The next morning, Brantley found himself once again sitting at his desk in the barn, feeling antsy.
“What do we have that’s local? Or relatively close?” Brantley prompted, feeling the need to get up and move around.
He wasn’t sure how they could all sit there so serene, behind a desk, noses buried in their computer screens. It was the one thing Brantley never understood. He needed to be out and about. Give him a mission and he was on it, head in the game, no questions asked. Tell him to search something on the internet and he’d rather shoot himself in the foot.
“Take your pick,” JJ said, sitting up to peer at him over her computer monitor. “We got another box yesterday afternoon.”
“From where?”
She shrugged. “No idea. Haven’t had time to start goin’ through them.”
“What are you workin’ on?” he asked, realizing too late that it had come out wrong.
Her eyes narrowed. “Just twiddlin’ my thumbs, B. That’s what you pay me for, right?”
“Shit,” he grumbled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“You sure about that?” JJ bit out. “I mean, you’re more than welcome to deal with these expense reports if you’d like. Not sure if you know this, but someone’s gotta pay for all the equipment, and Rhonda’s breathin’ down my neck daily to get it done.”
“Who’s Rhonda?”
JJ shot him that are you serious right now? look. “The governor’s secretary.”
Her duh was implied.
“She’s not happy that she’s been tasked with gettin’ the task force set up, either. But we do what we have to.”
Effectively put in his place, Brantley took a deep breath, headed for the storage area where they were keeping the boxes of case files the various departments and agencies had started sending their way.
“I’ve pulled out a few,” Baz said, holding a folder high in the air to get his attention.
Pivoting, he headed over to Baz’s desk, where he had a stack of manila folders.
“Let me start this by sayin’, I haven’t had time to actually look over the notes, but I was lookin’ for those that might result in us findin’ the victim alive. Figured those were worth prioritizin’.”
Made sense to him, only there were quite a few files on Baz’s desk. If there were that many who could potentially be saved versus recovered…
Picking up the first file, Brantley skimmed the pages. Two-year-old boy abducted from front yard eight months ago. Suspect that convicted-felon father kidnapped. Case went cold after four weeks of searching.
Next folder. Woman last seen jogging at a lake in downtown Austin back in January of this year. Body never found, no clues. Case cold after three months despite active parent participation.
Next. Thirteen-year-old girl disappeared. Had been talking to someone online. Believed to be older man who lured her out. Six weeks of investigating led nowhere.
Brantley looked up from the last file, glanced at Baz, JJ, then Reese.
How the fuck were they supposed to tackle all of these? These were just three of many, and if he was asked to prioritize which of these specific three was more pressing, no way could he. They were all critical as far as he was concerned.
“We need more people,” he said, slapping the file down on the desk and heading outside.
He needed air, needed time to think, to plan, to…
“You okay?”
Brantley nodded, but he didn’t look back at Reese. Couldn’t. How was he supposed to tell his partner that he felt incompetent to lead this team? Searching for bad guys was what he did. Well, terrorists mostly. That was what he was good at, strategizing a takedown, breaching a compound filled with tangos, slipping into enemy territory undetected, neutralizing a threat. Hell, he could do that shit blindfolded.
But this…
“Hey. Stop for a minute.”
He did but he didn’t look up when Reese appeared before him.
“How the hell do we find all those people?”
“One person at a time,” Reese said softly. “Trust me, I know it’s overwhelming. I’ve skimmed those files, too.”
Brantley did look up then and right into those bottomless dark brown eyes. “We need more people,” he repeated.
“I won’t argue with you there. I figured we were gonna wing it for a bit, tackle what we could.”
“And here I was proud that we’d solved three already,” he grumbled, turning away to pace.
“Don’t discredit what we’ve done,” Reese stated, his tone hard. “We’ve worked hard, Brantley. And we’ll continue to do so. Even if it’s just the four of us.”
It couldn’t only be the four of them. One case at a time, prioritizing those that were active. How the fuck were they going to make a dent like that?
No, they did need more people.
“You want a bigger team?” Reese asked.
Brantley turned to look at him. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Then we put together the reasons why and we present it to the governor. He’s got the power to approve or deny, right?”
“It’s his team,” Brantley confirmed.
“So let’s do that. Let’s sit down and write it up. How many people, what they’ll be workin’ on. That sort of thing.”
And just like that, the anxiety was past him. Reese was right. Brantley couldn’t let emotion cloud his judgment. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t save them all. He accepted that. However, he did have the means to make a difference, and creating a task force that could at least make a dent was his objective. Had been since the day the governor presented him with the idea.
“We’ll get JJ to determine the cost of expanding HQ to accommodate. Baz can provide us with a high-level list of cases that he feels should be looked into first. We can research how many active investigations there are at a few agencies, provide those numbers.” Reese stepped forward. “If you want to do this, we will.”
Brantley stared back at Reese. He was usually the one talking Reese off the ledge, so it felt a bit foreign for the roles to be reversed. However, he liked this aggressive side to the man. The take-charge, get-shit-done side.
“Okay,” Brantley agreed.
“Then let’s do this. Time’s a wastin’.”
He breathed deeply, exhaled his relief.
And just like that, they were moving in a new direction.
***
When Reese and Brantley went outside, JJ carried her laptop up to the loft and plopped down on the leather sofa that had been added to the minimal space. There still wasn’t much of anything up here that would make it a viable break area, but it hadn’t really been a priority. In fact, she knew the stairs had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, a way for Brantley to deal with some of the feelings Reese had stirred up in him. Now that they were in, the area left much to be desired.
That didn’t necessarily explain why she preferred it so much. Well, okay, it was probably because there was a window. The only one in the entire building, at that. And after spending hours and hours in the barn, sometimes she just needed to see the sun. Or she was simply trying to put some distance between her and Baz. Her pride liked to think it was the former because the latter would mean she was a chickenshit. And JJ was no chickenshit.
She wasn’t. Really.
However, she knew Baz liked her, and as much as it pained her to admit it, she liked him, too.
Good thing was, they worked together, which made him off-limits. Of course, there were no rules regarding fraternization within the task force. If there was, Brantley and Reese would’ve been up shit creek from the get-go. No, this was more of a personal decision. JJ was no dummy when it came to relationships. Statistics showed they didn’t last, certainly not between co-workers. Not that she’d looked it up or anything; her data was based solely on personal experience. And what she’d seen in others.
Did she think it was possible for those relationships to survive? Sure. Just not one that involved her.
The outside door opened, so she listened carefully. She knew Brantley was on edge, though she wasn’t sure why. It was rare for him, the man whose patience seemed endless. But she had witnessed a change in him a few minutes ago. Possibly for the first time in all the time she’d known him, Brantley’s countenance had reflected doubt.
Reese’s resonating voice penetrated the otherwise silent space. He was talking to Baz, although she couldn’t quite make out the words. Being nosy as she was, JJ got to her feet, carried her laptop back downstairs.
She arched a surprised eyebrow, pretending she hadn’t known they’d returned. “You’re back.” No sense giving away all her secrets.
The three men continued their conversation while JJ grabbed her cup, headed to the kitchen to refill it with water. She let the sounds of their voices relax her, listened to the inflection. Brantley’s tone was smooth and even, not quite as deep as Reese’s. Baz’s voice held less of the Texas drawl than Brantley’s and Reese’s, but there was a raspy quality to it she was fond of. She had to admit, it was rather nice to work with three incredibly hot guys. It meant she always had something nice to look at.
And no, that wasn’t her objectifying them. She merely had to find a way to pass the time or to clear some of the rather unpleasant images from her mind. After all, she had seen some of those crime scene photos, heard the horror story about them finding Kate Walker, and she’d dug deep enough into some of their suspects to know that the world was a very wicked place. No better way to stay positive than to check out hot guys who just so happened to be ridiculously smart and kinda lethal.
Despite the fact Baz was the only blond in the building, he fit right in with the perfection of Brantley and Reese. Perfectly contoured face, nice square jaw, beguiling blue eyes. And that body… She suspected beneath the jeans and polos there was a nicely chiseled rest of him.
Not that she was thinking about Baz that way. She simply suspected because she had danced with him at Moonshiners. They’d been up close and personal. Nothing romantic.
Well, except for that kiss.
Okay, not going there.
“What’s goin’ on?” she asked when she returned to find Brantley standing at the whiteboard while Reese perched on the top of Brantley’s desk.
Baz was in his own chair, leaned back, hands behind his head as he watched Brantley write something in what could only be described as chicken scratch.
“Nope,” she said, depositing her cup on her desk. “No way. We can’t read that.”
“You wanna do it?” he asked, spinning around and holding the marker out.
“So kind of you to offer.” She plucked the marker from his hand. “What is it that we’re writing?”
“A list,” Brantley said.
“Of?”
“All the things that’ll justify quadrupling the size of this team.”
JJ stared at Brantley. No way she’d heard him right.
***
Reese and the rest of the team spent the next few hours chiming in as to how they saw the team expanding and ramping up productivity in the process. The best use of time and resources was taken into account, as was travel now that Travis Walker had donated the use of his private jet and the helicopter. They documented what they’d done to date, from the cases they’d worked to the supplies and equipment they had acquired. JJ went so far as to draw up a new floor plan, which involved a couple of minor changes to the layout, mostly rearranging.
When they were finished, they had a three-page document prepared for the governor, which they decided would be presented by Brantley and JJ. Brantley because he was the face Governor Greenwood recognized and JJ because she had a way with persuasion. Reese didn’t argue, because who in their right mind wanted to present to the governor of Texas? Damn sure not him.
JJ used her powers of persuasion to manipulate their way onto the governor’s calendar that same day. Once it was set, they ran through their presentation once more, then headed for the state capitol.
And that left Reese and Baz back at HQ.
“She’s somethin’, huh?” Baz said, his gaze swinging to the whiteboard, which was still covered in JJ’s loopy handwriting.
“She is.”
Reese knew Baz wasn’t merely referring to the woman’s brains, although, like the rest of them, Reese figured he was in awe of JJ’s intelligence as well. The woman was damn smart. Sometimes too smart but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“You wanna grab some lunch?” Baz asked, pushing to his feet.
Without a thought, Reese said, “Sure. Where to?”
“The diner in town? I’ll drive.”
“Just how often do you eat there?” Reese asked with a grin as they stepped out into the warm November day, Baz’s keys jangling as he twirled them on his finger.
“Couple times a week. Had I known it was there before I met y’all, I’da been a resident of Coyote Ridge a long time ago.”
“You live here now?”
“No. From what I hear, that’s quite the feat.”
“It is that. When I moved in here, I sublet my apartment to the woman who took my previous role at Walker Demo. She’d been lookin’ for a while.”
“I’ve been thinkin’ about movin’ closer,” Baz said as they climbed into his truck. “Takes me a good twenty-five minutes to get here and that’s if I utilize the toll road and manage to bypass traffic.”
Reese didn’t envy him there. He’d gotten used to his daily five-minute drive to the demolition office. Now he could get to work in under a minute. Walking.
“Is it true JJ was datin’ the governor’s son?”
Reese glanced over, surprised by the question. “Uh… yeah. From what I heard.”
“You meet him?”
“Once.”
“And?”
“Wasn’t impressed.”
“Because he’s the douchebag Brantley accuses him of bein’?”
Reese stared out the window and smiled. Brantley really did not like Dante Greenwood, who Brantley had recently nicknamed Dante the Douche. Reese wasn’t one for gossip, but he knew that Baz was curious about the rest of them. Since JJ’s relationship with Dante was in the past, he decided he would share what he knew.
“He’s one of those who doesn’t necessarily want the woman but doesn’t want anyone else to have her, either. Kept her on a string for a while, then purposely sabotaged the relationship.”
Of course, Reese suspected JJ hadn’t been invested any more than Dante, but for whatever reason, they’d continued to do the dance again and again.
Baz turned into the nearly full lot, parked, got out. Reese followed suit.
“You said purposely?” Baz asked, walking alongside him toward the door.
“Yeah. Brought his new assistant—a leggy redhead—to Moonshiners.”
“Not sure I understand.”
“The guy doesn’t live in Coyote Ridge anymore,” Reese explained, holding up two fingers to show the hostess how many in their party.
“But he brought her to a small-town, backwoods bar.”
“Yep. And as you know, we’re not exactly a direct route to and from anything. I think he figured JJ’d be there so he could sabotage himself again.”
“Was she?”
Reese shook his head. “But Brantley was. Guy’s lucky he made it out of there with both legs intact.”
They took a seat at the table the waitress directed them to, were offered drinks, both opting for water.
Reese didn’t need to look at the menu, selecting the daily soup special and a salad.
Baz grinned after Reese rattled it off, then asked for the same. “Figured it’s best to make up for some of the crap food JJ likes to eat.”
“Brantley, too,” Reese noted. “He’s got the culinary skills of a teenager, eats whatever’s easiest and fastest. Helps that he’s got a metabolism that keeps up with him. Unfortunately, I don’t.”
“They’re a pair, huh?”
“They are.”
“What part does Travis play in all this?”
Finally a question that didn’t make him feel uncomfortable. “Travis is Brantley’s cousin.”
“Kate’s his daughter,” Baz stated. “The little girl who was kidnapped two months ago?”
“Yes. When the governor approached Brantley with the idea of the task force, it was with Travis’s backing.”
“He a good guy?”
“The best. Good intentions.”
“What about the woman who kidnapped his daughter? JJ told me she was gone by the time y’all found Kate.”
“She was. Still is. In the wind, as they say.”
“The FBI have anything?”
“No.” Which was a sore spot for Reese. It pissed him off to no end that Juliet Prince was still out there.
“I know JJ’s still lookin’ into the case.”
“Yeah. We’re still hopin’ to track her down.”
“Daunting task.”
“We’ll find her.”
“Maybe if Brantley and JJ can convince the governor to expand the team, we can dedicate someone to it full-time.”
Reese knew that expanding the team was the right thing to do. What few cases they’d worked on, it took tremendous resources.
“I think that’s his plan.”
“Well, let me know how I can help. Not sure what I can contribute just yet, but I get the feelin’ I’ll find my place soon enough.”
They all would, Reese knew. It would take some time, but this was a good start.
Once they returned, Reese spent the better part of the afternoon looking into what JJ had on Juliet Prince. He figured since he was waiting for Brantley to give him word on the governor’s decision, it was a good way to spend his time.
He was surprised to see how much information she’d collected on the woman. Not to mention, the things she was tracking. JJ kept detailed notes in an online document, outlining the searches she had set up, including one on Juliet’s ex-husband and the daughter they had together. There were very few leads she’d traced since they’d returned Kate to her parents, but it was maintained daily.
He was reading her latest entry when his phone buzzed on his wrist.
“They’re back,” Baz said as they both turned to the television mounted on the wall, which reflected a view from the cameras overlooking the driveway.
Reese hoped it was good news. And if it wasn’t, he hoped they could come up with an alternative that would suit Brantley. He’d been a bit surprised by Brantley’s reaction that morning, but when he thought back on it, he understood it. Brantley wanted to save the world. His reaction spoke to the type of guy he was, and if he could accomplish his goal in a day versus a year, he was going to take that route, no matter how impossible it might seem.
They both turned toward the door as it opened.
JJ’s beaming grin was their answer.
“I take it we’ve got work to do?” Baz asked.
“We do. Lots.”
Reese met Brantley’s gaze as he removed his sunglasses. The smirk he received had his blood humming under his skin.
Yeah, this was the Brantley he’d come to love.