by Paula Graves
The journal might well be one of those things.
The door behind him opened, and he smelled the sweet, sleepy scent of Shannon before he saw her. “Good morning,” he murmured.
She settled next to him at the railing, her dark-eyed gaze on the rain clouds gathering in the south. “Is it?”
“For the moment.” He turned to look at her fully. “Did you get some sleep?”
“Yeah. Bad dreams, though.”
He could sympathize. His own sleep had been marred by anxious nightmares that he couldn’t remember but couldn’t quite shake.
“Are we doing the right thing?” she asked.
She’d been the one most willing to hear Damon out the night before, but whatever she’d dreamed seemed to have shaken her confidence in the plan. His own gut tightened with worry, now that she was beginning to second-guess what they’d agreed to do the night before.
“We have to get Lydia safely away from here and put her somewhere nobody will go after her,” he said after a long pause in which he played out the options in his mind, coming to the same conclusion he’d come to the night before. “At least for a day or two. If Damon’s buddies think she’s been kidnapped, according to plan, they won’t go looking for her. They’ll think he’s got her safely tucked away as leverage against me.”
“Against us,” Shannon corrected.
“You’re collateral, too, Shannon. I can’t play this out if I’m worried about you. You need to go home for real, not just for show.”
Her brow furrowed with dismay. “I suppose you’d tell a fellow marine to leave the battlefield so you wouldn’t have to worry about his getting shot? How many times did you try that before you were knocked flat on your butt, Lieutenant Stone?”
“None,” he admitted, hating that she was right. Whether he liked it or not, she was an asset, not a liability, just as his fellow marines had been.
The difference was, he’d never wanted to kiss any of them. And right now, all he wanted to do was kiss Shannon Cooper until they both forgot there was a world outside.
That was the distraction. Not a lack of trust in her ability—he’d seen her in action. Clearly she was strong, capable and well-trained.
But if she got hurt in the middle of this mess—
“Please don’t treat me like I’m useless,” she said softly, dropping her gaze in frustration. “Don’t treat me like a fragile thing that has to be wrapped in cotton and hidden safely away.”
He had a strong feeling her words had deeper meaning than just their current situation. He couldn’t let himself hear beyond the surface, however. “I know you’re not useless. You’re definitely an asset to this situation. But you’re going to have to forgive me if I wish you’d sit it out where you won’t get hurt.”
“I don’t think I could sit it out, even if I thought it was for the best.” She lifted her small, strong hand and planted it in the center of his chest. “Not if you’re in the middle of the fight.”
Her words made him ache as much as her touch made him burn. He couldn’t afford to feel so much for her. For anyone. He might be known as fierce in battle, perhaps even reckless where his own safety was concerned, and he couldn’t really argue against such a characterization, but he’d always guarded his emotions. Fear of that darkness inside him from birth, his father’s grim legacy, had set him adrift emotionally. Getting close to other people—letting them get close to him—seemed a far more daunting prospect than running through a battle zone with shells and bullets raining around him.
Heat seemed to radiate from that small point of contact beneath Shannon’s palm, spreading through him like strength. As he’d done last night, he laid his hand over hers, sliding his thumb over her knuckles. He had meant to simply remove her hand and let it go, but instead, he lifted her fingers to his mouth and touched his lips to them.
She lifted her other hand and touched his jaw, her fingers sliding over his overnight growth of beard, making a rasping noise. “I’m scared, too,” she whispered, her uncanny insight taking away his breath again. He could almost believe she knew exactly why he was afraid.
He might be dragging them both straight to hell, but damned if he’d let her walk away again without kissing her.
Her lips curved in a smile as she read his expression with pinpoint accuracy. Before he’d dipped his head toward her, she was on her tiptoes, leaning into the kiss.
Oh, she felt good. Soft and warm, her kiss as sweet as Carolina honey. But beneath all the female temptation lay a core of Southern steel, tempered by the fiery heat of Alabama summers lived close to wild nature and polished to mirror shine by the tough Cooper blood that ran in her veins.
He’d never find anyone like her again. It didn’t take a lifetime to understand that truth. He didn’t have to know the minute details of her childhood to realize if he walked away from Shannon Cooper, his life would be poorer for it.
But what about her life? If he let her in, let her matter, would she regret it one day? Would that darkness inside him taint her, turn her generous affection into fear and hate?
She broke the kiss, laughing softly, oblivious to the maelstrom of emotions swirling wildly in his chest. “Gideon, what are we going to do?”
He knew what she was asking. “Nothing.”
She continued laughing, although there was a hint of frustration in the display of mirth. “I think we’re past that point.”
He shouldn’t touch her, should step back and let her walk away. But before he could get that thought through his aching head, his hand rose as if on its own volition to stroke her silky hair. “Let’s get through the next couple of days. Get past the crisis and then we can decide what comes next.”
She leaned her forehead against his chin. “I realize you probably couldn’t have gleaned this from the past few days, but I’m not a particularly impulsive person.”
He smiled. “Believe it or not, I did glean that.” In some ways, she was remarkably cautious, taking care to arm herself when she confronted him on the boat, taking Lydia with her when they ran to fix the foghorn atop the lighthouse—even attacking him as he entered the caretaker’s house had been a calculated risk rather than a reckless one. She’d known what she was doing and she’d damn near disarmed him.
“I was in love once.” Her voice went very quiet, forcing him to lean closer to hear her. “It was fast and wild and a mistake of really painful proportions.”
“We all have moments like that in our past,” he said gently.
She looked up at him. “Not you. You don’t take foolish risks. You’re so controlled. It’s like you think there’s some dreadful beast inside you that you have to keep leashed at all times.”
Once again, she floored him with her instinctive understanding of what really went on beneath the tough-hided, hell-for-leather marine he showed the world. He didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified.
“Maybe there is.” He dropped his hands away from her face.
“Is this about your father?”
He couldn’t look at her. “He wasn’t always a monster. I have good memories of him, too. But that just makes what he did all that more monstrous. And makes me wonder what I’m capable of—”
“You’re his son, not his clone.”
He shook his head. “I’m plenty like him.” He thought about what she’d just said, how he acted as if there was a monster chained inside him, always in danger of breaking loose. That’s exactly how he felt. “I’ve hurt people.”
“You’ve killed a person in anger?” she asked, her gaze narrowed.
“No.” He’d been angry enough to kill, but he’d never actually done it.
“You’ve hit someone in anger who didn’t hit you first?”
“I’ve punched back harder than I needed to.”
“Hard enough to cause permanent damage?”
“No,” he admitted.
“I don’t know what’s happening here between us,” she said quietly, her tone forcing him to look at her. Her
dark eyes shined at him, full of anxiety but also bright with something else. Maybe hope. Or anticipation. “But I’m not afraid of you.”
He wished he could feel anything but a bleak, creeping dread. Maybe, in time, she’d talk him into believing they had a chance to make things work. But time was something they had precious little of. Unless they got safely through the next forty-eight hours, none of it would matter anyway.
Chapter Fourteen
“You’re going to let him kidnap me?” Lydia looked at the two of them as if they were insane. Shannon couldn’t blame her.
“It’s preemptive,” Gideon explained, scooting his chair closer to Lydia’s and taking her hand in his. “If they think Damon North has you, they’re not going to send anyone else after you. You’ll be safer with Damon than you would be anywhere else.”
Lydia looked skeptical. “Even in police custody?”
“The police can’t protect you a hundred percent,” Shannon said firmly. She’d seen how easily police protection could be breached by people determined enough to take big risks. “There could be people right now on the local forces who are in the pockets of the bad guys.”
“Terrebonne had a law enforcement scandal just last year,” Gideon pointed out. “Shannon’s cousins nearly lost their lives because of it.”
Shannon glanced at Gideon, surprised. She’d never told him about the mess that had occurred the summer before, when her cousin’s son had been kidnapped by a dangerous South American drug lord determined to use him to get revenge against Shannon’s cousin Luke. Had he asked around?
Of course he would have, she realized. She’d mentioned her oblique connection to Natalie Becker through her cousin J.D. A couple of questions about Natalie Becker’s new husband could have easily revealed the whole story of the Coopers’ battle with Eladio Cordero’s cartel in the piney woods outside Terrebonne.
That’s our trouble, she thought. Fascinated by each other, but too afraid to ask the interesting questions aloud.
They’d come so close that morning outside her bedroom, cocooned in each other’s heat. She’d almost told him that she was falling for him, hard. That she wanted it as much as she feared it.
She was terrified that she’d never get the chance to conquer her fears and follow the instincts that told her, whether ten days or ten years later, she’d still want to be wherever Gideon Stone was.
“Can I be armed?” Lydia asked, making both Shannon and Gideon laugh. Lydia smiled as well, but the look in her eyes was serious. “Edward bought me a Beretta last summer. We trained until I passed the test easily. I’d feel safer with it on me.”
“I don’t see why not,” Shannon answered, looking at Gideon.
“I think we’ll insist on it,” Gideon agreed.
“You have a holster and ammunition?” Shannon asked.
“I do,” Lydia answered. “So how will this happen?”
“I’ll take Shannon into town as if she’s leaving. Damon will come get you here at the house and call his associates, telling them he has you.”
“Then what?” Lydia asked.
“Then we wait for someone to contact Gideon to make a deal.”
One of Lydia’s eyebrows lifted in a skeptical arch. “And then what?”
Gideon smiled, but Shannon could see tension in the fine creases around his eyes. “Then I stall until we can lure them into our trap.”
Shannon couldn’t blame Lydia for her unease. She wasn’t sure how she and Gideon were supposed to lure the other three operatives into a trap on the island. They had no assurance beyond Damon’s promise that there weren’t a bunch of other operatives waiting in the wings to ride to the rescue.
“We should get my family involved,” she told him later when Lydia had gone out to her garden. “Safety in numbers.”
She and Gideon sat on the front porch in the matching rockers, watching the storm clouds slowly rolling in from the Gulf.
“I don’t think we can do that without drawing a lot of attention,” Gideon said doubtfully.
“My cousins are all boaters. They can be down here in five hours with their boats.”
“Look at those waves.” He gestured toward the Gulf. “The Lorelei can handle it, but those bass boats your cousins drive won’t be able to handle surf this rough.”
Now she knew he’d asked questions about her and her family. “Then we smuggle them aboard the Lorelei and bring them here at night.”
“I’ve already talked to your brother,” Gideon said, turning to look at her. “I told him what we have planned.”
She shook her head. “When?”
“Earlier this morning while you were taking a shower.”
“You wanted him to talk me into going home.”
“I wanted him to order you to go home.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh at the idea or smack him upside the head for even suggesting it. “Stop trying to handle me.”
“I want you safe.”
“I want to be safe, but because you seem to be intent on handling this without outside help, I’m all you’ve got for backup.”
“So you’re saying if I found someone else to back me up, you’d go home?” He looked at her, his eyebrows arched.
“No, I’m saying stop trying to treat me as if I’m breakable.”
“You are,” he said grimly. “Everyone is breakable.”
She reached across the space between their chairs and touched his hand. He stared at her hand for a long moment, as if trying to figure out what to do. Finally, he turned his hand over, palm up, and threaded his fingers through hers, holding on tightly.
“What did Jesse say?” she asked.
“That you wouldn’t come home if ordered, and he didn’t run his agency the way he’d have run a unit in the Marine Corps.” Gideon grimaced. “Sorry excuse for a Devil Dog.”
Shannon smiled at the grim quip. “He has to trust the instincts of the people who work for Cooper Security or he’d never get anything accomplished. He sent me here because he knew I’d uncover the mystery if one really existed.”
“He said he’s been second-guessing that decision.”
“I’m sure he has,” Shannon said, trying not to take offense. The very fact that Jesse sent her at all was a huge step forward. “But he wasn’t wrong. I found the journal. I recognized it as multilayered code.”
“But what if we can’t decode the journal without input from both Harlowe and Marsh?” Gideon shook his head. “We don’t even know that we can decode it at all, now that General Ross is dead.”
“The generals had to know it was possible one of them would die before the truth came out. Surely they had safeguards.”
“Maybe they did,” Gideon said, “but the one guy still alive who knows for sure isn’t talking.”
Shannon frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Your brother tried contacting General Marsh. He refused to take Jesse’s call.”
“Jesse’s not his favorite person. Maybe someone else should try to reach him.”
“Someone else did.” Gideon gave her hand a light squeeze. She looked at him and found him gazing out toward the churning Gulf, his profile stony. “I called this morning. He wouldn’t take my call, either.”
“But if he doesn’t know you—”
“He does. I worked under his command for over a year in Kaziristan. And I even met him again earlier this year, at General Ross’s funeral.” Gideon’s gaze met hers. “We have to assume he realizes his fellow generals have met bad ends because of what they knew. In the case of General Marlowe, his family as well. General Marsh has his own hostages to think about.”
His daughters, Shannon thought. His wife.
“Your brother says one of Marsh’s daughters works for your company.”
She nodded. “Evie, General Marsh’s younger daughter. I guess she’s in danger now, isn’t she?”
“We have to assume so.”
“I wonder if anyone’s warned her.”
“If not her
father, I’m sure your brother has. He knows the danger.”
She shook her head, feeling as if the world had turned entirely upside down in the past three days. “They’re so bold—the SSU or whatever they call themselves now. They started an actual company, for heaven’s sake.”
“And maybe that’ll help us bring them down. As far as your brother can tell, AfterAssets has never shown up in any investigations before. Now we’ve got the ball rolling.”
“They’ll just dump the company and start something new with some other SSU agent who hasn’t yet shown up on anyone’s radar.”
“Maybe. But like cockroaches, they’ll be a lot easier to stamp out scurrying around in the light than holed up somewhere in the dark.” Gideon looked at his watch. “We need to leave in thirty minutes.”
She nodded, pushing up from the rocker.
Inside, Lydia had returned from the garden and sat at the kitchen table, weeping softly. Shannon hurried to her side, taking the older woman’s hands between her own. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know why I bothered staking up the vegetables against the storm,” she said, sniffing back her tears. “When I leave today, I may not ever be back.”
“Of course you will.”
Lydia shook her head. “I’ll have to go somewhere safe, where I can’t be found. You know that’s what will have to happen, especially if you can’t find a way to decode Edward’s journal.”
Shannon didn’t try to argue against her point. Lydia’s life wasn’t going to be the same, no matter what happened over the next few days. Her husband was dead. She’d already agreed to sell the island to the state. Maybe grieving a little for the life she was leaving in the past was the best thing for her right now.
“Gideon and I are leaving in about thirty minutes. Damon’s at the lighthouse if you need him before go-time—just hit the horn.” She squeezed Lydia’s hands. “Are you going to be okay?”