Chickasaw County Captive

He hoped she was right.

At the marina, Kristen parked beside the bait shop, next to a Chevy Impala identical to the one she was driving. “Foley,” she said to Sam as they got out of the car.

Inside the bait shop, Maddy sat on her grandfather’s knee playing with a large cork bobber, tossing it in the air like a ball and nearly tumbling off Mike Cooper’s knees trying to catch it. Nearby, Foley stood at the counter, talking in low tones with Sam’s mother. All four of them looked up as Sam and Kristen entered.

Maddy’s eyes lit up and she scrambled down from Mike’s lap. “Miss Kristen!” she squealed, beaming up at Kristen Tandy as she ran to greet them.

Sam felt Kristen stiffen beside him. He quickly intercepted his boisterous daughter before she flung herself at Kristen’s knees and hoisted her into his arms. “What? No hello for your daddy?”

“Hi, Daddy!” She patted his face affectionately before twisting in his arms to look at Kristen. “Daddy Mike’s gonna let me feed the worms, Miss Kristen. D’you wanna come with us?”

Kristen looked positively green, but Sam suspected it had nothing to do with the prospect of feeding worms.

He tamped down a bit of resentment. “Miss Kristen has a job to do, baby. And I’m afraid you and Daddy Mike are gonna have to go worm feeding some other day. I’ve got plans for us this afternoon. Want to know what?”

“What?” She caught his face between her hands again, making his heart swell. But instead of her lopsided grin, he saw static, candid images captured in a series of still photographs. He glanced at Kristen, who was watching him, her expression for once unguarded. The look on her face was utter devastation. There was no other word for it.

He cleared his throat and looked back at Maddy. “We’re going to have a movie marathon! All the princesses—as many as we can get through before bedtime.”

Maddy wriggled excitedly in his arms. “Really?”

“Really.”

Sam heard Detective Foley make a low, sympathetic sound behind him. Normally, Sam would agree—an afternoon and evening full of animated fairy-tale musicals were to be avoided at all costs. But this time, he could think of nowhere he’d rather be than his parents’ guest cottage with his little girl tucked safely against him on the sofa, miraculously still with him to watch dancing brooms and singing mice.

“Can Miss Kristen come, too?” Maddy asked.

“I told you, Miss Kristen has to work.”

“But after work, can she come, too?”

Sam started to say no, but Kristen cleared her throat behind him. “Yeah, Maddy. I can come after work.”

Sam looked up at Kristen, startled. She met his gaze, sheer terror shining in her blue eyes. But her small, pointed chin jutted forward, like a soldier preparing for battle.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, unconvincingly. “Y’all are staying here for a few days, right?”

He started to tell her it wasn’t a good idea, but the glee in Maddy’s laughter stopped him before he uttered a word. He looked at his daughter, finding her grinning at Kristen with sheer delight, and stayed silent. “Yeah. There’s a guest cottage down the hill from my folks’ place.”

“I can be there by seven-thirty,” Kristen told him quietly after Maddy had climbed down to follow her grandfather into the back room. “I’ll bring some microwave popcorn or something.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Sam didn’t miss the reluctance in her eyes.

“She goes to sleep—what? Eight? Eight-thirty?”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, not following.

“Good. Then you and I can go over a few things.”

He arched an eyebrow. “A few things?”

“A few cases, actually.” She stepped away from the counter, lowering her voice. “I think whoever sent you those photos may be someone you’ve crossed in your work. You were a prosecutor before you moved back here to Alabama, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I was an assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in Arlington County.”

“Tried a few cases?”

“You think someone I prosecuted is looking for revenge?”

She shrugged. “It’s worth thinking about, isn’t it?”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.” He shot her a wary grin. “Something to do while the princesses are singing.”

Her answering smile transformed her face briefly, giving him a glimpse of what she might have looked like had her tragic past not left indelible traces on her young features. Her eyes shimmered like a cloudless sky reflected in a calm lake, and the worry lines creasing her forehead disappeared as if erased.

He felt another unexpected tug of attraction, sudden and primitive, that lingered even after her smile faded into the careworn lines he’d become accustomed to. He cleared his throat as Maddy and his father reemerged from the back room with the bait containers. “Okay, we’ll see you around seven-thirty.”

“Foley, I’m heading into the office to type up my report. You coming?”

“Uh, yeah.” Foley’s gaze moved quickly from her to Sam and back again. “Call us if you need us.” He fell in step with Kristen as she headed for the exit.

“Bye, Miss Kristen!” Maddy called from behind the counter.

Kristen lifted her hand to Maddy, shot Sam an enigmatic look and left the bait shop, Foley on her heels.

“She seems like a nice girl,” Beth Cooper commented, patting Sam’s back as she passed on her way back to the front counter. “Too sad about what happened with her mama.”

Sam dragged his gaze away from the empty doorway. “I know the basics—her mother killed her brothers and sisters and tried to kill her. But what else do you recall about it?”

His mother gave him an odd look. “That’s pretty much all I remember. The news reports at the time were vague.”

“What happened to the mother?”

“I don’t think she went to jail. I want to say maybe the state mental hospital or something like that.” Beth’s gaze was quizzical. “You’re awfully interested in Detective Tandy all of a sudden.”

“Stop it, Mom.”

Her smile faded. “Just be careful, okay? Maddy’s at a ripe age to get attached to a woman in your life. She’s old enough to wonder why her mother doesn’t ever come around.”

He’d bent over backward to make excuses for Norah to Maddy, more for his daughter’s sake than his ex-wife’s. But Maddy was nearing school age, and she’d soon start wondering why everyone else in her class had a mommy to take care of them. One day his excuses wouldn’t be enough.

One day, he’d have to explain that not all mommies wanted to be mommies, and there was nothing she could have said or done or been to make a difference. It was going to be the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

No point in making it harder by letting another woman so clearly not cut out for motherhood break his daughter’s heart.

“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS.” Kristen stared at Carl Madison, shaking her head. “Carl, there’s got to be someone else—”

“I could find someone else,” the captain of detectives conceded. “But Foley says the child already likes and trusts you. And honestly? You need to do it for yourself.”

“Don’t do that.” Kristen glared at her foster father, her anger festering. “You’re not my father anymore.”

“You never let me be,” he said bleakly.

Guilt stoked her anger. “All I ever wanted was to be left alone to get on with my life. That’s still all I want.”

“You’re not getting on with your life. You’re hiding behind your badge and your attitude, avoiding anything that scares you or challenges you. I’m not talking to you as a father now,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “I’m your boss, and this is a job I think you can do if you put your mind to it. Are you telling me I’m wrong?”

Nostrils flaring, Kristen looked away from Carl. “I don’t think Sam Cooper will agree to it.”

“I think he’ll agree to anything that will keep his daughter safe from another attack.” Carl’s voice dipped an octave. “Fathers are like that.”

Kristen stood up, her legs trembling with pent-up anger and a healthy dose of apprehension. “It’s a terrible idea.”

“But you’ll do it?”

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” She left his office, giving the door an extra-hard push as she shut it behind her. The slam echoed down the corridor behind her.

Foley looked up as she entered the bull pen, making a face at the sight of her scowl. “Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Carl wants me on full-time babysitting duty with Maddy Cooper,” she growled.

Foley’s eyebrows lifted. “Really? I was betting he’d tell you not to go on your movie-night date with Sam Cooper.”

She shot him a dark glare. “It’s an informal interview with a crime victim at his home.”

“Over popcorn and movies.”

“The popcorn and princess movies are for the kid.” Kristen crossed to her desk, grabbed her purse and headed for the door before he asked more questions.

“That kid’s got a thing for you,” Foley said as she passed.

“Then maybe she’ll remember something new and tell it to her new best buddy,” she retorted.

“That’s not fair, Tandy. And you’re not that cold.”

She stopped in the doorway and turned back to look at him. “I have to be that cold, don’t I? Especially if I’m going to be Maddy’s best friend 24/7.”

Foley shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what Carl had in mind. I know Sam Cooper won’t put up with it.”

She sighed, leaning against the doorjamb. “What am I supposed to do? Blow off the assignment? Do you really believe there’s not going to be another attempt to grab that kid?”

“No. I think someone brazen enough to send photos to her daddy is brazen enough to try to snatch her again,” Foley conceded. “But I’ve seen you with kids. You look like you’re allergic. I keep waiting for you to break out in hives.”

She pushed away from the door frame and swung her hair over her shoulder. “I’m not good with kids.”

Foley’s expression was full of pity. “It’s not that you’re not good with them, Tandy. You’re afraid of them.” When she didn’t answer him, he added, “Are you going to do what Madison wants?”

She left without answering, her chest tight with dread.

“LET’S GET SOMETHING straight,” Sam murmured to Kristen an hour later after Maddy had squeezed out from between them to go to the bathroom. “Clearly, you’re not the maternal type.”

Kristen’s eyes met his. The vulnerability that flashed there for a moment stunned him, but it disappeared quickly, leaving her expression unreadable. “No, I’m not.”

“Then, I think from now on, we should limit your interactions with Maddy to formal visits.”

Her gaze remained steady, but Sam saw a flicker of something in the depths of her blue eyes that might have been pain. Again, it slipped away as quickly as it had come. “I was afraid you’d say that,” she murmured. “But—”

Maddy came back into the room and bounced onto the sofa between them. “Unpause!” she said brightly to her father.

Sam hit Play and the syrupy strains of a princess love theme filled the room, ending the conversation with Kristen for the moment. But Sam felt her gaze on his face, sensed the tension buzzing around them, as whatever it was she’d started to tell him lingered, unsaid but unforgotten.

Within an hour, Maddy’s eyes began to droop, and she gave only a halfhearted protest when Sam finally stopped the DVD player and carried her off to bed. He lingered a few moments as she tossed and turned, still not used to the strange bed. She demanded a story, and he complied with a quick reading of Horton Hears a Who. She was asleep within a couple of minutes.

Sam put the book on the nightstand and tucked her in, lingering a moment to run his fingers over the satiny curve of her round cheek. Swaddled in the enormous old wedding ring quilt that had belonged to his grandmother, she looked tiny. So very fragile and breakable.

He felt rather than heard Kristen enter the room behind him. He turned to find her standing in the doorway, her narrow-eyed gaze fixed on his daughter as if looking for something in Maddy’s soft features. Tonight she wore a pale green T-shirt and jeans, her hair loose and a little wild, very different from the buttoned-up police detective he’d spent the morning with. The T-shirt revealed even more new curves he hadn’t seen before, and the snug jeans made her legs look miles long.

His whole body tightened pleasantly in response.

Kristen stepped out into the hallway, and he rose to follow, closing the door to the bedroom behind him. She faced him as they reached the living room, her tense expression working hard to kill the light sexual buzz he’d been enjoying.

“I have something to ask you.” Her voice was tight, as if she’d had to force the words from her throat.

He grew instantly apprehensive. “What?”

“Carl—Captain Madison—believes there’s a strong likelihood that whoever broke into your home is going to go after Maddy again. I agree with him.”

“So do I,” Sam conceded, though her stark assessment made his stomach hurt.

“He wants to assign someone to Maddy full-time.”

Sam frowned. “Full-time? Like a bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

Sam stepped away from her, rubbing his jaw. His beard stubble scraped his palm with a rasping sound. “I don’t know if she’ll take to some stranger coming in to play nanny—”

“It won’t be a stranger,” Kristen said, her voice even tighter than before.

Tension stretched in the air between them as he slowly turned to look at her, understanding dawning. Her eyes locked with his, wide and scared.

“I’ll be Maddy’s bodyguard,” she said.

Chapter Four

Waiting for Sam to break his stunned silence, Kristen didn’t know whether she wanted him to agree or refuse. On a purely visceral level, anything that saved her from spending every day and night with Maddy Cooper would be a welcome response. But it was also a coward’s choice.

She wasn’t a coward, no matter what Foley or Carl thought.

“That’s the last thing I expected you to say.” Sam sat down on the sofa and passed his hand over his jaw. His palm made a raspy noise against his beard stubble, and she was surprised to feel a flutter of feminine awareness in her belly.

He was an attractive man. Not handsome exactly, not by Hollywood standards. His appeal was edgier—raw male power, evident in the broad expanse of his shoulders and the lean, almost feral features that even a veneer of civilization couldn’t temper.

She sat beside him, ignoring the tremble in her knees. “It wasn’t my idea.”

He shot her a dark look. “You don’t say.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do,” she continued, ignoring his sarcasm. “Maddy may be in further danger, and I’m the best person, under the circumstances, to protect her. She seems to like and trust me. I will do anything in my power to protect her.”

“My brother could do the same thing.”

“He’s on special assignment with the Drug Enforcement Agency. You know that.” She had checked into Aaron Cooper’s availability herself, during the short hour between Carl’s order and her arrival at the Cooper family guesthouse.

“My sister’s husband is also a deputy.”

“Riley Patterson? The one who’s currently in Arizona for his parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary?”

“You did a background check on my whole family?”

She had, in fact. A cursory one, anyway. Standard operating procedure for child abduction cases. “He and your sister won’t be back until Monday.”

Sam frowned at her, his gaze intense. She could see him weighing all the ramifications in his mind as he stared her down. Could he trust her with his daughter?

Should he?

She withstood his scrutiny for as long as she could before finally blurting, “Yes or no?”

His nostrils flared briefly. “Okay. There’s an extra bedroom you can use. But I don’t want our lives disrupted any more than they have to be. Maddy still gets to visit with my parents and go fishing with Jake and Gabe. Understood? If I say she’s safe with someone without you there you don’t interfere.”

Kristen nodded. The less time she had to spend alone with Maddy, the better. “I know you’re probably wary about bringing a gun in here with Maddy around—”

Sam’s lips curved into a grim smile. “I’m armed myself, Detective Tandy.”

The deadly serious tone of his voice made Kristen’s stomach tighten. So she’d been right to see the masculinity beneath the well-cut suits and expensive ties. Despite the Italian silk and the fancy letters at the end of his name, Sam Cooper had grown up here in the hills of Chickasaw County and hardened his native strength with a stint in the Marine Corps.

She paid back his earlier scrutiny by indulging herself with a long, appraising look, smiling as he reacted to the tit for tat with a look of grudging amusement. She knew Sam Cooper had graduated from law school and passed the bar exam by the young age of twenty-four and spent the next five years working as a JAG lawyer before taking a civilian job in the District of Columbia. Sure, it hadn’t been a combat assignment, but everybody in the Marine Corps had to go through boot camp, didn’t they?

If the hard muscles and flat planes she glimpsed beneath his olive-green T-shirt and faded jeans were anything to go by, he’d kept up with the fitness regimen even after he’d left the service. She looked away.

“I keep wondering who’d do something like this.” The vulnerability in Sam’s voice caught her by surprise. “I’m not rich. I’m not a celebrity. I don’t think I could scrape up a ransom payment if I tried.”

“I think maybe revenge,” she offered quietly. The haggard look in his eyes suggested that answer had been squirming around the back of his mind since the attempted kidnapping. “Or some other personal agenda,” she added.

His eyes narrowed. “You’re still thinking about my ex.”

“The majority of child abductions are familial. You have full custody of Maddy and moved her to another state recently—”

“With Norah’s blessing,” Sam said firmly. “She’s welcome to see Maddy whenever she likes. She chooses not to.”

“Why not?”

Sam’s lips narrowed to a thin line. His gaze shifted toward the hallway, as if he was afraid Maddy might overhear. He nodded toward the cottage’s kitchen nook, leading the way. When he spoke, he kept his voice low. “She didn’t want to have Maddy in the first place. The pregnancy wasn’t planned. I talked her into the marriage.”

Kristen felt a cold tingle crawl up her spine. “She didn’t want to have children at all?”

He flashed a bleak smile. “No. But she knew how much I did. So she agreed to marry me and have the baby, give the whole wedded bliss thing a shot.” He nudged a folded dishrag across the counter with one long finger. “Didn’t work out.”

“How long did it last?”

“Nine months, until Maddy was three months old.”

Not very long to give marriage and motherhood a chance, she thought. “And she gave you full custody?”

“Since our divorce was all about getting out of playing mommy and wife, yeah. She did.”

Kristen wasn’t sure how to respond. There had been a time in her life when she couldn’t imagine how a woman could turn her back on her child. But that was a long time ago, before she’d seen firsthand what a mother was capable of doing to her children. She cleared her throat. “Some women just aren’t meant to be mothers.”

When she dared to look at him again, she was shocked to find his expression sympathetic. She’d expected disgust.

She hardened herself against the compassion in his warm blue eyes. “I looked into your ex anyway. She’s just become engaged. Did you know that?”

He looked surprised. “More background checks, Detective?”

So he didn’t know about the engagement. Interesting.

“Who’s she marrying?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. She wasn’t sure if he was indifferent or just pretending to be.

“Graham Stilson,” she answered.

One dark eyebrow notched upward. “Junior or Senior?”

“Junior. Do you know him?”

Sam turned to face her fully, resting his elbows on the narrow breakfast bar behind him. “Stilson Junior was a trial lawyer in the D.C. area before he was elected to the state senate. We crossed paths now and then. I know his father better, though. Stilson Senior is a judge.”

Clearly, he didn’t care much for Stilson Junior. Kristen wondered how much of his dislike was wrapped up in unresolved feelings for his ex, annoyed with herself for her curiosity. What had she expected, that he’d have lost all interest in a woman he’d once loved enough to marry?

Not that Sam Cooper’s feelings were of any importance, she reminded herself. It was his ex-wife who was currently on Kristen’s suspect list, not Sam.

“I asked her assistant to track her down and have her call me. Nothing yet,” she said aloud.

“Norah doesn’t get motivated to return calls unless she thinks you can do something for her,” Sam said with a shrug. “I left a message for her, too.”

“I thought you said you didn’t think she was a suspect.”

“I don’t,” he said firmly. “But she’s Maddy’s mom. She should know what’s going on.”

Would Norah Cabot even care? She hadn’t given much thought to her daughter’s life so far—why would she start now?

Sam might not be indifferent to his ex-wife, but he clearly resented her abandonment of their child, and on a surface level, Kristen knew she should find Norah Cabot’s actions selfish, as well. But her own mother had had no business raising children. Kristen had seen the horrible consequences. As far as she was concerned, Maddy was lucky. She had a daddy to love and protect her, and she didn’t have to deal with her indifferent mother at all.

How much different would Kristen’s own life have been if she’d had a father around to make sure she and her brothers and sisters were safe and cared for?

Sam interrupted her dark thoughts. “I had my office e-mail me the felony cases I’ve worked on since I took the job a few months ago. There are only five—they gave me a light load until I could get my bearings. I’ve printed them out, if you want to take a look tonight. We can see if there’s anything in those files that might have set someone off.”

Following him back to the sitting area, she kicked herself for not having asked him about his current case files sooner. She was letting her kid phobia take over this whole case.

Time to cowboy up. If she couldn’t handle one four-year-old poppet—and her sexy grouch of a father—her career was in serious trouble.

SAM SAT BACK AN HOUR LATER, rubbing his eyes. He’d read through all five cases and saw nothing he could imagine enraging someone enough to come after his child. “What if this isn’t about me?” he asked Kristen.

She looked up from the case file she was reading. “Just some random kidnapper stalking Maddy? For what purpose?”

His stomach recoiled at the only answer that made sense. “A pedophile?”

She shook her head. “This doesn’t fit a pedophile’s M.O. They’re cowards. They like targets of opportunity.”

“That guy in Utah broke into his target’s house and took her out of her bedroom,” he reminded her.

“That’s rare.”

“But not impossible.”

She wrinkled her brow at him. “Do you want it to be a pedophile?” she asked pointedly.

“God, no!” The thought was horrifying.

Her expression gentled. “Whatever pushed this guy’s buttons, it’s not your fault.”

How could she know that? What if he’d done something, said something or forgotten something that had set the kidnapper off? What if this whole thing was about payback?

What if he’d been the one who’d put his daughter at risk?

Kristen’s hand stole across the sofa and curled around his, her grip tight. The touch felt like a jolt of electricity, setting his whole body abuzz, and he was caught off guard by a flood of pure male attraction.

He’d always gone for high-octane women like Norah Cabot, with her expensive French perfume and her designer shoes. He’d worked with many beautiful, even glamorous women, and he’d always found them exciting and sexy. He’d just figured that kind of woman was his type.