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.
Gravel crunched as a car pulled up to the main house. Akeem glanced out the window. “Looks like one of the ranch hands came back.”
Flint must have sent him. He should return at least a handful of men. The horses would need watering in this heat. Everybody had work to do.
“If you need to be somewhere—” She raised her gaze to Akeem. He looked as solid as a rock fortress: calm, self-assured. He was dressed nicely, leather loafers, black suit pants, white shirt with sleeves rolled just below the elbows—had always dressed nicely, even back in college when he had little money.
He always had an inner, emotional strength she envied, and a handsome, noble face. She had developed a serious crush on him the first time they had met.
“I’m right where I need to be.” His voice was quietly reassuring. And his eyes turned a shade darker yet, near black, like she fancied the night sky of the desert might look in the land of his ancestors.
She didn’t know what to say. For the past five years, she’d been utterly alone, marriage or no marriage. Akeem had shown her more consideration in the past hour than Gary had in the whole last year they’d been together.
He was a solid presence next to her. And she knew without a doubt that he meant every word he had said. Trusting herself to him, leaning on him throughout this terrible mess, would have been too easy. A few years back, she would have done just that. But Gary had taught her a couple of hard-learned lessons she could not soon forget. Would never forget, she hoped. Because she had sworn she would never let her life get so far out of her own control again.
Shouting drew her attention and she jumped up to push to the window next to Akeem, aware of his nearness suddenly, but only for a split second. Then cold gathered in her stomach at the sight of the familiar beat-up, green pickup. The man who’d pulled in a few minutes ago wasn’t a returning
