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When she returned to the living room with a fresh coffee pot, the men were coming in from the backyard. She stopped and looked around. “Where’s Hank?” she said.
The men stopped talking. “Bathroom?” Ridge guessed.
Her heart racing, Raven sat the tray down on the side table and ran down the hall. The bathroom door was wide open. Instantly, she knew Hank was gone.
“Ridge!” she yelled. But she needn’t have. When she ran outside, Lewis was standing out by the street looking around.
“There was no sign of him out here, but he couldn’t have gone far. Ridge and Corbett went in different directions.”
Raven no longer felt guilty for asking him to go with the Marshals. Now she was just pissed off. How was running away going to help him not be alone? It didn’t make any sense. She was starting to wonder if there was more to his decision to stay than just his fear of loneliness. Either way, if he was going to behave like this, the only safe place for him was in Witness Protection, of that she was now certain.
After a few minutes, Ridge and Corbett returned—without Hank. “He doesn’t have any money, and he’s wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants,” she said. “He can’t get far… can he?”
“It’s doubtful,” Corbett told her. “We’ll keep an eye out for him, but since there are no charges against him any longer… I can’t really officially look for him.”
“I understand,” Raven told him.
She went back inside and left Ridge to see them off. When he came in, he found her in the kitchen washing up the coffee cups. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Hugging her tight from behind, he asked, “Are you okay?”
She turned around so that she was facing him and put her head on his chest. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m pissed off at Hank… again. I can’t figure out what he’s thinking.” She lifted her head up to look at Ridge’s face. “If being alone is what he’s so afraid of, then how does taking off help him?”
Ridge looked like he had something specific to say but wasn’t sure if he should. Raven took him by the hand and led him to one of the dining room chairs near the kitchen. “Sit,” she told him. After he had, she dropped down onto his lap and put her arms around his neck. “Tell me your thoughts.”
“Um… well… First, I’d like to peel that robe off of you...”
“Ridge Dawson!” she huffed. “You know full well those were not the thoughts I was talking about.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, when you sat that gorgeous ass on my lap, those were the ones that came to the forefront of my brain.”
Raven could feel the proof of his statement hardening beneath her back side. She put her hand on the back of his head and pulled his face closer. Leaning down, she kissed him, very softly, on the lips. She was upset about her brother’s disappearance. In times of stress, she always found comfort in Ridge’s arms. “I’ll take care of those thoughts in a minute,” she said. “Tell me the other ones first, though.”
“I don’t want to,” he confessed.
“Why?”
“Because once you hear what I have to say, you might renege on the other. Let’s get naked first and talk about Hank later,” he pleaded with a grin.
CHAPTEREIGHT
IN DISGUISE
Brownsville, Texas
Late Wednesday Morning
“Enrique!”
Vincent had unlocked the inner door to the basement and was standing in the doorway of the kitchen yelling for him. Enrique strolled in with his chin up and that smug, self-important smile he liked to wear. “Wassup?” he said, as if he were addressing a fellow biker on the street.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Vincent reproached him. “Stand the fuck up straight, and pull your pants up when you speak to me. You’re a despicable example of a human being. Just for the honor of being in my presence, you should be on your knees begging to suck my cock.”
Enrique looked at his boss with uncertainty.Did the man really want him to suck his cock?He was about to ask when Vincent cut him off.
“I told you that I wanted the package brought to me the second that it was delivered, did I not?”
Enrique got it now. The Boss was just trying to make it clear he was still in charge.That was a close one, he thought, glad he hadn’t dropped to his knees before he’d figured it out.
“I’m sorry, Boss,” he said in what Vincent had once told him mirrored a fake Hollywood version of what a Mexican thug was supposed to sound like. “I told that fucker, Pablo, to bring it down fifteen minutes ago when it got here.”
