He narrowed his eyes, not quite believing that, but even as he decided he’d call her on it, her phone rang.
Her nose wrinkled and the look caught him off guard. It was a look of disgust, but it was so damn . . . cute. That was it. It was cute, that look of aggravation on her face.
“Not now,” she grumbled. She didn’t ignore the call, though.
* * *
“YOU pick the worst times to call,” she said without waiting for Jones to say anything.
“Are there police there looking for the kid?”
“No.” Vaughnne checked the mirror, eyeing the kid in the backseat. He was almost asleep, his dusky cheeks flushed with fever, his eyes closed.
“Agent MacMeans, do not bullshit me.”
She heard a snap of temper cut through his voice and she let herself smile a little. She so rarely had the pleasure of being one of the ones to irritate him. He rarely got irritated, so this made it a double pleasure. “I wouldn’t do that, boss. The cops aren’t here. Now they might be back at the house, but I’m currently headed up International, on my way out of Orlando. And the kid is with me.”
Five seconds passed.
“You had to blow your cover.”
“Afraid so.” She flicked a look at Gus, brutally aware of the fact that he was watching, and listening. Her skin prickled from the intensity of that look, and she prepared herself for whatever may be coming. “Listen, the kid is sick. I get the feeling we shouldn’t take him to the doctor . . .”
“No,” Gus barked out.
At the same time, Jones said, “I don’t know if that’s advisable.”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “Well, that’s sort of what I was just saying.” She raised her voice and shot a dark look at Gus before focusing her attention back on the road. It was a tricky situation driving, as it was, watching her tail, talking to her boss, dealing with the hotness that was Gus, even if he was glaring at her. Oh, and not wrecking.
“Look, the kid is sick. He just puked in the car and his . . . guardian would appear to be worried, although I don’t think he’d worry over a cold. He looks like he’s running a fever, although I can’t check while I’m driving.” She cut into the right lane and turned off International. This road wasn’t going to be much better but at least it wasn’t one of the busiest in town. Taking five minutes to breathe and get her bearings wouldn’t hurt, either. Pulling into the parking lot of a gas station, she put the car into park and swiveled around, eyeballing the kid. “He’s also half out of it, if I’m not mistaken. What does it matter if I’m keeping them safe if he ends up dog-sick with pneumonia or something?”
“We’re not taking him to the hospital,” Gus growled.
She ignored him. The hospital wasn’t her destination. Jones would have an alternative, she knew it.
“Jones?”
Five more seconds passed and then he asked, “Where do you plan on going?”
“I plan on getting the hell out of Orlando for starters, and then I need to get somebody to look at the boy. Preferably soon.” In the backseat, Alex groaned, a pitiful little sound that twisted her heart. “No. Not preferably soon. It has to be soon.”
“Just drive. When you get an idea where you’re heading, let me know. I’ll get a doctor to you.”
She hung up and tossed the phone down.
She hadn’t even managed to put the car into drive before she saw the gun leveled at her, digging into her rib cage, out of sight of anybody who might just happen by the car, unless they were outright looking. Please . . . don’t let anybody look, she thought tiredly. That was the last thing she needed.
Turning her head, she met Gus’s eyes.
“If you try to take us to the hospital, you’ll be needing one yourself,” he warned. “Although they won’t be able to fix the damage I’ll do to you. You’ll just end up in the morgue anyway.”
“I’m not taking him to a hospital,” she said. “My boss will get a doctor to us.”
A nerve pulsed and ticked in Gus’s cheek. She had the insane urge to reach up and stroke, try to soothe away the tension, the fear she knew was raging inside him. Tell me why you’re so afraid for him, she thought. I can help, I swear . . .
But she knew he wouldn’t believe her. She’d just have to show him.
“That doesn’t sound like standard FBI procedure.”
Lifting a brow at him, she said, “You know a lot about standard FBI procedure? What, you watch a lot of TV or something?” Then she took a chance and looked away from him, putting the car into drive. “It’s not standard FBI procedure, but I don’t work with a standard unit.”
As she pulled out into the flow of traffic, she felt the impact of his stare.
“What in the hell does that mean?”
Sighing, she shot him a look and then focused on the road. What in the hell did she tell him, she wondered. She needed him to trust her. She needed to know what in the hell he was running from and what—or who—he was protecting that boy from. But she couldn’t get his trust without giving a little first.
“I do work for the FBI,” she said slowly. “But it’s a special task force, and if anybody knew I was telling you this, I could lose my job. I’m telling you because I need you to trust me, at least a little.”
She flicked him another look as she wove in and out of traffic, taking the most direct route out of town. Get out, get away, move fast . . . it was a scream inside her brain, an instinct to get a hell of a lot of distance between her and that quiet little street where Alex and Gus had managed to live undisturbed for some time.
“I don’t trust anybody,” Gus whispered.
“You’re going to have to learn.” She wished she could make him understand just how vulnerable that kid was. How exposed. “You’re doing your best to take care of him, Gus, I get that. But that boy is like an exposed nerve bed. He’s got no training and too much raw power. Anybody who knows how to look for psychic skill would be able to find him in a heartbeat.”
Tense silence stretched out, before a low curse shattered it.
“Mierda,” Gus snarled, his voice furious and hot.
Vaughnne’s grasp of Spanish was pretty limited, but she understood that one. Lifting a brow, she said, “Shit doesn’t even cover it.”
“How did you know?”
“I just told you. He’s exposed. He has no idea how to hide himself. Hell, he’s like a neon sign in the dark. Anybody who knew how to look could find him,” she said. “And if the wrong people come looking? He’s got problems. Today, the wrong people came looking.”
Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw him shake his head. “The boy reads people. He can see danger. He’d know—”
“He never saw me.”
Silence, once more, fell between them and she had to fight not to cringe under the weight of that deadly stare. Her instincts were screaming again. Danger, danger, danger, a terrible litany that had her wanting to run, and hide. Far and fast. Hide from Gus.
Finally, he broke the silence, his voice almost terribly gentle as he asked, “What does that mean?”
“He never saw me. I’m not a threat to you, but he had no idea that I’m psychic, that I was there to watch him. He has no idea that people out there, like us, can sense him. He doesn’t know how to hide what he is. He may be a force to be reckoned with, but he didn’t realize there was another psychic right in front of him. And Gus? I’m not all that. If I can hide what I am, there are plenty of others who can do the same. Others who can hide what they are, what they think. He’s powerful, but he’s just a kid . . . a scared, untrained one.”
“And how do I know you do not lie to me?” he demanded, his voice edgy and harsh. The gun was jamming into her ribs now, hard enough that it was going to leave a bruise. “You could be lying now. You say you’re—”
The first time I saw you walking up my sidewalk, I thought to myself . . . the view was fine, Vaughnne whispered into his mind. Her gift was telepathy and it worked best in words, but if she had to, she could project
images. It took more thought, and it worked best if the emotion was strong.
Fortunately, she had plenty of strong emotion when it came to Gus. Lust definitely counted, right?
She projected the image of how it felt, that first look, the sight of him, how it had sent heat and appreciation flooding through her.
Then as she heard his harsh intake of breath, she shifted the focus of her thought. Then I looked at the boy and I was caught between nerves and pain. He’s too young for the burden he’s bearing, Gus . . . and you know it. I don’t even understand what his burden is, and I know it. I can see it on him.
She pushed the image that she carried of Alex into Gus’s mind. That first image, Alex, all long, skinny limbs and big, scared eyes, and a fear he tried so hard to hide.
“Enough,” Gus said, his voice flat. “Enough.”
She cut off the flow of her thoughts and focused on the area around them, checking the rearview mirror, the cars. Nobody was following them, but she still had that burning, pressing urge to get the hell away from there. Now.
She could breathe easier, though. Gus was no longer trying to drill the nose of that Sig Sauer into her ribs. That helped a little.
* * *
HE’S too young for the burden he’s bearing . . .
Did she think he didn’t know that already?
He shoved a hand through his hair, knocking his ball cap off in the process. He hurled it to the floorboard and turned his head, staring outside as the landscape zipped by.
The view is nice . . .
Innocuous words.
But what she’d pushed inside his mind . . .
He did not need that inside him just then. The knowledge that she felt the same heat he’d felt. No. He didn’t need that at all, yet at the same time, part of him . . .
Part of him wanted to grab her, haul her into his lap, and just . . . feel. Give in to what he had inside him, what she obviously had inside her. Skim his hands up that long, slender back and tangle them in her hair as he feasted on her mouth.
That greedy, selfish part wanted to strip her naked and ride her until they were too drained to even move. That part of him knew just how long it had been since he’d had a woman, touched a woman, kissed a woman . . . wanted a woman. How long it had been since his life revolved around anything beyond watching over Alex, nights spent pacing the house as he worried. Worried about whether they’d get through another night without having to run. Worried about whether they’d both survive when the time came, would they be caught . . .
That part that wasn’t focused on the fear and everything else, that part of him wanted to touch her. That part of him wanted to glide his hand through her hair and draw her mouth to his, see if she’d taste as wild as he’d imagined. She wouldn’t be a sweet and gentle woman in bed, he didn’t think. He’d had sweet and gentle lovers. She’d be heat and power and passion, and he’d lose himself inside her.
If he could have given in to it.
But it wouldn’t happen.
Alex . . . his focus was, and would always be, Alex.
“How long have you been running?” she asked quietly.
He slanted a look her way and then looked back out the window. “Too long.”
Four years. Six months. Twelve days. He flicked a glance at the clock, calculated the time change. Thirteen hours and nine minutes.
Since Alex was eight . . . the day the boy’s youth and innocence and life were shattered, right in front of him.
The night his mother . . .
He closed his eyes and tried to stem the flow of those memories.
Please . . . you must promise . . .
He was trying. Carajo, he was trying. But he was so useless at this. Caring for somebody, protecting somebody. A direct opposite of the life he’d been living. And what a life that had been. Pointed in a direction and told to fight, he fought. Told to kill?
He did that, too.
Told to fuck this woman and learn more about her drug lord lover? Absolutely. And more than once, the women he’d been with had probably suffered for it once it was all said and done. But he’d kept it up, because that was what he did.
Now he was expected to care for another. Protect another. When life had never been anything but a race, a gamble, a challenge before this.
It was still a gamble, he supposed. One he’d lost. One his sister had lost.
His job now was to make sure his nephew didn’t lose as well.
“Who is after him?”
Gus closed his eyes.
Vaughnne sighed. “Gus, I can’t help unless you talk to me.”
“You can’t help.” He rested his head against the back of the seat. FBI. He didn’t know how they’d caught the attention of the FBI. He’d been careful. He’d broken laws, he knew, but he’d done his damnedest to fly under their radar, and that was one thing he knew how to do . . . very well.
Nobody had reported the boy as missing, because they couldn’t afford the attention.
So it wasn’t that.
How, though?
Not that it mattered.
As soon as Alex was well, they would run. They’d disappeared before. Gus was becoming remarkably good at . . . disappearing. Perhaps his nephew could do tricks that would make David Copperfield look like an amateur and maybe he could do things that might turn a person’s mind to mush if he wasn’t careful, but Gus knew how to disappear and get lost in the world.
They’d done it several times over.
They’d just keep doing it.
And keep doing it . . .
Unconsciously, his hand clenched into a fist.
“You’ll never stop running if you don’t make a stand,” Vaughnne said quietly.
“Do not read my mind,” he bit off. He swung his head around to glare at her, but she was focused on the road, like nothing mattered except the stretch of pavement. “Ever. Do you understand me?”
“Oh, completely.” A smirk twitched her lips and damn if that wasn’t appealing, he thought. Appealing as hell. “I couldn’t, Gus, even if I tried. I can talk inside your head as much as I want. As loud as I want. And I can do it from pretty damn far off, once I have your . . . channel, so to speak. But I couldn’t read your mind to save my life. That’s not my gift.”
“Do not lie to me,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not.”
“Then how do you . . .” He stopped.
Vaughnne shook her head. “I know what somebody looks like when they are running, Gus. And people don’t usually run like you do just because it’s fun. They don’t drag around a kid they love just for kicks and giggles. You only live like you’ve been living because you feel like you have no choice.”
“There isn’t one.”
“Because you haven’t looked at all the options,” she said, a sad smile curving her lips. “Or maybe the other options hadn’t been there until now. But I’m giving you another option now . . . trust me.”
“I don’t know you.” Gus couldn’t see Alex, but he didn’t need to see the boy to remind himself of the fact that the child had been the driving force in his life for so long now. Everything revolved around him. Everything would continue to revolve around him.
“No.” Vaughnne nodded in agreement. “You don’t. But you’re going to. I’ll help you take care of him, Gus.”
“I don’t need help.” He couldn’t need it.
“If you’ve got the kind of trouble coming that I think you’ve got, you need all the help you can get.”
NINE
LYING to the cops came easy to him.
Maybe it was a sign of how screwed up Tucker Collins was, but he could sit there on Vaughnne’s porch, sucking on a beer he’d swiped from her fridge, and lie to the cops without blinking an eye.
And that was exactly what he did, all while keeping his hold on the two assholes across the street.
One of them was a pretty damaging hold, too. Tucker wasn’t too beat up over it, even when he’d heard somebody shout, “Te
ll the paramedics to hurry it up—this guy is seizing on me!”
He’d squeezed too hard. He didn’t care. The guy had that dark, malevolent feel to him that told Tucker one thing . . . the man had murder on the mind. It was amazing the things a guy like him could pick up just from reading the vibes in the air.
Like now.
The cop standing in front of him knew that Tucker was lying. His name was Officer R. Rand.
R. Rand, Tucker thought. Well, Officer R. Rand had a good poker face and Tucker couldn’t read his mind. Thoughts and emotions were closed to him, but he could read the vibrations in the air . . . all of that crackled around the cop, hovered in the air around him, snapping like microcurrents, and those? Tucker read those things like they were the morning news.
And the cop knew Tucker was lying.
Tucker lifted the bottle to his lips and took another sip. Coors. Cheapest shit beer around, if you asked him. He hated it, but it would do in a pinch. Just then, all he wanted to do was look nice and laid-back. Uninvolved. He’d go for harmless if he thought he could pull it off, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“You want to tell me again, Mr. . . .”
Tucker smiled. “It’s Curtis. Rick Curtis,” he said, tossing out the fake name he’d decided to use for this job. He’d already turned over the fake ID and he was well aware he’d have to kiss it good-bye, both the ID and the persona, because the scrutiny he was getting from the cop was just not good. The ID would pass muster, for a while, he knew, but he had a feeling he just might have some problems on his hands. Shit. He hated that. He’d been here for years and he liked it. Liked his house, liked Lucia. Liked the work he did.
It was over now, though.
It wasn’t like he’d expected any of this to last forever, right?
Bastards like him were remembered. It wasn’t the height, it wasn’t even the tattoos. It was the hair. Sometimes he thought about shaving it all off or dying it, but that required upkeep, and since he rarely got involved like this . . . why bother?
Now he was wishing he’d bothered.
“So.” Rand smiled. “Mr. Curtis. Can you tell me again what happened?”
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