by Terri Reed
“The Feds contacted you? Why?”
The thread of suspicion in Brody’s voice made Kate pull her bottom lip between her teeth.
Gabe’s gaze narrowed. “They know she’s with you. They figured you’d contact me.” One corner of his mouth curled upward. “And here you are. Seems they think she—” he nodded his blond head in Kate’s direction “—possesses the information that could blow apart an international money-laundering scam.”
A hot wave of shame and anger hit Kate. Not only had Paul been a liar but also a thief. And she’d never known.
Brody’s gaze locked with hers. She couldn’t read his thoughts; he’d put on that impassive cop face that she didn’t like. She shook her head. “I don’t have any information.”
“The disk,” Brody said sharply, his expression intent.
Her defenses kicked in. “I don’t have it,” she replied just as sharply.
His expression softened and he took her hand. “I know.”
The comfort from his touch and the relief his unexpected words produced made her thankful she was firmly anchored to him or she’d have floated to the ceiling. She gave him a grateful smile.
Gabe sat forward. “What’s this about a disk?”
Brody explained what had happened in the last few days. As she listened, Kate marveled at how good it felt to know Brody trusted her, believed her. She was truly blessed to have had God bring him into her life, even if there was no future for them together. As a couple.
She couldn’t contemplate living the life of an officer’s wife. She just couldn’t. It was too risky and uncertain. Law officers faced death on a regular basis. And one day, death could win.
Gabe blew out a harsh breath. “What do you want me to tell the Feds? They want her brought into custody.”
Gabe’s question brought Kate’s attention back to the situation. Her throat constricted, trapping her breath. For a moment the room spun. She held on tightly to Brody.
“Nothing yet.” His thumb rubbed her palm in a reassuring manner. The panic quieted, but a whole other maelstrom of sensation started sliding through her blood as air filled her lungs. She really liked how easily he was able to calm her fears. She took a quick breath.
“I need your help to look into this import business her husband was involved with,” Brody said.
Gabe studied her, but addressed Brody. “Are you sure you want to do this, Brody? You could hand her over to the Feds and be done with it. They’d protect her, they’d find the answers.” He released Kate’s gaze to turn to Brody. “You sure you want to go down this road again? Remember where it led last time.”
A quick parade of anger and bitterness crossed Brody’s features before he subdued his reactions into his normal impassive demeanor. “Like I said. This is different.”
“Yeah.” The corners of Gabe’s mouth lifted into a humorless attempt at a smile. “Let’s hope so.”
Brody’s jaw visibly tightened.
Gabe turned to the computer, his fingers tapping at the keys. “What are we looking for?”
Brody turned to Kate and indicated an empty desk adjacent to Gabe’s. “Have a seat.”
Feeling out of place and unneeded, she sat and watched the two men. One dark, one light. Both were big and strong-looking and exuded an air of confidence that she guessed came with the badge. She didn’t much like the way Gabe assessed her as if she were gum stuck to his shoe, something he wished his friend would avoid.
She knew Brody wouldn’t tell her what their coded conversation was about. She gathered a woman had hurt Brody once. The thought twisted inside her chest. He was a good man, and the more she knew of him, the more complex and interesting he became. And the more threatening to her heart.
Kate rested her elbow on the desk and placed her chin in her hand. The adrenaline from the day seeped out of her. She blinked several times, trying to fight the exhaustion, but she was losing the battle, just as she was with her growing feelings for Brody.
“Hey, your girlfriend’s falling asleep at my desk.”
Brody yanked his gaze away from the information on the computer screen and swung around to look at the dark-haired female officer he didn’t recognize. She stared back at him with a raised brow. He shifted his gaze to Kate, who was slumped over the desk, her red curls spilling in disarray around her shoulders, her face relaxed and unguarded.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said even as something warm and tender expanded in his chest. He frowned at the unfamiliar sensation and checked his watch. He and Gabe had been at it for a long time, and what they’d found had him narrowing his gaze back on Kate. How could she not have known?
“Well, you going to move her or what?” the woman said.
“Cut’em some slack, there, Angie,” Gabe said.
Brody stood, taking his weight on his good leg. “We’ll be out of your way in a sec.”
He went to Kate and gently shook her shoulder. Her hair slid over his hand like a caress. His insides clenched and if they weren’t in a public place he would have been seriously tempted to slide her hair farther away from her neck and kiss the spot where her pulse visibly beat beneath her pale skin. Instead, he said, “Kate, wake up.”
She stirred and raised her head. Her unfocused gaze looked frantically around before she blinked up at him. “What happened?”
He reflexively touched her cheek. “You fell asleep.”
She straightened and looked over his shoulder to the female officer standing behind him. “Sorry.”
Angie shrugged. “No big deal.”
Brody helped Kate to her feet. She adjusted the strap of her purse and gazed up at him expectantly. Since they hadn’t planned on an extended trip to New York or the need to travel to Boston, they hadn’t packed any clothes. He made a decision. “I’m taking you to my mother’s.”
A scoffing noise behind them set Brody’s nerves on edge. He turned to glare at Gabe, who arched an innocent brow.
“We’re not returning to Havensport?” Kate asked.
“Not yet.” He turned again to Gabe. “Contact me if you find out any more info.”
Gabe’s intense gaze bore into him. “And the Feds?”
Brody couldn’t ask his friend to lie for him. “Do what you will.”
Gabe rolled his eyes. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Brody inclined his head but refrained from letting loose with the words me, too. He knew he was doing the right thing by trusting Kate.
And if he wasn’t? What then?
As Kate followed Brody back through the station and out to the sidewalk, she couldn’t help noticing there was something on his mind. She’d caught a glimpse of uncertainty in his dark gaze at Gabe’s parting comment. She didn’t appreciate Gabe resurrecting doubts in Brody’s mind that she’d been working so hard to banish.
With his hand to the small of her back, Brody steered her around a few pedestrians and guided her toward the park across the street. The warm, late-summer air pressed in on her. Beads of perspiration formed on the back of her neck beneath her hair and soaked into her shirt. “Could we stop at a store so I can buy some clothes?”
One corner of Brody’s mouth raised in a small smile. “I’m sure Meggie has something you can borrow.”
“Meggie?”
“My little sister.”
“Oh, right.” Nervous butterflies kicked up their wings in her stomach. She was going to meet his family. What did that mean?
She tried not to let her imagination run amok with thoughts that he cared for her and wanted his family’s approval. More likely he didn’t know what else to do with her, where else to take her and keep her safe. Because she didn’t doubt for a minute that Brody would continue to protect her. He’d given his word. Brody was a man full of honor and integrity.
But the thought of meeting his family still sent anxiety weaving around her heart. She had enough vanity to want to make a better impression on Brody’s family than she had on Gabe.
“Where is
your mother’s house?” she asked, wondering why they were walking through the park.
Off to one side, a playground teeming with children filled the air with merry noise. A woman walking a poodle passed by and the little white fluff sniffed at Kate’s feet before moving on.
“Our house is on the west end of the park.”
They neared a small stream that flowed beneath a stone footbridge. As they crested the slight rise in the middle of the walkway, Brody captured Kate’s hand and pulled her to the side. Her breath tripped and her senses perked up.
Releasing her hand, Brody said, “I have to tell you what I found out about your husband.”
She leaned her hips against the railing and stared out over the lush green meadow, cut down the center by the trickling stream. A gentle breeze sent the leaves of the trees swaying into motion.
Kate watched the way the sun peeked in and out through the tree branches. She didn’t want Brody to continue. Her quest for the truth was wearing her down. Why couldn’t it all just go away? But it wouldn’t. She knew peace would only come with the truth, so she braced herself for more. “Okay, what now?”
His gaze narrowed slightly. Watchfulness stole into his expression. “With the information Olga gave us, Gabe and I were able to find out more about Paul Wheeler. His true name was indeed Petrov Klein. He was born in Brighton Beach to Russian immigrants.”
So Olga had known the real man.
Kate had been thoroughly conned. She shook her head in disgust and anger. She worked hard to keep the bitterness at bay.
“The Klein family and the Lanski family are both linked to what the media refers to as the Russian Mob.”
Kate blinked. “Mob?”
“The Organizatsiya. Russian organized crime. Similar to the Italian Mafia, only worse in some ways. More educated and technically skilled. Petrov went to Yale, learned how to manage money and was put to working with the Lanskis’ import business. The company is just this side of legit so the Feds can’t shut it down.
“Petrov disappeared from the Feds’ radar about six years ago and apparently reemerged three years ago as Pete Kinsey, aka Paul Wheeler. The Feds think Petrov was getting tired of the game and wanted out. Maybe he threatened to expose the operation he was involved in. So they killed him. Now the Russians want the disk he’d put the incriminating information on.”
Her mind reeled. Russian Mafia? A tight fist of rage lodged itself in her middle. She gazed up at Brody, beseeching him to make all this comprehensible. “I don’t understand. How do I fit into this?”
“The bank you work for is connected through various channels to a Russian bank.”
Kate put her cold hands to her face and looked away. “The bank?” It made a twisted kind of sense. “No wonder he’d been so gung-ho about my career. But how could my working for the bank help him? Them?”
At Brody’s silence, she raised her gaze back to his. His guarded expression forced the breath from her lungs. She dropped her hands and faced him fully. “You can’t possibly think I have anything to do with the Russian Mob.”
His gaze searched her face. “Did you suspect anything at all? Did he ever slip into Russian when angry?”
“No!” She felt like she was treading water in a whirlpool. “I thought you believed in me.”
“I want to, Kate.”
She balled her fists at her sides as helpless fury volleyed with indignation. “Then do. It’s a matter of choice, Brody. Don’t doubt me now, please.” She had to have his reassurance. Though her faith would sustain her, she needed Brody’s trust to hang on to as an anchor in the storm her life had become.
She prayed Brody wouldn’t let her drown.
THIRTEEN
“It’s not you I doubt, Kate. It’s my own judgment.”
Kate’s fists relaxed slightly as an anxious ripple began somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. “Because some woman once betrayed you.”
He flinched. “How did you…?”
“It wasn’t too hard to read between the lines. Gabe’s worried you’re making the same mistake. What mistake?”
He frowned. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. This is my life that hangs in the balance. We’ve come this far, don’t shut me out.” Her heart ached in her chest. Her heart also hung in the balance.
He let out a heavy breath, his expression shifted, revealing his torment. “I became…involved with a suspect.”
“Involved how?” she asked softly.
He met her gaze straight-on, his eyes full of bitter recrimination. “I fell hard.”
Deep inside she responded to his pain. She also felt the sting of self-reproach for falling in love with Paul. “She didn’t share your feelings?”
He laughed, a caustic noise that burst from his chest. “I thought she did, up until the moment she shot me.”
She gasped, the air trapped painfully in her chest. He’d faced death at the hands of someone he’d loved. “Oh, no.”
Her shocked response seemed to make him angry.
His lips, lips that could be so gentle, twisted into a harsh grimace. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Kate. It’s my own fault. I was too blind to see what everyone else saw so plainly. Too stubborn to listen.”
She put a hand on his arm. The muscles flexed beneath her touch. “We’re quite a pair. Here, I thought I’d cornered the market on bad judgment. Never looking beyond the surface. Seeing only what I wanted to see. Paul used me and I didn’t even know it.”
He ran a gentle finger down her cheek. The caress made her long for more of his touch. “You took your husband at face value, trusted him, as you should have. He’s at fault, not you.” His hand fell away. “I, on the other hand, should have known. It was a mistake that nearly cost me my life. It cost me my career.”
She frowned. “They asked you to leave?”
He stared off into the distance, his expression drawn, showing the hurt that still lingered. “No, not in so many words. I was taken off the street. Relegated to a desk job.”
She knew how devastating that must have been for a man who’d gone into law enforcement to honor his father. It hit her that he’d lost his father and his career for not heeding the warnings given. Had those warnings come from God? Was that the wall that stood between Brody and God’s grace?
She ached for Brody in a way she’d never ached for anyone else. She wanted to heal him, to help find his way back to God. She want to love him.
Shying away from that last dangerous thought, she reached for him, wrapping her arms around his middle and laying her head against his chest.
He stiffened for a moment and she froze, thinking he’d push her away. But then his arms enfolded her in a warm embrace. She listened to the beat of his heart, took comfort from his embrace. Breathed in the mingling mix of scents clinging to him: the musky scent of man, the remnants of his aftershave and the smell of sunshine and earth from the park.
She leaned back to look up into his face. “You haven’t lost everything, Brody. You’re still sheriff, that’s got to count for something.”
His tender smile played across her senses like fingers strumming a guitar, making her body hum. “It does.” A shadow passed over his face and the smile faded. “As long as I don’t make the same mistake.”
A shaft of hurt streaked through her. She drew back, slipping her arms from around him. Her hands came to rest palms-down, flat against his chest. “So, if this woman betrayed you, used you…If she was so bad…then all women must be, is that it? Is that how I should feel, what I should think? That because Paul was such a rat, that all men are?”
The moment the words were out she realized that she could easily fall into that trap. Had started down that exact road. But Brody wasn’t like that. He was good; he was sent by God to protect her. And she trusted him with her life. He’d already proved his honor to her.
He breathed out an audible breath. “No. I mean…it’s not that simple.”
“But it is that simple—and that co
mplex at the same time. People have choices. God gave humans free will so we could choose. Choose to do right or wrong, choose to love Him or not. Choose to hurt others or not. It wasn’t God’s plan for you to be betrayed. It wasn’t God’s plan for your father to die. I know in my soul that God wept with you, Brody.”
His heart thudded against her palms. In his gaze she saw his skepticism, his hurt and anger. Sadness rose up and choked her with tears.
Lead by example, Katie. The words spoken by her grandmother so long ago rang true in her head.
If she wanted Brody to believe in God’s faithfulness then she needed to show him her own faith. “It wasn’t God’s plan for Paul to deceive me. I know He’s as angry as I am. But He promises to use all things for good for those who love Him. I love Him, Brody, and I know there will be some good out of all this muck. I choose to believe that.”
He shook his head, his gaze shifting away. “I don’t have that kind of faith.”
“You can choose to.” She wanted to help him find his way to God, to healing because he’d always be running from his guilt and shame otherwise.
He nudged her arms up so that she entwined them around his neck and then he pulled her closer as he leaned back against the stone railing of the footbridge. She nearly cried with the need to be loved, to be cherished. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest she figured any second a rib would snap.
He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them they were clear and focused on her. “You are an amazing lady, Kate Wheeler. You know just how to make a guy squirm.”
A nervous laugh escaped her. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”
He lowered his head. “It is.”
His lips hovered above hers. His warm breath fanned out across her face. She dropped her gaze to his well-formed lips, and her own breath held somewhere between her heart and her throat.
She sensed he was waiting for her to make the next move, to meet him halfway. Did she dare? Did she want to deepen the connection between them when she knew she’d never allow it to go beyond a single kiss, beyond the point of needing his protection?