Breakaway

by Rochelle Alers

  “Good night—”

  “I’m A.D.A. Elijah Morrow from the Dade County D.A.’s office,” he said, identifying himself. “If you’re Dr. Thomas, then I’d like to inform you that I’ve taken over D.A. Alton Fitch’s cases. I know it’s rather late to be calling, but I was told to follow up on his cases listed as priority.”

  Celia’s eyes were unusually large as she met Gavin’s. She knew he was tense because of the twitching muscle in his jaw. “How did you get this number?” She’d asked because Alton Fitch had always called her cell phone, and she searched her memory to recall if she’d ever given him the number to her North Carolina home. Her eyes grew wider when Gavin made a cutting motion across his throat.

  “I’m sorry, but you have the wrong party,” she said and disconnected the call.

  Gavin pried the receiver from her death-like grip and set it in the cradle. “Do you recognize his name?”

  Reaching over, Celia picked up her shorts and slipped into them. “No. I can’t remember if I ever gave Mr. Fitch the number to this place.”

  “How did he contact you?”

  “Most times he called my cell. There were a few times when he’d leave voice mail messages on my phone in Miami, but never here.” Her lids fluttered again. “If I didn’t give him the number, then how did this guy get it, Gavin?”

  “If he is who he says he is, then it’s very easy for him to get any of your listings. Did you inform the D.A.’s office that you were coming here?”

  Celia tried to mask her uneasiness with a smile. First there was breaking news that the lead prosecutor in the case in which she was to testify was kidnapped, and now his replacement had called wanting to verify whether she was Dr. Celia Thomas-Cole.

  “No, Gavin. I told you. Only my parents, brothers and grandmother know. And they would never give out any information about me.”

  “I don’t want you to talk to anyone until I make a few telephone calls.”

  Her pulse quickened. “Who are you going to call?”

  Leaning closer, Gavin kissed her cheek. “Someone who knows someone who hopefully will give me the answers I need,” he said cryptically.

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “Don’t pout, baby girl,” he teased when she pushed out her lips. “I’m bound by confidentiality not to reveal my sources.”

  “When are you going to call them?”

  “It won’t be until tomorrow,” he lied smoothly. As soon as Celia went to bed he intended to call the Bureau.

  Celia crawled into Gavin’s lap, her arms going around his neck. Instinctively, she knew he was hiding something from her. Why, she mused, had he wanted her to end the conversation without confirming who she was?

  When he’d suggested they pretend to be married she’d thought it silly and sophomoric. It was something she’d done as a teenager when she and a boy referred to each other as husband and wife if only to establish themselves as a couple. But she wasn’t fourteen and she was much too old to play games. However, the kidnapping and this creepy call from a stranger had her emotions spinning out of control.

  If Gavin wanted a make-believe wife, then he was going to get one. She hadn’t known him a week, but there was one thing of which she was certain. She believed him when he said he would protect her.

  “I’m going up to take a shower,” Celia said, nuzzling his ear.

  “I’ll join you as soon as I put away the game and make sure the fire is out.”

  Not only did Gavin want to extinguish the fire, but he also planned to check all the doors, windows and call Vera Sanchez to request background information on Elijah Morrow.

  It took more than an hour for Vera to get back to Gavin. The Bureau analyst had confirmed Elijah Morrow’s claim that he worked out of the Dade County’s prosecutor’s office. But that didn’t explain why he’d called Celia in North Carolina if her cell phone was her primary number. He wanted to call Nicholas Cole-Thomas, but something told him that waking up the horse breeder would send him into panic mode.

  Gavin decided to wait and then he would try to connect the missing puzzle pieces that were becoming more and more difficult with each passing day. He checked the windows and doors before going upstairs.

  It was after one when he slipped into bed beside Celia. She stirred briefly and then settled back to sleep. It would become the first time he would sleep with her in her bedroom.

  Chapter 13

  He’d gotten up at five—leaving Celia sleeping soundly—to call Nicholas, who’d expressed concern about the brazen abduction of Alton Fitch. Gavin had reassured Celia’s brother that he would exercise extreme caution when it came to keeping her safe. The rain had stopped and pinpoints of sunlight pierced the watery clouds by the time Gavin entered Asheville’s city limits.

  He’d ended the call minutes before Celia had come looking for him. She’d greeted him shyly, and Gavin wasn’t certain whether her reserved demeanor was the result of his unorthodox lovemaking the night before, or she was more unnerved by the report of the kidnapping than she’d said. After a short time they’d returned to bed.

  Later that day, Gavin gave Celia a sidelong glance. She hadn’t said a word since they’d left Waynesville. “What’s bothering you, sweetheart?”

  Celia stared at Gavin. He appeared relaxed and unruffled while her stomach was churning. She’d wanted to believe the D.A.’s kidnapping was a random act, that it had nothing to do with the upcoming trial where she would become the plaintiff’s only witness. She’d had almost a year to prepare herself to take the stand and recount what she’d witnessed.

  “I keep thinking about Alton Fitch.”

  “What about him?” Gavin asked.

  “What are the odds of the kidnappers—”

  “Don’t, Celia,” he interrupted. “Please don’t become fixated on something which may have nothing to do with you.”

  “How do you know it has nothing to do with me, or the upcoming trial?” she countered.

  Gavin gripped the steering wheel so tightly the veins on the backs of his hands were clearly visible. “I doubt it, Celia. If it’s retaliation, then there probably wouldn’t be a ransom demand.”

  “Do you think his family will pay the ransom?”

  “I’m certain they will. The Fitches own most of South Beach.” He placed his right hand on her thigh. “Don’t worry, baby. If anyone wants to get to you, then they’re going to have to get through me. And I will shoot to kill.”

  Celia closed her eyes. “Please don’t talk about shooting or killing someone.”

  Gavin gave her thigh a gentle squeeze. “Okay. Then I’ll wound them and you can patch them up.”

  “You know I’m mandated by law to report a gunshot wound.”

  He wanted to tell Celia that he was the law and as a federal agent, his authority wasn’t relegated to any given state but to all fifty states and U.S. possessions. “And I’m mandated to take out any son of a bitch who comes after you.”

  Fear, stark and very real, swept through Celia, a fear that surpassed the one she felt for Alton Fitch. Gavin’s voice was cold, detached and deadly, and she found it hard to believe he was the same man who’d made the most exquisite love to her.

  “No, Gavin. You’re taking this bodyguard thing much too seriously.”

  “Wrong, Celia. I’m not serious enough. Your brother believes I am your bodyguard. It was also his suggestion we present ourselves as lovers.”

  “Which we are,” she added.

  Gavin wiggled his eyebrows. “That was before we did the nasty, baby girl.”

  “Not only are we lovers, but now we have to pretend to be husband and wife.”

  He removed his hand from her thigh. “I believe we’re beyond the pretense stage, Celia. The only thing that’s missing is a marriage license. Maybe if we survive the trial period we can try it for real.”

  “You’re crazy as a loon,” Celia spat out. “I’m not marrying you or any man—at least not for a long time.”

  Gavin
grabbed his chest. “Damn, Cee Cee. You really know how to hurt a guy.”

  “Please, Gavin,” she drawled, “spare me the theatrics. The only thing that’s hurt is your ego because I turned you down.”

  “You don’t think I’m husband material?”

  Celia wanted to laugh, but the topic of marriage was hardly laughable. She’d given Yale’s proposal a lot of thought before she’d agreed to become his wife. It was only after he’d put the ring on her finger that she moved in with him.

  “I don’t know what to think, Gavin.”

  Signaling, he maneuvered on to a road leading to downtown Asheville. “Don’t you have criteria for the man you’d want to marry? I assume you’d want him to be able to provide you with the basic necessities,” he said, answering his own query. “He probably should also be sane and disease-free. Let’s see. What else is there? It would help if he didn’t have a criminal record.” Gavin snapped his fingers. “No baby-mama drama. That has to be at the top of the list. Is there anything else, Cee Cee?” He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “How can I forget the very glue that can hold a marriage together? Sex! The sex must be smokin’ hot!”

  Biting back a smile, Celia stared out the side window. “Like jalapeño hot?”

  Gavin shook his head. “Hotter.”

  “Scotch bonnet?”

  “Hotter.”

  She turned, seeing the smirk on Gavin’s handsome face. “Habanero.”

  He winked at her. “There you go. Now, take us. We’re probably somewhere between jalapeño and chipotle, but before summer’s end we should approach habanero heat.”

  “Is that a promise, Gavin Faulkner?”

  “I usually don’t make promises because some are impossible to keep. But, this is one time I’m going to do everything in my power to fulfill it.”

  Celia returned her gaze to the side window. She was a scientist, a realist and usually not prone to flights of fantasy. But what Gavin proposed and predicted was nothing more than fantasy and perhaps wishful thinking.

  She’d dealt with life and death on a daily basis, but having witnessed two murders had shaken her more than she could’ve imagined. Going into therapy had helped her cope with her personal grief, while her faith and escape into romance novels had kept her from an abyss of self-pity.

  “What’s the matter, Cee Cee? You have no comeback.”

  “Nope.”

  Chuckling, Gavin maneuvered into a parking space in front of a jewelry shop. “You’re already learning how to be a good little wife. The first rule: don’t argue with the big man.”

  “And the second rule: don’t forget your good little wife is a doctor and she can hurt the big man in ways he could never imagine.”

  Gavin parked, turned off the engine and draped his right arm over the passenger-seat headrest. “Can you give me an idea of where you plan to hurt me?”

  Celia flashed a facetious grin. “Since you were bragging about not having baby-mama drama, I’d like to help you out and make certain you’ll never experience it.”

  “Oh, hell, no! You will not mess with my package. I’d like the option of whether or not I’d like to father a child.”

  “You want children?”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Celia. Why wouldn’t I want children?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. You just don’t seem like the paternal type.”

  “I could say the same thing about you,” Gavin countered.

  Pinpoints of heat stung Celia’s cheeks. “I’d planned to have a child once I was married.”

  Gavin shook his head. “Now, that’s a sorry-ass excuse if I ever heard one. You’ve lived with a man, Celia, and that’s not what I would call traditional, so I have to be married to have a baby doesn’t quite fit into that schematic.”

  “What if I don’t want to be a baby mama?”

  “What if you didn’t know you were pregnant when your fiancé was murdered?”

  “Then I’d be a baby mama.”

  Leaning closer, he angled his head and kissed her. “There you go.”

  “You’re some piece of work, Gavin Faulkner,” she whispered against his firm mouth. “You missed your calling. You would’ve made out like a bandit running a Ponzi scheme, because you definitely would’ve hustled lots of people out of their hard-earned money.”

  “And you know what happens to people who go into that line of work? They go to jail for a very long time.” He kissed her again. “Let’s go before the police cite us for public lewdness.”

  “We’re not doing anything,” Celia protested.

  “Not yet, but all this talk about making babies is getting me aroused.”

  Her gaze shifted to the area below his waist, her eyes widening when she noticed the solid bulge in the front of his jeans. Groaning, she closed her eyes while exhaling audibly. “What am I going to do with you, Gavin?”

  That’s what Gavin had been asking himself for days. What was he going to do with Celia once his assignment was over? Would he continue to keep in touch with her? Or would he relegate her to his past like all of the other women in his life? He hoped that was a question he wouldn’t have to answer for a while.

  “I don’t know. That’s something you’re going to have to figure out.”

  Celia continued to ask herself the same thing when she walked into the jewelry shop with Gavin. The first thing she noticed was the number of women staring at him, and she knew exactly what was going through their minds because the impact of coming face-to-face with him in the supermarket had affected her the same way.

  Moving closer to his side, she slipped her hand in his. “What type of band do you want?”

  “I’d prefer a simple band without a lot of bling.”

  Tilting her chin, she met his eyes. “Do you want matching bands?”

  He smiled. “That would be nice.”

  Releasing her hand, Gavin put his arm around Celia’s waist over a white man-tailored shirt she’d worn over a pair of fitted jeans. He didn’t know why, but for a fleeting moment, he wanted what they were about to embark upon to be real. After he’d proposed they pose as a married couple, he chided himself for making the suggestion, but once he’d made love to Celia he knew his feelings had changed. He’d changed, too.

  It was as if he’d tired of the undercover assignments and he had grown tired of telling one lie in order to validate another. Whenever he got a call from Bradley, he never knew where he would have to drive or jet off to. One year he’d been assigned to cases in Texas, Nebraska and Indiana. He investigated everything from civil rights violations to federal oversight of police abuse, and several elected officials who were accepting bribes for steering government contracts to several organized crime families.

  Did he want to marry? Yes.

  Did he want children? Again, the answer was yes.

  He wanted them both, but not as a field agent. The memory of two agents wearing dark suits, white shirts and conservative ties and shoes standing in his living room and informing Malvina Faulkner that her husband had lost his life in service to the Bureau and his country was branded into his brain.

  Malvina was either too shocked or she was expecting the news, because she exhibited no visible reaction. She thanked the agents, and then retreated to her bedroom, where she didn’t emerge until the following morning. Gavin didn’t know what to do, so he went into his own bedroom, closed the door and cried. It was the last time he’d cried, because he knew he had to be strong for his mother. Captain Gavin Tyrone Faulkner, Sr. was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. For the past twenty-seven years Malvina had made it a practice to visit Arlington twice each year—once to mark her late husband’s birthday and the other time to commemorate their wedding anniversary.

  A conservatively dressed, middle-aged woman approached them with a warm smile. “I’m Bernice. May I help you?”

  “I’m Gavin and this is my wife, Celia. We’re looking for wedding bands.”

  �
�Would you like them in gold or platinum?”

  Gavin shared a look with Celia, who’d raised her eyebrows questioningly. “We’ll decide after we try on a few.”

  Bernice angled her salt-and-pepper head, her experienced gaze sweeping over the tall, attractive couple. Her dove-gray eyes hadn’t missed the size and brilliance of the diamond studs in the young woman’s ears. “Please come with me and I’ll measure your fingers. I’m certain I’ll have something you’ll like.”

  Celia sat on a stool, while Gavin stood behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder. “Do you see anything you like?” he whispered in her ear.

  “They’re all nice,” she said. And they were. Bernice had removed three men’s gold bands. One was set with a circle of round diamonds, another in white gold with a pink stripe and the third white gold with two-toned bands. She took out matching bands for a woman.

  Celia and Gavin alternated slipping bands onto each other’s fingers and then placed their hands side-by-side for a comparison. She shook her head. “I’m not feeling these. What do you think, darling?”

  Gavin dropped a kiss on Celia’s hair. “Do you have something a little more conservative?” he asked Bernice.

  Bernice replaced the rings in their slots and returned them to the case. “I have a platinum set. And, I also have another set in platinum with double milgrain. They’re a little pricey for plain bands, but I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she whispered like a co-conspirator. “I saw the same rings in Tiffany when I went to New York.”

  Gavin winked at the salesclerk. “May we see them?”

  Celia rested her head on Gavin’s solid shoulder when Bernice went to the opposite end of the shop. “I’ll pay for the rings, Gavin.”

  He stiffened as if she’d struck him. “Like hell you will.”

  “The tradition is the bride pays for the groom’s ring and vice versa.”