With all the willpower he could muster, he walked out of her room. He was only able to leave Kelly because he was sure he was doing the right thing for both of them.
He’d promised to protect her. He just hadn't realized how hard it’d be to protect her from him.
The bedroom door closed quietly behind him.
His exhaustion growing with each step, he climbed the stairs and took the first bedroom he found. Decorated in whitewashed pine furniture it was a pleasant room, but the main attraction for him was the king-size bed. It was long enough to accommodate his lengthy body. How many nights had it been since he slept in a bed? Too many.
The cell phone battery was dead. He plugged it into its charger and then found bedding in a cupboard. After quickly making the bed, he stripped down to his boxers and extinguished the light. Unable to sleep he lay in the dark and listened to the silence.
After the betrayals of the last few years, he’d guarded his emotions, keeping them so sheltered from view even he wasn't sure what he felt. But sitting in the bed next to Kelly, raw feelings threatened to erupt. Last night she‘d almost disarmed him and caused him to discard the protective shell he’d built around his emotions.
He’d bared his soul to Kelly’s sister, Carrie. He'd shared his dreams with her and the consequences had been betrayal and excruciating emotional pain. Since then he'd made sure no one got too close. His rules: no close relationships, no ties, no love.
Kelly tempted him. There wouldn't be any point denying he wanted her. He did. But her sister had taught him a bitter lesson. And they were made from the same cloth. The same DNA ran in their veins. Only a fool would open up to pain and betrayal twice and he was no fool. The saying “Once burned twice shy” held meaning for him.
A vision of Kelly, her passionate expression and luscious lips nearly undid him. He craved her with a desire stronger than any he had ever experienced for any woman, even Carrie.
He sat up in bed. His body poised and ready to give, he could fill her and satisfy his craving. She was probably still awake and she had asked for it. He stopped that thought and laid back down. There were more important things to think about.
He remembered his boss telling him that the Sierra Nevada snowpack had melted into the Truckee River and a dead FBI agent, Jack Anson, was found floating face down in the icy water. The memory hit him like a cold shower. It put life into perspective. His petty desirers and infatuations were unimportant.
An hour later, without turning on a light, he slipped on his clothes and pulled on his holstered gun. With a pillow and comforter tucked under his arm he went downstairs and stretched out on the sofa in the great room, a better place to protect Kelly.
When he finally slept, Annie's face came into focus. Stress pricked his scalp and tensed his spine. He knew what was coming and tried to wake up, but couldn't. As if someone had already pressed the play button on a DVD, a familiar nightmare began to run.
It was just as it had happened years earlier. Guarding Annie, a government witness about to testify in court, he entered the large federal courthouse with her. Walking next to her, their footsteps echoed on the marble floor in the huge rotunda.
Annie’s terrified screams grabbed his attention. Then he felt body-racking pain as a bullet hit his right knee and then the burn of a bullet as it grazed his right temple.
As he dropped to the floor, he saw Annie take a bullet in the chest. Blood red splatter made a wide pattern on her white blouse.
“No!” he shouted.
Shock and disbelief shone on her young face. She collapsed.
Betrayed by his FBI partner's greed, they had been caught in an ambush. He lay wounded on the floor of the courthouse, his right knee twisted grotesquely behind him. Unable to move toward her, he stared at Annie. She lay just out of reach, their blood commingling on the cold Carrara marble floor.
Incapable of speaking, she beseeched him with her green eyes. Begging for his help, a blood stained hand stretched out to him.
Blood dripped from his head wound into his eyes. He wiped it away and tried once more to crawl toward her. No good, retching in pain he watched in horror as her beautiful young face grew pale. Each beat of her heart squeezed her life fluid from the gaping chest wound. It dripped to the floor in rhythm with her breathing.
Her terrified eyes pleaded for his help until finally her life was gone and her vacant eyes stared at him, blaming him for her untimely death.
From the searing pain of a bullet and the agonizing pain of failure, useless anger whelmed up inside of him. He fought to wake up.
Awake and covered with sweat, he lived with the bitter memory.
As Annie's bodyguard he should’ve saved her or at least comforted her, but he hadn't. She was dead and he was alive. No bodyguard should ever let that happen. He should’ve kept her alive or died.
He swallowed to pushed back the stomach acid burning his throat. He blinked and squeezed his eyes closed. He had to obliterate Annie's dead face from his vision. With his hand on his perspiration-covered forehead, he forced his eyes open again and stared into the dark.
After almost five years, he'd learned to live with his failure and guilt. But he couldn't live with it if anything happened to Kelly. He groaned and felt the familiar heaviness in his chest. One death on his conscience was all he could take.
***
Kelly lay awake for hours wondering if she was angry at Brick or grateful to him. He was right, of course, not to respond to her. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She'd let her body's desire override her good sense. That had never happened before. She’d make sure it never happened again.
Even when she was with Johnny, she’d never wanted him the way she desired Brick. It stunned her to realize she’d only dated Johnny out of ignorance and a wish to rebel against her sister’s strict rules. If she were honest, she’d admit that since she was a teenager, she’d never stopped caring for the one man she couldn’t have, Brick.
This wasn’t the time to complicate her life with an affair with her sister’s ex-fiancé. It could only lead to pain and she'd had enough of that. Even so, a sense of longing shook her.
With an uncertain future, she wanted Brick to be concerned that soon she might be dead, gone from the earth almost as if she had never existed.
If the intruders had their way she’d be murdered with few people to note her demise or feel the void left by her passing. Tears pushed against her eye lids, but she wouldn't cry. With so few days left she wouldn't waste time shedding tears. Nonetheless, one fleeing tear managed to slide down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away. She hadn’t told Brick the whole truth. So she didn’t deserve his concern.
Her lips were still swollen from his kiss. The taste of him lingered. Her body heated. She wanted him. No. She corrected that thought. She wanted to share a love with him, spend a lifetime with him, an impossible dream. With a moan, she lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes.
Somehow she’d survive. She hadn’t yet left a big enough footprint on the sands of time. Even if she didn’t deserve Brick’s love, it was too soon to die.
***
He could see Kelly’s cabin through the brushes of the empty lot. In the cab of a parked pick-up truck the man watched for movement in the house. He zipped his jacket. “Another damned cold night,” he swore under his breath and tucked a blanket around him. Then he checked his holstered nine millimeter weapon. If something didn`t happen soon, he’d make it happen. He let his shoulders relax and smiled at the thought of a killing.
Chapter Fourteen
Brick woke from his restless sleep. He could get up and make a pot of coffee or allow himself the luxury of more sleep. Still bone tired, he turned away from the light coming from the window in the great room and closed his eyes. It crossed his mind he was avoiding the time when he’d have to see Kelly, but he didn't examine that thought.
At nine o’clock he couldn't sleep any longer. Before making his way to the kitchen, he stopped outside her bedroom a
nd peeked in. Angelic in sleep, she laid exposed in her tank top and underwear. As he scanned her, and listened to her rhythmic breathing .What it would be like to lie down next to her and run his hand down her soft form. Cursing his own need, he quietly closed the door.
In the kitchen, he found the Italian roast coffee beans and made a pot of coffee and took a full mug out to the back deck that overlooked the lapping water of Lake Tahoe. In a teak deck chair facing the turquoise water, he sipped the thick liquid and counted the days until this assignment was over.
After he was shot, he'd turned down a chance to resign with benefits. He’d never quit. The FBI was his life. It was all he had, all he needed. If it hadn't been for Don asking him to check on Kelly, he’d be in his new office in San Francisco orienting himself to his assignments there.
After this mission was over, he wouldn't see her again. Before he’d returned his mind had been filled with thoughts of a new start in San Francisco. Now it was hard to concentrate on anything but Kelly.
A gust of wind rustled the leaves of the birch trees at the water's edge, a sound so gentle it wouldn’t be heard above the traffic noise in San Francisco's South Bay. Maybe he needed the city noise to keep his mind filled so he couldn't hear the sound of his own lost dream of a wife and kids.
Here in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, it was hard to ignore the desire that pounded in his chest. Enough
He checked on Amanda’s boyfriend, Norman Rampac, and was told he was a local bad boy. Recently accused of petty theft and smoking dope, Norm had an outstanding warrant. Reno Police would use that to hold him for now.
The scrap of paper he got from Amanda was still in his pants pocket. He retrieved it and punched in the number. It rang four times and then a voice message picked up. “Leave your name, number and the date and time you called.”
The message gave no clue to who owned the number. It was so short it’d be difficult to recognize the voice if he heard it again. Damned waste of time, everything they’d gone through last night was for nothing. He was no closer to finding out who ransacked Kelly’s house or who paid for information about her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a flash of light near the grove of trees where he had first parked his car. He picked up his mug, took a sip of coffee and casually looked in the direction of the trees. There it was again, another flash, a reflection of light off a pair of binoculars?
He walked slowly to the backdoor, careful not to look in the direction of the trees again. Opening the door to the cabin, he ran into Kelly on her way outside.
“Go back. Someone's watching the cabin.” He pushed her back into the living room. “I saw something on the ridge near the grove of pines. Stay here. I'm going to take a look.” He started to leave then turned and said, “Stay here and this time I mean stay in the house. I'm going out through the side door in the garage and try to circle around the cabin to see if I can get a look at him.”
“Don't go.”
“I've got to check it out. Remember stay in the cabin until I come back. And keep away from the windows. I don't want whoever it is to see you.”
“Okay, but Brick.”
“Yeah.”
“Please be careful.”
***
The brush around the cabin gave good cover. Brick was able to make it to the edge of the property without being seen.
A man, black hair, black jeans and a black T-shirt crouched next to a pine tree, his expression grim. He didn't look at the wonders of the Sierra Mountains or Lake Tahoe. Looking toward the Shaw cabin, he held high-powered binoculars to his eyes.
From his angle, Brick couldn’t see a weapon, but couldn't be sure the man didn't have one. The guy put down his binoculars and stood, appearing to be making a decision. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he picked up the binoculars again and peered at the cabin.
Brick gazed in that direction as well. He hoped Kelly had done as he told her and stayed the hell away from the windows.
Just then his eyes met the stranger’s. The man's brown eyes widened, then he ran.
“Wait!” Slipping and sliding, Brick found it difficult to get traction on the floor of pine needles.
The man paused to pick up his binocular case and he tackled the guy. They rolled on the ground and he felt every chunk of Sierra Nevada granite that lay under the carpet of pine needles.
The athletic stranger punched him and then used the high powered binoculars like a weapon, beating him about the head.
His skin broke open above his eye. Warm blood ran down his face. Now he was pissed. He ducked from another punch and sent a blow to the man’s midsection then hit him again for good measure. The guy dropped to the ground. He forced his hands behind his back and secured them with his handcuffs. Damn He should didn’t think he’d have to use the cuffs so soon.
“What the hell!” the man yelled.
“Quiet,” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his FBI identification and put it in the guy’s face.
The man froze.
“Why were you watching the cabin?” He shoved his ID back in his pocket.
“I didn't break any laws.”
“Why are you here?”
“I don't have to tell you.”
“Answer my question or I’m taking your ass to the FBI office. You can answer questions there.”
“I got nothing to say.”
“About what?”
“About anything.”
“Most people watch the lake. Why were you watching that house?”
The sun beat down on Brick and a wasp buzzed his head. He swatted it away and waited for an answer. A trickle of blood ran down his neck. He reached up and felt a cut on his ear where the binoculars had hit him.
“If I don't get a straight answer now, I'm arresting your sorry ass and holding you until you have something to say or until you're old enough to be a grandfather.”
Nothing.
“I’ll give you an easy question.”
“What's your name?”
No answer.
“Okay buddy, get up.”
“James.”
“What?”
“James.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m not telling you anything else.”
“Okay James. You’re on the way going to jail.” He yanked the guy to a standing position and pushed him forward.
As they approached the needle-covered trail, James jabbed him in the ribs and tried to run. He grabbed the guy. They lost their footing and tumbled down a steep slope.
Chapter Fifteen
Brick rolled down the embankment. His right knee hit a granite boulder. A jolt of pain shot through him, but the rock stopped his descent.
James tumbled a few yards farther down the slope, before coming to a stop in the mud of a minor creek that meandered toward the lake.
Ignoring the burning sensation in his leg, he jumped up and limped to where the James lay still on his back.
“Get up!”
“My hands are still cuffed. I can’t get up.”
He yanked James to a standing position. “Try anything else and I'll make sure you do time. Now walk or I’ll drag you to the cabin.”
The man glared at him but walked slowly toward the cabin.
In order not to startle Kelly and remind her of the attack in her home in Palo Alto, he called her name. Then he entered the living room, with his quarry in tow.
“Sit down. Over there on the hearth.”
James sat.
“If you cooperate, I'll remove the cuffs.”
James didn’t respond.
There was that look again, the angry eyes of a trapped animal.
Kelly came into the living room and stared. “Brick, what happened?”
“Jamie is that you? What’s going on? Why are you handcuffed?”
“This guy was spying on the cabin with binoculars.”
She turned her back on him and smiled at him “Jamie you weren’t spying, were you?”
<
br /> Jamie shrugged and looked down as if to admire the old carpet.
“I’ll get you a cup of coffee or would you rather have a glass of water?”
She treated James as if he had dropped by for a neighborly chat. She didn't realize it, but she was playing good cop to his bad cop, a well-known interrogation technique.
“Water would be good?” James smiled.
“I'll be right back.” She quickly left the room.
Brick ran a hand over his jaw. His ear throbbed and he was developing one hell of a headache. He reached up and felt a bump forming on the side of his head. He must have hit his head when he rolled down the embankment or was it a hit from the binoculars?
Jamie’s feral eyes tracked his every move.
Kelly re-entered the living room carrying a tray with a pitcher of ice water and one glass tumbler. Apparently he wasn’t being offered anything to quench his thirst, punishment no doubt for a perceived mistreatment of her friend James.
She set the tray on the coffee table in front of the sofa and glared at him with narrowed eyes.
James sat up and watched her.
“Undo the man’s hands Brick. How can he drink the water? Jamie, you won't do anything foolish will you?”
He shook his head, but his body was tense and an angry expression crossed the taut features.
Holding the key to the cuffs, Brick leaned over the man and whispered in his ear. “Make a move to hurt Kelly and it will be last move you ever make.”
He released the cuffs and put them in his pocket, then causally leaned against the living room wall, but his eyes never left James.
“More water?” Kelly asked.
“No.” The man pushed his straight black hair out of his eyes leaving a trail of mud on his forehead.
She took his glass and put it back on the tray. Then she sat in the blue velvet wing chair facing the fireplace.
For a moment, no one spoke. The tension strained the atmosphere.
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