Page 88 of Jay Bird

Bear’s gaze shifted back toward the beach. “You think it’s Chen.”

Derek rested his forearms against the railing. “I think the timing’s too convenient not to consider it.”

Especially given everything Riley had told them about Chen Pham.

The man didn’t simply run a trafficking organization. He had built an empire around fear, money, power, and control. Men like that didn’t handle humiliation well. And Willow hadn’t simply escaped. She had helped Riley get away first. Then she had nearly killed Chen, tied him up in his own home, taken his money, walked past his guards, and disappeared.

To a man like Chen, that wouldn’t just be betrayal. It would be personal.

“Someone with his resources isn’t going to go down easy,” Derek said quietly.

Bear’s jaw tightened. “No.”

“And he’s not going to forget what she did.”

They both looked toward the beach. Jay Bird had moved closer to Willow now, standing so near that there was barely any space between them.

Derek’s eyebrows lifted when Jay Bird leaned down, and Bear noticed it too. “Well, hell,” Derek muttered. But the uneasiness in his gut remained.

Down on the beach, Jay Bird, Willow, and Lily looked like a family beginning to take shape, but somewhere out there was a man who still believed Willow belonged to him.

Derek had spent enough years doing this job to know one thing for certain. Chen wasn’t finished. Sooner or later he was going to make his move.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Do you think I have enough?”

Riley slowly turned her head and stared at the two carts Willow had somehow managed to fill with flowers, plants, bags of potting soil, and enough gardening supplies to suggest she was either landscaping a front yard or opening her own nursery.

“You’re asking the wrong person. I just spent two hundred dollars on things for a baby who isn’t even here yet.”

Willow laughed as she pushed one of the carts farther down the aisle of the garden center.

Their morning had started with baby shopping, although Willow had quickly learned that shopping with a seven-months-pregnant Riley was dangerous. Riley had gone in needing a few things and walked out with several bags, including an outfit she had insisted the baby absolutely needed because it had tiny little FBI badges printed on it.

Now it was Willow’s turn, and apparently, she’d lost all self-control around flowers.

Lily sat in the child seat of the second cart Riley was pushing, happily holding a small yellow watering can she had somehow convinced Willow she needed.

It was strange how normal the morning felt, especially since normal was still something Willow was getting used to.

A month ago, she had been terrified to walk into a grocery store. Jay Bird had ordered groceries online because he knew without her admitting it that she wasn’t ready for crowded aisles and strangers brushing past her.

Today she had spent hours going from store to store with Riley.

She had still caught herself looking for exits.

When a man had stepped too close behind her at the baby store, she had instinctively moved away and positioned herself where she could see him.

But she hadn’t panicked or left. Every day seemed to bring another small victory, and over the past month, there had been more of them than she could count. Somehow, little by little, she was beginning to feel like she had a life again.

Tink had worked whatever magic he possessed and helped her establish a new bank account, recover the money that had been turned over to New York’s unclaimed property division, and, somehow, get the life insurance money her father had left her released far quicker than Willow had thought possible.

Twenty thousand dollars wasn’t a fortune, but to Willow, it had felt like one. It gave her a sense of security, but more importantly, it was something her dad had left behind for her.

She hadn’t spent much of it. Most of it went directly into a new savings account, but she allowed herself one major purchase.

A used Honda CR-V that wasn’t flashy, wasn’t new, and didn’t have half the bells and whistles Jay Bird’s SUV had. But it had excellent safety ratings, low mileage, and was entirely hers.