SEVEN
When Alex arrived at the apartment, it was empty. He used his key to slip in. The place was as silent as a tomb. On the landing outside, the cat meowed plaintively but wouldn’t come in.
Alex set the food bowl on the balcony, locked the apartment back up, then rushed to the office. He slipped in there. Checked the restaurant. It was still and silent. No sign anyone was there or had been there.
Moving back outside, he jerked his cell phone from his hip and punched the sheriff’s number.
“Yeah?” Zeke answered quickly.
“Janey’s missing.”
There was silence for all of two seconds before Zeke let out a virulent curse. “You called the Mackays yet?”
“That’s my next call. There’s no sign of struggle or trouble, but her car’s still parked outside the office and her cat was waiting on her. Does she have any friends?”
“Not that I’ve heard of,” Zeke bit out. “Call the Mackays. I’ll get an APB out on her. Shit. Dammit all to hell.”
The call disconnected. Alex punched in Dawg’s number. He didn’t want to deal with Natches yet.
“What’s up?” Dawg answered, his voice a slow, easy drawl that almost had Alex wincing. He knew what that sound meant.
“Janey’s gone.”
There was silence. “What do you mean, gone?” Dawg’s voice wasn’t lazy anymore.
“I mean I just checked the apartment and the restaurant. Her car is still here and she isn’t,” Alex snapped, fury burning in his gut. “Get your asses in gear.”
He disconnected as he ran for his truck. God, where was she?
She didn’t have friends. He’d watched her in the past week; other than a few business calls, she didn’t chitchat on the phone. No one visited. She worked, she ate, slept, went to bed. She didn’t socialize and she didn’t just disappear.
Pulling out of the driveway, he called her restaurant manager, Hoyt Napier. The son of a deceased vet, Hoyt was quiet, steady. But he hadn’t seen Janey since work the night before.
Where the hell could she be? He pulled to a stop at the intersection to the main highway, his hands gripping the steering wheel, his teeth clenched.
The ring of the cell phone had him flipping it open quickly at the sight of Dawg’s number on the display.
“Did you find her?”
“Are you fucking insane?” Dawg growled. “It’s been three fucking minutes. Uncle Ray and Rowdy are heading around the lake to look for her. Natches is already in the parking lot gunning that fucking cycle of his. Someone tell him it’s cold. I’m about halfway down the dock still trying to pull my fucking boots on, goddammit.”
“And you’re wasting my time why?” Alex pulled into the traffic, his gaze canvassing the sides of the busy streets as he began weaving through the traffic.
“Because Natches is losing his fucking mind, maybe? Chaya and Crista are heading to Kelly’s car with her. Dammit all to fucking hell. They won’t stay home.”
“Dawg, I’m not chitchatting with you, dammit,” Alex yelled. “Tell me where to look for her. Son of a bitch, where would she have gone?”
He could feel it building in him now. Fear. Complete, unadulterated fear. He should have known better. He should have stayed on her ass twenty-four-seven. He knew better than to let her out of his sight.
“One nutcase at a time, Alex,” Dawg growled. “I already have Natches freaking out here. Don’t join the party.”
“Get fucked!”
“Not by you, asshole,” Dawg assured him. “Now, listen up. Janey wouldn’t have gone anywhere with anyone easy. She’d have left something. Anything.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Alex yelled.
He was losing it. He could feel himself losing control. He hadn’t lost control since he was sixteen years old and nearly fucking killed his father when he came home from school to find Crista running a 104 degree fever and dehydrated.
“Okay. She didn’t leave anything,” Dawg agreed. “We all said someone’s just trying to scare her. She could have left on her own. Fuck, she’s a Mackay, man, whether you or Natches, either one, wants to admit it. And she’s a woman to boot. Expect the unexpected.”
“She would have left a note.”
Dawg snorted, but Alex heard the slam of his truck door and the squeal of tires.
“Janey hasn’t had to leave anyone a note in her life,” Dawg snarled. “Now, use your damned head. If Janey didn’t leave a light on, she’s safe.”
“How the fuck do you know?”
“Because, that was our agreement with her when she moved out from Natches’s boat. She has rules to live by, Alex. Didn’t she tell you?”
“She would have to talk to me first.” When he found her, he swore, he was going to make her understand his fucking rule.
“Okay, here are the rules. If she’s forced from the office or from the apartment, she’ll leave a light on. Otherwise, all off. Were they off?”
“They were all off. Completely. Not even the porch light was left on.”
“So ninety percent chance she left on her own.”
“Her car is there,” Alex argued. “She didn’t go on foot.”
“And that’s why we’re all out running the roads like fucking jackasses right now,” Dawg retorted furiously. “You sure she didn’t have a date?”
“No. Fucking. Date.” The thought of it had red edging at the sides of his vision.
Janey, on a date? With another man? He’d have killed the son of a bitch.
Fuck. Fuck. What the hell was he doing here? What was he thinking?
“Check the movie theater. Bookstores,” Dawg ordered. “Grocery store. She likes to cook. Crista said she hasn’t been cooking while you were there. She might have decided to. She likes to browse the mall. She could have taken a cab. Janey doesn’t like driving if she knows she’s going to be stopping somewhere to eat. She likes a glass of wine with her meal and won’t risk driving. She takes cabs a lot.”
Alex disconnected the call. He was getting ready to punch in the number of the cab company when the phone rang.
“What?” he snapped into the line, expecting it to be Dawg.
“We have a problem.” Zeke’s voice was almost amused.
“No shit!” Alex bit out. “What now?”
“I just talked to Natches. He called the cab company. Driver took her to that bar at the edge of town. You know the one. The biker bar.”
Alex didn’t say a word. He shut the phone, tossed it to the seat, and executed a U-turn in the middle of town before speeding through the traffic to the bar in question.
The biker bar. The one where Rogue Walker and her friends kept the town filled with gossip.
His jaw clenched as the phone rang and he ignored it. Dawg called. Natches called.
Ten minutes later he swung into the crowded graveled parking lot as the sheriff’s cruiser pulled in behind him. Before Alex was out of the truck, Natches rolled in on his bike, Chaya, Crista, and Kelly pulled in, and Dawg eased his pickup in behind them.
Alex strode furiously to the door, jerked it open, and stepped into the raucous, smoky atmosphere. He hadn’t taken half a dozen steps inside when he came to a full, hard stop and just stared.
He swore he swallowed his tongue. He heard Zeke curse behind him. Dawg was chiding Crista over something and Chaya might have been arguing with Natches. All Alex knew, all he saw, was Janey.
She was incandescent, and it wasn’t that bright red, too-damned-snug, tiny, strapped little camisole top that made her light the room up either.
Her hair was straight, feathering around her flushed face, her reddened lips. Her green eyes glowed. Her arms were stretched over her head as she and Rogue rocked with some leather-clad dancer on the dance floor, both of them laughing and weaving, swaying seductively as the men around them danced with them. Old, young—they had the whole fucking bar rocking. There were other women on the floor. The women that ran with the bikers, dressed scantily, usually fighting. Not tonight. Tonight, they were dancing, and Janey was in the middle of it.
She tossed her head, shook her hips, and a vise tightened around his balls. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She better be wearing panties.
That short black leather skirt flirted with the tops of fishnet stockings, and red fuck-me pumps graced her small feet.
And she was having fun.
Alex felt something clench in his chest, tighter than before. His guts felt twisted, his cock was a steel spike throbbing beneath his jeans, and his senses were so fucking scattered he didn’t know how to sort them out.
He’d seen Janey as sweet, vulnerable. Someone he had to protect from life and from himself. Hell, he’d never stop thinking that. But that was a woman on the dance floor, and every male instinct raging inside him warned him that if he didn’t take what belonged to him, then someone was going to take it away from him.
Tortured need clashed with the honor he had always demanded of himself. Dark, brutal, the memories of the past filtered through his brain as he watched her.
He’d almost loved once in his life. At twenty, two years after joining the Army. He was in Germany. His lover was an embassy liaison, and she had died in a back alley on her way home to her apartment. A victim of senseless violence. It hadn’t been terrorists. She hadn’t been a spy; she hadn’t known any secrets. She’d been raped and murdered, and left in a filthy back street.
And Alex had protected his heart ever since. It wasn’t just terrorism or betrayal that killed. Women died every day. Innocent deaths. Acts of God. In the snap of a finger all the happiness that could build inside a man could be snatched away just as easily.
He couldn’t let himself love. But he couldn’t walk away from the vision on that dance floor either.
Her green eyes shimmered between her dark, smoky lashes. Red lips curled with eager fun, not lust. Not invitation. Simple fun.
She bumped hips with Rogue before they turned and swayed with several other eager male dancers. She was laughing, keeping her distance; she wasn’t touching. She was excitement itself, and he was going to come in his jeans just watching her.
“Natches, leave her alone,” Chaya was ordering her husband behind him.
“Dammit, Chaya, they’re bikers,” Natches was arguing.
“She’s having fun, Natches.”
Alex swallowed tight. He moved through the crowd, pushing his way past them, and headed to the dance floor as the band slid smoothly into a slow, sensual tune. Janey laughed and shook her head at the men around her, pointed to the bar, and turned to leave.
He caught her at the edge of the floor. His arm slid around her waist, pulling her against him as she stiffened.
“Dance with me, Janey.” He lowered his lips to her ear, feeling her soften, feeling her body flow into his.
Alex turned her slowly, pulled her into his arms, and, staring down at her, jerked her hips to his before he began swaying with her.
It always amazed him, each time he had her in his arms, how tiny she was compared to him. A good six inches shorter even with heels, her curvy little body fragile against him. His hands cupped her hips, slid to her back. He wanted to crush her against him. Lift her up and carry her away. Touch her. Fill her with the hunger raging, dark and brutal, inside him.
“I couldn’t find you,” he whispered against her ear. “I was worried.”
Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, as though she enjoyed touching him.
“I left all the lights off,” she murmured, letting her body stroke against his, caress him.
“You didn’t tell me about the lights. And you took a cab.”
“I don’t drink and drive.” Her hands ran over his black leather jacket.
“I’ll drive.” He brushed her hair aside from her ear with his chin and tasted the lobe of her ear.
He heard her sharp intake of breath, felt her soften further against him.
“I want to go parking.” Leaning back, her smile drowsy, her cheeks flushed, she gazed up at him with enough hunger to fry his brain. “I’ve never been parking.”
Parking with Janey? God, he hadn’t taken a girl parking since he was sixteen years old.
“Janey, I’m a man . . .”
“Who’s going to take me parking,” she told him firmly, choosing that moment to rub her hips against his, to stroke over his cock with her lower stomach as her hands clenched against his biceps. “I’ve never been parking, Alex.”
She was going to kill him. Because he was going to take her parking.
“You really want to lose your virginity in the front seat of my pickup?”
The thought of it had flames shooting through his mind. Hell. The image of that in his head would make him crazy.
“When I was seventeen, I was at the lake, remember?” She pushed her hands beneath his jacket, her fingers stroking over his chest.
“I was thirty-one,” he reminded her.
“I wanted to leave with you. I wanted to jump into that pickup you had and just ride away with you. And I imagined you taking me parking.” Her tongue licked over her lips. “I wanted you, Alex. I wanted you so bad.”
He was fucking crazy.
“I’m not easy, Janey,” he tried to warn her. “I won’t be satisfied with a little stroke and tease.”
“I’m a woman, Alex. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to have fun.”
One hand slid down his chest, his abdomen; her fingers curled beneath the band of his jeans and stroked over the throbbing, sensitive head of his cock.
He had to clench his teeth to hold back his cum. Still, his erection throbbed and a small spurt of silky release pulsed to her fingers from the tiny slit.
And what did the little witch do? With him shielding her body, she pulled her damp finger free, lifted it to her lips, and licked. Curled her tongue right around her damned finger and her lashes dipped in pleasure.
“We’re leaving.”
“I’m having fun, Alex,” she murmured, but she didn’t fight him when he gripped her upper arm and pulled her after him.
“Where’s your coat?”
“Oh. Damn. I must have forgot to wear one,” she said, too innocently, as they left the dance floor.
Fuck. He jerked his jacket off and pushed her arms into the sleeves, thanking God the bar was dim and it was dark outside.
“Wow, the whole family is here.” Janey stared around Alex as she approached not just her brother and cousins, but their wives as well.
Rowdy, Kelly, Dawg, and Crista watched her and Alex with an edge of amusement. Natches looked thunderous, Chaya resigned.
“What the hell are you doing here, Janey?” Natches groaned as he jerked her to him for a rough hug. “You scared the hell out of me.”
She wanted to roll her eyes. “Sorry. Did I break curfew?”
Chaya snickered. Natches didn’t.
“Come on.” Natches gripped her arm. “We’ll take you home.”
“Natches, I’m not sixteen.” She pulled her arm back and almost glared at him. “Besides, Alex promised to take me riding around. I’m not ready to go home.”
“Then you can come back to the boat,” Natches gritted out.
“Chaya, take him home and give him some before he blows a gasket.” She stared back at her brother in shock. “Natches, what is your problem? What? It’s a sin for me to go out and have fun?”
“With him, it should be illegal.” He glowered at Alex. “He’s too old to be running the roads with you.”
“Oh geez, am I still in high school?” Janey shook her head and stared back at Natches angrily. “Get a grip, Natches. Go home. Have a beer. I promise to be home in time for curfew. Oh wait.” She widened her eyes. “That’s right—I’m over twenty-one. I don’t have a curfew.”
Did his lips twitch? His eyes were narrowed, his lips tightly compressed, but she swore she saw them twitch.
“Damn, I think she’s a Mackay.” Rowdy laughed as Janey turned and stalked out the door, followed closely behind by Alex.
Boy, she bet he was enjoying having three Mackays at his back.
“Natches, you poke that fist in my back again and I’m going to break your hand.” Alex’s voice drifted through the night, a low murmur of danger as Janey felt him stiffen behind her.
“Alex, please don’t break his hand.” Chaya sighed. “I have several uses for it. Natches, stop being an ass.”
“Yeah, really.” Janey turned and stepped around Alex.
She caught him. Fist raised, Natches was getting ready to poke Alex in the middle of the back again. Actually, it was probably more of a full-fledged strike than a poke.
His fist stilled as he stared back at her.
“High school,” she reminded him.
Natches dropped his fist, only to cross his arms over his chest.
“He’s fired. Chaya and I will stay at the apartment with you.”
Janey leaned back against Alex’s pickup, sensing the tension running high between the two men. Because of her. They were friends. They had always been friends. Was she coming between that?
“Do you trust me, Natches?” she finally asked, needing to know.
She hadn’t asked him that, ever. But suddenly, the need to know rose inside her like an illness.
“I’ve always trusted you, Janey.” He frowned.
“Then stop,” she said softly. “For my sake, Natches. Please.”
He leaned closer. The moon added brilliance to his dark green eyes as they glittered in warning. “If he breaks your heart, I’ll kill him.”
“If he breaks my heart,” she whispered back, “you’ll never know.”
Natches shook his head at that. “I’ll know, Janey,” he promised her. “Just like I’ve known other things for years.” He looked at where Alex had been drawn aside by Dawg and Rowdy. He watched them, closely, but he couldn’t hear the conversation.
Janey stared back at her brother coolly. “And what do you think you know?”
“That you think you’ve been in love with him since you were seventeen years old. And he hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you in just as long. I’m not a fool. But I’m not a man who will sit back and watch a man his age mess with his kid sister and toss her aside. Remember that. Because you’re right—you’re over twenty-one. You’re an adult. But you’re still the baby sister I’d die for. Remember that.”
Janey felt herself pale. She knew Natches meant every word. When she was eight, she had watched him nearly die at Dayle Mackay’s hands as he beat Natches to the floor for daring to try to protect Janey from a slap.
Natches hadn’t fought him back. He’d let Dayle expend his rage, and after he’d healed, he’d shown the man how he’d retaliate. The bullet that had taken Dayle’s car windshield out barely missed his head. Dayle had known who pulled the trigger, and he knew Natches would kill him, over Janey.
Yeah, her heart was at risk, but she had learned a long time ago how to hide her feelings. Natches might think he knew something, but unless he was certain, he would never strike out.
She patted his cheek lovingly. “I love ya, Natches. But my heart isn’t going to be broken. You forget. I’ve had a lot of years to grow up. I know even more than you think I do exactly why my heart is going to stay safe. Don’t worry. Love isn’t a part of it.”
And he didn’t look any happier than he had when she first saw him at the bar. And Alex must have overheard, because damned if he didn’t look unhappy, too.
And that was okay. Tonight, she had made a decision herself. She had been fascinated with Alex for far too many years, and the need she had for him wasn’t going to go away.
For his sake, he was right; it was better no one knew he was staying with her. His reputation wouldn’t suffer for having slept with the daughter of a traitor, and when this was over, maybe she would leave. Being alone in another city beat the hell out of being miserable here, knowing no one trusted her, that no one even considered the fact that she was as much a victim in Dayle and Nadine’s conspiracies as anyone else had been.
But because she had played the dutiful daughter when he demanded it, now she would pay for that as well. No one wanted to see beneath the surface. No one except a bar full of bikers wanted to know the woman she was, rather than the woman they wanted to perceive her as.
Rogue had said once that this county had created her and she’d stuck around to rub their noses in it. Janey didn’t think she had that much strength. Once Alex walked back out of her bed, she would have no choice but to leave. Because a part of her knew she had stayed to be with him.
“Are you ready to go?” He opened the driver’s-side door of the pickup and helped her in, ignoring Natches and the others as he climbed in beside her.
A second later they were pulling out. Janey could feel her family’s gazes on her as they left, and it left a heaviness inside her to know how worried they were.
Not about a potential stalker. They were more worried about the fact that it was Alex she was leaving with. Rather than gaining their trust to follow her heart as they had followed theirs, Janey instead felt their combined worry and concern weighing her down, pulling at her heart.
She wasn’t used to that concern; at least she wasn’t used to feeling it. She had been alone for so long that sometimes she didn’t stop to wonder if it was natural not to let someone know she would be gone. Or what her plans were, or if she was happy or sad. No one had ever been in a position to support her, or to ease her through the hell her life had been for so long. Now Janey didn’t depend on anyone but herself.
It was better that way. As Alex pulled from the bar and headed toward the lake, she told herself it was better knowing the terms and conditions of any relationship before one stepped into it.
Alex needed to protect his reputation. She had heard a few of the conversations at the restaurant. She knew the city council was hoping to get him in as the next chief of police. He couldn’t risk a relationship, at least not a public one, with her. The daughter of a traitor. A supposedly once loving daughter.
Yeah, she had played that role well.
And now she was going to pay for it.