High-Risk Affair

by RaeAnne Thayne

  So why did he continue to blame himself?

  He wouldn't, he vowed. He knew he would always grieve for Soshi and Mirabel Decker, and their names would always be etched in his heart. He would probably always feel some guilt that he hadn't been able to save them. But he had realized, emerging from the bleak darkness of the mine today, that he needed sunshine and light in his life.

  He needed this woman in his arms.

  He drew in a sharp breath as the realization poured through him, stunning and unavoidable.

  "I must be hurting you," she said, easing away from him a little.

  "The only way you could hurt me right now would be to let go," he confessed.

  Her gaze flashed to his. He saw shock there and something else, a blooming awareness, like mountain wild-flowers on a soft summer morning opening up for the sun.

  Her lips parted slightly, only a few inches away from his, and he didn't think about their surroundings or the fact that her son slept just a few feet away. He couldn't help himself; he leaned forward and brushed his mouth against hers.

  At first she froze in his arms, her mouth slack, and he thought—feared—she would pull away and take her warmth and her sweetness with her.

  After a moment, she seemed to take a shuddering little breath, and her mouth moved under his in soft, subtle welcome as her arms tightened around him.

  He slid into the kiss, forgetting the tight ache in his shoulder, the exhaustion in his muscles, the hard, heavy weight he had carried for two weeks. All of that seemed to drift away like falling leaves on a warm swirl of current and the only thing that mattered was Megan.

  This couldn't be happening.

  Some corner of her mind told her she shouldn't be doing this, kissing Caleb Davis, a man she barely knew. But his kiss was so tender, so breathtakingly sweet, and she was helpless to resist it.

  In his arms, all the stress and fear of the last two days seemed like a distant memory and she wanted to stay right here, safe from the ugly world outside.

  Her arms tightened around him and she was aware of the hard, muscled strength beneath her fingers, of his heat searing through her, warming places inside her that had been frozen solid for so terribly long.

  She didn't want it to end, but that strident voice in her mind was already raising objections when she heard a knock at the door.

  Oh, mercy. What was she thinking? She sprang away from him, breathing hard, just as Lauren Maxwell walked into the room.

  The doctor paused in the doorway, her lovely features twisted into a startled expression before she quickly concealed it.

  Could she guess what they had been doing an instant before? Oh, she hoped not. What would Lauren think of her?

  Megan knew she must look flustered and unsettled. Her skin felt hot and prickly, and she knew she must be beet red. She was one of those unfortunate redheads whose skin showed every flicker of emotion, and right now she was blushing, inside and out.

  She wanted to press her face into her hands, to curl up in the fetal position on the floor and yank one of Cameron's warmed blankets over her head.

  "How is he?" the doctor asked.

  She flushed brighter, then let out a breath, reminding herself the doctor was talking about Cameron, not Cale Davis and his tender kisses.

  "He...he seems to be fine. The monitors haven't beeped once."

  Megan could only be grateful she hadn't been the one hooked up to those monitors because she imagined that kiss would have set off a whole cacophony of alerts.

  "Good. Do you need anything?"

  Only a brain. And perhaps a cold shower. She shook her head. "I think we're fine in here."

  "Cale? What about you?"

  "Uh, no."

  Megan took some small comfort that he sounded as disconcerted and off balance as she felt by their kiss.

  "How's the shoulder? Is the local wearing off?"

  "It's fine. Thanks again for the patch job."

  "I would tell you anytime, but I don't want you to take me up on it. I'd rather not have to stitch up my friends."

  He gave a crooked smile, and Megan wondered if their relationship had ever been more than just friends. No, she wasn't picking up any kind of vibe like that between the two of them.

  "You mind if I take a look at Cameron?" Lauren asked.

  "Of course not." She moved aside as the doctor walked to the bedside, pulling out Cam's chart and making a notation in it.

  Cale took one of the chairs in the room, but Megan chose to remain standing, fighting the urge to cover her face with her hands.

  What had she been thinking to kiss him that way, and with her son sleeping only a few feet away? she wondered.

  The physical attraction wasn't so surprising, she supposed. What woman wouldn't be drawn to Cale's lean, masculine features, those stunning polar-blue eyes or the soft dark hair that begged for a woman to twist her fingers through it?

  It was a normal physiological response to a gorgeous man. She didn't like it, though she could certainly understand it.

  But what really scared her was the emotional tug between them.

  Somehow in the last day and a half, he had become important to her, had managed to sneak past her defenses and make himself at home.

  How could she have let it happen? She wasn't ready lor this. She didn't want it. Absolutely not.

  Even if she were ready to jump into something, she certainly wouldn't let herself fall for a man like Caleb Davis. If she ever allowed herself to care for another man, he would be someone solid. Someone dependable and settled and safe.

  She knew what it was like to sit at home waiting for someone who was busy saving the world. She knew the loneliness and the fear, the heartache and the uncertainty.

  It took a special kind of courage to love a warrior, and Megan was afraid she had used up a lifetime's worth being married to Rick.

  She knew her husband had loved his job and she had tried to be supportive. But she had died a little inside every time he went out on a mission, afraid this would be the one that would take him from her.

  She couldn't live through that again. She wouldn't.

  Cale was an FBI agent, a man completely dedicated to his job, as well. She knew he must take risks, that he put himself in danger for those he served. If she needed proof, she only had to look at his bloody shirt that covered a half-healed gunshot wound right now.

  She couldn't be foolish enough to jump headlong into that kind of pain and fear again.

  Even though she was powerfully drawn to him on both a physical and emotional level, she would just have to do her best to ignore it. A smart woman learned to stay away from things that were bad for her, and right now Caleb Davis topped her personal list.

  His arms had felt wonderful around her, though, warm and strong and comforting.

  A shiver coursed through her, and she was grateful Caleb and Dr. Maxwell seemed focused on Cameron, just where Megan's attention should be.

  Her son's eyes were opening again, she realized, and she hurried to his side as they fluttered all the way open.

  "Mom?" he said, his voice raspy.

  "Right here, honey." She picked up his hand.

  "My head hurts. What happened?"

  He sounded so normal, just like a nine-year-old boy waking up tired and achy and cranky, that she had to choke back a sob of relief. Every time he had a seizure, especially the bad ones, her deepest fear was that the irregular brain activity would somehow steal away more of him.

  "What do you remember?" she asked.

  "I was trapped in the dark and couldn't find my way out. Thirsty. Scared."

  "You're safe now."

  He closed his eyes for a moment. She thought he might have drifted off, but then they fluttered open again. "Are you mad at me?" he asked, a fearful note in his voice.

  Deep in her heart, she wanted to hug him and hold him and tell him of course she wasn't mad, that she could never be mad at him, especially since she had him in her arms again.

  But
she knew she couldn't let him off that easily, not when he had taken such foolish risks and put himself and so many others in danger.

  Parenting was hard business, especially when her soft mommy side that wanted to kiss him and tell him everything would be all right warred with the harsh, realistic side that knew she would be doing him no favors if she didn't stress the consequences to his actions.

  "Yes, I'm mad," she told him firmly. "You were wrong to sneak out in the middle of the night and you know better than to go into an abandoned mine by yourself."

  Cameron looked glum until she finally gave in to that maternal side and pulled him into her arms. He snuggled against her, and she had to tight back tears when she thought of those long hours when she feared this moment wouldn't come.

  "I am very upset that you broke our family rules and put yourself and others in such danger."

  She touched his small, dear face. "But I'm also so very, very happy that you were found and that you're safe."

  He blinked a little, then smiled. After a moment, his eyes drifted closed again and she felt his body relax in her arms.

  "He's aware enough to worry about his mom being mad at him," Cale spoke up from the corner. She had almost—not quite—forgotten he was there. "I'd say that's a good sign, wouldn't you, Lauren?"

  The doctor smiled. "A very good sign. We'll have to wait to see how things go for the next few hours. But given his encouraging vitals, I don't see any reason you can't take him home later and try to get some sleep in your own bed."

  At her words, Megan realized how deeply exhausted she was, how every part of her ached with fatigue. She wanted to sink into sleep right there, sitting on the edge of her son's hospital bed. Even as she fought to keep her eyes open, she was aware of Cale's troubled expression.

  He didn't say anything while Lauren finished making some adjustments to the IV pump. "I'll check back in fifteen minutes or so," the doctor said, then slipped from the room.

  When she was gone, Cale rose and came to stand beside her. "I don't want you to be alone at home right now. Is there someone who can stay with you?"

  She raised an eyebrow at his imperious tone. Why hadn't she noticed how bossy he was before? Still another reason to keep him at the top of her things-to-avoid-even-though-she-wanted-them list.

  "We'll be fine," she said.

  "I know you're happy to have Cameron back and you want to go home as-soon as possible so you can try to return to the life you had before. But this isn't over. You need to consider what's at stake here."

  She frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "A man was murdered in that mine. If my hunch is right, Cameron may have seen it go down. It's possible he can identify the shooter—and even if he can't, just the fact that he was in the mine at approximately the same time as the murder could put him in grave jeopardy."

  Her arms tightened around her son's sleeping form. She didn't want to hear this. That dead body they found in the mine seemed so distant, almost unrelated to her missing son.

  She had been so totally focused on finding Cameron she had paid it little mind. Hearing Caleb's stark assessment of the situation and seeing his continuing unease was a forceful reminder to her that all was not perfect for her son.

  "I think you need to stay with your sister for the night. Or barring that, you need to have someone stay at your house to keep an eye on things until we know Cameron's side of the story."

  "What about you?"

  The moment the words escaped her, she regretted them and wished more than anything to call them back. She didn't want to spend more time with Caleb Davis. She needed distance from the man, time to rebuild the barricades he had smashed through.

  Beyond that, hadn't he given enough? The man had been awake for nearly forty-eight hours, had spent most of the day in the dark and dank, had risked his life.

  She couldn't ask more of him.

  "I'm sorry. Forget I said that. We will be fine. I have an excellent security system and with all the media still camped out down the street, we'll be perfectly safe."

  "I'm sure you will," he answered. "Because I'll be there to make certain of it."

  She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again and let the matter ride, too tired to work up the energy.

  She had been the one to suggest it, after all. How could she now tell him that, upon further reflection, she opposed the idea, simply because she didn't trust herself in the same room with him?

  Four hours later, Cale stood in Cameron Vance's sports-decorated bedroom gazing with frustration at the boy's stubborn mother as she pulled up a chair and settled in beside him.

  "You can't sit here all night, Megan. You haven't slept in two days." Her eyes were so shadowed they looked like big angry bruises. A few more moments and she was going to fall over. He only hoped he would still be awake to catch her.

  "I can't leave him," she murmured. "I just can't. Not yet. But you don't need to stay up with us. There's a guest room two doors down on the left. Get some rest. You've been up as long as I have."

  From the doorway, he gazed at her for a long moment—that soft, feathery hair, the delicate curve of her features, the slender arch of her neck as she looked down at her son. How had this slight, fragile woman and her well-being become so terribly important to him in such a short time?

  A terrifying tenderness surged up inside him like a wellspring and he was very much afraid it was far too late to do anything about capping it.

  He sighed and turned to go, but her voice stopped him.

  "Caleb. Thank you again," she said softly. "I do feel better knowing you're here."

  He managed a smile, knowing it was a hard concession for her to offer. She hadn't wanted him to spend the night. She had told him so in no uncertain terms, and he couldn't blame her. She wanted her house back, her privacy, her life. How could he begrudge her that?

  But he also couldn't shake this unease for Cameron's safety. Until they had a suspect in custody for the Simon murder, he knew Cameron was in danger.

  That didn't mean the boy's mother had to sit up all night. He went in search of supplies and returned a few moments later. Her eyes widened at the load in his arms.

  "What's this?"

  He set the pile of bedding he had raided from the guest room on a nearby dresser. "You've got to be at least as tired as I am. Cam's not going anywhere tonight."

  He pulled the thick comforter off the pile and folded it into a bedroll. It would at least give her a little padding on the floor. He laid it beside Cameron's bed, then topped it with the pillow and another blanket.

  "There you go. Now you can stretch out here and be close if he wakes up."

  She looked stunned, as if he had just handed her the keys to her own private island, a hundred servants and a luxury yacht to take her there.

  "I...thank you," she mumbled.

  She lifted her green eyes toward his and to his horror, he spied a tear trickling down her cheek.

  "Ah, damn. I'm sorry. Don't cry."

  He wanted desperately to hold her, but he had seen the shock and dismay in her eyes at the hospital after he had been stupid enough to kiss her. He wasn't eager to get that reaction again, though it was killing him not to pull her into his arms.

  "I'm the one who's sorry. We've been such a bother to you." She gave him a watery smile and he could only stare at her, rattled to the depths of his soul by the sudden inescapable truth.

  He was in love with her.

  He drew in a sharp breath, totally stunned. He didn't know how it had possibly happened in such a short time and under such terrible circumstances, but he couldn't deny it.

  He might desperately want to pretend it was just a result of exhaustion and stress but he knew he would be lying to himself, something he tried not to do on a regular basis.

  He was in love with Megan Vance, a woman still grieving for her hero of a husband, a woman he had only kissed once, to a less-than-stellar reception.

  Okay. Probably not the smartest move he'd
ever made.

  "Get some sleep," he managed. His voice came out gruff, but he hoped she would blame it on fatigue.

  "Right. You, too. Thank you, Caleb. For the bedroll and for.. .everything else."

  He didn't want her gratitude, but he was very much afraid that was all he would ever have. "You're welcome. Good night."

  He left quickly, closing the door tight behind him, then stood in the hallway for a long time, his mind buzzing with shock and no small amount of dismay.

  In love with her. How the hell had he let it happen? Yes, he had come to'care about her these last few days and found much to admire in her response to tremendous adversity.

  She had survived the nightmare of the last two days with courage and strength, showing incredible grace and compassion toward him even when she was dealing with her own crippling fear.

  He respected her and had come to care about her. But love. That was something else entirely.

  He didn't know the first thing about being in love. He figured since it hadn't hit him yet by the ripe old age of thirty-five, he must have dodged that particular bullet.

  He had always told himself he preferred being alone, that he wasn't cut out for anything else.

  Now he wanted more, with a hunger that just about sent him to his knees. He wanted what Rick Vance had lost. He wanted Megan and Cameron and Hailey.

  He rubbed a fist to the ache in his chest, knowing the fierce yearning was impossible. Megan didn't return his feelings. He hadn 't needed to see her reaction to their kiss to know that.

  After a moment, he sighed and slid to the floor of the hallway. He would have to figure out how to go on from here, how to live the rest of his life with this aching void in his heart. But not right now. For this moment, his only concern was keeping her safe.

  Chapter 13

  She hadn't meant to sleep. She didn't want to leave her son even for a moment, even to surrender to the demands of her body. But the last two days had been so traumatic and exhausting, she couldn't fight the inevitable. The moment she stretched out on a pallet on the floor, she must have drifted off.

  She awoke some time later to moonlight streaming through the windows, washing everything a pale, pearly gray.