Familiar Strangers

by Standifer, Allie

  “Regin, we need to talk.” A stray stand of dark hair fell on his forehead as he shook his head. “God almighty, do we need to talk, but now is not the time.” He looked back in her eyes. “First, we have to find out what happened to Lee. Then I’ll tell you—”

  “I know what—or should I say who— happened to Lee,” Regin spoke tugging her hands free. She rose to her feet preparing to horrify the man she had come to care for and fear. She didn’t want to see the morbid curiosity in Galen’s hypnotic silver eyes or, worse, the disgust when he realized she was solely responsible for his childhood friend’s death. “It’s me, Galen. I’m the reason Lee’s dead. I’ve got to tell you wh—”

  He stopped her feet and words. “You don’t have to say a word, Regin.” He spoke gently, turning her in his arms. “I know everything.”

  Green eyes blazing, her head whipped up in shock. “What do you mean you know? How could you know anything?” Before the words died in the night, Regin understood. Fragments of their time together flashed in her mind. The gun in his hand when they met, the way his eyes constantly scanned—looking, searching for something or someone. He was always on alert. The calm demeanor that never cracked. The questions never asked. The past he never probed. Damon’s unexpected visit and Tatum’s frequent calls. The convenience of Tatum’s setup and how quickly everything fell into place.

  “My God,” she whispered, knees giving out she sank back to the damp grass. “You’ve known all along haven’t you? Who set this up? Tatum? Damon?” She wanted him to deny everything. To tell her he would never betray her, never lie to her, but it was too late. She knew before he said a word. The guilty truth was written in his eyes. It was the instinct that told her not to trust him from the start. If only she had listened to her mind and not her heart.

  “Why?”

  Galen stepped forward, intending to comfort and explain, but Regin didn’t give him the chance. She scrambled to her feet, backing away from his outstretched hands. His voice burning her heart. “Regin just let me explain, Cher. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “You have no idea what I’m thinking, you bastard. So don’t go there! Just explain who the hell you are and what the fuck is going on!”

  Suddenly she knew they weren’t alone anymore, from out of the shadows several men appeared. Regin cringed at the thought of Galen’s people seeing her naked vulnerability. And she knew without a doubt these men belonged to Galen. They had the same sense of stillness about them. Their eyes were ever watchful and alert. She’d been set up from the beginning.

  “Regin, we don’t have time to argue about this. I don’t have the time to placate you. This has to be done. He’s here watching you, waiting for one of us to slip up. That’s all he needs. Do you understand how serious this is?” The words echoed on the air, lingering in the minds of everyone pretending not to listen to their conversation.

  “No, Galen, I don’t know how serious this is.” Regin’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “I don’t know what it’s like to have him strangle me, nor do I understand what it’s like to have a knife shoved into my chest missing my heart by inches. Please explain how serious this is to me once again, so poor, slow, little me can understand that the big bad man might hurt me,” she flung the last words at him, wanting to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt her.

  Damn him. He didn’t deserve to play the wounded victim here. Regin was the one who had been lied to by everyone she trusted. She was the one with a killer stalking her. Galen might live on the edge as a job, but he had no idea what walking both sides of the ledge could do to a person. It was a game of balance—one slip and she’d be lost.

  ****

  Galen realized his personal explanations would have to wait. She wanted to deal in hard facts. Anything to help take her mind off the death she was burying herself in guilt over. Taking a deep breath, he told her of Townsend’s escape, the calls to Damon, and his subsequent hire. She said nothing, her head falling with each word he spoke.

  “It was for your own good,” he said. Too late to realize her bowed head wasn’t from defeat, but anger. Her left arm swung out connecting solidly with his jaw.

  “Don’t,” she heatedly warned him, “come near me. I’d rather take my chances with an honest madman than a deceitful liar.” Turning on her heels, she ran, ignoring the men standing in opened mouth shock and the ones swarming out from the house.

  He made to go after her when another voice stopped him. “Damn, Matthews, you always did have a way with the weaker sex,” Saber’s voice betrayed the laughter he’d wisely refrained.

  Touching his tender jaw, Galen saw his entire team had witnessed her anger. Strangely enough, he wasn’t bothered by it. What went on between Regin and him was their private business and he wasn’t about to explain.

  “Yeah, well, it’s a knack.” Quickly his thoughts shifted from the pain in his jaw to the tangled mess before him. “How the hell did this happen, Saber? You were to have enough men posted to catch an alligator pissing.”

  “I did. We set up a man every way around this hunk of rock. Shit, Will is still bitching about the bugs. Nothing came onto this island. I swear.”

  “He was here, make no mistake, I’ve got the dead body to prove it.” Tugging on his hair, he paced the grass whipping around as another worry coming to mind. “Who’s with Regin?” He trusted his men with his life, but Regin’s was infinitely more precious than his own.

  “Will and Taco took off after her, but I doubt they’ll get within ten feet of her. Not with her dog loose.” Annie? But had she been there? Quickly he scanned his mind from the time they returned until they found the body.

  Annie had been nowhere in sight. He remembered Regin feeling guilty for leaving the dog behind, but Galen had quickly pointed out that she had the run of the island and they would be gone only a short time. What could happen in a few hours?

  “Where’d you see the dog at?’

  “I told you,” the dark haired man replied, not understanding the importance of his question, “she was tied up behind the cabin.”

  “Shit! He was here. Longer than just to dump Lee’s body. Townsend wants us to know. He wants Regin to know. The bastard’s playing with her and toying with me. He had to have left more than a dead body to find. That wouldn’t be personal enough for him.” Thinking quickly, he rapidly shot out orders. “Spread out, search the house and cabin. You shouldn’t have to look very hard. He won’t want us to miss whatever sick present he’s left.

  ****

  Ten minutes later Saber called out “Found it.

  The bastard has some nerve.” Galen bounded up to the bedroom from where he had been searching the library. Grabbing the note, he read it quickly. The neatly penned message had been written on his personal stationary. It sent chills of fear down his spine thinking how close the man had come to Regin. The same house, same room, touching the same furniture they touched. Fear was quickly replaced by burning anger at the thought of Townsend wandering through his home, invading the space he shared with no one but Regin.

  I warned you before, but you broke the rules. In this game we play, I won’t suffer fools. He wasn’t invited, so he has to go. He’s much too late. The game is mine and so are you.

  Crumpling the note, he thought of the warning. What did it mean? He warned her? What was too late? Tatum never mentioned threats other than the ones from the trial. Had Townsend been threatening Regin all these years and no one had known?

  But why? He remembered with a shock of clarity her words when he lay stunned from memories.

  “I’m sorry. I thought I had more time. I didn’t get the letter.”

  “Sonofabitch!” He had been threatening her all along and Regin’s damn protective ass, had never spoken a word about it. “Stay here,” he snapped at Rilee. “I’m going after her. It’s time she learned she can’t do everything herself. Get the men off the beach.”

  ****

  “You,” he said darkly, grabbing Regin’s upper arms in a vise, “
are nothing but a coward, Regin Neff.”

  The moon was bright overhead, lending an eerie silver quality to the air surrounding them. He didn’t want it to be like this. He wanted time and space to talk to her about everything. His initial hire, the threats, and most importantly his feelings for her. But Townsend had upped the ante and forced Galen’s hand. It was just another thing to add to the growing list to take out of Townsend’s ass. Yeah, Regin was pissed off at him and with good reason. But her life was more important than how mad she was. They could fight about it after Townsend was caught and Regin was safe.

  ****

  Regin’s mouth dropped open in surprise. In her entire life no one had ever called her such a name, especially after Townsend’s attack. She didn’t pretend to be anything other than what she was. Regin knew she wasn’t a nice person. She didn’t have warm and fuzzy feelings for everyone she met. She disliked many people and ignored the rest.

  She didn’t happily let people take her parking spaces in the mall. She lost her temper with waiters in restaurants and knew she had more unkind injury producing thoughts than any normal woman should.

  She tried not to judge people until she knew them, but having learned the hard way about the basic nature of her fellow human beings made it impossible not to. People had used her after the attack to gain attention or money, caring little for the nightmare Regin was trying to live through.

  She’d turned her back on all of them, burying the tragedy in the back of her mind and traveling from one town to the next never sharing more of herself than necessary. Making sure she always left before things and people became too attached.

  “How dare you call me coward!” she hissed. “You know nothing of my life or me.” Her face paled as she faced him. “Oh I forgot, you’re a big bad undercover man so I guess you know everything about me.”

  Regin couldn’t allow the ripping of her heart to break her. She would deal with it later. She would deal with everything later. Galen’s lies and broken promises. She had to be strong until he walked away. She would hold on to what was left of her pride. She’d damn herself to hell before she allowed him to take away that.

  In vain, she tried yanking her arm away from his steel grip, but Galen’s fingers held firm and she hoped there would be bruises tomorrow to attest to their battle of wills tonight. If for nothing else than the guilt it would weave in his mind.

  “No,” he said softly, jerking her closer to him. “I don’t know everything about you, but I recognize a coward’s actions when I see them. You’ve done nothing but run.”

  Galen brought his hand up to capture her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his own heated gaze. “Instead of turning to face whatever it is haunting you, you run and laugh and pretend nothing is wrong. If those are not the actions of a coward, then I would love to know your definition,” he finished roughly, before abruptly releasing her as if he could no longer bear the sight of her face.

  Regin was astounded at the man’s utter lack of conscience. How dare he call her a coward? Hadn’t she been the one to stand up in a courtroom and point the finger convicting Shawn Townsend as the Bow-Tie Strangler?

  Raw furry hummed through her veins, making her poke a finger into his well-muscled chest. She might as well have been trying to stick her finger through solid steel for all the give his chest had. “You have no right to begin throwing names around, Mr. Matthews. I’ve lived through a hell you can’t begin to imagine and I not only lived through it, I came out on top.”

  They stood facing each other almost nose to nose. “I was the one sitting in the courtroom with the man who tried to kill me. I was the one forced to testify against him. I was the only one he made threats against as he was being dragged out of that very same courtroom. Would you like me to tell you what he said?” She didn’t bother giving him a chance to reply, but rushed on caught up in memories she’d forced away seven years ago. “Should I tell you how he screamed he would get out and find me? Or maybe you’d be more interested in the ways he said he’d like to kill me—aside from the velvet ribbon of course?” The sound she made was meant to be laughter, but came out as a strangled choke. “How he’d cut open my body, dip his hands in my blood, and lick it from his fingers.”

  She pushed her hands off his chest and walked toward the dark churning water. “I didn’t let him see me so much as flinch. Did you know that? I stood there and didn’t blink an eye.”

  Regin had reached the edge of the water and a wave came rolling toward her feet. She did nothing to stop the salty water from covering her shoes. She was too lost in the bitterness and fear of yesterday to notice. She didn’t glance in Galen’s direction when he came to stand silently beside her. He didn’t say anything nor did he move to touch her tense body.

  “I wanted him to be pissed. I wanted him to be angry,” she stuffed both hands into her front pockets and tried to warm them. “Does that make any sense, I wonder? Trying to piss off a madman?” She gave a strangled laugh. “I couldn’t let him know he got to me. I didn’t want him going to his cozy cell with the picture of me huddled in a corner too frightened to breathe. I thought it was my revenge against him.” Regin inhaled deeply of the tangy night air before continuing softly. “It seems I was wrong,” she ended softly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  What monster had possessed him to this point of questioning? He wanted to make her face up to the fact someone had tried to kill her seven years ago, but never did he want this. He could see the terror in her eyes as Regin relived not only the attack, but the venom Townsend spewed forth after the trial.

  Galen had read about the trial in the papers, but it never touched him as closely as it did now. He’d never known what it had cost her to sit there day after day, looking so cool and in control. Why hadn’t Damon told him about the after effects? Did he think Galen wouldn’t need to know or maybe he would never find out? That he wouldn’t hear her scream out from the darkness, pleading for her life?

  Unless she’d never told anyone.

  It was coming together for him, piece by jagged piece. Regin’s staunch refusal to stay in the main house until the waters receded, her vain attempt to sleep on the back porch, and her denial for the need to sleep until she’d dropped off out of sheer exhaustion on his couch.

  Now, here in his childhood home, a place of peace and dreams, he watched the terror swamp her again. Guilt crashed down on his shoulders as he watched the fear flare on her face.

  Galen could see the anxiety in her slight shoulders and the glassiness of her eyes as the horror reached out and tried to recapture her once more. Damn his soul to hell for allowing it to go on as long as he had. There had to be something or someway to reach past the blackness Regin was drowning herself in. He’d allowed the nightmare to go on too long.

  He took a step toward her and grasped her upper arms, but there was no response from her. Regin was drowning in a sea of dismay.

  Once again Galen had let down this incredible woman in his arms. He’d been given the responsibility to care for and protect Regin. Instead of doing what he’d been asked, he was playing amateur shrink, destroying what was left of her confidence and the life she’d worked the past seven years to create.

  All for his own selfish reasons.

  He felt so helpless against the terror clutching her. He knew of only two proven methods of getting someone out of this type of shock—one was a swift slap to the face. He sure as hell wasn’t going to hit a woman. That left only one option open. Galen pressed his lips softly against hers. He could feel Regin jerk in surprise and refusal.

  When he felt Regin’s continued resistance to his kiss, Galen demanded a response from her. He was here, solid and warm against her. He tried to give her a moment’s peace. One not tinged with fear.

  Galen meant the kiss only to stop Regin from reliving the horror, but whatever good intentions he’d started out with were gone the minute her lips opened under his.

  She was warm and hot, her lips soft and giving beneath his. When his t
ongue entered her mouth he felt a jolt of lighting sizzle down his spine and his cock swell in reaction. The taste of her filled his senses and left him craving more. He wanted to drink from her and never stop. She was a thirst he couldn’t sate. He had known that from the first time their lips had met. He was a fool for thinking one taste would ever be enough.

  A low hoarse groan came from somewhere in his throat as his arms tightened around her, pulling her closer and tighter against him. He wanted to absorb her body, feel her naked flesh hot and eager against his own. He rocked his hips against her softness, wanting her to know and share the desire flooding him.

  “Regin,” he whispered, as he ran his lips along her jaw and neck while his hands pushed away her shirt and bra to bare her breasts to the moonlight.

  He forgot to breathe as his hands admired what they had revealed. With the moonlight playing over her skin, she looked like a goddess flung to earth for his pleasure. Her nipples were puckered tight from cold and desire. Her hips tilted, pushing into his throbbing erection.

  Roughly Galen bent her back over his arm and laved her breast with his lips and tongue, sucking the nipple into his mouth. He heard Regin’s moan and felt her fingers clutching his hair, pressing him harder to her flesh. He tortured her wet nipple with teeth and tongue, not releasing it until she demanded his attention for the other.

  He released one throbbing breast to latch on to the other, giving it the same scorching treatment. “Oh, God, baby,” he muttered, using his other hand to cup her buttocks and grind her into his straining heat. “I want you now.”

  Nothing was registering past the passion in Regin’s mind. She knew only the feel of his lips, tongue, hands, and the swelling length of his erection beneath his jeans. Need had never been this strong or mind numbing. Never before had she lost all sense of self, wanting only what he could give her.