Hot Winter Nights (Heartbreaker Bay #6) Read online

  Enter Hunt Investigation. Today was day five of surveillance and Lucas and Joe were up.

  Lucas drove, feeling Joe’s eyes on him. “Something on your mind?”

  “I feel out of the loop.”

  “On what?” he asked, and watched Joe struggle to maintain the guy code that said they couldn’t discuss emotional issues for too long. That was the real five second rule. He sighed. “I feel out of the loop on you and Molly.”

  “There’s no loop,” Lucas said and wished that it wasn’t true.

  Joe took a deep breath. “You were right before,” he said quietly. “About me being overprotective of her. It’s a lifelong habit, one I don’t know how to break.”

  “You need to learn before you lose her.” Like I did . . .

  They fell silent after that, each lost in their own thoughts. Fifteen minutes later, they were in an upscale restaurant not far from the law firm’s offices, watching the illicit couple in question order and toast themselves with a very expensive champagne.

  “He’s telling her he got her a little something special,” Lucas said behind his water glass.

  “If it’s his dick, I hope it’s more spectacular than his hairpiece and beer belly stressing the buttons on his shirt,” Joe said.

  “It’s probably jewelry.”

  “Bet?”

  “Yeah,” Lucas said. “Today’s lunch.”

  “You’re on. But if you lose, I’m ordering the most expensive dessert on the menu.”

  Lucas watched the woman give her lover a secret smile and cock her head toward the back hallway where the restrooms were. Then she got up from their table and sauntered down the hallway and out of sight.

  Shit. It was going to be his dick.

  Joe shook his head in disbelief as the man waited a minute and then followed her. “Going to need some audio for evidence,” he said. “Your area of expertise.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I want dessert,” Joe said, raising a hand to their waitress.

  “What about backing me up?” Lucas asked.

  Joe tapped the comm he had in his ear. “I’ve got your six, man. Tiramisu, please,” he said to the waitress.

  Lucas shook his head and moved down the hallway. The men’s room was empty, even the stalls. He waited a minute outside the women’s room, not wanting to surprise any patrons, but when no one came out, he slipped inside.

  One of the stalls was closed. He could see a pair of men’s dress shoes facing out, trousers pooled around the guy’s ankles. It was that along with the rhythmic pounding against the door, accompanied by a male voice that was moaning and panting out, “Bill’s doing a great job, a really great job! Watch Bill do it, tell Bill he’s doing great!”

  “Wow,” Joe said in Lucas’s ear. “Sounds like he’s giving himself his own evaluation. Wonder if he’s going to get a raise.”

  There weren’t many days where Lucas missed working for the DEA, but this was definitely one of them. Several hours later, they’d delivered the needed evidence to the HR director, closed up the case, and were back at the office.

  Molly had locked up and was gone.

  Shit, Lucas thought. She was working the Christmas Village tonight. Not bothering to change, he left again, calling her on her cell as he strode across the courtyard. “Come on,” he muttered, listening to her phone ring in his ear. “Pick up.”

  She didn’t. Shaking his head, he stopped and texted her:

  Where are you?

  He could see that she was responding to the text, so he stopped walking to wait. She took her sweet ass time, too. It was three full minutes later when he saw that she’d stopped texting.

  And yet nothing came through. Shaking his head, he tried her again.

  Lucas: Tell me you’re not heading to the Christmas Village alone.

  Molly: Going through a tunnel, bad connection.

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  “Problem?”

  Lucas turned and found Old Man Eddie sitting on a bench in front of the fountain, tossing a coin up and down in his hand. “Women are insane.”

  “Son,” Eddie said on a laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He tossed the coin to Lucas, who caught it automatically, reflexively.

  “What’s this for?” Lucas asked.

  “To make a wish.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You’ve been eating your homemade brownies again if you think I’m going to bet on this fountain. I know what it does. Look what it did to your own grandson Spence.”

  “Hey, I haven’t made any brownies in a while now,” Eddie said. “Archer went directly to my . . . er, um . . . supplier and told him if he delivered to me again, Archer would relocate him. Permanently. So I’m annoyingly sober, which means you can take it to the bank when I tell you that what this fountain did for Spence was bring him Colbie and give him a life he’d never dared dreamed of.”

  “You’re going to feed me a line like that and seriously expect me to believe you’re sober?”

  Eddie smiled. “You’re scared. I get it. I’d be scared too. Wishing for love on this fountain has been wiping out the single community here one unsuspecting lonely soul at a time. Might as well stop fighting it and toss in the coin and wish.”

  “Not going to happen,” Lucas said, knowing that Molly wasn’t going to fall in love with him. She wasn’t going to let herself.

  “If you’re so sure it’s dumb,” Old Man Eddie said, “then why not just give it a try?”

  Lucas rolled his eyes, a gesture he was aware he’d picked up from Molly. Which made it all the more ironic when he held his closed fist above the water and closed his eyes.

  And wished . . .

  He let the coin fall from his hand into the water, where it hit with a very small splash. He stared at it as it sank to the bottom and wished . . . wished he believed in the fountain.

  Eddie just smiled. “It works in mysterious ways, you know. Going to be exciting to see what happens.”

  “Yeah.” Not willing to believe, Lucas went through the pub intending to grab an order of something to satisfy his gnawing belly before hunting down Molly, but he found her at the bar paying for an order to go.

  Some of her friends were there eating and talking, and when he moved closer, he heard Sadie say, “They really should put prizes in our tampon boxes, like ‘hey, your period sucks, but here’s a fifty percent off ice cream coupon, you cranky bitch.’”

  The girls all laughed and Molly spotted him. She grabbed her bag of food and headed over.

  “Going through a tunnel, huh?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  He grabbed her free hand when she went to walk away. “Talk to me, Molly.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’d never go to the village alone. I’m not completely stupid, you know.” She paused. “But I do have a shift there tonight that I promised to take, so if you’re ready, I’m driving.”

  “Not necessary. I’m parked closer.”

  She craned her neck, eyes narrowed at him. “Let me guess. Women can drive in your bed but not on the job?”

  He found a smile in the shitty day after all. “You’ve driven me before. When we first went to your dad’s house.”

  “We weren’t on the job that night.”

  “Okay, first, let me just say that you’re welcome to drive in my bed any night of the week,” he said. “But when we’re on the job and you’re the one going undercover, that makes me the getaway man. Makes more sense for me to be behind the wheel.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “To which? In bed or on the road?”

  “Keep dreaming,” she said.

  Yeah, he had no doubt he’d have to make due with just that, dreams. He eyed the bag of food in her hands. “Bringing your dad dinner first?”

  “Yes. But not you.”

  “Liar,” he said on another smile. “You won’t be able to help yourself. You’re a caretaker.”

  She slid him a look. “Guess it takes one to