Come Gentle the Dawn

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Come on, Brie, it wasn’t a life sentence. Quit giving me that sad, soulful look. You aren’t going to cry on me, are you?”

  The right blend of sarcasm laced with disbelief effectively tamped her flow of feelings toward him. He was still that tough little boy, she thought, her heart wrenching in her breast. And somehow, knowing that about Linc made him less of a threat to her. But she’d never tell him that. “No,” she whispered, “I won’t cry.” She never cried, and she needed to. The tears might crowd into her eyes, but they’d never quite spill out and release the pent-up grief that she carried within.

  “Good,” he said.

  She went back to planting. “So you were raised in the city in a series of foster homes?”

  “Yeah. I lived in a jungle, too. But it wasn’t like the jungle you have inside your house or surrounding you out here.”

  “I see. A concrete jungle?”

  “Something like that.”

  Brie compressed her lips. “What parts of New York City did you grow up in?”

  “The Bronx. A good blue-collar community that’s been eaten away by street gangs.”

  She heard the disgust in his voice. “Did you belong to one of those gangs?”

  “Yeah. If you were anybody, you were part of a gang.”

  “And you wanted to belong…” Brie said gently, meeting his eyes.

  He shrugged. “I was bored. The Panthers gave me someplace to go and something to do.”

  “What did your foster parents have to say about that?”

  Again a shrug. “Let’s put it this way, Brie. One set of foster parents took in brats like me to get the money. They really didn’t give a damn about us. All they wanted was the monthly allotment check.”

  Her heart twisted. Linc had been rejected from the day of his birth. My God, how would she have felt if that had happened to her? Brie’s hands stilled over the warm earth. Her voice was almost inaudible. “My growing up years were very different. I have wonderful parents. They have a three-hundred-acre farm in Iowa.” She gave him a wry look. “I grew up working alongside Dad and my younger brother, Steve, fixing tractors, hay balers, wind rowers and trucks. We didn’t have the money to send them to a garage in town to be fixed, so we did all the repairs ourselves.”

  Linc gave her a sour look. “So that’s why you knew where the battery cables were located on that truck yesterday?”

  Brie swallowed a smile. “Yes.”

  He gave her a disgruntled look. Brie could have rubbed his face in it with that piece of information, but she continued to plant her beans. Linc knew more than a few people who would be delighted to make a first-class fool of him if they had the opportunity. But Brie hadn’t. His brows drew together.

  “You’re a strange bird, Ms. Williams.”

  She rose, dusting off her knees. “I could say the same of you, Mr. Tanner. Well, do you feel up to seeing a truly strange bird?”

  Linc enjoyed looking at Brie, at the way the sunlight made her hair a brown halo laced with strands of gold. He had touched that hair last night and felt how silky it was. Emotions woven with desire deluged him as he absorbed her in those fleeting seconds. Somehow, with dirt-stained hands, her hair loose and free, standing in a pair of patched jeans, she looked beautiful. Was she like Ceres, the mother of the earth from Roman mythology, giving life to everything she touched? Linc thought so, responding to the wry smile on her full, provocative lips.

  “What surprise do you have for me,” he asked, rising to his full height.

  Brie’s eyes glimmered with mirth as she stepped carefully between the rows and walked toward the house. “Come on, and I’ll show you.”

  After removing her tennis shoes at the door, Brie stepped inside and led Linc down the hall. The moment she opened the door to the right of the bathroom, an excited whistling sound emerged. Frowning, Linc followed Brie into the room. He saw a sewing machine in one corner with some peach-colored fabric that resembled a blouse. Turning toward the whistling sound, he saw a small gray bird flapping its wings madly in its cage on a desk across the room.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  Brie smiled, sat on a chair and opened the cage. “This is Homely Homer, an orphaned baby pigeon the kids down the street brought to me two weeks ago. Apparently Homer fell out of her nest, and they couldn’t get her back into it.” She gently picked up the pigeon, which had no feathers on her breast. Looking at Linc, she could see his scowl deepening. “Come on over here. You wanted to see what it’s like to live in the country, now you’re going to find out.”

  Linc came and stood near the desk. “He’s the ugliest-looking thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Homer perched on Brie’s finger, flapping her wings and whistling shrilly. Brie laughed and stroked Homer’s few feathers, which were beginning to grow out on her back. “Homer’s a she. Don’t insult her like that, Linc. Here, sit down. You can let her perch on your finger while I get her the baby food.”

  “Baby food?” he echoed, not sure at all that he wanted that ugly-looking, buck-naked bird with its long, oddly shaped beak on his finger.

  Brie motioned for him to sit on the edge of the desk, which he did with great reluctance. “Hold out your finger,” she urged.

  “What if—what if that thing decides to take a dump on me?” he protested.

  She chuckled. “I have papers spread over the desk. Just hold Homer away from you. She’ll be a lady and sit nicely on your finger.” Without waiting for him to say no, Brie placed the squab on his finger. She turned and headed for the door.

  “Hey! Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

  “To the fridge to get Homer’s breakfast. I’ll be right back.”

  Linc’s face fell. “But—what if—”

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” she promised airily, disappearing. He scowled at the pigeon. “You’re ugly,” he growled at the bird. Homer blinked her big brown eyes at him, whistled through the nostrils of her long beak and gently flapped her gray and black feathered wings, as if to dispute his comment. Linc sat there uncomfortably. What had he gotten himself into? He glared at the bird. Relief rushed through him when Brie came back minutes later.

  “Here, take this thing,” he growled. “I’m no good with animals.”

  She placed the small jar of baby food on the desk and twisted off the lid. “That’s only because you haven’t been around animals much, Linc. You’re doing just fine. Look at Homer, she’s very contented on your finger. You can tell she’s happy because she barely flutters her wings and she’s talking to you in that soft whistle of hers. She’s accepting you as her parent.”

  “The whistle is driving me crazy,” he said tightly. “And I’m not going to be some bird’s foster parent.”

  “You’ll get used to it after a while. Okay, I’ll take her now. Thanks.”

  Grudgingly, Linc watched. He was fascinated with Brie’s understanding of so many things—first battery cables, then a garden, now a pigeon. Who had that kind of broad spectrum of knowledge? No one he knew. He saw her in a new light and decided she was like a well of unfathomable and unknown depth.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Linc was taught a lesson of interaction between a human and an animal. He’d seen nothing like it. Brie talked and chatted with Homer as if the bird were human, and occasionally reached out and petted the pigeon’s back or short, stubby tail. The bird dived into the jar of baby food, flapping her wings wildly, whistling shrilly, dancing around it as she gobbled down the food and had a great time. Linc crossed his arms against his chest, sourly admitting he was enjoying the odd spectacle. More than anything, he saw Brie’s pale features glow with a breathtaking radiance as she communicated with the orphaned bird through voice and touch. Linc actually felt a bit envious. What also fascinated him was that a pigeon was responding to Brie with joy because of the attention.

  There was a heavy knock at the back door, and Brie’s face registered relief. “That’s probably Jeff,” she told Linc. “Come on in,” she called, r
aising her voice.

  Linc scowled. “You always just tell someone to come in without first finding out who it is?”

  “I always know who’s coming here. Why should I leave Homer half fed and go find out?”

  “Look, this place is in the sticks, Brie. What if it was a burglar? Or someone else up to no good?”

  She shook her head, confused by the sudden tension in his body and voice. Again, her instincts begged her to be on guard toward him. Linc’s reaction was ridiculous under the circumstances. “I’ve lived here three years, and nothing has ever happened.”

  He was about to give her a lecture on the topic when a string bean of a man with a narrow face appeared before them. Linc’s scowl remained as he sized up Jeff Laughlin. String bean was a good word to describe him, Linc decided irritably. Laughlin was his height and a third his weight. Dark brown hair lay neatly against his skull, emphasizing his large, twinkling eyes of the same color. There was a relaxed quality to the twenty-five-year old man, and Linc decided the haz-mat tech wasn’t darkly handsome enough to interest Brie. That particular thought surprised him because he didn’t normally assess another male in that manner. And on the heels of that thought came a bizarre realization: he didn’t want Brie to have any romantic relationships right now.

  “Hey, Brie!” Jeff greeted, throwing her a wave.

  “Hi, Jeff. I’d like you to meet our second trainee, Linc Tanner. Linc, this was going to be my partner, Jeff Laughlin.”

  Linc shook the smiling man’s slender hand. “Nice meeting you,” he said. Liar.

  “Same here. Welcome aboard, Linc.” Jeff leaned over Brie’s shoulder. “You feeding the Bottomless Pit again?”

  She laughed fully. “Remember what I told you. Homer is sensitive. What if I called you the Bottomless Pit? How would you feel?”

  “But it’s the truth! I keep trying to fill out and look like Linc here to impress the women, but it just doesn’t happen.”

  Brie’s jade eyes lightened with genuine happiness. “Maybe you ought to start eating baby food and see what happens.”

  “Ugh!”

  Linc sat there for the next ten minutes listening to the easy banter between them. And he was uncomfortably jealous of Jeff Laughlin. Brie’s lovely green eyes were sparkling with happiness. He had begun to wonder if she was always in a serious state, but now he knew differently. And he didn’t like it each time Jeff reached out and touched her arm or shoulder. Brie didn’t seem to mind it, but Linc did. She and Jeff sounded like the best of friends, and Linc’s scowl deepened.

  “Listen, Jeff, I’ve got a favor to ask of you,” Brie said, gently placing Homely Homer in her cage.

  “Name it. I’m yours forever anyway.”

  “You’ve got problems then. Seriously…”

  Jeff grinned lopsidedly and rocked on his heels, his hands resting on his narrow hips. “I’m always serious where you’re concerned, Brie. You know that.”

  “Oh, go practice those lines on the women you’re stalking, and not on me!”

  He had the good grace to blush slightly. “I’m still too chicken to go after Elaine down at the FM’s office. Gotta keep polishing my lines until they sound genuine and not like a line,” he complained.

  Brie rested her hand on Jeff’s shoulder, giving him a playful shake. “I’m sure Linc can help you in that department. Listen, I want you to take Linc around Canton and help him find an apartment or house this afternoon. Will you do that for me? I’ve got a lot of paperwork to catch up on here while you’re gone.”

  Jeff cast Linc a conspiratorial look. “Now we’ve got her where we want her,” he said in a dramatic stage whisper.

  “What are you mumbling about, Jeff?” she demanded, placing the lid on the baby-food jar.

  “Linc, tell Brie that if she doesn’t have her world-famous chicken barbecue ready tonight when we get back, we aren’t going anywhere. We’ll just sit here underfoot all day and drive her buggy.”

  Brie groaned. “Jeff!”

  “I want an apartment, not chicken barbecue.”

  “Man, do you have lousy taste. Anyway,” Jeff said archly, centering all his attention on Brie, “no chicken barbecue, no driver for Linc.”

  “Laughlin, you’re such a—”

  “Yeah, I know. And you love me anyway, don’t you?”

  With a shake of her head, Brie slipped past him. “All right! You’re such an arm twister, Laughlin.”

  Jeff leaned against the doorjamb, watching her move down the hall. He turned to Linc, a loose smile on his face. “I’ll tell you what, Linc. You got the best person in the world to train you. Brie is one of a kind. She’s special. Actually, I’m envious you’re getting her for a partner and I’m not.”

  Linc remained sitting lazily on the desk, hands resting against his thighs. “Luck of the draw, I guess,” he said in a neutral tone. Brie reappeared, drying her hands on a towel. It struck him deeply how domesticated she really was, and that knowledge sent a ribbon of warmth through him.

  “Hey, Brie, what happened to your bedroom door?” Jeff asked. “Did you run into it last night?”

  Brie froze, all the happiness slipping from her eyes, her face draining of color. She flashed a pleading look at Linc.

  “When we got home last night it was stuck shut,” Linc lied in an off-the-cuff tone, rising to his feet. “I used a little too much force unsticking it and nearly took it off the bottom hinge.”

  Jeff nodded, standing. “This is an old house. I told Brie one day it would start shifting on its foundation and then the windows and doors would start jamming.”

  Linc saw relief flood Brie’s waxen features. Obviously, Jeff knew nothing of her emotional problems from the explosion. He reached out, guiding Jeff out of the room and away from the sore spot of conversation. Brie didn’t need any more stress than was already hanging over her head like a scimitar. “Look, there’s the Sunday paper on top of that rolltop desk in the living room. Would you mind getting it for me?” Linc asked Jeff.

  “Sure. Tell you what. My pickup is parked out front. I’ll get the paper and meet you out there so we can start your house hunt.” Jeff leaned over, kissing Brie’s cheek. “See you later, doll face.”

  Brie barely nodded, her dark eyes centered on Linc as they stood in the dim hall. How easily Linc had lied for her benefit. And if she hadn’t known it was a lie, she would have accepted his explanation without questioning it. Uneasy, Brie tried to shake the feeling of wariness toward Linc.

  Linc forced a grin. “That’s not a good line to pull on the ladies today, in case you wanted to know,” he told Jeff.

  “Oh?” Crestfallen, Jeff shrugged. “Well, cross that one off my list. How about if I run them all by you this afternoon? You can tell me which ones are in and which ones are out.”

  “You’ve got a deal,” Linc agreed amiably. He waited until Jeff disappeared before turning toward Brie. She tried to slip by him, the towel clutched in her hand.

  “Wait a minute,” he called to her softly, gripping her upper arm and bringing her to a halt. He saw the terror in her eyes as he swung her around. “Look,” he began, “I know this isn’t the time or place to talk about what happened last night, but—”

  “Please, Linc,” she begged, her voice strained, “not now. Not ever.” She tried to shore up her dissolving defenses, barely able to hold his compassionate blue gaze. “Thanks for not telling Jeff the truth. He…doesn’t know.”

  No, and neither does anyone else, little cat. But somehow, someway, you’ve got to let go of all that hell you’re carrying around inside of you. Linc was aware of the softness of her flesh and gentled his grip on her arm. He kept his voice low and quiet. “Will you be all right here by yourself this afternoon?”

  Brie gave him a shocked look. “Of course. Why?”

  He gave her a slight smile. “I’m just being protective of you after what happened, Brie. You’re more affected by this incident than I had realized.”

  Tears ached in her throat, and Brie tor
e herself away from Linc, blindly moving past him to escape. “I’ll be okay. Now just get out of here and find a place to live.”

  Linc digested the desperation and pain in Brie’s tone. He wanted to stay and hash out the nightmare that stayed with her. But another, wiser part of him stemmed this inclination. He would have to get Brie’s trust before he could try to defuse that mass of terror she carried. Time, he told himself, heading toward the front door. Time and patience.

  * * *

  Brie tried her best to hide her agitation when they returned. She was in the back yard with the barbecue. Jeff waved to her. What a difference between them, Brie thought. Linc walked with long, deliberate strides, his gaze restlessly scanning right, left then toward her. He was always looking around, checking things out. That wasn’t normal for most people, and Brie tried to explain his alertness on his Marine Corps experience. She felt heat move into her cheeks and avoided his intense eyes. Thank God, he wouldn’t be staying with her tonight.

  “Hey, guess what, Brie?” Jeff said, coming up to inspect the eight chicken breasts that were close to being done over the coals of the barbecue.

  “What?” she asked dryly, barely raising her head to acknowledge Linc’s presence. Her heart was thundering away at a gallop.

  “Linc found a real nice apartment only two blocks from here. Man, we must have gone to at least fifteen places before he found this one.”

  “Two blocks?” she repeated stupidly. Only two blocks? What kind of bad luck was following her?

  “Just one hitch,” Jeff said, reaching out and tasting the sauce in the bowl beside the chicken. He licked his lips and smiled. “Man, you make the best sauce.”

  Brie stared at Linc, but his face was unreadable. “What hitch?” she ground out.

  Jeff sat at the wooden picnic table nearby, spreading out the plates, utensils and napkins. “He can’t move in for a week. They’re still painting it and stuff.” Jeff turned. “I’d offer Linc my place, but you know I live up in the attic and it’s a one-room studio. I told Linc how you let me stay with you that week when I was trying to find a place to live. So I figured you’d make him the same offer.” He gave her a sheepish smile. “Hope you didn’t mind me telling him it was okay if he uses your couch for the rest of the week.”