Family at Stake

“I can’t, Mac,” she breathed, wondering what brought this on. “He kicked me out. He said after I graduated he—”

“He didn’t want to see you,” Mac finished, nodding. “I know.” He drank some more from the bottle. She watched the shifting muscles in his throat as he swallowed. They were about three-quarters through the champagne and he’d had most of it.

Must be why he’s saying such crazy things, she thought. Stay? What would I do?

“We can get married,” he said, and, for a moment, Rachel thought she was dreaming. “That way you could stay.” He looked at her, his blond hair gleaming white in the moonlight. His face was so handsome to her, so full and real and tight with a want that her body answered.

Heady, reckless desire bloomed in her.

“Married?” she breathed, unsure of what she thought or felt past the solid thumping of her heart.

Mac put down the bottle and turned toward her, and Rachel was caught by the expression on his face. That was why she couldn’t stand to meet his eyes these days, because everything he felt about her was right there.

“I…ah…I love you.” He swallowed hard. “I mean, you are my best—”

Rachel didn’t know why she did it. To stop him from saying such things, or to stop herself from answering with promises that she might not be able to keep. She didn’t know but she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.

She closed her eyes tight and listened to him gasp.

Please, please, please. She didn’t know what she was asking for, but there was some nameless ache in her that had to be met. I need you. I’ve always needed you. What will I do without you?

“Rachel, what are you going to do?” He pulled away from her and the cold air between them felt like a knife against her skin. “I can’t do this if you’re just going to leave….”

“I’ll stay,” she lied, knowing she couldn’t, but she couldn’t let him walk away from her right now.

“Rach—” His smile was beautiful and it killed her. She kissed him and closed her eyes.

His tongue touched her closed mouth and his arms came around her, brushing the bare skin of her arms and her shoulders. His fingers found the sensitive nape of her neck and she moaned.

Mac’s tongue licked slowly into her mouth as they carefully leaned back on the ground.

She was seventeen and Mac was going to be the first boy she ever had sex with. Tonight. Her shirt came off and his hand cupped her breast, and that was a first, too. He peeled off his T-shirt. He was lean and beautiful and her fingers touched him, traced the muscles of his chest, his stomach. It was all new.

This didn’t change what would happen tomorrow. But tonight, in the moonlight, held tightly against Mac’s body, she was able to pretend it didn’t matter.

CHAPTER ONE

Present day

OH, BOY, RACHEL FILMORE thought as she paused in the doorway and watched her friend Olivia Hernandez work herself right into a mental health crisis, it’s like watching a train wreck.

“Hello?” She knocked on the door as quietly as she could, but Olivia still jumped out of her seat.

“Stop doing that,” Olivia breathed, clutching the ruffled neck of her pink T-shirt.

“It’s knocking, sweetheart, and it’s polite.” Rachel smiled and leaned against the door frame of her boss’s office.

“Give me five more minutes,” Olivia said, then swiveled toward her computer screen.

“You said that twenty minutes ago,” Rachel reminded her.

“I know, I know, but I’m right in the middle—”

“Code red,” Rachel interrupted, and Olivia’s head snapped up.

“Realmente?” Olivia looked around at the towering stacks of files as if they had just appeared. “Code red?”

“Yep.”

Olivia knew better than to fight code red. Or at least Rachel hoped she did. In six years of working together, code red—their personal cue that one of them was close to burnout—was one thing that they never argued over.

“Your husband called and asked me to make sure his real wife came home, not the ghost he’s been living with for two weeks.” Rachel lifted an eyebrow, daring Olivia to deny that she’d been working like a woman possessed.

Olivia blew a black curl off her forehead. “It’s just been so crazy with Frank leaving.”

“I know, but you’re not doing any good working like this.” Rachel was sympathetic and had been helping as much as possible, but frankly she would rather eat the files than look at any more of them right now.

“Did Nick really call you or are you just making that up so I’ll go have lunch with you?” Olivia narrowed her eyes.

“He called three times.”

“You think you could have told me sooner?”

“You think I haven’t tried?”

“You’re right.” Olivia grabbed a plastic bag from the bottom drawer of her government-regulation metal desk. “I’ve been working too much.” She fished around for her shoes and finally stood, pulling down the hem of her T-shirt. “Let’s go have some lunch.”

Rachel swallowed a sigh of relief. Olivia could be stubborn, and the workload had been making her already fiery temper even hotter these days.

“But I am going to take a few of these.” Olivia grabbed the top five files from the stack on the corner of her desk and Rachel wasn’t all that surprised.

Rachel had one from her own stack under her arm as well.

Every day was a constant struggle to avoid code red.

“Just so long as you actually see daylight,” Rachel said. Rachel looked down at the stack Olivia had grabbed and her heart beat hard. The top folder had been flagged with an interoffice red arrow, indicating the child needed to be removed from the home.

What is Olivia trying to do? she wondered. Olivia, after a month of debating back and forth, had decided to take the promotion into administration that Frank Monroe’s retirement had created and leave behind the stress of fieldwork. Of the cases Olivia had already split up there had been no red arrows, and Rachel wondered if Olivia was going to try to take that family on as well as her increased administrative duties.

Not if I can help it. Those red arrows meant about forty percent more work and Liv had a family.

Rachel had an ex-boyfriend and a fish.

Rachel actually liked the red-arrow cases. Not their existence, of course. But they were a challenge to her, a call to arms. She felt as though she was really doing her job—catching bad guys and helping kids—when she took one on.

Olivia gave Rachel a hard hug. “Thanks, Rach,” she whispered into her hair.

“You’d do it for me.” Rachel hugged her friend back and followed Olivia through the maze of stuffy and small public offices toward the exit and sunshine.