“It drew you closer to each other, knowing you all had miserable upbringings.”
“Yeah. Though we’ve had different experiences, we’re the same, if that makes sense.”
She rubbed his cheek, loving the feel of beard stubble on her hand. “It does.”
He leaned over and kissed her, and what started out as a sweet gesture turned into something more passionate as he lingered, his tongue sliding between her lips. He cupped the back of her neck to draw her closer. She laid her palm on his chest and felt the way his heart picked up its pace.
“You two can have sex on the dining room table later.
We need to have a meeting,” Grange said as he walked by on the way to the kitchen.
Lily and Mac grinned into each other’s mouths, then stood and helped the others in the kitchen. Once the dishes were done and the food was put away, they piled into Grange’s office and took a seat.
“Tom’s doing fine,” Grange said. “The gunshot to his hand was minor. He lost a little blood, but that’s about it.”
Lily was so relieved to hear that.
“I got some information from him. He said he recognized the guy who shot him.”
“Who is it?” Mac asked.
“Some henchman for corporate bigwigs he’s seen around before.”
“Do we have a name?” Pax asked.
“Yeah. Belanfield.”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell with me,” AJ said.
The rest of them responded in the same way.
But Lily’s stomach tightened as recognition struck. She had to speak up. “I know that name.”
Mac turned to her. “You do?”
“Yeah. At least I think I do. If it’s the same guy, he’s done business with my father and some of the other companies my father is associated with.”
Grange leaned against his desk. “Who’s your father?”
“John West, the CEO of West Industries here in Dallas.”
Grange nodded. “That’s interesting.”
“Rich girl, huh? Way to go, Mac,” Spence teased.
Lily rolled her eyes, taking no insult.
“Tell us what you know about him,” Grange said.
Excited, she racked her brain to remember. “Not much, really, other than his name. I’ve heard my dad on the phone talking to him before.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Oh, years ago. I live in Chicago now, not with my father. Still, I would imagine my dad’s contacts haven’t changed. He’s deep with his old boy network. If this guy is a bodyguard or someone in with Dad’s group of cronies, I’d bet money they’re still tight.” She realized then that all eyes were on her and really hoped she’d have something of value to offer.
She just hoped her dad wasn’t in any way involved with the theft of the virus. It would kill her to have to turn in her own father.
Grange nodded. “So your father owns a pretty big company with national ties.”
“Yes. And he’s on the board of quite a few other large companies.”
“Which means,” Mac said, “that this Belanfield is probably involved in one of those companies in some way having to do with the virus. If we can determine which company, we can figure out who’s behind the theft of the virus.”
Now she was really excited, especially when an idea popped into her head. “I’m not really sure what my father’s current connection is to this Belanfield, but I’ll bet with a little sleuthing, I could probably find out.”
“How?” Grange asked.
“My dad keeps an extensive contact database on his computer. I used to help him when I was a teenager by keeping it updated for him, so I know the ins and outs of his home system. If I can tap into that, maybe we can track Belanfield’s location.”
“How dangerous is that for you?”
Lily laughed. “Not dangerous at all. I’ve avoided my father like Ebola for the past few years. Me showing up on his doorstep would be like Christmas. He’d be delighted to see me.”
“No.”
Her gaze shot to Mac. “What?”
“I don’t like this, Grange,” Mac said. “This puts Lily smack in the middle of all this. It puts her in danger. She’s not one of us.”
“Are you kidding me? After everything you’ve put me through, you have the nerve to say that? I can’t believe you’re still trying to shut me out.” She couldn’t help it, but damn, she was irritated at Mac, and this time she wasn’t going to allow him to try and protect her.
“It’s too risky.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s my father’s house. He’s hardly a danger to me. And I can help.”
“I have to admit she has a point, Mac,” Grange said.
“Lily is in the best position to get us the information we need and in a hurry. We need to find out who’s behind this.”
She crossed her arms and tried not to look smug.
“Besides, she has training in law enforcement and as a private investigator. It’s not like she’s green and untrained. I think she’d make a great addition to the team for this particular assignment.”
“Ha! See?” she said, unable to hide her grin. She just felt like she’d received the ultimate compliment. Too bad it had come from Grange and not from Mac.
Mac shook his head. “I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to like it. I’m going. And you’re coming with me,” she said.
“Oh yeah, Your father will love that.”
“No,” she said, grinning. “He’ll absolutely hate it.
Which is why you’re coming along.”
“He’ll detest every second. “ Mac laughed. “But I can definitely see the merits to your plan.”
Now he was warming up to the idea. Her idea.
“Exactly.”
“Well I don’t get it at all,” Rick said, looking confused.
“That’s because you don’t know my father. He’s all about social class. If I bring Mac home with me, he’ll be so worried about what I’m doing with Mac, and what Mac’s doing skulking about the house, and following Mac around because he’s afraid Mac will steal the family silver, that he’ll never notice me poking around on the computer.”
“Oh,” Rick said, his lips curling into a grin as he nodded. “You would make a good Wild Rider. That’s some devious thinking, darlin’.”
“Why thank you.” She felt rather proud of her impromptu plan.
“Then it’s settled,” Grange said. “When can you be ready to go?”
“Let me call my father and make sure he’s in town first.”
Grange nodded. “There’s a secure line that can’t be traced,” he said, motioning over his shoulder at the land line on his credenza.
She stood and went over to the phone, her heart pounding as she dialed her father’s number. How long had it been since she’d spoken to him. Six months? Longer?
He answered on the second ring, surprised to hear from her, and shocked when she told him she’d be arriving in Dallas tomorrow. She left the details purposely vague, only that she’d be coming for a short visit. He said he was looking forward to seeing her and she hung up shortly thereafter.
“We’ll head out first thing in the morning,” she said.
She couldn’t wait to see her father. Actually, what she couldn’t wait for was to dig into his database and see what she could find. Seeing her father was going to be unpleasant, like always.
And frankly, she was thrilled Mac was going with her.
Not only would she have backup, she was bringing the man she loved to her father. A man so consumed with a person’s status and place in society that he’d probably choke when she rode up on the back of a Harley and walked in the door holding Mac’s hand.
She owed her father a lot. For his interference in her life, for never thinking Mac was the kind of boy she should have been hanging out with when she was a teenager, for never believing the choices she made were good enough.
She’d always felt less than adequate in her father’s eyes, had never felt truly loved for who and what she was.
Dammit, she was good enough, she had made decent choices, and she loved Mac.
It was payback time.
In all the time Mac had known Lily, he’d never been to her house before. She’d always come to his apartment, or to the garage where he’d worked, but she’d never wanted him over at her place. She said her dad would give him a hard time and she didn’t want that for him.
Of course, he could have handled himself, and he didn’t care if he ever saw John West. He’d just worried about Lily back then and didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her.
He still worried about Lily. She was taking this all too lightly, looking on it as an adventure, when it was anything but.
He knew how she felt about her father, knew there was some seriously uncomfortable history between the two of them; things that had been left unsaid and unsettled for a long time.
He knew all about painful parental relationships. His parents were dead, though, and there was nothing left to say to them even if they had still been alive. The irreparable damage had been done in his childhood and nothing could change that.
Lily, on the other hand…she and her father saw things differently, and they’d argued, but he didn’t think their relationship was unsalvageable.
But she seemed excited to be heading toward her dad’s, though Mac figured that was more about getting to his database than facing her father and having any kind of serious discussion with him.
Mac followed Lily’s directions and drove to the gated community, stopping at the security shack. Lily chatted up the guard who recognized her immediately, seemed happy to see her and buzzed them through.
Nice houses, no doubt worth millions, and on sizeable lots, too. Perfectly manicured lawns, nothing out of place. A slice of suburban utopia. Mac could already feel himself suffocating in a place like this.
He pulled into the long driveway leading up to the West mansion. God, this place was ostentatious. It was like a dark brick version of the White House in D.C., with tall columns bordering the wide front porch. The only thing missing was the dome over the roof flying the American flag.
John West was standing on the front porch as they pulled around the circular drive. He was tall and looked to be in his sixties, with a thick head of silvery hair that was combed in waves away from his face. He wore jeans, a white shirt and silver-tipped cowboy boots. His arms were crossed.
Man, he didn’t look at all happy to see his daughter riding up on the back of a Harley, either. His brows were knit so tightly together they looked like one. Mac resisted the urge to smirk as he parked and they climbed off the bike.
Lily’s dad frowned even more when she grabbed Mac’s hand.
“Daddy,” she said as they walked up the white steps onto the pristine white porch.
His frown turned to a wary smile of greeting. “Lily.
You didn’t tell me you were bringing a…friend.”
Ignoring his comment, she kissed her father on the cheek, then turned to Mac. “Surely you remember Mac Canfield, don’t you, Daddy?”
West’s brows raised in tandem, then the frown returned.
“Oh. Canfield. Yes, I do remember you as a matter of fact.”
Not fondly, either, from the look on his face. “And I remember you, too. Last time we met you were dragging your daughter out of my garage.” That was about a week before Mac took Lily’s virginity, though it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell John West that story.
“Lily had other things to do besides waste her time in a dirty, greasy garage, hanging around fast cars and motorcycles.”
Lily snorted. “And look at me now, riding on the back of a Harley.”
She was just daring the old man to make a comment, wasn’t she?
“Well, come inside,” John said with a heaving sigh.
“Will you be staying too, Canfield, or did you just drop Lily off?”
“He goes where I go, Dad.” Lily once again clasped Mac’s hand and shot a glare at her father that just dared him to snatch up the welcome mat. Mac really had a hard time holding back his laugh. If Lily thought his feelings could be hurt by the likes of a snob like John West, then she had a lot to learn about him. People like West could never hurt him, because he didn’t care what they thought.
Inside the house was even fancier than outside, the kind of place one would never think about bringing small children.
Did Lily grow up here? He couldn’t imagine running wild and free in a place like this, with fragile vases sitting on narrow tabletops and expensive looking knick knacks everywhere. Not a speck of dust and nothing out of place. Everything was cold, austere and looked damned expensive.
Lily squeezed his hand. “Disgustingly pretentious, isn’t it?” she whispered as they followed her father down a long hallway.
“It just doesn’t feel like a place you’d call home.”
She shrugged. “My room is warmer.”
They were escorted into a room that Lily explained was the library. Made sense, since it was filled with books. Floor to ceiling bookshelves lined every wall, with the exception of a stone fireplace that took up an entire wall. A leather sofa and matching chairs were centered in front of the fireplace. John directed them to sit.
“Drink?” John asked, as a diminutive woman entered the room.
“New staff?” Lily asked. “And I can get my own, thank you.”
Again, that frown. “We have servants to do that.”
“Yeah. Though we’ve had different experiences, we’re the same, if that makes sense.”
She rubbed his cheek, loving the feel of beard stubble on her hand. “It does.”
He leaned over and kissed her, and what started out as a sweet gesture turned into something more passionate as he lingered, his tongue sliding between her lips. He cupped the back of her neck to draw her closer. She laid her palm on his chest and felt the way his heart picked up its pace.
“You two can have sex on the dining room table later.
We need to have a meeting,” Grange said as he walked by on the way to the kitchen.
Lily and Mac grinned into each other’s mouths, then stood and helped the others in the kitchen. Once the dishes were done and the food was put away, they piled into Grange’s office and took a seat.
“Tom’s doing fine,” Grange said. “The gunshot to his hand was minor. He lost a little blood, but that’s about it.”
Lily was so relieved to hear that.
“I got some information from him. He said he recognized the guy who shot him.”
“Who is it?” Mac asked.
“Some henchman for corporate bigwigs he’s seen around before.”
“Do we have a name?” Pax asked.
“Yeah. Belanfield.”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell with me,” AJ said.
The rest of them responded in the same way.
But Lily’s stomach tightened as recognition struck. She had to speak up. “I know that name.”
Mac turned to her. “You do?”
“Yeah. At least I think I do. If it’s the same guy, he’s done business with my father and some of the other companies my father is associated with.”
Grange leaned against his desk. “Who’s your father?”
“John West, the CEO of West Industries here in Dallas.”
Grange nodded. “That’s interesting.”
“Rich girl, huh? Way to go, Mac,” Spence teased.
Lily rolled her eyes, taking no insult.
“Tell us what you know about him,” Grange said.
Excited, she racked her brain to remember. “Not much, really, other than his name. I’ve heard my dad on the phone talking to him before.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Oh, years ago. I live in Chicago now, not with my father. Still, I would imagine my dad’s contacts haven’t changed. He’s deep with his old boy network. If this guy is a bodyguard or someone in with Dad’s group of cronies, I’d bet money they’re still tight.” She realized then that all eyes were on her and really hoped she’d have something of value to offer.
She just hoped her dad wasn’t in any way involved with the theft of the virus. It would kill her to have to turn in her own father.
Grange nodded. “So your father owns a pretty big company with national ties.”
“Yes. And he’s on the board of quite a few other large companies.”
“Which means,” Mac said, “that this Belanfield is probably involved in one of those companies in some way having to do with the virus. If we can determine which company, we can figure out who’s behind the theft of the virus.”
Now she was really excited, especially when an idea popped into her head. “I’m not really sure what my father’s current connection is to this Belanfield, but I’ll bet with a little sleuthing, I could probably find out.”
“How?” Grange asked.
“My dad keeps an extensive contact database on his computer. I used to help him when I was a teenager by keeping it updated for him, so I know the ins and outs of his home system. If I can tap into that, maybe we can track Belanfield’s location.”
“How dangerous is that for you?”
Lily laughed. “Not dangerous at all. I’ve avoided my father like Ebola for the past few years. Me showing up on his doorstep would be like Christmas. He’d be delighted to see me.”
“No.”
Her gaze shot to Mac. “What?”
“I don’t like this, Grange,” Mac said. “This puts Lily smack in the middle of all this. It puts her in danger. She’s not one of us.”
“Are you kidding me? After everything you’ve put me through, you have the nerve to say that? I can’t believe you’re still trying to shut me out.” She couldn’t help it, but damn, she was irritated at Mac, and this time she wasn’t going to allow him to try and protect her.
“It’s too risky.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s my father’s house. He’s hardly a danger to me. And I can help.”
“I have to admit she has a point, Mac,” Grange said.
“Lily is in the best position to get us the information we need and in a hurry. We need to find out who’s behind this.”
She crossed her arms and tried not to look smug.
“Besides, she has training in law enforcement and as a private investigator. It’s not like she’s green and untrained. I think she’d make a great addition to the team for this particular assignment.”
“Ha! See?” she said, unable to hide her grin. She just felt like she’d received the ultimate compliment. Too bad it had come from Grange and not from Mac.
Mac shook his head. “I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to like it. I’m going. And you’re coming with me,” she said.
“Oh yeah, Your father will love that.”
“No,” she said, grinning. “He’ll absolutely hate it.
Which is why you’re coming along.”
“He’ll detest every second. “ Mac laughed. “But I can definitely see the merits to your plan.”
Now he was warming up to the idea. Her idea.
“Exactly.”
“Well I don’t get it at all,” Rick said, looking confused.
“That’s because you don’t know my father. He’s all about social class. If I bring Mac home with me, he’ll be so worried about what I’m doing with Mac, and what Mac’s doing skulking about the house, and following Mac around because he’s afraid Mac will steal the family silver, that he’ll never notice me poking around on the computer.”
“Oh,” Rick said, his lips curling into a grin as he nodded. “You would make a good Wild Rider. That’s some devious thinking, darlin’.”
“Why thank you.” She felt rather proud of her impromptu plan.
“Then it’s settled,” Grange said. “When can you be ready to go?”
“Let me call my father and make sure he’s in town first.”
Grange nodded. “There’s a secure line that can’t be traced,” he said, motioning over his shoulder at the land line on his credenza.
She stood and went over to the phone, her heart pounding as she dialed her father’s number. How long had it been since she’d spoken to him. Six months? Longer?
He answered on the second ring, surprised to hear from her, and shocked when she told him she’d be arriving in Dallas tomorrow. She left the details purposely vague, only that she’d be coming for a short visit. He said he was looking forward to seeing her and she hung up shortly thereafter.
“We’ll head out first thing in the morning,” she said.
She couldn’t wait to see her father. Actually, what she couldn’t wait for was to dig into his database and see what she could find. Seeing her father was going to be unpleasant, like always.
And frankly, she was thrilled Mac was going with her.
Not only would she have backup, she was bringing the man she loved to her father. A man so consumed with a person’s status and place in society that he’d probably choke when she rode up on the back of a Harley and walked in the door holding Mac’s hand.
She owed her father a lot. For his interference in her life, for never thinking Mac was the kind of boy she should have been hanging out with when she was a teenager, for never believing the choices she made were good enough.
She’d always felt less than adequate in her father’s eyes, had never felt truly loved for who and what she was.
Dammit, she was good enough, she had made decent choices, and she loved Mac.
It was payback time.
In all the time Mac had known Lily, he’d never been to her house before. She’d always come to his apartment, or to the garage where he’d worked, but she’d never wanted him over at her place. She said her dad would give him a hard time and she didn’t want that for him.
Of course, he could have handled himself, and he didn’t care if he ever saw John West. He’d just worried about Lily back then and didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her.
He still worried about Lily. She was taking this all too lightly, looking on it as an adventure, when it was anything but.
He knew how she felt about her father, knew there was some seriously uncomfortable history between the two of them; things that had been left unsaid and unsettled for a long time.
He knew all about painful parental relationships. His parents were dead, though, and there was nothing left to say to them even if they had still been alive. The irreparable damage had been done in his childhood and nothing could change that.
Lily, on the other hand…she and her father saw things differently, and they’d argued, but he didn’t think their relationship was unsalvageable.
But she seemed excited to be heading toward her dad’s, though Mac figured that was more about getting to his database than facing her father and having any kind of serious discussion with him.
Mac followed Lily’s directions and drove to the gated community, stopping at the security shack. Lily chatted up the guard who recognized her immediately, seemed happy to see her and buzzed them through.
Nice houses, no doubt worth millions, and on sizeable lots, too. Perfectly manicured lawns, nothing out of place. A slice of suburban utopia. Mac could already feel himself suffocating in a place like this.
He pulled into the long driveway leading up to the West mansion. God, this place was ostentatious. It was like a dark brick version of the White House in D.C., with tall columns bordering the wide front porch. The only thing missing was the dome over the roof flying the American flag.
John West was standing on the front porch as they pulled around the circular drive. He was tall and looked to be in his sixties, with a thick head of silvery hair that was combed in waves away from his face. He wore jeans, a white shirt and silver-tipped cowboy boots. His arms were crossed.
Man, he didn’t look at all happy to see his daughter riding up on the back of a Harley, either. His brows were knit so tightly together they looked like one. Mac resisted the urge to smirk as he parked and they climbed off the bike.
Lily’s dad frowned even more when she grabbed Mac’s hand.
“Daddy,” she said as they walked up the white steps onto the pristine white porch.
His frown turned to a wary smile of greeting. “Lily.
You didn’t tell me you were bringing a…friend.”
Ignoring his comment, she kissed her father on the cheek, then turned to Mac. “Surely you remember Mac Canfield, don’t you, Daddy?”
West’s brows raised in tandem, then the frown returned.
“Oh. Canfield. Yes, I do remember you as a matter of fact.”
Not fondly, either, from the look on his face. “And I remember you, too. Last time we met you were dragging your daughter out of my garage.” That was about a week before Mac took Lily’s virginity, though it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell John West that story.
“Lily had other things to do besides waste her time in a dirty, greasy garage, hanging around fast cars and motorcycles.”
Lily snorted. “And look at me now, riding on the back of a Harley.”
She was just daring the old man to make a comment, wasn’t she?
“Well, come inside,” John said with a heaving sigh.
“Will you be staying too, Canfield, or did you just drop Lily off?”
“He goes where I go, Dad.” Lily once again clasped Mac’s hand and shot a glare at her father that just dared him to snatch up the welcome mat. Mac really had a hard time holding back his laugh. If Lily thought his feelings could be hurt by the likes of a snob like John West, then she had a lot to learn about him. People like West could never hurt him, because he didn’t care what they thought.
Inside the house was even fancier than outside, the kind of place one would never think about bringing small children.
Did Lily grow up here? He couldn’t imagine running wild and free in a place like this, with fragile vases sitting on narrow tabletops and expensive looking knick knacks everywhere. Not a speck of dust and nothing out of place. Everything was cold, austere and looked damned expensive.
Lily squeezed his hand. “Disgustingly pretentious, isn’t it?” she whispered as they followed her father down a long hallway.
“It just doesn’t feel like a place you’d call home.”
She shrugged. “My room is warmer.”
They were escorted into a room that Lily explained was the library. Made sense, since it was filled with books. Floor to ceiling bookshelves lined every wall, with the exception of a stone fireplace that took up an entire wall. A leather sofa and matching chairs were centered in front of the fireplace. John directed them to sit.
“Drink?” John asked, as a diminutive woman entered the room.
“New staff?” Lily asked. “And I can get my own, thank you.”
Again, that frown. “We have servants to do that.”
