Forbidden (Southern Comfort) (26 page)

A future, he realized, that they both saw happening together.

It was terrifying, and… terrifying, and yet comforting at the same time.

“I’m in,” he said after a moment.

“Good.”  Then the hand on his chest began i
nching lower, and Clay groaned as it closed around his member.

This
, he thought, rolling over to pin Tate beneath him, was a program he could definitely get used to.   

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

JR
Walker ambled into the Bentonville UPS store a mere ten minutes after it opened, stewing over the mess his idiot cousin had made.  Probably, he mused, he should have stopped him from beating that girl.  But a little sadism could foster sales in certain quarters, so he’d seen no reason to stop the filming.

Until Billy Wayne climbed off and she wasn’t breathing.

JR had even done CPR – he still remembered how – but to no avail.

And now they had a murder on their heads.

How the hell had he managed to be related to such a fool?  But then it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise – JR’s entire family had been worthless. From his junkie mother who more times than not forgot that he needed food, to his asshole of an uncle who’d been as free with his fists as he’d been with his gin. 

Fury twisted inside him
, quickly suppressed.  That was something he hadn’t allowed himself to think about in years.

“Hey, Rob.”

JR blinked himself back to the present.  He’d been standing in front of his mailbox.  Staring into space.

Not acceptable behavior.

He turned, managed a smile, and put on some
aw, shucks
.  He was Rob.  It was something he couldn’t forget.

“Hey, Julie.” He exaggerated his d
rawl, scratched the deep brown hair of his wig.  Just another tobacco-chewing local yokel – easy to recognize, easy to forget.  “I didn’t even see you,” he told the woman whose acquaintanceship he’d been cultivating for the past couple months.  Since it was impossible to remain anonymous in a small town, that left hiding in plain sight.

“No kidding,” Julie chuckled, which did unflattering things to her jowls.  But as her friendliness worked to his advantage, he kept his personal distaste in check.  No way would she link “Rob” to anything, should it ever come to that.  “You looked like your brain had been sucked out by aliens.”

“I was having one of them, whaddaya call it, senior moments,” he said as he opened his box, gathered his mail.  And glancing at the small stack, made a face that said
more
bills
. 

“I think you have to be a little older to qualify for a senior moment.”

“Tell that to my brain.”  And grinning, adjusted his pants under his padded gut.

Julie, stupid sow that she was, just kept talking as if he cared.  Something about her decrepit mother, who
really
had senior moments, and
oh! –
some of the mirth-provoking situations that caused.  As she was droning on, the WANTED poster behind her reached out like a fist to grab him.

Remarkable, actually, how well the artist had captured Billy Wayne.

“Hey,” he interrupted Julie’s nonsense, as absolutely casually as he could.  “What’s that poster over there all about?”

“Oh.”  Julie’s eyes lit at the opportunity to pass on the latest gossip. “That man is wanted for questioning in some kind of abduction.  Took a girl from that carnival they have goin’ outside town.”

“Is that so?”   The fist tightened, and squeezed.
 

“Yep.”  Julie was utterly delighted.  “
And
that’s not all.”  She turned and lifted a stubby finger, which stilled in a flash of confusion.  “Well huh.  I wonder where the other one went.” Moving to the table over which the sign hung, she peered under it, toward the floor.  “Here it is!” Triumphant, she scooped another paper off the floor. Then ripping a piece of tape off the dispenser she wore clipped on her belt, affixed the second flyer to the wall
.

And as she stood back to admire her handiwork, JR’s vision began to gray. 

“The FBI man who brought this in said that the guy might use a disguise, and that he could be one of those, what are they called?  Albinos.”

“Is that so?” he repeated weakly.  Then clearing his throat, managed to look impressed.  “FBI, you said?”

“Uh-huh.” Then she lowered her voice. “But between you, me and the fencepost, he smelled like he’d been drinking.”

If JR hadn’t been going into free-fall, he might have found th
at amusing.  But since his brain quickly calculated that Billy Wayne had to have been identified from that incident at the diner, where he’d simply refused to wear a disguise – and where JR, as usual, had gone along to make sure the imbecile stayed out of trouble…

As himself, he remembered, infuriated. Because he hadn’t wanted to risk anyone seeing “Rob” with Billy Wayne.

But how the fuck had they managed to tie that incident to the missing girl?

Julie kept yammering away, mistaking speechless rage for fascination.  “My cousin Jenny’s boyfriend – do you know Jenny?  No? – well anyway, Jenny’s boyfriend works down at the sheriff’s office as a dispatcher, and
he
said that the FBI man and his girlfriend saw this guy at the carnival, and that they were
this close
to stopping him from taking that girl.  Because, you know, they saw them talking and stuff.  Wild, huh?  He abducted someone right in front of the FBI?”

But JR had stopped listening.  He hadn’t heard anything past the word
girlfriend.

He knew who that girlfriend was.

Julie stopped blabbing. “Are you okay Rob?  You got that alien look again.”

Nausea roiled, but he smiled through it.  “Just surprised about all this, I guess.” 

“I know what you mean. You don’t think about that stuff happening around here.  But that’s not even the worst of it.  They think he killed another girl.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.  Some run-away they found over by Piney Woods.”

  He had to fight to keep his hands from reaching.  From squeezing her throat the way her words were squeezing him.  Piney Woods was just around the corner.  A hop, skip and a jump from the old farm that had belonged to JR’s grandmother.

And where Billy Wayne was staying.

Where they had the girl.

It was only a matter of time before the authorities came knocking.

And the arrogance of it all, the fact that Billy Wayne had killed a girl, left her in the woods, and then gone out and taken another, like no one would notice...

Rage bubbled inside and heated his veins, melting all the ice he’d cultivated for years.

People had messed with him – messed him up – for the last time.

And it was time the people who messed with him paid.

“
NICE
pants, by the way.”

Clay shot Kim a look as they made their way down Bentonville’s main thoroughfare – a palmetto-lined accumulation of shops and services that looked like a southern-fried version of Mayberry – heading toward the sheriff’s office. 

He’d run out this morning, in search of suitable attire, and the only store open at seven a.m. was the twenty-four hour Wal-Mart.  His pants were serviceable, if not exactly the height of fashion.  “Hardy har har.  So I didn’t come prepared for an investigation.  Sue me.”

Kim adjusted her own
immaculate slacks, and gave him a thorough once over.  “You probably could have found something nicer last night,” she mused “if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to get over to see your friend Justin.  It
was
Justin that you kept calling every hour, wasn’t it?  So what – you had a front row ticket to an appendectomy?  Maybe a triple by-pass that you just had to watch?  Because he
was
working last night, right?  You mentioned that, when I asked about him.”

Clay briefly closed his eyes, because his grace period was apparently over. 

“If I didn’t know any better,” she continued, immune to the fact that he was trying to ignore her.  Like a mosquito buzzing in your ear. 

A fly that you desperately wanted to swat… 

“I’d think that my formerly commitment-phobic, changes-women-with-the-frequency-of-underwear, best friend Clay was in lo-o-o-ve.”  She did what could only be described as a happy dance in her seat.  “So tell me, Lone Ranger – how the
hell
did you manage to do that?”

How the hell, precisely.

Clay had no frickin’ clue. 

He’d awakened quite early this morning, startled to find a small foot in his groin.  At some point in the night Max had apparently snuck into Tate’s bed and cuddled up between them, unbeknownst to the bed’s occupants
, who’d both thought the other one had locked the door. 

Being a good mother, Tate had been equally freaked out to find him there, as the fact that they were sleeping together and there was a general lack of clothing made the situation uncomfortable for all.  She’d started spouting off some sort of parental mumbo-jumbo about how when two adults really cared about each other they sometimes had “grown up sleepovers,” which Max, perceptive kid that he was,
clearly felt reeked of all kinds of bullshit, but he hadn’t been the least perturbed.  In fact, he’d told her with a fairly bored air that his friend Cole’s mommy and daddy had sleepovers every night.

Then, with irrefutable five-year-old logic, he’d asked Clay if that meant he was going to be his new dad.

And okay. That had freaked him out a little.

Because as much as he cared about
Tate and had gotten on board with this whole relationship program, despite previously discussed pitfalls and problems, the idea of marriage – of being someone’s
daddy,
for God’s sake – was just a little too much for his very recently
ex
-commitment phobic brain to take.

What did he know about being a good dad?

Sure, his own father had done a helluva job, raising him singlehandedly from the time Clay’s mom died when he was eight.

But
jeez.

What if he messed the kid up?

He’d been so worried about the stresses of his job on his and Tate’s relationship, that he hadn’t given nearly enough consideration to Max.

Like how would he feel when Clay missed his Little League games?  Or parent-teacher conferences?  Or those really embarrassing school plays that every self-respecting boy dreads because he has to dress up like an oak leaf?

So okay, maybe Max wouldn’t be
too
sad if he missed that one. But still.

What exactly had he gone and done?

“Clay,
look out!”

Kim’s voice cut through his
fugue, and Clay realized that he’d almost barreled through a crosswalk.  An occupied crosswalk.

Slamming on the brakes, he thanked God for both Kim’s ability to focus on what was really important – like
driving
– and also for seatbelts, because otherwise they’d both currently be getting intimate with his dashboard.

The man in the crosswalk – a
slightly overweight brunette who’d obviously just conducted some business at the UPS store and was now making his way to his car – stopped like the proverbial deer in the headlights and stared at Clay’s truck in horror.

Feeling like more than a little bit of an idiot, Clay rolled his window down and stuck out his head.  “Sorry,” he called. Totally mortified.  Wouldn’t
that
have been a headline to do the Bureau proud?  “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying enough attention.”

A range of emotions crossed the other man’s face, which finally settled into a scowl that read
asshole
.

Yeah.  He’d arrived at that conclusion himself.

Clay watched the guy cross to an old blue pickup – one that Justin would have loved to have gotten hold of, because it was obviously in running condition but needed a serious bit of TLC.  Out of habit, he looked at the license plate, while the man, after casting one last furious look in Clay’s direction, climbed in as they pulled away.

“I’m sorry.” Kim covered her surprise with humor.  “I didn’t realize that saying the
‘L’ word in the same sentence with your name would result in you mowing down pedestrians.”

Shaken, Clay rubbed at the headache that was brewing steadily behind his eyes. “Let’s just drop it, alright?”

“Sure,” Kim agreed. 

Clay took his foot off the brake and started driving.

JR
sat in his truck, watching the SUV in his rearview mirror.

Damn,
that had been close.  He’d almost been taken out by the FBI, quite literally. It was that same agent he’d seen on TV.  The one who was humping Tate Hennessey.