Desert Ice Daddy Page 2

  Akeem focused on the beige plastic unit: a recorder. Getting ready for the ransom call.

  Taylor didn’t miss that, either. She went a shade paler.

  “Akeem Abdul. Friend of the family,” Akeem said and kept her close.

  The first cop’s eyes went wide. “The Texas Sheik? No kiddin’.” Then he snapped to. “Yes, sir. Officer Peterson.”

  “Officer Mills.” The other one went back to his work after a thorough look that seemed half amused, half disappointed.

  Even those who didn’t know his face knew the Abdul name from Texas Double A—Akeem Abdul—Auctions. He ignored “Texas Sheik,” the nickname given by his competitors who resented his rapid rise in the ranks and had trouble digesting his Middle Eastern background, that his parents had been Beharrainian.

  He pulled a chair for Taylor. The cops were only a minor annoyance. He’d long ago learned to rise above things like that. “Let me get you a drink.”

  There had to be a hundred men out there already, combing the ranch. He could afford to wait with her until his security force got here and they rode out to meet Flint and join in the search. Christopher would be found. He would see to it.

  Why would anyone take the kid? Who? If he could figure that out, they might have a better idea where to look. Which brought him to his next question. “Got a map of this place?”

  “Right on the Web site.” She sat on a bar stool next to the kitchen counter, her troubled gaze settling on the fridge that was covered with crayon drawings of horses, and got up almost immediately again to pace the floor along the windows that looked toward the back.

  She accepted the glass of water he brought her, but didn’t drink. The cops minded their own business. Seemed their orders were to stick to the house and wait, which they did with the efficiency of furniture.

  Akeem strode to the PC on the kitchen isle—Lucinda, Flint’s housekeeper, was addicted to online recipe swaps—and shot straight to the Diamondback home page.

  Taylor paused in her pacing. “Flint called you?”

  He nodded instead of going into his investigation on murder and the sabotage and bomb parts at Diamondback and how they might be related to his auction house, which he’d come to talk over with Flint. He didn’t want to discuss that subject in front of the cops.

  He set the form to print fifty copies then pushed the OK button. He wanted to have the maps ready to be handed out when his men arrived.

  She was pacing again. Tension grew in the air with every second. He needed something to do. And so did she. “Want to walk through the outbuildings with me?”

  She shot him a blank look as if her thoughts were a million miles away. “We already looked there.”

  Her pain was a tangible presence in the room, like the thick, wet mist of winter mornings that settled into the lungs and made it hard to breathe. He wanted to take her into his arms again, wasn’t sure how she would react. Looked like movement was what she needed now to burn off all that nervous energy.

  He strode toward her. “We’ll look again.”

  “If there’s a call…” Officer Mills frowned.

  “Every outbuilding has a phone. If someone calls, she can pick it up from anywhere.” He held his hand out to her.

  And after a moment of hesitation, Taylor’s slim fingers slipped into his palm as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and his hand closed around hers.

  He cleared his throat. “Bunkhouses first?”

  She nodded and followed him out of the kitchen, slipped barefooted—golden polish on the sexiest toes under the sun, which he should definitely not have noticed at a moment like this—into a pair of worn snake-skin boots by the back door.

  Eastern rattlesnake and a black leather top with fancy stitch.

  Recognition flashed through him and lodged an odd feeling in the middle of his chest. The boots were spoils of a long-ago riding contest between the two of them.

  She didn’t look as if she remembered. She didn’t look as though she could think of anything but getting her son back. And he would help her. As soon as his security team got here—the best of the best—they would be putting together a plan.

  “How did it happen?” Maybe if he kept her talking, she would have less time to worry.

  “He wanted to go out to the horses before breakfast.” She drew a deep breath as they stepped outside and the heat hit them. “I didn’t think much of it when he didn’t come back for a while. He’s always losing track of time when he’s around animals. This place has been like a wonderland to him…” She trailed off as they crossed the yard to the first bunkhouse.

  “Christopher, honey?” she called while he systematically searched the place—a manly mess—looking under every blanket, under every bed, in every chest, in every wardrobe.

  “Not here. Let’s check the next.”

  She looked up to the sun as they stepped out of the bunkhouse, her face tight. He knew what she was thinking. If her son was out there in this heat, every minute counted.

  “And then?” he asked.

  “I went looking for him, asking the guys. He’d been out to the colts, but not for long, they said.”

  “Who saw him last?”

  “Nobody’s sure. It’s busy around here in the mornings. Everyone has a million chores to get done before the heat hits and makes work twice as difficult. Everyone’s always rushing around.”

  They entered the next bunkhouse.

  “Christopher?”

  He repeated the search, then they went through the same routine again and again with the next building and the next.

  His phone rang—Deke Norton, a close friend to the Aggie Four and a trusted business associate. They had a meeting later that afternoon to discuss some mutual investments.

  Akeem answered. “Hey, I’m glad you called. I might not make it to our meeting later on.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Flint’s nephew is missing. Probably wandered off.”

  “Don’t worry about the meeting. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “You bet. Thanks, Deke.” He ended the call to focus on the task at hand.

  “Flint has every man out there looking,” Taylor said on her way to the new quarter horse stables that had been built recently to replace the one that’d been burned to the ground.

  “The police are helping, too.” From the way she said the last sentence, it was clear she was putting her faith in her brother. Smart woman.

  “He’ll be found.”

  She had always been nearly as tough as her brother, but as she stopped and turned to him to offer a tremulous smile, she looked fragile and lost all of a sudden. Like she needed him.

  His heart flipped over in his chest and he couldn’t help getting lost in her cornflower gaze for a moment.

  She had the clearest blue eyes of any woman he had even known.

  He missed them as soon as she turned from him again.

  A few horses raised their heads and gave their greeting nicker when she stepped into the barn, clearly recognizing Taylor. Others snorted a warning at Akeem. It had been a while since he’d been out here. Flint brought in new stock all the time. Since the ranch had grown by leaps and bounds, Akeem no longer knew all of the animals.

  The smell of hay and feed immediately enveloped them in comfort, but this once he couldn’t fully melt into it, and judging by the tight set of Taylor’s shoulders, neither could she. Nothing would make her relax until her son was safely back in her arms again.

  But she did seem to draw strength from the animals and strode forward with new purpose in her steps, her boots clicking on the stone floor. “Christopher?”

  He personally searched every stall. Came up with nothing. “This is going to sound…Have you checked with Christopher’s father?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the guy’s name or even call him her ex.

  “First thing.” She opened the cabinet doors in the tack room. “And the police went over there, too, to talk to him.”


  Good. That saved Akeem from having to do it. The thought brought mixed feelings of relief and disappointment.

  Her cell phone rang on the way to the new business offices. She picked up the call on the second ring. The way her face went white within the first second, Akeem knew they had trouble.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He stepped closer and put his ear on the other side of the phone, but heard little.

  “Is he okay?” The hand that held the phone trembled. “Please don’t hurt him. I’ll do anything.” She listened. “I don’t have money. You don’t understand.”

  He could hear shouting then, but not the individual words, caught some reference to Diamondback.

  He reached for the phone, but her eyes begged him not to. Slowly, against his better judgment, he let his hand drop.

  “Yes.” Taylor’s voice was a whisper. Tears welled in her eyes, spilled off her dark blond lashes as the phone went dead.

  He drew her into his arms because she didn’t look as though she was going to make it much longer standing upright. He knew what she was going to say before she ever opened her mouth, and hot, hard anger rolled through him, aimed at the nameless bastards who would do this to her and would inflict pain and trauma on Christopher.

  “They’re holding him for ransom,” she said.

  TAYLOR FELT LIKE SHE WAS underwater, her motions slow, her lungs tight. She felt disoriented. Everything seemed surreal.

  Somebody had her baby. Christopher was four years old, proclaiming himself to be a big boy at every turn, but he would be her baby forever. He was the one good thing that had come out of her disastrous marriage. Her love for him was the only thing she was sure of at this point in her life.

  And somebody had taken him.

  Her tears were not for herself, but for him, for how scared he must be, how he must be wondering where she was and when she would come. Taylor thought, too late now, of asking to talk to her son. The display had shown an unregistered number, not one she could call back.

  For the first few moments, she felt only gut-searing pain and despair, then slowly she became aware of the strong, masculine arms around her, the offered comfort that she was too shaken to take. Akeem. A long time ago—

  She pulled away, unable to think of anything but Christopher.

  She was falling apart, wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and cry until she was dry of tears, to scream her anger and her fear. But Christopher needed her to keep it together, and she would. She drew a deep, shuddering breath. Don’t think what if; don’t think what could go wrong.

  She brushed the wetness from her cheeks. “Okay,” she said out loud to break the spell of despair that was drowning her. “I can do this. We’ll get Christopher back.”

  “At least we know what happened,” Akeem offered.

  And he was right. She could put to rest some of the most disturbing thoughts that had been driving her crazy all morning. Christopher hadn’t fallen into the river or one of the creeks, he hadn’t somehow gotten out to the far pastures and been trampled, he hadn’t been bitten by a diamondback rattler or a copperhead.

  He was with people who would take care of him because he was their key to the money.

  Money she didn’t have. Two million dollars.

  Not that they cared. Her brother had more than enough, and everyone always assumed she had free use of that. Her ex-husband for one. She cut off that train of thought. She didn’t have time to waste on Gary. She regretted that she had to call him in the first place, had to listen to him yell his blame at her. He didn’t care about either her or their son, but he would use this as an excuse—

  Please, God, don’t let him get involved.

  Forget Gary. At least he wasn’t around to muck everything up. A small mercy. She had to focus on how to get Christopher back.

  She had never asked Flint for money. It was a point of pride with her. She had asked him for a job when she had finally left Gary, but the accountant position was a job she was qualified for, one she got fair and square. And she was careful to only earn what the previous employee in that position had gotten.

  Flint didn’t understand her need to make it on her own. Flint hadn’t spent five years with Gary Lafferty.

  “My divorce was finalized yesterday,” she said to no one in particular.

  She’d had one perfect day of happiness.

  A strange light came into Akeem’s dark eyes, but he said nothing.

  Flint and he had been best friends since their college days, along with Jackson Champion and Viktor Romanov—the Aggie Four, a tight-knit brotherhood that stood back to back against the world and had achieved a lot more than just financial success. But Viktor was now dead. There was something more there than Flint had told her, and she’d been meaning to ask him again, but had been too busy with settling in, too busy with Christopher.

  They had stopped in their tracks, she realized after a moment. She’d been frozen by the voice on the other end of the line. No point in going on with the search now, anyhow. “I should call Flint.”

  The men should come back in. The heat was brutal, and they had work here. But she couldn’t find the energy to dial her phone.

  “Want to go back?” Akeem motioned toward the main house with his head. He wasn’t as tall as Flint, but was tall compared to her—she was only five-five. He was as lean as a Texas wild cougar and as focused as a striking rattler. And he was on her side, which eased the tension in her chest a little.

  “To my office.” She moved in that direction. She didn’t want to deal with the police. “They said if I say anything to the cops—” She couldn’t bear finishing the sentence.

  But Akeem nodded even as he pulled out his cell phone. He made a quick call to stop his security force from coming to the ranch, putting them on standby instead.

  The cool air in the office building was a relief. She glanced toward her desk, the pile of work she was supposed to handle after breakfast. She liked her work. She liked Flint’s ranch. In the three months she’d been here, the place hadn’t had the time yet to turn into a true home, but she had found safety among its walls.

  Until now.

  Christopher.

  “Did you recognize the voice?” Again, Akeem pulled out a chair for her, always a gentleman.

  “No.” She watched him look around and wondered what his fancy corporate headquarters in Houston looked like. Unlikely that she would ever see it. She had no business there. She flipped her phone open. “I need to call Flint.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to bring the cops in on this?” He seemed to be weighing the issue once again.

  “Pretty sure. You didn’t hear him. He was—” The voice had been incredibly cold, incredibly hard. The voice of a man who would do anything. Even to an innocent child. Her throat tightened.

  “Then you can’t call all the men back. The cops will know something happened if the search is called off all of a sudden.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. Her mind was still reeling. Her fingers stopped mid-dial, and she looked up at him, lost in an avalanche of emotions, unable to make a decision in that moment, unable to think beyond her fear.

  “We should tell Flint, in any case. Want me to talk to him?”

  “Please,” she said as he pulled a BlackBerry from his pocket, the latest model. She recognized it only because Flint recently had gotten the same one. Boys and their gadgets. At another time, she might have found it amusing. In this moment, it was barely a blip in her consciousness as her thoughts moved back to her son.

  “How would they have your cell-phone number?” he asked.

  “It’s my work cell. A ton of people have it.”

  “What else did the man say?” Akeem was dialing already.

  “That they would call back.”

  “Hey, you okay? We got a call here,” Akeem said into the phone. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been busy. But anyway, I’m here to help.” He listened. “Money,” he said. “Better stay
out there for the cops’ sake. Just send a couple of men back. Kat Edwards, too, if you can.” Then, “Not yet.” And explained the whole situation to Flint.

  The invisible fist tightened around her heart again. Some menacing stranger had her son. Her breath stuck in her lungs, and she had to rub her sternum to get air moving again. She had to get beyond this pain so she could do whatever it took to get him back. She had to come up with a plan.

  As soon as Akeem hung up with Flint, he was dialing again. “Jack,” he told her, then focused on the call when it was picked up. “Does your assistant still have that connection at Nextel?” He paused a beat. “There was a call made to the number I’m going to text message to you in a second. I need to know where it came from. Satellite positioning, whatever. And I need it now. I’m at Diamondback. Christopher was taken.” He listened to Jack on the other end. “You bet.”

  “Can he do that?” she asked, feeling the first ray of hope. She rattled off her cell number and he keyed it in.

  “Is there anything Jack can’t do?” To his credit, his face showed nothing but confidence.

  And he was right. Jackson Champion, shipping tycoon to be reckoned with, a self-made millionaire like Flint and Akeem, wasn’t the type to take no for an answer, not ever.

  “Where is he?” Jack was always off somewhere, expanding his business.

  “Greece. He’s in the middle of a deal, but he’ll cut the meetings short and come back tomorrow. He wants to be here to help. And he’s sending two choppers with pilots from his warehouse in case we need them for anything.”

  Her throat tightened again. The outpouring of help humbled her, just as it had earlier in the day when close to a hundred of her brother’s employees rose as one to drop everything and go find Christopher. She’d been so used to going it alone that the experience left her both grateful and bewildered. That some million-dollar negotiation would be set aside for her was beyond her experience, and yet knowing Akeem’s work, he had to be postponing business, too, to be staying here with her. And he was probably the most driven among them.