He’d like to show her a whole bunch more kink but not in a damn dress, that was for sure.
Then she brought him a mirror and he stared at the female version of himself.
He was the ugliest woman he’d ever seen. “I can’t believe you let me touch you.”
She snorted, then pulled out a wheelchair.
“Uh-uh. I don’t need-”
She shoved a wrapped bundle into his arms. He stared down at the fake baby. “Okay, this is weird.”
“What, the clothing?”
“No. The baby. I’ve never really seen myself with kids.”
“Never?” She crouched to add booties over his very male feet.
“I guess I never figured myself as the kind of guy who’d settle down and have a woman love him enough to give him a kid.”
Callen glanced up into his face, her hand on his thigh. “You know what that means, right?”
“No, what?”
“That you’ve never been with the right woman.”
He stared into her eyes, and suddenly found his throat tight. “Is that right?”
Gaze latched on his, she slowly nodded.
“So would you have any idea where I’d find the right woman?”
Her eyes went suspiciously shiny, but she only smiled.
“I THINK I KNOW WHERE Gaines is,” Abby told Hawk. “He’s got another piece of property he doesn’t tell people about, an upscale ranch house about thirty minutes from here.”
Hawk absorbed this as they quickly moved back through the gate and along the path, her laptop tucked beneath his arm, her gun in his waistband. He kept one hand free as they headed to the SUV, watching all the angles, his expression dangerous.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Somehow she’d been caught up in this perilous game between two men capable of doing whatever they needed done. Just days ago she’d have said she didn’t trust either of them fully.
But she couldn’t say that now. Scary as Hawk seemed as he led her back to the relative safety of the SUV, she knew the truth.
She trusted him with her life. “Hawk.”
He opened the driver’s side and urged her in. “Yeah?”
She waited until he’d pulled out of the parking lot. “Do you remember the first thing I said to you last night?”
He sped down the road. “The part about you trusting a rat’s ass before you could trust me?”
“Um, yeah.” She winced. “That.” They’d both been Gaines’s victims. But no longer. “I’ve changed my mind.”
He glanced at her with an arched eyebrow. She’d surprised him.
“I can trust you. With anything.”
“Hold that thought,” he said, and whipped them onto a side construction road so fast her hand slapped on the dash. He steered them behind a cluster of trees and yanked on the brake.
“What are you doing?”
“This.” Hauling her to him, he covered her mouth with his.
Yeah, this. This was what she needed. She sank into the kiss, wrapping her arms around him, running her hands up and down his back, over his shoulders, up his neck into his hair, everywhere she could reach. She couldn’t get enough of touching him. In this spinning, out-of-control world, he’d become her anchor, her rock.
And given the way he clutched at her, his own hands fighting with hers for purchase, skimming up her sides, her spine, then back to the front, beneath her shirt now, skin to skin, he felt the same way. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” His lips brushed her skin.
“It won’t.” She cupped his face as he gently set his forehead to hers. They stayed that way a moment before Hawk drew a deep breath and lifted his head to look into her eyes.
He’d shifted gears already, and she took a moment to catch up.
“Abby.”
She sighed.
“Gaines’s ranch. Can you tell me where it is?”
“That would be a really bad idea.”
“Or a really good one.”
She understood the problem. Without ever wanting to, she’d become his soft spot, his Achilles’ heel. Whether she was with him by choice or not didn’t matter to Gaines, that she was with him at all made her a problem. A dispensable one. If he didn’t get to Gaines, Gaines would likely get to him. And her. “I can draw you a map,” she admitted.
“Good.” Hawk punched some numbers into her cell phone. “Callen? Is he ready?” He listened, and his brow raised as he glanced at Abby. “I can talk to him? Great, thanks.” There was a pause. “God, Logan, are you ever a sound for sore ears-”
His voice was so husky with emotion, she felt her throat tighten.
“Are you sure you’re up for this, Logan, because-yeah, I hear you. Jesus, am I glad to hear you.”
Abby looked out the window, concentrating on breathing as she listened to their reunion. They spoke in short, clipped sentences that spoke of the longtime ease between them, and an ability to guess what the other was thinking.
She’d never had a relationship like that in her entire life, because she didn’t open up. She had started to with Gaines, and look what had happened. He’d set her up to be tortured.
How was she supposed to ever trust her judgment again?
She peeked at Hawk, still talking to Logan. He was trying to line up a secure place to dump her. Was she going to let him do that?
“I want her safe.”
The words did something to the cold spot in her heart. The truth was, in spite of herself, she
She wished they were still at the B &B and she was back in his arms, where everything was okay as long as he kept holding her. Because with him, no matter what was going on, she felt safe. “Hawk, I’m staying with you.”
Eyeing her, he said into the phone, “Are you sure, because Christ, Logan-yeah. Okay. We’ll be right there to get you. Yeah, ‘we.’” With a sigh, he closed the phone and reached behind him for her laptop, which he handed to her. “Serial numbers.”
“What’s the matter?”
He shook his head. “In a minute. Look up the serial numbers.”
She started up her computer and her e-mail program automatically opened. On a hunch, Abby opened some old files, then leaned back and shook her head.
“What?” Hawk leaned over her to try and see.
“You said you shot Gaines on that raid eighteen months ago.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t know it was Gaines at the time.”
“I didn’t come to suspect so until later, no.”
“Eighteen months ago he took a one-month leave.” She flipped through several e-mails from him from that time. “Emergency appendicitis.” She looked at him. “Too bad I don’t believe in coincidence.” Feeling overwhelmed by how big this was, she rubbed her hands over her face. “My God.”
He reached for her, but she straightened and shook her head. Not the time to fall apart. “The serial numbers.” While she pulled up another file, he grabbed the confiscated rifle and read her the number.
Abby’s stomach thumped as she matched it to her list. “It’s here. Now tell me what Logan said to put that look
