Out of Uniform

Dee shoved away from the wall, pacing restlessly, straightening a basket with coffee essentials, nudging the duffel upright with her toe, straightening the bedspread. “I used to mourn having lost out on the childbirth experience. Now I thank God for that scar.” She turned to Jacob. “It made me work harder at regaining my memory. Who knows how long I would have floated otherwise?”



“You’re a stubborn lady.” He admired the fortitude she had to possess in order to trudge through biting Rockfish winds to get back to the hotel after her ex had left her for dead on a deserted road. “I think you’d have punched through the fog before long.”



Dee paused from evening out the mini-blinds to smile. “Thank you again for all you’ve done.”



He didn’t want her gratitude. What did he want? She was important to him. A couple of weeks ago he would have said too important and run like hell. “No thanks needed. And, Dee? We’re going to find your son.”



“You say that with such confidence. I envy your self-assurance.” She crossed to the sofa and dropped to sit beside him. “I’ve made so many mistakes, Jacob—big screw-ups. I can’t help but wonder if this is my punishment, that I’ve somehow brought this on myself and Evan’s the one who will pay.”



“We all make mistakes.” He’d made his own fair share in not connecting with his sister. Hell, look at how he’d never managed a serious relationship in thirty-two years. “Worry about your child, cry for him, shout out your frustration. That’s normal. But put the blame where it belongs. On Blane.”



She shook her head in mute denial.



Jacob silently damned Blane Lambert to hell for making Dee so wary. Evan and Dee, and even Jacob, were all having to pay. “Mistakes are tough to accept, especially when the stakes are so high. I’m not giving up until I find him. You have to trust me to do this with you.”



A spark fired in her eyes. “That’s all great—” she held up a firm finger “—as long as I get to be an equal partner in reclaiming my life and my son. While I’m grateful for your help, I can’t sit back and count on you to do everything for me. I need to take charge, to have some control.”



She flattened her hand against his chest. Memories of making love to her rolled through his mind like a video on fast-forward. He wanted her again, but needed to think about her. She was going through hell right now, had to be suffering from huge emotional fallout after all they’d learned at the police station and from Spike.



Jacob stared at her hand on his chest. She might need him to lay off, but then again, she might need the comfort after hearing about the Suburban in the water, the body near it.



He didn’t even want to think about the implications himself, so he couldn’t imagine how torn up she had to be. The air hung heavy between them as he looked back down at her. “Do you want me to sleep on the sofa?”



A smile, her first today and not much of a smile at that, but a definite tilt to her lips tipped into her cheeks as she swayed toward him. Then he saw the heat, the desire, the need to escape firing into her eyes.



“In the bed, with me,” she said with conviction, sliding her arms around his waist and tipping her face in an unmistakable invitation for a kiss. “Or we could stay here together on the sofa for now, the bed later.”



“Good. Because that’s exactly where I want to be.” He reminded himself now wasn’t the time to talk about futures when hers was so uncertain. All the same, he couldn’t help but want more from her. And the more he wanted, the more he stood to lose.



She’d come full circle, starting in one small lodging room, ending in another. Only this time, she wouldn’t let the world control her.



She’d meant what she’d said. She wanted to share his room, Jacob’s bed.



The thought threatened to scare the warmth right out of her. But her every maternal instinct screamed that her son was alive and she knew she was doing everything possible to find him, thanks to Jacob’s help. She couldn’t find Evan tonight, but she could soothe her heart and soul enough now to carry on the fight tomorrow when she might need every scrap of strength she possessed to cope with whatever they discovered.



Dee angled forward and found his mouth. Jacob looped his arms low around her waist. Kiss for kiss, he twined his tongue with hers, exploring, tasting, demanding.



She pressed against him until he relented and leaned back on the sofa. Anchoring him, she flattened her tender br**sts to his chest, rolled her h*ps against his already rigid arousal. His hands reached for her shirt, and she shoved them away, pinning them to his sides. This was her show, her night to lose herself if only for a few hours.



Dee inched away from him, her mouth being the last thing to break contact. “Don’t move.”



His brows lowered over his moody eyes. He paused, then raised his hands in surrender. Layer by layer, she tossed aside his clothes, rediscovering every patch of his skin with her mouth until tendons strained along his neck.



Again Jacob reached for her. “Dee, enough.”



And again she pushed aside his questing hands. “Not nearly.”



“Well, hell,” he growled. “Then it’s my turn.”



“Soon. We’ve still got the bed later.”



Employing the same slow precision with which she’d tossed aside his clothes, she repeated with her own. None of her prior insecurities remained as she shrugged off her bra, stepped from her jeans and whisked away her panties. His gaze heated with appreciation as he watched, further firing her own need.



Dee scooped his pants from the floor and pulled free his wallet. A quick search uncovered just what she’d expected. He’d come prepared.



She plucked out the condom and braced her knees on either side of his hips. Dee clasped him, silencing him as she unrolled the condom with a languorous stroke.



Groaning, he palmed her back and brought her down to him, skin to skin for the first time in what felt like forever. Dee sighed, gently brushing herself along the tempting rasp of the hair on his chest—then gasped as his hands cupped her bottom.



“Enough,” he said again, his voice leaving no room for argument.



They rolled from the sofa in a tangle of arms and legs. Jacob twisted at the last minute, and she landed on top of him.



Exactly where she wanted to be, in control.



She wriggled until her legs straddled him again. As she lifted to ease herself on him, he grabbed her hips. With a growl of frustration, she clasped his wrists and pinned his arms to the floor.



Dee took him inside her, control slipping elusively away as the heat of him filled her. Jacob’s jaw clenched as he battled for restraint. She reveled in pushing him to the edge before he’d even had a chance to touch her.



He shook his hands free of her grasp and filled them with her breasts, his thumbs circling her already pebble-tight peaks. She slid her hands over his and pressed while her h*ps rocked against him.



He palmed the small of Dee’s back and began rolling her off him. She resisted. He braced a leg around hers and started to flip Dee to her back. Again, she resisted, her eyes sparking a mix of mischief and resolve.



He stroked her hair from her face, searching her eyes. “What do you want from me?”



“Everything.”



Jacob hooked her leg over his hip and flipped her to her back in a smooth sweep that left her gasping, gripping his shoulders to secure herself the swirl of sensation.



He drove into her with powerful thrusts she met and equaled. She found new strength in his, new reserves she never knew she possessed.



Jacob reached between them and stroked her, teased her. “You’re mine.”



Dee tensed her leg around him, her body trembling with the force of powerful emotions she only just barely contained. “You’re mine.”



She watched her words register in his mind a second before she catapulted him over the edge, Jacob’s hoarse shouts of completion sending an aftershock through her. Somewhere in her fogged brain, she heard him gasping, too.



Was he shaking or was she?



He gathered her to his chest, buried his face in her hair, and she wondered what the hell had just happened between them.



You’re mine.



Her words or his? On a day filled with too many questions, she couldn’t find the answer before sleep overwhelmed her.



The ringing alarm clock pulled Dee from sleep. She waited for Jacob to hit the snooze button, but the warm weight of his leg between hers didn’t move. The steady beat of his heart thumped beneath her ear as she squinted against the morning light piercing through the mini-blinds.



Slowly the layers of grogginess peeled away and she realized it wasn’t a clock, it was the—



“Phone, damn it.” Jacob bolted upright and reached to snag the receiver. He scrubbed a hand over his face, then up to his mussed hair. “Jacob Stone here.”



Dee gasped, sat up, praying he’d picked up in time. No one knew to call them here except for his friend with the OSI. Anyone else would have used his cell phone number.



She hugged the plaid cover to ward off the chill of the winter morning and abrupt wake-up after the night of warm comfort in Jacob’s arms. Still, she was immediately alert. Tense. Waiting for any news of her little boy.



“Yeah,” he barked into the receiver, paused, frowned, glanced at her with inscrutable eyes. “Uh-huh. Right. She’s here with me.”



Bad news? She prepped herself for the possibility the body in the river could be Blane’s after all. She couldn’t let herself think about the possibility they had found her precious son in those icy waters.



Even the thick swaddling of a bedspread couldn’t ease the cold that thought brought.



She bit her lip to keep from asking questions. If she interrupted him, the information would only come slower from whoever had called.



Jacob extended the phone toward her. “It’s Spike.”



“The border patrol? He found something?” She could barely allow herself to hope everything could be resolved this quickly.



He shook his head. “Your home phone. Someone called and left a message, someone claiming to be Evan.”



She forgot to breathe. Something she didn’t realize until the room grew dim and Jacob grasped her arm. She gasped in air.



“Spike wants to play the tape over the phone for you to identify the voice.”



Dee grabbed for the receiver and cradled it to her ear, a lifeline to her son. Please, please, please. “Agent Keagan? This is Dee Lambert. I’m ready whenever you are.”



She kept her eyes focused on Jacob’s face, needing the contact. The strength. Oh God, she couldn’t face another letdown if this wasn’t her baby boy.



“Yes, ma’am, hold on just a second while I patch through the recording.”



A crackle sounded then cleared. “Mommy?”



The one word squeezed the air from her lungs. She gripped the phone as if she could somehow strengthen the connection.



“Mommy? I don’t feel so good. Please come and get me….”



A dial tone echoed as the call faded away. A click sounded, followed by Keagan coming back on the line to ask her a question she could barely hear over the roaring in her head.



Now she couldn’t stop breathing, gasping, shaking. She forced her lips to move. “It’s him. It’s Evan.”



Chapter 16



H e stared out his bedroom window at his parents’ silver Suburban and wished like hell he could just drive away from here.



Chase punched his pillow and imagined he could sock Jacob Stone for putting him in this crappy situation. He flung the goose down lump away, envisioning it was Emily, getting the hell out of his life once and for all. No more trying to trap him with her clingy demands to spend time with her. He liked the kid, sure, but he just wasn’t ready to be a dad yet. He wanted to play the field awhile longer. He was only just turning eighteen tomorrow, for God’s sake. There were so many women out there.