Players: Bad Boy Romance Read online

  "I think I love you," she says. Josh doesn't know how to respond. He thinks something similar, but it's not the sort of thing he should be admitting to.

  "I love you too," he says. If it's the truth, then there's not much he can do about it. 'Should' doesn't play into it. Her arms reach up and he lowers his weight a little more until she can wrap her arms around his neck, the two of them still connected below.

  She holds him tight, her body pressing in and molding itself to his. It's a comforting feeling, and one that makes Josh's cock stir again. His body feels warm and she feels good against him. He takes a breath and presses a kiss into her neck.

  In the morning, maybe all of this will have been a mistake. He'll have taken advantage of her. He's been too attached to the case from the first minute, and now he's too attached to the woman involved in it.

  She was emotional and she did some things that maybe she'll regret.

  For right now, though, he's doing what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is be with her. He presses a kiss against her forehead. It's scalding against his skin, and she presses her head up to meet his lips.

  His voice is low and hoarse. "You should get some sleep."

  If he doesn't tell her to sleep, he knows, neither of them will get any. Not with the way that his cock twitches inside her again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Anna smiles for real, for only the fourth or fifth time in what feels like a couple of days. She's supposed to hear from Josh again some time later. He's promised to call. She believes him. But right now, it's time for life to go back to normal.

  Mom and Dad invited her over for dinner, to celebrate Ava's safe return, and she couldn't possibly be happier. It's better than cooking herself, after all. Not having to clean up, not having to deal with going out to buy stuff and decide what to make—all of it makes it worthwhile.

  Being with family, which might be enough reason all by itself, is almost just a bonus.

  "So everything's alright now?" Mom's smile is hopeful, but not yet to the point that Anna would describe it as wide or confident.

  Things could always get worse. That's the lesson that Anna's had to learn several times now. This time, maybe it'll stick. But then again, maybe it won't.

  She straightens up and looks down at herself. She watches her elbows. They stay tucked in close to her body. Her back is straight. Head up, and she's got good posture. She looks good at the table. It should be second nature, but it isn't.

  "Well, there's a lot going on. I'm sure that it was on the news, right?"

  Mom shrugs. "I didn't see anything about anything, sweetheart. I just know what the Detective told us, and I know that our little sweetheart is back, and we couldn't ask more than that."

  "They, ah… whoever took Ava. They took Mr. Queen."

  "What? You're not serious, are you?"

  "It was right in front of me. I guess I should've stopped them, huh?"

  Mom's eyes are wide as saucers, and she looks back and forth from Anna to Dad so fast it looks like she's shaking her head.

  "Well, no! No way! Those people, they're dangerous! You're not supposed to get involved at all! The police should've handled it! I'm just glad you're safe!"

  Dad's reaction is a little more measured. "Nobody would be upset with you for not stopping something like that, no, that's perfectly reasonable. Not with the baby in your arms. Especially considering—if they can take a man that size, well… you're a small girl."

  Anna nods, not really looking up from her food. Filet, a bit of pasta on the side. Broccoli for a green. She should be happier. She shouldn't let this get to her. They're absolutely right that it's not her fault. Nobody would blame her for what happened.

  That doesn't mean she doesn't blame herself.

  "Thanks. You're probably right."

  She takes in a breath and holds it, lets it out again. No problem. She's got complete control over the situation. She chooses to be upset, she chooses to be panicked. It may not seem like it, but that's absolutely what's happening.

  And she can choose to calm down. It's hard to do, but it's not impossibly by any means. She can choose to be happy, and stress-free, and she can choose to do better. She does.

  "So what's been going on with you guys?"

  "Oh, nothing," Dad says. Mom keeps eating. It's typical from her—she gets to talking, and then decides she's talking too much so instead of dialing it back a little she just stops until it's her 'turn' to talk too much again.

  "No good stories about the apartments? Nothing good on the news?"

  "You know what your mother and I say," Dad says, leaning a little into her conspiratorially. "There's never anything good on the news. If it's on the news, it's not good."

  Then he sits back and smiles, as if the joke's already landed perfectly. Anna smiles back. He's said it a thousand times if he's said it once, but it feels good to be back in her routine. Back in her real life again. Not having to constantly worry about what can possibly go wrong next.

  It seems like every day or two lately, she's been getting another reminder, spaced out just long enough that she has time to forget again before she learns the lesson: things can always go wrong.

  You can go to sleep with your only concern being that little Ava's been a little squirmy lately. Nothing wrong with that. The only long-term concern being that her life kinda got away from her… but that was seven, eight months ago. No problem.

  Then you wake up to a problem so God damn big that there's nothing you can imagine being worse than that. So you try to fix it. You go to the police.

  But they can't find anything, until something gets worse again: Mitchell finds out. There was a time after he left that there was nothing that Anna wanted more than to have him back in her life.

  For a moment, with Ava gone, she wanted him back again. But it's hard to think how he could have helped her. How he could have fixed the problems that she was having.

  He couldn't have, that was the only answer she could find.

  So now things had gotten that much worse—Mitch had to pay for everything going wrong in her life, and that brought his attention back down on her. Brought her back into the line of fire.

  She couldn't have imagined things getting worse than that, though. Things couldn't get any worse.

  Then they'd blamed her for not paying. Said that even though she did her best to pay them the way they wanted, even though she was trying to follow all their instructions as carefully as possible, she'd screwed it up and now they were going to punish everyone for her screw up.

  That was as bad as it seemed. And now it seemed like things were looking up. Maybe that was the end of it. Maybe things couldn't get worse again.

  Anna knew, instinctively, deep down, that wasn't true. She knew that things could absolutely get worse, and like anything she knew that it was as likely to happen as it was not to happen.

  The one thing she didn't know was how it was going to happen, and when it was going to happen. Maybe she'd have another day, maybe she'd have another week, maybe she'd have another year without things going really wrong.

  Maybe she wouldn't. There was a knock at the door.

  Mom gets up to answer it, dusting her shirt off just in case some drippings have splashed onto it. She looks fine, but she always seems to be concerned with it. Preoccupied.

  Anna can hear her opening the door.

  "Marty? What's the problem?"

  Marty's their manager. He's supposed to have gone home about five minutes ago. Apparently he hasn't. Apparently he's come here, instead.

  A second voice, one that Anna doesn't recognize, starts speaking. "Mrs. Witt? Mrs. Allison Witt?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you know where we could find an Anna Witt? She's not in her apartment. We thought you might know where she is."

  The voice sounds official. Not someone that Anna's ever met, but if she's not wrong, then the woman is probably some sort of government person. Maybe a policeman. She's known enough police people
to last a lifetime, these past couple of days.

  "Yes, she's eating supper in our apartment. May I ask what this is about?"

  "And where is her daughter, Ava? Is she here as well?"

  "Yes. What's this about?"

  "Please excuse me, ma'am. I'm not here to cause any trouble, but I've been asked by the court to take custody of that child until such time as court has been convened to determine preliminary custody."

  Anna's heart felt as if it was stopping in her chest. What? What were they talking about?

  All she knew for sure was, they were here to take her baby. And there was nothing that she could do to stop them.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The reprimand was, frankly, letting him off easy. There had been a long moment where Josh Meadows was afraid that they were going to fire him. Indefinite suspension, at the very least.

  Instead, he'd been put on leave for a week or so, and then he'd return to duty. As long as he was willing to make an apology and avoid Mitch Queen. The first, he could hold his nose and manage.

  The second would be easy. If he never lived another day, Josh Meadows never wanted to see that slug again. If they crossed paths at the pearly gates, then it would be too soon.

  The detective relaxes in his seat for a long time. He should be heading home. He's not really supposed to stay here. Something in the back of his mind tells him that he's forgetting something, and he can't leave until he's figured out what the hell it is, no matter how much he'd like to.

  There's no open cases right now. He was only working lead on the kidnapping, and now it's been handed off. The Feds are involved. Real experts. People who actually said to themselves, one day, 'I want to deal with kidnappers for a living.'

  That's what they probably should have done from day one. He'd gotten a pretty good deal out of the whole thing, meeting Anna and everything, but it's not hard to see how he might have screwed everything up pretty damn good.

  Maybe if they'd had a real pro on the job, they'd have been able to do something about Al Queen in the first place. Maybe they'd have known exactly how to deal with all of it. Use that famous F.B.I. playbook of theirs, and just go through the steps.

  Well, the Detective didn't have a playbook, and he didn't have a hell of a lot of time to figure one out. So if he'd made any mistakes, then that was on his shoulders, but it wasn't because he hadn't been trying.

  The desk didn't have any special mementos. He didn't have anything to remember. Nothing he wanted to remember, anyways. The things that he had weren't the sort of things that were remembered fondly.

  But no matter how many times he went through, disqualifying things in his head one by one, he couldn't shake it. That nagging feeling that there was something he was missing. Something he'd regret not having. Something he'd regret big.

  Something that he'd regret not having, and he'd regret it for every one of the several days he'd be gone. Something he'd regret big time. What the fuck could that even be?

  He sits forward again. It wasn't the coffee. The stuff at his house was a hundred times better than the crap they made here, but at least it was brown and it was caffeinated and it tasted kind of like the right stuff, more or less.

  It wasn't anything on top of his desk. Half of it didn't belong to him anyways, it belonged to the department. It wasn't anything inside the main tray. A few pens, a half-dozen paperclips, and a crappy rubber eraser. Nothing worth losing his mind over. He had several identical pens, since he bought them by the pack-of-twelve. No reason to miss those ones.

  He opens the leg drawer. Several dozen file folders greet him, just like he knew they would. What the hell importance would any of these have? Half of them, he was just consulting on them. Reading through the paperwork to see if anything stood out.

  Nothing had. There wasn't anything to suggest that he should know anything about a couple of jewelry store thefts. Nothing stood out about the murder of an old woman in her home. It was grisly and gruesome and as cruel as it was to say, it wasn't Meadows' problem.

  Sure, the woman hadn't had an enemy in the world. But that didn't mean anything. Every person who came through that front door with a case for them, every person who came in the back door, every body that they had to look at.

  It was all sad. But it didn't mean that he was responsible for solving all of it. Not all by himself.

  No, this was something else. Something that he'd miss. Something he'd regret not having when he was out of the office. His phone buzzes in his pocket. For an instant he almost reaches for it. It doesn't buzz a second time.

  If it's just an alert or a text he'll get it later. If he just keeps this train of thought going, one day soon, it will have to pull into the station, like it or not. And that's what he's going to do.

  Keep riding this son of a bitch to the end of the line. He pulls out the third drawer.

  A bunch of nothing. Knick-knacs. A bunch of garbage that he's had to accumulate over the years. A bag of straws. A stapler. A few pieces of paper trash that still haven't found their way to the garbage can.

  And then, as if it were a message straight from heaven, he sees it, and the thought hits him like a ton of bricks. So hard that he says it out loud. "Jesus, I'm an idiot. Okay."

  His notes. His tape recorder. He was off-duty, but someone had to compile all those reports when he got back. It wasn't hard to figure out who would be responsible for it.

  He might as well get a head-start on it while he was away. He'd have plenty of time. There were other things that he might be able to occupy his time with, of course. One other thing in particular, or perhaps more accurately two other people.

  But that didn't mean he wouldn't have more than enough time to deal with the paperwork. By itself, that alone would save him plenty of heartache in the end.

  He pulls out the Steno pad and slips it into the oversized pockets on his jacket. It barely fits, pulling at the pocket seams, but it does fit nonetheless. The recorder goes into his pants pocket.

  The weight lifts off his chest. Thank Christ. Okay. No problem. He's got it all settled. It's almost an afterthought when he pulls the phone out of his pocket to see what had tried to draw his attention away.

  A message from Anna. She should be putting Ava down for the night, if the little girl was cooperating. She probably wasn't. He'd been planning to call her after he left, but the distraction had kept him from doing it until now—after all, he hadn't left yet.

  He taps to open the message up, and his stomach does a flip in his gut.

  'They took Ava.'

  He takes a deep breath. Types his response back carefully. Careful not to make any screw-ups. He has to be careful, because his hands are shaking a little.

  'Who took her?'

  'CPS. They said I was an unfit mother and that I was going to lose custody.'

  Josh swears under his breath. There's no question where that notion came from. More specifically, who it came from. Someone that he'd have to give an apology to in a day or two. Someone that would be right there on the stage with him.

  Someone who'd busted Meadows's knuckles open with his teeth. He swears again, as the whole situation seems to intensify itself in his head all at once.

  'Where are you? I'll be there ASAP.'

  He's already in the car, the ignition going, when he gets the return message. It's only a few miles from the station. If he hurries, five minutes. He'll be there in four.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Anna's felt panic like this before. It feels like it's the standard for her now. There's nothing strange about it any more. She's completely in control. She's completely in control.

  If she repeats it a few more times, it becomes true. That's the rule, after all. She's just got to repeat it a few more times, and it's true. After all, she decides to panic, she can decide to be in control.

  She tries to breathe again. Tries to hold it. Nothing's working. It feels like something's sitting on her chest. She should call Linda. She should call Linda. Then she'd b
e able to get some explanation of what to do next. Linda would tell her how to calm down.

  When Josh gets here, they'll figure out what to do about Ava. They'll figure out a next step. Together. Until then, she needs to calm down. She can't let someone see her like this. Especially not Josh.

  A laugh escapes her lips, in spite of herself. She claps her lips shut as if that will help. It won't. She'll open them again when the panic needs a release valve. Everything is going to be fine.

  It's totally normal, when people are panicking, to have a little giggle like that. Nothing weird about it. She's not weird. She's completely normal. She's just panicked. Nobody would blame her. Someone just took her daughter.

  She almost hears it all in Linda's voice, right in her head. She's not doing anything wrong. She's done everything she's supposed to do. She's not unfit. She didn't do anything that endangered her child. Ava was as safe as anyone could possibly make her.

  There's nothing else she can do except to try to hold herself steady and get everything in a straight line. Try breathing again.

  In, one. Hold. Out, two. Hold. Everything that's happened these past few days has all been her fault. She'd brought all of this down on her head, on her parents' heads. On Josh's head.

  She has to start counting again. In, one. Hold. Out, two. Wait. In, three. Hold. Nobody would be mad at her, would they? Josh isn't mad at her. He's going to be here any second.

  "Fuck." Her hands are shaking. She closes her eyes.

  Start again. In, one. Hold. Out, two. Wait. In, three. Hold. Out, four. Wait. In, five.

  Her shoulders start relaxing. Her mind starts to slow. A shiver runs down her spine as the tension in her body starts to slip a little bit. She starts to relax. Her mind keeps slowing down until she can finally grab onto individual thoughts and hold them in her head. In, nine. Out, ten.

  The door ringer goes off. She buzzes Josh in without a second thought. He's right on time. Only a few minutes since she texted. He must have left in a hurry. If he's feeling any amount of concern, though—and she knows he is—then he probably would have left in a hurry.