The Protected

by Shiloh Walker

  “You are not going to be charming anybody’s pants off with that look on your face, honey.” Blowing out a breath, she skimmed a hand back over her hair, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to do with it. She planned on washing it that night, but unless she wanted to delay everything else she had to do until she had it washed and taken care of, then she’d just have to leave her hair as it was for now.

  Maybe she should have gotten it plaited or something before she came down here, but it was too late to worry about it right now.

  Resting her hands on the cool porcelain of the sink, she tried to see herself the way he might. Pretty enough, but nothing to write home about. The freckles were something she’d hated for her entire life, odd, dark little dots that danced across her nose and cheeks. She didn’t mind her mouth, though. Or her eyes.

  She had a unique face, if nothing else, which wasn’t always good considering the life she lived. Sometimes she needed to blend, and Vaughnne’s looks didn’t lead to blending. Neither did her attitude. When she bothered with makeup, she played up the mouth and the eyes, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to go for the makeup just then. Anything that might make their instincts sound an alarm was going to cause problems.

  Okay, so no makeup and she wasn’t about to go put on any come-hither clothes.

  The red tank top and denim shorts were just going to have to work.

  One thing she could do . . . wipe away the attitude. Get rid of the frustration and make sure everything was all locked down nice and tight behind her shields. Working around other psychics with stronger abilities had taught her everything she ever needed to know about hiding her thoughts, controlling them. Generally, psychics would only skim surface thoughts, and if they wanted more, they had to establish a deeper connection. She kept everything she didn’t want known hidden under strong, solid shields. The kid didn’t have the finesse needed to power through those shields without her realizing it, and if he started trying to pull that trick, it would be time to start doing some fast talking and even faster phone calling.

  So . . . tone down the attitude. Smooth away some of the rough edges she hadn’t bothered to cover, since she was in here by her lonesome. Closing her eyes, she gave herself a minute to do that, and when she looked in the mirror, she saw herself again. But the woman looking back was just a little less . . . rough. A little less ready to go for the throat, she guessed.

  Blowing out a breath, she went through a few of the mental exercises she needed to calm her thoughts and relax.

  Finally, though, she felt a little less jagged, a little less ragged. And about as ready to face Gus as she was going to be. Gus. And Alex. Really, Alex should be the one to worry her. But who was she spazzing about? The hot guy.

  Hell. She needed to have her head examined. Or maybe she just needed to get laid. Or have an orgasm. Something. Sighing, she hunted down the plate of cookies and headed outside.

  Thinking about Gus and orgasm was not good. It undid the past thirty minutes of mental relaxation.

  He was bad—very, very bad, she decided. Very bad for the female parts of her, very bad for her peace of mind, and if she couldn’t keep her mind on the job, he was going to be very bad for her life in general.

  * * *

  VAUGHNNE was bad for his peace of mind, but Gus had successfully convinced himself that all he needed to do was stay the hell away from her. If he did that, everything would go back to the way it had been.

  “It’s her,” Alex said, an odd tone in his voice. He was at the table working on the day’s assignment and he spoke seconds before the knock came. Gus reached for the towel to wipe his hands off as they listened to the next knock, twenty seconds later.

  “I know,” Gus said. He wasn’t psychic, but this was just his luck. He’d decided he needed to stay away from her, so naturally, life had thrown her back in his path.

  Alex continued to sit at the table. “Are you going to answer it?”

  He really shouldn’t.

  But the truck was in the drive, and if he didn’t, he figured it would only make her more curious. It was a perfectly logical, perfectly plausible explanation.

  And it had nothing to do with the simple fact that he wanted to see her again.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he called out as he slid Alex a look.

  Alex stood up and went into the room off the back of the house. They’d rehearsed it all a hundred times. Probably more. And even though they both knew who was at the door, it didn’t matter. Alex did his part. Gus did his, reaching for the Sig Sauer on the kitchen counter and tucking it into place at the small of his back.

  “Do you need that?” Alex asked softly, even as he tucked himself against the wall and got ready. Always ready. The backpack was hanging on the back of a chair, and Gus could grab it in a moment. In two minutes, they could be out of this house. Out of the house, and running. Again.

  Fury tore into Gus with hot, greedy claws, so abrupt and so all-consuming. It all but leveled him and caught him completely off guard. He’d thought, after all this time, he had dealt with this. Nobody understood the reasons behind this as well as he did. Why get angry over something he couldn’t control?

  But the anger was there, bubbling, burning inside him.

  He shoved it down, buried it deep as he looked at Alex. He’d never fully deal with it, perhaps.

  This was no life for that boy. None at all. He knew it and he hated it. They lived every day by a set schedule. Up at dawn where they went through a routine, what to do if somebody tried to break in, what to do if somebody did break in and managed to get ahold of Gus, where Alex was supposed to go, what he was supposed to do. Gus went to work at his shitty job where the kid sat in the car and did his schoolwork because he couldn’t go to school. They lied through their teeth that Gus was homeschooling him because they didn’t need the mess it would bring down on them if somebody suspected the boy wasn’t getting an education, although that was actually the least of Alex’s concerns.

  If they managed to find him—Stop it. He couldn’t do this now.

  The resigned look on Alex’s face was another blow. It didn’t cut at him the way the fear did, but it was a blow nonetheless. Like Alex had already accepted this was his life. This was all his life was, would ever be.

  Gus didn’t want that for him.

  He wanted to promise Alex that things would get better, that he’d have . . . something. A life, somehow. But he didn’t do that. Instead of offering promises he couldn’t keep, he stood there and stared back at the boy until Alex looked away. Casually, he adjusted his shirt, made sure it covered the gun. “You know it’s necessary.”

  “But—”

  He cut the boy off, speaking softly, in a low voice, and watched as Alex tucked his chin against his chest.

  “Yes, sir.”

  And as Gus turned away and started down the hall, he heard her voice again.

  You must do this for me.

  Yeah. He knew that. He knew what he had to do. He just wondered if he and the boy would get through it without the boy hating him.

  * * *

  “HAVE you found them?”

  Esteban eyed the boss from under his lashes for a moment before he lowered his gaze back to the floor.

  The boss did have a name, but he didn’t dare speak it. He didn’t even want to be here. The last man assigned to this job had failed. And he hadn’t been seen since.

  He didn’t want to end up the same way.

  But he knew it was likely. He had another idea, but whether or not the boss would go for it . . . Swallowing the spit that pooled in his mouth, he managed to keep his voice level as he responded, “No, sir. We haven’t found him. Not the boy or the man.”

  “Why not?”

  He had no answer.

  After a few seconds, the boss said, “It’s been years. You realize this, don’t you? Years. And a pendejo whose claim to fame in life is looking pretty and fucking females has managed to keep that child away from us. It’s pa
thetic. You were supposed to be reliable. To have resources. And what have you done but fail?”

  “I have a new plan lined up,” he said, swallowing the nasty, metallic taste of fear that rose up his throat. He resisted, just barely, the urge to swipe his hands down the sides of his trousers, but that would wrinkle them and the boss wasn’t overly impressed by a man in a wrinkled suit.

  The boss wasn’t impressed by much, to be honest. He never should have taken this job. If he failed this time, his best bet was to get as far away as possible. At least he’d lined up an escape route.

  Skepticism dashed through the boss’s eyes, carefully concealed, there and then gone.

  But he knew what he’d seen in the other man’s eyes. Doubt. Anger. He made a study of recognizing such things. It kept him alive, made him money. Sometimes, one was equally as important as the other.

  “Oh?” The boss leaned back and crossed his hands over a belly that had just now started to go soft even though he was almost sixty. “What is this plan?”

  Floundering, he wracked his brain for a decent lie. “I am still working to get it together. Once I have more concrete data to present you with, I’d be happy to go into detail with you, sir.” He didn’t plan on giving him any detail, if he could avoid it. Because if this didn’t work out, he needed to disappear. No point in making it any easier for the man to find him, right?

  The boss continued to watch him, his eyes flat, black . . . soulless. “I would suggest, my boy, that you get that information together. Quickly.”

  He bowed his head and turned to the door. He had to get back to the search. And he planned on leaving quickly. He was running out of time, he knew. But this new development . . .

  Yes. It was the best break he’d had in the past seven months, ever since he’d started hunting for the missing child. As long as it was legit, he might stand a chance.

  And he thought it was.

  He had a knack for discerning codes, and this website was nothing but code. The subtext and innuendos that people used to get across hidden meanings. It was little wonder they didn’t want people stumbling across the site, little wonder they used code and subtext.

  Psychics.

  These people were for real. They were legit, not just a bunch of lunatics or New Agers who thought they were psychic. He knew it in his gut. Now he just had to get one of them out in the open. And if that didn’t work, he’d just keep going until he succeeded.

  The boss called out his name just as he reached the door.

  Pausing, he stood there. Waiting.

  The next words sent a shiver across his spine. “I hope you realize . . . my patience isn’t endless. You are quite running out of time. Very much so.”

  * * *

  AS the door shut, Reyes turned and stared out the window.

  Four years.

  It had been four years.

  He hadn’t lost hope, though.

  Losing hope too easily led to lost focus, and when one lost focus, it was too easy to stray from the path. He would find the boy.

  Find the boy, and kill the man who had taken him away.

  It was as simple as that.

  But he was losing faith in the man he’d hired. Supposedly this one could find the unfindable, do the undoable, finish the unfinishable. That was what all his previous clients had said. His job record was impressive, to say the least.

  A record was shit without results, though.

  And they had no results. Nothing.

  It infuriated him.

  It took an effort to keep that fury under control, but he finally managed, and when he reached for the phone, his hand was steady.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t pull his current man off the job until he saw the results from his latest endeavor, but it was time to start exploring other options, he decided.

  But before he could dial the number, there was a knock at his door and a low, throaty voice called out his name.

  “Come in,” he called out. He could make the call while she was in here, he supposed. It wouldn’t hurt.

  The blonde came inside, a smile on her mouth, her lips slicked with red, her curves barely covered by a scrap of a bikini the same shade as her eyes. She came around the desk and leaned against it, reached out to trail a finger down his arm. “You’ve been working all day,” she murmured.

  Inexplicably, he found himself unable to look away from her mouth. His limbs felt heavy and his blood pumped hotter, slower. Yes . . . he had been working all day, hadn’t he?

  * * *

  VAUGHNNE sighed and glanced out over the yard. She’d knocked almost two minutes ago. If she hadn’t heard Gus’s voice, she would have worried a little. But she heard movement inside, and none of those movements were the sorts that set her instincts on edge, either.

  As the footsteps drew nearer to the door, she ignored the butterflies jumping in her belly and braced herself. She hadn’t brought her weapon. She still didn’t trust how things would go if Gus saw it, but she suspected things would go . . . badly. And he’d peg it from a mile away, the same way she’d known he was carrying.

  When he opened the door, she was doubly glad she hadn’t brought her Glock. The look on his face wasn’t quite the one she’d been hoping for, although it didn’t really surprise her.

  Each step was going to be a struggle, there was no denying that.

  His eyes, that sultry gray, rested on her face, and although that inviting, sexy warmth was there, she sensed a distance. I’m sorry, but you’re not welcome here. That was the message he was sending out, loud and clear. It was like his eyes said, I’ll take you to bed in a second . . . but . . . and the but spoke louder than everything else.

  Well. It was a good thing Vaughnne had always ignored those messages she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “Hey.” Smiling at him, she pulled the foil back off the plate of cookies and held it up. “I wanted to say thanks for the help. I made you and Alex some cookies.”

  He glanced down and something flickered in his eyes. It might have been surprise. Might have been caution. She didn’t know. But he wasn’t going to take the cookies, not just like that. Tugging the foil off, she took one at random and nipped a bite off. “Come on, you have to take them,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I already ate three or four of them, and if you don’t take them for you and your boy, I’ll eat them and then I’ll have to run double what I usually run. Then I’ll be cranky and it will be all your fault.”

  “My fault.”

  She licked a crumb off her lips and nodded. “Yes. I made you cookies and you won’t eat them . . . I can’t let them go to waste, right? But if I eat them, I have to work them off. And running seven or eight miles instead of three or four will make me a bitch . . .” She grimaced and peered around him. “Sorry. Um. It won’t make me very nice. See how this is your fault if you don’t take them?”

  She took another bite from the cookie and then held it up to him. “Try a bite,” she offered. “I make damn good cookies, if I do say so myself.”

  He caught her wrist in one hand and plucked the cookie out, eyeing it narrowly before taking a quick bite. “You could have finished it,” he pointed out.

  His eyes dropped to the plate. Then something shifted in his gaze. And he reached out. She didn’t look down. She’d been tested enough in her life to know when it was happening again. “Here, since you enjoy them so much that you ate three or four . . .”

  She wondered if he had some inkling in his head to make her taste-test every one before he let the kid have a damn cookie. And abruptly, her heart hurt. It just hurt, standing there staring at him as he pushed a cookie at her and watched her with that sleepy, sexy look in his eyes and his hand now hanging loose at his side.

  And maybe she didn’t have any ability to read minds, but Vaughnne knew one thing damn well. If she balked about taking that cookie, they would have a problem.

  Not only did he not trust people, he expected every damn soul around him to try and hurt him.

  Why?r />
  She polished off the cookie in two bites, and even though it was like sawdust on her tongue, she leaned forward and studied the plate, poking through them until she found one of the white chocolate macadamia cookies. “I’ve got to be balanced,” she said. “You made me eat a chocolate chip, now I have to have the white chocolate.”

  She nibbled on it as she eyed him. “You going to share any of those with Alex, or am I going to stand here and be a glutton and eat all the cookies?”

  She felt a ripple roll across her skin just then, but it wasn’t from Gus. He didn’t have a lick of talent in him, unless it was the way he could look at her and make her want.

  A minute later, he glanced back behind him. “There he is. He probably smelled the chocolate.”

  “Chocolate.” Alex wedged himself in the door, and for a second, the look on his face was that of just any ordinary kid. “Where is there . . .”

  Then the words trailed off as he saw the plate. “Cookies.” He swallowed and then looked up at Gus. “She made cookies.”

  “She did.” He nodded to Vaughnne. “You should thank her.”

  Vaughnne was already a little tired of this, and if she didn’t already have an inkling about the kind of life these two had been living, she could probably find herself rather pissed off with Gus. But as the kid hurriedly stuck out his hand, she went to shake his, letting some of her puzzled smile show on her face.

  Then she stopped and frowned, swiping her hand down the side of her shorts. “I’ve got cookie crumbs on me,” she mumbled. After she’d dusted them off, she shook the kid’s hand and felt his mental fingers rooting through her mind yet again. He wasn’t as neat that time, and pain ripped through her mind.

  She barely managed to keep a grimace from showing as he broke the connection with absolutely no finesse and no care. The pain increased, and she could feel it rippling through her, growing, and growing . . .

  Dayyum, he was strong.

  Distantly, she made a mental note. This kid needed training and he needed it fast.

  Even though she’d been braced for him to do something, his blunt probe through her mind left her off balance. She felt like he’d jammed his hands inside her skull, scraped them through her gray matter like it was muck, and then just shoved her to the side. Stumbling, she tried to catch her balance on the doorjamb.