Of all the times for her to arrive, right in the middle of a murder investigation.
When would be a good time, Caleb?
Instead of trying to answer that, he sketched, watching the image form on paper as if he was watching a movie of someone else’s life.
It had taken everything he had not to react when he saw her, because he’d drawn her for the first time last week.
It would take everything he had to continue to keep it together around her.
He checked all the doors and windows, stared out into the parking lot and saw nothing out of the ordinary, then set the alarms and headed up the stairs.
He kept a few of the lights on in the bar, just in case. As if light could keep out the bad shit.
Vivi was sitting on the edge of the double bed in the second spare room—Mace’s old bedroom—her partially opened door an obvious invitation.
There was no way for him to pass by without at least making eye contact. So he did.
“I’m not leaving,” was the first thing she said to him.
“I know—there’s a blizzard.”
“That’s not why. Stubborn asshole.” She muttered that last part under her breath, but obviously loud enough for him to hear it. A small part of him wanted to laugh, since she’d hit the nail right on the head. A deeper part gave a darker laugh and wondered just how far this woman wanted to push things.
“How did we meet?” he asked suddenly, instead of continuing on toward his room. Goddamned impulse control—he blamed it on being that much closer to remembering everything.
Somehow, he knew patience had never been his strong suit.
“You kind of kidnapped me,” she said, and he frowned. “It was part of your job. The Army thought I was involved in something really bad.”
“Were you?”
“Yes. But it wasn’t my fault. I guess everyone says that.” She shifted on the bed. “I came here at a bad time—I know that. It’s just … I don’t think there’s a good time for this.”
It was true. Even if he did remember her, he wasn’t the same man. Couldn’t be sure that the feelings he’d once had for her would ever return. All he knew was that he was definitely attracted to her. “I’m not the man you knew.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You knew me for, what? All of five days?”
“They were some pretty intense days,” she said. “I can tell you about them, if you’d like.”
He shrugged. She took it as a yes. “I’d had everything taken from me. I was broke, trying to erase my father’s debt, and I might’ve died if it hadn’t been for your quick action.”
None of that seemed familiar at all. His whole job was about saving lives—it didn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary, but obviously it had been.
He moved farther into the room, closed the door for some privacy. His need for knowledge of his past outweighed his fears at this point. Maybe Mace was right, and he should just give in to this. She shifted on the bed as she watched him, her eyes wide.
He sat next to her, leaving space between them. “Tell me more.”
She did. Explained how their time together had been a whirlwind of work and danger, how, in that short span, they’d gotten close. And sure, he could see that happening, with the proximity alone. Except …
“I stayed in your apartment after you left for your mission,” she said. “You wanted me to. You wanted me to be there when you got back, but you also knew that the FBI wanted me to work for them. You said you’d understand if I chose that, and that it wouldn’t change anything between us.”
“So you left.”
“I did. But Noah knew where I was. I wrote you a letter and I left it on the counter. I wish I had it with me now.”
“So I’m guessing we, ah …?” His eyes roamed over her body.
Her face reddened. “Yes.”
He nodded, continued staring as if trying to force those memories back. He saw a flash of something cross her face and then she pulled her T-shirt over her head. Moved closer to him. Really, really close. Hands on his shoulders, and he could smell her shampoo, feel the softness of her skin as she settled onto his lap, straddling him.
“Vivienne, what are you doing?”
“Vivi,” she murmured. “I told you, you always called me Vivi.”
She hadn’t told him that this trip … but he knew she’d told him that before, when they were first together. He wanted to hold that small memory tight to him. “But … you can’t do this.”
“Not without some cooperation from you. Best-case scenario, you have a memory spark. Worst case? You enjoy yourself and we make a new memory.” She smiled and then seemed to pull back. “Unless … If you’re not attracted to me …”
“That’s not it at all. If you couldn’t tell.” His cock bulged and he shifted so it pressed between her legs.
“Pretty unmistakable.”
His hands moved with a life of their own to trail along the lace cups of her bra. “Pretty,” he echoed, and she shivered as his thumbs brushed her nipples through the fabric.
“More, Cael … please.”
He would oblige. Wanted to feel. Wanted to believe he could have his life back.
Wanted to find out if Vivi really did believe in him. But she was too damned trusting. And so he took his hands away and, as gently as he could, he got her off his lap.
Her cheeks reddened again, this time for an entirely different reason, the rejection written plainly on her face. She snatched up her shirt and pulled it over her head, ran her hands through her hair to smooth it and then bit her bottom lip.
Something felt strange here. Like a déjà vu, except he knew that it could actually be a memory.
As he stood, he realized he’d pushed her away before, just like this. Wanted to ask her about it, but couldn’t. Because he wanted to remember on his own, didn’t want to hear a Reader’s Digest version of his life from someone else’s point of view. “What do you really want?”
“Everything. I want to know how you’re feeling—what you’re feeling. I want to spend time with you.”
She rose to meet him and he ended up just inches from her, his hands on her shoulders, holding her so she couldn’t move from his grip. He wanted to scare her, shake up her perfect belief in him.
He wanted to remember everything and if he couldn’t, the next best thing was getting her out of here before she could watch him self-destruct. “Do you want to know? Do you really want to know what I know?”
“Yes.”
His laugh was a sharp rasp and he moved his hands to grip her hips, pushed her against him. “Do you want to know how Mace got that scar across his throat?”
She drew in a tight breath, but she didn’t avert her eyes, didn’t look disgusted or shocked, but she was. Had to be.
“Do you want to know they fed me drugs for days until I hallucinated so badly that I might’ve thought my friends were my enemies? Maybe I didn’t finish the job on Mace, but maybe I did on Gray. You remember Gray, right, Vivi?”
She nodded wordlessly.
“I might’ve killed one of my best friends—and almost succeeded a second time, with Mace.”
“You don’t remember—it’s all speculation. Mace doesn’t believe it or he wouldn’t be here with you. And I still don’t believe it.”
“How could you not?” he roared, tore away from her. Then spoke in a tone that was quieter but no less tortured. “How could you believe in me when I don’t believe in myself?”
“If I don’t, you don’t have a chance.”
“You’re so unprepared for all of this, Vivi.”
“I know you want to scare me. You’ve done that before, you know. I remember your hands on me, all over me. And you told me then that you’d scare me—and you did.”
“How did I scare you then?”
“You wanted my trust. My loyalty. And I’d sworn never to give that away again. And then you broke down every defense I had when you made love to me that first time. And did the same
every single time after that.”
He tried to remember, to picture his hands roaming her body … he knew her intimately, because he never could’ve drawn what he had of her, the way he had, without that knowledge.
Those pictures were safely locked up, because they’d made him feel like some crazy, dirty old man. But now he understood them.
You’re not the same man you were.
The wind howled and the lights dimmed, finally letting darkness settle between them. “I can’t, Vivi. Whatever we had—”
“Could still be there. Maybe you’re not the same man I fell in love with. He was a fighter. I’m not sure you are.” She pushed at him, hard as the generator kicked in and her face moved from shadowed darkness to light. “You can leave now. I need to get some sleep.”
Paige had drifted off to sleep but Mace couldn’t. Stared at the stupid ceiling and the walls and even Paige until he was ready to jump out of his damned skin.
They’d fought each other for every orgasm and he still wasn’t nearly satiated.
Now, a couple of hours later, he was still restless, headed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
It didn’t surprise him to find Caleb on the couch in the main room. The storm raged, the lights remained off and the fire sparked and spit.
Caleb had been drawing—the pad was opened next to him and Mace recognized a picture of Zane and Dylan, and it made him smile.
“I drew it from memory. Real memory,” Caleb said. “We went on a trip to the Florida Keys after Zane finished Hell Week.”
“I remember that.”
“You weren’t there.”
“No, but you had to call Cam to get you guys out of some trouble. Cam wouldn’t let Dylan live it down that he couldn’t talk his way out of getting stuck in jail overnight.”
Caleb smiled. “Yeah, those were the days. Of course, it was Zane’s fault.”
“Always is.” He moved away to sit on the couch opposite Cael, falling into the deep cushions heavily. “Vivi?”
“Yeah, that went real well.” Caleb shook his head. “How’s Paige? Probably still pissed as hell at me.”
“She’s okay.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. No, I wasn’t thinking. Harvey threw me for a goddamned loop.”
“Seems like you’re back together now.”
“Smoke and mirrors, my friend.”
“Yeah, those come in damned handy, don’t they?” He ran his hands through his hair. His body felt like it had been through a brutal workout and he was drained and relaxed and tensed and ready to go at the same time.
“How are you?” Cael asked after a few minutes. He’d gone back to sketching, the scratch of his pencil competing with the hail slamming the house.
He shrugged.
“Seems like things are going all right between you two.”
Mace snorted. “She doesn’t want me, Cael. Not really.”
Cael tapped the outer edge of his ear with the pencil’s eraser. “Walls are thin, buddy, and trust me, that’s not the way I’m interpreting the sounds I heard.”
“That’s just sex. Fucking,” he said roughly. “That’s all she wants. She doesn’t want to get involved any further.”
“And, what, you’re mad because that’s usually your line of defense?”
“Ah, fuck you and your memory, Caleb.” Mace really wanted to throw something at the man—or punch him—mainly because he understood the situation a little too well. And because he was right.
“The question is, why does it bother you so badly,” Cael continued. “You said yourself you were going to let her go. That you didn’t want to have to open up about your past. So now you don’t have to.”
It bothered him because … why didn’t she want to know? Was she really that afraid of him? And if she did touch him, would she be upset and disgusted?
He couldn’t tell Caleb what she’d told him earlier, about not being able to pick apart the job versus that specific mission.
“I’ll keep her safe until everything dies down, and then I’m done,” he said.
“Right. No harm, no foul,” Caleb said quietly. “You and I are way too much alike.”
“Always have been,” Mace agreed.
“As Kell would say, True that.”
Mace stared at his friend. “You remembered more.”
“Some. A lot of it’s pre-mission shit.” He paused. “I remember Kell wasn’t involved. They knew him?”
“We couldn’t be sure if he’d been made by DMH so we didn’t chance it,” Mace confirmed. “He was pissed. He’d taken down a major DMH player months earlier.”
Cael sighed. “So we’ve got another guilt-ridden member of the team off sulking somewhere. And he was a moody son of a bitch to begin with.”
Mace smiled for the first time in what seemed like forever. “We’re a fucking sorry bunch.”
“We’re getting better,” Cael said with an assurance Mace hadn’t heard in a long time.
CHAPTER
9
Caleb left the warmth of his bed and headed outside to check the generator at first light. He’d already been to the basement an hour earlier and there was no problem there with the gas pipe or the cutoff switch. The storm could’ve dislodged the pipe, but only if a large enough branch had fallen on it.
If that had been the case, the chances of the house being damaged were too high. As far as he could see, the house was status quo, but he couldn’t shake his feeling of unease, not until he surveyed the situation himself.
Dressed like the goddamned abominable snowman against the brutal temperatures, complete with a face mask, he headed out the back door of the bar. He could barely see through the last remnants of the storm but he stayed close to the house, cutting a path with a shovel in front of him until he found the pipe leading from the house to the generator, which was buried.
Had it been working, it would’ve been warm enough and strong enough to keep the snow from piling up around it.
Now he began pushing the snow away to see what the hell the problem was. After ten minutes of digging, he saw it, plain as day.
The heavy flexible pipe that brought the natural gas from the basement out to the generator had been cut with a sharp knife, sawed through and left on the ground. There was no way any fingerprints would remain in this kind of weather—and he could only estimate that this had happened between three A.M. and five A.M., before the snow began to pile up again, because he’d dug a path to the pipes just yesterday. The generator had kicked off as the storm started in earnest and the new snow began to pile up. Whoever did this was here before the snow.
No matter when it happened, it spelled goddamned trouble. He had no doubt that the person who did it was the one who killed Harvey … maybe even the person who’d snuck upstairs to go through Paige’s things. Although, that might have been Harvey himself.
Dammit, there were too many what-ifs. He had to make sure the generator was in working order before the next storm.
He had extra piping inside the bar. When it slowed down out here, he’d fix this, but for now, he cut the length of pipe with his own knife and held it carefully. Maybe it would hold some clue.
As he got close to the side lot, he noticed Vivi standing by her car, a broom in her hand. At least he thought it was her car—it was pretty much buried up to the roof. And she was in no way dressed for this weather.
What the hell was it with women and not dressing warmly enough? Most of them were always cold to begin with, and now she was out here in jeans and a sweater, although she’d been smart enough to put on gloves and a hat.
You could help her with whatever she’s doing.
He wondered if she was thinking about going, or if she just needed something in her car. But hell, she wasn’t even talking to him anyway, and so he left her outside and went back into the bar.
It took Vivi half an hour to dig out her car. At least the remote start had worked—by the time she could actually climb inside, it was warm
and toasty and she sat there, alone and soaking wet and shivering, trying her best not to put the car in reverse and skid all the way down the driveway.
She hadn’t slept much. Hadn’t stopped thinking about Caleb and his demeanor and the fact that, just like he and Noah had told her, he might not be the same man.
Was she only meant for tragedy and trouble? It had seemed that way growing up, the feeling brought home hard by the events of a few months ago, when DMH put a hit out on her. Well, they wanted her alive for a while so she could fix a computer program her father had built, but after she’d outlived her usefulness, they most certainly would’ve killed her.
The storm gave her the perfect excuse to stay, to relinquish control over the situation. Had it been bright and sunny, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be on the road right now, her bags back at Mace’s bar. Leaving Caleb to wonder about her.
You should’ve let him come to you. But she’d always been stubborn as hell, had to see things for herself.
Before Caleb, she’d trusted the wrong man—two wrong men, if she included her father—and found herself in trouble. But Caleb had shown her that she could trust and not lose herself. Noah, Caleb’s CO, had also been someone she’d depended on over the past months. And her mentor at the FBI was a woman who seemed inherently trustworthy.
She’d come so far, although Caleb wouldn’t know that. He’d only accept what he saw in front of him … and she was different. Still scared at times—trust was hard for her and no doubt always would be. But Caleb had busted in and forced the issue when they’d met. He’d demanded the truth and, in the process of giving it, she’d fallen in love so quickly it had made her head spin.
It still did. Whether she stayed here now depended on what her heart told her when the sun finally came out.
When Paige woke late the next morning, the power was off and it was cold in the room—and Mace had covered her with an extra quilt.
She wondered what had happened to the generator as she pulled clothing from the floor and dressed under the covers. She’d slept dreamlessly, a true blessing, considering everything going on around her. But the knot in her stomach came back quickly.
In the Air Tonight Page 14