She lifted it up to her nose before she dropped it into the hamper. It still smelled of detergent or fabric softener. Not a hint of sweat. Certainly, not filthy river water. And it most definitely was the same pale violet shirt Kelsey had been wearing the morning she disappeared. Shelby prided herself on her attention to details like that. She knew her clients.
Shelby busied herself by refreshing the bathroom towels. She wiped all the bathroom surfaces down with an antiseptic cleaner and folded the corner of the comforter down on what appeared to be Kelsey’s side of the bed. The poor woman had to be worn out. Sleeping in her bed would help.
Matching lamps adorned both nightstands, but the alarm clocks were different. Kelsey’s was a combination radio, clock, and iPod. Mr. Stewart’s was a plain clock radio from Radio Shack. Interesting.
Finding Kelsey had renewed Shelby’s confidence. She might not have been the one who actually found her, but she’d taken pride in the search efforts she’d organized that had kept everyone looking.
It didn’t hurt that Kelsey now had two bodyguards, but that posed another problem. Shelby hadn’t realized they were both ex-military until she’d overheard Mark’s comment about deployments when he’d brought Kelsey home. That was one detail she wished she hadn’t missed.
Both Agents Lennox and Cartwright seemed to think they needed to keep not one, but two weapons tucked into leather holsters under their arms, another thing she took exception to. Army guys with guns. Not her favorite combination.
She should’ve known. She’d seen Agent Cartwright’s weapons tucked under his jacket out there on the river the day he’d explained about skid marks. And that was another thing. Who knew simple skid marks could reveal so much about the events of an accident?
Built of hard muscle and bone, he’d been on the rude side of helpful that morning, but more interesting was the reaction of her body to his. Rude or not, like it or not, the rush of warmth up her arm when he’d cupped her elbow didn’t go unnoticed. Neither did her inexplicable tendency to lean into that warm, solid body of his.
That had to stop, and stop it would. She had better sense than to get mixed up with the likes of him. She’d never been around guns, not with intellectuals for parents, her father a university professor, her mother a researcher at the Environmental Protection Agency. They’d raised their daughter correctly. If only the world were as smart as they were. There’d be no need for guns and killing. No soldiers. No wars.
Of all things, she, Shelby Sullivan an outspoken advocate of gun control, was now housed with two guys who’d no doubt killed men, women, and children while they were—wherever they’d been. If her mother could see her now, Penelope Sullivan would’ve been fit to be tied. She’d faithfully steered her children toward academics, and Shelby most of all.
If you have to marry, marry a doctor or a lawyer. Aim high. People who say money can’t buy everything don’t know how to shop. And for heaven’s sake, steer clear of guys in uniform. They’re trouble.
Shelby couldn’t stand to live with anyone who believed in war and killing. Nonetheless, she’d come here to do a job, and she wouldn’t let Kelsey down again. Kelsey was the important one in this household.
Only Kelsey.
Chapter Nine
“Hey, Whisper. Hey, Smoke. You guys need to stretch your legs?”
Whisper, a black German Shepherd, and Smoke, a silver Malinois, were quiet as Gabe entered Kelsey’s backyard through the driveway gate. He’d barely finished another sweep of the neighborhood while Zack attended to lunch. For Kelsey’s sake, this guard duty needed to go down as routine and uneventful. Sometimes, boring was damned good.
Located in a sedate, older area of Alexandria, the simple brick home fit Kelsey to a T, but for the life of him, Gabe couldn’t envision Alex living there. He’d always pictured his boss in a mansion with servants at his bidding, maybe a couples-only condo.
This little house with a covered carport instead of a four-stall, heated garage provided an entirely different perspective. Alex might have been master of the universe at work, but at home he was just—a guy. He probably raked his own leaves and weeded his own flowerbeds, too. Who’d have thought?
Unlatching the kennel gate, Gabe released the dogs for a run in the fenced backyard. He took off the light jacket he wore when carrying and draped it over the kennel gate. Neighbors didn’t know he was armed. At the sound of the back door opening, he looked up to Nurse Sullivan’s sour face, her lips in a tight disapproving line. What now?
“Come on out,” he called, hoping to start fresh with this prickly woman. “They won’t hurt you.”
She started across the yard. Sullivan couldn’t be all bad—not given the way she’d commandeered the search and rescue operation. Blonde and capable. A little on the tense side, though. She needed to loosen up. Maybe a good game of catch with the dogs would help.
She seemed to want instant compliance when she spoke. She’d alienated most of The TEAM during the search for Kelsey, not that it would’ve kept them from searching on their own. They’d simply worked around her when they disagreed with her telling them what to do and when to do it, as if they didn’t already know.
Sullivan seemed not to understand that most military men and women were one-half alpha from the ground up. They’d all been trained to lead. Following a bossy civilian didn’t set well. She didn’t get that a good leader doesn’t command respect, either. They earn it.
It’s one of those symbiotic relationships a guy can’t learn from a book. If a good first sergeant takes care of his men, his men will take care of him. If not, he got the kind of allegiance that happened too often in the Vietnam War—attempted murder by any other name. An arrogant officer who thought he was better than his men might have woken up to a hand grenade tossed into his hooch. Or worse. He might not have woken up at all.
Of course there were other dynamics at work during that war. Politics. Gabe tossed the rubber bone he’d retrieved from the dog kennel and let the history lesson go.
Whisper bowled Smoke over to get to the toy first. Smoke recovered quickly, but Whisper scooped the bone into his powerful jaws, not missing a step. Both dogs made a mad dash around the yard before they circled back.
Nurse Sullivan picked her way across the yard toward Gabe, watching where she stepped and carefully avoiding the dogs.
He crouched to retrieve the bone. With a spring-loaded cock of his arm, he pitched it high into a steep arc that forced both dogs’ eyes upward. While they pranced and scrambled to retrieve it, he snagged another chew toy from their kennel and tossed it to Sullivan. “Here. Play fetch with us.”
“Ewww. No thanks.” She sidestepped, letting it drop to the grass when the dogs roared back for more.
Goodhearted Whisper bumped his nose against Sullivan’s butt, urging her to come play, too. Or saying hello. It’s kind of hard to tell with dogs.
Sullivan twisted her backside out of the reach of his long muzzle and smacked his nose. “Beat it, dog. Shoo. Get away from me.”
“Aw, come on. Don’t hit him. Whisper used to be an Army EOD K-9, you know—a military working dog. He sniffed out munitions, bombs and IEDs while in—”
Her hands hit her hips. “I thought so. You’re ex-military.”
“USMC and proud of it.” When her eyes narrowed, he spelled it out. “Sorry. United States Marine Corps, ma’am. Ex-Sergeant Gabriel Cartwright at your service. Whisper’s Army buddy over there, the guy on his belly who should’ve brought me the bone...” Gabe lifted his brow with a semi-stern warning in his voice. “That sneaky silver fellow is Smoke. Come here, Smokey. Bring it here.”
Smoke glanced at him for one scant second before he turned to the bone trapped securely between his two front paws. He’d been caught red-handed—umm, red-pawed. Even for a dog, he looked guilty as sin.
Poor Whisper still must’ve thought Sullivan was a friend, or maybe a toy. When he rounded her backside, he goosed her again. Apparently, Whisper liked girls’ butts. Didn’t all
guys?
She let the big dog have it, yelling at him to, “Stop doing that. I mean it. Get away from me.”
Whisper ducked his head low, his tail between his legs. He circled around Gabe like the bad puppy he was not.
“Aww, is she being mean to you?” Gabe crouched to one knee, ruffling his fingers over Whisper’s furry face and trying hard not to laugh at the way Whisper had welcomed his new friend. “How can you not like these dogs? Look at this cute mug.” He turned Whisper’s face for Sullivan’s viewing pleasure, stretching his lips into a big canine smile. “He’s adorable. And he’s smart.”
“Not if he was in the Army, he wasn’t.”
“Excuse me? You got something against the Army, ma’am?” Gabe did, too. All jarheads did, but even the be-all-you-can-be grunts in the Army were still brothers at arms. And no one should mess with a guy’s brothers.
“Dogs are nothing but hair and germs, the last things Mrs. Stewart needs inside her home.” Sullivan sniffed, her nose lifted in the air. “Besides, I didn’t come out here to play.”
“So what did you come out here for?” Gabe tugged on the end of the rubber bone protruding from Smoke’s lips. The rascal slapped both front paws to the ground and tugged back. Whisper crouched low, his tail waving like a happy flag behind him, watching for a chance to steal the prize.
“Would you pay attention?” Shelby snapped with her usual imperious tone, her arms crossed. “I don’t have all day.”
“So talk. What do you want? I can listen while I play.” With a quick flick of his wrist, Gabe stole the bone from Smoke. “Sheesh. What’s so important that you don’t have time to take a break and play for a minute?”
Smoke’s bright eyes followed Gabe’s every move.
“I’d like to discuss Mrs. Stewart’s clothing, if you don’t mind. You were right. They’d been laundered. At least her blouse was. And you need to know I’ve got her on a strict schedule.”
“Kelsey’s got a schedule? Hmm, guys. I didn’t know that, did you?”
“Woof,” Whisper replied.
“Of course, she does.” Sullivan’s intensity ramped up. Her voice pitched into a higher and more demanding tone. “Especially now that she’s recovering from pneumonia. I’ve organized a medication schedule and a menu for her.”
“What’s the big deal?” Gabe held the bone over the dogs’ heads. “Let her sleep when she’s tired. Give her meds when she’s awake. There. Problem solved.”
“That’s not good enough, and you know it. We need to discuss the guns you’re carrying, too. And the boot trays. I know you’ve seen them. Why don’t you use them?”
He would’ve answered if he’d wanted to, but belligerence never motivated him and Sullivan seemed to think she was in charge. He tossed the bone for another round of fetch.
“Will you stop horsing around and listen to me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Gabe got to his feet, rolled the pain out of his neck that was quickly moving down his spine to his butt and faced the agitated nurse. The chain of command that, at least in her mind made her top dog, had worn thin.
“Good. That’s better.” She smoothed her hands down her pant legs, as if wiping away something repulsive. Must’ve been those dog germs she’d picked up when she’d smacked Whisper’s poor snout. “Now, as I was saying, it’s important that we stick to a tight schedule and—”
“Woof!” Smoke slapped the ground, still ready to play.
Gabe tried to look interested in Sullivan, but her tone sparked his trouble-making side, and what the hell? Both dogs wanted to play. He twitched the rubber toy back and forth like a metronome, then a little faster. Two pairs of bright black eyes followed intently.
Tick. Tock. The game was back on.
“As I was saying—”
“Woof! Woof!”
“Stop interrupting me,” Nurse Sullivan scolded Smoke. She took a quick couple of steps forward and snatched the toy out of Gabe’s hand. She really should’ve tossed it to the other end of the yard, but she didn’t. Instead, she stomped her foot and spiked it into the ground like a linebacker making a touchdown, or—like she wanted to play after all.
The dogs sure did. Both launched themselves to retrieve their prize. They roared over her and knocked her flat to her butt. She hit the still damp morning lawn with a breathy, “Oh, my!”
In less time than it took to say fetch, she found herself surrounded by eight canine legs, two slap-happy tails and all those terrible germs. Her glasses ended up perched over her lip.
“Dogs!” Gabe extended his hand to rescue Kelsey’s hapless nurse as a black tail swept across her face and brushed over her lips, not once but three times before she finally shut her mouth and grabbed her glasses.
Smoke accidentally stepped onto her lap with one big hind foot, wrestling with Whisper who by now had the trophy raised high.
Sullivan spit and sputtered, wiping her lips with the back of one hand, the other stuck in the ground behind her.
“Dogs. Off,” Gabe ordered more firmly.
Both pranced away, but Whisper looked a lot happier than Sullivan. He had the bone.
She clutched Gabe’s forearm, tucking her butt as if they might take a bite out of it when she lifted off the grass. She pressed against him, keeping him between her and the dogs.
Silly girl.
She shouldn’t have done that, either. It had been a long time since he’d felt a woman’s body close enough to feel the warmth of her breasts and thighs at the same time. A wave of prickly awareness washed through him, filling him with heat—and something else he didn’t expect. Not from her.
“They won’t hurt you,” he explained, his voice suddenly hoarse and gravelly, damn it. “They thought you wanted to play. That’s all.” He stifled the compulsion to wrap a protective arm around her. She might bite it off.
“I don’t like them. They’re dirty.” She peered around him, breathing hard. She had a death-grip on his bicep, her glasses folded in her other hand.
Damned if she didn’t have paw prints on her shirt, and damned if Gabe didn’t notice how lovely her small breasts were beneath that shirt. A sliver of her lacy bra showed above her collar, another thing he shouldn’t have noticed. Or enjoyed.
“Are… are you afraid of dogs, ma’am?” Damn. I sound like a stuttering fool.
“Kind of,” she admitted, not taking her eyes off the now tranquil animals, nose to nose at Gabe’s feet, the bone on the ground between them. “Mom has a teacup poodle. Peewee fits in her purse. He’s cute and, umm, controllable.”
He got it then. Sullivan needed to control everything. That’s why the tedious search grid for Kelsey. That’s why the boot trays at the front door. That’s why her fear of dogs, too. She couldn’t control them. It also explained her snippy attitude and the damned menu and medicine schedule. Gabe didn’t really need to know about it. That was her job. She just needed him to know that it was her job and that she was in charge.
Silly girl.
There was a time he’d tried to control everything thinking he could stop bad things from happening. Didn’t work.
“Watch this.” Gabe held his hand out with the palm down, needing to redeem himself. “Let me show you how smart these dogs are.”
Alex had developed his own hand signals when he’d trained his dogs. Whisper and Smoke crouched to their bellies, their eyes bright with this new game. When Gabe clenched his fist, both dogs lifted to their haunches and resumed an identical sitting position. He presented a vertical flat palm. Both dogs backed up until he clenched his fist, at which point the dogs sat again, watching alertly for his next command.
“See? Smart. Alex taught them silent commands in case...” Gabe made a mistake. He looked down at this nervous woman burrowing under his arm where he didn’t quite want her to be.
But there she was, snuggled up to him like his new best friend with her hand on his chest. Nurse Sullivan didn’t wear much makeup, either. She didn’t have to. Thick, long lashes fringed the most inc
redible violet-blue eyes. A guy could get lost in there.
Her brows were delicately arched for the moment, lifted in wonder and curiosity. She almost looked interested in Whisper and Smoke the way she peered around him at them.
Straight blonde hair hung to her shoulders in a blunt cut that lent a pixyish quality to her. High cheekbones. An upturned nose that was elfin delicate. Lush lips moistened by the pink tip of her tongue. She only needed wings. Violet wings. With glitter.
A good case of nerves rattled her slight frame, straight through his arm and—all the way to his groin, damn it. He didn’t want to stop looking. The woman snuggled up against him for protection from Kelsey’s dogs was downright good-looking, in a severely controlled way. She needed to lose those ugly men’s glasses, though.
His gaze drifted to the peaked mounds beneath her scrubs, dropping lower to take in hips that swelled in perfect proportion to her small breasts.
The faintest hint of rose and vanilla and damp grass wafted up from her creamy skin, now flushed with a pinkish hue. His nostrils flared, pulling the delightful scent in. He took another long breath, relishing the pleasure of her close proximity—the last thing he’d expected. Or wanted.
She glanced up and caught him looking. Shit.
That did it. She jerked her hand out of his and stuck those glasses back on her nose with a wicked stab of her index finger. The pleasant warmth of the moment evaporated under her icy glare. Damn. Those pretty violet eyes had turned to cold blue icicles. All four of them.
She took a quick step back. “What are you looking at?”
“Ah, nothing. I just thought you’d like to see how good these boys can be when—”
“They’re not boys. They’re dirty animals that have no business being inside the house with a sick woman. Don’t bring them in again, and leave your boots on the back step while you’re at it.”
“Yeah, but Kelsey—”
Gabe (In the Company of Snipers Book 8) Page 9