Phoenix Aflame (Alpha Phoenix Book 2)

by Isadora Montrose

  “Always.”

  “I think that sounds like fun.” Tasha stood up. “If you can give me five minutes, I’ll put on some better fishing clothes.” She headed for the stairs.

  Cam’s voice floated after her. “Why don’t you meet us out there? If you have no objections, sir?”

  “You go right ahead,” Harrison said genially. “There’s coffee if you want some first.”

  Tasha threw on her jeans and found a long-sleeved shirt. Where there was open water there would be mosquitoes. She found her sneakers and carried them down the stairs. She loved fishing and it sounded like the perfect excuse to get away from Harrison’s pheromones, or whatever he was lobbing at her.

  But he was waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase. Unsmiling. “They went on ahead,” he told her.

  “Oh.” So much for her plan to elude him. Her skin prickled and heat climbed up her face.

  Harrison gave her a quick kiss on the lips. A proprietary kiss, as if she had not turned him down. “You’ll need a hat,” he said and produced a large one from behind his back.

  Which proved he was bossy. Just another reason not to get involved, but her stupid body didn’t seem to know that. It angled closer to his heat. She took a deliberate step backwards. And another and practically sprinted for the hall mirror.

  The hat was huge. But that was good, wasn’t it? No one could kiss her with eight inches of brim in the way. Her thoughts involuntarily went to what else might be eight inches.

  He had found a baseball cap with a tied fly where the logo of a feed store should be. It was crammed over his hair and ought to have made him look like a hick. But he still looked like he was in uniform. That fishing fly could have been Special Forces’ crossed swords. He held up his hand. Two metal water bottles dangled from his fingers on D-rings.

  “Do you have everything you need?” His blue eyes were like lasers running over her perfectly respectable cambric shirt as if it was gauze, but his voice was courteous.

  They went out together into the sunshine. He put his dark glasses on at the same moment she did. The shared behavior seemed somehow intimate. It’s just putting on sunglasses, she reminded herself. He moved ahead of her, turned, shook his head. Strode back to her side.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I forgot you’re just a little bit.”

  “I’m five-foot-six,” she retorted. “Which is precisely the average for North American women.”

  He chuckled. The sound made her chest vibrate and her heart speed up. “And I’m six-six. My legs are much longer than yours.”

  That was unanswerable. He didn’t take her hand but the knuckles of his spare one brushed lightly against hers. “I’m not going to fling you to the ground and have my wicked way with you,” he said. “You don’t have to look so worried.”

  So much for her trying to project indifference. She bit her lip.

  He sniffed the air above her head. “It’s not me at all, is it?”

  “What?”

  “You’re frightened. But not because of what’s between us. Is it the accident?”

  “You’ll think I’m crazy, but I feel persecuted. I think I’m being targeted.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  She laughed. “How would you know? We’re practically strangers.”

  He slowed her with a hand on her elbow. “I had my tongue in your mouth not an hour ago,” he reminded her. “You didn’t taste crazy.”

  “You can taste craziness?” She knew she sounded disbelieving. If this was Air Force flirting, he needed another line.

  “Smell it too. It’s part of my gift. Surely Cameron is the same?”

  “He has good intuition.”

  “Yup. And a great sense of smell.” Harrison bent over and the hat was no barrier at all. He swept it away and nuzzled her cheeks before he kissed her. This time she got only a flash of tongue. He lifted his head and winked at her. “Not crazy. But you are scared.” He settled his hat back down and they resumed walking.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “There are four phoenixes here – five when Frankie gets here – and a big old black bear. If those two accidents of yours weren’t a coincidence, we’ll make sure that there is no number three. You and Becky are safe here.” He waved a hand. “We have cameras, radar, and early warning systems everywhere. This place is defensible and defended.”

  And just like that she felt safe.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “She ain’t home.” Malik’s voice was flat but his anger made Shawn’s phone buzz.

  “Fuck.” Shawn looked across to Mom. Her broad back was hunched so far over her computer he couldn’t see her gray head. But she had hearing like a bat’s and any second she would turn around and let loose. “Where is she?” Shawn whispered.

  “Who the fuck is that?” roared Mom. She grabbed the landline out of Shawn’s hand. Like all wolverines she was fast and tough. Built for tackling prey larger than she was. Even in human.

  He had tried and tried to explain that while their landline was more secure than mobiles, if the person on the other line was on a cell phone, it didn’t matter how encrypted their own damned line was. Shawn clenched his back teeth until his jaw ached. No point in saying squat when she was in this mood. He rolled his chair a little further from the desk and hoped.

  “That you, Malik?” A pause. “Fire?” howled Mom. “You goddamned loser.” She stretched an arm like a tree branch and cuffed Shawn on the back of his head. His eyeballs rattled. “Get your ass in gear. Your brothers need help.” She slammed down the phone.

  Twenty minutes later, as he took off for Texas on his motorcycle, Shawn was still unsure of just what the fuck Mom expected him to do about the subject’s disappearance. But that was Mom for you. Ir-fucking-rational. It was obvious that the only safe course was to pull out of the operation and regroup when they had a new plan. But no. She wanted results yesterday.

  As soon as he found a truck stop, he pulled off the I-90, tucked his motorcycle in the farthest corner of the parking lot well away from the eighteen-wheelers and mini-vans. He got off his motorcycle and stretched like a guy who had ridden far and hard. The stand of weedy trees on the edge of the lot looked like the safest place to phone.

  Florida had completely reclaimed this little patch of abandoned ground. Thick, green vines grew up the saplings and the ground was soft and swampy despite the lack of recent rain. His boots sank deep as he pressed into the dense growth like he planned to take a leak. After three paces he turned around. He couldn’t see the cracked asphalt lot, or the big concrete block restaurant. He could smell the gas pumps.

  He sniffed harder. A gazillion critters, but nothing bigger or more dangerous than a possum. Something dead called to him. But there was nothing human. He slapped at a mosquito and called Dustin, who was the more likely of his brothers to listen to him.

  “That you, Shawn?”

  “Yeah. What the hell is the fucking problem? Mom wants me to join you.”

  “Shit. Ain’t no damned use. We don’t need your help. We gotta wait until she comes back is all.” Dustin meant the subject.

  “Mom is impatient,” Shawn said.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Dustin was at his most imaginative.

  “You guys tried the hospitals?” he asked.

  “No, we ain’t tried the fucking hospitals, douchebag. And you know why? Because we watched her come out of the one she was took to. Went off to the sheriff’s like a good little girl with a dude who was wearing a deputy’s uniform. Followed her all the way to the station.”

  “You see her come out?”

  “No, we didn’t fucking see her. We only got those fucking rigs to drive with our name in fucking big red letters any idiot could spot. Plus, Malik had to get that fucking shipment to Colorado before the product rotted. I gotta eat sometime, take a fucking leak.”

  Translation: Malik and I are too dumb to fix ourselves up a nondescript vehicle. And I missed the subject leaving, because I don’t plan ahead. And now I c
an’t figure out how to fucking scratch my own ass. Jesus fucking Murphy. His brothers fancied themselves as investigators, but they were both as clueless as the possum poop messing up his best boots.

  “How did she get home?” Shawn asked wearily. “Where’d the kid go?”

  “Huh.” Pause while Dustin scratched the information out of his hair. “Kid went off with the broad who stopped to help her when she put her car in the ditch.” He snickered as if he enjoyed the memory. What a shit-faced loser.

  “So it was someone the subject knew.”

  “How do you figure, asswipe? You wasn’t fucking there.”

  Shawn bit off his anger. “You get the broad’s tag, Dustin?”

  “Yeah. But we got no fucking way to run it,” his brother whined.

  “Give it to me. And shut up. Don’t say nothing more. Just gimme the goddamned tag number.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Although he had adjusted his pace to match Tasha’s, the tidy little craftsman bungalow that was the guest house appeared far too soon. It was a scorcher of a Texas summer afternoon, if he’d ever experienced one, but he could’ve walked twenty times as far in the thick, simmering air, as long as he got to touch Tasha once in a while.

  But she was drooping as though it was too hot for her. Abruptly Harrison recalled that she had been in an accident. The airbag had given her a couple of shiners, but undoubtedly her harness had bitten deep into her shoulders and hips. She was coping with deep bruising and sore muscles. He shortened his stride and slowed his pace.

  The sound of humming got louder with every step. Grant was obviously teaching his daughter the fishing song. Projecting the tune with an operatic tenor’s skill. For a moment Harrison’s grief was a solid lump between his heart and his throat. Tasha seemed to like the melody. Her steps became lighter.

  “I just love to fish, don’t you?” She was practically skipping.

  “Hmm.” He was divided into wanting to strangle the Little Warbler and wanting to stand on the bank casting his line into the water.

  They detoured around the side of the house where the path led to the tank. Grant and Reynolds had claimed the flat spot on the far bank where the trees overhung the water and the weeds had been mowed. There in the shade, it was more comfortable to sit and wait. The water was slightly deeper there, and catfish and bass would linger in the cool spot.

  Quincy was sitting on Grant’s lap. He had taken a couple of the fishing stools from the cottage. Dad had made these. Or maybe Granddad. There was a seat for the grownup, and second smaller seat so a child could sit in safety between the legs of whoever was teaching them to fish. Quincy was leaning back on her uncle’s chest and singing softly but accurately.

  Well, shift and damn. Grant had taught Harrison’s baby girl his version of the fishing song.

  Becky yodeled when she saw him and her mom. Reynolds caught her around the waist and murmured in her ear. “Easy, sweetheart. You’ll scare the fish, and if you go in the water, fishing’s done.”

  Between the two stools was a small white plastic tub of red wigglers. Grant and Reynolds were concentrating on letting the girls fish. They had short rods in their little hands. Harrison was willing to bet that at the end of their lines was a worm rather than a lure. Neither man looked like he wished to relinquish his student. Grant began to hum a little deeper to attract the fish. Harrison gave in. He added his own hum. Becky and Quincy’s lines jerked in unison.

  “I got a fish,” Becky cried.

  Reynolds looked amused. He didn’t say anything, but he tightened his arm around his niece’s waist. And he put his hand over her small fist. The fish must’ve been small, because he took it away almost immediately. Tasha’s lips were curved in the first real smile he had seen today.

  Quincy wasn’t saying anything. Her song had dried up as she focused her attention on her straining line. Grant was helping to steady her rod. Quincy wrenched it upward and for just a second a catfish’s whiskered head broke the water. She shrieked gleefully. The rod dipped back down as the catfish fought.

  Grant clutched her close and hummed the landing tune. Harrison assessed Quincy’s line. That catfish was a five-pounder. And Quincy’s line was likely baited with a barbless hook. Inevitably, she was going to lose her prize. A mixed blessing. Catfish were good eating, but they weren’t good cleaning.

  Becky reeled in a six-inch long minnow. Her face was alight with victory. She waved her catch. “Lookit, Daddy Danger,” she crowed. Reynolds helped her put the wriggling silver fish in a blue plastic bucket. It joined its brothers already swimming there.

  “Do you want me to take over?” Tasha asked her brother.

  “Not on your life. There’s a whole lot more of those that need to be taught a lesson.”

  Tasha laughed at what was obviously an old joke.

  “Uncle Grant, Uncle Grant, he’s getting away.” Quincy sounded heartbroken or angry.

  Grant helped her pull her line out of the water. “Looks like he ate your worm and got clean away.”

  “But I wanted to catch him,” Quincy said. She set her little jaw and looked fierce.

  “Do you think you’d have better luck with your dad?” Grant asked her.

  “When you’re fishing, you shouldn’t chop and change,” she said as if she were repeating an often-heard rule. As she probably was. His father had said that to him and his siblings a million times.

  Grant shot him an apologetic look. “Why don’t you and Tasha try your hand at fly fishing in the creek?”

  “If you’re sure you don’t mind?” Miss Southern Charm was all sweetness and syrup. She headed for the fly rods.

  There were two adult-sized fly rods leaning up against a cottonwood. A net, creel and tackle box were waiting by the rods. The red tackle box was Grant’s. Harrison preferred to use his own lures. But he couldn’t recall where his tackle box was these days. In the cottage? Or still in his own house waiting for a summer day’s fishing with his boys? Had it been that long since he had put a line in the water? He could see his house in the distance, but he hadn’t set foot in it since the funeral.

  He looked around at the trees and bushes as though he were waking up from a long and drugged sleep. One part of his brain was telling him that in the years since his mate and boys had been buried he had done a million things. He had trained a lot of men, planned a lot of war games, secured promotions – won a medal. Another part was pointing out he had just about stopped living. And a big part of that was pretending that leaving his daughter safely with his parents was the same as looking after her.

  Had he really spent the last four years pretending that he was okay?

  He knelt beside the tackle box and looked for a jig. Grant had tied these flies himself. Harrison didn’t need a magnifying glass to see that his brother had used the same knots all the D’Angelos used. They were each packed away in their individual compartments as regimented as if Harrison had stowed them himself. Tasha’s hand brushed against his as she grabbed a silver ghost. Lightning shot through his body and shorted out his brain.

  “Ooh, pretty,” she said awed. “Who tied these?”

  “Grant. This is his box.” Even to his own ears, he sounded sulky.

  “These are beauties,” she waved a cheerful hand and mouthed, “Thank you,” to his brother.

  Grant might have won her admiration, but Harrison was the one who was going fishing with the girl. He found what he was looking for, closed the box, picked up his rod and the rest of the gear. “There’s a good spot just through the trees,” he said.

  Tasha waved goodbye. Quincy and Becky each raised a careless hand and shouted, “Bye.”

  * * *

  It was lovely out here in the woods. Cooler. The leaves of the trees filtered the oppressive sun. The air was just as humid, but not as steamy. The song of the brook seemed to be echoing whatever it was that Harrison was humming. Why had she not noticed until this weekend what a musical family they all were? Because they were.

  Car
oline had a tune for every household task. George whistled at the girls – a different melody if they were riding Princess or mucking her out. And although Becky didn’t try to imitate him, four-year-old Quincy was quite an accomplished whistler. And whistling was hard. Tasha had never managed more than a sort of halfhearted squawk. She could sing, but whistling seemed to be beyond her lip muscles.

  They weren’t wearing waders, but she didn’t think it was going to matter. If she got her sneakers wet, they were old and would dry out anyway. And even under the trees, it was hot enough that running water would be refreshing. Harrison directed her to a flat rock.

  He probably didn’t need to be touching her. This wasn’t her first walk in these woods. Yet, she admitted she didn’t want him to stop. The casual brush of his fingers licked her skin with tongues of flame. But she was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. She checked. Yup. She was protected against biting flies and mosquitoes.

  “Right here,” he said, touching her elbow. Sparks ran up her arm to her heart.

  He pointed into the clear rippling water. Tasha could see a hefty silver and blue smallmouth bass languidly waving its fins and tail as it rested beneath an old dead branch. “It’s a good place to fish.” He was speaking in the low quiet voice of an experienced fisherman.

  “Seems a shame, like shooting fish in a barrel,” she replied.

  His laugh sounded younger out here in the woods. Despite her hat he put his mouth close to her ear. His breath ruffled her hair. “That old boy isn’t going to rise to any fly we cast. He is wise to all our wiles. He just sits there, year in, year out, laughing at us.”

  “Then he needs to be taught a lesson,” she said.

  “You reckon?”

  “Fish generally need to be taught a lesson, and might be that a wily old great-grandpappy needs schooling more than most.” She prepared her rod with the fly she had chosen. She threw out her line. Her lure hovered like a tasty bug directly above the old bass. He ignored it, both in the air and when it landed on the surface of the water and drifted to his mouth.