Love Is In the Air Volume 1

by Susan Stoker

  The request was met with momentary silence.

  “Can’t say that was ever the favor I thought you’d call in, but whatever you need,” he said. “When do you need her?”

  “Now,” I clipped.

  “Jesus.”

  “We’re under an overpass of Route 1. Going to have Dex send you directions.” And then I ended the call.

  Zeke glared at me, holding his sister tighter. “Ace, what the hell are you doing?”

  “Zeke, he tried to kill her—”

  He jerked. “You don’t think I fucking see that—”

  I grabbed his shoulder and shook him hard. “But what you can’t see is that he won’t stop.” My voice rose to a commanding level. “He knows she survived this, he won’t stop until he kills her.”

  “But she knows what he did.”

  “Yeah, and does she have any proof? Because from what I’m seeing, it doesn’t look like she walked away from this with a whole helluva lot of anything except just barely her life,” I charged, standing back up and towering over the both of them.

  His brow tightened like it was being cinched in a knot, following the trail of smoke instead of just staring at the immediate fire. “Shit.”

  “He won’t stop. And worse, there won’t be any chance of stopping him if all your sister can do is worry about staying alive,” I ground out.

  His shoulders dropped, eyes turned down at the soot-streaked angel in his arms. My body tensed—a familiar instinct I’d felt before... one of protection... though I’d never felt it so strongly for someone I hardly knew.

  “Here’s how this is going to go,” I declared roughly, knowing we didn’t have much time. “Called in a favor from an old friend—one of the medical examiners in the city. He’ll bring a Jane Doe burn victim here, and we’ll put her in the wreckage. Dex will match up the dental records to Addison. Meanwhile, we’re going to take your sister back to Covington Security. We’ve got a small medical facility in the building, and I’ll have a doctor—someone I trust—meet us there to evaluate her.”

  I was met with silence.

  “This is what I do, Zeke—protect people. Protect identities. Protect lives,” I ground out. “I know what the bad guys do, and I know when the safest thing is for the victim to disappear.”

  The slow bob of his head in reluctant agreement turned into a quick shake. “Wait. Go back.” Narrow, wounded eyes met mine. “Just want to be clear on what you’re telling me.”

  I clenched my teeth.

  “Your guy is bringing another dead body here, one they will take back and match dental records, and then confirm that it’s Addy—that Addy died tonight in this fire.”

  “Exactly,” I replied immediately.

  “So, we’re faking her death?” he confirmed with a heaviness to his voice.

  I drew a deep breath. There were a shit-ton of consequences that came with the option I’d chosen to go with. But one of them was not having to look over her shoulder every damn day for the rest of her life worrying that the piece of shit who tried to kill her tonight would make a second attempt.

  “Until Arnell is caught and brought to justice, the only way to save her life... keep her safe... is to let her die—on paper.” My throat tightened. “To let him think he got away with it.”

  Zeke stared at me—stared so long I moved to make sure that time hadn’t fucking stopped.

  “You disagree?” I grunted.

  “No.” He shook his head, slow but sure. “No, I don’t,” he repeated and then met my gaze once more.

  Both our attentions were drawn to the medical examiner’s truck pulling off the road, and I caught sight of Rorik behind the wheel. Thank fuck.

  “Then what’s the problem?” I demanded before this show got on the road.

  “I’m just wondering which one of us is going to have to tell Addy when she wakes up that she’s dead.”

  3

  Ace

  “You’re sure it’s done?” Zeke asked with a low voice.

  I tipped my head, pulling my sleeves down over my forearms. “Go check with Dex to confirm, but it’s done, Zeke. She’s safe.”

  I held his gaze, understanding his worry for his sister. The last few days had been rough, but Dex was nothing if not thorough when it came to his work. And making sure that Addison had been declared dead, dental records matched, and that there was no fucking stone left for Arnell to unturn—no reason for him to come looking for a dead woman.

  “I just want to be sure—”

  “She’s going to be okay,” I broke in with strong reassurance.

  Addy was still sleeping. Recovering but sleeping after last night. And for Zeke, knowing we’d done all this—secured her safety—only for her to still not wake up, was eating away at him.

  And me.

  My cuts and gashes were bright red and starting to scab over, leaving my arms and torso streaked with tiger-like stripes. But the real test of my strength wasn’t pulling Addison from the flaming car; it was the patience waiting for her to wake up.

  I sighed. “Go talk to Dex. It will put your mind at ease. I’ll check on her.”

  It didn’t help that Zeke refused to leave his sister’s side pretty much this whole time. I brought him food and the like, but to get him to go home... to sleep... no way in hell.

  He hesitated for a second, but then agreed. Meanwhile, I went in the opposite direction and headed for the small medical bay we had on-site—a huge fucking expense; Dex and I had argued for weeks whether it was necessary. I finally won since the man behind the computer didn’t see the kinds of action—and the kind of care needed—for men in the field.

  And now, we were both glad I’d decided on it.

  There was an iPad on the docking station outside the door, locked now with the time and some short notes appearing on the screen from when Dr. Bair had checked on her earlier.

  Ducking my head, I opened the door quietly, having to widen it most of the way in order to fit through the frame and enter the room.

  I’d sat in here a handful of times, usually just for minutes, while Zeke used the bathroom or made a phone call. Probably a good thing it was never for long because if he caught me looking at his sister the way I wanted to, we’d need another medical bay... and we only had one.

  I swallowed a curse while reaching up and running my hand over the top of my head, fisting my hair before letting my arm fall to my side. When I looked at the woman in the hospital bed, I froze.

  Her eyes were the warmest brown I’d ever seen, their effect like hot chocolate on a bitter cold day. And the rest of her, even bandaged, covered in oversized clothes, and strung up with tubes and wires, was still the most beautiful sight I’d ever beheld.

  Sure, her classic beauty was easy to see even from a photo. But the kind of beauty I saw—the kind that made a strong man like me weak—was the kind that refused to balk from action. There was a different kind of attractiveness in a woman who’d stood up to a powerful man, who’d risked her life and almost lost it, and who, from the look in her eyes, would rise again like a fiery phoenix and get justice. That was the kind of bold beauty I saw right now, and fuck if it didn’t open a well of damned inappropriate thoughts.

  “Addison.” Her name slipped unintentionally from my lips in surprise. Zeke was just in here, and she’d still been asleep.

  Zeke.

  Without another word, I turned and left. She didn’t know me. She didn’t know this place. She needed to see her brother.

  I flung open the door to Dex’s ops. “She’s awake.”

  The words were hardly out before Zeke blew by me.

  I stood silent, watching, while he pulled her close, relief like I’d never seen relaxing his features before he explained where she was. Each time she tried to speak, I noticed her subtle wince; Zeke was too concerned with the big picture to catch her discomfort she tried to hide.

  Grabbing a cup of water from the table beside her, I extended my arm directly into their conversation and ordered, �
�Drink.”

  Her eyes, alert and assessing, snapped to mine with silent interrogation.

  “Addy, this is Ace Covington,” Zeke said, realizing he hadn’t introduced me. “You’re safe because of him.”

  I grunted, wishing he wouldn’t have gone that far. Maybe it was the truth, but I was just doing my duty—a duty that was diminished by the way my body reacted to her. Heat and longing wrapped up in a person I was only supposed to protect.

  Clearing my throat, I broke the silence. “Your throat is burned from smoke inhalation and screaming,” I informed her, nudging the cup forward to where all she needed to do was lean forward an inch to pull the straw between her lips. “This will soothe it,” I promised.

  But even still—even for me—she refused any assistance. Reaching up with her arm that was bandaged but not in a sling, she took the cup from me, needing to hold it for herself.

  Damn, this woman was a warrior.

  Slightly infuriating—since I was only here to help—but mostly intoxicating.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly before turning back to her brother and asking what happened.

  I stood silent and still for the minutes it took him to explain the facts of what happened. How he’d reached out to me after her call. How Dex had traced her phone and we’d showed up to the limo on fire. How I’d pulled her from the flames. Each time Zeke mentioned me, her gaze quickly flicked in my direction like she couldn’t stop it.

  I knew the feeling. Like the exhale of a breath, every time I tried to look away, my body reacted on instinct, needing to inhale—needing to breathe her back in.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Her next question was strained, but I saw the flash of pride when she got the whole question out.

  “Broken ribs. Dislocated shoulder. Fractured septum. Second-degree burns from the fire. Concussion. And some cuts and bruises,” I answered and added, “We’re still waiting on a few tests to make sure there’s not any internal bleeding or organ damage.”

  The look on her face when I was done had me far more worried about the kinds of injuries that weren’t physical—the ones we couldn’t have measured with tests and couldn’t fix with medicine. I’d seen it hundreds of times on my team... on myself... a determination to survive the physical wounds while never healing from emotional ones.

  “And Mitch?”

  “Alive,” Zeke replied.

  “For now,” I said quickly.

  “I heard shots...” She looked at me this time for answers.

  “He killed the driver.”

  Her nod was like a slow twist of a knife in my gut. “What did he...”

  “He showed up to the gala a mess,” Zeke answered this time. “Claimed the limo driver took the detour, held you both hostage for money and, when you stood up to him, he locked you in the limo and set it on fire.” He shifted in his seat. “Mitch claimed he went after the driver, managed to wrestle his gun away and shoot him, but it was too late, the car was already ablaze.”

  “What about calling 911?” She was practically trembling with anger, her questions feeding the beast I could tell would never be satisfied.

  “Said the driver took and destroyed his phone.”

  I rocked back on my heels, the fall of her tears like a wave of bullets against my chest.

  I’d saved a lot of lives during my years of service. Men. Women. Friends. Strangers. But none of them affected me like this—like she did. Like saving her had ignited a fuse that couldn’t be unlit.

  “How long until I’m better?”

  I coughed, the urge to laugh surprising me. The damn woman was serious. Not even awake for thirty minutes and she was already asking—not so discreetly—when she could go after the man who did this to her. But there was no fucking way she was going after Mitch Arnell. Not now. Not like this.

  “Better?” I asked with a tightly wound voice, Zeke looking to me to break the news. “It’s going to be a few days before you’re okay to go home and a few more weeks after that before the casts can come off.”

  “Okay,” she replied, her mind continuing to toil. “Then I need you to look up Mayferry. That was the auction website—”

  “Addy,” Zeke tried to break in.

  “I have to do something!” she exclaimed, pushing right through the shot of pain it gave to her throat. “I have to stop him.”

  Seeing Zeke about to put his foot down in front of the bulldozer that was her stubbornness, I interjected, “I’ll have Dex look into it. But, if I were Arnell, I probably had the site removed and wiped from the web by now.”

  Better she be prepared for the most likely outcome than give her any kind of false hope; she deserved better than that.

  She nodded like she was my commanding officer and fuck, if that kind of confidence didn’t make my dick increasingly hard and uncomfortable against my pants.

  “See if he can find anything and then, as soon as I’m better, I’ll go back and press charges—”

  Zeke tensed. “We’ll talk about this—”

  Oh hell no.

  “You’re not going back to San Francisco, Addison,” I informed her stoically.

  I saw the position Zeke was in, wanting his sister to get better and save the hard discussions for later. It was natural for him to want to shelter her. I couldn’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing—hadn’t done the same thing for my own brother—but it wasn’t the answer. Not for someone as strong-willed as Addison.

  After all this, she deserved the truth. No matter how much she wasn’t going to like it.

  “What do you mean?” she charged her brother. “I have to go back. I have to help those girls. I have to stop him. He tried to—”

  “He killed Addison Williams,” I cut her off, baring the boldest truth—the one Zeke and I hadn’t decided on who would tell her. But now, in the moment, I knew it had to be me. I wouldn’t risk my friend’s strong relationship with his twin over a decision I’d made.

  A decision I stood by.

  “What?” She gaped, locking her eyes on me like the rest of the room—including her own brother—ceased to exist.

  “In order for you to live, Addison Williams died in that car.” Once the words were out, I clenched my teeth, prepared for battle against this bold warrior, and took responsibility for my actions. “As soon as we got you out, I told Zeke what needed to happen. I have friends in the coroner’s office, so I called in some favors.”

  Now, her eyes shifted back and forth between Zeke and me.

  “We put another burn victim in the limo, and I had Dex alter the dental records so they matched yours,” I explained with a long exhale. “We faked your death, Addison. We let him think it worked.”

  “No, that’s not right—” She charged into action.

  “Addy!” Here, Zeke stepped into the conversation, the two of them going back and forth over the ultimate fact that she had no proof of what she saw—nothing to stand on except her word against a man who’d already tried to kill her once.

  “If he knew you survived that fire, you’d be too busy running for the rest of your life to be able to stop and find a way to bring that fucker down,” I told her when Zeke’s attempt to placate her with all the good she could do elsewhere didn’t work.

  Her attention swung back to me, ready to argue until I took a step toward the bed. I knew how it looked when I folded my arms, like I was rendering a decision that wasn’t going to be argued with. But that wasn’t the reason I did it. I crossed my arms tight over my chest so I wouldn’t reach for her—so I wouldn’t draw her against me and promise away her anger until she felt safe enough to let it go.

  But I couldn’t do that. And not only because her brother was sitting right here.

  I couldn’t do that because she didn’t trust me. A hard truth to accept since I’d saved her life. But it was the clearest consequence of the betrayal she’d suffered; she hadn’t just lost her trust in men—she’d lost her trust in herself.

  So, I did the only thing I could. I gave her my oa
th that I would fix this. “We will make him pay.”

  Her lip quivered and she held my gaze for as long as she could before her head fell and she settled back against the bed, fight and fury taking their toll on her wounded and weary body.

  Reaching out, I gripped Zeke’s shoulder, catching him just before he responded—to insist on the way siblings often did without recognizing now wasn’t the time.

  “We’ll let you rest,” I declared, giving my friend a squeeze that made him register the exhaustion that her defiance hid well.

  “We’ll talk later,” Zeke muttered and rose, leaving the room quickly to hide his own frustration.

  “I should thank you for saving my life.” Her words stopped me in my tracks.

  I stood still for a second before I turned and drank my fill of her once more. Pure warrior—wounded but not defeated.

  Her tongue darted out like a swift assassin and licked over her lips, wounding me with a sharp stab of want in a way that was unexpected.

  “Or do I thank you for making sure I died?” She tipped her head and added cheekily.

  A small grin tucked into the corner of my mouth and, seeing it, she licked her lips again. I was going to have to get this woman some Chapstick—for my own sanity.

  “I guess either one,” I drawled and then added with a low voice. “Truth is, you’re alive to fight another day, and that’s all the thanks I need.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. I should’ve looked away, knowing the heat in my gaze was unmistakable for anything but the potent combination of admiration and lust.

  “I thought you didn’t want me to fight?” she said with a slight scoff, turning her head to the side and watching the monitor record her elevated pulse.

  “No, Addison. Never want you to stop fighting,” I rasped. “Just want you to pick your battles and not let your anger pick them for you.”

  Her throat bobbed. She wanted to protest—wanted to insist she was right.

  “Well, thank you for saving me,” she returned with the kind of blunt sincerity that was meant to end the direction of this conversation.