’t respond, she turned and looked over her shoulder. “Of me, I mean. I can ask you anything I want.”
He felt his jaw unhinge. “How is that fair?”
“It’s not about fair. I’m looking for inspiration. And you’re looking at my rear end. Stop it.”
Blinking, he shifted his gaze up. “Sorry. It was right in front of me. What do you mean you’re looking for inspiration?”
“For the design. I’m not just going to throw paint on the walls, beds in the loft, and a few cabinets in that hole you think is a kitchen, you know.” She kept going until she reached the top, pulling herself up the last rung and now standing where he had been when he’d watched her come in.
How had that happened?
“You’re not? But that’s what I want you to do.”
“But that’s not what I do.” Holding the railing that ran along the loft, she inhaled slowly and took a long, leisurely look around. Up and down, back and forth, ceiling to floor. “Wow.”
“I know, a lot of work.”
“A lot of potential, too,” she said. “What’s your budget?”
“Cheap.”
She shot him a look.
“Or a little higher,” he added, still looking up, confounded by the fact that she’d switched places with him and suddenly was calling the shots when he’d hired her.
“We’ll start with an in-depth interview, and then I’ll need to go think and sketch and come up with some preliminary ideas.”
Preliminary? “I don’t have time for that. I have to finish this place in three weeks. Two weeks and six days now. We need to shop. You need to shop. I need to buy lumber for the stairs and hang doors and—”
“Get rid of those horrifying shutters.”
He dug for control. “The shutters stay. I don’t have the manpower to get them down.”
She started walking along the loft, silent, still assessing. For a preliminary design. What the hell had he gotten into?
“Let’s start with why you want to do this so badly,” she said. “I need to understand you before I understand your environment.”
“No, you don’t.” Because he had no intention of going there.
But she just gave a light laugh like…she was in control now and he was going wherever she wanted him to.