by DJ Erfert
As he reached into the envelope again, he said, “Oh, while we were inside your computer, we uploaded a pervasive worm that will destroy every computer that tries to link up with any of your programs or email accounts.”
Patrick jumped to his feet. “You had no right—”
Cooper leaned up far enough to plow his left fist into Patrick’s stomach, sending the spy back down onto the couch in a huddled knot of pain.
“Way to go, Coop,” Kate murmured.
Cooper then nodded toward the door, and the man Lucy didn’t know took a weapon from beneath his jacket and stepped closer to Patrick. His eyes widened at the sight of a gun pointed at him.
Lucy caught Johnny’s hand when her pulse thrummed in her throat as the man fired. A dart stuck in Patrick’s neck. He screamed and grabbed at the tiny dart, yanking it out.
“What the …” Patrick slumped back against the cushions, breathing hard.
Cooper said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Brennan. You won’t die.” He sat back down in the chair and tipped over the envelope, emptying the rest of the contents out onto the table. A dozen or more little earing-aid-battery sized buttons slid out. “But you will have an overpowering desire to tell me the truth about everything I ask you.”
Lucy chuckled when she heard Patrick curse. His true feelings couldn’t have been made more clear. Cooper leaned back in his chair, and asked, “Why did Candice Bancroft send you to spy on me?”
Patrick blew a puff of air out from between his lips. “Either she’s really hot for you—or she really hates you, man.” He lifted his hand a few inches, pointing at the table with the bugs before his arm dropped back down as if gravity was too strong. “She didn’t learn much, except maybe how you’re a better agent than she’ll ever be,” he said with a laugh. “Dude, you’re awesome.”
Lucy let go of Johnny and pushed up from her chair.
“Where’re you going?” Johnny asked, standing up.
“I need to ask him a question.”
Kate asked, “Why not let your dad take care of it?”
Johnny followed her to the door. “He seems to be doing a great job so far.”
“I …” Lucy gently touched his chin, feeling the coarse beard beneath her palm. “I need to know something that I’m not sure my dad will ask about.” She kissed his lips and left out the door.
The layout of the house was simple enough, and most of the doors were open, with one exception. What were the chances? After a deep breath, Lucy turned the handle, quietly pushed open the door, and was met with Sullivan’s inquisitive eyes. He squinted at her, but he didn’t try to stop her from coming inside.
What she found interesting was Patrick’s reaction when he saw her. He stared at her—hard, from the top of her head, and then his eyes drift slowly down her body to her slippers.
“You could’ve been mine,” he muttered, and then his lips snarled. “If Mac hadn’t hit a home run.”
Lucy held her ribs while walking closer. “What do you mean?”
Patrick sighed way too loudly. “You were A.D. Bancroft’s target since as long as I can remember. Bancroft approached us with an assignment that I thought was well worth the paycheck.”
He grinned a salivary leer at Lucy. “You. For some reason, she thought you were some super woman with premonition powers, and she wanted you working exclusively for her.” He laughed. “She had—has high ambitions.” The smile dissolved from his mouth. “But Mac hooked you first. He was always lucky with women…”
Anger rose within Lucy. She knew Johnny was watching, listening. His emotions must’ve bled over to her, but she didn’t feel like blocking them. She was as angry at what Patrick implied as Johnny obviously was. “Mac loved me—”
“He used you!” Patrick yelled. He lowered his eyes and softened his voice as if his strength had been used up with that short outburst. “But Mac didn’t report anything useful to Bancroft, he just got … better. Better results, better assignments, better perks, better … everything.”
Patrick looked up at Lucy again. “It was because of you, wasn’t it? You found my bugs—all of them—every time. You were the better agent, and Mac took the credit. That could’ve been me.”
Lucy ground her teeth together, feeling her fury swell again.
“Bancroft got promoted anyway, because of you and Mac. You made her look good. Even unintentionally, you helped her.”
“So why are you spying on me now?” Lucy asked, snapping her words.
Patrick lifted his chin. “She wants more. She still must think you have something she can use, and I was assigned to find that something to help her blackmail you into cooperating with her. It should’ve been a simple enough assignment.” He sighed deeply. “But …”
Lucy thought she’d kick him. “You weren’t good enough to find anything.”
He shrugged and grinned. “I just need more time. I have bugs in your boyfriend’s apartment.”
A sudden surge of intense rage flared through Lucy that pushed her toward the red-haired man with her hands curled in fists. The need to knock him into the next room was overpowering. But her dad caught her, stopping her from touching him.
“More time to try isn’t a luxury you’re going to get.” Cooper nodded to his men, and they grabbed Patrick, hauling him off the couch. “Goodbye, Mr. Denim. You’re fired,” he said as his men half carried the spy across the room and out a back door.
“What are you going to do with him?” Lucy asked as her dad held her shoulders tightly.
“I have a flight plan preset with Captain Sawyers, Lulu. First he’ll be taken to a private airstrip, transferred to one of my jets, where he’ll be flown and deposited in the middle of nowhere.” He kissed her forehead. “The drug we gave him should kill his memory of tonight. And as soon as his long-term memory returns, and if he paid any attention to his survival training, he’ll be able to find his way home in about a month—enough time for me to figure out how to get Candice Bancroft off our backs for good.”
“When Kate called out Steele Reinforcement to Nassau last month—after I was wounded—was Patrick in on that mission?”
“I, uh …” He looked back at the closing door, and let out a tired sigh. “Yes. I didn’t have any reason to distrust him before this week.”
“Someone had been talking about me in law enforcement circles, like they thought I was a super secret agent. I thought it was you—before I knew you were my dad. But with the way Patrick was talking, I know it was him.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Oh, Dad …” Lucy pressed her face against his chest. “Mac never loved me! He tricked me into falling in love with him.”
“Lulu baby, how can you be so sure he didn’t fall in love with you at some point?”
She took in a gasping breath, and said, “He never wanted to have a baby with me. If he loved me—truly loved me, then he would’ve wanted what I wanted.”
Cooper lowered his face to her head. “And you wanted a child.”
Lucy turned her head and listened to her dad’s heart thumping beneath her ear. “I do.” She then turned enough to look up into the camera and asked, “Do you want a child—with me?”
“Johnny can’t answer you from there.” He let her loose. “Let’s go have that talk I’ve been avoiding. But please, promise me you won’t hate me after we’re through.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Kate grinned at Lucy while coming out of the security room. Lucy knew something was up. Her heart had been racing—beating like mad since she suggested the idea of having a baby with Johnny. She knew her excitement wasn’t only her own, and she didn’t even try to block it. Her dad went to check on his men, and then Kate left, too, leaving the security room’s door ajar.
Lucy was jumped as she walked back inside. Before the door had a chance to close, he pushed her up against the wall, crushing her lips with his, and locking her in place with his body. She knew it would happen. Logic told her Johnny wouldn’t let her fall, but he
r sense of balance disappeared and she found it necessary to cling tightly to his shoulders.
But before her common sense could vanish, Lucy concentrated on the texture of his shirt beneath her fingers and the wall behind her, and she let her mind come out of its hypnotic state, knowing they wouldn’t be alone very long.
When she gently pushed at his shoulders, Johnny lifted his kiss. “How many babies do you want?” he asked in a whisper.
“Three, I think.”
“How about driving to Las Vegas?” He took a half-step back and smiled. “I’ll call the chief and take my vacation. We can get married tomorrow, and then start working on number one tomorrow night.”
Lucy sighed, feeling his love envelop her like an unseen heat wave passing through her body. “I like that idea. Dad and Kate would come too, I’m sure. I’ll text Junie and let her know.” Johnny dropped his mouth down onto hers again, and Lucy’s world dissolved into a torrid dance of escalating passions.
“Lucy! Lucy!” Her dad’s voice pulled her thoughts away from Johnny enough and she lifted her lips off his. Her heated emotions ebbed away like the ocean waters flowing from her mind, cooling her body. She put her head on his shoulder and slowed her breathing, embarrassed at being caught displaying their affection. After another few moments, Lucy opened her eyes to find her dad scowling and Kate unsuccessfully trying to hide a grin.
“Take a seat,” Cooper said, rolling an office chair away from the counter. He positioned it in front of the chairs they’d been sitting in earlier, and he sat down, staring at his hands clutched together.
The incredible warmth Lucy had inside her fled in a surge of icy anxiety. He looked scared. He had promised to tell her about her mother’s death, and now there weren’t any distractions to get in the way of his telling the whole truth.
“Are you okay, Coop?” Kate asked in a hushed voice. She sat close enough to touch his arm.
“I … I need to tell you about Sara, and about my past.” He gazed at Lucy. “And I need you to understand what happened to your mother—”
“Do you want me to leave?” Johnny asked as he squeezed Lucy’s hand.
Cooper shook his head. “No. If you’re going to marry my daughter, then you need to hear this. It may have an impact on your future together.”
“I’m not changing my mind. I’m in love with Lucy!”
“I got that impression when I walked in a few moments ago.” Cooper rubbed his hand over his mouth, and Lucy got embarrassed all over again. Or was it Johnny?
“How did you meet Mom?” Lucy asked. “I don’t think you ever told me.”
Cooper glanced at Kate before giving his attention to Lucy. “It was a very strong attraction at first sight,” he said, smiling. “I saw her standing outside the movie theater with two of her friends, and I thought she was so pretty. I was with a friend from college—I was a sophomore, but I was only eighteen. I skipped a couple of grades in junior high—”
“Just like I did,” Lucy said softly.
“Right from the very beginning, we had this special connection that—that’s hard to explain …” Cooper shook his head.
“Could Mom see into your windows?” Lucy gripped Johnny’s hand even tighter, anxious again.
“See into …” His eyes dropped to their clasped hands before locking onto her stare. “Explain that.”
Johnny spoke first. “When I’m touching Lucy while she’s having a window, I can see it, too.”
Her dad’s jaw dropped open, his shoulders slumped. He must’ve been stunned into silence.
“You can?” Kate asked. “Johnny, that’s incredible.”
“So …” Cooper said slowly, staring intently at Lucy, “that’s how he knows what you go through, because he goes through them with you?”
“Yes,” Lucy said. Another loving warm wave flowed through her, and she leaned into Johnny’s shoulder.
“And that’s how you knew about the dynamite hanging in the bedroom window,” Cooper said, nodding his head.
“Mom couldn’t do that with you?”
“Not that I knew of …” He took in a heavy breath. “My connection with your mother was different. It came on an emotional level.”
“Emotional?” Lucy asked quickly. “Like you could sense her feelings?”
Cooper sat up straight, his brows pinched together. “Yes, to the point of it being crippling.”
“Oh, Dad, I can teach you techniques to block those feelings—like I can with Johnny’s.”
Her dad’s shoulders lowered again. He scrubbed his hand over his mouth, groaning. “Oh, Lulu.”
“It’s okay—it’s fine,” she told him. “It was confusing at first—before I knew what it was, I thought I was losing my edge, but now I can effectively cut off which emotions I want to block and which I want to let through.” Lucy’s gaze passed between her dad and Kate. “Can you sense Kate’s feelings?”
“No! Thank God,” Cooper said quickly.
Kate knocked him on the knee. “Oh, yes, you can.”
Cooper’s mouth parted in a soft smile. “Only in the common way most men stumble through life trying to understand women, Katie.” His lips went into a flat line when he said, “I don’t think I’d survive going through that kind of thing again—like with Sara. It almost killed me.”
“You were only eighteen, Dad. But I’m not a kid. I can handle this.”
“Did it go both ways?” Johnny asked. “Like it does with Lucy and me?”
Lucy gasped, “What?”
Johnny lifted her hand to his chest. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this, but I just didn’t seem to find the right time. But I guess it might run in your family.”
“You can feel my—”
“Intense emotions,” Johnny finished for her. “And I’m beginning to recognize the more subtle ones, too. I didn’t really understand why I was suddenly getting angry in the middle of doing something as mundane as cutting up carrots until after you came back from your mission and I knew a little bit of what you’d gone through. That’s what was happening to me—we’re connected. I’ve become attuned to knowing which emotions are mine and which are yours.” He kissed her knuckles. “And when our emotions are mixed together, they can easily become supercharged.”
Lucy’s pulse rushed. “That’s a good description,” she whispered. “I never had that with Mac—not once.”
Cooper said, “Supercharged. That’s how I felt when I was with Sara. I just thought it was because I was in love for the first time, and then we had you, Lulu, and my feelings grew beyond anything I ever imagined.”
“If you had that connection, then why couldn’t you have stopped her from being murdered?” Lucy asked. She tried to keep the tone of accusation out of her voice, but she knew she failed when her dad’s face paled. She wanted to defend her mother. She had wanted to save her from the viciousness that had happened to her in the hallway of that house twenty-nine years ago. Lucy continued to live with the memories of that night in her dreams.
“Coop,” Kate said softly, sliding her hand over his fist. “Tell us what happened to Sara.”
Cooper sat still, taking in slow breaths and staring at Kate’s hand on his. A minute passed—then two—before he said, “I started working at a small security company in Los Angeles three months before you were born, Lulu. Within six months, I got a promotion, but we had to move to Las Vegas and away from our families.”
He looked up at Kate. “Candice Bancroft was the office secretary there. She quickly became a field officer—with me.”
“You’re not serious?” Lucy asked in shock.
He nodded. “And that’s why she suspects my special ability. She saw me do several things over those few months that I refused to explain, including my minute of cold unconsciousness.”
Cooper took in a deep breath and let it out in a tired sigh. “On that day … I was on a detail, along with several fellow agents, as well as a half-dozen federal agents guarding a visiting congressman and his pe
ople during a conference at the Flamingo, when I got this anxious feeling. I knew something was wrong with Sara—I felt it.
When I called home, she didn’t answer. I couldn’t concentrate on my job. When that agitated feeling wouldn’t subside, I tried calling again. She still didn’t answer.
After telling my boss that I had an emergency at home, he cleared me to go. I drove around almost aimlessly, blindly, and I ended up in this beaten down neighborhood, when those anxious feelings I knew were a mixture of Sara’s and mine turned into outrage, and just as quickly—fright. Sara was scared.
“And then I had a window …” Cooper locked eyes with Lucy. “I saw the street sign showing the name of the road, and then my perspective changed and I could see the front of the pinkish house and the numbers nailed up on the eaves. And then I was inside, having to watch both your mother and you—” His words choked off. Kate immediately wrapped her arms around his shaking shoulders.
Lucy had to watch her mother being killed twice—once while being trapped inside that silent window of death. A deep, seemingly endless ache filled her chest remembering that fateful day. Her dad continued his story.
“I drove as fast I as I could, but I wasn’t familiar with that part of town. As I ran up to the house, I heard Sara let out a short scream. I collapsed against the door, so terrified that I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t move.” His gravely words were barely above a whisper. “I knew your mother was being murdered, and I … I couldn’t save her.”
“But you saved me,” Lucy said quietly. “I remember being in your arms. And you raised me.”
Cooper lifted his head. When he opened his eyes, they were filled with unshed tears. “I knew the exact moment your mother died. My connection to her was severed. I might’ve been weak, but knowing you were going to die next gave me the strength to get to you. The front door wasn’t locked. I had just enough strength to lift you up and run away.”