“Trust me, he won’t,” she said, a low moan ripped from her as he found a sensitive spot just below her ear.
He nipped the lobe of her ear. “I could shoot him,” he offered, not entirely kidding.
In this moment he’d do just about anything to get Mia naked.
But as if the fates were determined to give him a serious case of blue balls, Lucas heard the sound of a car pulling around the garage and directly into Mia’s backyard.
Max.
Dammit.
With a muttered curse, he stole a fierce, all-too-brief kiss before he was stepping back to pull open the door.
“Tonight,” he warned as Mia scurried past him.
* * *
Mia spent the rest of the afternoon in the sheds with Sonny, finishing up the inventory forms her accountant demanded were necessary to close out the end-of-the-year accounts.
Usually she waited until the last minute to complete the tedious task, but today she eagerly latched onto any chore that kept her mind occupied and her body moving. If she’d been stuck behind her desk there would have been no way in hell she could have kept herself from wasting her time with thoughts of Lucas.
There was, after all, something comforting about touring through her small but growing empire. It reminded her that she was no longer the young, overly impressionable girl who’d been desperate to become the next Mrs. St. Clair. Instead she was a strong, capable woman who could stand on her own.
Thank God.
It was almost four by the time she returned to her office. Not bothering to turn on the computer, she pulled out a sketch she intended to include in her bid for one of the local casinos, not surprised when Taylor entered her office less than five minutes later.
“Prince Charming is here with his very flashy carriage,” the secretary informed her.
Tossing aside her charcoal pencil, Mia rolled her eyes. She’d known Lucas wouldn’t allow her to find her own way home. Or even wait until five o’clock to pick her up.
“Hardly Prince Charming,” she muttered, rising to her feet.
Taylor studied her with a knowing expression. “Are you sure about that?”
Mia’s lips parted to tell her friend that Lucas St. Clair was as far from Prince Charming as a man could get, but instead she heaved a deep sigh.
“No.”
Taylor wrinkled her nose. “He’s getting to you again, isn’t he?”
“He claims he left because he was afraid his mother was turning me into a carbon copy of herself.”
“Carbon copy?” Taylor blinked in puzzlement. “What does that mean?”
“A plastic model.”
“Oh.”
Mia rose to her feet and rounded the desk. She hadn’t missed the strange emotion that’d rippled over her friend’s face.
“Taylor?”
The secretary gave a small shrug. “As much as I hate to agree with Lucas about anything, I can’t deny I was worried at the time that the woman was going to turn you into a well-trained zombie.”
Mia ground her teeth. Had everyone secretly been worried she was acting like an idiot?
The thought made her cringe.
“He should have talked to me,” she muttered. “Not run off.”
Taylor gave a short, humorless laugh. “He was an eighteen-year-old boy. Their specialty isn’t talking.”
They exchanged rueful glances.
“True,” Mia agreed, a tendril of excitement curling through the pit of her stomach.
She suspected that while Lucas had obviously improved his communication skills, his other talents were still spectacular.
“What are you going to do?”
Mia slowly shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Taylor reached out to lay her hand on Mia’s arm. “Whatever you decide, you know I have your back.”
“Thanks.” Mia tilted her head, regarding her companion with a searching gaze. She didn’t doubt Taylor’s sincerity. The younger woman had always been a loyal friend. Mia, however, was beginning to suspect that her secretary was more than a little distracted. “What about you?”
Taylor raised her brows. “Me?”
Mia leaned against the edge of the desk, not fooled for a second by Taylor’s overly innocent expression. “Sonny told me that a certain detective arrived with a pink box earlier today.”
“Detective Cooper is investigating Tony’s murder,” Taylor said.
Mia didn’t bother to hide her smile. “Sonny said he stayed for nearly half an hour and didn’t ask to speak to anyone else. That doesn’t sound like investigating to me.”
“Sonny needs to mind his own business.”
Mia didn’t miss the sudden heat that stained the efficient secretary’s cheek. The soft pink color emphasized the fact that Taylor was still a young, beautiful woman. It was no wonder the detective was stopping by the office with donuts.
“Are you blushing?” Mia teased.
“Would you stop?” Taylor growled, her cheeks going from pink to bright red. “He was only here to ask questions.”
“Hmm.” Mia felt a prick of astonishment. She’d never seen her friend so . . . what was the word? Flustered. Definitely flustered. “But you wish it could be more?”
“I barely know him,” Taylor protested, then she bit her bottom lip, her eyes softening with an unexpected regret. “And even . . .”
“What?” Mia prompted as her friend allowed her words to trail away.
Taylor sucked in a deep breath. “And even if there was a possibility that he wanted to spend time with me that didn’t include a murder investigation, he’s O-O-M-C-Z.”
Mia frowned. “O-O-M-C-Z?”
“Out of my comfort zone.”
It wasn’t what Mia had been expecting. Taylor was always so poised and self-assured. Hell, Mia only wished she had her friend’s natural confidence.
And while Detective Cooper was a nice-looking man with a charming smile, he wasn’t Channing Tatum.
“Because he’s a cop?” she at last demanded.
“Because he’s a good guy,” Taylor corrected her. “A really good guy.”
Ah. Mia suddenly got it.
Her friend made a habit of choosing men who would eventually walk away. It was as if she protected her independence by dating losers.
Detective Cooper might be a pain in the ass, but he most certainly was not a loser.
“Taylor—” She bit off her words as Lucas stepped into the room.
As always, the mere sight of him was enough to make her shiver with a sizzling sense of anticipation.
It was more than just his impossible beauty. Or the chiseled perfection of his body. Or even the rich, enticing scent of his male cologne.
It was the way his gaze landed on her and never wavered, no matter who else was in the room. As if she was the only person in the world.
His dark blue eyes shimmered with the same excitement that fluttered in the pit of her stomach as he reached to grab the jacket she’d tossed on a chair across from her desk.
“Ready?” he asked.
Mia briefly considered telling him that she never left the office before five. It was a source of pride that she was the first to arrive and the last to leave.
But before she could surrender to the cowardly impulse to hide behind her work, Taylor was reaching out to give her a small shove toward the door.
“Go,” she commanded. “I’ll lock up.”
Glaring at her friend, who mysteriously appeared to be encouraging Lucas, Mia allowed Lucas to wrap the jacket around her shoulders.
“Traitor,” she muttered.
Taylor gave a rueful shrug. “Have a good weekend.”
“We’ll discuss this Monday,” Mia warned, grabbing her purse and following the smugly smiling Lucas out of the building.
Chapter Ten
Mia gave a lift of her brows as Lucas led her to the silver SUV while his friend peeled out of the parking lot in Lucas’s expensive sports car.
Still, she wait
ed until she was safely strapped in to the passenger seat and Lucas was sliding behind the steering wheel before she asked the obvious question.
“What’s going on?”
Lucas pulled out of the lot and turned in the opposite direction of her house.
“I thought we would take a side trip,” he told her.
She frowned as they continued past the edge of town. “Where?”
“To your dad’s place.”
A familiar combination of pain and regret sliced through her heart at the mention of her father. Her relationship with George Ramon had been difficult at best and nonexistent at worst.
Things might have been different if her mother had lived. But her grieving father had no idea what to do with a vulnerable young daughter, and instead of trying to forge a bond between the two of them, he’d done his best to forget she even existed. It was only when she was helping him mow yards or trim hedges that he acknowledged she was worthy of his attention.
“It’s almost dark,” she inanely pointed out, glancing toward the gray sky.
He shrugged. “I just want to have a quick look around. There has to be a reason Vicky Fontaine wants to buy it.”
“I assume that means you spoke with Frazer,” she said, not at all sorry she’d left Lucas to deal with the slimy, relentless lawyer.
Lucas made a sound of disgust, merging onto the main road that would lead them around the edge of Barksdale AFB.
“As much as you talk to a lawyer,” he said. “He refused to say anything beyond the fact that his client was looking to invest in land.”
“For what?” Mia shook her head. Her father’s land was surrounded by bogs. It would cost a fortune to try and develop it into anything of value.
“He refused to say.” Lucas picked up speed as they melded into the heavy Friday traffic. “I spent the past few hours trying to discover more about Mrs. Fontaine.”
“That must have been fun.” Mia grimaced. The older woman had never hidden the fact that she considered George Ramon and his daughter as lesser beings. There were times Mia even thought that the woman might hate them, although she didn’t know what they’d ever done to piss her off.
“Not really,” he muttered.
“Did you find anything of interest?”
“She does have a large stock portfolio that she took charge of after her husband disappeared with his lover, but none of it in real estate.”
“No land?”
“Not on the surface.”
Mia frowned in confusion. “How could land not be on the surface?”
He gave a low chuckle. “Not on the surface of her investments,” he clarified. “It actually took some digging to discover that her husband secretly bought a company called Vernon Recycling in the early eighties.”
“Why would he want it to be secret?”
“Because it didn’t actually recycle anything. It’s a shell company used to buy land for toxic waste dumps,” Lucas said. “Vicky has been slapped on the wrist several times by the EPA, but the profit she makes far outweighs any fines.”
“I suppose she might be thinking of buying my dad’s property to expand her toxic waste business,” Mia murmured.
“I’m having Teagan continue the search on Mrs. Fontaine,” Lucas said. “He can dig a lot deeper than I can.”
Mia nodded, about to warn Lucas that they were nearing the exit. To her astonishment, however, he automatically veered off the highway onto the narrow road that quickly turned into a dirt pathway.
How had he known where she lived?
When they were young she’d never invited Lucas to her home. It wasn’t that she was ashamed.... No, that wasn’t true. She was desperately ashamed of the small shack she’d shared with her father. Not because they were poor. Everyone in town knew that they barely scraped by. But because of the piles of trash left in the backyard to rot and the dozens of junk cars that her father collected with the belief he would someday fix them up.
Who wanted their boyfriend to see that she lived in a pigsty? Especially a boyfriend who lived in the biggest mansion in Shreveport.
But Lucas’s ease in turning from one dirt road to another proved he’d been well aware how to find her. And that he’d driven out to the house more than once.
Something that couldn’t be accidental, considering that the house was set in the wetlands, miles from civilization.
Hell, there wasn’t even a nearby neighbor.
“You’ve been out here before,” she said, belatedly realizing the words came out as an accusation.
He pulled into the short drive and parked in front of a stack of old tires. Flicking off the engine, he shifted in his seat to regard her with an unreadable expression.
“I couldn’t force you to let me take you home after our dates, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let you drive these roads in the middle of the night without being close enough to help if something happened.”
Mia widened her eyes. “You followed me?”
“Yeah.” He reached out to stroke his thumb over her lower lip. “I would turn off my car lights and stay far enough back you couldn’t see me.”
“I had no idea,” she murmured.
He shrugged. “I couldn’t have slept without being sure you were safely tucked in your bed.”
The low words were said in an offhand tone, but they managed to melt yet another layer of ice that surrounded her heart.
For years she’d convinced herself that Lucas hadn’t truly loved her. How could he, if he’d walked away so easily? Now she was being forced to accept that he had cared. Perhaps even more than she ever realized.
Unnerved by the thought, she abruptly turned her head to peer out the side window. Instantly, she grimaced.
God. It was even worse than she remembered. During her brief trip after the funeral to clean out the fridge and make sure the windows and doors were locked, she’d been in shock. It didn’t matter that her relationship with her father had been nearly nonexistent. His passing had still been a blow. It wasn’t really surprising that she’d barely noticed her surroundings.
With a shudder she allowed her gaze to skim over the dozens and dozens of cars that were left in a haphazard pattern along the back of the property. Some were nearly hidden by the tall grass and others were covered in the Spanish moss that draped from the trees. It gave the impression of a creepy old graveyard.
“Are you okay?” Lucas demanded, clearly sensing her distress.
“Yeah.” She wrinkled her nose, her gaze turning toward the house, which was made of warped boards that had long ago lost any paint, and a sagging roof. It’d never been a palace, but the damp Louisiana weather had taken its toll over the past few years. “I came here after my father died, but I really didn’t pay attention to the place.” She gave a rueful shake of her head. “I didn’t realize how bad it’d gotten since my father stopped allowing me to visit.”
Lucas immediately reached for the key he’d left in the ignition. “If you want to leave—”
“No.” She grabbed his arm, sucking in a deep breath. The air of neglected sadness was nearly tangible, but she couldn’t continue to ignore the mess. Eventually she’d have to face it. What better time than when Lucas was at her side? “I’m okay,” she assured him, forcing herself to continue to survey her childhood home.
“This was a stupid idea,” Lucas muttered. “I thought maybe we could see why Vicky Fontaine would be so interested in the land, but—” His words cut off as her fingers dug in his arm. “Mia?”
She leaned forward, her gaze locked on the unmistakable footprints she could see in the mud.
“Someone’s been here.”
She was turning to push open her door when Lucas abruptly grabbed her by her shoulders and yanked her back to meet his deep frown.
“Where the hell are you going?”
She glanced at him in surprise. “This is my property. I need to make sure there hasn’t been any damage.”
“You’re not stepping out of this vehic
le until I’m sure there’s no one lurking around.”
Her lips parted, but before she could protest he was out of the SUV and closing the door behind him.
Mia smiled wryly and settled back in her seat as she watched him jog toward the back of the house.
She might as well make herself comfortable. Until Lucas was certain that it was safe, there was no way she was going anywhere.
* * *
Lucas grimaced at the gloomy darkness that was swiftly closing in.
He’d been a fool to bring Mia out here. Unfortunately, it was too late to regret his impulsive decision. Now that she’d spotted the footprints she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she’d assured herself there’d been no damage done by the trespasser.
As if any stray vandal could do anything to make matters worse, he wryly acknowledged.
The entire place needed a good bulldozing.
Following the tracks toward the line of cars, Lucas abruptly slowed his pace.
Even in the fading light he could see that there’d been more than one person rummaging around the property. And what was more unexpected, someone had busted the windows on several of the cars. Moving forward he could see the shattered glass still shimmering on top of mud. Which meant the damage had been recent.
But why?
It could be a group of kids looking for a place to drink and smoke weed. Or even thieves who were searching for anything of value in the cars. But Lucas suddenly had a bad feeling.
Completing his sweep, Lucas took a mental note of the tire tracks that headed deeper into the wetlands, and one of the nearby sheds that had a door hanging open, before he returned to the SUV.
She was out of the vehicle before he could halt her. “Well?” she demanded, moving to stand directly in front of him.
He shrugged. “Whoever was here is long gone.”
“It’s probably poachers,” she suggested. “When my father was alive no one was stupid enough to try and sneak past his shotgun. Now I’m sure most locals know that no one is staying here. They can come and go without worrying about being seen.” She grimaced. “I need to check inside the house.”
“We can do that when it’s light,” he hastily suggested, fully intending to return with Max before he allowed Mia to enter the house.