by Char Webster
~*~*~
Nick walked home in a bit of a daze. He really needed to get his head on straight. All he could do was think about Kate, those soft lips, and the sexy little sound she made as she sucked in a breath right before he crushed her lips with his. Hell, he was losing it. How could he just disregard all of the rules? He needed to keep things professional. She would need his help and so would the kids. He couldn’t get off track by daydreaming about things that just couldn’t happen.
Nick made it in the house and flopped down on his bed, not even bothering to get undressed. He should have told her about his relationship with the kids. She would be angry when she found out.
He could tell she was growing close to the kids, and that they were starting to care about her. They were becoming a family and he didn’t want to mess that up. He was going to have to tell her soon. He couldn’t keep avoiding the kids; he was going to get caught and then he would never get Kate to listen to him. He would tell her tomorrow.
Nick fell asleep with a smile on his face, thinking about seeing Kate the next day.
~*~*~
Kate was busy in the yard trimming some of the azalea bushes around the pool. Maddy was singing to the radio Kate had tuned to the pop station. The little girl didn’t know the words, but she was singing along anyway, playing in her sandbox. Kate loved that Maddy was always happy.
Kate was just bagging up a bunch of cut branches when Robert strolled into the back yard in plaid swim shorts, tank top, flip-flops, and sunglasses. He had a towel hanging across one shoulder, and looked like he was ready for the beach—or her pool. She really couldn’t believe his audacity.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he said as he strutted up to her.
“What are you doing here, Robert?” Kate asked in exasperation. He was seriously persistent. She had not seen him so casually dressed before, and she had to admit that it helped his looks. He looked more boyish and relaxed; not as tense, aggressive, and predatory. She hated to acknowledge it, but the guy was nice looking.
He was also making himself at home in one of the chairs around the pool.
“I came to see you, baby. I didn’t bring the vodka this morning. I figured it would be too early for that, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a mimosa.”
“Don’t call me baby. And do not get comfortable. You’re not staying.”
Maddy was watching the exchange with interest, so Kate had to be careful. She didn’t want her child to be afraid. Maddy had already witnessed Robert’s slightly aggressive behavior at the carnival. She didn’t need to see it again today.
“Of course I’m staying. How else are we going to get to know one another?” He gave her a huge smile that showed his straight white teeth. Kate would’ve probably been attracted to him if he weren’t so over-the-top cocky and pushy. The guy was a pain in her butt.
“We don’t need to get to know each other.”
“Of course we do. How else are we going to be friends?”
“I have enough friends.” Kate sighed. She was never going to get rid of this guy.
“There’s always room for more friends. You made room for Nick.”
“That’s different.”
“How’s that different? You don’t really know him any better than you know me, but you instantly took his side and decided I was a bad guy. That hurts, Kate. That really hurts.” He dramatically grabbed his heart and fell back on the lounge.
“He didn’t come on too strong and try to scare me.”
“I’ll admit I met you on a bad day. Give me a chance and I’ll explain. As a matter of fact, you can ask me anything and I’ll answer you.”
“Truthfully?” she challenged.
He laughed and said, “Smart girl. Yes, I swear, the complete truth.”
“So what’s the catch?”
“No catch. I’m not even going to ask you anything at all.” This time, he thought. “Today is for you to realize I’m not the bad guy here.”
She was still looking at him with suspicion.
“Go ahead, test it out.”
“What is your gift?” she asked, really wanting to know.
“That’s an easy one. I can feel if someone has a gift, what it is, and what their weakness is. It really comes in handy in a fight. Although, sparring with Nick is no fun. I’m sure he told you how he cheats.”
“How is using his gift cheating?”
“Because he knows I could beat him if he didn’t use it. No one can beat me in a fight.”
“But didn’t you just say that you use your gift to search for someone’s weakness? Isn’t that cheating, too?”
“I never said I fought fair.” He winked at her.
She rolled her eyes and tried a different question: one she really wanted answered.
“How do you know Nick?” She moved to a chair that was facing toward the sandbox that was close enough for her to grab Maddy quickly if needed. Robert seemed to be in a relaxed and almost fun mood today. She liked this side of him, but she still didn’t want to drop her guard.
“Nick and I grew up together, got into trouble together, got punished together, and eventually both worked for the Association.”
Kate noticed the sad look on his face and guessed that he was thinking about Nick. He continued, “I met Nick when we were both about five. He had just moved in with his brother, who was nineteen years older.”
“Wow, that’s a big age difference.”
“Yeah, they both had the same dad but different moms. Their dad was gifted. Anyway, his brother had just gotten married and had bought a place a few houses down from where my parents lived.”
“Where did you guys grow up?”
“In West Chester, PA, not too far from here. Nick’s brother was a doctor and his wife was a nurse and they both had a lot of crazy hours at work, so Nick spent a lot of time at my house.”
“But, you’re not really friends anymore.” She was stating an observation and he nodded. “Why not? If you two were so close growing up, why not now?”
“That’s a bit of a longer story, and I could really use that mimosa right about now,” he said with a grin.
“I’ll go get some iced tea.” She scooped up Maddy and went to the kitchen. There was no way she was leaving her outside alone with him. He laughed, knowing exactly why she grabbed the girl.
Kate returned a few minutes later with a couple of glasses of iced tea. She dropped Maddy off at her sandbox and returned to her chair. “Here, you have your drink. Now answer my question.”
“But I really wanted a mimosa.” He batted his eyes at her playfully.
Kate glared at him.
“Okay, okay, iced tea is fine,” he said, but he was still grinning.
“So how do you go from practically being brothers to hating each other?”
Robert looked right at her intensely. “Nick hates me?” He paused and said sadly, “I don’t hate him.”
“Uh, I don’t really know. I was just using that word.” She stumbled through her words. “It looked like you guys don’t get along.” Kate felt bad saying that to him. His look of hurt was obvious.
“Whatever, back to the story.” He lost a bit of his cockiness. “We both graduated high school early and flew through our bachelor’s degrees. We wanted to be part of the Elite Guard for the Association. We couldn’t wait to start enforcing the Association’s laws. We went through a regular police academy with the ungifted, and then completed a vigorous Association academy, which was ten times harder. Nick was really determined to succeed because his brother had always wanted him to work for the Association. It was something that they had talked about since Nick was very little.”
Kate knew from talking to Nick last night that the people of their race were very smart and often finished school and degrees years earlier than the average person. “Okay, so you both wanted to be James Bond. What happened?”
He sighed and sipped his iced tea. “You know, it really would have been better if this had been a mimosa.” He winked at he
r again and continued. He really is kind of charming, she thought.
He blew her a kiss, and she rolled her eyes. “We were sent out on a bunch of assignments, and we thought we were the coolest guys around.”
“Pretty much how you think of yourselves now,” she teased.
“Funny,” he said, and took a deep breath. Kate felt a flicker of feeling from him. He was hurting.
“We were stationed out of Philly and shared an apartment. We weren’t old enough to drink, but we had fake IDs and we were having a ball. We loved the nightlife because it was a big change from the more rural area we were from.”
“None of that sounds bad.”
“No, it was all great. It was great until we met Sam. Sam was beautiful and smart and sexy, and I fell completely in love with her.” He paused and took another sip.
“Did Nick fall in love with her, too? Is that what wrecked your friendship?” She hated that she was jealous just thinking about Nick in love with someone else. She was really not liking this girl Sam.
“No, Nick never liked her, and he warned me to stay away from her. I probably should have listened to him.” He gave her a stern look. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“What happened?”
“At first she ignored me, but then she gave in and we were happy for a while.” He smiled at some unknown memory. “We had to keep things a secret because she is one of us.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. Nick found out and freaked. He told me that we were going to be caught and that the Association would punish us. He ranted that they could separate us at best, but there were much worse things they could do. Nick pleaded with me to end it. He didn’t want to lose me as a friend.”
“So what happened?”
“He told me he wouldn’t tell anyone but that he thought we were wrong to be risking it.” He took another sip of tea and played with the ice for a second before continuing. “Six months later, I asked her to marry me. I knew we were young, but I didn’t care. I wanted her around forever. She said yes, and we were planning to run off. I had it all planned out; we would hide from the world and be together. The day before we were to leave, I was arrested and detained at the Association Headquarters in New York. I thought Nick had turned us in, and I was furious. I wouldn’t talk to him when he came to see me.”
“Nick turned you in?”
“No, but I thought he did at the time.”
“Did you ever find out who turned you in?”
He sat up and put his arms on his knees. He was looking down, lost in what must have been a painful memory. Kate got up, walked over to him, and placed her hand on his shoulder. She used her gift to pull some of the sadness away from him. She couldn’t feel his emotions because he was blocking them, but she knew he was hurting.
He looked up at her with a half-smile and she went back to her seat.
“Thanks.” He muttered and continued taking a huge breath. “Sam turned us in. She had thought our relationship was fun because it was forbidden and it was going against her parents and the laws. She never had any intention of running off with me. She had told her parents that I had wanted a relationship with her that she wanted no part of. They called the Association and had me arrested, and she married the first ungifted guy she could find.”
“That is so awful. What happened next?”
“They detained me for months and stripped me of my rank and position. I had no job, no apartment, no girlfriend, and no best friend. I became bitter, and I blamed the world. When they released me, Nick came to find me. He was devastated. I found out what she did, but I still blamed him for being a part of an Association that would be so cruel.”
“He agreed with what they did to you?”
“In a way, yes, and in a way, no. He didn’t agree that I should be put in jail and lose everything, but he did agree that I should never have had a relationship with her. He followed the laws and he thought I should have followed them as well. He sided with them over me, and he still does. We haven’t really spoken much since.”
Kate’s heart went out to him.
“I left the Association and went out on my own. Now I’m considered a type of outcast; someone not welcome anywhere, and the only thing I did was fall in love with the wrong girl.”
With that said, Robert got up and walked out the gate and out of sight.
Kate sat back and sighed. If what Robert said was true, there was absolutely no chance of a future for her and Nick. She felt her heart break a little bit.
Chapter Eleven
Alex and Zach came back from their sleepover just as Kate was coming down the steps from putting Maddy down for her afternoon nap.
“Hey, guys! How was your night?” Kate asked in greeting.
“It was great until Alex shorted out the air popcorn maker. The thing sparked like crazy,” he laughed. “I thought it was going to catch fire.” Zach was cracking up.
“Okay . . .” Kate drew out the word, waiting for some sort of explanation.
“It’s not funny, Zach,” Alex huffed.
“It was totally funny. I’m just glad that it was you this time and not me. I’m always the one whose gift gets all messed up.”
“Did anyone get hurt?” Kate asked in concern.
“No, we just didn’t get to eat our popcorn with the movie,” Alex told her.
“Yeah, because who wants to eat little, black, scorched charcoal pieces.”
Alex shot him a dirty look.
“Did anyone notice something strange happened? Do we need to worry?” Kate asked, wanting to make sure her kids were safe.
“No, their parents just figured it was getting old and it broke,” Alex told her.
“The good thing was they took us out for ice cream since the house filled up with smoke.” Zach was still laughing. “Maybe you can burn down something else next time and we can get gelatos.”
Alex pushed her brother, and he just laughed harder.
Kate gave Zach the evil eye. “I seem to remember someone else blowing up iced tea glasses outside by the pool a few days ago.”
“Yeah, Zach. Zip it,” Alex chimed in.
“Okay, so besides a little fire situation, how was it?” Kate asked again.
“There wasn’t an actual fire,” Alex grumbled.
The kids talked about their day at the water park and the night they had picking on each other and staying up late watching TV. They had had a really good time and were looking forward to doing it again soon.
“Tell me about your gift, Alex.” Kate wanted to know a little more about it so she could be prepared. If Alex was going to start fires all over, Kate might need to get a few extra fire extinguishers.
Zach cracked up hearing Kate’s thoughts about the fire extinguishers.
“That is SO not funny,” Alex grumped.
“Sorry, Alex, but I do need to know a little more about it.” Kate tried to keep a straight face, but it was difficult with Zach laughing like a hyena.
Alex crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Zach, which just made him laugh harder.
Kate gave him a hard look, and he settled down a bit.
“Alex?”
“Fine. I can play with electricity a bit.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kate asked, a little worried.
Alex walked over to the lamp, unplugged it, and held the end of the cord that plugs into the wall. The light turned on for a second. “I can give people a shock sometimes, but I’m not really good at it. I can’t do this all the time either.” She was pointing to the lamp.
“Alex is a human battery,” Zach taunted, still laughing.
Kate looked at Zach sternly and said, “Enough!”
Zach quieted down and went outside. Kate thought, To pout. She then looked at Alex to see if she was going to have to say something to her as well, but Alex didn’t react to Kate’s reprimand.
“It’s a very cool gift, but you need to be careful with it,” Kate began. “We all should practice our gift
s so that we can master them and not have to worry about these types of things happening.”
“My dad said the same thing to us before they died. He wanted us to practice control, but we haven’t been able to do that.”
“You can practice now, and you can help me learn this stuff since I didn’t have anyone helping me when I was younger,” Kate told her. “We’ll figure this out together.”
Kate gave in to the urge to hug Alex, and, to her surprise, Alex hugged her back.
~*~*~
Dawn Johnson spent the entire day researching old files and making numerous phone calls. She found it amazing how poorly government records were kept and information stored.
She discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Brooks had adopted and fostered twenty-eight children over the last twenty-five years. All of the children were troubled in some way and were classified as difficult cases, with strange things happening around them that could not easily be explained. They had extraordinary IQs, skipped grades, and were discipline problems. In most cases, their parents had died in odd or violent ways: car accidents, shootings, fires, etc. A few were labeled runaways.
Why were they collecting these types of children? Dawn needed to find out more.
Dawn looked down at her notes again, frowning. Some of the kids died in their early twenties, just after leaving the system, but not enough information was available. There were missing details about the rest of the children they had taken in. She felt it was odd that once they had gotten a child, they kept him or her and never once did a child leave their home for another.
She needed to do some research to find out what had happened to the ones who had died. It was strange that all the ones that had died were dead by the age of twenty-four. She needed to find one of the kids that had lived with them and was now an adult.
~*~*~
Nick stopped by Kate’s house, but she and the children weren’t home. He had been busy with Association business and didn’t catch them leaving. Some guardian he was if he had no idea of the whereabouts of the people he was guarding.