Power Play (Amanda Byrne Book 1)

by Kimberly Keane

  I made a plate of two chicken breasts, a mound of rice, and some vegetables, covered it, and put it in the refrigerator. I plated the rest of the meal and set it on the table. Sean set the table for three, and Ethan filled a water glass for each of us. Sean filled a wineglass. I opened my mouth to object, but he stopped me by holding one finger in the air.

  “I’m old enough now,” he said.

  “I guess you are.” I turned to Ethan. “Don’t even ask. You’re not old enough yet.”

  Ethan made a face and sat down at the dinner table. It was nice to have the boys home again, even if it was for one evening and even if it had only been a couple of days since Ethan and I had removed ourselves from each other’s back pockets.

  “We’ve been thinking,” Ethan said through a mouthful of chicken.

  I raised an eyebrow at him and he smiled sheepishly. Then he swallowed audibly and continued.

  “Sean and I think we could help out with missing person cases.”

  “Did you get this idea from how you were able to track and find me?” I said.

  “Yeah. We worked really well together, and our gifts complement each other.”

  “That’s a great idea. Talk to Miriam. She knows the first responder groups in quite a few communities. If she can vouch for you, you’ve got a foot in the door,” I said. “Sean, what about your freelance work?”

  “I’d probably still do some of that. But it would be nice to do something that helped people instead of companies.”

  “You do help people if you keep their information safe.”

  “Indirectly. But most of the time it just feels like I help the executives make more money.”

  I reached out and touched each of their hands. “I love you.”

  “Love you too,” they said in unison.

  Sean left after dinner to get together with some friends. The next hour passed quickly. Ethan and I had just started to discuss if he should attend college when there was a knock at the door. Remembering Daniel’s admonishment the day he arrived, I called out.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Daniel.”

  I checked the peephole to make sure, disengaged the security system, and opened the door. Daniel entered carrying two very large duffel bags. He dropped them in the spare room where he was staying, left, and came back with another.

  “Are you moving in?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Where did you get all of this?” I said. A trip back to Texas would have taken more than a few hours.

  At least this time Daniel smiled at me when he didn’t answer the question. I rolled my eyes.

  After Ethan and Dillon headed home, I curled up in my favorite oversized, plush armchair, pulled my feet up next to me, and covered myself with a blanket. I reached for my book and turned the lamp on.

  Daniel pulled out a deck of cards. He unholstered his pistol and placed it next to the solitaire game he’d laid out on the coffee table. I stared at the weapon. It could have been a plastic replica for as much as I knew.

  “Have you ever handled one?” he said, noticing my gaze.

  “No.”

  Daniel picked up the handgun. Although I hadn’t handled weapons, I’d seen my fair share of cop shows, so I knew what he did when he took out the clip and ejected a bullet from the barrel. He handed the weapon to me.

  “It’s heavy,” I said.

  “It’s a Ruger SR9. It may be a bit big for you.”

  I turned it over in my hands and ran my palm over it. “How do you load it?”

  “You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself.” He held out his hand.

  I continued to turn the gun over and over. I wanted to fire it to see how it felt.

  “Ma’am,” Daniel said. It was harder to give it back to him than I’d anticipated, but I placed the weapon gently into his hand, stilling when I saw the prominent veins in his forearms. I badly wanted to run my fingers over them, to grip his forearms as he leaned forward and . . . I shook my head, dispelling yet another mini-fantasy. They were incessant. I did allow my fingers to brush the hard, smooth metal of the weapon as I withdrew, enjoying both the feel of the cool metal, and wishing I was touching the hand beneath it.

  “Would you like to go to a shooting range and learn how to use one?”

  I’d never even considered the possibility. Guns made so many people nervous, but I’d never felt that discomfort. Even so, it was a fascination I’d never pursued. Never even considered. The idea was terribly alluring. “Oh, yes,” I said, my voice breathy.

  “Before that, lesson one: here’s how to take it apart and clean it.”

  The weapon came apart into five pieces. They lay on my kitchen table with an old bath towel beneath them. I cleaned it the way Daniel showed me and watched him reassemble it. I asked if he had any I could practice on. He had plenty.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  My furniture lined the walls of my living room, the coffee table upside down on the couch. I stood on the foam mats that lined my floor across from Daniel and tried not to stare at his chest barely contained in yet another too-small T-shirt. He smelled like leather and a bit like soap and sweat. I really had to get a handle on myself. I was acting like a teenager. I raised my gaze to his, again. Then closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and resolved that if I couldn’t be the poster child for propriety, I would at least not drool all over the man.

  Daniel had insisted that he teach me some self-defense techniques. I readily agreed. I loved the idea of being able to rely on my own abilities. All too soon, I realized that it would take a long time before I would be good enough to rely on anything. This was not something you could learn and apply readily in one afternoon. Still, I stuck with it and agreed to continue for the foreseeable future. It wouldn’t hurt to learn and practice, and it might someday come in handy. Still, it was hard to not get discouraged. I couldn’t seem to remember where to grab, hit, or turn. Either my brain would get it right, but my body executed it wrong, or my brain cross wired and I ended up in a bigger mess than when I started. I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking that I must have lost my mind somewhere, sighed, and straightened.

  I raised a finger, walked over and picked up the hand towel that lay on the couch, and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Then I bent over, pushing my hands into my legs just above the knee and breathing hard. I was in worse shape than I thought I was.

  “Alright,” I said, turning back to him, “let’s try this breaking hold thing again.”

  Daniel nodded, stepped up to me, and grabbed me by the hair at the top of my head.

  “Why do you always grab me there?”

  He tugged me forward, backward, and then sideways. “Because most women are easy to control if you get a good grip on their hair.”

  I gritted my teeth, not reacting well to the idea of being taken advantage of in that way, and refrained from kicking him. He’d deflect it or dodge it anyway; been there done that. Instead, I reached up and grabbed his hand in one of mine. He didn’t loosen his grip on my hair. Then my brain froze again, and I couldn’t remember what to do next. Did I step left or right? I knew I had to move forward a bit. I sighed and pushed away the frustration.

  “Which way do I step again?”

  He tapped his foot and I placed mine there.

  “What do I do with my other hand?”

  He walked me through the move, yet again. And then again. And again. And finally, I could execute it, slowly and ineptly, but I got him to break the grip on my hair. Unless he was throwing me a bone.

  “It’ll help if you don’t tense up.”

  “What?”

  “You tense up whenever I grab you. It’s a normal reaction, but if you don’t have the muscle memory yet, it can make your brain freeze up too.”

  “What do you mean I tense up? I’m not a robot, I’m moving, how can I be tensing up?”

  In one lightning quick motion, he stepped forward, wrapped his arms around me, and squeezed. I found myself barely on
my toes in the vice grip of his arms . . . and pressed full against his body, my head just beneath his chin.

  My body froze. My breath stopped in my chest. And my brain went full stop. For a moment, I didn’t even feel him against me and then I was all too aware that his chest was indeed as firm as it looked. And, as a matter of note, his arms were as strong as they appeared. The length of his entire body was against mine, and I resisted the urge to squirm against him.

  “What’s happening with your body?” he said.

  “I . . . I . . . I’m sorry?” I stammered, blushing. Thank the gods he couldn’t see my face.

  “Your breathing is fast and shallow. Your shoulders are pulled up, like you’re trying to get them closer to your ears. The muscles in your body are tense, like . . .” He released me suddenly, and I stumbled before catching my balance. He continued, “Watch.”

  He inhaled, raising his shoulders and pulling himself inward as if he were trying to make himself smaller. “See how tense I am? How all my muscles are locking?”

  I nodded.

  He scooted around, his body stiff and awkward.

  “I got it. I got it.”

  He relaxed, his body loosening and graceful once again. “If you can stay loose, you can control your body easier. But even more important, your brain doesn’t stutter and stop. That’s going to be your greatest asset.”

  I would have thought that I wouldn’t have reacted the same way when he lashed out and caught me up in another bear hug. Well, I didn’t quite react the same way. This time I also squeaked.

  “Take a deep breath and hold it for a second.”

  “I can’t get a deep breath, you’re holding me too tight.”

  “Do it anyway.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do it!”

  And I did. It wasn’t as deep a breath as I would have been able to take had he not been trying to crush the life out of me, but it was deeper than I had been able to take before.

  “Now let it out.”

  I did.

  “Again . . . Good. Now think about letting your muscles go on the next few breaths.”

  I went limp. Full body corpse mode. It was one of the defenses I had when I was picked on in high school. It’s difficult to manhandle dead weight. My forehead thudded against his sternum. He took a small step forward as if my floppy body had thrown him the slightest bit off balance.

  I felt the laughter in his chest before I heard it, and then his arms were gone, and I found myself sitting on the mat. He continued to laugh, bending over, and I found myself smiling. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t keep from giggling. Laughter was contagious, even if it was at my own expense. We laughed together for a bit until he wiped at his eyes and straightened. His eyes had gone all amber again, and this time I lost myself in them. I couldn’t say how long we stayed there, smiling, staring into each other’s eyes.

  “Uh.” He shuddered and looked away, and some color had risen in his cheeks. “Okay. Self-defense.” He seemed to say it more to himself than to me. “The deadweight idea may work against you. Your attacker may fall on top of you, which leaves you no room to move. When I said relax, I meant something different. You want your body to be loose, ready to move, but not limp.” He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, his body moving gracefully. But even I could see the underlying contained power. It was as if on one level, he was a wind sock, moving with the breeze, and on another there was a force, a readiness, as if his body were a weapon primed and ready to fire.

  I stood, took another deep breath, and closed my eyes. I pictured his body in my mind, moving as if dancing gently to a violent score, and moved back and forth. I took most of my weight on one foot and then the other, loosening my arms a bit and allowing them to sway with my movement. I put a bit of bounce in my step, playing with my muscles, trying to mimic the movements I could see him making in my mind’s eye. Everything else fell away. There was only my body, conforming to what my body translated from what I’d seen. I lost track of time, knowing that it hadn’t been hours, but realizing that it had been a few minutes since I’d started the exercise. I slowed, stopped, and opened my eyes.

  Daniel was standing still, stunned, the potency having drained away at some point. “I’ve never seen that.”

  I furrowed my brow and looked behind me, as if something were there. It was an old habit. One that I’d never entirely broken. I knew we were there alone, but I couldn’t quite make sense of what he was saying. “Seen what?”

  He stepped toward me. “How did you do that?”

  I glanced side to side, down at myself, and back up to him. “Do what?”

  “Move like that. I’ve never seen anyone pick up a movement that quickly. Especially someone who struggles with the defensive moves like you have been.”

  “Pick up what move? You said to hold my body that way. To be relaxed, but ready; and you looked . . . like the ocean feels.”

  It was his turn to look confused. “Like the ocean feels?”

  “When it’s calm. It rolls gently and laps at the shore, but the power that’s beneath it is immense. I think you can actually hear it humming if you listen closely enough.”

  He rubbed at his chin and nodded. “Yes. Just like that. But then you did it. Perfectly. Just like I had done it.”

  I shrugged. “If I can feel something, really know it physically or emotionally, I can mimic it. I embody it, almost become it.”

  He stilled again, nodding slowly, his gaze unfocused. Then a small shudder ran through him and the quiet tension returned to his body.

  Once again, he stepped forward and grabbed me. I still tensed, breathing in quickly, but I didn’t make a sound this time. I felt his chest expand as he took a deep breath in, his nose rubbing lightly in my hair at the top of my head. The contact between our bodies lessened when he took a small step back, leaving only his upper body against mine.

  “Do it again,” he said.

  “Do what again?”

  “Embody it. Take a deep breath and . . . become that . . . what did you call it . . .ocean feel again.”

  I nodded slightly so I wouldn’t knock my head against his chest or his chin. I closed my eyes again, regaining that quiet place, remembering how my body felt: light, ethereal, but also powerful. I exhaled and opened my eyes.

  “Perfect,” I heard him whisper.

  After a moment, I asked him what came next.

  He started. “Oh, yes. I’m not going to tighten anything. I want you to stay this way. Relaxed in just this manner. But I want you to squirm your way out.”

  “You want me to what?”

  “To get away.”

  I shrugged, and then I squirmed.

  “Stop.”

  I stopped.

  “You tensed up again, when you started to move. Keep that state. Keep your body relaxed, but squirm at the same time. You’re going to want to pull your breath into your chest, hard and fast. Don’t. Keep the breaths even. Keep your muscles loose. And squirm out.”

  I closed my eyes again, first thinking about the breathing, then breathing. I thought about the ocean, and became that. I held that for a moment and then added the squirming motion. I had to keep it just motion. I had to keep being and breathing like the ocean. And then I knew I could also move like the ocean. I didn’t feel Daniel against me anymore. I didn’t even feel my own body. I opened my eyes to find that stunned look on Daniel’s face yet again. And then something that looked a bit like excitement.

  He stepped forward. “Again,” he said, giving me a modicum of warning before wrapping me up in his arms again.

  Over the course of the next few hours, I felt like we were dancing. I was the ocean, first being contained by him, and then sliding away. He was the shore on which I pressed myself and then receded. Soon I was both myself and the ocean. Both thrilled by the contact of our bodies and thrilled by my newfound ability to bend, to slid away, only to find myself pressed against him once more. I stood ready for the next dance move, knowing that he w
ould take me again, almost bending toward him, and was surprised when he held up his hand. It was his turn to bend over, breathing heavily and wiping sweat from his face and neck. I realized that I was calm. My breathing was normal, and only a light sheen of sweat coated me.

  He finally got his breath under control, and I found myself stepping up to meet him, but he didn’t wrap me up again. He stood, quietly looking down at me, and tucked a stray hair behind my ear. I could feel my ponytail was cockeyed and my hair had to look terrible. I raised my hand to pull the band out of my hair and found myself lost in his eyes again. The band gave way and my hair tumbled down. I lowered my hand slowly, still entranced by his eyes. The amber depth and the fire I thought I saw in them. He pushed my newly loosed hair behind my ear again, his fingertips resting against my neck. I felt nothing but them and the pounding in my chest. I wanted to step forward again. To feel his chest against mine and his arms solid and constricting around me. I did step forward, a small step, before I realized I had done it. And in so doing, I broke the spell. He blinked rapidly and then slid his fingers across my jawline as he retreated. He turned his back. I saw a shudder run through his body and, for the first time, was embarrassed by my behavior. Gods, I was treating him like an object. Something to rub my desire against, without even considering how it might impact him.

  He spoke after a few minutes of silence. “You seem to have that down, so we can step more slowly into the defensive moves. We’ll have to see if you can start feeling those like this last exercise.”

  “We’re done for the day?”

  He nodded, his back still to me. “We can pick it up again tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The next morning, I stood in the shower and let the hot water wash over my hair and down my body. The bathroom was steamy, just how I liked it, and the rosemary soap I had let out its aroma in the humidity.

  You take such pleasure in trivial things.

  I closed my eyes, hearing her, but choosing to simply revel in the heat.

  It has been a few days since our last—what do you call them?