The Reunited

TWENTY-ONE





THIS was a mess.

Taige struggled out of the lethargy of the gray to find Jones staring at her, Cullen glaring at Jones, Dez standing in the background glaring at the two men, and the air in the room thick enough to cut with a knife.

“Oh, hell.” She rolled onto her side, cradled her aching head in her hands, and wished she hadn’t given up drinking all those years ago. She could use a glass of wine just then.

A hand curved over the back of her neck, and she turned her head, found herself staring into eyes of the color of the sea.

“Here I was thinking it was Jillian who’d be hauled into this mess,” Cullen said, sighing.

She stared at him, wishing she could make this easier on him. Poor guy. Saddled with two females who were going to worry him into the grave. Had to suck. Reaching up, she said, “You said you wouldn’t change me . . . now is the time to show it.”

Thick lashes fell, shielding his eyes. “I’d do anything to make this easier on you,” he said hoarsely. “Some small selfish part of me thinks . . . this isn’t your problem. You don’t work for him anymore. None of this is your problem.”

Then he looked at her, those blue eyes burning so hot.

“But looking back . . . neither was Jillian. She wasn’t your problem, but you saved her, anyway.”

“Suffering is everybody’s problem,” she said quietly. Slowly, not entirely trusting her queasy belly, she sat up. Her belly stayed settled. She hadn’t been prepared for the strength of that vision. Hadn’t been ready for the intensity of it, the power of it. It had damned near laid her low. “What’s Joss’s connection to this woman?”

A strange, tense silence fell.

Slanting a look at Jones, she found him eyeing her oddly. When he didn’t answer her, she pushed. “Well?”

“To my knowledge, there is no connection. She’s engaged to marry our prime suspect. She’s one of the suspects, although I didn’t share any information about her with Crawford. I wanted him focused on Whitmore, and only Whitmore, so he could find his own way through this mess.”

Taige closed her eyes. Sighed. “A mess? This isn’t a mess . . . it’s a damned catastrophe.” She plucked through some of the tangled threads in her mind. By now, Jones knew she wasn’t a suspect, that woman, whoever she was. “Cullen, maybe you should head on back home. Get Jillian from your dad. I’m going to—”

“Jillian’s fine. I’m sticking.”

She cracked open one eye to stare at him.

He stared back. “I can keep my ass in a room and work. I’m useless here and I know it, but I’m not going back to Gulf Shores when you’re about to plunge your neck into whatever mess . . . shit. I’m staying.”

Taige groaned. She didn’t have the energy to worry about him. “Jones . . . this woman, whoever she is, she’s private. I don’t know how long she’s been working this, but she’s been doing it a long time and she’s willing to sacrifice everything. Whitmore has hurt her, more than once, and she takes it, because of the job. And if you think Crawford has no connection to her, you need to get your head examined.”

A series of long, terse curses filled the room, and Taige was surprised enough to drop her hands and stare at the man.

Damn. That was more emotion than she thought he was capable of. “You okay there, Jones?”

He shot her a narrow look. “Do I need to pull him out?”

“You can’t,” she said honestly. “Even if you sent people after him, it wouldn’t work. He’s on a mission of his own now. Trying to pull him out would do more harm than good.”

“F*ck,” he snarled, spinning away. Dez, silent until now, moved and went to him, laying a hand on his cheek.

He caught her wrist.

A long, tense moment passed. “She’s private,” Taylor finally said into the silence. “But she’s got connections damn high up. Somebody with enough pull to help create one very, very solid identity.”

“Shit.”

Taige remembered the flash of echoes she’d caught from Joss. The images he’d shoved back behind walls so thick so he wouldn’t have to look at them, think about them.

Living in denial might just cost him something very, very dear, she realized.