The Call of Bravery

by Janice Kay Johnson

  * * *

  CONALL HEARD THE SOUND of a vehicle engine first. Noise traveled well at night in the country. There wasn’t much traffic out here at—he pressed a button to illuminate the numbers on his watch—3:18 in the morning. Conall guessed he was hearing a pickup truck, maybe diesel; the roar was too deep for a car. From this window he couldn’t see the gravel road, but he expected to see some suggestion of headlights through the woods. Nothing.

  Not another neighbor coming home late, though; this truck or SUV had passed the other driveways, then Lia’s. The Dobermans began to bark and raced to meet the… Yeah, a dark colored pickup with a black canopy. Using night vision, he watched the vehicle roll to a stop in front of that triple car garage. No headlights.

  “About time,” he murmured. Somebody had come calling.

  And was expected. One of the garage doors rolled up. A light was on somewhere inside, probably a single bulb. Two men came out, one of them speaking sharply to the dogs who both dropped to their bellies. Passenger and driver’s-side doors opened and the two newcomers got out. They went around to the back and opened the canopy on the pickup. After some conversation, all four began unloading…something.

  Conall felt a chill. The wooden crates they carried in didn’t look as if they contained drug manufacturing paraphernalia and seemed unnecessarily large and sturdy to hold packets of cocaine or heroin ready for distribution. He had a really bad feeling about this. Those crates looked to him as if they held guns. Big guns, and a hell of a lot of them.

  He rubbed his burning eyes briefly, and resumed watching. Faces weren’t real distinct, but he was letting footage roll so he could watch it again and try to zoom in on the scene: on the faces and in search of any marks on the wooden crates.

  One of the men looked familiar. Conall couldn’t swear to it, but a couple of times… The way the guy turned his head, gesticulated, hunched his shoulders like a bull ready to charge… “Goddamn,” he said under his breath. “I’ve seen him before.”

  It would come to him. It always did. He had a near-photographic memory, another of his strengths. He could almost always get the girl, he rarely forgot a face and he was an icy-cold son of a bitch, which meant fear had no hold on him. He took risks the agents with families waiting at home wouldn’t.

  Images of Lia whispered through his mind. The woman who seemed to have a bottomless heart. He and she were polar opposites. She cared, he didn’t.

  He had to keep his distance. Conall did try not to hurt women. He steered clear of the home and hearth kind. She wasn’t quite that, though; he wasn’t sure he’d ever encountered a woman exactly like her, willing to give endlessly of herself to other people’s children. At the table tonight, he kept watching her thinking, What’s in it for you? He still didn’t know. Money? The state did pay her to care for each kid, but was it only a job for her?

  Focus, he snarled at himself. The men all disappeared inside the garage. The dogs stayed where they were. Half an hour passed, one breath at a time. Conall waited with the patience of any hunter.

  Behind him Jeff let out a couple of snorting breaths and then covers rustled as he rolled over in bed. They had no damn privacy up here at all. Conall for one was looking forward to the day little Julia and Arturo went away and freed up the bedroom. Conall didn’t sleep well when he wasn’t alone. He rarely stayed the night with women.

  This time it was Lia’s bed that slipped unbidden into his mind. A couple of times her bedroom door had been open when he passed in the hall. He hadn’t been able to help looking. The room wasn’t any fancier than the rest of the house, but it unmistakably belonged to a woman. To Lia. She wore bright colors, and she decorated with them, too. He hadn’t seen any lace, but the duvet cover was a print of bright red poppies and green leaves against a white background. Puffy white and red pillows were heaped against a white-painted iron bedstead. Men never bothered with non-utilitarian pillows. That was a woman thing. The hardwood floor beside the bed was softened by a flower-shaped rug in the same poppy red. It was made out of torn strips of some soft fabric and he bet he’d sink ankle-deep in it.

  He wanted to sink ankle deep in it while he was on the way to her bed, where she sprawled waiting for him. His body tingled as he imagined it. Her hair was loose…no, he wanted to take it out of the braid himself, comb out the curls with his fingers. Those glorious green-brown eyes were sultry…

  He jerked and then swore when someone walked out of the garage. Two men. The dogs leaped to their feet but stayed silent. The two men got in the pickup, the garage door came down and a moment later he heard the muted roar of the engine. They drove away, still without turning on their headlights.

  Conall hadn’t seen any sign the visitors had brought groceries or dog food. No packages of toilet paper. Sooner or later whoever was staying in the house would have to go out. Lia had said she’d seen them come and go. She said she’d waved at first but quit bothering when they ignored her. Idiots. That’s not how you went unnoticed in small-town or rural America.

  After a couple of minutes, the dogs rose and trotted off, one around the house, the other loping along the fence line. Both wore thick collars and avoided the perimeter of the property, which likely meant they got shocked when they went too close. At least Lia could relax about her ancient horse and butterball pony.

  Conall yanked at his hair. Why the hell couldn’t he keep her out of his head? He’d been here three and a half days, spent less than two hours in her company, and she was already a big-time distraction.

  This wasn’t like him. He should be speculating on where he’d seen the one familiar face before. He’d encountered gun runners before, if that’s what these men were. He should be trying to figure out how to get into that garage. He should be thinking about anything but the home-owner who so happened to be a beautiful woman.

  Who loved children. Who’d rip his heart out and fry it for breakfast if he did one single thing to hurt the children she guarded so fiercely.

  Not his kind of woman.

  It was…unfortunate that he had the hots for her. He gave a soft grunt. No, it was worse than that. She drew him in an unfamiliar way. From first sight on. Now that he knew her a little better, it was even worse. The way she’d said, I’m sorry. Sitting here alone but for a few snores on the other side of the attic, he could hear her voice, soft but tangible as a touch. People didn’t always mean it when they said that, but she had. She’d felt something genuine for him.

  And that scared the crap out of stone-cold Conall MacLachlan. He was trapped, living in a house with a gorgeous woman who cared like no one else he’d ever met, a woman he had wanted the moment he saw her.

  People were rarely what they seemed, though; he knew that. Lia Woods wouldn’t be. She had to be a fake. Maybe decent to the kids, but doing it because she saw fostering as an easy way to pay the bills. He’d catch her saying something cutting to one of them when she thought no one else was listening, and he would be cured of this uneasy fear that he’d found… What? The perfect woman?

  Not for him. His perfect woman enjoyed hot sex when he happened to be in town and didn’t ask when she’d see him again.

  Forget Lia. Think about the fun in store for him: a family reunion. All three MacLachlan boys, two accompanied by wives and children.

  Now, there was a nightmare.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “SO, LITTLE ONES,” Lia said. The day was so nice she’d brought Julia and Arturo outside, where they sat on the lawn at the edge of dappled shade. After wondering stares, Julia had become fascinated by the grass and now had her plump fingers knotted in it. “Do you miss your mama? I think you’ll see her soon. Arturo, don’t pull your sister’s hair.”

  “You’re speaking Spanish to them.” Conall sounded thoughtful.

  Lia jumped and swiveled on her butt to glare at him. “Don’t sneak up on us.”

 
“I’m a special agent,” he said in apparent amusement. “That’s what we do. Didn’t you know that?”

  “You’d better tell Jeff. I can always hear him coming.”

  “Heavy feet.” He shook his head in disapproval. “I’d better report him.”

  She puffed out a breath. Her heartbeat was settling into something approaching a normal rhythm. Not quite normal; it wouldn’t while he was standing there, she was afraid, looking unbelievably sexy and relaxed, that smile lingering around his mouth even as he watched her. His jeans were well-worn, cupping his— No, she would not notice that part of his body. A faded T-shirt clung to powerful muscles. His feet were bare. Was he unarmed? She’d caught glimpses a couple of times of a shoulder holster beneath a loose denim or twill shirt. But surely he didn’t always carry a gun.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be spying?” she asked. “Or sleeping?”

  “I just woke up. Made myself a sandwich and saw you out here.”

  “Oh.” Brilliant. “Did you say hi to Walker and Brendan?”

  “I suggested they come out, too.”

  Fat chance of that. She nodded.

  “You’re fluent,” he observed.

  “You mean in Spanish?”

  “Yes.”

  Lia shrugged. “You can’t tell I’m Hispanic? My mother’s Mexican. She came up here illegally, worked as a maid until she met my father who married her.” She winced inwardly at her tone of defiance. She should have told the story casually. She’d meant to. Lia didn’t kid herself that Conall hadn’t had her investigated, if that Agent Phillips hadn’t already done it. She needed to appear open. Nothing wrong here, nope.

  “I thought you might be,” he said slowly. “I I heard you singing a lullaby in Spanish last night.” He began to sing softly in a deep, lazy baritone. “Buenos dias, buenos dias, como estan? Como estan? Estamos muy contentos, estamos muy contentos, din don dan, din don dan.”

  Julia and Arturo gazed at him, rapt. Goosebumps had risen on Lia’s arms.

  “Very nice,” she said. “You speak Spanish?” Dumb thing to say; his accent was as authentic as hers.

  “Sí.” He smiled and sat down, grinning at Arturo. He pointed toward the pasture. “El caballo.”

  The little boy bounced.

  Conall pointed the other direction, toward the grazing cows. “La vaca.”

  “La vaca,” Arturo agreed intelligibly.

  “I didn’t think to ask whether they spoke English or Spanish at home,” Lia said. “When Arturo was so quiet, it finally occurred to me he probably speaks Spanish.”

  “Insofar as a kid this age speaks anything.”

  Indignantly, she said, “He’s got a good vocabulary for his age.” She touched a finger to her nose and asked in Spanish, “What’s this, Arturo?”

  “Nariz,” he shouted.

  His sister giggled in delight.

  Lia sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in Spanish and soon had Arturo touching the parts of his body with her. Julia clapped her hands and vocalized.

  “I know how to sing that,” Walker said. “’Cept not in Spanish. That’s Spanish, isn’t it?”

  Startled again, Lia turned her head to see that both boys had approached unheard. They looked pinched and pale as if they hadn’t seen sunlight in months, but they’d come outside willingly.

  She willed her smile not to tremble. “Yes, I finally figured out that Arturo understands Spanish and not English.” Actually, she’d gotten caught speaking it to him, which wasn’t quite the same thing.

  Please, Mateo, come and get these children.

  “How come?” Walker asked.

  “There are quite a few people in this country who speak a different language,” she said. “America is made up of immigrants, you know. Everyone is descended from grandparents or great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents who came from somewhere else. Everyone except the native Americans who lived here first.”

  The boy nodded. “Mom said that our father’s grandparents came from Poland. Only…” Uncertainty entered his voice. “I think they went back.”

  She nodded matter-of-factly. “Adjusting to a place where everyone speaks a different language and eats unfamiliar food and thinks differently would be hard, wouldn’t it?” She knew; oh, she did.

  Both boys nodded.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Conall suggested.

  They looked at each other in silent communication, then dropped to the grass side by side, maintaining some distance from the others. Brendan, she suspected, didn’t want to be here at all. His little brother had talked him into coming out. It was Walker who’d opened up to Conall at dinner the other night, too, she remembered. It was Walker who now asked, “But how come Arturo’s mom doesn’t learn to talk English, since she lives here?”

  No mention of dad; in Walker’s world, kids didn’t have a father.

  Lia smiled at him. “She might not have been here very long. Or she spoke English when she was at work and Spanish at home. She might have wanted her kids to grow up bilingual. Speaking two languages,” she translated.

  “She might even be here illegally,” Conall remarked. He’d stretched out on his side and his head was propped on his hand. It was her he was watching, not the boys. Although his tone was still lazy, his eyes weren’t.

  “But if the children were born in this country,” Lia shot back, “they’re American citizens.”

  He murmured wordless agreement, but she didn’t like the sharp way he continued to watch her.

  “I don’t actually know much about their parents,” she lied to the boys, trying to focus on their faces and not his. “They’re only supposed to be here for a week or two. There was some kind of family emergency.” She shrugged.

  “Like their mom is dying?” Brendan asked, in the same tone another kid might have said, Like their mom went to the grocery store?

  Pity leapt to her throat. “No, honey. No, their mom will be back.”

  “After she wades the Rio Grande,” Conall said sotto voce.

  Dear God, he knew. Somehow he knew.

  “Do they have a dad?” Conall asked.

  “Yes,” she snapped, knowing her cheeks were flushed. “Actually…I’m not sure. It was the mom who…had something happen.” Got deported.

  He nodded.

  “Mr. Henderson said he has kids,” Walker reported. “Only I guess he doesn’t live with them.” The faintest quaver in his voice said, Why doesn’t he? Do any kids have a dad who cares?

  Oh, dear God, how did she answer the unspoken?

  She was surprised when Conall sat up and reached for Walker. “Come here.” He handled him with ease, man to boy, scooting him over so they were hip to hip. He kept an arm slung over his shoulder. Not cuddling exactly, but…holding him the only way an eight-year-old boy would accept.

  Brendan stayed, stiff and frozen, where he’d been, watching Conall as if he were a timber wolf, creeping through the grass toward Pepito, the Shetland pony.

  “Jeff does live with his kids,” Conall told the boys. “He really loves them. You know when we’re upstairs, it gets pretty boring.” Even Brendan nodded. “He talks about them all the time. His wife and kids. He misses them.”

  “Then how come he’s not with them?”

  “Because this is his job. Sometimes it means being away from home for a few weeks at a time.”

  “Do you have kids?” Walker asked.

  “No.”

  “So you don’t have anybody to miss.”

  Conall got the strangest expression on his face for an instant. Not long enough for her to pin down. It was as if…he’d been shocked by some realization.

  “No,” he said, a little huskily. “I guess I don’t.”

  “That’s good.” The boy’s throat spas
med. “Cuz… Cuz…”

  Lia was appalled to realize that her vision had misted. She wasn’t sure she could have said anything, and was grateful when Conall nodded.

  “It hurts when you miss someone. I know.”

  “How do you know?” The boy looked up at him in entreaty. “If you don’t have anyone? Is it cuz of your parents going away?”

  She could see him choking on that one. Over the top of Walker’s head, Conall’s eyes met hers. Bail me out, he was demanding.

  “Even if Agent MacLachlan doesn’t have anyone right now… A wife or kids or—” Best let that go. “If you’ve ever loved somebody, you’ve had times you missed them. Like his mom and dad. I miss my parents because they’ve moved to Arizona and I don’t see them very often anymore. That’s not the same as the way you miss your mom, because I know I’ll see them again. But…sometimes I really wish my mom was here, so I could tell her something.”

  Walker bent his head. “Oh.”

  Conall ruffled his hair. “Hey. It’s getting hot out here.”

  It was unseasonably warm, but Lia wouldn’t have described a day in the upper seventies as hot. She was enjoying the feel of the sun on her face.

  “You got a sprinkler?” he asked her. “I’m thinking Walker and Brendan need to get wet.” Then he grinned. “Maybe you do, too.”

  She gaped at him. “You think we should run through a sprinkler?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  Why not indeed?

  “What do you think, boys?” he asked.

  “I guess,” Walker said uncertainly. His gaze strayed to his brother’s. Again there was that moment of silent communication. “It might be fun,” he said doubtfully.

  Conall had them organized before she knew it. He hauled a hose and rotating sprinkler out of the barn, where they’d been since last fall, hooked the hose up to the faucet on the side of the house and had the sprinkler merrily turning in no time.

  “But we’re dressed,” Brendan objected.

  “What’s a little water?” Conall strode to the porch steps where he stripped off his T-shirt. If she hadn’t been watching closely, she wouldn’t have seen him pull an evil-looking black handgun from his back waistband and slip it under the shirt. That distracted her—although only momentarily—from the sight of his lean muscles and the dark hair on his chest. “No shoes,” he said, shaking his head as the two boys looked at the sprinkler as if they didn’t know what to do with it. “Gotta have bare feet. No shirts, either.”