Girls Just Wanna Have Guns (30 page)

Reggie and DJ waited a short block from the police station, keeping the front door in sight. Donny finally ambled out with that half-hopeful expression she’d seen some actors get when they wear huge sunglasses and big floppy hats and wildly ugly “stylish” clothes while they were supposedly incognito, but which screamed
recognize me!
His expression fell when absolutely no one paid him the least bit of attention. He scanned around, saw her wave, hurried over, and climbed into her car.

“You’re not going to regret this,” she told him as he peered around, apprehensive. She’d worked too hard and put too much of her future on the line for him to chicken out now.

“Just go. I don’t know where Francesca went and if she sees that we formed a secret liaison, she’ll be really mad at me.”

“Sure thing,” Reggie snorted. “Because the last thing I’d want is for the makeup queen to force me to buy that extra concealer she babbles about every time I see her. Woooo, scary.”

Benoit had kept up with the silo disaster while he finished canvassing Bobbie Faye’s neighbors. He’d been avoiding the captain by being conveniently out of his vehicle. The rumor mill worked overtime with any Bobbie Faye–related gossip, particularly on days like today, and so many people knew he had a copy of the surveillance video, he was surprised he hadn’t been offered bribes for it. Reggie would have had a heart attack trying to get her hands on it. The only thing preventing the captain from finding him personally and reaming him out for not logging the security footage into evidence was the minor detail of having to organize the police effort at the silo plus the questioning effort when Cam had everyone rounded up and sent to the PD. Cam was a genius.

His personal cell phone buzzed with a voice mail message. Oddly, it hadn’t rung through with a call, but he’d been in a bad reception area of the town out where Bobbie Faye lived. He dialed in to pick up the message and heard a woman, vaguely familiar, though she sounded like she was running and out of breath.

“Benoit, it’s Bobbie Faye. I’ve got something for you. It’s important. I can’t call Cam and I don’t know who else to trust. Remember where we hid the mascot senior year? Meet me there. Fast, okay?”

The message ended and the callback number was blocked.

That was odd. But then, she’d already been nearly killed
on a bridge, in a house and now, if the news was correct, at the silos. Anyone would get a pass for being a little twitchy at that point. They’d been friends too long for him not to hear her out. It was a helluva drive to meet her, and he couldn’t fathom why she’d gone all the way to Baton Rouge after the silos that morning, but he owed it to her to go. Maybe he could talk her into turning herself in. It was the only way she was going to have a chance in hell of getting out of this without life in prison.

From:
JT

To:
Simone

Her phone is still receiving calls, one from Italy—possibly the buyer. SAT position coming in . . . now. Sending coordinates. Find her. Soon. Or you’ll end up answering to Brownie.

From:
Simone

To:
JT

Holy shit, no. I’ll find her.

Bobbie Faye ignored her phone, buzzing with messages—they’d have to wait. She knew one was Lori Ann, who’d probably just called to bitch about not being able to hang up on her that morning. One was Nina, but she’d texted Nina back from Trevor’s phone, keeping her updated.

Trevor had parked the bike and gone through the cabin once—but Bobbie Faye knew how wily her brother could be when he was hiding. While Trevor reloaded their guns from the ample ammo supply Roy kept on top of the refrigerator (Roy’s theory of the universe apparently only contained
short thieves), Bobbie Faye rechecked the rooms. Everything in the ramshackle, cluttered camp was pretty much as she remembered it: a dark-paneled “great” room with a kitchen/living area, with bedrooms and bathrooms protruding from that central location like spokes. Roy’s tastes were all bachelor, all the time; he worked off-shore (when he worked) and probably still did some lucrative shady work for Alex, so he blew his money on junk: big-screen TVs, loads of fishing gear, hunting gear, sports gear, DVDs, games. At least she
hoped
it was his money he was blowing, because if he was involved in anything else quasi-illegal, he was going to have a long stint at the hospital for two broken legs. She circled through the rooms and, satisfied that Roy hadn’t climbed in a closet, buried himself in a floor space, or sat hunched on top of the hot-water heater, Bobbie Faye returned to the kitchen.

Where
whoa
.

Trevor had taken off his ripped, bloody shirt and as he set down the now-loaded gun on the peninsula counter and walked toward her, Lust was doing backflips.

She had to focus. And not on him. “We should keep moving. Diamonds to find, things to destroy.”

“I’ve checked—the bridge is out, and they expect it to take hours to repair. Nearest bridge is more than two hours away, and I’ve already got roadblocks there, checking for Sean’s team and anyone else who looks suspicious.” He tapped his spiffy cell phone. “And Emile thinks we’re on our way to New Orleans with information, so he’ll wait there—which means, we have some time. You need a chance to recuperate.”

He was half-naked and several regions of her body were voting for him to be all-naked and
what in the hell was wrong with her?
Not three seconds ago, she was worrying about motives and all it took was his abs and the chest and the shoulders and holy fucking geez, the smile, and she was a blathering idiot. He backed her up to the overloaded kitchen counter, the chipped yellow Formica barely peeking out from beneath stacks of garage-sale dishes. She
knocked over three pots just trying to sidle away from him; he boxed her in, arms on each side of her, palming the counter.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Just
peachy
. Now let me by.”

“Nope.” He moved a set of knives just out of her reach. “I’m an idiot.” His jaw clenched, shoulders tensed. “Kissing you like that.”

Her Hormones squealed as they screeched to a halt, toppling over each other. There was major internal pouting going on, which was just stupid. He wasn’t the kind of man who would want a relationship, and she’d suspected that, so she shouldn’t be so freaking surprised.

“Let me rephrase,” he said, and she realized he’d been watching her reaction. “It was a stupid rank amateur mistake. I was being selfish. I’m sorry my kissing you at the silo put you in more jeopardy.”

The low-grade hum she’d felt since she’d first seen him yesterday hadn’t abated, but now the way he looked at her made her feel as if she’d been plugged into an amp and the wattage was going to overload her system. Kissing him
anywhere
put her in more jeopardy, and she wrapped her arms tightly across her chest. Then her eyes—on their own freaking accord and without getting their permission slip signed—
looked
at the abs just inches away . . . and then the biceps (good freaking Lord, You did a good job there,
thank You
) and then the jawline, and she veered her gaze away, trying to maintain some semblance of stoicism, and ended up back at the abs. She may have whimpered a little, because he grinned.

“You’re having an entire argument in your head right now, aren’t you?”

“Just admiring how really good you are at”—she swallowed hard as his muscles in his arms tensed—“your job. You know, this whole fake relationship thing—kudos. Impressive marksmanship.”

“Job?” He frowned. “I thought I made that clear this morning.”

“How in the hell am I supposed to know that this
isn’t
just a job to you? You know, seduce the crazy lady, keep her on your side.”

“Are you out of your flipping mind?”

“According to the bookies, that would be a
yes
.”

He vibrated anger. Tamped down, forced under control. He seared her with a gaze so full of frustration, she could practically hear him counting to ten and then starting over again to keep his calm. “I get it—I’ve worked undercover and you don’t yet know me well enough outside of work to trust what we have. I may fuck up in a hundred different ways, but being clear about how I feel about you isn’t going to be one of them. Think about it: would the Bureau spend the money and the manpower to romance a woman everyone knows is already the kind of person who’d help us if we
just asked
? Or, worst-case scenario, if we threatened her family?” His expression softened as he waited while that sank in a moment, and Epiphany did a mamba up her spine as he added, “I’m telling you straight up, right now: I want you. So either I’m a lying bastard you can’t trust, that you wouldn’t want to have at your back with a gun, or you’re scared.”

“There’s a helluva lot of difference between knowing you’d have my back in a gunfight and having”—she pointed between them—“this.”

The wicked grin made such a sudden reappearance, her knees threatened to abandon all pretense of supporting her body. “Completely scared.”

“And,” she added, ignoring him, “it’s not exactly like I haven’t cornered the market on the Lying Bastard Collection.”

“Totally chicken.”

“And!” she said, thumping him in the arm. “Lying Bastards always make a great case for why they’re telling the truth!”

“You’re practically growing feathers here, Sundance.”

He cupped the back of her neck, pressing into her, brushing his lips just barely across her own. She braced
her hands against his chest, trying to hold on to her control as her Hormones were all
hell, yeah!
and fighting their way to the accelerator. He shifted against her just enough to let her feel the length of his body and every single solitary nerve ending said
hello, sailor
in their best Mae West voice and she may have wiggled against him. A lot.

And then he kissed her. Not the tender, sweet, geez-we-just-went-through-a-near-death-experience kind of kiss. No, this was a demanding, melting,
possession
. The kind of kiss that says, “I want you naked, under me, and you will be damned happy you said yes.”

She had had
no idea
a kiss could do that.

He smiled against her lips. “You’re going to have to pick which side you want to be on. Either you want me, or you don’t, but I didn’t come to play.”

He watched her, his eyes dark and serious, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw and then oh-so-softly, her lower lip. She felt everything inside her coil and heat and
want
so damned much, she couldn’t answer, couldn’t form the words past the lump in her throat.

“Shhhh,” he said, his voice low, gravel pummelling her every nerve. “I want you, Sundance. I want
us
.”

She wanted him to kiss her blind again. She wanted his hands on her, his body pressed against her own. She wanted not to think, because thinking meant deciding; but she already knew Trevor wasn’t the kind of man who’d take choice from her. And he leaned in, whisper-close, his hands sliding into her hair, his fingers soothing against her skin, his body tantalizingly close—but he did not kiss her. He waited, watching the tears she’d held back slide down her cheeks, his thumbs brushing them away. Waiting for her to work through her fear. The next move would have to be hers. He waited. Lifetimes slid by, and still, he waited.

“I—” she started, and then she heard the front door open. Trevor was already reaching for his gun when she glanced up for that one split second and she yelled, “Down!”

They hit the floor in unison, Trevor landing on top of Bobbie Faye, his gun ready as a butcher knife thwanged in the kitchen wall right behind where they had been standing.

“You’re not Roy,” a female voice said as Bobbie Faye tilted her head backward to see an upside-down view of Crazy Carmen, the butcher’s daughter who’d tried to cleave Roy in half not all that long ago. The woman was barefoot, which explained why they hadn’t heard her approach.

“Carmen,” Bobbie Faye said as matter-of-factly as she could to a raving loon, “you’re looking good. Been out of jail long?”

“Where’s Roy? I’ve been watching this place for weeks and he always sneaks past me.”

Crazy Carmen—sultry hot, tanned body with curves that would make Marilyn Monroe weep with envy—did not pay attention to the gun Trevor had drawn on her; she did, however, adjust her too-tight knit red dress and then her ample bosom for Trevor’s benefit as he stood and then held a hand out to help Bobbie Faye up. The loss of the weight of his body, his heat, was sudden, and so tangible Bobbie Faye had to blink a moment to process why she felt immediately bereft.

“Roy’s moved,” she said, stumbling over the words, kick-starting her brain again. “Got a job in—” she searched her memory for a distant locale.

“Guam,” Trevor supplied.

“He won’t be back for a couple of years,” Bobbie Faye added.

Carmen’s gaze swept Trevor’s body from top to bottom
and Bobbie Faye found herself suddenly loathing Carmen. Irrationally, vehemently
loathing
.

“Who’s the hunk belong to?” Carmen asked her, with that bright smile against that dark Cajun complexion.

“We were just working that out,” Trevor said from behind Bobbie Faye.

“Go away, Carmen.”

“So he’s yours, huh?”

Yeah
, something inside Bobbie Faye said, and something that controlled her muscles—it sure as hell wasn’t Survival Instinct—made her head nod.

“Lucky girl,” Carmen said, reluctantly backing away. “I’m all about respecting relationships—something your brother needs to learn, by the way.” She gave Trevor the once-over one last time before sashaying out the door.

Bobbie Faye could practically hear Trevor smiling behind her. “Shut up.”

It had taken Cam too fucking long to make the phone calls from the sabotaged bridge area in order to track down Brian Thibodeaux in a bar, drunk off his ass, instead of where he was supposed to be: running his barge back and forth across the river. The same river now blocking him from getting to Roy’s camp, where he believed Bobbie Faye may have headed. She, of course, wasn’t answering her phone, and Brian had slurred so badly, Cam wasn’t a hundred percent sure he understood Cam’s instructions. If Brian was completely sober, it would still take him thirty minutes to cross the river, and then another thirty to pick Cam up and cross back. It galled Cam to wait, but it was the barge or drive two hours away, only to have to ride two hours back this direction—and who knew if Bobbie Faye would have moved on to destroy something else in that span of time.