But apparently the police didn’t think he was cute. He hadn’t been released. And on top of that, Jane was spending her Saturday at her parents’ house, watching the sheriff serve a search warrant.
She snuck a peek at her stepfather, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, looking as if he didn’t want to be in his own home.
If her mother had made Mac aware, he wouldn’t have let Jessie get away with things like shoplifting gum from the gas station or lying to his teachers about why he hadn’t done his homework.
But Mom had always loved bad boys, of course. And her enabling love had let Jessie grow up into a slacker who figured he could charm his way out of anything. If it wasn’t for the large and very intimidating presence of his father, Jessie probably would have been a complete waste. As it was, he at least pretended to try to find a job.
But now the deputies were getting ready to search Jessie’s room and the rest of the basement. They hadn’t gotten access to the rest of the house, anyway, and that just might save her stepdad’s sanity.
Mac crossed his arms, face red and eyes narrowed. He’d backed into the kitchen, separating himself from everyone to help control his temper, a gesture Jane recognized. His appearance was frightening and his temper was real, but he’d spent the past twenty years doing everything he could to stay out of prison. His quiet anger filled the room, but he didn’t give it a voice.
Her mom, on the other hand, cried loudly, hands clutching the warrant. “But he didn’t do anything!” Her conviction was incredibly real considering she had no idea why the cops were there.
They were from the county sheriff’s department, but the warrant had come from Aspen. At least the family knew where Jessie was being held now—right in Jane’s backyard.
“All right,” Jane said to the female deputy keeping her company, the one making sure she didn’t destroy any evidence. Her mother had her own personal keeper and the biggest deputy was stationed near the kitchen, eyes on Mac. “Please tell me what he’s been charged with.”
“He was arrested by the Aspen P.D., ma’am. You’ll have to contact them.”
“Of course,” she muttered. “Mom, let me see the warrant.”
A crash sounded from the basement, and Jane threw a concerned glance at Mac, who took a deep breath and turned to face the wall. Her mother sobbed.
“Mom, please keep it down. Dad is upset enough, all right?”
Her mom nodded and sniffed hard, trying to control herself.
“I’m going to read the warrant, and then I’m going to try to get in touch with someone at the Aspen police department, okay? Now that we know where he is, we’ll be able to find out the charges, no problem. It’s all public record. And they must have set bail already.”
“I know.” Her mom sighed. Of course she did. They were all well versed in the ins and outs of the justice system.
The warrant was enlightening. The police were searching for stolen goods that related to an ongoing investigation. The belongings of two women were listed: purses, credit cards, cash and licenses.
Crud. An ongoing investigation. Not good. Jane looked at the hunched shoulders of her stepfather and cringed. Mac was going to be past furious.
“Do you know about the stolen-goods investigation?” Jane asked the deputy.
The woman gave her an impassive look. “You’ll need to contact the Aspen P.D., ma’am.”
“Yes, I got that, thanks.”
She waded through the last of the scarce information in the warrant before shaking her head. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “Jessie’s no thief.”
As if on cue, a deputy emerged from the basement staircase with a big plastic bag. It wasn’t empty.
Mac’s mouth tightened. “Call Aspen,” he growled, causing his guard to shift nervously. Mac’s brown hair was peppered with gray, but he still looked dangerous as hell. His green eyes shot daggers at the cop, and his big arms warned that he could back his rage up with power. The blue-black stains of the tattoos on his arms gave a warning, too—one any cop would recognize. Here was a man who’d spent a good part of his life in prison.
Jane dialed information and turned to face the corner for a small sense of privacy. The black lacquer end table was polished to a shine and reflected her own anxious face back at her.
She’d lost her adventurous side over the course of the past few hours. Now she was pale and plain again, her mouth pinched, her forehead creased with worry. She looked like a woman who’d never enjoyed so much as a decadent dessert, much less a big animal of a man.
As she spoke to the receptionist at the police department and then got transferred to another desk and then another, Jane watched her own face grow tighter, her features twisting into fear as she talked.
By the time she hung up, her reflection had gone blurry with angry tears.
“Mom,” she whispered as she turned to face the room. No one heard her. Another deputy passed by on his journey from the basement to the vehicles parked outside. “Dad,” she said.
Mac lifted his head and looked at her.
She swallowed hard and lifted the phone a little, as if that would explain her horror.
“What is it?” he asked.
Jane shook her head and swallowed again, finally getting her throat clear enough to speak. “Jessie…I got through to a detective in Aspen. He said…he said that Jessie was stopped for speeding and suspicion of driving under the influence. He was arrested for possession of marijuana, and when they searched the car they found stolen credit cards. Several of them. He’s been charged with multiple counts of theft…and felony grand larceny.”
Her mother groaned. Mac spit out a curse. And all three deputies in the room moved their hands toward their guns.
For nearly twenty years Jane had managed to steer clear of anything even resembling a jail or a prison. She’d even avoided seeing friends in the hospital, because the ugly floors and echoing halls reminded her of uniforms and shackles. She wasn’t sure quite how many hours she’d spent in prison visiting rooms as a child, but it had been way past the point of too many.
Jane Morgan’s twenty-year reprieve was over. She was heading right back to where she’d started.
But now the sadness of the place fell upon her like a wave. The Aspen police department was clean and modern, but that didn’t change the brutal truth. Some of these people would be leaving after a few hours behind bars. Some would be here for a couple of years, serving sentences for minor crimes. And for some, jail was just a way station on the way to state or federal prison.
Please don’t let that be Jessie
.
A loud clank echoed through the small visiting room, and Jane looked up to see Jessie shuffling out in an orange jumpsuit, his eyes bright with anxiety. “Hey, sis,” he mouthed as he took his seat.
“Dad’s not here?” he asked as soon as Jane picked up the phone.
“No, it’s just me.”
“Okay, good.”
“Jessie, what the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know.” His blond hair flopped over his brow when he shook his head.
“If they’ve found stolen goods in Dad’s house…He’s a convicted felon, you idiot!”
“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I got pulled over for speeding, and the cop found some…” His eyes darted to the side and he leaned forward as if they weren’t separated by thick glass. “He found some pot and a few credit cards, okay?”
“Not your cards, I assume.”
“No,” he said sullenly.
“If they think Dad’s involved in some sort of identity-theft ring—”
“It’s nothing like that, all right? I just lifted a few purses from Ryders.”
“You’re a selfish idiot!”
He stiffened. “I’m sorry. I needed some cash, all right?”
“And some credit cards?”
He shrugged, the same expression on his face that he’d worn when he’d been suspended from sixth grade for a week. Sullen anxiety.
“Why didn’t you call us? Bail was set on Friday!”
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “Sixty thousand is too much and Dad won’t pay it anyway.”
Well, he was likely right about that. And Jane probably wouldn’t front the bond money either, because lately Jessie was just the type to say “Screw it!” and head off for a vacation in Mexico.
“Is there anything else you need to tell me? Anything else they might have found in your room?”
“No, nothing. They keep asking me about some girl, but I’ve never heard of her.”
The hair on the nape of her neck stood up. “What girl?”
“Some girl named Michelle something. She must’ve had her purse stolen.”
“Did you take it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Jane lost her last thread of patience. “Well, how many purses have you stolen, Jessie?”
“I don’t know. Like fifteen or something. Girls put them on the floor at Ryders when they want to dance. They just leave them there like fucking idiots.”
Fifteen?
The contents of fifteen purses would easily be worth more than a thousand dollars, making the crime a felony. “Oh, yeah.
They’re
the idiots. Have they assigned you an attorney?”
“They gave me some papers to fill out for a court-appointed guy.”
“Don’t talk to the cops unless he’s present. I’ll do my best to find you a good lawyer by Monday, okay? And I’m going to try to find out more about this Michelle.
Don’t say anything else
.”
“All right.” He flinched when the one-minute bell sounded. “Tell Mom and Dad I’m sorry, all right?”
“I will. But you’d better start thinking about what you’re going to do when they release you. Dad’s not going to let you back in the house.”
He nodded and the tip of his nose turned red as if he was holding back tears. “I’m sorry, sis. Honestly. I didn’t mean…” One of the cops began to approach from the other side of the room.
“I love you, Jessie.”
“Yeah, me too.” The officer took the phone from his hand and hung it up. Jessie’s eyes were damp, but he put on a crooked smile as the guard grabbed his elbow to urge him up.
She tried to catch the man’s eye, but he didn’t look at her. She was no one. Just some piece of trash involved with a criminal. She remembered that, too. The way the officers would look through her and her mother, or—worse—glare at them or shake their heads in disgust.
Jane hung up the phone and pushed numbly to her feet. It was Saturday afternoon and she had to find Jessie a better lawyer. Her mom couldn’t do it. She played possum in the face of trouble—she always had. And her stepfather wasn’t the type to work the phones and puzzle out a problem. He was strong and steady and worked with his hands.
Jane was the one who lived in Aspen. She was the one who’d been dating a man in the D.A.’s office.
She’d hardly spent any time at home for the past few years, had tried her best to separate herself from them without giving them up entirely. Maybe if she’d spent more time with Jessie he wouldn’t have turned into a thief. Maybe if she hadn’t turned her back on him, he wouldn’t have thought it was okay to steal money from careless women.
But whatever he’d grown into, he was still her brother even if she’d never consider introducing him to her friends. He was her brother and he still had a good heart…and she’d help him if she could find a way.
A woman out walking by herself in the middle of the night? He’d paced for a few minutes, then pulled on jeans and rushed out to look for her.
Nothing. He had no address. She hadn’t left so much as a note, and her phone call showed on his cell as “blocked,” something he hadn’t had the attention span to notice when she’d called and invited him out.
With no way to contact her, Chase had stayed awake for hours worrying. The next morning, when the newspaper hadn’t reported any injured or dead or missing women, Chase had let his worry turn to anger.
Unbelievable. He’d been used.
Okay, he’d known he was being used, but he hadn’t known he was being
used
used.
Chase shifted, rolling his shoulders back. He felt…strange. Uneasy. As if someone had slipped something into his drink and, well…taken advantage of him.
Ridiculous, of course. He’d been fully aware and more than willing the whole time. But he’d thought they were having a genuinely good time together. And then she’d yanked the rug out from under him. While he’d still been naked and basking in the afterglow.
In Chase’s opinion, that had been uncalled for, and he deserved an apology.
The digital numbers of the dashboard clock jumped from 8:14 to 8:15 a.m. Jane was late. He’d arrived before eight on Friday and she’d already been working. Suddenly his worry was back, though he tried to beat it down.
Jane Morgan was fine. She was just a stone-cold bitch.
His mouth twitched at the lie. No. She wasn’t cold. She’d rocked his fucking world on Friday night, and if he was being honest with himself, that was part of the reason he was so pissed. When he’d stepped out of the shower and toweled himself off, Chase had been downright giddy. Exhausted, but giddy. Like a goddamn little girl.
“Shit,” Chase muttered, running a hand over his eyes.
At the very moment he decided to salvage his pride and drive away, a car turned into the lot. A little white BMW zipped past him, Jane Morgan at the wheel. She didn’t glance in his direction. In fact, she seemed totally lost in thought, brow furrowed as she pulled straight into a space and jumped out of the car.
By the time Chase got his door open, she’d already unlocked the office and slipped inside. Being late probably didn’t sit well with a girl like Jane.
And the sight of her, all prim and proper again in a dark gray suit, wasn’t sitting well with Chase. She looked the way she always did. Unruffled. Unmoved. Cool and composed as she turned on lights and moved toward her desk. She looked as if Friday night had never happened.
Until Chase walked through the door.
Jane’s eyes flew wide as she swung toward him. “Oh!” she yelped. “What are you doing here?”
She sounded so absolutely incredulous that Chase felt a jolt of fury. “Seriously?”
“Well…” He watched her gather up all her shock and will it away to nothing. It took only a few moments before her expression settled into calmness, and she was prim Jane again. “Yes, I’m very serious. What can I help you with, Mr. Chase?”
“Look at my face, Jane. I’m not in the mood for this. You took off in the middle of the night. While I was in the
shower
.”
“Er…” Her face stayed impassive, but she had the grace to blush, anyway.
“First of all, I was terrified something had happened to you.”
She shook her head, drawing his attention to the way she’d rolled her hair under at the nape of her neck. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you were out walking in the middle of the night!”
“It wasn’t the middle of the night. It was nine-thirty. In Aspen.” When he opened his mouth to cut her off, she raised a hand to stop him. “I only walked the two blocks to Main Street, and I had a can of mace with me. I grabbed a cab as soon as I reached The Lodge.”
He crossed his arms. “And how was I supposed to know that?”
A flicker of confusion crossed her face, and Jane dropped her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Secondly,” he growled, uncrossing his arms and moving forward until his thighs hit her desk, “that was really fucking rude, Jane.”
“I…I suppose it—”
“Kind of cruel, as a matter of fact.”
“Cruel?” she whispered.
“I was okay with being your little birthday gift to yourself. Use me. Fine. But I don’t appreciate being treated like a worthless piece of garbage afterward.”
“I’m sorry. I…I thought you’d be glad I was gone.”
“Now, that’s just a lie, Jane. If you thought I’d be glad, you would’ve stuck your head in my bathroom and said, ‘Thanks for the ride, stud. I’ll call you sometime.’ Instead you waited until I’d turned my back and then snuck away so that you wouldn’t have to speak to me after you fucked me.”
That brought more color to her cheeks. He felt a moment’s happiness that he’d gotten to her, and then the unthinkable happened. Jane Morgan began to cry.
Not really
crying
, Chase scrambled to assure himself. Her eyes just got a little…wet. She sniffed.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re right.” She sniffed again and swiped at her eyes. “I was beyond rude.”
“Okay, but I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You have every right to be mad. I was…I told myself it was okay because you were a man, but it wasn’t okay. It was unkind. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“All right, apology accepted. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She put her shoulders back and took a deep breath, seemingly calming herself, but a tear still escaped and slipped down her cheek before she swiped it impatiently away. “I had a tough weekend. It’s not your fault.”
“Bad birthday?”
“Oh, boy,” she said on a laugh, but the laugh turned into a little hiccup.
“Aw, Jane,” he murmured, edging around the desk to pull her into his arms. He half expected her to resist, but she stepped into him and pressed her forehead to his shoulder.
“I’m okay. Really.” She actually sounded a little better. He’d expected her to break down, but she took a few breaths and relaxed. “All right,” she whispered, but she didn’t push away.
“Tell me nothing bad happened to you.”
“No, nothing. I’m just stressed out and tired. I had trouble sleeping last night.”
Good. Now he could enjoy the chance to touch her. He recognized the scent of her shampoo already. It had been imprinted permanently on his brain on Friday night. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thank you. I’m really sorry, Chase.”
Chase was busy with thoughts of the last time he’d touched her, so it took a moment for the noise behind him to register. He was just lifting his head when Quinn walked past.
“Hey, Chase,” Quinn muttered. “Morning, Jane.”
Jane jumped back, jerking violently away before Chase could drop his arms. Inhaling sharply, she slapped a hand over her mouth as if to stifle the sound, her eyes flying to her boss’s back. But Quinn walked on, head down, totally absorbed in the papers in his hand. A few seconds later he disappeared into his office and closed the door.
“Oh, my God,” Jane whispered. “Chase, you’ve got to get out of here. Oh,
God
.”
“All right, all right. I’ll go.” He held up his hands to appease her, but she backed away. “But you owe me another date.”
“I certainly do not—”
Quinn’s door opened. He stuck his head out, brow furrowed with harsh suspicion when his eye fell on Chase. He glared at Chase for a moment, then his eyes slid to Jane.
“Jane? Is everything okay here?” He sent Chase another dark glance, as if she needed a hint.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. Everything’s fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, Mr. Jennings.”
Quinn took a moment to look between them again, eyes narrowed. “All right. If you’re sure you’re okay…”
As soon as his door closed again, Jane snapped, “Get out!”
“Absolutely, as long as you agree to dinner.”
“I specifically said…Okay,
fine!
Just go.”
“I need your number.”
Jane snatched up a Post-it note and scribbled on it before shoving it into his hands. “Out.
Now
.”
He smiled. “I’ll call you.”
She was growling when he left, but Chase wasn’t the least bit worried. That girl was hot. And he wanted more time with her, despite the way she’d treated him. He’d enjoyed the hell out of being used…up until the part where she’d snuck out as if he was a gigolo she didn’t want to pay.
Next time he’d tie her up before he took a shower.
Grinning in anticipation, Chase slammed his truck door and headed out to the morning’s site. If only there’d been an explosion scheduled, he would’ve been in a perfect state of bliss.