palm made a raspy noise against his beard stubble, and she was surprised to feel a flutter of feminine awareness in her belly.
He was an attractive man. Not handsome exactly, not by Hollywood standards. His appeal was edgier-raw male power, evident in the broad expanse of his shoulders and the lean, almost feral features that even a veneer of civilization couldn’t temper.
She sat beside him, ignoring the tremble in her knees. “It wasn’t my idea.”
He shot her a dark look. “You don’t say.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do,” she continued, ignoring his sarcasm. “Maddy may be in further danger, and I’m the best person, under the circumstances, to protect her. She seems to like and trust me. I will do anything in my power to protect her.”
“My brother could do the same thing.”
“He’s on special assignment with the Drug Enforcement Agency. You know that.” She had checked into Aaron Cooper’s availability herself, during the short hour between Carl’s order and her arrival at the Cooper family guesthouse.
“My sister’s husband is also a deputy.”
“Riley Patterson? The one who’s currently in Arizona for his parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary?”
“You did a background check on my whole family?”
She had, in fact. A cursory one, anyway. Standard operating procedure for child abduction cases. “He and your sister won’t be back until Monday.”
Sam frowned at her, his gaze intense. She could see him weighing all the ramifications in his mind as he stared her down. Could he trust her with his daughter?
Should he?
She withstood his scrutiny for as long as she could before finally blurting, “Yes or no?”
His nostrils flared briefly. “Okay. There’s an extra bedroom you can use. But I don’t want our lives disrupted any more than they have to be. Maddy still gets to visit with my parents and go fishing with Jake and Gabe. Understood? If I say she’s safe with someone without you there you don’t interfere.”
Kristen nodded. The less time she had to spend alone with Maddy, the better. “I know you’re probably wary about bringing a gun in here with Maddy around-”
Sam’s lips curved into a grim smile. “I’m armed myself, Detective Tandy.”
The deadly serious tone of his voice made Kristen’s stomach tighten. So she’d been right to see the masculinity beneath the well-cut suits and expensive ties. Despite the Italian silk and the fancy letters at the end of his name, Sam Cooper had grown up here in the hills of Chickasaw County and hardened his native strength with a stint in the Marine Corps.
She paid back his earlier scrutiny by indulging herself with a long, appraising look, smiling as he reacted to the tit for tat with a look of grudging amusement. She knew Sam Cooper had graduated from law school and passed the bar exam by the young age of twenty-four and spent the next five years working as a JAG lawyer before taking a civilian job in the District of Columbia. Sure, it hadn’t been a combat assignment, but everybody in the Marine Corps had to go through boot camp, didn’t they?
If the hard muscles and flat planes she glimpsed beneath his olive-green T-shirt and faded jeans were anything to go by, he’d kept up with the fitness regimen even after he’d left the service. She looked away.
“I keep wondering who’d do something like this.” The vulnerability in Sam’s voice caught her by surprise. “I’m not rich. I’m not a celebrity. I don’t think I could scrape up a ransom payment if I tried.”
“I think maybe revenge,” she offered quietly. The haggard look in his eyes suggested that answer had been squirming around the back of his mind since the attempted kidnapping. “Or some other personal agenda,” she added.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re still thinking about my ex.”
“The majority of child abductions are familial. You have full custody of Maddy and moved her to another state recently-”
“With Norah’s blessing,” Sam said firmly. “She’s welcome to see Maddy whenever she likes. She chooses not to.”
“Why not?”
Sam’s lips narrowed to a thin line. His gaze shifted toward the hallway, as if he was afraid Maddy might overhear. He nodded toward the cottage’s kitchen nook, leading the way. When he spoke, he kept his voice low. “She didn’t want to have Maddy in the first place. The pregnancy wasn’t planned. I talked her into the marriage.”
Kristen felt a cold tingle crawl up her spine. “She didn’t want to have children at all?”
He flashed a bleak smile. “No. But she knew how much I did. So she agreed to marry me and have the baby, give the whole wedded bliss thing a shot.” He nudged a folded dishrag across the counter with one long finger. “Didn’t work out.”
“How long did it last?”
“Nine months, until Maddy was three months old.”
“Since our divorce was all about getting out of playing mommy and wife, yeah. She did.”
Kristen wasn’t sure how to respond. There had been a time in her life when she couldn’t imagine how a woman could turn her back on her child. But that was a long time ago, before she’d seen firsthand what a mother was capable of doing to her children. She cleared her throat. “Some women just aren’t meant to be mothers.”
When she dared to look at him again, she was shocked to find his expression sympathetic. She’d expected disgust.
She hardened herself against the compassion in his warm blue eyes. “I looked into your ex anyway. She’s just become engaged. Did you know that?”
He looked surprised. “More background checks, Detective?”
So he didn’t know about the engagement. Interesting.
“Who’s she marrying?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. She wasn’t sure if he was indifferent or just pretending to be.
“Graham Stilson,” she answered.
One dark eyebrow notched upward. “Junior or Senior?”
“Junior. Do you know him?”
Sam turned to face her fully, resting his elbows on the narrow breakfast bar behind him. “Stilson Junior was a trial lawyer in the D.C. area before he was elected to the state senate. We crossed paths now and then. I know his father better, though. Stilson Senior is a judge.”
Clearly, he didn’t care much for Stilson Junior. Kristen wondered how much of his dislike was wrapped up in unresolved feelings for his ex, annoyed with herself for her curiosity. What had she expected, that he’d have lost all interest in a woman he’d once loved enough to marry?
Not that Sam Cooper’s feelings were of any importance, she reminded herself. It was his ex-wife who was currently on Kristen’s suspect list, not Sam.
“I asked her assistant to track her down and have her call me. Nothing yet,” she said aloud.
“Norah doesn’t get motivated to return calls unless she thinks you can do something for her,” Sam said with a shrug. “I left a message for her, too.”
“I thought you said you didn’t think she was a suspect.”
“I don’t,” he said firmly. “But she’s Maddy’s mom. She should know what’s going on.”
Would Norah Cabot even care? She hadn’t given much thought to her daughter’s life so far-why would she start now?
Sam might not be indifferent to his ex-wife, but he clearly resented her abandonment of their child, and on a surface level, Kristen knew she should find Norah Cabot’s actions selfish, as well. But her own mother had had no business raising children. Kristen had seen the horrible consequences. As far as she was concerned, Maddy was lucky. She had a daddy to love and protect her, and she didn’t have to deal with her indifferent mother at all.
How much different would Kristen’s own life have been if she’d had a father around to make sure she and her brothers and sisters were safe and cared for?
