“So what’s so important you keep calling?” Kyle asked. “I told you I needed to take some time off.”
“This has nothing to do with a job,” Alex replied. “I thought you might like to visit a museum.”
Kyle snorted. “I do that way too often. Why now?”
“Just do it.”
“A specific one, or are you trying to get me to expand my art horizons?”
“The American Civil War Museum.”
“Been there. Seen most of what they have to offer. I’ll pass.”
“Kyle. Do it.”
“All right. If you insist.”
Kyle booked a flight to Richmond, and a hotel room, after deciding he might as well explore the city while he was there. He arrived just before noon, checked into the hotel, then took a cab to the museum.
He was annoyed to find the front entrance blocked by television vans, reporters, and cameramen. He wended his way through the crowd, wondering if there was some big fundraising event starting soon.
He got his answer when he buttonholed a guard to ask what was going on.
“I guess you haven’t watched the news,” the man replied. “We had a theft here a while back. A valuable gun was stolen from one of the displays. Today, it showed up again, right where it belonged. The reporters are having a field day, though we’re not letting them inside to film. That’s against the rules.”
Without replying, Kyle hurried to the display to see for himself. “You didn’t,” he whispered when he saw Beauregard revolver in the display case. He knew without question it was Brax’s doing.
But, why? Is he trying to send me a message? If so, he could have called. Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf, although if he is, there should have been reports about other items being returned to their rightful owners.
Kyle wasn’t certain how he felt as he walked out of the museum. One part of him wanted to jump on the next plane to go talk with Brax face-to-face—to find out why he’d done that. The other half wasn’t certain he could handle seeing him again and having all the feelings he’d managed to repress reawakened—and possibly squashed.
He’s just a guy I became friends with for a brief time. Nothing more. Yeah, we messed around, once, but that was it. Hell, we didn’t even screw. It was just tension relief. We both knew that—didn’t we?
That’s what he’d been telling himself—every day since he’d walked away after Russo had been taken down. He’d never quite convinced himself that was the truth—at least on his part.
“All right. Enough,” he said when he got back to his hotel room. He quickly repacked everything he’d brought with him, after booking his flight, and another hotel room—hoping he’d need it. Three hours later he was pacing the waiting area at the airport, impatient for them to announce it was time to board.
* * * *
Wednesday afternoon, Kyle was standing outside the building housing Brax’s agency. What had seemed like a good idea the previous night, had him wondering, as soon as he’d arrived in the city, if he was on a fool’s errand. “If I am, so be it. I have to find out once and for all,” he decided, after spending most of the day debating turning around and going home. Taking a deep breath, he walked inside.
When he stepped off the elevator, he hesitated again. “Do it,” he told himself, echoing Alex’s words from yesterday. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t.”
He walked down the hallway to the door marked Markham and O’Hara Private Investigations, opened it, and entered.
“Holy shit,” Lynn said, looking as surprised as Kyle felt. He quickly put a finger to his lips. She nodded, saying barely above a whisper, “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same thing,” he replied after going over to her desk. “I have a feeling I know, though. Is he in?”
“Yep.” She grinned. “Should I announce you?”
“Please don’t. Is he with a client?”
“Not right now. It’s just him and Judd. That’s his partner, but you probably know that.”
“I do.” Kyle blew out a long breath, steeled himself, and opened the door to Brax’s office. He saw a man he didn’t know, but presumed was Judd Markham, leaning in, one hand on the desk, while Brax showed him something on the computer screen. They both looked over, Brax’s eyes widening in shock.
“Can we help you?” the other man said.
“He’s a new…umm, client. I guess I forgot to tell you, Judd,” Brax stammered.
“I guess you did,” Judd replied with a brief smile. Turning to Kyle, he said, “I’m Judd Markham, Mr. O’Hara’s partner.”
“A pleasure,” Kyle replied, shaking Judd’s outstretched hand and then introducing himself.
“I’ll leave you to it, Brax. Let me know if you come up with anything more on what we were discussing.” Judd nodded to Kyle as he left, closing the door on his way out.
“What are you doing here?” Brax asked, spinning his chair around to face Kyle.
“I got your message. I don’t know if it was meant for me, personally, but I took it as such,” Kyle replied, crossing the room to stand directly in front of Brax.
For a brief moment, Brax remained silent. Then he said, “I suppose in a way it was.”
“You’re not certain?”
“It was something I had to do. That it was that particular item I returned was just luck of the draw.”
Kyle studied him, his gaze taking in each well-known feature of Brax’s face as he looked up at him. Then, without hesitation, he put his hands on the arms of Brax’s chair, bent, and kissed him. After a startled pause, Brax returned the kiss until Kyle broke away, saying, “I had to know.” He smiled, brushing one finger over Brax’s lips. “We were friends, once—I think. No, I know we were. It might have become more if we’d had the guts to pursue things. If we hadn’t been involved in…everything else. Then I made the stupid mistake of leaving when it was over.” He sighed, moving to rest his hip on the edge of the desk. “I was afraid, if I stayed, and I found out—” he smiled crookedly “—that I’d been right about your extra-curricular activities…”
“It would have driven us apart, if we moved on to being more than friends.”
“Yes.”
“And now that you know? That you were right, I mean.”
Kyle looked him dead in the eye, replying, “Right about what, Mr. O’Hara?”
For a second, Brax smiled. Then he said, “Don’t do this to yourself—to us, if there’s going to be an ‘us.’ Your whole life, at least this time around, has been focused on catching art thieves. It’s what you do. It’s what you are and what you love. If you deny what you know about me…” Brax took Kyle’s hands in his. “If you try to wipe away the truth, it will haunt you in the end. If you accept and acknowledge what I do, what I am, and are still willing to overlook it in my case, because I’m that important to you, that’s something else.”
“In case you didn’t notice, I overlooked it almost from the day we met.”
“Because you had something more important on your mind—stopping Russo. That was then, this is now. Can you still do it and live with yourself?”
Kyle thought about that. Finally he replied, “We can’t change the past. I can forgive what you used to do.”
“Used to?” Brax raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. I honestly believe your message, when you returned the revolver, was that you’re getting out of the business. Am I right? Or am I living a pipe dream because I want us to be together, which won’t happen if you continue working for Caleb, or anyone else like him?”
Brax looked down at their hands, which were now clasped together, then back up at Kyle. His mouth slowly turned up in a smile. “We’re both getting out. Me and Caleb. So you don’t have to worry about his trying to pull me back into my life of crime. It’s not happening.”
“Thank God,” Kyle whispered. He leaned forward to kiss Brax. “I know,” he said when it ended, “this doesn’t mean we’re destined to be more tha
n friends. That’s going to take work. We might find out we’re really not meant to be together.”
“We won’t know until we try, will we?”
“But we will try. Yes?”
Brax didn’t get a chance to reply because there was a knock on the door, then Judd opened it, saying, “Sorry to interrupt but you have an appointment with Ms. Edwards to talk about her stalker in…” Judd stopped when he apparently realized that Brax and Kyle were holding hands. “Am I missing something here?”
“Well, yeah. Sort of,” Brax replied. “Kyle’s an old friend.”
“From the look of it, he’s more than that,” Judd said drolly.
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Brax said, smiling at Kyle.
“Well, do it on your own time, if you don’t mind. Ms. Edwards is expecting you.”
Brax grinned. “Yes, bossman.” As soon as Judd left the office, Brax asked Kyle, “Where are you staying? Or are you?”
“At the same hotel I was at the last time.”
“Good. Then I know where to find you, once I’m finished with Ms. Edwards.”
Kyle briefly wished Brax had suggested that he stay at his apartment, again. It’s too soon for that. This is a different situation entirely. “When will you be finished,” he asked.
“With luck, by five.”
“Do you want to meet somewhere for dinner?”
“Sure.”
They settled on a place, then Brax left for his appointment and Kyle headed back to the hotel.
* * * *
“How did it go?” Kyle asked when Brax joined him in front of the restaurant.
“She’s got a stalker, all right. It took some talking, but I finally convinced her to go to the police. They’re better equipped to handle the guy. If they’re unwilling or unable to do anything, then I’ll step in.”
“Who is he?”
“Her ex-boyfriend. Apparently he’s not willing to accept the ‘ex’ part. She promised to talk to the police first thing in the morning. Tonight, she’s staying with her brother and his wife. Enough of this, though. I’m starving.”
“Meaning we should go in and get a table?” Kyle replied, smirking.
“That would be my suggestion, wiseass.”
The wait was short before the hostess led them to a table for two along one wall. Their waitress brought them menus and took their drink orders. By the time she returned with their coffees, they’d decided what they wanted to eat.
When she left, Brax asked Kyle what he’d been doing since the last time they were together. Kyle told him about the case, eliciting a “Lucky dog. I’ve never been to England” from Brax when he finished.
“My turn,” Kyle said. “Why the change of heart about your second career, so to speak?”
“As I told Caleb, I started thinking about the people I’ve acquired items from, just to please some assholes with more money than they know what to do with, and no qualms about owning something they can’t let anyone else know they had. I realized that didn’t sit well with me anymore.”
“Maybe you’re getting a conscience?” Kyle replied with a smile.
“That’s what I said, too. It might be that, plus the fact I’ve got more than enough to keep me busy at work, now. The funny thing is, Caleb’s willing to call it quits, too. He figures we’re losing our edge, and maybe we are. You found us. That was a first for us.”
Kyle rubbed his fingernails on his shirt. “I’m the best at what I do.”
“No brag there, huh?” Brax laughed, then sobered. “Did you, no, do you mean it when you say you can forgive and forget my past, because it is my past now.”
Kyle’s reply was a simple, “I can.” He took Brax’s hand, looking hard at him. “As long as it remains your past. If you go back to it, then everything I think we’re building between us will end and I’ll do my best to see that you end up in jail.” Not that Brax would end up there, or even go to trial, Kyle knew. He’d pull a vanishing act and become someone new before that happened.
“Believe me,” Brax said softly, entwining his fingers with Kyle’s. “Taking the chance of losing you isn’t worth whatever kick I get, make that used to get, from what I was doing before we met.”
“Gentlemen, it would be easier to put down the plates if you’d move your hands,” the waitress said, smiling at them.
“Probably,” Kyle agreed, pulling his hand back so she could set his meal in front of him. “If this tastes as good as it smells…”
“I think it does,” she replied, putting down Brax’s plate. “Is there anything else you need?” When they both said there wasn’t, she left.
While they ate, they talked about some of the small things they didn’t know about each other, like what movies and books they liked, and how they spent their free time when they had it. “Which is rarely, these days,” Brax said.
“So if I stick around for a couple of days, I won’t see much of you?” Kyle asked.
“Not during the day. Unfortunately, my nights might be busy, too, if the cops don’t take Ms. Edwards seriously about her stalker. She’s been collecting evidence, a lot of it from what she showed me, so hopefully they will. I also told her to get a restraining order against him.”
“If you need help…”
“Thanks for the offer, but this is supposed to be a vacation for you, before you have to go back to what you do for…Do you get paid for stopping art thieves?”
Kyle shrugged. “Sometimes. It depends. There’s often a finder’s fee if we’re able to return what was stolen to its rightful owner. A percentage of that goes into the general coffers to help support the organization. The rest goes to whichever one of us earned it.”
“In other words, I’m not going to be hooking up with a wealthy man,” Brax said with a grin.
After a quick glance around to make certain no one was close enough to overhear, Kyle replied, “I have made a few wise investments over the years, so I’m hardly poor. But then, I suspect you have as well, if you’re smart.”
“I’ve got a few dollars tucked away,” Brax admitted. “For my old age.”
“Two hundred years from now.”
Brax chuckled. “That, too.”
The waitress arrived at that point to take their empty plates and ask if they wanted dessert. They decided they didn’t, asking for the check, which they split when she brought it.
“Now what do we do?” Kyle asked when they’d left the restaurant.
“Take a walk, or a run?” Brax suggested. “I’ve been going back to my favorite spot, now that I know it’s safe, again.”
“A run sounds good. We can work off dinner.”
Brax grinned. “Then stop for a late-night snack before you go back to the hotel and I go home.”
While Kyle wasn’t certain he liked the idea they wouldn’t spend the night together, he knew it was better if they didn’t—yet. “Let’s see this favorite spot,” he replied. “We’ll debate eating again, afterward.”
Brax drove, since Kyle had taken a cab to the restaurant. A short while later, they left the car where he told Kyle he usually did, in a parking lot behind an all-night diner, and they teleported the rest of the way, deep into the preserve.
“No lake, I’m afraid,” Brax said. “But no people either, and only the rare wolf, that I try to avoid.”
“Sounds prefect to me,” Kyle replied before shifting. When Brax did, as well, they began loping through the dense forest. Soon they picked up speed, darting through the trees, then racing, playing catch me if you can.
Finally exhausted, they returned to where they’d begun—a small, grassy glade with the starlit sky visible above them. They shifted and clothed themselves before lying together on the grass, Brax’s arm around Kyle, Kyle’s head on his shoulder.
“This is nice,” Kyle murmured. “Peaceful. We haven’t had much of that since we met.”
“Um-hum.” Brax replied, brushing a lock of hair off Kyle’s forehead.
Kyle turned his head to lo
ok at Brax, immediately receiving a kiss. A chaste one, but still a kiss. “Is that the best you can do?”
“Is, if we plan on moving slow.”
“Moving slow means no sex, not no kissing,” Kyle retorted, proving his words by returning the kiss quite enthusiastically. It deepened until by mutual, if reluctant, agreement, they broke apart.
“This is going to play hell on my libido,” Brax grumbled.
“I’m hardly immune,” Kyle said. “But until we know what we’re feeling is real…”
“Yeah, I get that.” Brax got to his feet, pulling Kyle up to stand beside him. “It’s not going to be easy. Me, here. You…” He cocked his head. “Where the hell do you live?”
“A little hamlet called New York City.”
“Little, my ass. I’ve lived there. There’s nothing little about it. Do you have an apartment?”
“A condo, just off Washington Square. Not that I see much of it, with all the traveling I do.”
Brax looked thoughtful, but said nothing other than to suggest they get back to the city. “We both could use some sleep,” was his excuse and Kyle went with that.
* * * *
“Is this real?” Brax wondered that as he watched Kyle walk to the hotel’s front door. When Kyle turned back to look at him, smiling, Brax waved before pulling out of the semicircular driveway onto the street.
The attraction is definitely there for both of us. It has been almost from the start, at least for me. But is it anything close to love, or just two men who mesh well on enough levels that we like being together? If we ever get to the point of going to bed, I suspect it will be better than good. But that’s not all it takes to become a real couple. If it was, I’d have hooked up with someone long before now. Well, a shifter. I’ve learned my lesson with humans. It never works.
His gaze landed on a clock in shop window. “It can’t be that late,” he groaned. What happened to the youngster who thought midnight was the shank of the evening? He knew the answer. I grew up, learned how to be responsible and hold down a job. Then started my own business, where blowing off a day if I doesn’t feel like working isn’t an option.
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