We were on our way out of the parking lot before I got my breath back from the mad dash. “So, ah, the rental place didn’t have any normal-sized cars?”
He shot me a sideways glance. And was that a splotch of red staining his cheek? “Belongs to my mother.”
His mother? Pierce had a mother? The idea jumbled my thoughts, and it took me a minute to build a sentence. “You drove here from Ireland?” It was all I could do to keep from touching every surface I could reach to gather images. I laced my fingers together and held on tight. I’d worked so hard to stop touching things since Mitch was killed, and prying into Pierce’s private life was beneath me. Well, it was beneath my rational mind. My curiosity was another story altogether. But I wouldn’t touch anything. I wouldn’t. Even if my chest exploded with the effort of behaving.
“Keep your eyes on that white car, Belisama.” It was an order that shut down all superfluous topics of conversation and extraneous curiosity issues. Not that his command voice would squelch my innate inquisitiveness for long, but he had a point about keeping Nolla’s car at the top of my priority list, at least until we got that picture back. “How’re you planning to get her phone?”
Pierce sighed, and it unnerved me. He usually only did that when I’d driven him to the brink of insanity.
“We wouldn’t even know about this situation if I hadn’t made a detour on my way to the loo.”
Another sigh. “Without finesse.”
“What?” He’d lost me.
“Getting the phone. It’s going to be quick and dirty. Not the way I like to work.” His hands clenched the steering wheel.
My insides did a free fall. “Surely you’re not going to kill her.”
Pierce wrinkled his forehead. “You’ve been watching too much television.”
The road narrowed, and that was saying something, because there had barely been enough space for two cars to begin with. The traffic had thinned, there were no vehicles between us and Nolla, and although Pierce was hanging back, there was a good possibility she’d spot us.
The road turned hilly and we lost sight of her for a few seconds when the white car topped the crest of a hill and disappeared down the other side. Pushing all rational thought aside, I lunged for the dashboard, but the seatbelt jerked me back. “There. She just turned right. No left. This wrong side of the road driving screws with my spatial orientation.”
Pierce’s mouth kicked up at the corner. “Just point.”
And then he drove right past the turnoff.
I twisted, speechless, pointing out the window on his side of the car.
“Hang on.” He executed a three-point turn in the middle of the road and circled around. “Turning onto an unknown, mostly hidden road would be stupid.” He’d used his teaching voice, and I let the words sink in, filing them away for future reference.
Pierce had been doing the lecture thing with me lately, but I’d been too busy to wrap my mind around it—other than to secretly hope that I’d graduated from being cute and in need of protection to being his apprentice.
The car bumped along the side of the road until he brought it to a stop, shut off the engine, and flipped the keys into his hand. “Wait here.”
I beat him out of the car and glared. “Like that’s gonna happen.”
Pierce pocketed the keys. “Don’t know how long the walk will be. You up for it?” he asked with a glance at my sneaker-shod feet.
It was an absurd question that didn’t deserve a response.
Pierce nodded, then motioned me behind him. “Stay close, Belisama.”
It was an asphalt road, more like a trail really, that was barely wide enough to accommodate a car, and it was heavily lined with trees, shrubs and all kinds of other green stuff. The scent of country, diesel from the white car, and some kind of sweet flowers filled the air, making it almost peaceful. Except for the No Trespassing signs that Pierce totally ignored. He hustled me along the road, keeping us mostly out of sight, but not letting the car get too far ahead. His tension was palpable.
Pierce came to an abrupt stop about thirty feet from Nolla’s car when she parked just outside a wrought iron fence. There was a huge building looming beyond an expansive garden, but trees obscured the architectural details, so I couldn’t see much. Pierce rested his hand on a leather case attached to his belt, then flicked the snap open and palmed a Taser. “Stay.”
I bristled, but he was gone before I had a chance to respond. When the driver’s door opened and Nolla got out, her back was to us.
Pierce had covered the remaining space before I caught my breath, and then Nolla fell face down on the ground with a horrible, high-pitched grunt of agony. Her limbs spasmed, stiffened, and she sprawled there, unnaturally still.
A chill rippled down my spine. It was just a Taser. They weren’t lethal.
It took less than ten seconds for Pierce to locate her phone, stuff it and the charger in his pocket, gather the Taser cartridge, and yank me out of the bushes and into a full-out run back to the Citroën.
We were in the car, and Pierce had pulled onto the road before I gathered my wits, probably because I’d left most of them scattered all over the ground at the scene of the Tasering.
A bright red car passed us and turned onto the road leading to the Connor estate. “That was close,” I mumbled. Damn, but I hated when my voice shook.
Pierce grinned.
Not thinking, I casually glanced at the red car and caught sight of the driver.
Shock punched me in the gut. “That’s Cait!”
NINE
PIERCE TOOK HIS EYES OFF the road long enough to slant me a sideways look. “Cait? Do I know her?”
“Not yet. You’ll meet her at dinner tonight. How do you feel about fish and chips?”
His face wrinkled.
“What? You don’t like fish and chips?” My adrenaline high from the Taser scene had started to fade, and my muscles were taking a break to recuperate. I closed my eyes and rolled my neck back and forth against the headrest, barely recognizing the tension until it started to release.
“I like them if they’re done right.” There was a question in his voice.
I blew out a heavy sigh, and ignored the implied question. He’d find out how good they were first-hand. Besides, my eyes kept drifting shut and my need for sleep was right up there with taking my next breath. “Does jet lag take this long to set in?” I barely mumbled question. Meant it to be rhetorical.
Pierce missed the rhetorical implication. “Don’t know. Never had it.”
I startled awake and stared at him. “That’s impossible. All the flying around you do.”
“Learned to deep-sleep in short bullets of time. Talk to me. What’s with the address? Did you check a phone book?”
Pierce’s demand screwed with my pseudo-serenity, and I didn’t bother to suppress another sigh. It was loud with a touch of grumpy—a well-articulated sigh that I was quite proud of. I rubbed the sore muscles in my neck, and tried to get my brain on topic. I held up my hand, ticking off the answers to his questions. “Of course. I checked the local listings as soon as I got here. No go.” I flipped up my index finger. “I found the address in Mitch’s study, written by my mother, hidden in the gun safe, which means Connor might have been connected to her at one time.” Middle finger went up. “And…I went to a pub for supper last night. Cait waited on me. We hit it off, and she’s the one who suggested I visit Cockington Village today.” Another finger shot up.
A grunt. He ought to patent them.
“Anyway,” I wiggled my fingers. “It’s odd she’s visiting Fion Connor’s estate, don’t you think?”
“Hard to say.” There was something off about Pierce, and I couldn’t place it. Made me twitchy.
Traffic had picked up, and Pierce slowed to merge with the flow before he turned onto the street where Mrs. Brumley’s bed and breakfast was located. And parked. Right in front of it.
“How’d you know I was staying here?” I recognized it as a
stupid question before all the words were out of my mouth. “I must be really tired to have asked you that.”
We got out of the car and he beeped the locks. “Got that. We’ll take a break. Power nap.”
We? My adrenaline rush that had faded to blissful fatigue cranked up. “Where are you staying?”
Laughter sparkled behind his eyes. “With you, Belisama.”
Flippy…no, this was an absolutely shit situation. Small room. One bed. One bathroom. “Ummm.” It was the most coherent statement I could make. Seriously, I had to do better. Pierce was a friend. A colleague of sorts. We were adults. I’d been married, for heaven’s sake. Surely I could share a room with a man. Then again, Tynan Pierce wasn’t just any man. “You take up a lot of space.”
He quirked an eyebrow.
I waved my hands around him. “All that barely contained power and energy. It sucks the air out of rooms. Big rooms. Mine is…small.” Well, damn it all to smithereens. No way would I let anything about me or my surroundings seem small around Pierce. I might just as well quit right now if I couldn’t believe in myself. I sucked it up. “But there’s plenty of space for both of us. Just make sure you don’t leave the seat up on the commode.”
Brushing past him, I opened the front door with a flourish. “After you. My…our room, is the last one on the left.”
Pierce dipped his chin in an abrupt nod, strolled down the hall, and then stood aside while I unlocked the door. That he didn’t insist on going in first to clear the area set my nerves on edge. I scanned him, head to toe and back. The man was dead on his feet. “I get the right side of the bed.” Might as well stake my claim before he got the energy to argue.
I slipped my hand in my pocket, grasped my Boker, and eased the door open. I went in low, giving the empty room a thorough once-over, checked the bathroom, and exhaled in relief. I didn’t have it in me to fight with an intruder right now. Sharing a bed with Pierce was… Well, there were no words. “All clear. Help yourself to the facilities.” I pocketed my blade and gestured toward the loo.
The laugh lines around his eyes crinkled, but he headed for the bathroom without a word.
I kicked off my shoes, then dipped my shoulder, letting my handbag slide onto a big chair that was nestled in a corner of the room. It was probably big enough for me to sleep in, but no. That would be cowardly. It wasn’t like Pierce had cooties or anything, it was just that he oozed sex appeal and all that free-floating testosterone tended to put my nerves on edge.
The toilet flushed. The ancient-plumbing clinkety-clank of pipes that were reluctant to work sounded from the bathroom, and then water ran in the sink. My delightful, charming room, the one with character to spare, had shrunk into a space that would fit on a tip of a pin.
The bathroom door rattled, Pierce stepped into the bedroom, strolled to the left side of the bed, sat, and unlaced his boots.
I took in the tired lines creasing his face, the gray tinge that had barely faded when he’d eaten, and my heart flinched with…worry? Or was it just the aftereffects of the run-in with Nolla, and spotting Cait at the Connor estate? I shook off the sensation, then strolled across the room to take my turn in the loo. It took mere minutes to use the facilities, wash my face, and brush my teeth. No way was I sharing a bed with Tynan Pierce unless my girly defenses were in place. Silly, considering all we’d been through together.
I inhaled, carefully opened the bathroom door, and peeked into the bedroom. Pierce was sprawled on his back, arm thrown over his face, and a soft snore came from his throat. A smile unfolded in my chest. Somehow with all the training I’d been doing as a warrior and healer, I’d forgotten that I was a woman. Yep. That part had completely slipped my mind until I faced the reality of having a no-sex-allowed man in my bed—on top of the bed, but same difference. How the hell was I going to deal with this?
I eased onto the right side of the queen-sized bed, trying not to jiggle the mattress. Pierce didn’t move, his breathing steady and even. I inhaled long and deep, snuggled into the soft feather mattress, and then began a yoga-type relaxation exercise starting with my feet and working up to my head.
It didn’t relax so much as my pinkie finger. My curiosity was screaming to know what had happened to make this bigger-than-life man turn into a gray shadow, and for the first time in months my fingers itched to touch someone. To touch Pierce.
He turned toward me, blue eyes awake and fully aware. Before I could blink, he’d slipped his arm across my abdomen, hauled me to the middle of the bed, and spooned our bodies together. “Sleep, Belisama,” he said, and skimmed my belly diamond with the tip of his finger.
I shivered. And then the warmth of his body flowed through me, melting my tension, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest steady against me. It had been over a year since a man held me, comforted me. It wasn’t until an ache began to throb in my chest that I acknowledged I was lonely. I’d have to be careful of that. Pierce was a friend. A decent man who I respected, and I wanted, needed, to honor that. It would be so easy to just give up and let him take care of me.
I studied the blank emptiness of the wall and grinned. Fat chance. Tynan Pierce was not the coddling type, and I enjoyed sparring with him way too much to go all girly about his super-quick mind and powerful muscles. Not that I didn’t ap-appreciate… I yawned. And slept.
A FORCEFUL STREAM OF AIR brushed against my nape. I yelped, bolted upright, and then recognized Pierce sitting on the side of the bed. He’d been blowing on my neck.
Damn it! He’d scared the crap out of me. I inhaled, ready to ream him out, then caught the uncertainty clouding his eyes and squashed my temper. “I…forgot you were here. Startled me.” Roll with the awkward, Everly. You’re gonna be sharing space with this man for a bunch of days.
His shoulders straightened, barely enough to move the air around. “Uh-huh. Ready to introduce me to Cait?”
The fresh scent of castile soap washed over me. Pierce’s hair was damp and he had on a clean t-shirt. Black. “You showered,” I said, rolling to his side of the bed, then standing. It wouldn’t be smart to maneuver around him, or to try and push him off the bed. Why waste time and energy on an immovable force?
His gaze was a mix of twinkle and serious. “Being a gentleman, I didn’t use all the hot water.” He stood, made his way toward the door. “Be ready to roll in twenty.”
Questions tumbled through my thoughts, but Pierce was gone before I could utter a syllable. Typical. Note to self: ask Pierce about fading into thin air, gray shadows, and inky blackness. If he could do it, why not me?
I showered, smoothed the wrinkles out of a clean t-shirt, tugged it on, and then slathered product through my wet hair, hoping it would tame the frizzies.
Pierce sauntered into our room just as I stretched my arms into a black hoodie and yanked it over my head. He wasn’t the only one who looked good in black. I flipped the hood back and shouldered my handbag. “What’s in the sack?”
“Equipment.” He took something from the paper bag and tucked it into his front jeans pocket.
It took me a scant second to recognize the tracking device. I wrinkled my nose. “Who do you plan to track?”
“Plan? No one.” He pressed his hand to the small of my back, and ushered me out the door, locked it, then pocketed the key.
I stopped dead. “You asked Mrs. Brumley for a key?” Heat flashed up my neck. It was one thing to share my room with Pierce, but a totally different thing to have him request a key to said room. “I would have done it. It’s—”
“Seemed best to introduce myself. We’re engaged, by the way.”
Panic cut into me. “No.”
“It’s our cover, Belisama.” The words were bland, but his mouth had locked into a tight line.
I waved my hand, impatient. “That’s not the problem. I should have had some say in the decision-making process. After Mitch, I—”
Pierce’s face softened. “I’m not Hunt. I won’t lie to you. But I will make on-the-spot decisions.�
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He brushed his thumb over my cheek.
My heart didn’t have enough room to beat.
“You’ve worked hard. I respect that.” Another soft flick of his thumb. “But good as A.J. and Boulay are, they haven’t had enough time to completely prep you for field work. This is real time with live ammo, and you’re gonna have to trust me.”
Temper licked at my annoyance, shooting it up a notch. Pierce was right. But only technically. “I get that.” My fingers twitched. “My ESP has been on forced hiatus for well on to nine months, because I wanted to learn everything Annie and Whitney could teach me without…cheating. Without inside help. And you have to respect that. My wounds from what happened with Mitch are far from fresh, but the scars haven’t faded yet. This is my family, Pierce. My revenge. Don’t shut me out when you plan something.”
The color had drained from his face when I mentioned family. It surprised me, but more important, it scared me. Something was definitely off with him, and it was past time to bring my fingers out of retirement. I flexed my hands, captured his gaze, and held it until he looked away.
Had Pierce ever broken eye contact with me before? I filed the question for later consideration, and relaxed my hands. Now wasn’t the time to touch him. We were standing in the middle of the hall in a bed and breakfast, so it wasn’t the place, either. Not that those things had ever stopped me before, but this was different. A partnership in its infancy, and I didn’t want to screw it up. I shrugged, smiled. “This must be one of those communication things women and men do differently. We need to find a common ground.”
Pierce dropped his arm over my shoulders and jostled me through the door and outside. “Lead the way, Hot Shot.”
TEN
THE EVENING AIR WAS CRISP and filled with the fragrance of the many different foods being prepared in neighborhood restaurants. I inhaled, searching for the distinctive scent of fish and chips served at The Moon and Star. I caught a whiff, stopped walking, and nudged Pierce. “Smell that?”
a Touch of Revenge (Romantic Mystery - book 6): The Everly Gray Adventures Page 7