Gabe (In the Company of Snipers Book 8)

by Winters, Irish

  I can do that. Shelby dodged into a gaggle of elderly passengers who’d just disembarked their tour bus south of the Lincoln Memorial. She ducked low and out of sight, blending in with the silver-haired crowd and ready to board that bus if it kept her out of the reach of the law.

  But, no. Gabe grabbed her wrist, spinning her into his arms behind a huge tree in front of the bus. Her heart stopped again. Here they were on the run and he wanted a kiss? Like they did in the movies? Did this stuff really work?

  “Aw, isn’t that sweet, Becky?” an older gentleman asked. “Young lovers. Hmm.”

  Shelby got lost in the hubbub around her and the sudden change in direction. There was no asking permission this time, only the heat of Gabe’s mouth clamped onto hers, his heavy breathing fanning her lips and in her nose. One big hand trapped the back of her head while he buried his fingers in her hair, his mouth opened wide. Not asking. Taking. Demanding. Devouring.

  She couldn’t breathe, much less think, so she gave. And gave. Feet thundered by, but she didn’t even look to see who it might be. It might have been all those sweet, elderly tourists. Or the police. But honestly, with her hands clinging to his neck and his pulse throbbing beneath her fingertips, the cops could wait. Heck. The whole world could wait.

  For this single moment in time only, she was no longer Nurse Sullivan. She was Wonder Woman. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow of the Avengers. Hell, she was—invincible.

  Gabe tilted her head to the side for better access to her mouth, but when she opened her eyes, expecting to melt under the heat of smoldering greens filled with lust, the jerk had his eyes wide open all right. Only all of his attention was focused behind her. Not on her. She froze.

  He smiled into her lips when he noticed she’d caught his indiscretion, but he didn’t let her separate from his mouth, not one bit.

  “Stay,” he ordered gently, his tongue tracing a line of sparks over her now-pressed-very-tightly lips. “They’re looking for two people on the run. Not us. Come on. Open up. Don’t stop.”

  Oh, yeah. That. She came to her senses. Embarrassment warmed her cheeks, and of course, immediately flooded those darned pesky breasts, too. Gah! And here she thought he’d kissed her because, well, because he liked her. She stilled her out-of-control emotions for this guy who obviously had better control of his emotions than she did of hers.

  Her nipples needed to stand down and turn off, too, the damned cheerleaders.

  “What next?” She tried to keep the petulant whine out of her voice. Men are such jerks. You give an inch. They take a mile.

  “This.” He leaned backward to the tree trunk, her head clamped between his gentle palms. He lifted her glasses off her nose, tucking the stem into his shirt collar before he pulled her to his lips once more.

  This time she made sure he closed his eyes before she succumbed to the crackling energy between them. He had no trouble breaching the trembling barrier of her lips, his fingers twined through her hair, his mouth hot on hers again.

  Oh, mama. Want to or not, a moan escaped up her throat, mingling with the groan rumbling from his. The minty taste of his mouth sparked an appetite she’d not given into with any other man. And the feel of his whiskered chin. The smell of him, part clean sweat and part some men’s cologne. She tightened her grip.

  “Mmm,” he mumbled, licking her lips softly enough to ignite her libido all over again. “What was I saying?”

  “I think we were evading the authorities.”

  “Oh, yeah. That.” Easing away from her mouth, he tucked her head below his chin where she wanted to be, against his pounding heart. She lowered her hands to his waist, thrilled at the feel of his hips and the sharp edge of his belt in her belly. Gabe was the first real man in her life. He knew what to do and when to do it. Capable. Ready. Willing. And he wasn’t afraid to take on the world.

  Relief turned her knees to jelly. She could only hang on tight, listening to the banging beneath his ribs, an oddly comforting beat.

  Wow. For two traumatically stressed people, they had a lot of cardiac tension going on between them. The musical rhythm of their two hearts beating together was hypnotizing. It was a wonder she could stand at all.

  His breath scorched the back of her neck, weakening her more. Gradually, she thought to open her eyes. Tourists. Vendors. Bicyclists. Mothers and fathers with strollers. That was all. No police. No smirking FBI agent, either. Whew.

  “I think we lost them.”

  “We should move,” he said, but he made no effort to disengage. “Soon.”

  “Where?”

  Gabe stroked her shoulders, warming her in ways she’d not allowed before. Petting her. Gentling her. Easing comfort and something else she was afraid to name into her body and mind with his fingers and palms. She relaxed into the friction of his touch, wanting more of the luxurious feeling sweeping up from her toes.

  At last, he set her back another inch or two, enough to peer into her eyes, and she was smitten. His sexy greens were dark with lust. Standing in his arms took her breath. Heck. He could take everything. If he only knew. If he only asked.

  Gabe traced his index finger along her jaw, ending with a gentle pinch to her chin. “You’re a surprise, Shelby Sullivan, but I’ve got to warn you. I like it. I like it a lot.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Time to fade into the busy D.C. tourist scene. Gabe secured Shelby under his arm, walked her up to a street vendor and purchased a couple of light summer hoodies that brightly declared Washington D.C. for the world and any local authorities, to see. Hers was in pink, his in gray. The vivid purple lettering convinced him. There was more than one way to hide from police on the prowl. In plain sight.

  He snagged matching baseball caps, making sure the brim shadowed his eyes. Hers went on next, but his damned heart stalled looking down into her sweet face. He returned her glasses to their proper place on her nose and adjusted the band on her cap so it fit tighter.

  Standing there all compliant like she was didn’t help, but when she rested her fingertips on the front of his shirt, she might as well have attached jumper cables. Defiance didn’t glint once in those violet pools of his new companion agent. But something else sure did—something more deadly. Trust.

  “You surprised me when you pulled your weapon on Becker.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered. “I wanted to help you.”

  “But you don’t know how to shoot.”

  “I know, but I held it right, didn’t I? Besides, he didn’t know I was a beginner. I could tell. For a whole minute there I think I had him worried.”

  “Did you flip the safety lever up before you aimed? You know, so the weapon would actually fire a live round if you needed to?” he asked, knowing damned well she hadn’t.

  Those pretty eyes widened. “Umm, no. I pointed it like you did with yours. Was that wrong?”

  “So you were basically helping me by standing there and looking deadly and dangerous.” He couldn’t help the smile tugging at his mouth. She didn’t have a clue about gun safety, but she did have guts. At least the thing was safe while she held it.

  “Umm, I guess. I don’t know anything about them, remember?”

  “Girl, you and I need to spend some serious time at the range.” Some serious time in bed with me wouldn’t be so bad, either.

  He took a step back from the kiosk, but she stopped him with a hand at his wrist. “Wait. You thought I looked good?”

  He looked down at her slender fingers barely wrapped around his wrist. The heat of a man who’d gone without female companionship for months roared to life at her touch, scorching his common sense. Gabe grabbed two bottled waters and slapped three twenties on the counter before they stepped out of line and headed to safety.

  “Yes,” he answered truthfully. “You looked damned good, but let’s get out of here.”

  Glancing over his shoulder, he headed for a cab before his cock took control of his brain. The zipper on his jeans was already tight and uncomfortable.

/>   “Where’d you get the money to buy these?” she asked once they were in the backseat of the cab, with her tucked under his arm. “I thought you threw everything in the river?”

  “Just tossed my wallet and my new business cards. They had my new address. Didn’t want the FBI to know where Zack went. But yeah, I always keep a couple get-out-of-jail-free bills tucked away,” he murmured, his lips in her hair.

  The feel of her slender body sparked a fire in his blood. She smelled of flowers and the sun. His hands wandered inside the open zipper of her hoody along the curves of her ribcage until his fingers touched the side of her breast. He caught himself from wandering further. He hadn’t anticipated how good it would feel holding her, or knowing how inexperienced she was. Shelby needed more than target practice, and he wanted to be the man she practiced on.

  The first. The last. The only.

  The cabbie’s brown eyes beamed through the rearview mirror, winking at him like guys do. Well, let him look. The old fart. Gabe couldn’t care less. He’d found something rare in his life, and in the last place he’d expected to find it. Better yet, she seemed to feel the same way.

  Shelby snuggled into his side, sparking impossible feelings he’d long since ignored. “Are we going to your place?” she asked, her hand on his chest.

  “No. My office. Mark needs to know about Becker.”

  She stiffened. “But I should be with Kelsey. Let’s go to your place. Now.”

  “Mark first. Then Kelsey. Maybe.”

  “No, Gabe. You don’t understand.” She twisted to face him. “She’s my patient. Not Zack’s.”

  “Why can’t it wait?” Something else was going on. “Zack’s real good with Kelsey. He can cook, and you know he’ll keep her safe. Trust me.”

  “But...” Shelby held her breath for a long couple of seconds. “I have to control everything for Kelsey right now. She... needs me.”

  “That’s kinda impossible, isn’t it? The whole ‘control everything’ routine?” I should know.

  “No. She’s my patient, not Zack’s. I have to be there for her.”

  “Okay.” Gabe conceded the argument. He didn’t want to spoil his pleasant feeling. “Whatever you say. We’ll catch up with Zack and Kelsey right after we talk with Mark. Deal?”

  “No, Gabe. Now. I have to go now.” She leaned out of his arms, her eyes filled with tears. “It’s just that... it’s just that... Oh, God. I haven’t even told my mother this.” Tightening her arms around herself, she drew in a deep breath, letting it release slowly, her gaze fixed on the traffic moving by them in a blur. “I almost killed one of my patients, Gabe. It was an accident, but I gave him the wrong medicine.”

  Gabe blew out a big sigh as the puzzle that was Shelby fell into place. This explained why she fought so hard to be in charge. He knew the feeling, but trying to do the impossible was no way to live. “That’s why you have panic attacks.”

  “Yes.” She lowered her head as the story spilled out. “Rudy was only two years old when I gave him an adult inhalant. He stopped breathing and—” She unfastened her seatbelt and withdrew closer to the window. “The pharmacy labeled the wrong can of inhalant with a child’s dosage, but I should’ve known better. I should’ve double-checked everything. Rudy almost died because of me.”

  Gabe studied the hard line of her shoulders, the tight cords in her neck. She carried a lot of guilt for a woman of her small stature, and she wouldn’t look him in the eye anymore. He turned her around and pulled her stiff back into his chest. Clutching her shoulders, he began a firm massage with the pads of his thumbs along her upper spine.

  She responded to his touch, ducking her head into her neck and rolling her shoulders. This woman liked a neck rub, and it was no wonder. Headache bones. That was what his chiropractor called the neck vertebrae where the shoulder muscles got hooked up nice and tight when a person felt stressed or guilty.

  “You can’t change what happened yesterday.” Even through the hoody, he could feel the tremendous stress she carried. “Relax. I’m here to help. We’ll get through this together.”

  A knot let go. Snap. Pop. She cocked her head to the left, then the right. But when she lowered her chin to her chest and moaned, a different kind of therapy for her—and him—came to mind.

  “I have to keep anything bad from happening to Kelsey. It’s my job.”

  “No, Shelby. You can’t, and it’s not.” He let his thumbs dig deeper into the tension above her shoulder blades. “Do you think you’re responsible to save the whole world? It’s an impossible task. I’m here to tell you. Let it go.”

  She crumbled, sniffing back her emotions, her face in her hands. “I could’ve killed him. It was all my fault.”

  “Maybe it was. I don’t know. I wasn’t there, but are you going to let it define you for the rest of your life? Hell, Shelby. Don’t cripple yourself before you even get started. In the Corps, we get told a thousand times a day to keep on keeping on no matter what. You need to do the same thing. Prove to yourself and the world that you can rise above that one, damned accident. Get that nursing degree you want so bad. Don’t ever quit.”

  She scrunched her shoulders under his hands. “You know I’m not a real nurse?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I do, but I think I know why you passed yourself off as one. It sounds a little more impressive than nursing assistant, huh?”

  “But it was still a lie.”

  “Ah, not exactly. A wish, maybe. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? To be a nurse?”

  She nodded. “I thought you guys would respect me more. The minute I saw you guys, I knew I had to do something to keep control. Not very smart, huh?”

  “It’s a symptom, Shelby. A symptom that you want to make something better of your life. That’s all.” He opted for sharing time. USMC or not, it was time she knew. “My inner control freak showed up early morning in Helmand Valley. We’d dropped in, quiet as death. Just after one guy. Should’ve been quick and easy. Wasn’t.” He paused, the door to that far off valley reopened and the sights and smells of another world filling the cab.

  Shelby twisted under his hands, but he wouldn’t let her turn around. Not yet. He kept massaging, working his fingers and thumbs into her muscles while the story unfolded.

  “I honest to God didn’t think that little kid knew how to fire it. The grenade launcher had to weigh twenty-five, maybe thirty pounds loaded like it was.” Gabe closed his eyes and wished the tiny ghost away. “Kids over there are so small. He looked like any other, who would’ve really rather had a piece of candy in his hands, maybe an extra MRE. We always carried extras. Not my idea of a killer. Maybe ten years old. Maybe not. But the way he smiled...”

  Shelby leaned into him, so Gabe relented, pulling her back to his chest, his arms around her neck and shoulders so he could bury his nose in her hair. Green apple shampoo smelled so much better than what his mind had kicked up. The blood. The sweat. The damned smell of the real fear that he’d die in that stink hole of an excuse for a village. The phantom pain of a foot too blasted to hell to be surgically reattached.

  The flutter under his ribs kicked up. He inhaled deeply, not sure she’d want to stay with him when he finished, but sure as hell going to give it a shot. It was time they both came clean. If she left, well, she wouldn’t be the first. Plenty other women had taken off running.

  “Little guy just stood there looking at me. I kept hoping. He kept smiling. Funny thing is I knew he’d do it. Had a sick feeling. Just didn’t want to believe that I’d gone halfway around the world to kill a kid. Me. A big Marine all armor plated and geared up to fight men. Not babies.”

  Gabe closed his eyes, fighting to swallow. To this day, he didn’t know which hurt worse—killing that smiling boy or losing Darrell in the same fight. Both seemed so damned unfair. Losing his foot paled in comparison. It honest to God did.

  “A bullet goes faster than an RPG. Twelve hundred meters per second beats two hundred ninety-four meters a second any day. Damne
d truth is that it came down to him or me. Not sure who fired first. It’s all one steaming pile of f—” He bit the ugly word back. Fuck. It still hurts.

  A gentle, warm hand lifted to the side of his face. He closed his eyes, not deserving her kindness, wanting to forget. Once and forever.

  “That’s how I lost my foot. Same day I lost Darrell Carson, best damned friend in the world.” He paused, his heart lodged high in his throat. Damned sneaky and wrong how the mind hides a shitload of hurt behind four words. Darrell Carson. My friend.

  “So yeah, Shelby. I get it. I do. I’m right there with you, trying to control the world. It just doesn’t work that way. Things still happen, and there’s nothing we can do to change them. The only way to live through crap that happens is to keep on keeping on. Get that damned degree. Thumb your nose at regret. Do something with the mistakes you’ve made. Learn from them. Hell, girl. Be all you can be.”

  Shit. He mentally shook his head at that last one. Sounded like something out of a recruitment poster. For the damned Army.

  She twisted around to look at him, cupping his jaw as if she still cared, and once again, he got lost in her eyes. This time was like no other. His breath hitched. Hers did, too. Violet blues blinked with deep dark wonder, just a kiss away.

  “You make it sound easy,” she said.

  “You know better than that. Life’s hard, and there isn’t a one of us who’s going to make it out alive. You think I don’t get a little backed up sometimes, that memories don’t sneak up on me?” He shook his head at the unrealistic image she might have of him. Civilians always want to see a hero. He was anything but. Just a lousy survivor. “Hell, I could’ve sworn that little kid was sitting in Kelsey’s living room during that thunderstorm last night. There I was, all mixed up and looking for him, and all of a sudden he’s right there beside me, patting my shoulder. Smiling that sad smile. Kinda like he knew I had to kill him again, even in the dream. And you know what? I would have.”

  “You did what you had to do.”

  “So did you. Don’t let one mistake define the rest of your life.” He lifted his fingers to her hair. “God, Shelby. Here you are trying to save everyone else and you could’ve gotten yourself killed. Did you think of that when you left the house this morning? Did you think about what I’d do if you’d died?”