Buch lesen: «Desert Ice Daddy»

Chapter One

A half-dozen men were dead. And some of the clues pointed to a business associate of his, a man he had vouched for. If even the hint of terrorist involvement surfaced, it would end Texas Double A Auctions, the business Akeem Abdul had built from the ground up, the one thing most important to him. Jabar was a friend—which was the most difficult part of the whole damned affair to accept.

The darker side of his nature bubbled close to the surface, but he quelled it as he always had.

“I want a name, Mike.” Akeem drove along the deserted Texas country road faster than he should have, sending up a cloud of dust behind him.

“I’m working on it,” his head of security responded via the speaker on his cell phone. “I’m checking into who has the most to gain by messing with us.”

Akeem stared ahead, barely seeing the road. He’d been turning that question over and over in his head all morning. Having enemies was nothing new in his book. At thirty-one, he was old enough and successful enough to have acquired a few. When his equine auction house grew to be the largest in the state, not everyone celebrated with him. In Texas, horses were serious business, about serious money, whipping up plenty of emotions.

And he was an outsider, which some people seemed determined not to let him forget.

“I want to be contacted the second there’s any development,” he told Mike, then thanked the man and hung up as he turned onto the tree-lined private road that led to Diamondback Ranch.

A dozen or so exceptionally fine quarter horses grazed on either side of the road. And as he got closer to the heart of the ranch, reaching the first group of paddocks then passing them, his mind began to clear until it was no longer filled with thoughts of betrayal or security concerns. One image scattered all other thoughts without effort: Taylor McKade. They’d ridden fence together not far from here back in the day, her golden hair flowing in the wind. A smile on her lips…

He blinked his eyes to dispel that vision.

Their fence-riding days were over. He would do well to remember that.

He had seen Taylor only a handful of times in the past five years, briefly each time, exchanging only the most polite pleasantries. Their meetings had left him cut off at the knees. Damned if he knew how anyone could stand being next to the only woman he ever loved, knowing she was married to another man.

He shook his head and spoke toward the horses in the distance. “Here we go again.”

His standard operating procedure was to stay away every time Taylor came to the ranch, which hadn’t been too difficult until now. She didn’t visit her brother’s place all that often, and Akeem’s business here was only occasional. Flint McKade, his best friend, the man who had built the five-hundred-acre Diamondback, did considerable business with Akeem’s auction house, but they tended to meet in Houston for that. Especially of late.

But Taylor had left her husband and was now staying at the ranch with her four-year-old son, for good. And the business that had brought Akeem here could not be postponed this time. Which meant they were going to meet again.

Today.

Now.

He drove his white Lincoln Navigator down the gravel road, noting the quiet of the ranch. Two horses danced in the nearest corral, kicking up dust that flew high and wide. The ground was as dry as it ever got, rain desperately needed but not in the immediate forecast. Flint had worried about that last night when they had talked. Not that his friend didn’t have his hands full enough with other things just now. Most of the men killed had been his employees.

The straight, empty road didn’t require much attention, so Akeem could allow his gaze to roam the rolling land. Not a ranch hand in sight. Nothing unusual about that around lunchtime. But with all the trouble the ranch had seen lately…His muscles tensed again. He couldn’t shake the sense of unease that filled the air. His instincts had been honed in the wilds of the Arabian Desert as well as in Houston’s corporate arena. Something was off.

He rounded the last building, mentally preparing himself for facing Taylor as the main estate house finally came into view. He bypassed the circular drive in front and drove to the back, to the entry used by family and friends.

Two police cars sat in the drive.

Gravel crunched under the tires as he stepped hard on the brake. He caught himself, eased his feet off the pedal and rolled up next to the police cruiser on the right.

Took his time looking.

He’d talked to Flint last night. They’d agreed not to call in the police yet on the latest clues that had surfaced. They had decided to try to sort things out on their own first, not knowing who their enemies were, resolving not to trust anyone for now, not even the police. Brody Green, the detective assigned to investigate the murders, had been only too quick to assume that Flint had been involved in the sabotage at the ranch as part of an insurance scheme. Flint had since been cleared, but now suspicion stood a chance of falling on Akeem and his company, and he was wary of how fair-minded the good detective would be. And Flint had backed him up on that a hundred percent.

Flint’s pickup wasn’t even here.

So what were the cops doing at the ranch? The sense of unease he’d picked up driving in grew into full-blown foreboding. Maybe they brought news about the murder investigations. The killer had been caught, had died in the final confrontation, but nobody knew yet who had paid him to accomplish his grisly deeds.

Akeem pushed the door open, the wall of heat hitting him in the face. His designer leather loafers barely made noise as he stepped out of the car.

He inhaled the scent of yellow roses that bloomed near the back of the house and caught sight of a silhouette behind the screen door as he headed up the stairs. He would have recognized her a mile away.

His heartbeat sped.

Crazy. He wasn’t a penniless, tongue-tied twenty-year-old with a crush on his best friend’s little sister anymore. He was a grown man, successful in his own right, more than able to provide for a family of his own. He drew a slow breath on that thought. One of these days, he was going to seduce Taylor McKade so thoroughly that she’d agree to marry him, and then he was going to spend the rest of his life making her and her son happy.

But not yet. He said the words in his mind so every part of him would be clear on that. First he needed to exonerate his company from any suspected involvement in the sabotage at Flint’s ranch. Then he had to get around the fact that she was his best friend’s little sister. In the off-limits category. Firmly.

Not that knowing that made him think about her any less.

But he wanted only the very best for her, to make her life easier, not more difficult. So for now, as they had been for the past couple of years, whatever feelings he nursed were his problem. Taylor’s life, with the divorce and all, was enough of a mess. He didn’t need to add to it.

He expected a polite encounter of “How are you?” and “Fine,” the way it went between old friends who had come to feel awkward around each other.

So he was caught off guard when the screen door banged open and Taylor flew barefooted down the stairs. Her eyelashes were wet, her eyelids swollen. His protective instincts rose as quickly as a sandstorm. And just like that, the business troubles that had brought him to the ranch were forgotten.

“Akeem!” She launched herself into his arms like old times and hung on for dear life.

“What is it?” He locked his arms around her in a protective position, barely daring to breathe for fear of scaring her off. His gaze cut back to the cop cars again. If someone had hurt her, so help him God…

“We can’t find Christopher.” Her voice was a sea of pain. “They—” She pressed her full lips together and pulled away to wipe the underside of her eyes with her fingertips. “The police say he might have been taken.”

He could tell what it cost her to say the words, to even consider the possibility that her son was in the hands of a kidnapper. Cold anger filled his body until his muscles became rigid. “By whom?” His thoughts went to her ex, one scrawny neck he would be only too happy to have an excuse to wring. If that bastard—

“They don’t know.” Her huge, cornflower-blue eyes swam in desperation. She’d pulled back a few inches, but stayed in the circle of his arms. She was just as impossibly beautiful as the first time he’d seen her, her mouth just as tempting, her curves just as perfect—or more so. Motherhood had given a subtle change to her shape, a change he loved. Even in the throes of distress, she was a stunning woman. But at the moment, she needed more than his admiration.

He filled his lungs. “What can I do?” She had to know that he would do anything for her.

“I’m sorry.” She winced and pulled back a little more as the first thoughts of self-consciousness seemed to appear. “I’m falling apart, aren’t I? I can’t fall apart. Christopher needs me.” She closed her eyes for a moment, but let him keep her hands.

There was a pause, then up came her gaze. She blinked away the moisture that had gathered in the corners of her eyes. “I’m a total mess.”

Yes, she was, but she still stole his breath. He did his best not to show how hard he’d been sucker punched by the sight of her, by the feel of her hands in his. “Where is Flint?”

“Out looking. Everyone is, even Lora Leigh and Lucinda. I’m the only one here, with two officers.”

That explained the conspicuous lack of ranch hands around the animals. “Kat?” he inquired, referring to the friend Flint had hired as a favor to him. It sure had to be hot out there.

She nodded. “Kat Edwards, too. They’re out in the far pastures and combing the brush and the woods at the west corner of the ranch. Flint wouldn’t let me come.” Frustration stole into her voice.

“The boy might have wandered off. He could be sleeping in a hayloft. He could come waltzing back in,” he said as he led her toward the door, getting her out of the merciless noon sun. Hell of a time of the year for anyone to get lost out there, especially a child.

“They already checked the central buildings,” she said, but he could see a glint of hope in her eyes. “They started here as soon as I couldn’t find him.”

“When?”

“Three hours ago.” Tears welled but didn’t spill to her cheeks, as if suspended by sheer will. The moisture had her eyes shining like a pair of rare blue diamonds.

He opened the door for her and ushered her in. Three hours and Flint hadn’t called him. He couldn’t help thinking of the damn information that tied the sabotage of Flint’s business to his. The thought came as a sharp jab. He shook it off as his gaze fell on his Aggie ring. He might have often felt like an outsider with others, but he never had to feel that way with Flint, with his friends. Flint had his hands full. “What can I do to help?”

She pressed her lips together for a second, desperation clouding her eyes. “Bring him back to me.” The small, sour smile borne on pain that twitched up the corner of her lips for a second said she knew she was asking the impossible.

“I will,” he promised without thought. Because there wasn’t anything on this earth he wouldn’t do for Taylor. In this, he didn’t know impossible. He was already on the phone, calling Mike back. “I need you over here at Diamondback. Drop everything else. Bring every man you can.”

He hung up as he walked down the hall into the state-of-the-art kitchen that was the heart of the ranch.

“And you are?” The graying, slightly overweight police officer at the table set down his radio and looked Akeem over with open suspicion in his squinty eyes.

Being Arab-American, he was pretty much used to that of late, even if he had been born and raised in Texas.

The other cop stopped hooking some machine up to the phone line and checked him out, too. This one was half the other’s age and size, with live-wire black eyes.

Akeem focused on the beige plastic unit: a recorder. Getting ready for the ransom call.

Taylor didn’t miss that, either. She went a shade paler.

“Akeem Abdul. Friend of the family,” Akeem said and kept her close.

The first cop’s eyes went wide. “The Texas Sheik? No kiddin’.” Then he snapped to. “Yes, sir. Officer Peterson.”

“Officer Mills.” The other one went back to his work after a thorough look that seemed half amused, half disappointed.

Even those who didn’t know his face knew the Abdul name from Texas Double A—Akeem Abdul—Auctions. He ignored “Texas Sheik,” the nickname given by his competitors who resented his rapid rise in the ranks and had trouble digesting his Middle Eastern background, that his parents had been Beharrainian.

He pulled a chair for Taylor. The cops were only a minor annoyance. He’d long ago learned to rise above things like that. “Let me get you a drink.”

There had to be a hundred men out there already, combing the ranch. He could afford to wait with her until his security force got here and they rode out to meet Flint and join in the search. Christopher would be found. He would see to it.

Why would anyone take the kid? Who? If he could figure that out, they might have a better idea where to look. Which brought him to his next question. “Got a map of this place?”

“Right on the Web site.” She sat on a bar stool next to the kitchen counter, her troubled gaze settling on the fridge that was covered with crayon drawings of horses, and got up almost immediately again to pace the floor along the windows that looked toward the back.

She accepted the glass of water he brought her, but didn’t drink. The cops minded their own business. Seemed their orders were to stick to the house and wait, which they did with the efficiency of furniture.

Akeem strode to the PC on the kitchen isle—Lucinda, Flint’s housekeeper, was addicted to online recipe swaps—and shot straight to the Diamondback home page.

Taylor paused in her pacing. “Flint called you?”

He nodded instead of going into his investigation on murder and the sabotage and bomb parts at Diamondback and how they might be related to his auction house, which he’d come to talk over with Flint. He didn’t want to discuss that subject in front of the cops.

He set the form to print fifty copies then pushed the OK button. He wanted to have the maps ready to be handed out when his men arrived.

She was pacing again. Tension grew in the air with every second. He needed something to do. And so did she. “Want to walk through the outbuildings with me?”

She shot him a blank look as if her thoughts were a million miles away. “We already looked there.”

Her pain was a tangible presence in the room, like the thick, wet mist of winter mornings that settled into the lungs and made it hard to breathe. He wanted to take her into his arms again, wasn’t sure how she would react. Looked like movement was what she needed now to burn off all that nervous energy.

He strode toward her. “We’ll look again.”

“If there’s a call…” Officer Mills frowned.

“Every outbuilding has a phone. If someone calls, she can pick it up from anywhere.” He held his hand out to her.

And after a moment of hesitation, Taylor’s slim fingers slipped into his palm as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and his hand closed around hers.

He cleared his throat. “Bunkhouses first?”

She nodded and followed him out of the kitchen, slipped barefooted—golden polish on the sexiest toes under the sun, which he should definitely not have noticed at a moment like this—into a pair of worn snakeskin boots by the back door.

Eastern rattlesnake and a black leather top with fancy stitch.

Recognition flashed through him and lodged an odd feeling in the middle of his chest. The boots were spoils of a long-ago riding contest between the two of them.

She didn’t look as if she remembered. She didn’t look as though she could think of anything but getting her son back. And he would help her. As soon as his security team got here—the best of the best—they would be putting together a plan.

“How did it happen?” Maybe if he kept her talking, she would have less time to worry.

“He wanted to go out to the horses before breakfast.” She drew a deep breath as they stepped outside and the heat hit them. “I didn’t think much of it when he didn’t come back for a while. He’s always losing track of time when he’s around animals. This place has been like a wonderland to him…” She trailed off as they crossed the yard to the first bunkhouse.

“Christopher, honey?” she called while he systematically searched the place—a manly mess—looking under every blanket, under every bed, in every chest, in every wardrobe.

“Not here. Let’s check the next.”

She looked up to the sun as they stepped out of the bunkhouse, her face tight. He knew what she was thinking. If her son was out there in this heat, every minute counted.

“And then?” he asked.

“I went looking for him, asking the guys. He’d been out to the colts, but not for long, they said.”

“Who saw him last?”

“Nobody’s sure. It’s busy around here in the mornings. Everyone has a million chores to get done before the heat hits and makes work twice as difficult. Eyeryone’s always rushing around.”

They entered the next bunkhouse.

“Christopher?”

He repeated the search, then they went through the same routine again and again with the next building and the next.

His phone rang—Deke Norton, a close friend to the Aggie Four and a trusted business associate. They had a meeting later that afternoon to discuss some mutual investments.

Akeem answered. “Hey, I’m glad you called. I might not make it to our meeting later on.”

“Everything okay?”

“Flint’s nephew is missing. Probably wandered off.”

“Don’t worry about the meeting. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“You bet. Thanks, Deke.” He ended the call to focus on the task at hand.

“Flint has every man out there looking,” Taylor said on her way to the new quarter horse stables that had been built recently to replace the one that’d been burned to the ground.

“The police are helping, too.” From the way she said the last sentence, it was clear she was putting her faith in her brother. Smart woman.

“He’ll be found.”

She had always been nearly as tough as her brother, but as she stopped and turned to him to offer a tremulous smile, she looked fragile and lost all of a sudden. Like she needed him.

His heart flipped over in his chest and he couldn’t help getting lost in her cornflower gaze for a moment. She had the clearest blue eyes of any woman he had even known.

He missed them as soon as she turned from him again.

A few horses raised their heads and gave their greeting nicker when she stepped into the barn, clearly recognizing Taylor. Others snorted a warning at Akeem. It had been a while since he’d been out here. Flint brought in new stock all the time. Since the ranch had grown by leaps and bounds, Akeem no longer knew all of the animals.

The smell of hay and feed immediately enveloped them in comfort, but this once he couldn’t fully melt into it, and judging by the tight set of Taylor’s shoulders, neither could she. Nothing would make her relax until her son was safely back in her arms again.

But she did seem to draw strength from the animals and strode forward with new purpose in her steps, her boots clicking on the stone floor. “Christopher?”

He personally searched every stall. Came up with nothing. “This is going to sound…Have you checked with Christopher’s father?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the guy’s name or even call him her ex.

“First thing.” She opened the cabinet doors in the tack room. “And the police went over there, too, to talk to him.”

Good. That saved Akeem from having to do it. The thought brought mixed feelings of relief and disappointment.

Her cell phone rang on the way to the new business offices. She picked up the call on the second ring. The way her face went white within the first second, Akeem knew they had trouble.

“Yes,” she said.

He stepped closer and put his ear on the other side of the phone, but heard little.

“Is he okay?” The hand that held the phone trembled. “Please don’t hurt him. I’ll do anything.” She listened. “I don’t have money. You don’t understand.”

He could hear shouting then, but not the individual words, caught some reference to Diamondback.

He reached for the phone, but her eyes begged him not to. Slowly, against his better judgment, he let his hand drop.

“Yes.” Taylor’s voice was a whisper. Tears welled in her eyes, spilled off her dark blond lashes as the phone went dead.

He drew her into his arms because she didn’t look as though she was going to make it much longer standing upright. He knew what she was going to say before she ever opened her mouth, and hot, hard anger rolled through him, aimed at the nameless bastards who would do this to her and would inflict pain and trauma on Christopher.

“They’re holding him for ransom,” she said.

TAYLOR FELT LIKE SHE WAS underwater, her motions slow, her lungs tight. She felt disoriented. Everything seemed surreal.

Somebody had her baby. Christopher was four years old, proclaiming himself to be a big boy at every turn, but he would be her baby forever. He was the one good thing that had come out of her disastrous marriage. Her love for him was the only thing she was sure of at this point in her life.

And somebody had taken him.

Her tears were not for herself, but for him, for how scared he must be, how he must be wondering where she was and when she would come. Taylor thought, too late now, of asking to talk to her son. The display had shown an unregistered number, not one she could call back.

For the first few moments, she felt only gut-searing pain and despair, then slowly she became aware of the strong, masculine arms around her, the offered comfort that she was too shaken to take. Akeem. A long time ago—

She pulled away, unable to think of anything but Christopher.

She was falling apart, wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and cry until she was dry of tears, to scream her anger and her fear. But Christopher needed her to keep it together, and she would. She drew a deep, shuddering breath. Don’t think what if; don’t think what could go wrong.

She brushed the wetness from her cheeks. “Okay,” she said out loud to break the spell of despair that was drowning her. “I can do this. We’ll get Christopher back.”

“At least we know what happened,” Akeem offered.

And he was right. She could put to rest some of the most disturbing thoughts that had been driving her crazy all morning. Christopher hadn’t fallen into the river or one of the creeks, he hadn’t somehow gotten out to the far pastures and been trampled, he hadn’t been bitten by a diamondback rattler or a copperhead.

He was with people who would take care of him because he was their key to the money.

Money she didn’t have. Two million dollars.

Not that they cared. Her brother had more than enough, and everyone always assumed she had free use of that. Her ex-husband for one. She cut off that train of thought. She didn’t have time to waste on Gary. She regretted that she had to call him in the first place, had to listen to him yell his blame at her. He didn’t care about either her or their son, but he would use this as an excuse—

Please, God, don’t let him get involved.

Forget Gary. At least he wasn’t around to muck everything up. A small mercy. She had to focus on how to get Christopher back.

She had never asked Flint for money. It was a point of pride with her. She had asked him for a job when she had finally left Gary, but the accountant position was a job she was qualified for, one she got fair and square. And she was careful to only earn what the previous employee in that position had gotten.

Flint didn’t understand her need to make it on her own. Flint hadn’t spent five years with Gary Lafferty.

“My divorce was finalized yesterday,” she said to no one in particular.

She’d had one perfect day of happiness.

A strange light came into Akeem’s dark eyes, but he said nothing.

Flint and he had been best friends since their college days, along with Jackson Champion and Viktor Romanov—the Aggie Four, a tight-knit brotherhood that stood back to back against the world and had achieved a lot more than just financial success. But Viktor was now dead. There was something more there than Flint had told her, and she’d been meaning to ask him again, but had been too busy with settling in, too busy with Christopher.

They had stopped in their tracks, she realized after a moment. She’d been frozen by the voice on the other end of the line. No point in going on with the search now, anyhow. “I should call Flint.”

The men should come back in. The heat was brutal, and they had work here. But she couldn’t find the energy to dial her phone.

“Want to go back?” Akeem motioned toward the main house with his head. He wasn’t as tall as Flint, but was tall compared to her—she was only five-five. He was as lean as a Texas wild cougar and as focused as a striking rattler. And he was on her side, which eased the tension in her chest a little.

“To my office.” She moved in that direction. She didn’t want to deal with the police. “They said if I say anything to the cops—” She couldn’t bear finishing the sentence.

But Akeem nodded even as he pulled out his cell phone. He made a quick call to stop his security force from coming to the ranch, putting them on standby instead.

The cool air in the office building was a relief. She glanced toward her desk, the pile of work she was supposed to handle after breakfast. She liked her work. She liked Flint’s ranch. In the three months she’d been here, the place hadn’t had the time yet to turn into a true home, but she had found safety among its walls.

Until now.

Christopher.

“Did you recognize the voice?” Again, Akeem pulled out a chair for her, always a gentleman.

“No.” She watched him look around and wondered what his fancy corporate headquarters in Houston looked like. Unlikely that she would ever see it. She had no business there. She flipped her phone open. “I need to call Flint.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to bring the cops in on this?” He seemed to be weighing the issue once again.

“Pretty sure. You didn’t hear him. He was—” The voice had been incredibly cold, incredibly hard. The voice of a man who would do anything. Even to an innocent child. Her throat tightened.

“Then you can’t call all the men back. The cops will know something happened if the search is called off all of a sudden.”

She hadn’t thought of that. Her mind was still reeling. Her fingers stopped mid-dial, and she looked up at him, lost in an avalanche of emotions, unable to make a decision in that moment, unable to think beyond her fear.

“We should tell Flint, in any case. Want me to talk to him?”

“Please,” she said as he pulled a BlackBerry from his pocket, the latest model. She recognized it only because Flint recently had gotten the same one. Boys and their gadgets. At another time, she might have found it amusing. In this moment, it was barely a blip in her consciousness as her thoughts moved back to her son.

“How would they have your cell-phone number?” he asked.

“It’s my work cell. A ton of people have it.”

“What else did the man say?” Akeem was dialing already.

“That they would call back.”

“Hey, you okay? We got a call here,” Akeem said into the phone. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been busy. But anyway, I’m here to help.” He listened. “Money,” he said. “Better stay out there for the cops’ sake. Just send a couple of men back. Kat Edwards, too, if you can.” Then, “Not yet.” And explained the whole situation to Flint.