They headed east on State Road 78, which Raine knew better as Lexington Road. Behind them, the police car followed, keeping an eye out to ensure that no one else followed them. Not long after passing the airport, Lexington became Athens Road, but still Callum showed no signs of slowing or making any turns.
“You said I should go someplace where no one would know to look,” she said. “If someone, say Hagen, hears that we were asking questions around town, he might know to look for your place in case I went there with you.”
“Good thinking, counselor. But the property deed, even the utilities, aren’t registered under my name. They’re under a maze of shell corporations. I did that back when I received some threats as a detective with ACCPD. I didn’t want any bad guys I’d put away to find out where I lived. When I moved to Gatlinburg, I did the same there. Neither home will come back to me unless someone does an incredible amount of digging. And even then, when they pull records to figure out who’s behind each corporation, I’d find out. I bribed a city clerk to flag my file so that if anyone ever requested the information, I’d be notified.”
“That explains why I never could find your address when I was internet stalking you.”
He grinned. “Good to know my precautions worked.”
“The curiosity is killing me. How much farther is this shell-corporation-owned place?”
“Another ten minutes or so. It was an aggravatingly long drive to and from work back in the day. Now that I live in Gatlinburg, I rarely make it out here. The last time was months ago, when I took a handful of days off between cases.”
“Must be an awfully nice place to have made your long commute worth it, and to keep it even after you moved to Tennessee.”
He smiled. “Emphasis on awful. The house is small and plain, nothing to brag about. It’s the property that’s nice. A wooded oasis not too far from city amenities but isolated enough so that no one knows your business. It was my grandfather’s, on my dad’s side of the family. He willed it to me when he passed away. I’d just turned eighteen.”
“Eighteen, wow. Young to become a landowner. You keep it for sentimental reasons?”
“More like I keep it to tick off my family. They were furious that Granddad willed it to me instead of my dad. My parents and siblings tried to get me to sell it and split the proceeds. I refused, on principle mostly. My grandfather didn’t want it sold. If my dad had planned on keeping it, I’d have signed it right over. But all he wanted to do was sell to a developer to split into parcels and build a subdivision.” He glanced at her. “That family tension went on for years, getting worse over time. Family gatherings were a study in walking on eggshells to avoid arguments. After a particularly uncomfortable visit, with everyone again trying to get me to sell and me refusing, my family decided I was being greedy and pretty much shunned me. That was five years ago.”
“That’s truly awful. Is there a reason they were so pushy about your property? Like maybe they were hurting for money and wanted the proceeds?”
“If that was the case, I’d have sold immediately. No one in my family is wealthy. But we’re not hurting by any means. All of us have good-paying jobs. And my parents made enough after selling their small chain of office-supply stores to a big-box retailer to retire early.”
“I’m so sorry they treated you like that. Possessions should never come between people who are supposed to love each other.”
“Don’t be sorry. I get along fine on my own.”
“You shouldn’t have to though. As your family, they should love you unconditionally.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat but he didn’t reply.
The flash of pain she’d seen in his eyes told her far more than his flippant words and matter-of-fact demeanor. Unable to resist the impulse, she put her left hand over his right hand that was resting on the console between them.
His gaze shot to hers in surprise. Then he surprised her by turning his hand palm up and threading their fingers together.
“Thanks, Raine.” His deep voice sent a warm thrill up her spine as his hand tightened on hers. “If anyone knows about loyalty and unconditional love, it’s you. That’s one of the things I admire about you.”
She blinked. “You admire me? The woman who held you at gunpoint?”
He laughed, the stress lines in his brow easing. “Not the most auspicious of first-meets, for sure. But I get it now. I understand why you did it. And the fact that you did, knowing the gun wasn’t loaded and putting your own life at risk to make sure you didn’t hurt an innocent person, well, that’s far more telling about your character than anything else. You’re a good person, Raine Quintero. Even if you are a lawyer.”
She rolled her eyes and tugged her hand free, more because she was tempted to scoot closer than because she was upset. “I’m not sure if that was a compliment or an insult.”
“A little of both. My apologies.” He winked.
Her face warmed and she blew out a shaky breath. Callum was a charmer. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to fall for the cop partly responsible for her brother being in prison—on death row, no less. That wasn’t family loyalty. That was the complete opposite. Her brother would be ashamed of her, and hurt. Which had a world of guilt crashing down on her. Here he was, counting down the few remaining days of his life in a six-by-nine cell, and she was flirting instead of working to free him. She kind of hated herself in that moment.
“What’s the plan now?” she asked. “Once we get to your place.”
He gave her a questioning look, no doubt wondering at her sudden mood change. But he took it in stride, casually moving the hand that had held hers onto the steering wheel as he drove them farther away from town.
“First, I’ll put in an order to a delivery service to drop off some groceries, come morning. I’ve got a refrigerator in the carport where they can put it if we’re not there when they arrive. For tonight, we’ll survive on whatever I’ve got in the freezer.”
“I meant what are we going to do next to help my brother. It’s getting late. I know we can’t do much more tonight. But you work cold cases all the time. You must have some kind of game plan for approaching them aside from visiting the crime scene.”
He put on his left blinker and slowed to a stop, waiting for the headlights of an oncoming car to pass and rolling down his window. As soon as the car went by, he turned left onto a narrow dirt-and-gravel road surrounded by thick trees illuminated by his headlights. He waved out the window. Raine looked over her shoulder to see the cop car turning around in the middle of the road. Then he headed back toward town.
“The policeman isn’t coming with us down this street?” she asked.
“No need. It’s my driveway.”
She straightened in surprise and looked around—or tried. It was too dark to see much. The tree branches overhead blocked out the moonlight. And there weren’t any spotlights anywhere on the property.
Until he made one last turn.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed.
He chuckled. “And now you see why my grandfather loved this place so much.”
He pulled to a stop about twenty yards from the small white concrete block ranch home that sat off to their right. Raine barely spared it a glance. What had her attention was the play of landscaping lights all across the yard, both front and back. Except that it wasn’t so much a yard as manicured land with gorgeous groupings of ornamental trees and plants, illuminated by sparkling white lights.
Woven amongst the plantings was a stone walkway that went all the way to the sparkling water beyond. The pond didn’t seem to be very large, although in the daylight it might be bigger than she thought. A fountain splashed in the middle, lit by a ring of floating spotlights. And a short dock that looked more suited to sitting and relaxing than launching any kind of small boat stuck out just a few short yards into the water, with ornamental lamp posts on each end.
“It’s incredible. Beautiful. I’ll bet you sit on that dock for hours when you come up here. It’s a perfect reading spot.”
“I hadn’t thought of that before. Reading isn’t something I get much time to do outside of work. But it’s a great place to fish, or just unwind, drink a beer and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.”
“How does it stay this nice? You said you don’t get up here much.”
“Not enough to keep up the property, for sure. It costs a small fortune to have a landscaping company maintain it. But every time I think about stopping the expense, letting nature take over, I remember my grandma out here on her hands and knees tending to all the beds. She and Granddad planted almost every plant, every bush, every tree out here. I helped weed and water and clear areas for new beddings more times than I can count. Letting it go feels like, I don’t know, like letting them go I suppose. Seems silly, but—”
“Not at all. You honor them and their memory by keeping this place up. It’s a living memorial to their lives and their love for you. Destroying this, mowing it all down to build cookie-cutter homes, would be a travesty. Your family doesn’t deserve this property if they can’t appreciate it.”
When it finally dawned on her that he’d been silent for some time, she tore her gaze away from the fantasyland outside the windows and found him intently watching her. Under the light of the moon, the dash and the twinkling landscape lights in the distance, everything suddenly seemed...magical, full of possibilities. The stress, the unknowns, her worries about the investigation faded away as he slowly unclipped his seat belt, all while capturing her gaze with his.
Somehow, she managed to unbuckle hers as well, and then they were in each other’s arms. Like the magician she now knew him to be, he wrapped her in an achingly sweet embrace and pressed his lips to hers. Briefly, far too briefly. But oh so wonderful. Then his lips moved to the column of her throat, making her gasp from the heat.
He groaned deep in his throat and half turned, pressing her against the back of the seat. This time, when his lips captured hers, there was nothing brief about it. He took his time, making love to her mouth with his, caressing, stroking, giving and taking until she wanted to weep from the beauty of it.
When he finally pulled back, he gently stroked her hair, moving her bangs back from her eyes.
“That was...beautiful,” she whispered. “I’ve never been kissed like that before.”
“That’s a shame,” he whispered back. “You should be kissed like that thoroughly, and often. Treasured and cherished.”
“Careful. You may be ruining me for others.”
He smiled, his warm hands blazing a trail down the sides of her face to her neck, her shoulders. “Is that what I’m doing? Ruining you for others?” He pressed a tender kiss against her collarbone.
She shivered. “What others?”
He chuckled, his hot breath making her shiver again before he pulled back. “Sadly, we have to stop, or I’m going to make love to you right here in the cab of my SUV. And you deserve much better than that. Let’s get inside the house.”
He drove into the carport, and just like that, the brain cells that had deserted Raine came rushing back. Make love? What the heck was she thinking to even want him to do that? Because she did. She wanted him, more than she’d ever wanted anyone. And she didn’t understand it. Yes, he was handsome, incredibly so. And strong, and gentle, and smart, and...and he was the investigator working her brother’s case. No matter how much she longed to be in his arms, that had to take a back seat to what truly mattered.
Saving Joey’s life.
Her door opened and Callum was standing there holding the bag she’d packed, his smile fading as he watched her grab her purse.
“The moment’s gone, isn’t it?” His tone dripped with regret. “I gave you too much time to think.”
“It’s a good thing you did. We have to stay focused on what matters.”
He stared at her a long moment, then nodded as if coming to some kind of understanding. “What matters. Absolutely. I should have known better. It won’t happen again.”
As he started to turn away, she tossed her purse to the floor and grabbed his hand. “Callum, wait.”
He turned around, his brows arched in question. She reached for him and pulled him closer, then framed his face with her hands. She pressed a whisper-soft kiss against his lips, then stared up into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. What we just did, who you are, matters. But it’s so unexpected, surprising, because we barely know each other. And I’m not sure how to even deal with this...thing that’s happening between us right now. I’m struggling just to hold myself together, knowing that my brother is going to die in a matter of days if I don’t pull some kind of miracle out of my hat. I need to focus on that right now, instead of losing myself in you, even though I so desperately want to. I’m not making much sense, I know, but can you understand that? A little? You do matter, Callum. You matter a great deal to me. Somehow. Impossibly, in such a short time. But there it is. Truth.”
He smiled as he gently pushed her hair back again. “You’re full of surprises, Raine Quintero. And I do understand what you’re saying. Leave it to the lawyer to make a strong argument. But I don’t agree with the premise. I think you can mix business and pleasure. And I’ve learned that sometimes not thinking about a problem a hundred percent of the time helps me focus better when I come back to that problem.”
“Are you arguing that making love will help us focus better, Callum?”
His smile broadened. “Would it get you into my bed if I were?”
She laughed. “No. We have work to do. And no time to waste.” She held up a hand. “Not waste. Time to spend on other things that are no doubt pleasurable—”
“Hot, wonderful, mind-blowing—”
She laughed. “We need to work on this lack of confidence of yours.”
“I’m at your service, whenever you’re ready.”
“Good grief.” She fanned herself. “You’re incorrigible.”
“And stopping, right now. I’m honestly not trying to change your mind. I respect your decision. Let’s get inside and I’ll answer your earlier question.”
He headed to the side door and fit his key in the lock.
She grabbed her purse and hurried after him as the door swung open. “My earlier question?”
“You wanted to know my plans for solving your brother’s cold case.”
She blinked. “Right. Your plans. See what I mean? You distracted me.”
“The pleasure was all mine, I assure you. But I’ll try to be good from here on out.”
She shook her head in exasperation. This man was a rascal, irresistible. He kept saying she was a surprise. Well, he was even more of a surprise to her. Not at all what she’d expected. He was rapidly becoming everything she never realized she wanted. But if she gave in to her longings now, and they couldn’t save her brother, would she ever be able to forgive herself? Or him? That wasn’t the kind of guilt she wanted to contemplate. Which meant any kind of a relationship between her and Callum wasn’t possible, not now. And depending on what happened to Joey, maybe not ever.