She’d shifted on the deep red leather seat to look up at him. “I can’t thank you enough, Chase. I’ll never be able to repay you for—”
“You don’t have to thank me, Harper. You and Michael needed help. I helped. We’re friends. That’s what friends do.”
She’d swallowed and glanced away. “Will I see you again?”
His chest had tightened. He wanted to see her again. He wanted her back in his bed. After the previous night, he’d felt as if she belonged to him, that he had claimed her in some way. It made him feel sick inside to know he would have to give her up.
He’d reached down and caught her hand where it rested on the seat. “It’s a bad idea, honey. You know it and so do I.”
“I’m a grown woman, Chase. I don’t care if my father approves of the men I sleep with or not. It’s my decision, not his.”
He’d almost smiled. “You make it sound like there’s an army of them.”
Color had risen in her cheeks. It had made him want to kiss her. “You know what I mean.”
There hadn’t been an army of men. From what he could tell, not even a handful. She was a novice of sorts. Which only made the hours he had spent with her sweeter.
He’d wanted to say he would call her. He wasn’t nearly ready to give her up. But after what Brandon had discovered in Colombia—information his brother would feel obligated to pass on to the authorities—things were going to get dicey.
As if to prove it, when the limo had rounded the corner, a dark green Bentley sat in front of Harper’s two-story brick town house.
“Oh, no. My father’s here.” She’d looked at him with those big blue eyes, and everything inside him clenched. “He knows where I hide the key. He’ll be inside waiting for me.”
And just that fast, he’d known it was over. As Reggie pulled the limo up to the curb, he’d cupped her face in his hands and very softly kissed her.
“Maybe someday things will be different, but right now...”I may have a hand in putting your father in prison.
But he couldn’t say that. Harper had no idea the sort of criminal activities her father was involved in, no idea what the future might hold.
Reggie had gotten out and opened the limo door. Chase had exited the vehicle and helped Harper out. “If you ever need me, just call and I’ll be there. I promise you that. No matter what it is, I’ll be there.”
She straightened, steeling herself as she had during those difficult days in the jungle. “Goodbye, Chase.”
“Goodbye, angel.”
Turning, she’d started up the concrete path to the door of her town house. Chase had watched her till she disappeared inside, then climbed back into the car. As the limo rolled off down the street, it was impossible to be missing her already, but he did.
Over the next few days, he thought of her a dozen times. At night, he remembered the way it had felt to touch her, kiss her, be inside her, and an ache rose hot and hard in his loins. He wasn’t sleeping well, was going to work tired and out of sorts, the way he was today.
At least Jason Maddox and the temp receptionist, Mindy Stewart, had kept the place running smoothly while he and his brother were gone. He wanted to talk to Mindy, offer her a permanent position. He was reaching for the intercom to call her into his office when the speaker buzzed and her voice came over the line.
“Brandon’s here with a friend, Chase. He asked me to let you know they need to speak to you.”
“Tell them to come on back.” Even before he’d completed the sentence, the door swung open and his brother walked in. So much for office protocol.
A tall, good-looking guy dressed in jeans and a scuffed leather bomber jacket walked in behind Bran and closed the door. Well built, dark hair buzzed short and dark eyes.
“Chase, this is DEA Special Agent Zach Tanner,” Bran said. “Zach and I served together in the army.” Bran was thirty-two. Chase put Tanner around the same age. “I gave him the info I ran across in Colombia, including Knox Winston’s involvement with one of the major cocaine dealers in the country. We kicked around some ideas. Zach’s hoping you can help.”
Chase rose from behind his desk, reached over and shook Tanner’s hand. “Good to meet you, Agent Tanner.”
“You’re Brandon’s brother—that makes it just Zach whenever possible.”
Chase nodded. He’d been expecting something like this. Bran had been deployed in South America. He hated drug smugglers and the lowlifes who dealt drugs on the street. He’d seen firsthand the evil it could do.
Chase thought of Michael and the years his friend had suffered from addiction. He thought of the sad people his work brought him in contact with in the alleys and drug dens of Dallas. Chase had seen the evil, too.
“Why don’t you two sit down and tell me what I can do for you?”
