Dusted Star

by Avery Gale

  What the hell was that about?

  *

  Luke Grayson walked into the control center and was hit by a wave of emotion so strong, he had to reach out and grab the edge of a nearby desk to keep from stumbling. Lakyn Hicks was broadcasting panic so strongly, he wondered what the hell his boss had said to her. Juan Rivera and Trac Hughes skidded around the corner just as Micah was settling the petite beauty in a chair. Luke had been a member of the Prairie Winds team long enough to know the two men whose pale faces didn’t look anything like the hardened warriors he knew they were. Their panic made it clear they considered her theirs. Pushing aside the emotions rolling off them, Luke took her hand and opened his mind to hers.

  Luke’s empathic gift was stronger than anyone else’s in his family, he also had better control over it—usually. Lakyn’s mind was spinning so wildly out of control, it took him a few seconds to process the jumble of information flooding him. She’d been listening to Micah talk about the recording capabilities of the bracelet and suddenly realized she hadn’t checked her apartment for hidden electronics after the break-ins.

  “We’ll take care of it, Lakyn. We’ll have someone in there within the hour, I promise.” Turning to Micah, Luke quickly explained her concern. His boss and mentor knelt in front of Lakyn and wrapped her free hand in his, her small hand swallowed up in Micah’s giant mitts. Looking down where he held her hand in his, Luke realized for the first time how tiny she was. He laughed to himself, it was easy to forget how petite she was because she appeared bigger than life in all the photographs he’d seen.

  Hell, this was the first time Luke had been this close to a woman whose beauty held the world captive, but touching her, he’d instantly known she was so much more than the person people saw when they looked at her picture in magazines or watched her on screen. When the men behind them growled, he cast a glare over his shoulder before turning back to give her a conspiratorial wink.

  “There isn’t any reason to worry about this now. We can’t change the past, so let that go, but we might learn more about who broke into your apartment if they left some electronic goodies behind.” Luke listened to her thoughts for a few more seconds, then satisfied she was on an even keel once again, he moved to his chair and rolled it smoothly to the bank of computers and got to work. He might be the youngest member of the team, but that didn’t mean he was without resources, and one of those happened to live a few blocks from Lakyn’s apartment building.

  Luke met Brooklyn Adler when they were both students at MIT. As an only child, he’d been fascinated to learn his raven-haired lab partner was one of ten children, all named for places around the world. He and Brooklyn had become fast friends and they’d kept in touch after graduation. Luke always chuckled when he saw her business card in his wallet.

  Brooklyn Adler

  Insurance Acquisitions Specialist

  He loved teasing her it was a fancy title for a licensed thief. B, as she was called by her friends and family, was a cat burglar extraordinaire. There wasn’t a building she couldn’t get into or a lock she couldn’t open—and everyone he knew was more than a little grateful she used her skills for good rather than evil which she always swore would pay better.

  Even though Luke had heard B talk about her large family, the only one of her siblings he’d met was her sister, Catalina. Brooklyn had explained her sister was a jewelry designer, but it hadn’t taken Luke long to discover the real reason Cat was continually on the road.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, Luke dialed B and smiled when it sounded as though she’d dropped the phone before answering. Brooklyn was a night owl and wasn’t going to be thrilled about being awakened before noon, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “This better be life or fucking death, Luke… you feel what I’m saying, my friend?” Brooklyn knew about his gift and continually teased him, insisting he could make more money as a circus performer than as a computer specialist. More than once, she’d pleaded with him to, at the very least, become a hacker, insisting he was going to die in the financial middle class—a fate she considered an unnecessary tragedy.

  “Rise and shine, sweet cheeks, I need your help.” He could feel her smile and hoped his bosses were prepared for what this was going to cost them. Brooklyn was the best, and she knew it—this wasn’t going to be cheap. She wouldn’t want money, but the favors she’d call in later would be huge.

  Chapter Nine

  “My life has turned into an unpublished tabloid story. People breaking into my apartment, stealing my underwear, and leaving who knows what DNA. Jerks trying to pull me into SUVs. Piece of shit rental cars. My brother and everybody else thinks I don’t know what he does or who he works for, and now, some hot shot cat burglar is breaking into my apartment to find out what the last burglars left behind.” Lakyn relaxed on the tube as much as anyone could, wrapped in a life preserver she was certain had been designed to save a drunken sailor drifting in hurricane tossed seas. Of course, the life vest inventor probably hadn’t anticipated a group of Doms tying every safety device their former SEAL-selves could find to the obnoxious orange safety devices.

  “I can help with the unpublished part. It would probably only take a phone call or two, but you’re on your own with the rest of that nonsense. Now that I think about it, I think you should write a book. Hell, it probably wouldn’t work, no one would believe it, and wouldn’t that just piss you off?”

  “What?”

  “When they put it in the fiction section.” Tobi’s snark earned her a splash of river water, and Lakyn smiled to herself at the woman’s high-pitched squeal. She was laughing so hard, she almost fell off the enormous tube that looked like it might swallow the tiny blonde whole. “You’ll pay for that. If you fall off your tube, I’m going to let you drown, and with all the crap they’ve got tied on us, you’re toast. I don’t think these life jackets have a prayer of saving anyone.” Truer words had never been spoken.

  “Are you sure this rope is strong enough?” Lakyn was only half kidding. The rope looked awfully skimpy to her despite the reassurance of a man named Sam McCall whose wife was currently being fitted with her own arsenal.

  “Jen said it’s ski rope,” Tobi shrugged, “but that doesn’t mean anything to me. I asked for a jet ski for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I thought Kyle was going to have a stroke every time I mentioned it. When he heard his dads were going to buy one for me, he was apoplectic. Something about me attracting trouble.” She shrugged innocently, but Lakyn wasn’t falling for it, and Jen’s hysterical laughter from the dock let them know she’d heard what Tobi had said.

  “Seriously, Tobi? Even I would know better than to get you a jet ski. I heard about your last adventure on one, and as I recall, that ended with an explosion.”

  “Don’t be a party-pooper. Stop playing grab-ass with Sam and get your fanny out here.”

  “Tobi, you are a menace, and you know perfectly well your Masters are going to hear your chatter.” The man helping Jen into a tube was huge and intimidating as hell. Lakyn had been introduced to both Sam and Sage, but this was the McCall brother who scared her.

  As if Tobi had read her mind, she looked at Lakyn and rolled her eyes.

  “Do not and I repeat… do not show fear. They are like sharks… they can smell it like blood in the water, and they’ll use it against you. Geez, Sam is a big softy, just like Kyle.” She flashed the enormous man a smile as phony as any Lakyn had ever seen, then snickered when he growled at her.

  Jen paddled her feet, trying to get closer to them, but the current had other ideas. “Good grief, I have so much tactical gear tied on me, I’m worried I might actually sink. And the one thing I asked for, they wouldn’t give me.”

  “Pet, no one in their right mind was going to give you a trolling motor.” Sam moved back to the shore and settled into a lounge chair Lakyn hadn’t noticed under a nearby tree.

  “Is he going to watch us the whole time?” Lakyn had tried to whisper, but she’d obviously misjudg
ed how easily sound traveled over water.

  “Yes, he is. He is going to sit right here and sip a fucking root beer because I need to keep my wits about me to deal with whatever trouble the three of you manage to attract.”

  “Three? What about me? My sons said my girl was down here tubing, and I want to play, too.” Lakyn didn’t know who the gorgeous middle-aged woman was, but if Tobi’s squeal of happiness and Sam’s groan were any indication, she was going to guess she was Lilly West. “Now be a dear and find me a tube, Sam. I’ll wear a regular life jacket rather than one of those bulky ones, that’s just overkill.”

  “Do your husbands know you are here, Mrs. West?”

  Watching the sweet woman morph into a cross between the Wicked Witch of the West and Wonder Woman was fascinating. Lilly West could have made a fortune acting, but if Lakyn remembered correctly, Tobi said her mother-in-law had been a successful model before marrying two men.

  “Sam, I usually like you. I’m somewhat surprised to hear you ask me that question.” The look on Sam McCall’s face told Lakyn he wasn’t falling for Mrs. West’s tap dance around the question.

  “That won’t work with me, Mrs. West. I’m not suiting you up without talking to one of your men.”

  “You’re a brave man, Sam.” A very distinguished looking man ambled around a hedge into view, and Lilly’s entire face lit up when he looked her way. “My love, are you stirring up trouble? You know how Del gets when you’re being ornery, and since he is currently being out-maneuvered by our lovely granddaughter, he’ll be particularly difficult to deal with this evening.” Lakyn was mesmerized by the man’s interaction with his wife. It was easy to see where Kent West got his charm… holy cats.

  After a brief discussion, Sam dropped the lifejacket over Lilly’s head and began securing the numerous straps and buckles. Tobi and Jen moved closer to the dock, chattering a mile a minute with Lilly while Lakyn drifted further out in the river as she studied the rock cliff on the opposite side.

  The geological formations drew her attention, and she paddled closer, taking up a lot of the slack in the rope tethering her to the dock. Lakyn had done a photo shoot at the Grand Canyon a couple of years earlier, and she’d felt drawn to the layers marking of the passage of time in eons rather than days or weeks. The wall she was facing now had some of the same layering and before she realized how far she’d drifted, she was almost in the middle of the river and so lost in thought, she didn’t hear the approaching boat until it was close… really close.

  Everything slowed down, just like it did in the movies, and Lakyn scanned the area around her, looking for a way to avoid being hit by the oncoming speedboat. Glancing toward the dock, she saw Sam waving frantically at her, and she could hear the echoes of Tobi and Jen screaming for her to come back. When she looked at the approaching boat, she knew it was too late, she’d never reach the dock in time. For a few seconds, she thought the looming craft was going to skirt around her, but one look at the man behind the wheel, and she knew he intended her harm.

  The leer on the driver’s face was frightening, and she held her breath waiting for the blow she knew was coming. The man behind the wheel wore dark clothing, and there was something familiar about him, but she didn’t have time to think about it as she watched him veer sharply to his right cutting between her and the dock. For a split second, Lakyn thought she’d be okay, but the reprieve was short-lived as the boat’s propeller tangled with the rope holding her to the dock. She felt the moment the thin nylon rope snapped, and the tube was almost yanked out from under her as it was pulled behind the speeding boat.

  Lakyn frantically began trying to free herself from the tube, but the force of the boat pulling her faster and faster along the water and all the crap they’d tied to her life preserver made it difficult to maneuver. The driver started weaving back and forth, causing the rope to sail her in an ever-widening arc, reminding her of her friends playing crack the whip when they’d all gone ice skating. She suspected he was planning to swing her into the rock cliff without driving his boat near the shallow rocks.

  Sam McCall had warned her not to venture past the boundary of the Prairie Winds property under any circumstances and described the marker she’d already sailed past. Everyone had made such a production of pointing out the facility’s boundaries, Lakyn assumed her tracking bracelet only worked if she was within those confines.

  God only knew how long it would take them to find her now that she’d been pulled much farther downstream. Finally remembering the small tool Sam had tucked in the pocket of her life preserver, she pulled it free and sliced the rope just before she hit the peak of the arc nearest the shore. The force sent her tube skipping over the water like a stone, but Lakyn’s relief at being free from the boat was short-lived when she realized she didn’t have any way to stop. Why the hell did Tobi’s husband think tubes were safer? Jet skis were far easier to control. Damn!

  Years of training kicked in, and Lakyn tucked her chin against her chest and crossed her arms over her face, protecting what her team always told her was her most valuable asset. The emptiness of that realization slammed into her chest a split second before the tube lodged in thick reeds along the river, sending her sailing through the air.

  *

  Sam caught his wife as she tried to sprint past him. When she’d seen the boat bearing down on Lakyn, Jen had shed her life jacket like the trained operator she was and bailed off her tube. She’d been close enough to the shore, she’d literally hit the ground running heading to the small shed here the Wests stored the team’s small helicopter.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Sam growled the question but didn’t expect her to answer—hell, they both knew exactly what she planned to do, and the last thing he needed was Jen going off half-cocked without back-up.

  His earpiece crackled to life and his brother chuckled, “Let her go, I’m already doing the pre-flight checks. Can’t say I’ve ever had a co-pilot wearing a polka-dot bikini before, but I’m not going to complain.”

  Christ, just what he needed, his horny brother and their wild-child wife locked together in a glass bubble a thousand feet above the ground.

  Threading his hands through her wet hair, Sam crushed his lips against hers in a heated kiss before pulling back. “Be careful.” He gave mostly bare ass a swat, the wet skin giving a satisfying pop against his palm, before he watched her run the short distance to where Sage waited. Sending up a silent prayer of thanks to whoever invented thong swimsuits, Sam turned to see Tobi trying to sneak by him on her way to the jet skis tied at the far side of the dock.

  “Freeze, Tobi.” Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, what was with the subs today? Was it some sort of special full moon or something? Damn.

  A cart holding several team members skidded to a stop at the end of the dock. Juan and Trac ran for the jet skis as they pulled the tabs on their self-inflating tactical vests. By the time they’d untied the jet skis, Sage and Jen were lifting off. The roar of the watercraft engines sounded over the whoop-whoop of the helicopter’s rotor, and Sam looked over to see both Del and Dean West sheltering Lilly from the noise. In a flash of insight, Sam saw his future. Jen would always want to be right in the thick of things, and no matter how old he and Sage were, they’d always protect her. Just as Lilly stood between Dean and Del, they’d keep Jen between them because that was exactly where she belonged. Christ, didn’t Dean say Del was with Kodi? Both Kodi and Kameron West were brilliant children, but Kodi was hell on wheels, just like her mother. Sam hoped like hell she hadn’t followed her grandfather to the river—I need a fucking raise.

  Tobi stood on the river bank, glaring his way with her arms crossed over her chest, emphasizing the cleavage so prominently displayed.

  “Hell, one deep breath and she’s going to come out of that top.” Kent’s amused voice sounded from beside him, and Sam had to agree. “If we weren’t in the middle of a—well, never mind. Let’s get Lakyn back, then I’m going to torture my sub until she admits why h
er breasts have grown, and she was drinking virgin margaritas the other night.”

  Sam couldn’t hold back his laughter because it was a running joke that only at Prairie Winds was pregnancy contagious.

  *

  Cameron Barnes looked down at the luscious bare ass peaked perfectly over his lap and smiled. His sub was vibrating with need, and she still had several swats to go. The sass she’d given him before the last of the construction crew left had earned her a spanking he was more than happy to provide. Just as he raised his hand to finish the last series of swats, his phone’s emergency alarm sounded. Fucking hell.

  “Up you go, Pet.” He handed her off to her other Master and pulled his phone out, answering it with one word, “Barnes.” Micah Drake’s clipped words sent Cam running out the back door as he shouted instructions over his shoulder to Carl. Hell, they hadn’t even finished moving in, and their neighbors were already causing trouble.

  Laughing to himself, Cam easily found the woman half of the Prairie Winds team was currently searching for. Lakyn Hick’s entire body was covered in mud, grass, and sand. If the scowl on her pretty face was any indication, Cam bet she had sand in a few places it didn’t belong as well.

  “Hello, beautiful. Nice of you to drop by.” He smiled down at her and chuckled when she blinked up at him in confusion. “Wondering how I got here before anyone else, Lakyn?”

  “Not really. I learned a long time ago CIA agents have some sort of built-in trouble detector… well, Cooper’s usually works… not so much lately.” Cam was shocked by her admission since they’d all doubted she knew who her brother worked for. When he didn’t respond right away, she didn’t bother to elaborate and simply held up her hand in a silent request for help to her feet.

  Shaking his head, he knelt beside her. “No, you stay right where you are until the Calvary arrives.” She started brushing the debris from her arms and legs, wincing when she encountered a sharp piece of reed stuck in her thigh. “I’m going to play the security footage back to see how you managed to keep your face perfectly clean and uninjured when the rest of you looks like you rode a tube through a jungle before being rolled in mud and sand.”