“Agreed.” He would have agreed that the world was flat if she’d smile again.
“Okay.” She smiled—a weather-permitting smile, but nevertheless a smile. “Would it be my turn again, then?”
“It’s your turn all night if you wish.” He suddenly felt unburdened, swept away by an unalloyed sense of well-being and good cheer. “Consider me at your disposal.”
“Oh my God. Did you feel that?” Her vagina had done a quick little tango step at that remark about him being at her disposal.
“Yep.” How could he not with the strength of that vaginal flourish moving up his cock. “Give me a few seconds to clean up,” he said, lifting her off his lap, “and then we’ll see about sweet-talking your little pussy into an orgasm or two.”
He was a master of sweet talk as it turned out.
Although darling Livvi had a certain competence when it came to sexual address, too.
And the remainder of the night was given over to a particularly endearing and affectionate form of communication.
Twenty
The knock on the door was loud.
And early.
Liv glanced at the bedside clock. Seven. Jeez—who was knocking on her door at this time of the morning?
“Don’t answer it,” Jake mumbled, his face buried in his pillow. “They’ll go away.”
But Liv was already reaching for her robe hanging on the bedpost. “I can see a car in the drive from the window. Maybe it’s someone I know.”
Reaching the window, she surveyed the expanse of gravel fronting her backyard. “Holy shit.” Two county police cars were parked there.
“What’s up?” Jake rolled out of bed, his brain’s warning system switching on at her sharp expletive.
“The county mounties are paying a call.” She tossed her robe aside, figuring clothes were required for this encounter.
“Here?” He dropped back onto the bed, his sleep-deprived senses overriding his brain’s warning system.
“No, Siberia.” She pulled a T-shirt from her dresser drawer.
O-kaaay... that was sarcasm. Coming to his feet in a surge of conciliatory good manners, he reached for his jeans. “Let me go talk to them. I’ll tell them you’re not home. They’ll go away, and we can get back to sleep. Oh, shit.” He felt the adrenaline rush as his brain cells engaged with reality. “This is about Janie and Matt. It’s not about you. Look, stay here. See that no one comes out. I’ll handle this. In my business I deal with security types all the time.”
Pulling his T-shirt over his head, he was halfway to the door when Liv caught up and grabbed his arm. “Wait. It’ll be better if I go out there. I know the county mounties. You don’t. Also, this isn’t the big city where your expertise with security types matters.”
“Who cares whether you know these guys or not if Leo sent them? By the way, just how well do you know these guys?” His voice had taken on an edge.
“Is this where I say, ‘It’s none of your business’?” Her voice was equally sharp.
“I’d like a better answer.”
“And I’m not giving you one.”
Another knock on the door brought them back to the issue at hand.
“Sorry,” Jake said. “I’m losing it.”
“I apologize, too.” She smiled. “And I lost it a long time ago.”
“Since we’re both semirational once again, may I politely point out that I could very easily deal with these deputies. I’ll say you’re on vacation. I’m house-sitting. I’ll tell them to come back in a week.” He figured he might be better with bullshit than she, seeing how he spent his whole life dishing it out to rich customers who all expected personalized service.
“My car’s out there.”
“So? You took a plane.”
“Look, I grew up with these guys. They’re good kids.” She picked up the shorts she’d tossed on the floor last night. “And if this is about Leo, I guarantee you, his reach doesn’t have the same power out here as in New York. This is the hinterland where no one’s ever heard of him,” she added, stepping into the shorts. “So be a dear and warn Janie.” She zipped the zipper. “Then come down and see how I’m doing. ”
He hesitated for the briefest second. “Okay,” he said, clipped and low. “We’ll do it your way.”
She lifted her brows. “That sounds as though you don’t normally utter that phrase.”
“You got that right,” he muttered, still not sure he couldn’t handle the situation better.
Another round of knocking echoed through the house.
Jake’s jaw twitched, then he reached out and opened the bedroom door. “Go.”
They met Roman in the hall.
“I told Janie to stay in her bedroom,” Roman said, his voice taut. “Matt’s still sleeping.”
“Liv thinks she might be able to talk these guys into going away,” Jake explained.
“Could be.” Roman nodded toward the stairs. “Better go before they wake up Matt. We’ll watch your back.”
“Please, don’t say that. I’ve never in my entire life needed anyone to watch my back. Okay?”
Roman and Jake exchanged glances.
“And don’t do that either,” Liv muttered. “You’re creeping me out. It’s only the diaper patrol outside. I’ve known these guys from day one of their deputy jobs. Neither is over twenty-three, and the only reason they have these cushy, do-nothing jobs is because their daddies have money and connections in the county. We have no crime around here unless you count the occasional fight that breaks out at closing time at a local bar. So trust me. I’ll handle this.”
Quickly running her fingers through her hair, she ran down the stairs.
When she walked barefoot out onto her back porch a few moments later—like all farmhouses, traffic flowed through the kitchen—she resembled a fresh-faced farmer’s daughter, all rosy-cheeked, pale tousled hair, leggy beauty, and a winning smile.
Watching from the kitchen window, Jake took note of the dropped jaws and open mouths as Liv came into view. The two deputies almost fell backward down the steps, practically doing a Keystone Kops pratfall before coming to rest on the sidewalk below. An older man in an Italian suit standing on the lawn, however, gave no visible reaction, unless the slight swing of his briefcase indicated a tightening of his grip on the handle.
The suit must be Leo’s man.
And that guy didn’t look as though he could be talked out of much of anything. His face was expressionless, his thinning hair cut short, his skin tanned to an acceptable, not-too-dark, PC shade. He was middle height, middle-aged, and toned. A white-shoe lawyer from the look of it rather than a goon, but obviously a man willing to do whatever it took to please his client if this crack-of-dawn visit was any indication.
“Morning, Wayne, Arlen,” Liv said, her smile in place as she descended the back steps. “What can I do for you?”
“Sorry about the early hour,” Wayne Stensberg said, his round face flushing red. Hitching up his belt, he shifted from foot to foot and looked as though he wished he were somewhere else.
Liv shrugged faintly. “It’s not a problem. I’m always up early.”
“The thing is,” Arlen Christensen muttered, touching his holstered firearm as though to remind himself that he was a lawman, “this lawyer from New York wants us to deliver a summons.”
Liv offered them a wide-eyed look. “A summons for me? Whatever for?”
“Nah, it ain’t for you, Liv. This guy says you have a lady visitor here.”
She shook her head. “He’s wrong. I’m here alone.” Her mouth lifted in the faintest of smiles. “Well, not precisely alone.” She nodded toward Jake’s BMW, Roman’s car fortunately somewhere else. She’d never seen it. “A boyfriend stayed over last night.”
Both deputies turned red, their imaginations running wild after Liv’s remark about her boyfriend sleeping over.
Arlen regained his composure first, although he had to clear his throat a couple times before any words came out. “I’d say we’re pretty much done here, then.” He nudged his partner with his elbow. “Let’s go.” Drawing himself up to his full five-foot-ten-inch height as though to add significance to his decision, he added politely, “Real sorry to bother you so early in the morning.”
“Whose shoes are those?”
Everyone turned at the sharp question.
The thin-lipped lawyer was pointing his right index finger at a spot on the lawn.
Liv’s heart sank. There were Matt’s red sandals, a vivid splash of color against the green grass. He must have left them there when he’d swung on the basswood tree’s rope swing.
“Those must be my neighbor’s boy’s,” she said, nervously watching the well-dressed man walk over to the sandals and pick them up. “Gracie brought Ryan over the other day,” she went on, smiling at the deputies who knew Gracie as well as she did.
“Prada.”
The cool voice was in contrast to the triumph in the man’s eyes as he held up the sandals and nailed Liv with a victorious look.
“We have Prada in Minnesota.” She forced her voice to a calmness she didn’t in the least feel.
“The boy’s here. I know it,” Leo’s lawyer rapped out. He nodded at the deputies. “Serve the papers.”
“Are the papers for me?” Liv was relatively sure they couldn’t serve Leo’s papers to just anyone.
Wayne lifted the sheaf of papers he held and, gazing at them, read, “Janie Tabor Rolf. Some custody papers, I think,” he added. Giving the lawyer, who had treated them like hired help from the moment he’d walked into their small office, a resentful look, Wayne jabbed his finger toward Liv. “This here ain’t Janie Tabor,” he said, his voice loud enough to carry across the lawn. “New York,” he muttered under his breath. “Cranky fuck. Beg pardon, Liv,” he murmured, his gaze apologetic. “But we had to at least drive him over here. The idiot was screamin’ something fierce.”
“I understand. It’s not your fault. And if there was anyone here besides me and my—ah—friend,” she murmured, “I’d be the first to cooperate.”
“We know that,” Arlen replied, clearly sympathetic. “The guy’s a nutcase,” he added, careful to keep his voice down. “Threatening and carrying on like he owns the world. Hey, Mr. New York—you want a ride back?” he shouted, indicating his car with a jerk of his thumb. “Or you can walk back to town if you want. Wayne and me are leavin’.”
Red-faced with fury, the man, who looked vastly out of place in the country in his Italian suit, stomped back to one of the cars, got in, and slammed the door.
“Wanna flip who drives that one?” Wayne grumbled. The man had gotten into his car.
“I’ll drive the prick if you buy at Smitty’s tonight,” Arlen offered.
“You got yourself a deal! I’ll buy coffee at Mae’s, too, as soon as we dump this piece of shit.”
“Sweet.”
The two young deputies high-fived each other and, with a wave for Liv, strolled back to their cars.
Liv remained on the sidewalk until the two police cars disappeared from sight down her driveway. Then, realizing she’d been holding her breath, she exhaled softly and turned back to her house.
“You were impressive, babe,” Jake drawled as she walked into the kitchen a few moments later. “That big-city lawyer’s spitting nails about now.”
“Wayne and Arlen are nice guys. I was pretty confident they’d listen to reason.”
“They were serving custody papers, weren’t they?”
Liv turned at the sound of Janie’s voice and saw her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Roman at her side like her Pretorian guard. “I think so. Wayne mentioned custody papers.”
“This might be a good time to move on,” Roman observed. Leo wasn’t a patient man. He’d put someone else on the hunt who’d found the same phone records as he.
“Or perhaps time to give Leo a call,” Janie countered determinedly. “I don’t feel like running every time one of his goons shows up. I really like it here. It’s peaceful.” She smiled at Liv. “Who would think I’d like peaceful? But I do.”
“Leo might not operate so legally next time,” Roman warned. “He sent me out here to snatch Matt and bring him back.”
“I know.” Janie patted his arm. “I knew why you’d come. I also had a pretty good idea you couldn’t do what Leo wanted.” Roman had always been nicer to her than he would have had to be as Leo’s hired gun, taking time when they met to engage her in conversation.
“My personal feelings aside, I’d still recommend finding a better refuge. Leo won’t give up. He’s putting plan B in action as we speak. That’s my professional opinion, and I know him better than you.” Dipping his head, Roman held Janie’s gaze. “I know a lotta things you don’t
want
to know about him.”
“But then
you
don’t know that I have something of Leo’s he’s going to want back
very
badly.” She hadn’t told anyone about it. Not Brad or Liv, not Roman who, until last night, had been only a possible in terms of reliability.
A new degree of admiration gleamed in Roman’s eyes. “Is that a fact?” he murmured.