Lost & Found (Possessed 3)

Being Sheriff had to suck at times. Nick obviously knew what Ace was getting at, but duty always came first.

“Ace?” he prompted again.

Fuck. “Yeah, fine.” He reluctantly agreed.

Nodding, Nick walked to the door. “I’m going to search again. I’ve got my radio with me if you need me. Take her picture, start searching.” Before Ace could say anything, he was gone.

“Stubborn bastard,” he grumbled.

Grabbing his cell off the counter, he tiptoed down the hall to see if she was awake. Finding her curled up in the middle of the bed, Roxie beside her, he decided to leave them be after placing a blanket over her. Roxie opened her eyes and shot him a warning look.

Crazy dog.

Ace watched her for what felt like a lifetime, trying to decipher the draw he felt to her. Never before had he been so enthralled with a woman. He had only ever been with a few, and all of them had been shared with Nick. None had ever elicited this all-consuming need just to be in their presence.

Her, though, she pulled him in. His curiosity had been heightened with his need to know who she was. His body hummed with not only arousal but an understanding of her being his.

Shaking his thoughts off, because he couldn’t even say for sure she would want them or that she was a free woman, he had to wait. Leaving the room, he entered Nick’s office and booted up his Mac. Then he logged into the NCMPUR—National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains—hoping not to find that she was missing from halfway across the country. Thankfully, the list was short but no less depressing. Seeing people still missing from the seventies was discouraging and sad. He could only imagine what their families must feel.

Logging into the British Columbia RCMP Missing Persons website, that list was staggering. Nearly overwhelming. Narrowing the fields down to a woman in her twenties with brown hair and green eyes eliminated enough of the list that he could search.

With nearly three hundred women to shuffle through, he made a pot of coffee and filled Roxie’s water and food dish, knowing full well he’d be at it for a while.

Quickly absorbed in more than searching for their sleeping beauty’s identity, he began reading some of the stories of women that were almost identical matches to her. Lost in those women’s torturous worlds, he didn’t hear Nick come in the front door until he plopped down in the chair in front of the desk.

“Shit!” He nearly spilt his coffee. “I didn’t hear you.”

Nick’s laughter was silent. “That much is obvious, cos’.” Composing himself, Nick asked, “Find her?”

Sitting back, Ace’s back cracked from his slumped position all afternoon. “Not yet. There’s nothing Canada-wide, and I’m only about halfway through BC.”

“Fuck. She woken up yet?” His cousin’s eyes were glued to the closed door across the hall.

“No. Nothing from Rox, either, so I figure that’s probably a good thing.” She’d alert them to anything amiss, he knew.

“Right,” Nick said, absently rising from his seat to walk out the door. Ace watched as the guy stood staring at the closed door before turning to the bathroom. The shower turned on in his wake.

Giving himself a break, Ace decided he’d try to entice their sleeping beauty to consciousness with the aroma of a good home-cooked meal. If there was one thing his mama had taught him before she passed, was that the way to a woman’s heart was consideration. Also, a passable meal. Which meant he didn’t burn shit.

Usually.

Clearly, cooking to impress wasn’t his thing as the smoke detector went off not long after he started. Roxie was ready to blow a gasket, and Nick was running from the spare room in nothing but his boxer-briefs as Snow came out rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Dude!” Nick yelled, waving the smoke away with a towel.

He could hear Nick cursing at him, but his eyes were riveted to Snow as she watched his cousin. Her eyes followed his arms waving the smoke away, travelling down his chest to watch his abs ripple. She was in a trance at his movements.

“Ace!” Nick scolded him again, shocking him and Snow out of their own personal perusals.

“What?” he finally snapped back.

“What the fu– fudge were you doing?”

It took everything he had in him not to burst out laughing at Nick’s near curse in front of their guest. He highly doubted she’d have cared, but Nick would have apologized for hours anyway.

Glancing back to the stove, he hesitated in answering. “I, uh, was cooking.”

“You cook?” Snow asked at the same time Nick scoffed. “Since when do you burn sh–stuff?”