The Missing

by Shiloh Walker

  His lips quirked in a smile. “You, too.”

  Nodding toward Jillian, she asked, “She woken up yet?”

  Cullen shrugged. “For a minute. Saw me and told me she knew I’d find her. Then she went back to sleep and hasn’t woken up since. The doctor said not to worry.” His mouth twisted in a sullen scowl. “How in the hell can I not worry?”

  He glanced at Jillian and then stood up slowly, arching his back and groaning a little. He slid out of the small, curtained room and leaned his shoulder up against the wall, staring at Taige with intense eyes. “I don’t how to say thank you.”

  Taige wished she could move away a little, get some distance between them, but she couldn’t, even though she tried to make herself. Her body seemed to be reaching out to his, and it was all she could do not to touch him. She’d made it this long without touching him, but that had been because she’d been focused on Jillian and saving her. Now that Jillian was safe, it was harder.

  Quietly, she said, “You don’t need to say thanks for anything, Cullen.” She glanced back at Jillian and sighed. A faint smile, almost amazed, curved her lips. The relief she felt was unreal. “It’s kind of hard to believe all of this is over. I’ve seen her face so many times. I’m just glad she’s finally safe.”

  Cullen’s eyes darkened. “You saved her life, Taige. Saved mine—it would have killed me if anything happened to her. I owe you a hell of a lot more than thanks.” He looked away for a minute, hooked his thumbs in his pockets. A harsh breath escaped him, and he looked back at her. Under the thick fringe of his lashes, his eyes were stormy. “One thing I do owe you is an apology. What I did to you when you came to see me about Mom, it was wrong. All of it. For blaming you.” A faint rush of blood darkened his tanned face. “And for what happened before you left.”

  She swallowed. The knot in her throat was going to choke her; she knew it. Taige turned away from him, nervously toying with one of her braids. “It’s over with, Cullen. It doesn’t matter now.”

  His voice was rough as he murmured, “The hell it doesn’t.” His hand curved over her shoulder and he turned her to face him. He cupped her chin in his hand. The feel of his hand, callused and warm, against her flesh brought a rush of sensation. All at once, it eased the ache that had lived inside her for years—and added to it. She tried to pull away, and Cullen’s eyes narrowed.

  He glanced over her shoulder at Jillian, and then he grabbed Taige’s hand, guiding her to the small room across the hall. It was outfitted with a TV, a Coke machine, and four chairs. Her bathroom at home was bigger than this, and as Cullen tugged her inside, she felt panic closing in on her. Jerking her hand away from him, she put as much distance between them as she could. It wasn’t much. She figured she could climb onto one of the chairs and get a few more inches between them, but she wasn’t willing to go that far—yet.

  “Can’t you look at me?”

  She shot him a look over her shoulder and then focused her attention on the wall in front of her with an intensity that bordered on ridiculous. She heard him coming up behind her, and everything inside her went on red alert. Cullen sighed, and she felt the warm caress of his breath just before he reached up and cupped her shoulders, slowly turning her around. She wouldn’t look at him. Instead, she focused on the faded white cotton that stretched over his chest.

  “It does matter,” he said softly. “Don’t look at me and expect me to believe that you aren’t still pissed off at me. You’ve hardly looked at me. You won’t speak to me unless you have to, and any time I come within three feet of you, you move away.”

  Her voice was hoarse as she murmured, “I’m not pissed off at you, Cullen.” Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself and looked up at his face. Damn—that face. It had haunted her dreams ever since that gray November day, and she knew it would haunt her for the rest of her life. As she stared at him, Taige realized that she’d been right. She had always suspected she’d never get over Cullen, and she’d been right. “Never have been, really.”

  His hand came up, and she braced herself, but whether she was trying to keep herself from pulling away or from leaning toward him, she didn’t know. Gently, he traced his finger along the line of her mouth. “You really are amazing,” he murmured.

  Her throat went tight. A bittersweet ache spread through her as she remembered a time when he had said that and held her in his arms and made love to her. Apparently, she wasn’t amazing enough. If she was as special as he’d always made her feel, he would have stayed with her . . . right? She would have been able to help his mom, and him.

  “I did it again,” he said, his voice tense. He cupped her chin and forced her to look at him. “What did I say this time?” he asked, his voice hollow.

  Taige lied. “Nothing.”

  “Then why do you keep looking away from me?”

  She glanced over his shoulder, through the glass wall that allowed them a full view of Jillian’s bed. The curtain was still half-open, enough that Taige could see the girl sleeping. Damn. Too much to hope for that Jillian might have woken up. She touched her tongue to her lip and tried to find some answer that would satisfy him without making her look like the hopeless idiot she knew she must be. “It’s nothing you did or said,” she finally told him. The little white lie wasn’t going to kill her, right? “This is just really—awkward.”

  He brushed his thumb over her lips, and his gaze settled on her mouth. For a second, she thought he might kiss her. He didn’t, though, and she couldn’t decide if she was grateful or disappointed. He let go of her chin, but he didn’t move away. Instead, he feathered a gentle caress over the swollen, discolored skin of her left eye. “How did this happen?”

  With a faint grin, she said, “A pissed-off jerk who didn’t like me interrupting his plans.”

  His eyes narrowed down to slits, and the force of his anger hit her like a tidal wave. Trying to lessen the impact, she moved away so that he wasn’t touching her.

  “And your hand?”

  She shot him a mischievous glance over her shoulder. “That happened because I didn’t like him hitting me. I popped him and managed to fracture a bone in my hand.” She wiggled her fingers a little and winced at the resulting pain. “Doesn’t seem fair that he pops me one but when I get him, I break a bone. You males have heads like granite.”

  Her gaze was drawn to the child sleeping on the other side of the glass. “She’s a special girl, you know.”

  Cullen stroked a hand down Taige’s hair, a familiar gesture that managed to drive another razor-sharp shard into her already broken heart. His voice was a little deeper, a little rougher than normal. “Believe me, nobody could be more aware of that than me.”

  With a grimace, Taige murmured, “I don’t know.” Jones hadn’t shown up, but she knew it was just a matter of time. He knew there was something strange about Cullen’s daughter, otherwise he probably wouldn’t be on this case. Strange was his specialty. Taige wasn’t so certain that boded well for the little girl. “Jones is going to want to talk to her.”

  “He’s already tried.” A weird sense of déjà vu moved through her as he added, “That boss of yours is an asshole. He wants to talk to her, but neither the doctor nor I are willing to let him wake her. He wasn’t too thrilled with it.”

  Shaking it off, she glanced up at him and said, “He will need to talk to her.”

  Cullen blew out a harsh breath. “Yeah. I know. And if she can, I want her to help. I don’t want another parent going through . . .” His gaze locked with hers.

  The weird sense of déjà vu exploded into something else entirely. Something that shook her to the core. His eyes narrowed, and he reached up, caught her chin in his hand, staring at her.

  She was pale, and Cullen thought she looked every bit as shaken as he felt. “The dreams,” he muttered. He caught her face in his hands and forced her to look at him, staring into her pale gray eyes. The ugly, dark bruise around her left eye made her iris seem that much paler, and as he watched, the pupil flar
ed, enlarging until just a sliver of gray was visible.

  Taige tried to jerk away, and he wouldn’t let her. “You had the dreams, too, didn’t you?” he demanded.

  Her voice shook as she reached up with one hand to jerk on his wrist, trying to break his hold. “Let go of me.”

  Slowly, he shook his head. “You have,” he whispered, dismay spreading through him. Dismay—and something else. She’d always held herself apart from him in those dreams. But through those dreams, he’d gotten to know her, gotten to know the woman she had become. She was pulling away from him not because she was angry at him or because she didn’t want anything to do with him.

  She pulled back because she still loved him.

  She hadn’t ever stopped. That knowledge hit his system with the equivalent of an electric charge, setting his blood on fire and making him itch to touch her, to pull her close and cover her trembling mouth with his. He leaned in, desperate to kiss her—for real, this time, not just through some dream connection. As hot, as powerful as those dreams had seemed to him, it wasn’t the same as really touching her.

  Slowly, he slanted his mouth over hers, using his grip on her hair to angle her head up and back. He didn’t close his eyes; after this long, he wanted to see her, wanted to see if he affected her the same way she still affected him. Her lashes fluttered over her eyes, and she moaned into his mouth, a hungry, kittenish sound. Slowly, he pushed his tongue into her mouth and gorged on the taste of her. Too damn long, he thought distantly.

  God . . . Taige . . .

  He wished they were someplace else—wished things were different so he could have the time to hold her the way he wanted, time to strip her naked and make love to her, over and over, until the ache inside him eased. Until he’d erased the pain from her eyes, and, maybe, magically undone the damage he’d done to her all those years ago.

  But instead, he pulled away, slowly, his lips lingering on hers until he had to either step back or lose control.

  He pushed a hand through his hair and swore, his voice shaking. “Damn it, Taige.”

  She swallowed. He could see her throat working as she did it, and then she licked her lips, her lids drooping as though his taste affected her, just like her taste was enough to turn him into a raving lunatic. “What are we going to do about this?” he asked, his voice quiet but intense. He stared at her, waiting for her to look at him.

  But instead, she turned away. Walked away. She reached the door, and without looking back at him, she said softly, “Nothing, Cullen. There’s nothing to do.” She started to open it, and then she stopped.

  She did look at him this time. One quick glance. “Jones is going to try to get your daughter.”

  Startled, Cullen repeated blankly, “Get?”

  Taige nodded. “He came looking for me in college. He’s recruited some kids straight out of high school, and I’ve heard rumors that the FBI finds some kids even younger than Jillian and watches them, waits for them to grow up, grabs them for their specialized units.”

  “You mean . . .” Cullen glanced at his daughter, and then he glanced at Taige’s battered face. Oh, hell, no.

  “You know what I mean,” she said softly. Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile as she said, “Jillian has this amazing gift. Jones expects a person with a gift to use it.”

  In his mind, he heard the words he’d hurled at her that day. You have this amazing gift. But you hide from it, don’t you? You hide yourself, and screw the people you could help.

  Yeah, she’d hidden some. But he’d had no right to expect more than she already gave. He hadn’t understood the hell she lived with until he saw his daughter going through it.

  Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t want that for her. I don’t want her forced into a position where she’s used as some kind of tool.” Like what I did to you, he thought silently. “If she makes the choice, then it’s hers, but I won’t let him force it on her.”

  Taige cocked a brow and said, “Then you’d better make sure you keep him away from her. He’ll have to talk to her about this, about his case. But after that’s done, keep him away from her. Right now, you can. She’s just a child, and you’re there to protect her.” Her eyes darkened, and her voice fell to a soft whisper as she added, “She deserves to be a child, Cullen. Don’t let anybody take that away from her.”

  She jerked the door open and paused once more, looking back at him. “And stay the hell out of my dreams.”

  EIGHT

  “DIDN’T I tell you to stay out of my dreams?”

  Taige glared at Cullen, her arms crossed over her breasts.

  He glanced around and shrugged. “Easier said than done. That’s assuming I wanted to stay out of your dreams.” He closed the distance between them and touched his fingers to her lips. “This is the only way I can be with you. The only way you’ll let me. You won’t call me back. You returned the letters I sent you. I tried to send you flowers, and you wouldn’t accept them.”

  He dipped his head, kissing her quick and light before she could move away. “So for now, this is all I can do.”

  Turning her head, she stomped toward the house. She didn’t know why she bothered; she knew she was dreaming and knew that when she opened her eyes, she’d be lying on the beach towel where she’d fallen asleep. Hell, the way her luck was going, she’d wake up as red as a damn lobster.

  “What in the hell is that supposed to mean . . . for now?” she asked as he fell into step beside her.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw him shrug. “Just that. Sooner or later, Jillian and I are going to get back to our life. Sooner or later, I’m going to stop hiding her away. When that time comes, I’m going to show up on your doorstep.” He reached out and caught her hand, forcing her to stop. “And when that happens, you’re going to have to let me in. You’re going to have to deal with me.”

  Pushing her hair back from her face, she sneered. “I already have dealt with you, Cullen. There’s no damn reason for you to come down here. You said your thanks. Your daughter is safe. Go live your life, and let me live mine.”

  A grin canted up the corners of his mouth, and he whispered, “Life? That’s exactly why I’m counting the days until I come back for you, Taige. You are my life.”

  He moved closer, close enough that if she leaned forward, their bodies would be touching. She held herself still, completely still, even though everything inside her yearned for him. It should have been so easy to reach out to him, so easy, but it wasn’t, even when she had thought he was little more than a figment of her lonely imagination. Now that she knew these were a little more than the average dreams, it made it that much harder to give in.

  Staring into his clear blue green eyes, she held his gaze and then took a slow, deliberate step back. “I’m not your life, Cullen. I never was.”

  A faint grin curled his lips upward, and he reached up, caught a wayward curl, and tucked it behind her ear. “I miss your braids,” he said softly. Then he skimmed a finger over the soft, delicate skin under her left eye. “The swelling’s gone.”

  She gave him a sardonic smile. “Been a month. It ought to get better.”

  Cullen shrugged restlessly. “A month? Yeah. I guess. Seems longer—and not. I see your face almost every time I close my eyes. And I see that bruise some bastard left on your face.” He caught her right hand and lifted it, staring at her wrist, finally out of the soft cast. “And I can’t help but think how many times I’ve dreamed about you and seen marks on your body.”

  Taige saw his gaze slide over her body, linger low on her torso. Stiffening, she pulled away, but she didn’t move fast enough. He caught her in his arms and pulled her against him, turning her so he could lay his hand on the scar from the bullet that had ripped through her abdomen a few years ago. “I remember dreaming about you in the hospital. I thought it was just a nightmare. That’s all I wanted it to be, but it wasn’t a nightmare; you were shot.”