Maya Banks - Colters' Lady

Seth looked like someone hit him square between the eyes with a bat. For a moment, Michael thought Seth was going to hit him .

“That’s crazy,” Seth finally said. “She’s a beautiful woman. Of course you’d have a strong reaction to her. You probably haven’t been laid in a year.”

“No need to get insulting,” Michael drawled. “I’ve probably gotten lucky at least twice since the last time you shed the monk robes. And sure, she’s beautiful, but step back a moment, Seth. Really look at her objectively. She’s not the most gorgeous woman you or I have ever seen.” Seth’s lip turned up into a snarl and Michael held up his hand. “Let me finish. We’ve seen any number of women who were heart-stoppingly gorgeous, but tell me this. Were you tripping over yourself like this with them? You look at her and you see something beyond beauty. I know because I saw the same damn thing.”

Seth shook his head. “I’m not listening to this. This is insane. Our dads may have fallen for the same woman, but you can’t tell me we’ll do the same.”

“You’re forgetting the granddads. Explain that one, Seth. If there isn’t some hinkey shit going on in the gene pool then why are you and I about to go to fist city because we’re both determined to get close to Lily?”

Seth’s eyes looked haunted as it all sank in. “Damn it, Michael, this isn’t what I wanted. It can’t be possible. It has to be some stupid coincidence.”

“Yeah, well, believe me, sharing a woman with my two bonehead brothers doesn’t exactly appeal to me either, but unless one of us suffers a fast change of heart, we’re either going to have to do some serious compromising or one of us is going to go home to Mom in a pine box.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you right now,” Seth bit out. “There are things you don’t know about Lily. I can’t even convince her to let her guard down around me. She walked in here, saw you and now she’s ready to bolt.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Michael asked, now dead serious.

Seth glanced down at the mug of hot chocolate, swore and then stuck it in the microwave. Then, as if realizing how much time had passed since Lily had gone to get dressed, he glanced at his watch and frowned.

“She’s been gone too long,” he muttered.

Michael watched as Seth stomped off down the hall. A few seconds later he heard, “Son of a bitch!” And then the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting the wall.

Michael surged to his feet, adrenaline spiking sharp through his veins. Seth came barreling out of the hallway and then ducked into the dining room. He came back out, face set in stone.

“What the hell is wrong?” Michael demanded.

“While you and I were out here discussing Lily, she took off.”

Michael’s eyebrow went up at the urgency in Seth’s voice. “Won’t she be back?”

“No, goddamn it. She’s homeless, Michael. She doesn’t have a place to stay. I found her between two cardboard boxes on the fucking street. She’s scared and alone, and she has no place to go. It took me forever to convince her to come here, and now she’s run scared.” Michael’s stomach bottomed out with a thud. “Homeless? What the fuck ?” Seth whirled around like he couldn’t figure out what he needed to do first. He grabbed up his keys and then shoved his feet into his shoes.

“Yeah, homeless. I served her in the soup kitchen yesterday. I volunteer there once a month. She came in and bam. I mean I still don’t know what happened. When she left I followed her because I couldn’t stand the thought of her having no place to go. I found her in an alley, cold and alone.”

“Son of a bitch,” Michael muttered.

Seth pointed a finger at him. “Right now I don’t give a damn about what you feel for her or think you feel. I don’t give a shit about some fucking Colter gene that you think we got from the dads. All I care about is getting her back. Here. Where she belongs. Get your ass out to your Jeep so you can help me look.

Everything else is just going to have to goddamn wait.”

Seth punched in Michael’s cell number as be backed out of the drive. Michael picked up on the first ring.

“She can’t have gone far, Michael. We’ll skirt the perimeter of the house and make our way downtown. She’s probably heading back to the only place she knows.”

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

Seth hung up and focused his attention on the streets. At each intersection, he crawled forward, glancing each way for any sign of her.

For an hour he traversed the streets around his neighborhood, gradually falling away to the cityscape of downtown Denver. She could have caught a bus. She could have walked the entire way. Or she could be at any point in between. Cold. Alone.

Gentle rain began to fall, almost certainly a precursor to sleet and later snow. Seth cursed as he turned his wipers on. Not only would it make it nearly impossible to see her, but now she would be cold and wet with no protection from the elements.

“Where are you, Lily?” he murmured as he turned down a narrow street just a few blocks from the café where he and Lily had hot chocolate. “Why did you run? What are you running from?” At the end of the street, he slammed on the brakes as he was confronted by a sea of flashing blue lights. Patrol cars were everywhere. Two SWAT vans were blocking traffic on two streets. Several unmarked cars were mixed in with the ambulances and fire trucks. It looked like the entire world had gone to hell around him.

Recognizing his lieutenant, Seth jammed the gear into park and then bolted from the truck, dodging through the rain as it slid down his neck.

“ll.T.!” he called as he ran up.

Lieutenant Monday turned, his expression startled as he saw Seth. Then he scowled. “What the hell are you doing here, Colter?”

“What’s going on?” Seth demanded.

Monday rubbed an irritated hand through his hair. “Fucking drug dealers went to war over turf. I wish the fuckers would just kill each other and be done with it, but they insist on taking down innocent civilians with them. I’ve got bodies over eight blocks. Most of them the assholes in question, but I’ve got at least three bystanders in body bags and two more en route to the hospital.”

Seth’s stomach tightened into a knot. “Shit.”

His lieutenant looked up. “Why are you down here?”

“I’m looking for someone. Her name is Lily. Short. Maybe five-one. Short, curly black hair. Vivid blue eyes. If you saw her, you’d remember.”

Monday frowned. “Don’t recall, but then I’ve seen a damn lot of faces today. Check with Houston over there. He has a list of the people we’ve ID’d.”

“Thanks, ll.T.”

Seth hurried over to where Carl Houston stood barking orders into his radio.

“Hey man,” Seth said as Carl turned around. “ll.T. said you have a list of casualties.”

“Looking for someone?”

“Yeah. Young woman named Lily. No last name.”

Carl picked up a clipboard and flipped through the pages. “We have two women accounted for so far.

One is a Jane Doe. Older. Bag lady found dead in an alley. Caught in crossfire. Other is a hooker named Star.”

Relief crushed him. “Okay, thanks, Carl.”

Seth turned to walk away, and Carl called out to him. “Hey, what are you doing out here anyway?” Seth ignored him and kept on going. He flashed his badge at the group of officers who had cordoned off the street and then ducked under the tape to get back into his truck.

He punched Michael’s number and hoped to hell his brother was having better luck than he was.

Michael ignored the angry horns as he slowed to a stop to look down the intersection. Sirens in the distance told him something big was going down. Probably a downtown pile-up. He shuddered as he accelerated toward the next block. He hated the city. Hated traffic. Hated people. Most people anyway.