Breakaway

by Rochelle Alers

  “What you don’t know about your new husband is that he’s anything but traditional.”

  Straightening, Celia stared up at Gavin. He was glaring at her. “What is your problem, Gavin?”

  “My problem is I don’t take money from women. The other problem is I need for you to keep a low profile. That’s not going to happen if you start making big-ticket credit-card purchases—unless you happen to have several thousand dollars in cash stashed away in that suitcase you call a purse.”

  “What’s wrong with my handbag?” she said defensively.

  When she first saw the Louis Vuitton XXL tote in the Dadeland mall she’d been drawn to it like sunflowers and the sun. She’d hesitated only because it was much larger than the handbags she favored. The next day, she’d returned to the shop, picked up the bag, placed her credit card on the counter and fifteen minutes later walked out with her purchase.

  A sensual smile curved Gavin’s mouth. “It’s large enough to hold an infant or a small dog. I wouldn’t be surprised if you decided to carry Terry around in it.”

  Celia showed him the tip of her tongue. “I’ll buy Terry a Louis dog carrier if you keep runnin’ off at the mouth.”

  “No, no, no, baby. You will not turn our dog into a bitch by carrying him around when he can walk.”

  A frown settled between her eyes. “There’s no need to get hostile.”

  “I’m not hostile, Celia. I’m just telling you what you’re not going to do.”

  Celia saw Bernice coming toward them out of the corner of her eye. “We’ll talk about this when we get home,” she warned between clenched teeth.

  Gavin ran a hand down the length of her back. “I thought you were going to be a dutiful and obedient little wife.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, hubby, you thought wrong.”

  Bernice opened a soft felt cloth to reveal two pairs of wedding bands, smiling when Celia expelled a gasp. Reaching for a velvet-covered mat, she placed the rings on the black surface. She wasn’t surprised when Gavin and Celia picked up the same set to slip the corresponding ring on each other’s fingers. They’d chosen the double milgrain platinum bands. Not only were they physically compatible, but it appeared that their tastes were similar. They were even dressed alike in white man-tailored shirts, jeans and black boots. Gavin wore his shirt with the hem hanging out his jeans, while Celia had tucked hers in.

  Celia and Gavin shared a smile. “We’ll take it,” they said in unison.

  Bernice’s smile was dazzling. “You both have wonderful taste.”

  “Thank you,” Gavin and Celia chorused.

  “Do you want to wear them, or should I wrap them up?”

  “We’ll wear them,” Gavin said, reaching into his back pocket for his credit-card case and handing her a card.

  Bernice glanced at the name. “Mr. and Mrs. Faulkner, if you take them off I’ll have them cleaned for you.” She signaled to a young man. “Please clean these for me.” Turning back to her customer, she flashed her practiced professional smile. “I’ll be back as soon as I process your payment.”

  Celia wrapped her arms around Gavin’s waist, going completely still when she felt the outline of a holster clipped to the waistband at his back. The firearm was a constant reminder that their ruse wasn’t all fantasy, that there could possibly be someone looking to keep her from testifying.

  When she’d gotten up earlier that morning she’d made certain not to tune into any of the news channels. The report of Alton Fitch’s abduction had rattled her more than she’d wanted to admit or acknowledge. As the star witness in a trial that would no doubt attract national news coverage, her testimony was vital for a capital murder conviction. Without her, the defendant would go free and there would be no justice for the families of the six who’d needlessly lost their lives. Of the four who were injured, Celia was the luckiest. The three others had sustained wounds that had left one with a shattered hip and the other two had suffered spinal cord injuries. One, a gang member, would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

  Resting her head on Gavin’s chest, she breathed in the scent of the cologne clinging to his shirt. “What’s up with you not letting a woman pay for something?”

  Gavin cradled the back of her head. “I grew up with guys who thought nothing of asking and taking money from women. They were nothing more than unofficial pimps and they refused to understand why I wouldn’t let a woman buy me gifts or let them pay for food whenever we went out to eat.”

  “What about for your birthday or Christmas?” Celia asked.

  He smiled. “Those are the only exceptions. I suppose I feel so strongly about it because I have a female cousin who’s a lawyer, yet she feels the need to buy a man. She’s pretty and smart, but is a zero where it concerns men. She had one boyfriend who used to come to her office whenever he ran short. The one time she didn’t have any cash on her, he went off on her in front of her colleagues and the firm’s clients. One of the partners called her in and told her that if she didn’t straighten out her personal life she would have to look for another position.

  “I was at her house when the ignorant fool came around again with his hand out. When she refused to answer the door, he threatened her. That’s when I opened the door and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he came within ten feet of her I was going to kick his ass. He must have known I wasn’t blowing smoke because she never saw him again.”

  Easing back, Celia stared up at the deep-set dark eyes that warmed her in passion and froze whenever he turned his lethal stare on her. This time there was no warmth in the near-black orbs. “Why would she even want to support a grown man?”

  “I don’t know, Celia. Maybe it was something maternal, or it could be she didn’t feel good until she cared for the less fortunate.”

  “Even though I’ve never taken care of a man, I’m always willing to assume the responsibility for my share.”

  Gavin shot her a warning look. “Let’s not discuss money. It’s so gauche.” His voice, although soft, was layered with an icy edge. “Please, darling,” he said when she opened her mouth to come back at him.

  Celia didn’t know if his reluctance to talk about money was because he’d disapproved of his cousin’s relationship with worthless men, or he was intimidated by her wealth. Aside from the diamond earrings, which were a gift from her parents when she’d graduated medical school, she didn’t wear or own priceless baubles, and she didn’t drive a luxury car. Her tangible assets were her homes: the one close to the North Carolina–Tennessee border and the Miami beachfront mansion she’d purchased from her cousin.

  She had her favorite charities and the organization where she’d generously volunteered her time and served as a board member. After working double shifts at the hospital and her philanthropic obligations, there wasn’t much time for a personal life. That was the reason why she’d decided to date someone with whom she worked.

  “Okay, darling,” Celia crooned. Her apology was layered with a sticky sweetness that changed Gavin’s expression from annoyance to shock.

  Nichola Cole-Thomas may have reared her children in what they’d considered the old-fashioned way, but she’d instilled in her three children a sense of stalwart independence that intensified with adulthood. Celia had been reminded that money brought comfort, not happiness, and that she shouldn’t look for someone to love her more than she loved herself and she shouldn’t blame anyone but herself when she made bad choices.

  It was Nichola’s motto, do not be beholden to anyone, that Celia followed without question. Gavin had refused payment for his personal security services but she wasn’t going to permit him to spend more than two thousand dollars for an unadorned platinum wedding band for her.

  She had the name and address of his cousin’s security firm, and she planned to mail a check, payable to Gavin Faulkner, in an envelope marked Personal and Confidential days before leaving North Carolina to return to Florida.

  As the adage said, there’s more t
han one way to skin a cat—even if that cat reminded her of a sleek, powerful and cunning black panther.

  Chapter 14

  Gavin maneuvered up a steep paved road, slowing when he spotted a large two-story log cabin with a wraparound porch in a nearby clearing. Celia had given him the directions to her closet neighbors, Daniel and Hannah Walsh. If he’d wanted to visit his neighbor, then he only had to walk about five feet to the next-door apartment instead of getting into a vehicle and driving there.

  He’d found her unusually quiet and withdrawn after they’d left the jewelry shop, and he wondered if she’d been thinking about what it would’ve been like to exchange rings with her late fiancé instead of a stranger who’d unceremoniously invaded not only her sanctuary, but also her life.

  Gavin was always cognizant that Celia could order him to move out of her house if he put too much pressure on her. After all, she’d moved in and then out of Trevor-Jones’s apartment and into her own home. What he’d longed to do was reveal who he was and why he was hanging out in the area.

  He knew he was using her, using her to establish a cover and using her to pass the time when he would’ve been holed up in a lodge watching television, reading or hiking while waiting for Raymond Prentice to contact him. What he didn’t want to acknowledge was that he was using her body. Whenever they’d lie together he’d wanted not to be Gavin Faulkner, undercover special agent for the Bureau, but Gavin Faulkner, field supervisor. He wanted to become a pencil-pushing bureaucrat until it came time for him to collect his government pension.

  “Do you think we’ve picked up enough beer?”

  Celia’s dulcet voice broke into Gavin’s musings. He gave her a quick glance. “Six cases of beer, a case of red and white wine and a dozen three-liter bottles of soda is more than enough liquid beverage for a cookout for every weekend of the summer.”

  “Hannah told me not to bring anything, but I just couldn’t show up empty-handed.”

  Gavin turned into an area where sedans, SUVs and pickups were parked. He parked and shut off the engine. Shifting on his seat, he gave Celia a long, penetrating stare. “You’re impossible.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your friend tells you not to bring anything and you do just the opposite.”

  “That’s what I call being capricious and prepared, because Hannah is a local celebrity and their gatherings are nothing short of a pep rally.”

  “I’d say it’s more like you being contrary. If things don’t go your way or how you believe they should be, then you try to correct it. Bend it to your will.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re a fine one to talk, Gavin Faulkner. You came on to me at a supermarket under the guise you didn’t know anything about cabbage. Then you have the balls to try and claim a dog that probably would’ve died if I hadn’t operated on him. And don’t forget you’re living with me under the pretense we’re—”

  “I catch your drift, Celia,” Gavin interrupted. “And wrong choice of word. You could’ve said audacity instead of balls.”

  “I used the right word, Mr. Faulkner, and you know it. You are ballsy.”

  “What I do know is that I can be a little heavy-handed.”

  “Heavy-handed,” Celia repeated. “Do you realize how many times you’ve told me what I can and cannot do or say?”

  He ran his fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “Sure you are until the next time.”

  Gavin unbuckled his seatbelt, lifting Celia effortlessly over the console where she sat half on and half off his lap. “I want you to stop me whenever I come at you twisted.”

  Staring up at him through her lashes, Celia bit back a smile. “Will it do any good?”

  “You can always try,” he teased, winking at her.

  Instinctively, her body arched toward him, silently communicating how much she needed and wanted Gavin. She needed him to remind her that each time they lay together she was able to celebrate the essence of being born female. And, she wanted him because he made her feel safe, protected. Even if she were in one part of the house and he in another, she was able to feel his presence.

  The exchange of rings the day before had affected her more than she’d wanted. For a brief moment, she’d fantasized it was Yale instead of Gavin who’d slipped the ring on her finger. However, what she’d found disturbing was she couldn’t remember Yale’s face. She’d wanted to cry, but couldn’t—not in public and not when she’d have to explain to Gavin why she hadn’t been able to keep it together.

  As an intern, she’d survived the wrath of her supervisors and the many firsts that came with the intense training to become a medical doctor: delivering a baby, performing a tracheotomy and calling the time of death. The images were vividly imprinted on her brain like a permanent tattoo, yet the man she’d promised to marry hadn’t been dead a year and she couldn’t remember his face.

  Gavin buried his face in Celia’s hair, inhaling the floral scent clinging to the soft curls. “What’s the matter, baby?”

  “What makes you think anything is the matter?” she asked, answering his question with one of her own.

  “You’re shaking.”

  Celia knew she couldn’t lie to Gavin any more than she could continue to lie to herself. She’d loved Yale when she wasn’t in love with him. “Why can’t I remember his face?” she said tearfully.

  Gavin suddenly realized she was talking about her late fiancé. “Don’t beat up on yourself, Celia. You not only went through medical trauma but also psychological distress. You saw two people murdered, not knowing whether you’d be next. It’s a miracle you hadn’t blotted out everything that happened that night.”

  “You don’t understand, Gavin. I wasn’t in love with Yale. Did I love him? Yes. But not enough to set a wedding date, although I’d continued to wear his ring. We’d made love more when we didn’t live together, and after I’d moved out, I’d unconsciously begun to withdraw from him physically and emotionally. What I hadn’t wanted to do was accept it.” She closed her eyes. “Yale knew, but I was in denial. I’d told myself we could continue the way it’d been, working together and planning a future that would never come. He’d wanted to have children right away, and I wanted to wait. He didn’t want a long engagement, but I kept throwing up roadblocks because deep down inside, I knew he wasn’t the man I’d wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”

  “Do you think it would’ve been better if you hadn’t survived, because then you wouldn’t be burdened with unsubstantiated guilt?”

  Despite the overwhelming feeling of confusion, Celia managed to smile. “You sound like my therapist.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  She shook her head. “No. Yale’s mother came to see me during a period when I wasn’t heavily sedated and grief had aged her appreciably. If it hadn’t been for her voice, I wouldn’t have recognized her. She kept repeating that parents weren’t supposed to bury their children. Yale was her only child and she’d looked forward to our marriage because she wanted grandchildren.”

  Gavin wanted to tell Celia that Yale had already made his mother a grandmother. The son Yale had sired at seventeen was now a twenty-six-year-old father of two, and that meant his mother was now a great-grandmother.

  “Did you ever think maybe Yale proposed marriage so that he would give his mother grandchildren?”

  “No.”

  Celia had said no when it’d suddenly dawned on her that Yale was fixated with her having his child. It’d reached a point where she no longer trusted him to protect her and had her ob-gyn fit her for an intrauterine device. Even that had become irrelevant because their sex life went from sporadic to nonexistent.

  She and Gavin pulled apart at the sound of an approaching vehicle. “Are you ready to go in?”

  Gavin traced the delicate curve of her cheekbone with his finger. “Are you okay?”

  Turning her face, Celia kissed his broad palm. “I’m wonderful.”

 
“Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He got out and came around to assist Celia, raising her left hand and kissing the band on her finger. “Let’s go and meet your neighbors, Mrs. Faulkner.”

  Still holding hands, Celia led Gavin around to the rear of the house where a crowd had gathered. Many were sitting at picnic tables leading down to the lake, while others stood in line at an outdoor kitchen waiting for food or drink. Hannah Walsh, now an award-winning illustrator, had used her earnings to expand what had become her dream house. Erected on a hill, the cabin’s location—surrounded by ancient oak and towering pine trees—overlooked a lake.

  “The woman wearing the red, white and blue striped bibbed apron is Hannah. Her husband, Daniel, is flipping burgers,” Celia whispered.

  “She’s pregnant,” Gavin said matter-of-factly.

  “She’s very pregnant, darling. That’s why I’ve been knitting every chance I get to finish the blanket for the layette before she gives birth.”

  “When…” Gavin’s words trailed off when he noticed a short squat man with a reddish beard and strawberry-blond hair staring at Celia. The expression on the man’s face was one he recognized immediately. It was adoration. “I think you have an admirer.”

  He didn’t blame the man for staring at Celia because when she’d come down the stairs, he’d found it almost impossible to take his eyes off her. A pair of cropped stretch jeans hugged her hips like second skin, and the red-and-white-striped stretch top with three-quarter sleeves showed off her flat midsection and firm breasts. He’d been tempted to ask her if she planned to wear a jacket but then he realized Celia could possibly believe he was jealous. And a display of jealousy meant he was becoming emotionally involved and that was something Gavin wanted to avoid at any cost.

  “That’s Hannah’s brother.” Celia waved to the man gripping a longneck in one hand and a burger in the other.

  Hannah Walsh turned when she heard a familiar feminine voice. A wide smile split her rounded face. “Celia, you made it.”