of desperation in her eyes last night, he knew they meant something to her, but he’d gone bleary-eyed trying to decipher their meaning. The puzzle had been a distraction from the futility of his grief for Nikki. But to him, the pages looked cryptic, nothing more than columns of numbers with vague numeric headers.
He wanted to punish the men who had taken and killed Nikki, but making them pay would not bring her back. One thing dominated his mind most of all. He had no idea what to tell Susannah. None of what he’d say would lighten her load. How do you prepare a mother to hear the kind of news he had to deliver? And how would he help his sister let go of her only child?
When he looked up, Joe was awake and had been watching him. Even if he wanted to keep secrets from his friend, the man would see right through him.
“I can smell the alcohol from here.” Surprisingly, Joe kept his disappointment in check, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling it. “And I thought I was the one needing a crutch.”
The man never minced words and always knew how to get his point across—his version of a verbal bat upside the head.
“I had to take the edge off. Don’t give me a lecture.”
“Living is dealing with edges, Payton. And until we know for sure about Nikki, this ain’t over.” Joe winced with pain. Knowing Tanu, he’d refuse to push his morphine button even if he were gut shot.
First and foremost, Joe had the blood of a cop coursing through his veins. When he talked about “knowing for sure” about Nikki, he meant until recovery crews found and identified her remains. Being a pragmatic man, Joe dealt with the raw truth. It was his nature. Had he been a glass-half-full kind of guy, he might have taken comfort in Joe’s words, that there was an outside shot Nikki was still alive. But these days, he didn’t feel like a lucky man, and his only fleeting comfort came from single malt scotch and the bottoms of many an empty glass—honesty and truth be damned.
Before he had a chance to respond to Joe, Detective Sam Cooper walked into the hospital room.
“Hey, Joe. How are you feeling?” she asked.
The man shrugged. His eyes had lost their sheen and his dark skin looked pale under the hospital lights. “If it weren’t for the pretty nurses, I’d go stir crazy.”
“How’s Jessie?” Payton asked her.
“She had some pretty deep cuts that needed stitches, but no skull fracture. She got lucky for once, but they’re keeping her under observation for the concussion.” Sam pointed over her shoulder. “She’s on this floor, far corner. I’m sure she’ll want to see you, but they’ve got her on pain meds. She drifts in and out.”
With the copied pages for Jess in his hand, Payton got up to leave.
Sam stopped him. “This morning she told me she wasn’t thinking clearly last night…about turning over the original documents. She figured that if she’d taken something off the premises, it might put me in the middle and compromise my job. Guilt by association, I guess. But Payton, I’m already in the middle. Jess is like family to me.”
Sam smiled. “If there’s anything I can do to help, you let me know. She’s not always the most objective when it comes to dealing with scum like this.”
Payton wondered what she meant but didn’t want to pry into Jessie’s life. He understood the need for privacy. And he certainly appreciated the necessity for leading a solitary life.
“When can I go out there?” he asked. “I gotta know.”
The detective didn’t have to ask him what he meant. She knew he wouldn’t rest until they found Nikki’s body. It would be hard on him and Susannah, but they would both need closure.
“Fire crews are still working the scene, making sure it’s safe for investigators and searching for—” She stopped herself and shifted her gaze to Joe—a knowing look—cop-to-cop.
“And they’ll be searching for bodies,” Payton pressed. “That’s what you were going to say, right?”
She nodded. “The textile factory is a crime scene. You won’t be able to go beyond the barricade, but I’ll let you know if…you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thanks, Sam.” Before Payton left the room, he looked over his shoulder at Joe. “After I see Jessie, I’m gonna get some coffee. Catch you later.”
By the expression on Joe Tanu’s face, he had received the message loud and clear. Without saying it, Payton had assured him he would sober up—for now. No guarantees how long his good behavior would last. And if they found Nikki’s body, all bets would be off.
When Payton entered Jessie Beckett’s hospital room, she had been asleep. He thought about giving her privacy and coming back later, but at some point he lost control of his will to leave. He studied the woman, really seeing her for the first time, minus the desperation and pain of last night. Her pale skin looked flushed, tinged with color that was a perfect contrast to her dark hair. And under the faint scar near her eye, which gave her face character and grit, her lips and the contour of her cheeks gave her a striking vulnerability, a contradiction he hadn’t expected.
Her muscular athletic body mirrored the hardness of the scars she bore, yet the soft fleshy curves of a woman’s figure were there too. Jessie had the total package, plus an intriguing edge of raw sensuality. Of all people, he had an appreciation for imperfections, both inside and out, and knew there would be more to her story. But for this woman to let him in, it would take patience and time, and he wasn’t sure he had either. He felt too messed up to take on a strong woman, and someone like Jessie deserved better. Still, he found himself wondering what it would be like to be with her—to feel capable of returning what she had to give to a man.
When she opened her dark eyes, she gazed at him with all the intimacy of a waking lover. He should have turned away and ignored how she made him feel, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Hey,” he whispered. Leaning over her bed, he stroked a strand of hair away from her cheek. “Can I…get you anything? Water, maybe?”
Payton could tell that it took a moment for Jessie to focus and recognize who he was. He’d taken too much liberty with someone he’d barely met, and he knew it, yet it felt right to be alone with her—a feeling he couldn’t explain even to himself.
When she nodded and tried to sit up, he helped adjust her pillow and raise the bed before he fixed her a small cup of shaved ice. Her bedside table had been stocked with the stuff. But when he attempted to feed her a spoonful, she clutched at her hospital gown, reminding him they were nothing more than strangers. And oddly enough, that bothered him.
“Thanks,” she said. “How’s your friend?”
Waking up to find Payton Archer so close had unnerved Jess. She took the cup and spoon from his hand, getting a sudden rush when their fingers touched. By refusing his spoon-feeding, she’d wanted to set a clear boundary between them. But she didn’t know if the boundary was meant for his benefit or hers.
“Joe had surgery to set pins in his leg,” he said. “Guess when he flies home, he’ll be setting off security alarms at the airport.”
She smiled as she melted ice in her mouth. Payton probably thought she found humor in his remark, but the man had a subtle and undeniable charm. He shared more on Joe’s condition, and everytime she caught him staring at her, he turned away and pretended it hadn’t happened…until the next time. His subtle game came as such a surprise that she had to smile. He had an inherent sensuality that he didn’t seem to be aware of, a quality she always found seductive.
“You know,” she said, “I remembered you from before…when you played for ‘da Bears.’”
His sudden change of expression told her she’d said the wrong thing. Idle chitchat was never her gig, especially when she was nervous.
Payton winced and said, “Ancient history. Off the field, I’d sooner forget those years. I wasn’t…” He thought about what he wanted to say. “I wasn’t ready for…success like that. My ego was cashing checks my head and heart couldn’t handle.”
In typical guy fashion, he left most of his meaning between the lines, leaving her to fill in the blanks. When she was younger, she might have been tempted to do that, but these days, she took a man at face value without donning rose-colored glasses. Still, Payton’s candor and his willingness to talk about old wounds with a perceptive honesty had hooked her. She definitely wanted to know more about the man—and not just what she remembered from newspaper headlines.
