Two weeks later
Last Chance Rescue headquarters
Paris, France
Beads of sweat rolling down his handsome, determined face, the man held Honor’s arms above her head and growled softly, “Say it.”
Her entire body stretched almost painfully on the floor, voice strained from the effort it took to speak, Honor gritted out one word: “Never.”
He kept his voice low and soft, as if speaking to a wild animal he was trying to tame. “Come on, give it up, Stone. Say it and I’ll let you go.”
Not bothering with words this time, Honor wrapped her leg around one of his and jerked. It was like trying to move a mountain. Dammit, she didn’t want to give in, but he’d given her almost a full minute of leeway. Someone less stubborn would have said what he wanted to hear well before now and received some relief. Not Honor Stone.
Though it cost her, she arched an arrogant brow and said, “I’ve got nothing else on my agenda today.”
His chuckle echoed in the small gym as LCR operative Aidan Thorne rolled off her. Determined to show no weakness, Honor sprang to her feet, ready for another attack.
Sprawled on the mat as if it were a bed, his grin as cocky as ever, Aidan drawled, “Just because you didn’t say I’m the best doesn’t mean you didn’t mean it.”
“Now, that’s the kind of logic I’d expect from a surfer dude.”
As he got to his feet, he gave his usual snort of disgust for one of her many nicknames for him.
Honor pulled the elastic band from her sweat-dampened hair and ran her fingers through it. Panting lightly, she smiled at the man she’d almost bested. Aidan wasn’t breathing as hard as she was, but still, she’d come as close as she’d ever been to bringing down the big lummox.
His answering wink told her he’d read her mind. “You got close.”
Except for his blond, beach-bum looks and the hard, cold expression she’d sometimes glimpsed on his face, Aidan reminded her of her brother. She had never been able to take Nick down, either. Didn’t mean she’d ever stop trying. Someday both men would be paying her the hundred bucks they’d promised if she ever accomplished that goal. Never one to back down from a challenge, she intended to collect in full.
Her grin equally cocky, she replied, “One day, Beach Boy … one day.”
He snorted again and threw her a towel. “In your dreams.”
“You two through razzing each other?”
Honor whirled around and smiled at Noah McCall, who stood at the door. In unison, she and Aidan replied, “Never.”
Though McCall’s mouth twitched in humor, the somber expression in his eyes told her he had something on his mind other than hearing two of his operatives trade insults.
“Honor, can I see you in my office?”
She nodded and threw her towel into a laundry bin. Grabbing a bottle of water, she tossed a grin over her shoulder. “See ya, Goldilocks.”
Though Aidan flashed her a smile, she could tell he was disturbed by McCall’s expression, too. Feeling a bit more somber she followed her boss into his office.
She’d been with LCR for over two months now, and every day she grew more certain she’d made the right decision. Already she’d been on four rescues—all successful. Rescuing live victims felt damned good.
Not one to wait, Honor dropped into a chair and asked immediately, “What’s wrong?”
“You think you’re ready to head up a rescue?”
“Absolutely.” She might feel lacking in other areas of her life, but she didn’t doubt her abilities.
“This might be a tough one for you.”
“Why’s that?”
“It involves someone you know.”
She sat up straighter. Someone she knew was in trouble? Why hadn’t she already heard about it? Her heart thudded with dread. “My family?”
“No.” McCall paused for a second and then said, “An old friend.”
And she knew. Without McCall having to say another word, she knew it was Seth. All breath expelled from her, she collapsed back into her chair. Was Seth in trouble? Hurt? After she’d left Houston, she’d deliberately not followed what happened to him. Hell, he could be in prison for all she knew. But the thought of him hurting or in pain, no matter how much he’d crushed her heart, wasn’t something she wanted. Of course she didn’t love him, but still …
Thankful for the ability to keep her expression neutral, Honor asked calmly, “Who?”
“Seth Cavanaugh.”
Of course, McCall would know about her former relationship with Seth. It hadn’t exactly been a secret that they’d dated; their breakup had been fodder for Bureau gossip for weeks.
“What’s happened?”
“His niece has been abducted. He’s asked for our help.”
Refusing to acknowledge her immense relief that Seth was apparently fine, she asked, “Does he know I work for LCR?”
“Not yet. I thought I’d leave you to be the one to tell him.”
McCall was notorious for getting involved in his operatives’ pasts, often reuniting old lovers. Her boss’s manipulation was not only unappreciated, but he obviously didn’t realize that throwing her and Seth together would not produce the results he normally got. She and Seth had nothing left between them. He had destroyed that when he’d walked out of her life.
“What are the details?”
“The niece is twenty years old. Disappeared from a small private college in Iowa. No ransom demanded.”
“How long has she been gone?”
“Almost three weeks now.”
“What are the authorities saying? Is the Bureau involved?”
McCall nodded. “They’re surmising that she’s dead or has run away.”
“Seth doesn’t believe that?”
“No. As soon as he found out, he started doing some research, and he’s uncovered what he thinks is a pattern. A couple of other girls have disappeared under similar circumstances this year. And two last year.”
Honor frowned at the oddity. “If there have been four other disappearances, why would the Bureau think she’s run away?”
“Other than the ages, there’s no real commonality between the victims. Different backgrounds, different races. The locations of the disappearances stretch across the country.”
Honor nodded. Yes, there had to be a pattern, some similarity.
“So Seth is asking LCR to find his niece and the other girls?”
“Yes, but only if he can be involved.”
“Involved how?” Seeing Seth again was one thing; having him close by, seeing him on a daily basis, was out of the question. “Seth isn’t trained to—”
“He’s a former cop.”
“That was several years ago. And he’s a former cop who resigned under suspicion.”
“I think you need to talk to Cavanaugh before you make the assessment that he’s not qualified.”
Had Seth turned his life around? Five years ago, he’d been teetering on becoming, if not a criminal, at the very least a man with questionable ethics and judgment. Not that it mattered to her if he had or not, but for his family’s sake, she hoped he had changed for the better.
“Is he coming to Paris for a meeting?”
“He’s already here.”
Her heart thudded harder. “Where and when are we meeting him?”
“In about two hours. Here.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her boss. She was glad if Seth had taken a new path in his life, but to have him come to LCR headquarters seemed to be taking that assumption too far. Only LCR operatives and people McCall had total trust in were allowed to know this location. Most meetings with clients took place in hotel rooms around the city.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Honor asked.
“I’m not worried.”
Though surprised, Honor didn’t question him further. McCall’s first priority was protecting LCR and its employees. If he was sure, she wasn’t going to argue the point.
The heart that refused to acknowledge any remaining feelings for the man who’d trampled it so thoroughly began to thud harder. Seth was here … in Paris.
“Since you apparently know about my past relationship with Seth, are you sure you want me to handle the case?”
“I trust your judgment.” McCall leaned forward, his black eyes piercing in their intensity. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Trust your judgment? Can you put the past aside and do your job?”
She wanted to snap out a “Hell, yes!” but bit back the automatic reply and made herself think calmly, unemotionally. Okay, yes … the sound of Seth’s name sent chill bumps over her skin. The love no longer existed, but she couldn’t deny their past. The intensity of their relationship was unlike anything she’d experienced before or since. Could she see him every day and do her job? Of course she could. She was older, wiser. Seth had no control over her life. Not anymore. She had wanted to make a complete break from her past. Well, what better way to do that than to face the nemesis of her heart?
“Yes, I trust my judgment. And yes, I can do my job.”
His expression telling her he had expected no other answer, McCall said, “Be back at four o’clock for the meeting.”
Honor got up and went out the door. She’d always faced challenges head-on; this would be no different. Rescuing Seth’s niece and any other victims was her priority. Completely eradicating Seth Cavanaugh from her mind would just be an added bonus: the final and much-needed death knell to any remaining feelings for the man who’d never deserved her love in the first place.
five
Seth sat in his hotel room. He was a ten-minute walk from the address Noah McCall had given him. He had half an hour before he needed to leave. In that time, he wanted to review his notes. Though he could almost recite them from memory, he nevertheless went over them again.
His niece Kelli, aged twenty, had disappeared from Tyron College, a small private school in Des Moines, Iowa. She’d left for class one morning and never returned to her dorm. Her roommate had reported her missing the next day. The police had scoured the county looking for her, with absolutely no results.
Kelli’s sweet, innocent face stared up at him and his heart hurt for her. Where was she? Who had taken her and why? He refused to even consider that she might not be alive. He would find her and bring her back home. There was no other option.
Laying out the photographs of the four other missing girls beside Kelli’s picture, Seth once again strived to see the tie … the commonality. FBI said one didn’t exist. They were treating the disappearances as separate cases. Logically, he knew he should, too. There were no similarities other than gender, age, and that the girls were college students. The disappearances ranged over an eighteen-month time span. There were numerous reasons why each of these girls could have disappeared, and none compared to the others. So why couldn’t he look at Kelli’s disappearance as a separate entity?
Because that’s what everyone else was doing. Fresh eyes, a new take—why the hell not? He had no other leads to go on. Besides, this was what he was good at. Working undercover, never knowing if or when he’d be found out, had trained him to look for nuances, clues that didn’t seem suspicious.
The last few months before Clemmons finally went down, he’d drawn his inner circle tighter and tighter around him. The older Clemmons had gotten, the more suspicious he’d been. With good reason. Seth had been on the outer edge of that inner circle and each day that dawned, he had woken with the knowledge that it could be his last. But as far as he knew, Clemmons had never suspected him. Bill had once told him he played polished sleaze better than anyone he’d ever met. The man had meant it as a compliment, but it’d ended up making Seth feel even dirtier.
Maybe the nickname he’d had in school had been a portent for his future. He’d been known as “the dark Cavanaugh” and looked nothing like the rest of his family. Everyone, including his parents, had been golden blond with light blue or green eyes. Seth had gotten some recessive gene, giving him the black hair and dark blue eyes of a great-grandfather. Funny, the man had been a minister.
Throwing off his self-indulgent thoughts, Seth looked down at the photographs. Five young women, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty-four, stared up at him. What secrets lay behind the soft, vulnerable eyes? What hopes and dreams had they had? What had they done to attract a predator? And most important, how the hell was he going to find them?
* * *
Honor stood outside Noah’s office. She knew they were in there waiting on her. The sound of muffled male voices came through the door. One of those was Seth’s. It had been five years since she’d heard that sexy, rough-edged voice. Five years since she’d gazed into those piercing dark eyes. Five years since …
Oh God, what was she doing? He meant nothing to her anymore. Their relationship had lasted barely three months. Three months in thirty years of living. That was nothing … he was nothing.
She glanced down once more at her clothes. Her favorite black pantsuit, paired with an ice-blue silk camisole and a multicolored scarf around her neck. She’d taken to wearing a scarf to cover her scar; though it had faded somewhat, it was still there. Besides, she wasn’t the most fashionable person; the scarf made her feel a bit more up-to-date.
Professional and serious was the image she’d spent years honing. Today, that image was more important than ever. The last time Seth had seen her, she’d acted like a weak, brokenhearted imbecile—an embarrassment to generations of stoic, unemotional Stones. With the exception of losing her father, that had been the last time she’d shed tears over anyone or anything. Emotional outbursts, wearing her heart on her sleeve—all in the past.
Pulling in every reserved and stony image of generations of men and women in her family, Honor opened the door and walked in. Seth sat across from Noah. Aidan and another LCR operative, Jared Livingston, sat farther away. All eyes were on McCall, listening to a conversation he was having on his cellphone. As unobtrusively as possible, Honor sat down beside Aidan. He gave her a quick wink and then turned his attention back to their boss.
Though Seth never moved his gaze from Noah, Honor knew the instant he realized that she was there. His expression didn’t change, but a small, subtle difference in the set of his broad shoulders told her he knew.
She could see only his profile, but from what she could tell, he looked older, harder. His skin was bronzed, as if he’d spent months in the sun. His hair was longer than it had been before, several inches below his ears. He was dressed in a light blue chambray shirt and jeans. She’d never seen Seth wear anything other than a suit or dress slacks. This new, casual Seth surprised her.
Another subtle shift in his shoulders alerted her that he knew she was looking at him. Not ready to meet his direct gaze yet, she moved her attention to McCall, who seemed to be arguing with someone about getting access to some records. His hand moved rapidly across a sheet of paper as he jotted notes. Without looking up, he put his hand over the phone and growled, “I need you to get on the phone and call some of your contacts. I’m getting the runaround here.”
Thankful to have her total focus somewhere else, she asked, “What do you need?”
“Not you, Stone,” Noah said. “Cavanaugh.”
She jerked her gaze to Seth, who was already pulling his cellphone from the front pocket of his jeans. What kind of contacts did Seth have? Was he back in the good graces of law enforcement, or was this some sort of underground connection McCall thought might be helpful?
Shamelessly eavesdropping—he could have gotten up and left the room if he didn’t want anyone to hear—Honor tried her best to see the expression on his face as she listened.
“Yeah, it’s Cavanaugh. Let me speak to Larry.”
Seconds later, Larry must have answered because Seth said, “We’re getting no help from your guys in the Bureau. What’s up?”
The Bureau? Seth was talking to Lawrence Atmore, the supervisory special agent in charge of the Houston FBI branch? How did Seth know him?
“Yeah, well, tell them we’re all on the same page. Everyone wants to find these girls alive.” Several seconds later, Seth closed his phone and looked at McCall. “They’re emailing the information to you.”
McCall nodded, seemingly not one bit surprised by the help Seth had been able to get with one small phone call. She had thought Seth was the only one who would be blindsided by this meeting, but she was beginning to feel quite differently. Somehow Seth had either turned his life around so completely that he had Bureau heads taking his calls without delay, or she’d tumbled down a rabbit hole and nothing was making sense. What the hell was going on?
Regulating his breathing, Seth did what he’d done for years: pretend. If he allowed any of his thoughts to show, he figured everything would blow up. Flying across the massive cherry desk and knocking the shit out of McCall was a temptation. But since Livingston and Thorne might have a few issues with him attacking their boss, they’d gang up and he’d get the shit beaten out of him. Besides, hard to jump up and fight when you weren’t sure your legs would hold you to stand. Just what the hell was Honor doing here?
Stupid question. She was, of course, apparently now working for LCR. No doubt this was a test. For both of them or just him? Didn’t matter. He’d passed more difficult tests. You gritted your teeth, stiffened your spine, and persevered.
“Okay, here’s what we know.” McCall clicked a button on his desk and a wide-screen television appeared on the wall behind him. Then the photographs of five young women were there, one of them Kelli.
“As you can see, all are around the same age. All attending college when they went missing. Those are the only similarities anyone has been able to discover so far.”
“Friends, boyfriends, relatives … they have no clue?” Honor asked.
“No,” Seth answered before McCall could. Might as well jump into the thick of things and show how little it mattered that he’d soon be working with a woman he’d once had sex with numerous times. And really, wasn’t that all they’d done? Sex, damned good sex, but that’s all it’d been.
“Were you going to add something to that sentence?” McCall asked.
Shit. So much for acting like he had a lick of sense in his head. “Sorry. No boyfriends for any of the women … at least none steady. The friends of each of the girls gave no clues. The relatives were even more clueless.” He nodded at the folders stacked on McCall’s desk. “Everything we have is in those folders.”
He tensed when Honor stood and went to pick one up. It was the first time he’d seen more than just her profile since she’d entered. Damn, had she always been so beautiful, so sexy? So coolly untouchable?
She passed a folder to Livingston and Thorne and then sat down again.
McCall’s voice drew him back in focus. “Stone is taking the lead on this case. Livingston and Thorne will assist. Cavanaugh, you claimed you have the experience to work this case. I spoke with your former captain; he agrees.”
Seth nodded. He hadn’t expected McCall to just take his word. However, he could feel the surprise radiate from the woman to his right. Stupid really, but Seth couldn’t deny a huge let-down feeling in his gut. She hadn’t followed what had happened to him after they broke up.
Clemmons’s arrest and trial had been a big news story. Not that Seth had been a part of any of it. By the time it was done, he’d wanted nothing to do with the case and certainly none of the publicity. But the governor had known about his involvement, and his superiors had known. With Honor’s contacts, if she’d asked the right people, she could have known, too. She apparently hadn’t asked; hadn’t cared to ask.
Seth had kept up with Honor’s career for a few years and then forced himself to stop. Knowing where she was, what she was doing, had been a form of torture. He hadn’t stopped cold turkey—it had been a process of not checking for several days, then for several weeks, and so on. Finally, one day, he had stopped.
Too bad, since if he had continued, at least he might not have been so caught off guard.
Seth had no issues with Honor being in charge of the case. He knew what a professional she was, and before he’d stopped following her career, he’d seen what an asset she’d been to the Bureau. Finding Kelli and the other young women was his number one priority, no matter who gave the orders.
Giving a nod to McCall to show he had no problems with that decision, he looked to Honor and said, “How do we proceed?”
A slightly startled gasp from Honor had an unwelcome response in Seth’s body. He remembered her little gasps. Right before she climaxed, one tiny gasp from those beautiful lips had given him warning about what was to come. And now the memory of that gasp had given him a boner hard enough to hammer nails. Just what he didn’t need.
Glowering his displeasure, he said, “Do you even know anything about the case?”
Myriad expressions crossed her face, irritation the most prominent. “Since I was just given the case, I think you know the answer to that.”
So what if everyone was looking at him strangely? Better they think he was just an ass than a man who had a hard-on from hell. “What do you need to know?”
“I’d like to take a look at the information and then reconvene in”—she glanced at her watch—“about three hours. Does that sound okay to everyone?” He watched her meet everyone’s eyes. When she came to his, her gaze dropped to his mouth. Was it because she couldn’t meet his eyes or was she perhaps remembering some of the same things he was?
“Works for me,” McCall said and stood. “Cavanaugh, would you stay a few minutes? Everyone else, be back here at eight this evening.”
Strangely silent, the group of three walked out the door. Seth waited till he heard it close before he turned to McCall, ready to blast him for the dirty trick he’d played. Before he could open his mouth, the LCR leader said quietly, “If you can’t handle working with her, we’ll still take the case.”
Attempting bravado never entered his head. This wasn’t about him and his sex-starved libido. This was about finding Kelli and four other young women.
“I’ll be able to work the case fine. I’m assuming the surprise with Honor was your way of testing me?”
His gaze coolly calculating, McCall nodded. “If you’re not able to deal with seeing an old girlfriend, you sure as hell aren’t going to be able to handle working this case. I needed to see your reaction.”
Though he didn’t like the man’s method, he couldn’t argue with him. Thankfully Seth was the only one who knew he’d failed McCall’s test.
“Finding my niece and the other girls is the only thing I care about.”
McCall led him to the door. “With Honor in charge of the mission, I have no doubt that will happen. If you didn’t know it already, she’s one of the smartest and most professional people I’ve ever met. I’m just glad she survived that attack.”
Before Seth could ask him what he meant, McCall closed the door in his face.
What the hell …? Honor had almost died?
Hidden away in a corner, the conference room was rarely used since it was so small, holding only a table large enough to seat five. Honor found herself working there frequently instead of going back to her apartment. Since she lived outside Paris, wasting time going home made no sense. Besides, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to drive.
How could she have forgotten how incredibly gorgeous Seth Cavanaugh was? And not just his looks made her weak in the knees—the powerful effect of his presence was a phenomenon on its own. Within seconds of entering the room, she’d been sweating. The instant she’d heard his voice, she’d become aroused.