Blamed

by Edie Harris

  Damn it. She should have let Mark feed her dessert tonight.

  The infamous Faraday nerves of steel having long since deserted her, Beth made her decision and prayed it was the right one. If not, she’d be dead, and that would piss Tobias off like nothing else: flying halfway across the world for nothing.

  She shifted the gun to her left hand and exhaled. Knowing she’d only have a split second in which anyone in the tub would be surprised and blinded, Beth smacked the light switch on the wall before lunging forward to fling back the shower curtain.

  And came face-to-face with the business end of a nine-millimeter Ruger.

  Her man was sprawled in the tub, pale-faced and bleeding from a gunshot wound in his side, but his aim was confident, his arm steady. “Neighbor,” he drawled casually, but there was a hard glint in his ice-blue eyes.

  Beth had almost had herself convinced, before this very moment, that the man on whom she trained her gun wasn’t a spy. She’d almost believed that those little zings down her spine whenever they’d nodded a greeting to one another had been basic attraction, not like recognizing like. Perhaps the quirked half-smiles when they ran into one another at the Starbucks two blocks over weren’t because Beth had caught him following her, but merely because they were in the same place at the same time, again. Maybe when he had come into the Institute gift shop to buy the print of the painting that even now hung haphazardly in his living room...maybe it had been pure coincidence, when he’d seen her walk past the shop on the way to her office and waved to her through the glass.

  And all the nights she had sat curled in the cozy armchair in front of her window, staring out across the street instead of focusing on curatorial paperwork, and seeing him quietly staring back at her? Maybe it had been a meet-cute waiting to happen, and her life was less Thriller Drama and more Romantic Comedy. Maybe her neighbor really was a normal, handsome, suit-wearing thirty-something: Preston Barnes, Commercial Real Estate Developer, just like the card she’d glimpsed when he’d dropped his wallet one Saturday morning at the nearby Whole Foods.

  Commercial real estate developers, as far as she knew, didn’t make a habit of bleeding out in their bathtubs, or holding a gun on their neighbors. “Neighbor,” she intoned wryly. “How are you this fine evening?”

  He smiled, different from the half-smiles in the coffee shop. The coffee-shop smiles were more a cute twist of firm lips, a flash of humor permitting a dimple to appear in his smooth cheek. This smile, on the other hand, was all white teeth, feral and sharply amused and far more threatening to her peace of mind than the pistol he had pointed between her eyes. “Dandy. Can’t you tell?”

  Surprised to find her gun hand steady—finally—she swept her gaze over him, noting his shiny black dress shoes, tailored charcoal trousers, now-ruined white button-down, and buttery yellow silk necktie, loosened ever so slightly at the unbuttoned collar. He’d obviously been caught unawares by the shooter, his clothing showing all the signs of a businessman just home from a long day at the office. She remembered the jacket on the floor next to the open briefcase. “Rough night?”

  He huffed out a pained laugh, wincing when it affected his wound, and clamped his free hand against his side. “You could say that.” As she allowed him movement, he did the same to her, letting her grip the Beretta in both hands. “Beth, isn’t it?”

  She smirked at his attempt to maintain cover. But her smirk faded when he grimaced again. “You need a doctor, pal.”

  Expression tight, he tilted his head slightly to the side, assessing her with that intelligent blue gaze, and she allowed herself a leisurely look at him for the first time since he’d moved in across the street six months ago, instead of quick, stolen glances. His pale eyes were thickly lashed beneath slashing black brows, the contrast of his neatly trimmed ebony hair against fair skin incredibly striking. He possessed an angular face, with the faintest of hollows beneath its contours, and the sharp lines of his jaw and chin and nose, not to mention the prominent cheekbones, gave him a harsh, masculine beauty. Without a doubt, he was one of the most gorgeous men Beth had ever seen, and the day’s worth of rakish dark stubble only made him more so.

  “I can’t go into an ER with a gunshot wound.” When she merely arched an eyebrow, he gave her a pitying look. As though he expected her to be better at playing this game than she was. “Mandatory reporting.”

  She blinked innocently. “You mean you don’t want the police to look into your shooting tonight? You don’t want your attacker brought to justice?” Justice. Now there was a word she hadn’t so much as thought in a year. It made her shiver, and she realized he was right to look at her with pity—she couldn’t play the spy game anymore, too out of practice and out of patience, not tonight and certainly not with him. “I can’t let you bleed to death in your bathtub, Mr. Barnes. It’s undignified.”

  His shoulders rolled in a faint shrug. “This? Just a flesh wound. Relax.”

  That made her teeth clench. “I’ll relax when you’ve handed me your weapon.”

  He seemed to consider that for a long moment. “Was the rest of the apartment clear?” When she nodded, he sighed. “Good. I thought I heard him go out the back.”

  “The balcony door was open when I got here.”

  As though it were just that simple for him, Barnes spun the Ruger on one long finger and handed it to her, grip first. Seeing her no-doubt shocked expression, his smile changed again, back into the cute, lopsided Starbucks grin that never failed to set butterflies loose in her stomach.

  God, what was wrong with her, that this lying liar-face of a man’s smile got to her when Mark the Sous Chef’s didn’t? Why was it, she wondered, mind suddenly frantic, that she had been unable to shed her danger-junkie approach to men, as she had shed her old life? Beth wanted normal, damn it—not just a year of it, but a lifetime.

  The only conclusion left to draw was that she was too broken from all her bad deeds to understand normal. To deserve it.

  Swallowing her bleakness at the thought, she snatched the Ruger and tucked it into the back waistband of her jeans. Hesitating only a moment, she extended a hand to help haul him out of the tub. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  “No.” But he took her hand anyway.

  Boy howdy, was that a mistake. The second they touched, Beth’s skin sizzled, her breath catching in her throat as her gaze locked on his. She watched his pupils dilate and a hectic flush flag those too-pale cheeks, mesmerized by his visceral reaction to her touch.

  Which made her wonder what he saw in her reaction, to make his eyes dart over her features as if he were drinking her in, memorizing her. “I—I don’t—” She cleared her throat, trying to rid herself of its suddenly husky quality. “I can probably dig out the bullet if I have to, and I can stitch and clean you, but I don’t have anything on hand to replace the blood you’ve lost. And, buddy—” she surveyed the bottom of the tub, his stained clothing, “—you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Tightening his hold on her, he levered himself up with a groan. “Looks worse than it is, I promise. Just do what you can.” Once standing, he released her, planting his hand on the counter when he swayed.

  She moved to steady him without thought, one arm looping around his waist. He was a big man, at least six-two and a solid two hundred pounds, maybe more. Under her arm, his torso felt muscled and firm, and Beth fought against the instinctive urge to lean into him, regardless of the fact that she was the one holding him upright. “Any idea who your late-night visitor was?”

  His chuckle was completely without humor. “Oh, yes, I’ve got an idea.”

  Pulling his heavy arm across her shoulders, she led them through the bathroom, into the master bedroom. “Care to share with the class?”

  “You won’t like the answer.”

  She rolled her eyes, kicking shut the balcony door before urging him out into the hall
way toward the living room. “Try me, anyway.”

  “Now there’s an invitation.” His voice was softer now, slightly wheezy, as if he was having difficulty taking a full breath. Beth worried her bottom lip, wondering—hoping—her rudimentary medical skills would be enough to fix the damage to his side. They would have to deal with things between them eventually, things such as who he was and why he’d been watching, yet never truly approaching, her for the past six months. For now, though, she had to make sure he didn’t up and die on her before he gave her the answers to those questions.

  They halted in the front room, Beth leaving him leaning against the kitchen counter as she slid the laptop into the briefcase. She tossed him his suit jacket from the floor and collected the scattered papers before slinging the case’s strap over one shoulder and returning to him.

  “I quit my job today,” he informed her as they hurried out the front door. He dug in his pocket and produced a key, fitting it to the lock, which she found ridiculous—someone had already broken in, for goodness’ sake. “My boss is...unhappy.”

  “I had no idea commercial real estate was so cutthroat,” she quipped, supporting as much of his considerable weight as she could as they made their way down the stairs.

  “Do you need me to spell it out for you, Elisabeth Laïla Faraday?”

  She nearly lost her footing on the steps at his use of her real name, a name that wasn’t on her door buzzer across the street, or her long-term lease, or her paychecks from the Art Institute, or her State of Illinois driver’s license. Every aspect of her new life carried the name Beth Ann Bernard, a name she had taken great pains to keep secure. Her evening routine, the gun she slept with, it wasn’t for fun—it was for life. Her life, precious and fragile, silly though it might be when compared to the life she once led.

  So even though she kept her arm securely around his waist, and even though they kept moving down the stairwell toward the cold outdoors, Beth pressed the muzzle of her Beretta into his uninjured side. “I hope you’re a good speller, pal.”

  His sigh sounded...sad. But that didn’t make sense. “I’m the man who’s meant to kill you.”

  Chapter Three

  There were worse things than having a gun held on him by a beautiful woman, he supposed. Such as glancing down in time to watch the pink heat drain from her honey-gold skin when he told her he was supposed to kill her.

  That was worse.

  He sucked in a breath as they hit the street, the chilly night air swirling around them as Beth hustled him to the other side of the block. “Not sure going back to yours is the best idea,” he mumbled, hissing as each step jarred the wound in his side. He hadn’t been lying when he told her it was a flesh wound, but he could feel the bullet lodged against his lowest rib, pinching and scraping and being generally uncomfortable.

  She shouldered open the front door to her building. “Do you want me to get that bullet out of you or not?”

  “I do,” he grated as they ascended the stairs. “But we’ve got a limited window before they send someone to do my job for me.” He let her push him into her apartment, taking a seat at the dining room table while she set the alarm and locked the door.

  “And by job, you mean me, right?” She didn’t look at him as she dropped his briefcase to the floor and disappeared down the hall, emerging a moment later with a hefty black nylon case that resembled an oversized lunch cooler. Drawing his surrendered gun from the waistband of her jeans, she replaced it with hers, setting his Ruger aside on the kitchen counter before she unzipped the case and began pulling out various medical supplies: latex gloves, sterilization pads, tweezers, an actual suture gun.

  Thirty seconds later, she was kneeling next to his chair. “Lift your hand and take off your shirt.”

  “Bossy. I like it.” But he complied, yanking his tie over his head, unbuttoning and shrugging off his shirt, and was relieved to find that the bleeding had slowed to a trickle.

  Dark-lashed hazel eyes glared up at him, their gold-speckled gray flashing under the light of the chandelier above the table. “You flirt with me, I make this hurt. Understand?”

  “What about the phrase, ‘Do no harm?’”

  Ripping open a sterilization packet, she snorted, wiping away the mess surrounding the wound. “Do I look like a doctor to you?” A small pile of bloody wipes started to grow on the dining table. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Question?” He was having trouble focusing, which could be due to any number of reasons: his employer had just tried to kill him, he’d lost a decent amount of blood from a gunshot to his side...he was shirtless in Beth Faraday’s apartment and she was touching him. Of the possibilities, blood loss seemed the safest choice, really.

  Holding a piece of gauze beneath the wound, she reached for the tweezers. The look on her sweetly ovular face was one part frustration, one part worry, and two parts I-want-to-punch-you-in-the-balls. That expression shouldn’t make her prettier. “You’re supposed to kill me, huh? Then I’m assuming your agency is behind the hit. You tell me you quit your job, whatever the hell that means, but the hit’s still there, right?” Without warning, she slid the tweezers into the wound. “Right.”

  He swore, loudly and repeatedly, eyes stinging as excruciating pain stole his breath, but her torture lasted only a minute, and then the pressure on his rib lessened as she drew out the bloody bullet. Using the gauze to staunch the flow of fresh red, she dropped the tweezers and bullet on the pile atop the table. “Who do you work for, Barnes? CIA? NSA? No way you’re FBI,” she murmured, more to herself than to him, “you’re too subtle to be a Fed.”

  Barnes. He hated her calling him that. Preston Barnes was imaginary, as were all the other names he’d used over the years. Sharing his real name wasn’t an option, even if he had technically given Management his resignation. Like any good spy, an alias and appropriate documentation waited for him in the wings, separate from his former employer, his bank account, et cetera. As soon as this strange interlude in Beth’s apartment came to a close, he could gather what he needed and fall neatly into the new life he’d created for himself.

  Not unlike what Beth had chosen to do a year earlier.

  So instead of answering, he studied her. It was habit to watch her; the past six months of his life had been spent watching her, after all, day and night, night and day. His orders were never to approach, but to insinuate himself peripherally...and wait until the order came through.

  The order had come through two days ago.

  He’d bought himself—and Beth—some time. Turned down the thermostat in the flat across the street, closed up the cover office he kept in a high rise in the Loop, knowing the space would rent again immediately upon the lease running out, given the view of the Art Institute’s majestic lions. Part of him would miss the days he’d spent in that office, cameras and scopes trained on the entrance and exits of the museum, not to mention the surveillance equipment planted in her little white-walled office.

  Her door read Beth Bernard, Assistant Curator, Impressionist Art. Every once in a while, one of his cameras would catch her staring at the words etched on her office door, a wistful smile on her face. As though she couldn’t quite believe this was her life. As though she were spectacularly grateful that it was.

  He’d tossed his phone and laptop and purchased new with cash this morning, but not before sending a succinct message to Management.

  Fuck you.

  Yes. “Succinct” covered it quite nicely.

  Gaze rapt on her as she rose from her crouch, he permitted her to place his hand over the gauze, keeping pressure on the seeping wound while she grabbed the suture gun and flexible bandages from the counter. Beth moved with an economy of motion that screamed—to him, anyway—of her training as a human weapon. To anyone else, she simply appeared to be a confident, graceful woman in her mid-twenties. And sh
e was that, of course, but there was so much more to Beth Faraday than met the eye.

  Tonight, her straight, dark-brown hair had been swept up in a high ponytail, showing off the colorful bohemian earrings dangling from her lobes. She wore a delicate blouse of midnight silk and dark jeans that molded to every inch of her endless legs. The file Management provided him claimed she was five-eight, but Beth was a woman who loved her high heels—the only time he had ever seen her in flat shoes in the past half a year was during exercise, until tonight. Slender yet deceptively strong, she’d taken his weight easily tonight on the dash from his place to hers, and he wished he’d had more presence of mind to enjoy having her amazing body tucked against his.

  Even if she had been holding a gun on him at the time.

  Speaking of guns.... “Don’t stitch me closed.” When she gave him a questioning look, the gray plastic suture gun already held in one gloved hand, he nodded at the stack of bandages. “If you have any saline on hand, use that to flush it out, then bandage it. Sewing up a GSW increases the risk of infection.”

  A blush spread over her cheekbones, even going to so far as to redden the tip of her upturned nose. “I knew that.” She placed the suture gun back in the case, then braced her hands against the counter. Her head drooped between her shoulders. “I swear I knew that. Or I used to.”

  Something tightened in his chest at her tone. “It’s okay.”

  She looked at him, lush pink lips twisting in a grimace. “It’s really not.”

  Deciding no response was the best response, he kept silent as she snagged a sealed plastic bottle from the case, along with more gauze and a handful of bandages. She knelt again, and this time, with the pain seriously lessened by the removal of the bullet, he could appreciate having her near.

  It had been so damn long since he’d been this close to her, shirtless and feeling her breaths puff against his naked rib cage. Since he’d felt her fingertips play over his sensitized skin. Christ, he ached for her, as he had done every day for...hell, for years.