WILDER DAYS Read online

  “When you’re on the run, changing your appearance now and then is always a good idea.”

  “So you’ve done this before? Cut your hair short?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Seems a shame,” she said softly. “You have such beautiful hair.”

  He was tired of the lies, large and small. When he worked undercover, his entire life was a lie. In his personal life, he couldn’t abide them. “Noelle said I looked like a reject from the seventies,” he said.

  “That’s why you’re cutting your hair?” She sounded surprised.

  “Not entirely, but it did cross my mind when I decided that I’m not going to sit around and wait for Holly to come after us. Come tomorrow, I’m heading into her territory.” Sitting around and waiting, with Vic underfoot, was no longer an option. “With short hair and the geeky clothes I picked up, it’s less likely that I’ll be recognized.”

  Vic ruffled her fingers over his head. “I didn’t think I would like your hair short, but I do,” she said softly. Her fingers brushed against his neck, which was exposed for the first time in years. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt cool air there, the way he did now.

  He hadn’t looked in the mirror yet, didn’t really want to until the chore was finished. He could only hope Vic was a better barber than Noelle’s friend.

  Just a few hours ago, he’d told her not to touch him. And with good reason. He’d never been so angry, and he wasn’t going to stand for Vic trying to charm and cajole her way out of this one. She wouldn’t soothe him with a hand on his arm, a caress to his cheek, those calm eyes of hers. He didn’t want to be soothed.

  But she had her hands on him now, her fingers on his neck and in his hair, a soft palm occasionally resting on one shoulder. She had such great hands; talented, gentle, easy hands that said with a touch what was in her heart. Well, if she’d had a heart...

  “There,” she said. “Finished.”

  Del stood and turned and looked at his new haircut for the first time. Unlike Noelle’s new cut his was symmetrical, which was good, and while it was short, it wasn’t too short. Vic hadn’t given him a flattop, anyway.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “It’ll do.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, just a little testy. And then she sighed, long and soft. “So when you’re out there tomorrow looking for Holly, where will I be?”

  “Here,” he said without looking at her.

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I’m not staying here by myself. I’m not...” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I’m not going to sit around and hide under the bed and wait for someone with a gun to knock on my door again. I did that once and I didn’t like it. Speaking of guns, where’s mine? You said you’d get me a gun.”

  “Haven’t you given that up yet?”

  “No, and I’m not going to give it up. I want a weapon I can protect myself and Noelle with.”

  “Noelle’s not here.”

  “But you can’t promise me that one day when she is with me I won’t need to protect her.”

  “You haven’t had need of a gun before.”

  “You weren’t around before,” she countered.

  He wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t have the patience. “We’re getting off this subject. Can’t we just have one argument at a time?”

  “Fine. If you’re going out looking for the criminals who kidnapped me, why can’t you take me with you?”

  Del laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Well, why not? I’m just as much a part of this as you are, and I don’t see why I can’t—”

  “No,” he said, his refusal more forceful than before. “You’re staying here.”

  Vic smiled. “No, I’m not. You can leave me here, I suppose, but you can’t make me stay here.”

  He leaned down and placed his nose close to hers. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m just saying that I’m not staying here in this room or anywhere else all alone.”

  He opened his mouth but didn’t get far.

  “And I don’t want some agent or cop or hired bodyguard I’ve never met, someone I don’t know, to babysit while you go out and play the hero.” Again he tried to respond, but she cut him off. “I don’t want Shock playing bodyguard, either. He gives me the willies.”

  Del raised his eyebrows. “Shock gives you the willies? Why?”

  “The way he looks at me sometimes.” Vic wrinkled her nose. “Like he knows something about me that I don’t. It’s creepy.”

  She had no idea.

  “Shock is—”

  “No.”

  He’d had enough of her arguing. Time to pull out the trump card. “Fine. If you tag along with me, play cops and robbers and end up getting yourself killed, who’s going to take care of Noelle?” He knew this was her weak spot. She’d already said she didn’t trust her father or Preston Lowell with the kid. She’d safeguard herself for her daughter, she’d do anything…

  “Your mother,” she answered softly, taking him completely by surprise.

  Chapter 8

  Vic stared at the ceiling, mentally tracing the sharp line that marked the shadow cast by the more-than-halfway closed bathroom door. She needed to sleep, her body was exhausted, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t relax enough to even drift toward sleep.

  She didn’t think Del slept, either. His breathing wasn’t deep and even enough, and there wasn’t so much as a hint of snoring. Just… silence.

  She should tell him, right now, that she’d changed her mind. When morning rolled around she’d stay here, thank you very much, with the doors locked and her ears opened for any sound that shouldn’t be there. She’d sit here and wait for his return, and maybe if she was lucky he’d leave her armed, even though in truth she had no idea how to fire a gun. Yes, she could sit here, some well-armed cop in a car out front, maybe her own gun in her hand just in case, while Del did his job and went after the bad guys.

  There were a couple of problems with that plan. She was tired of sitting around waiting for life to happen, and she was terrified that if Del walked out without her, he wouldn’t come back.

  She wasn’t ready for that.

  Was she ready to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire? This wasn’t exactly a picnic Del was planning. He knew the hideouts where Tripp and Holly might go, the people they might turn to when in trouble. And come tomorrow he was going to be there. Looking, asking questions. Stirring up trouble.

  “Del.” She whispered softly in case he was asleep, in spite of the lack of snoring.

  “What?” That nicely deep voice was wide-awake, clear as a bell.

  “Tomorrow, what will I do?” She continued to whisper, even though there was no one to hear but him.

  “Get in my way.”

  She swallowed hard and turned her head to watch the shadow on the other bed. Del filled that bed, long and hard, bigger than she remembered. Not a boy anymore, but a man. A good man. The kind of man every mother dreamed her son would grow up to be. Louise had to be so proud of him.

  “I don’t want to get in your way, I want to help.”

  He laughed; it wasn’t a pretty sound. “You’re not going to help, you’re going to get in my way.”

  “Tripp and Holly won’t be expecting me. They’ll be looking for you, or maybe you and Shock. They won’t be looking for a woman.” Her heart lurched. She wasn’t brave, she wasn’t strong, not like this. But those two drug dealers, kidnappers, potential murderers, they wanted her dead. She’d do anything to make sure this situation ended as soon as possible and that

  Noelle never had the threat of cross fire to worry about. “Maybe together we can catch them off guard.”

  Del took a long, slow breath. “Tripp’s dead.”

  Vic sat up. “I know you shot him, but if he was able to make it out of the cabin...”

  “Someone else killed him.”

  “Someone else,” she repeated, her voice low. “Holly?”
r />   “Not likely. We don’t know who, we don’t know how many.” Del didn’t sound at all happy about the situation. No wonder he couldn’t sleep! “This is not as simple as we originally thought.”

  Vic rested her head on her hand, propped there on an elbow, and stared at Del’s dark shadow. “Will it ever be over?”

  “Sure.”

  “When?”

  She was answered with silence, and that dreadful quiet told her more than she needed to know. This could drag on for weeks, months, even. It might never be over.

  “I was wrong,” she whispered.

  “About what?”

  He had to know. Was he going to make her say it? Of course he was. “I should’ve told you about Noelle. Last night, when we were duct-taped to a chair, somewhere in between.” A deep breath calmed her. “No, that’s not good enough. I should have looked for you years ago.” Somewhere in the back of her mind, in that little bit of her youthful self that still believed in fairy tales and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, she was certain that if Del had known about Noelle, everything would be different. If only he had known… But that was silly. She couldn’t go back and undo what had been done.

  He didn’t say anything, not for a few long minutes. Finally he spoke, his voice as low as hers had been. “She’s really beautiful.”

  In the dark, Vic smiled. “Of course she is. She looks just like you.”

  Del’s face was lost in shadow, but she did see the shift of his head, and knew that he was trying to look at her, to watch her the way she watched him. In the dimly lit room, he surely couldn’t see much. “There’s a lot of you in her, too.”

  “A little.”

  “More than a little.”

  Already her heartbeat was slowing, her eyelids were feeling heavy. “She plays softball,” she said, laying her head on the pillow.

  “Really?” He sounded almost excited. He’d been a great baseball player in high school. Vic had been the klutz who couldn’t catch a ball to save her life.

  “Really.”

  “Is she any good?”

  He seemed so interested. More interested than Preston had ever been. “She’s made all-stars every year since she was nine.”

  “What position?”

  “Shortstop.”

  “We can be pretty sure she got that from me,” he said, a lilt of teasing in his soft voice.

  Vic pressed her cheek to the pillow. God, she was such an idiot! Preston had never given Noelle the time of day. He’d certainly never shown any pride in Noelle. He’d never said she was beautiful, or asked about her softball games, or made it to a dance recital. In the beginning he’d tried, for appearances’ sake, to be a decent father, but he’d never loved the child he’d agreed to claim as his own. Never. It wasn’t right to be unyielding and cold with a child who tried so hard to gain her father’s love and attention.

  Del had only known Noelle for a couple of days; he’d only known he was her father for a few hours. And already he’d shown more interest than Preston ever had.

  “Do you want to tell her?” Vic whispered. She held her breath as she awaited an answer.

  “Do you?” She couldn’t help but hear the harshness in that question.

  She couldn’t make herself get angry all over again. Del should be allowed to be harsh at the moment. “Maybe, when this is all over.”

  Del took a deep breath. “Maybe.”

  “I want what’s best for her, and for you,” Vic admitted. “Who knows? Maybe you two need each other. Maybe when the fireworks settled she’d be good for you and you’d be good for her.”

  “Fireworks.”

  “If we decide to tell her, there will most definitely be fireworks.”

  For a moment he was silent. Was he reconsidering? “A kid. I swear, Vic, she’s almost grown. I missed... everything.”

  “Not everything.” Vic yawned and pulled the covers to her chin. “We still have the boyfriend thing to get through.”

  Del sat up, straight as a shot. “Boyfriends?”

  Vic smiled and closed her eyes. “Boyfriends. She has one, but...”

  “You let her have a boyfriend?"

  “If you can find a way to get past this lovely trademark of the teenage years, please let me know.”

  She heard him fall back onto the bed. The mattress squeaked loudly as he landed, hard.

  “One thing, before you decide whether or not you want to tell Noelle that you’re her father,” she said as she snuggled beneath the sheets. “If you plan to tell her the news, give her a big hug and then disappear, don’t bother. A card at Christmas and the occasional phone call do not a father make. She doesn’t need that kind of rejection.”

  Del was quiet again for a few minutes. He didn’t even move around on his bed. “So I’d have to go to softball games and birthday parties and hang around on occasion just to harass these boyfriends you mentioned.”

  “Pretty much.” He probably wouldn’t like the idea at all. It didn’t fit with his Jag lifestyle, she was sure. “But don’t worry. I can make myself scarce when you come around. I don’t expect...” She couldn’t help but remember the way he had looked at her when he’d told her not to touch him. The memory of those words cut to the core. And right now, lying in the dark and trying to sort out what was best, she had to admit that he was allowed to be angry. Maybe what she’d done had been unforgivable. “I don’t expect anything.”

  Nothing had been resolved, and still she managed to drift toward sleep.

  Louise was in the shower. If Noelle listened close enough, she could hear the water running, even here in the kitchen.

  She lifted the receiver and dialed Chris’s number. Instead of a ring on the other end she got a tinny recording. His parents had gotten tired of hang-ups at two in the morning, and now had that caller ID that refused to accept phone calls when the numbers had been blocked.

  With a huff, Noelle hung up. Why on earth would Louise have her number blocked? Since Michelle’s parents had that annoying feature on their phone, she knew exactly which numbers to punch in to disable the function, so her call to Chris would go through.

  She dialed again, and the phone rang for ages. Finally, Chris’s mother answered. “Hello?”

  Noelle thought about hanging up without saying anything. She didn’t think Chris’s mom liked her much. But thanks to the caller ID she had the number and could always call back. That wouldn’t do, especially since Louise was not likely to stay in the shower all day.

  “Is Chris there?”

  “No, he isn’t. Can I take a message?”

  A hundred questions crossed Noelle’s mind in a flash. Where is he? Who’s he with? Has he mentioned me at all since I’ve been gone? “No,” she said. “I’ll call back later.”

  She hung up, listened for the shower again and dialed another number.

  Her dad’s phone in North Carolina rang four times, before the answering machine picked up. Maybe he was already in Huntsville. When she’d called from the cabin he’d said he had to be there for a few days. Business. When he went to Huntsville it was always for business.

  She tried his cell phone, but got that annoying the customer you are calling is not available message.

  Great. Chris wasn’t home and she couldn’t get her dad on the phone.

  And there was no telling where her mother and that Wilder guy were or what they were doing.

  Gross.

  Del glanced in the rearview mirror. He hardly recognized himself. The haircut, close shave and removal of his earring had taken care of a good part of the transformation. The khakis and golf shirt were just icing on the cake. He should be able to get close to Kirby Ellis, pool hall owner and small-time crook, without the man having a clue that they’d met before, several weeks ago.

  “Don’t worry,” Vic said. “You look great.”

  He gave her a quick, sharp glance. “I was checking to see if we were being followed,” he said in a low voice.

  “Oh. Are we?”

 
“No.”

  He gave the road his attention as they neared Birmingham and traffic thickened. “I could drop you off at a friend’s...”

  “No way,” Vic interrupted.

  “He’s a nice guy, a P.I. here in Birmingham. You and his wife would really hit it off, I’m sure. If you stay with me you’re just going to...”

  “Get in your way,” she interrupted. “Deal with it.”

  He cast her another cutting glance. “I’ll bet whenever Noelle gets stubborn, or does something rash, or butts heads with you, you just stand there and think She’s just like her father.” He raised his voice an octave in a bad imitation of an irate mother.

  Vic fought a smile, and he knew he was right. “Wrong, baby,” he said. “You’re more stubborn than I ever was, and this insistence of yours to tag along shows a complete lack of common sense to boot.”

  She managed to look slightly offended. “I’ll have you know I’m a very sensible person.”

  “Not today, you’re not.”

  She glanced out the window, unable to rationally defend herself. “Why don’t you fill me in?” she said.

  Where to start? There was a lot she didn’t know.

  “Why did Tripp and Holly come after you in the first place?”

  “We’re not sure.” It was kind of a relief to take his mind off of Vic and turn it to something he had some small control over. “They’ve been under investigation for a few months. They’re small fish in a very big pond, and we’re more interested in the big fish. At this point we’re just assuming that they found out I was undercover and decided to...”

  “Blow you up,” Vic finished when he didn’t. “How’d they find me?”

  This was where he got befuddled and frustrated. “I don’t know. They shouldn’t have been able to get that far. All personal information is protected.”

  “Like your mother.”

  “Like my mother.” A tickle of warning danced up his spine as he glanced at her. How did she manage to look so innocent and beautiful, even now? She hadn’t had much sleep since he’d met her; they’d butted heads and argued and almost been killed. And she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a magazine ad, all soft and clear-skinned and bright-eyed. She’d pulled her curly brown hair back and pinned it up, leaving just a few strands to brush her neck and cheeks. The blue sundress and white sandals she’d bought at the store made her look younger than she was, showing off pale, smooth shoulders and arms and long, well-shaped legs.