Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18) by Calle Brookes (guided reading books txt) 📗

His stupid, cowardly asshole fault. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt the two of them.

Well, he was ready to change that now. He’d had some damned time to think while lying in her purple guest room last night. It had been either think about Andy and what had happened, what Andy would miss with his daughters now—or think of the woman Max had long admitted he wanted. Knowing she was just down the hall had made his choice clear.

The look Jac was giving him was beyond wary. It told him one thing: Jac didn’t trust him any longer. Not at all.

Max had to find a way to fix that.

He’d had a lot to think about on the twenty-minute drive to Jac’s home after leaving the hospital where he, Seth, and Hellbrook had taken the director and Malachi. The shrapnel that had been lodged in Sin Lorcan’s left shoulder had been removed on scene.

Sin had refused to go to the hospital; his wife was the supervisor who had been called in to deal with the remains of Sebastian’s car. Sin hadn’t been about to leave her there with the potential for more explosives. Not after what had happened.

Max hadn’t blamed him.

Max had seen the look in Sin’s eyes when Cody had first stepped out of the bureau SUV. Max had understood. He’d known he’d have felt the same if it had been Jac walking over the broken sidewalk toward the inferno.

All he had been able to think about was Jac and Emery.

Since the moment he’d hit the ground in Andy’s backyard, he’d thought about Jac and Emery.

About how he had come close to dying. His first thoughts had been for Jac and his daughter. Because they were the ones who mattered most.

Jac didn’t know how he felt about her. He’d been too much of an idiot to realize, to tell her.

Max wasn’t certain how he was supposed to make his feelings known. Without making a complete and utter ass out of himself. He couldn’t just say, “Hey, it took me five years to figure out how I feel about you.”

That would go over well. It was more of an insult than anything else.

His only answer was that after Pamela, any woman had terrified him.

He pulled in a deep breath. He had waited long enough. He opened his mouth to send Emery into the living room to watch cartoons. He and Jac had some things to say to one another. To finally repair their relationship somehow.

Before he could, the cell phone he’d plugged in on her kitchen island buzzed.

The ringtone of PAVAD.

He swore. He knew what it meant. He had hoped he’d have an extra hour to spend with his family before he had to go in and face what had happened to Andy. The first of the forensics from the explosion were going to start rolling in soon.

Max needed to be there for that.

“Go. I’ll keep her today. I’m off until Tuesday, built up comp time. We’ll go shopping at the mall. Have a girls’ day. Looks like she’s about to outgrow her shoes. Again.”

He almost flinched. Shoes. Little girls’ shoes. Andy had bought his little girls shoes just a few days ago. He’d told Max all about the sale at the mall.

He pushed that aside and tuned back in to Jac.

She’d shopped with Emery before, saving him from that torture, just giving him receipts when she was finished. He’d give her cash in return—and his eternal gratitude. “All of them, heaven help me. Why she needs more than a few pairs of shoes is beyond me.”

Then, just because he wanted to, he wrapped his arms around her and just breathed her in. Her hair was silky against his cheek. He ignored how she stiffened briefly. “We’re going to talk, Jac. And very, very soon. There is a lot I want to say to you. Need to say to you. I’ve put it off long enough.”

Wary green eyes looked into his.

“Go. PAVAD is waiting.”

He went, leaving his daughter behind with the woman he loved more than any other woman he ever had before.

9

Lytel heard the rumors the instant he stepped into the PAVAD building. So they were finally letting it leak that Anderson had been ambushed and the bomb hadn’t been the result of a gas leak like the news was reporting.

No doubt, the director’s little media liaison teams had been hard at work since it had happened over a week ago.

The director was back after his little “health scare,” too. Rumor had it Dennis had needed some medical tests done; but Lytel had known the truth. There wasn’t much in PAVAD that he didn’t know about.

Hell, he even knew a secret about good old Ed he doubted Ed himself knew about.

There were a handful of men who had been there that night and had been injured. He’d seen them for himself.

Sin Lorcan, for one. He’d seen that icy sonofabitch getting shrapnel removed in the ambulance at the Anderson scene himself. Lytel doubted they’d even numbed the bastard first.

His wife had been hovering around behind him. She hadn’t been allowed to touch the evidence because of her connection to one of the injured, but she’d watched everything her people had done.

Not that Lytel gave a fuck. If he’d left any evidence behind, he’d blown that evidence to the moon.

PAVAD had taught him a lot of neat little tricks, after all.

No one had given any explanation for why Sin Lorcan or his brother Sebastian had been there. Nothing more than the idea that Anderson was a friend.

No one questioned Sin Lorcan. No one.

He’d seen what the bastard had done to Saul Hernandez. As far as Lytel knew, Hernandez was still in prison, awaiting trial.

Hernandez had been a good guy. He and Eric Brady both.

Sin Lorcan had nearly ripped Brady to shreds for getting too close to that wife of his.

Lytel had seen that for himself that day. He’d seen the director and Lorcan running through