The Call of Bravery

by Janice Kay Johnson

  No one, adult or child, swarmed out. Or even peered. Lace curtains didn’t twitch.

  “This woman expecting us?” Conall asked.

  “So I’m told.” Henderson glanced at his watch. “It’s nap time.”

  “Is that like the eye of the hurricane?”

  His partner’s raw-boned face split into a grin. “That’s one way to describe it.”

  They parked beside the barn and pulled out a duffel bag each before starting across the yard to the house. They could come back later for their equipment.

  Walking across the lawn, Conall realized he felt no sense of anticipation whatsoever. Okay, this might not be the most exciting operation ever; surveillance gigs never were. Even so, he used to feel at least mildly stirred at the beginning of any new challenge. Lately…

  He shook off the momentary brood. He liked action, not sitting in the middle of a cow pasture watching grass grow. No wonder he wasn’t worked up about this particular assignment.

  Somehow he hadn’t convinced himself. Boredom wasn’t the whole problem. His dissatisfaction had other causes. He just hadn’t nailed them down yet.

  There was no doorbell. Henderson rapped lightly instead. Conall thought he heard a TV on somewhere inside. They waited, finally hearing the sound of someone approaching.

  The door opened and a woman stood there. Behind her was a girl—maybe a teenager?—but Conall was only peripherally aware of her. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the woman.

  He hadn’t come into this situation with any expectation, so he didn’t know why he was so startled. Then he barely stopped himself from grimacing. Of course he knew why; what he hadn’t expected was to find himself sexually riveted by their reluctant hostess.

  She was average height, maybe five foot five or six. Slender but strong, her curves subtle but present. Her feet were bare, her jeans fit snugly over narrow hips and fabulous legs. Her yield-sign yellow T-shirt fit even better, displaying a narrow rib cage and high, apple-size breasts to perfection.

  Her face…well, damn, she was beautiful. Stunning. High, winged eyebrows, a model’s cheekbones, a luscious mouth and small straight nose. Her eyes were an unusual mix of brown and green. The colors were deep and rich, not like the typical hazel. And her thick, wavy hair was midnight-black and hung loose to her waist.

  God help him, he wanted to grab her, carry her upstairs and find a bedroom. And they hadn’t even said hello.

  Man. This wasn’t a good start to what promised to be a lengthy stay. Conall had the wry thought that the stay might be considerably shortened if she noticed he was aroused.

  And maybe that would be a good thing. Right this minute, Conall couldn’t imagine living in close proximity to her without breaking down at some point and coming on to her.

  Way to lose his job.

  His jaw flexed. For God’s sake, if he was that desperate, he’d look for a woman while he was in town. Any woman but this one. Get laid.

  He realized how long the silence had stretched. Conall cleared his throat. “Special Agent Conall MacLachlan from the DEA. This is Jeff Henderson. I believe you were expecting us.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  HENDERSON HAD BEEN gaping, too, but he managed to snap out of it and offer his hand. They shook. Conall offered his badge instead of his hand. He didn’t dare touch her.

  She examined it briefly, then glanced at their duffel bags. “That’s all you have?”

  “We have more stuff in the car. We thought we’d find out where we’re to set up first.”

  She looked past them to the gray Suburban. “At least you don’t have one of those government cars. That would have given you away in a heartbeat.”

  Jeff’s face relaxed into a smile. “True enough, ma’am.”

  “No ma’am.” She moved back to let them in. “I’m not old enough to be a ma’am. Call me Lia.”

  Lia Woods. That was her name. Was Lia Hispanic? Only partly, he thought, given the delicious pale cream of her skin where it wasn’t tanned, as her face and forearms were. And her eyes were a remarkable color.

  “Lia,” he said politely.

  “This is Sorrel,” she said, “my foster daughter.”

  The girl was pretty, in an unfinished way. Skinny but also buxom. She had her arms crossed over her breasts as if she was trying to hide them. Blond hair was pixy-short, her eyes blue and bottomless, her mouth pouty. Blushing, she mumbled, “Hello,” but Conall had the impression she hadn’t decided how she felt about their presence.

  They stood in a foyer from which a staircase rose to the second floor. The television was on in a room to his right. He could see the flickering screen from here. To the left seemed to be a dining room; a high chair was visible at one end of a long table.

  Lia crossed her arms, looking from one to the other of them. “You understand that I have a number of foster children.”

  “Yes.”

  Both nodded.

  “The two little ones are currently asleep. Chances are you won’t see much of them. Julia is a baby, and Arturo a toddler.” She pronounced Julia the Spanish way.

  They both nodded again. Sorrel watched them without expression.

  “Let me take you on a quick tour and introduce you to the other kids.” Lia led the way into the living room, where two boys sat on the sofa watching TV.

  The room was set up to be kid-friendly, the furniture big, comfortable, sturdy. The coffee table had rounded corners. Bookcases protected their contents with paneled doors on the bottom and glass-fronted ones on top. Some baby paraphernalia sat around, but Conall didn’t see much in the way of toys. Did she let the kids watch television all day?

  “Walker,” she said in a gentle voice. “Brendan. Would you please pause your movie?”

  One of them fumbled for the remote. Then they both gazed at the men. They had to be the two saddest looking kids he’d ever seen. Grief and hopelessness clung to them like the scent of tobacco on a smoker. Their eyes held…nothing. Not even interest.

  They were trying damned hard to shut down all emotional content. He recognized the process, having gone through it. He didn’t know whether to wish them well with it, or hope someone, or something, intervened.

  His child specialist was staring at them with something akin to horror and was being useless. Somebody had to say something.

  Apparently, that would be him. “Walker. Brendan. My name is Conall. This is Jeff.”

  After a significant pause, one of the boys recalled his manners enough to say, “Hi.”

  “I know we’ll be seeing you around,” Conall said awkwardly.

  The same boy nodded. He was the older of the two, Con realized, although they looked so much alike they had to be brothers.

  Lia guided the two men out of the living room. Behind them the movie resumed.

  She hustled them through the dining room and showed them the kitchen.

  “I serve the kids three meals a day and can include you in any or all of those,” she told them. “If you’d rather make your own breakfasts or lunches, just let me know in advance and help yourself to anything you can find.”

  She didn’t say whether those meals would be sugary cereals and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Right this minute, Conall didn’t care. He kept his voice low. “What’s with the boys?”

  Her glance was cool. “Their mother died five days ago. She had adult-onset leukemia. Six weeks ago, she was healthy. She went downhill really fast.”

  “They don’t have other family?” Jeff asked.

  “No. The boys barely remember their father, who abandoned them a long time ago. If there are grandparents or other relatives on that side, no one knows anything about them. The boys’ mother grew up in foster care.”

  “So now they will, too.” Conall wasn’t naive; in his line of work, he d
idn’t deal much with kids, but sometimes there were ones living in houses where he made busts. He’d undoubtedly been responsible for sending some into foster care himself. He’d never had to live with any of those children before, though.

  “Yes,” she said. “Unless they’re fortunate enough to be adopted.”

  He didn’t have to read her tone to know how unlikely that was, especially with the boys as withdrawn as they were. And being a pair besides. Or would they end up separated? That was an idea that he instinctively rebelled against.

  He and Henderson both were quiet as she showed them a home office on the ground floor, and opened the door to a large bathroom and, at the back of the house, a glassed-in porch that was now a laundry slash mud room.

  “You can do your own laundry, or toss your clothes in the hamper and I’ll add them to any loads I put in.”

  They nodded acknowledgement.

  Upstairs was another bathroom and bedrooms. Hers, one with a closed door that was apparently where the little kids slept, a room shared by the boys, and a smaller one that was obviously the teenager’s. It was little larger than a walk-in closet; maybe originally intended to be a sewing room or nursery?

  “Sorrel understands that the attic is off-limits,” Lia said, her tone pleasant but steel underlying it. The teenager looked sulky but ducked into her bedroom as Lia led the way to the door at the end of the hall. Like all the others in the house, it had an old-fashioned brass knob. It also had an ancient keyed lock with no key in it.

  Behind it was a staircase steep enough Conall wouldn’t have wanted to navigate it after a few beers. Lia’s hips swayed seductively at his eye level as she preceded him up.

  Don’t look.

  He couldn’t not.

  It was a relief to have her stand aside at the top, where a huge open space was poorly lit by only four, smallish dormer windows. The dormers would allow them to stand upright in front of the windows, but the men especially would have to duck their heads in much of the rest of the space.

  “Yesterday I washed those windows on the inside.” Lia sounded apologetic. “I can’t even get my hose to squirt that high on the outside.”

  The two light fixtures up here didn’t do much to illuminate the attic, especially around the edges where the ceiling sloped sharply down. As in many old houses, it was cluttered with unwanted pieces of furniture, piles of cardboard boxes filled with who knew what, more modern plastic tubs stacked closer to the top of the staircase, and a few oddities and antiques. A naked female clothing mannequin with a bald head stared vacuously at them. Conall saw an old treadle sewing machine cheek by jowl with a gigantic plastic duck.

  Lia’s gaze had followed his. “I think the duck rode on a Fourth of July float every year until my uncle died.”

  “The mannequin?”

  “My aunt owned a small clothing store in town.” She looked around as if she hadn’t thought about the contents of the attic in ages. “I don’t actually know what’s up here. Someday I should go through it all, but I always seem to be too busy.”

  “The animals out there yours?” Jeff was peering out one of the windows.

  “The horse and the pony are. They’re fun for the kids. I rent the other pasture out. Keeps it from growing up in blackberries.”

  Conall found himself curious about her and wanting to ask questions, but none of them had anything to do with the job. Had she inherited the house? Why did she foster kids instead of having her own? Why wasn’t a woman who looked like that married?

  Focus, he told himself. Lia Woods wasn’t the point here. Her neighbors were.

  He walked to the second of the two windows looking to the south and saw immediately that they had a bird’s-eye view of the target. Except for the film on the outside of the glass, it couldn’t be better.

  “Do these open?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  From the reluctance of the latch to give way, he could tell no one had tried in years. He muttered a swear word or two under his breath, scraped the latch open and heaved upward at the sash window. It groaned, shuddered and rose two inches before jolting to a stop.

  “Hell.”

  “Is this not going to work for you guys?” Lia sounded hopeful. And why shouldn’t she? She’d probably rather they got in their Suburban and drove away never to be seen again.

  “We’ll loosen it up,” Conall said. He saw that Henderson was using his muscle to work on the other south-facing window. They’d need the damn things open, if only to get some air flow up here. Not surprisingly, the attic was stuffy and warm, and that was on a cloudy day with the temp reading sixty-nine when they passed a bank in town. If this op dragged on long, with spring edging into summer, it could turn hellish up here.

  He was starting to turn away from the window when movement caught his eye. “Damn,” he muttered, and Henderson joined him. Oh, yeah, the neighbors definitely had a dog.

  “You know those folks have a Doberman?” he asked.

  Lia hurried over, catching a glimpse before the dog trotted around the corner of the other house. “No.” She sounded worried. “Maybe they put up an invisible fence of some kind. I haven’t seen it in the pasture. If I do, I’ll have to talk to them—” She looked fiercely at the two men. “I’ll have to do something if that animal scares my horses or attacks them.”

  “Let’s worry about that if it happens,” Conall said.

  She didn’t look happy, but finally reverted to tour guide, pointing out the bed she’d set up in the far corner. She had the polite thing down pat, and he imagined her giving much the same spiel to newly arrived foster kids. Except she’d probably offer it to them with more warmth than he was hearing. No, she wasn’t thrilled about their presence, the subtext was there. “I set it up yesterday and put fresh sheets on it. I gather that you won’t be sleeping at the same time?”

  Conall said, “No.”

  She nodded. “If it gets uncomfortable up here, there’s a twin bed in the room Julia and Arturo are in right now. I don’t expect them to be with me over a week. You can have that room once they’re gone.”

  Right across the hall from hers. Conall imagined sleeping that near to her. Oh, yeah, that would be restful. He shot a narrow-eyed glance at Henderson to see if he was thinking the same, but he was looking around the attic with curiosity. Beyond his initial reaction, he hadn’t registered a lot of awareness of her. Conall’s shoulders relaxed slightly, which had him frowning. Another surprise; he hadn’t liked the idea that his partner might be slavering over her.

  Like I am?

  She was a sexy woman. So what? He’d had plenty of sexy women before. Getting them seemed to be one of his talents. Maybe it was the appeal of a man who didn’t really give a damn one way or the other. If a woman who attracted him made it plain she wasn’t available or interested, he shrugged and moved on. There were plenty of fish in the sea. Conall didn’t remember ever feeling anything approaching jealousy.

  Lia might have a boyfriend or fiancé. He wondered if Phillips had thought to ask. A regular visitor here could threaten their anonymity. If that regular visitor was a man who felt possessive of her, he wouldn’t like their presence.

  Conall wouldn’t like his, and definitely didn’t like the idea of a man having the right to go into her bedroom with her and shut the door.

  “Do you have regular visitors? Family? Friends? Boyfriend?” His tone was abrupt.

  Her chin edged up slightly and he saw a flare of irritation in those richly colored eyes. “Are you wondering how I’ll explain you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “These people next door are strangers. None of my friends have anything to do with them.”

  “Are you so sure? Chances are they shop for groceries locally, pay their utility bills in town, wander the aisles in the hardware store, pump gas at th
e Arco or Shell station, stand in line to buy stamps at the post office. All they have to do is overhear a snatch of gossip. Maybe a word of concern about Lia, stuck with those feds doing a surveillance.”

  She stared at him mulishly, but he could also tell that what he’d said had registered.

  “What we need is zero gossip. No one can know we’re here.” He hesitated. “Our first and biggest problem is the kids. I presume they’re still in school.”

  “The boys have been out the past two weeks. We’re close enough to the end of the school year, I think I’ll keep them home. You saw them. They’re not ready to go back.”

  Good. Great. That left them with a teenage girl who would like nothing better than to have a dramatic story to share about the two federal agents spying on the neighbors from her foster mom’s attic.

  “Sorrel…” Lia hesitated.

  “Can you guarantee she’ll keep her mouth shut?”

  She glared at him. “Maybe your advance guy should have nixed my household.”

  Conall said bluntly, “He probably would have, if there’d been any other options at all.”

  Her fingers flexed into fists, then relaxed. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “Can you keep her home from school?”

  “I have my teaching certificate. I can home-school the boys, but I’m not certified for secondary education.” She looked past him toward the mannequin. He could tell she was thinking. “I don’t actually think she’ll be a problem. Sorrel came to me only a month ago. She hasn’t made friends yet. She claims no one will even talk to her.”

  He remembered middle school and high school all too well. “All the more reason for her to be delighted by an attention-grabbing story.”

  Frustration showed on her face. “What do you suggest?”