Kelsey pushed to her knees and grabbed the condoms from his hand, a small smile teasing her mouth. "We can get some more later."
It was a promise he had every intention of holding her to.
She tossed one packet to the bed, tore open the second one and leaned forward. Her hair fell over her shoulder, revealing another tattoo high up on her right shoulder. The triquetra—the Celtic cross. Another symbol of protection. Daryl reached out, traced the three-cornered interwoven knot and overlaying circle with the tip of one finger. She tensed under his touch, quickly looked up.
And he knew, with a certainty he couldn't explain, that she was in trouble of some kind. The Eye of Horus. The obsidian. The triquetra—all symbols of protection.
"What are you protecting yourself from, Kelsey?"
Surprise flashed in her eyes, quickly hidden as she shrugged. "Nothing. Everything."
"Me?"
She shook her head. "No. Not you. Not tonight."
He wanted to ask her more, wanted to tell her he could help—and how fucked up was that? He'd just met her, knew nothing about her. After tonight, he'd never see her again. But he still wanted to reassure her, to tell her he was there if she needed him.
Then it didn't matter because her small hand closed around his cock and stroked. Long. Hard. She rolled the condom down his hard length then reached up. Hands closed over his shoulders, their grip stronger than he anticipated as she pulled him down on the bed.
Her mouth claimed his, igniting the need simmering deep inside him. He settled himself between her spread legs, groaned when she raised her hips and rocked against him. Seeking. Demanding.
He thrust into her with one deep stroke, swallowed a low groan when she tightened around him. When she matched his rhythm. Slow. Fast. Deep. Hard.
And with each stroke, he felt himself losing more and more control, until there was nothing left.
Just Kelsey.
Just him.
The two of them.
Here. Now. Tonight.
And somewhere deep inside, in the darkest corner of his soul, something shattered.
##
Daryl sank deeper into the covers, fighting a decades-old habit of rising early. There was no need to wake up. Not yet. Not when he was too comfortable. Content. Sated.
He stirred, stretched one arm across the bed, searching for Kelsey. He jerked to a sitting position and stared at the rumpled sheets, his mind fighting to process what his eyes were telling him.
Fighting to process what his heart already knew.
Kelsey was gone.
He glanced around the room, knowing before he did that there would be no sign of her. No colorful tote bag. No gauzy coverup. No simple black bikini.
Nothing except a handful of condom wrappers and the faint scent of coconut and sex. Nothing except the indentation of her head in the pillow she had used when she finally fell asleep, curled in his arms.
He looked closer, frowned. Reached out and fingered the chunk of raw obsidian hanging from a black leather chord resting on Kelsey's pillow. He hesitated, closed his fingers around it and held it in front of him, wondering why she had left it behind.
It's for protection. That's what someone told me. I have no idea if it really means that, I just like it.
Daryl pulled it over his head, adjusted the length, then climbed out of bed.
And told himself the chill skipping along his spine was caused by nothing more than the temperature of the cold room.
Chapter Three
Three Months Later.
Kelsey stopped at the edge of the narrow alley. Despite the shadows of the encroaching night, she was careful to keep hidden behind the gnarled trunk of the ancient oak tree that backed up to Miss Theresa's house. How many times had she wished for a tree like this growing up, moving from base to base as her father was assigned to a new duty station? She had always wanted a tree house when she was a little girl, someplace special to hang out with her ever-changing handful of friends.
Someplace where she could go to hide away from the world, to daydream about what she'd be when she got older. A fairy princess. An astronaut. A scientist. An actress. President. A marine biologist. An engineer. Her dreams would change from month to month and year to year but it didn't matter. Her dad had always encouraged her, told her she could be whatever she wanted to be as long as she worked hard for it.
Not once, in all those years, had she ever dreamed she would be where she was today. Running, always running. Hiding, always hiding. Because it wasn't her dreams that mattered anymore. And she could live with that, had gladly given up those dreams in exchange for someone much more important.
Kelsey rested her head against the gnarled trunk, took odd comfort from the feel of the rough bark against her cheek and under her palms. Please God, let her grow up to have those dreams like I did.
It was the same prayer she uttered every morning and every night—and every hour in between.
Please God, keep her safe.
Please God, let her grow up.
But time was running out. Kelsey felt it deep down in her gut, knew it in the darkest corner of her mind where nightmares dwelled, waiting to lurch. To attack and devour.
How much time? Weeks? Months? Years? No, not years, not even close. Months, if she was lucky. Weeks if she wasn't. Not enough time. Never enough. Grady Byrne would never give up, not until he got what he wanted. Not until he won.
Kelsey couldn't let him win. She would die first.
She didn't want to acknowledge that that was a very real possibility—one that grew even more possible with each passing day. She'd been running for—she frowned, thinking, trying to separate the months from the years. Three years.
Three years, four months and she didn't know how many days. Ever since Blaine had died. Ever since Grady Byrne had discovered he had a granddaughter.
A granddaughter he would never see, not as long as Kelsey could keep running. Not as long as she drew breath.
But time was running out, may have already run out. Grady was getting close, she knew that with every ounce of mother's instinct running through her blood. Paige was safely hidden...for now. As long as Kelsey remained alive, as long as she didn't slip up and do anything stupid, Paige should stay safe.
Or was that nothing more than a wish she kept repeating to herself in a vain attempt to make it true? She'd done her best, hidden Paige as well as she could with her father's help. Was it enough?
Please God, let it be enough.
That's why she was here now, answering her father's cryptic summons. She hadn't seen him in six months, had only spoken to him once in all that time: the week before she'd gone to that tiny Caribbean island, needing to see for herself if she could trust the man her father spoke so highly of.
Daryl Anderson.
Memory sliced through her and she closed her eyes, brushed off the pain that accompanied the memory. She had only meant to check him out, to watch from a distance. She had never planned on talking to him.
Had never planned on sleeping with him.
Kelsey still didn't understand why she'd done either of those things. Her father trusted him, that should have been enough. She should have never gone down there. Should have walked away the very first time their gazes met. Should have packed her small cache of belongings and disappeared long before he had come over to talk to her.
But she didn't. She couldn't. She'd been too mesmerized, too curious, too drawn to him. Or maybe she had merely been starved for human contact, for something deeper than the aloof and casual interaction with society that had become her new normal from the very first day she started running.
It didn't matter why she'd done those things. She'd done them and couldn't go back to change them, didn't think she would even if she was somehow given the chance. She had slept with him. And for that handful of hours, she'd felt...normal. Safe.
No, she wouldn't change any of it.
But did Kelsey trust him? With her body, yes. But with her most treasured possessi
on?
She didn't know.
And she was very much afraid the time to make that decision was coming. Why else would her father have summoned her here to his place? The news couldn't be good, not when he knew how much was at stake. How risky her showing up here was.
The time was drawing near when she would be forced to decide: could she trust Daryl Anderson? She thought maybe she could—maybe. No, there was no logical reason for the trust. Nothing more than her father's own trust in him and the fact that she'd slept with him. She wouldn't sleep with anyone she didn't trust, even if it had been mere hours after meeting him. There was something about him, some inner strength she thought she saw. Something that had tugged at her, especially when she saw the pain he had tried so hard to hide when he talked about losing his wife. No, not his wife—his daughter.
Or had that been nothing more than sympathy? Had she thrown all caution and sensibility to the wind simply because she'd felt sorry for him?
No, she didn't think so. She would have never slept with someone she didn't trust on some basic, instinctual level before. Certainly, she hadn't changed that much in the last three years. But she couldn't be a hundred percent sure of that, was already second-guessing herself.
And second-guessing herself could get her killed and place her daughter in the hands of a madman.
Maybe she still had time. Maybe her dad's cryptic message was for another reason entirely. She almost laughed. Was she really trying to convince herself of that fantasy? No, she knew better. Maybe she had a little more time before making a final decision regarding Daryl Anderson but that time would be measured in days, not weeks or months.
Kelsey adjusted the straps of the worn backpack then pushed back the sleeve of the oversized leather jacket and glanced at her watch. Not quite seven o'clock yet. She had another fifteen minutes to wait before she could move down the alley to the back door of her father's house.
Fifteen minutes.
Why did it feel like an eternity? Her stomach was twisted in knots and her palms were damp. Nerves? Excitement? Both. Nerves because she knew the probability of this meeting signaling the beginning of the end, knew that her time to make a decision was drawing near.
Excitement because, even with everything else going on, she was going to see her dad again. It had been too long and she missed him, almost as much as she missed her daughter. He was her only family, the one who had seen her through all the ups and downs of her teenage years after her mom had passed. The one who had taught her how to be strong and independent and fight for what she wanted, no matter what that happened to be.
She'd been so afraid to tell him when she learned she was pregnant, so afraid she'd see disappointment in his eyes. But there'd been no disappointment, only joy—and reassurance. And he'd been there for both of them, from the day Paige was born to the day Kelsey had started running. Supporting. Guiding. Helping. Staying one step ahead of Grady Byrne for as long as they could.
Her father was sick. She knew that even though he hadn't said anything. She didn't know what was wrong with him but she'd been able to tell the last time she had seen him. His color had paled and he'd lost weight. But he was still larger than life, still the strongest man she knew.
Tonight, more than anything, she needed to feel his strong arms wrap around her in a big hug, the way he'd done when she was a little girl with a boo-boo. Needed to hear his gruff voice tell her everything was going to be okay. Just for tonight. Just for the first five minutes, even though they would both know it wasn't true.
Kelsey reached up, wiped a hand across her face to make sure there were no tell-tale tracks of tears. She yanked the baseball hat off her head and shoved it into a pocket of the jacket then ran both hands through her hair. It was shorter now than it had been a few months ago, cut into a no-nonsense shoulder-length style that released the natural wave she had always struggled to contain when she was a teen. The hair was back to her natural color now, too—at least, as close as the stylist could get to the deep brown-red locks she'd always had until Kelsey bleached and dyed it blonde before going to the Caribbean.
A small smile teased her mouth. Dad would have loved to see the blonde color. She'd have to be sure to tell him about it, during those first five minutes she saw him when they could act like nothing was wrong. When she could fall into the role of Daddy's girl that she so often missed now.
Kelsey rechecked her watch. It was time. She looked around, noting her surroundings the way she had when she first got here. Nothing was out of place, nothing sent shivers of apprehension skittering along her spine. It would have made her feel more comfortable to have her car parked nearby but leaving it a few blocks away was a precaution she felt better taking.
She adjusted the backpack straps a final time then pushed away from the tree and headed toward her father's house. Walk like you belong there and nobody will question you.
That had been just one small piece of advice her father had given her over the years and she followed it now. Each step was confident and measured, not furtive or secretive. She walked like she belonged—because she did. This was her father's house. She'd been here before, more than once after he retired and settled down in this small neighborhood outside St. Louis. She'd even met a few of his neighbors, had teased him about Miss Theresa flirting with him.
She reached the back fence of her father's neat little yard, raised the latch on the gate and pushed. It opened soundlessly, swinging inward on well-oiled hinges. She closed it behind her then paused, looking around. Unlike many of the other houses in the neighborhood, there was no parking pad back here. Her father had taken it out not long after buying the house, replacing the concrete with a small brick patio and seeding everything else.
Neat flowerbeds lined the edges of the small patio, now dormant except for a few mums that hadn't quite reached full bloom yet. The vegetable garden was the same, the short rows neatly tilled under, waiting for the next spring when her dad would plant tomatoes and cucumbers and maybe some squash.
The only thing that didn't fit in with his garden was the well-maintained storage shed in the corner, which housed his gardening tools and a small workshop where he fiddled with woodworking.
It also housed one of his most prized possessions, a 1972 Kawasaki Z1 that he kept in excellent shape and still took out on the weekends. At least, he had as recently as six months ago. She remembered when he taught her to drive it, not long after she had turned fifteen. They were living in Louisiana at the time and she'd been pouting because she'd had to change schools and make new friends—again. Learning how to ride the old bike had acted like a balm of sorts, giving her a small taste of joy and freedom that continued to fill her over the next few years. The fact that her dad still rode it filled her with a combination of concern—and envy.
She pushed the twinges of nostalgia away and crossed the patio to the backdoor. The back of the house was dark but she could see the faint glow of lights coming from the front. Her dad was probably in the living room, either watching television or playing around on his laptop, catching up with news of the many guys he had served with.
Kelsey dug the key from her front pocket and slid it into the lock, turned the knob and eased the door open. She had only taken one step inside when she realized something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The smell hit her first, a faint sickly-sweet smell that turned her stomach and caused bile to burn her throat. She shook her head, denying what her heart already knew, and moved toward the living room.
Tears filled her eyes, clogged her throat and threatened to strangle her. Her father—the strongest man she had ever known, the person who had taken care of her for so long—was gone. He sat in his favorite recliner, his body sagging in death. His eyes were closed, almost as if he was sleeping, and for one desperately heartfelt second, Kelsey convinced herself that's all he was doing.
He was sleeping. Had dozed off waiting for her. She would call out to him and he'd open his eyes, make a gruff noise and pre
tend he hadn't fallen asleep.
Yes, that's all it was. He was sleeping, that's it.
Except he wasn't. The small hole in the center of his forehead told her that much.
"Daddy." She stepped toward him, stopped and covered her mouth to stop the wail building in her throat, knowing if she started, she'd never stop. "Oh, Daddy. No. No, no, no."
She hurried to the recliner and dropped to her knees beside him, ignoring the sights and smells of death as she wrapped her hand around his. Cold, so cold. Smaller than she remembered, frailer somehow. She closed her eyes, dropped her head against his still hand, and cried. Cried until she couldn't breathe, until her lungs ached and her body numbed.
Kelsey Ann, stop it. You've had your cry. It's time to get over it. You have things to do.
Her head jerked up and she looked around, expecting to see her father behind her. But he wasn't—he couldn't be, not when she still held his cold hand in her terrified grip. But it was his voice she had heard and he was right, she didn't have time to grieve. Not now, not when other things needed to be done.
"I love you, Daddy." She swallowed her tears and pressed a kiss against the back of the lifeless hand then pushed to her knees. Panic washed over her, and fear, replacing the overwhelming grief from moments earlier. She needed to brush them all off, now. If she didn't, she'd be paralyzed into inaction and the only person who would suffer would be Paige.
Kelsey refused to let that happen.
That's my girl. Now go.
Yes. Yes, she had to go. How much time did she have? Was Grady Byrne still around? Because there was no doubt in her mind that this was his work.
No, he wasn't here. Not right now. Close, maybe, but she had time. Minutes, perhaps a few hours.
That realization, more than anything else, prompted her to move. For Paige, she needed to get out. Leave. Flee to safety.
Flee east.
But first she needed to get something—if they hadn't already taken it. No, they hadn't, she was sure of it. The tidy house hadn't been ransacked. Or rather, if it had been, they had put everything back exactly where they found it. She didn't know much about how Grady worked but she didn't think his men would be that meticulous.
The Guardian: DARYL (Cover Six Security, #2) Page 4