Wanted (FBI Heat Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

good front. Too good. Maybe that was what had crumbled her resolve. He didn’t deserve to have her open old wounds and possibly inflict new ones.
    She pounded her fists on the bed. She was the one who should suffer, not him. Two years ago, she’d screwed up and hurt both of them.
    Oh God, if she could just turn back time. That might be a great line for a song, but in reality, it didn’t happen. She heaved a deep breath and rolled over.
    Glancing at the clock, she swore. She needed to catch a few hours sleep before she had to get up for work. She’d dropped Skye at her parents’ house before dinnertime as usual and then come home to go to bed, but her brain refused to turn off. Worries about her daughter, her finances, and her job had kept her awake until she’d given in to the misguided impulse to call Dillon again.
    Her body clock was so messed up that sleeping at all was practically a miracle. She grabbed a couple hours here and there to supplement the too-few hours she slept before going to work each night. But the effort often seemed counterproductive. She didn’t dare take any kind of sleeping pill because she needed to be able to wake up if Skye cried or her parents called. And she always needed to be on her game at the plant. Especially lately.
    Her constant exhaustion was the only factor helping her get to sleep at times like this. She threw off the sheet, turned onto her stomach, and closed her eyes. Taking slow, deep breaths, she focused on her happy place—her daughter’s face. Finally, her worries subsided, and fatigue won.
    Sometime later, she awoke with a start, dragged from sleep by the ringing cell phone. Skye? Always her first thought. Groggily, she reached for the phone on the nightstand and slapped it against her ear. “H’lo.”
    “What the hell do you want from me?”

Chapter 4
    Expecting to hear her mother’s voice, Kat did a double take at the sound of a man on the phone. A voice that wasn’t her dad’s either. She shook her head to clear the fog of sleep. Then her eyes opened wide. Dillon? My Dillon. Oh God.
    “Kat? Are you there? What the hell’s going on?” Dillon demanded. “Why have you been calling me?”
    Now wide awake, she noticed the slight slurring of his speech and the anger within it. He’d been drinking, and he was pissed. Not the condition she wanted him in if she regained the courage to ask for his help.
    “Yes, I’m here, Dillon.”
    He went silent, but she could still hear his uneven breathing. Did her voice have the same effect on him as his had on her?
    “I…I didn’t expect you to call back,” she said softly, gently, hoping to get him talking again.
    “Answer my questions.”
    He’d been drinking, but he wasn’t drunk. He was still as intense and focused as always. Well, damn. She couldn’t just blurt out the “what” and “why” to answer his questions. Could she? No, of course not. Better to calm him down first. “Are you…all right?”
    “Don’t mess with me, Kat. What do you want?”
    She cringed but then bristled. “Who says I want anything? Maybe I just need to be sure you’re all right.”
    “Bullshit. If you didn’t care two years ago, you sure as hell don’t care now.”
    I did care, and I do. More than you’ll ever know. Tears stung her eyes as she struggled to keep it together.
    “Spill it or I’m outta here. And I won’t answer or call again,” he warned.
    Well, shit. Now or never. “I need your help.” She threw the words out there. They hung like a bad odor in the silence that followed.
    “You what?” he sneered.
    “I have a problem, and I need your help,” she repeated.
    He barked a harsh laugh. “So ask your…your husband or boyfriend, not the guy you played for a fool.”
    Her heart squeezed. “I-I didn’t play you, and you’re no fool.”
    “I must be or I wouldn’t be talking to you.”
    “Does that mean you hate me, Dillon?”
    He huffed. “Not as much as I used to.”
    His words were like daggers