Pride of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  Without turning to face him, Luci said, “You didn’t have to take care of the chickens.”

  “I didn’t want Brendan to see them.”

  Her throat worked hard and her voice was hoarse. “Thank you.”

  After he dried his hands, she passed him a plate heaping with food and he tucked into it as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. As good as breakfast was, it did nothing to slow the inner corrosion eating him alive.

  She sat at the opposite end of the table, nursing a cup of coffee. Had she slept at all? He doubted it. Fatigue drooped her eyes, rimming the delicate skin below with dark purple moons. How long since she’d had a good night’s sleep?

  “I’ll take care of the goats this morning,” Dom said, reaching for a muffin. “You get some rest.”

  “Brendan’ll be up soon.”

  “He can help me in the barn.”

  Her fierce grip around the white mug squeezed the blood from her fingers. “We need to talk about a plan to get into Warren’s office and apartment.”

  “There’s time.”

  “No, there isn’t.” One finger drilled the tabletop in time to the anger she worked hard to suppress. “Didn’t you hear him last night? In two weeks, he’ll marry Jill. How long do you think it’ll be before he disappears and leaves her in a mess?”

  “You’re dead tired, Luce.” Pushed away his empty plate, but restlessness still ate at him. “We’ll talk about it after you get some rest.”

  “I’m fine. This is normal for me.”

  No, this wasn’t normal. Normal was a smile that dazzled and green eyes that lit up like a Christmas tree. Normal was taking on the dare of a miniature golf round with all the seriousness of a PGA event and making it fun. Normal was being part of the Hostage Rescue Team and fitting in like one of the guys.

  His gaze found hers and met pure determination. At least one thing was still there—her loyalty. She would do whatever it took to keep those she loved safe, even at the cost of her own well-being.

  Dom could do this. He could sit near her, discuss a case like they used to and pretend, as he’d done then, that his feelings for her were nothing more than brotherly. Always before, his training had allowed him to compartmentalize, lock his feelings in a box and do the job. He was the patient man, the calm, cool one.

  He got up, grabbed a cup down from the doorless cupboard and filled it with coffee. He hated coffee, but Luci didn’t seem to have green tea and he’d need the caffeine to get through the day. “You should let me take care of Swanson alone.”

  “You’re the one who asked for my help,” she snapped.

  “I didn’t know how much it was going to take out of you.”

  “I’ve gone through worse.” She shook her head and her mouth turned up in a half sneer. “I’m a survivor.”

  “That’s a cop-out and you know it. Surviving isn’t living.” Dom used the refrigerator door as armor and sought milk for his coffee. “We need to talk about him.” How did he expect Luci to bring up the ghost between them, if he couldn’t speak his name? “We need to talk about Cole.”

  The refrigerator’s motor kicked on in a low growl.

  Luci’s fingertips reddened against the white mug. “Cole has nothing to do with Jill.”

  “But he has everything to do with you.” And us. Dom didn’t want to feel guilty for the rest of his life. And this, he suddenly realized, was why he’d broken his vow to Luci. He wanted to confess his sins, let daylight purge them.

  He wanted her forgiveness.

  In the thickness of the tension, his pulse pounded past his ears like a hammer. The breakfast he’d inhaled turned to rock.

  Luci stared at him for what seemed an eternity. “Luci? Are you okay?”

  She blinked once, slowly. As if he’d punched her, she rose, using the table for support. Then, back straight, legs stiff, arms determined pistons, she tore upstairs never looking back at the monster who’d pried open the box of her grief.

  Chapter Seven

  Luci couldn’t talk about Cole. She couldn’t admit her guilt, couldn’t face the darkness of her failure, of Cole’s blood on the floor, of his vacant gaze staring back at her. By default, she took Dom up on his offer to watch over Brendan. Shaking with a cold that had nothing to do with the autumn weather, she fell into bed and curled into a fetal position. She spent the morning sewing up the edges made raw by remorse.

  Her guilt was a burden she couldn’t ask Dom to carry. His eyes were already too weighted with sadness. Cole’s death had left scars on his heart, too. She’d already asked too much of him after Cole’s death.

  Instead, she should look to his example. He hadn’t hidden himself as she had. He’d kept doing what was important to him. And throughout everything, he’d kept his optimism and remained self-assured. He still made things happen. He still could dream. That strength of character had made her turn to him early on during training, and kept her turning to him for support.

  Now, more than ever, she had to stand on her own two feet.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and started folding the corners of memories into ever-smaller pieces.

  By lunch, rain lashed at the windows. Arms wrapped tightly around her knees, she sat and watched the sky cry the tears that wouldn’t come, fill the emptiness yawning inside her.

  By dinner, she’d put herself and a chevron stew together and was ready to deal with Dom once more. He was trying to save Jill and put Warren behind bars. She wasn’t going to burden him with her baggage. Nor would she let her weakness become a liability to him. She’d been strong once. She could be so again. For Jill. And getting Warren in a place where he couldn’t ever hurt someone like Jill again was the important thing right now.

  After she put Brendan to bed, she cornered Dom in the living room. He was using her computer, his big body bent over the small desk as if it were made for a dwarf. The mock tiffany lamp gave his skin a warm glow and highlighted the gentle lines bracketing his eyes and mouth like a permanent smile.

  She wasn’t used to having another adult—a man—sharing her space. She should say something, apologize for her earlier behavior, but all she could do was stare at him and wonder why seeing him there felt so right.

  “It’s your house, Luce,” he said without turning around. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me.”

  “I, uh, we need to talk. About Warren.”

  He swiveled in the chair, his gaze locking with hers. “The chickens were a warning for you to stay out of this.”

  “You think he knows you’re after him?”

  “I think he sees your protectiveness of Jill as a threat.”

  Luci had given up everything about her old life with the team in order to give Brendan the security of family and small-town life. She might have let a lot of instincts go dormant, but protecting what was hers wasn’t one of them. “That’s not going to change.”

  “You have to make him think it has, or it might cost you your life.” The softness of Dom’s voice masked his words’ sting. “Brendan depends on you.”

  The sharpness didn’t register until after the blade had cut, slicing directly into her gut. “That’s hitting below the belt.”

  “That’s taking every contingency into consideration. I can’t risk your getting hurt.”

  Blowing out stale air, she dropped onto the over-stuffed couch and clasped her hands together over her knees. Her gaze focused on the amoeba-shaped stain on her jeans as her mind whirled. “I thought that if I came home, if I made my world smaller, I could keep it safe, keep Brendan safe.”

  The chair protested as Dom rose. He crouched next to her. Fingers of one hand folded around her chin, he gently turned it until their gazes met. The warmth of his enveloping hand, of his comforting blue eyes, of his calming voice, oddly made her shiver.

  “How often did hostage situations follow a script?” he asked.

  “Never.” She shook her head, her heart ripping in two. “I can’t watch Warren tear Jill apart. I can’t hurt Brendan, either.”
>
  “Let me handle it. I owe you that much.” He combed his fingers through her hair and she closed her eyes against the need to lean into the support of his touch.

  “You don’t owe me anything.” With regret, she pulled her head out of his warm connection. “And I can’t let you take on the load yourself. Isn’t that the strength of a team? Numbers?”

  Dom didn’t answer right away. The stirring in his eyes betrayed the keen blade of his evaluation of her. “A team is only as strong as its weakest member. It’s been years since you trained. Skills go soft without practice.”

  “I can do this. I can make Warren believe I’ve changed my mind.”

  Dom rocked back on his heels and said nothing.

  “I’m as good as anyone on the team ever was,” she said and couldn’t help the note of challenge in her voice. “And you don’t need a sniper, Dom, you need Jill’s sister.” Luci stood up. “Tomorrow morning, I’m going to call my mother and we’ll get involved with planning Jill’s wedding. That’ll give us a reason to go over to Warren’s office and look things over. In the meantime, I want to see everything in your file on Warren. If I go through it again, I might see something I missed the first time.”

  For the first time in a long while, the stir of something waking deep inside her fluttered alive. She’d loved the team. She’d loved saving lives. She’d loved knowing her special skill could make a difference.

  Or destroy her world.

  “So what time does an insurance salesman go to lunch?” she asked.

  Dom’s smile canted up slowly, reaching all the way up to his eyes, making them glitter with humor that caused her to feel lighter. He slouched in that sexy way of his, compelling someone unaware of his lethal skill to believe they had nothing to fear from him. He deepened his drawl, letting its smoothness reverberate like a caress. “Well, considering I’m working on making my hours my own, anytime you want, darlin’.”

  “Then it’s a date.”

  “WE’RE HERE TO OBSERVE,” Dom warned her as Luci parked her van on Main Street in Nashua.

  “I know,” Luci said, but the thought of finally doing something had her pulse hopping with anticipation. “Gathering intelligence. I’ve done this a time or two.”

  “Not recently. If you don’t calm down, your pulse rate is going to give you away.”

  “Right.” She took a deep breath in and shouldered the strap of her purse.

  “Smile and remember to relax, as if you truly want him to become part of your family.”

  “Right.” Luci reached for the door handle and got out of the van.

  “Mirror and echo,” Dom said as he joined her on the sidewalk.

  She looked up at him and gave him her most confident smile. “Dom…”

  Twin flames smoldered in the blue of his eyes before he quickly doused their heat. “What?”

  “I know how to do this.” She stuffed quarters into the meter.

  “Right.” He stuck both hands in the front pockets of his dress pants as his long, easy stride ate up the sidewalk.

  “I need to keep an eye on the clock. I have to head back by two so I can pick up Brendan at school.”

  “We’ll make it with plenty of time.”

  She hooked a hand around his elbow and instantly regretted her attempt to play her role of girlfriend. Continuing the movement and putting her head on his shoulder would be so easy…so natural. And the last thing she needed to do was mix up playacting for the real thing just because she was missing Cole and Dom was conveniently there.

  “The goal is to take everything in,” Dom said, his voice skimming over her skin as tenderly as a kiss. “Later we’ll play what’s-wrong-with-this-picture.”

  They crossed the street and headed for the address on the card Warren had given Dom. The building was a narrow, turn-of-the-century, three-story, red brick box. The glass doors opened to a lobby with dim light. Twelve mailboxes lined one wall and a black board with white lettering announced the tenants. Warren was on the second floor. No elevators here, just creaky steps whose squeaks echoed as loudly as a radio theater’s sound effect.

  Jill was right. Warren had done everything he could to turn his office into something that could have come out of an old black-and-white detective movie. The door had frosted glass and gold-and-black lettering. Luci opened the door and walked into an office set up with an antique desk and old-fashioned file cabinets. Three framed certificates hung on the wall. A lone plant filled the corner.

  Warren rose from behind his desk at their entrance. “Luci, Dom, how nice to see you.”

  “Hi, Warren,” Luci said, offering her hand. Warren wore a dark suit and a white shirt that showed off his perfect tan. Was it the spray-on kind newly available at a nearby tanning salon? “Dom’s taking me out to lunch, so I thought I’d save Mom the trouble of coming into town for your guest list.”

  “Yes, Barbara phoned.” Though Warren smiled, he didn’t sound too pleased.

  Too bad her mother’s call had taken away the edge of surprise. Had Warren had time to hide any incriminating evidence? “Oh, good, so it’s ready. Join us for lunch, then.”

  “I’m busy on a case right now. No time for either task, I’m afraid. I want to have all my ducks lined up so I can take time off for Jill’s and my honeymoon.”

  Luci made her face light up with pleasure. “Oh, you’ve decided where you’re going to go?”

  “Paris.” He smiled. The man was definitely good-looking. He had the kind of face a camera would love—and she dearly wanted his next photo to be a mug shot. “Jill thinks it will be romantic.”

  Jill would. Too bad it probably wasn’t going to happen. Not with Warren, anyway. “She’s wanted to go there since she read the Madeline books as a kid.”

  Dom grunted as if he were a backwoods moose. “You’ll earn some major husband points there.”

  “Are you sure you can’t join us for lunch?” Luci asked. “We can work on your list while we eat.”

  “I’m afraid this isn’t a good time.”

  Stay open and friendly, Luci. “You have to eat.”

  “Come on, Luci, give the man a break,” Dom said, and loosely strung his arm around her shoulder. “He’s trying to clear his desk for his honeymoon.”

  Luci pouted. “Mom’s going to be upset if I don’t come back with that list. She’s adamant that the invitations go out today.” Luci fished in her purse and brought out the sample she’d borrowed from her mother. The edge was trimmed with silver and a satin ribbon held on the vellum overlay. “What do you think? Pretty classy for homemade on the computer. Jeff showed his grandmother how to make them.”

  “Your mother has good taste.” Warren handed her back the invitation. “You’ve had a change of heart about me since Saturday?”

  Luci spread her palms up in an open gesture. “Jill’s happy. How can I not be happy for her?” She slanted Warren a sheepish look. “Dom pointed out that perhaps I was being a bit too overprotective. I’m sorry about that.”

  Warren hitched the side of his pants, perched on the corner of his desk and cocked his head. “Apology accepted. Jill’s lucky to have a sister who cares so much about her.”

  Luci jerked one shoulder and mirrored his head tilt. “Thanks for being so understanding.” She planted herself into one of the two wooden chairs in front of Warren’s desk. “Actually, I did have an ulterior motive for coming to see you today. I want to hire you.”

  Warren frowned. “Have you misplaced someone?”

  Cole’s image flashed in her mind, temporarily sidetracking her. She shook her head and made it look like a no. She could control her mind. “Someone killed my chickens Saturday night. The police say there’s nothing much they can do about it. They think it’s just kids playing a prank. Who would do such a cruel thing as a prank? I’d like to find whoever did that and at least have them replace the chickens.”

  Dom squeezed her shoulder. “The last thing Warren needs right now is another case. He’s trying to clear his desk
for his honeymoon.”

  Warren shook his head and took a seat behind his desk. “No, that’s all right. Luci’s going to be my sister-in-law. I’ll see if I can come up with anything.”

  “Thank you. It’ll be nice having a private eye in the family.”

  Warren pulled open a drawer, drew out a pad of yellow paper and poised his pen over the paper. “Do you have any suspects?”

  “I can’t think of anyone that would do such a cruel thing.”

  “Have you seen any strangers hanging around your property?”

  Luci pressed her lips in thought. “No. I sell my extra eggs, but I leave them by the fence in a cooler. Only people who live on my road would know about the eggs.”

  “Random acts of violence are hard to solve unless the victim knows the perpetrator. Usually, I find that it’s someone close. Tell you what. You work on a list of possible suspects and I’ll work on a list of guests for your mother. I’ll drop by after work and take a look around, if that works for you.”

  She hugged her purse. “That would be great.”

  “Come on, Luce, let’s leave the man alone.” Dom gestured grandly toward the door.

  “Just a couple of names will keep Mom happy.” Luci rounded up the friendliest smile she could muster.

  “I have to look up the addresses.”

  “Okay, then.” Luci shouldered her purse as she stood. “Be warned that my mother lets nothing get in the way of her party planning. It’s much easier to give her what she wants.”

  Warren gently shepherded them toward the door. “The last thing I want is to earn your mother’s wrath.”

  WELL, WELL, Warren thought as he watched Dom and Luci stride down the street and enter a bistro three doors down. Dom’s hand spanned Luci’s back protectively, guiding her like someone closer than a simple friend. The attraction seemed real enough, but a bad feeling coiled in his gut. And he’d learned to heed those feelings. Listening to them had saved his butt more than once.

  The last thing he needed was a protective sister meddling in his business. He’d thought the chickens would keep her busy for a while longer, but she’d turned the tables on him and assigned him to follow up on his own actions. Good thing he could control the output of that investigation.