Upon seeing him, Laura sagged against the wall. “Griffin,” she breathed out shakily.
Not wanting to spook her, he walked slowly toward her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, still training the weapon on him. The gun wobbled.
He went to one knee in front of her, careful not to move quickly. “You can put the gun down now.”
“Someone’s here.”
“No. He ran off. There’s no one else.” Griffin lifted her chin so she would look into his eyes. “I promise.”
“How did they find me? Could it have been Joy’s burner phone?”
“I think so.” Griffin didn’t like that, but at least he knew what had become of the missing phone. And now that he was aware, they could take precautions.
“I heard noises. Like gunshots.”
“I think it was the water pump shorting out. The intruder probably torched it to create a diversion. You’re safe.” He eased the Walther from her hand and put the weapon to the side.
She was wan, her mouth pinched white with pain. She shook as if she were in subzero temperature.
“You’re hurting?” He gently moved a strand of hair out of her eyes. “The injection?”
She nodded, moving as if to get up.
“Here.” Shifting his weight, Griffin carefully slid one arm beneath her legs and one around her back.
She clutched at his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you somewhere more comfortable.”
She relaxed against him as he carried her to the black leather sofa and eased her into a sitting position.
She still trembled and all Griffin cared about was helping her. He grabbed a cream-colored throw from the back of his couch and drew it around her as gently as he could. Even so, she winced when his hand brushed her arm.
“How about some ibuprofen?”
“Maybe in a minute.” She inched closer as if she didn’t want him to move.
That was fine with him. He leaned close, her breath tickling his jaw. “You’re still shaking. Do you want another blanket?”
“No,” she mumbled.
“Are the side effects supposed to get worse than this?”
“I hope not.”
He wished she could stop taking the shots, but that wasn’t a possibility. Not one she would consider, anyway.
He drew in her fresh soap scent. “What happened earlier?”
“I heard a loud crack, then another. I came down here and there were more noises. Louder, closer. You said you saw someone.”
“A man. Didn’t get a good look.”
“Did he make it inside the house?”
“No.” Griffin explained about the security bars.
He reached across her lap for the remote and pointed it toward the bank of security monitors. “Look at the displays. There’s no one on the property now.”
She moved her head so she could see the screens. Her hair brushed the back of his hand and the strands were like silk. He had to make an effort not to lean in. Irritated at himself, he rewound the footage for each camera.
Different views flashed by as he studied the screens. Finally, he saw the man approaching the house and disappearing into the pump room. Because there was no access to the house from there, Griffin hadn’t installed mechanized security bars on that door. There was a popping noise, then a small explosion. At the sound, Laura started.
He gestured toward the monitor. “What you heard was the pump blowing a fuse before it ignited.”
“I did smell smoke.”
He nodded.
Her blue eyes were cloudy with discomfort. “Once I heard the noises, I came down here and called you.”
“You followed your instincts, which is exactly what you should’ve done.”
She shifted, which fitted her more snugly under his arm. “Did you find out anything new?”
“We can talk about that in a minute.” Griffin liked having her so close. “Can I get you anything? Water? Juice? Crackers?”
“No, thank you.” She seemed fragile, weary. “I feel a little better. Did you speak to the motorcycle owner?”
He nodded, debating about how much, if anything, to tell her. He’d wanted to wait until she was past these symptoms, but she plainly didn’t. “There’s no connection between him and Arrico. Ghost did find a link between the bike owner and Pastor Hughes. They know each other from the prison ministry at the Oklahoma County Jail and that’s the extent of it. Before I headed home, I stopped by the office to run ballistics on the bullets from the parking garage.”
“And?” Her gaze fastened on him.
“They matched a registered gun, but it was reported stolen about five years ago and nothing has come up about it since.”
“So that’s a dead end.”
“Yes.”
“Did you learn anything else from your visit with the bike owner?”
“I did get something.” They were talking about the job, but none of this felt professional to Griffin any longer. Right now, with her delicate shoulder beneath his hand, it felt personal.
“Because he lives in an apartment, he asked Pastor Hughes if he could put the motorcycle in his garage for a few days while he went to visit his mother in Dallas.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why didn’t he just ride his motorcycle down there?”
“Icy roads south of the Oklahoma border. Our weathermen forecasted the same. We just didn’t get it this time.”
To say Oklahoma weather was unpredictable was an understatement.
“He left the keys in the ignition in case Hughes needed to move the bike for any reason.”
Her eyes widened. “So Hughes very well could’ve taken the motorcycle out that afternoon.”
“Or any other time he chose,” Griffin confirmed.
“Maybe we’re closing in on the person who tried to shoot you.”
“I hope so.” Griffin thought she seemed a little more steady, but he wasn’t quite ready to let go of her.
He tried to get his mind back on track, focus only on the case.
She glanced up at him, tears welling in her eyes. One slipped down her cheek. “I was really afraid that Vin’s goon was going to get to me.”
“But he didn’t.” Griffin thumbed away the wetness, taken with the dewy perfection of her skin. “Lucky for him, because you looked like you knew what to do with that gun.”
A faint smile curved her lips. “I had a good teacher.”
“Do you think you could’ve used it if you’d needed to?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.” Oddly enough, he felt a flare of pride at that.
“It’s all thanks to you.” She lifted a hand to his face and Griffin’s fingers automatically curled around her wrist.
He meant to move her hand away, but he couldn’t make himself do it. Slowly, she leaned toward him and Griffin went still.
She brushed his lips with hers and he lowered his head even as he told himself to draw away. He nudged her closer. The kiss was soft and fiery at the same time, something he had never experienced. And shouldn’t be experiencing now.
Somehow he found the presence of mind to break the kiss. There was a flash of hurt in her face before she masked it. “Since I’ll be leaving in a little over seventy-two hours, I guess there was no point in that.”
“No,” he said hoarsely, even though he badly wanted to kiss her again.
“We can’t do it again,” she said.
“No.” That seemed to be all he could say at the moment.
He wanted more, wanted to at least explore what might have been between them, but in a few days she would disappear from his life and into a new one of her own.
Cheeks pink, she looked away. “I think I’m able to walk now.”
“All right.” Relief mixed with frustration. “Let’s get you back upstairs.”
She still trembled, but not as violently as before. He rose and held out a hand. She let him help her up, then preceded him to the stairs.
&
nbsp; As she moved slowly up the steps, she muttered, “I’m not sorry.”
Griffin didn’t think he was supposed to hear that. He wasn’t sorry, either, even though the kiss had been a mistake.
He wasn’t kidding himself any longer. When he’d gotten her phone call about the intruder, his heart had constricted hard. If something had happened to her…
He stopped the thought. She was a client, a job. He had to remember that.
But professional was the last thing Griffin felt when he was with her. Still, that didn’t mean he had to act on it.
*
Never, in any of her relationships, had Laura kissed a man before he’d kissed her.
As shocked as she’d been, she thought Griffin had been more surprised. His face, usually so inscrutable, had been easy to read. He’d felt the connection between them. Even so, both knew it could go no further. Maybe that was why Laura couldn’t make herself regret kissing him.
Afterward he’d wanted to put some space between them, and she’d known they should.
She’d napped for a couple of hours and felt much better when she woke. Though she still had some discomfort, she was no longer nauseous, and though her bones ached, they didn’t burn as deeply as they had before. She walked into the kitchen. The house was quiet and she wondered if Griffin was downstairs in the Batcave.
She wasn’t sure she was ready to face him after planting that kiss on him. Maybe she would just wait for him to come upstairs.
The door from the garage opened and he walked in, his USMC T-shirt and gray shorts soaked in sweat. His gaze crashed into hers. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”
“You didn’t. Not really.” She sounded breathless, which she didn’t understand. Should she apologize for kissing him even though she wasn’t sorry? “You’ve been running?”
“Yeah.” He dragged a forearm across his perspiring forehead. “Got my ten miles in.”
Ten miles. Even if she’d liked jogging, Laura didn’t think she would’ve been able to make ten miles. Of course, he was a SEAL. That was probably nothing to him.
He walked over to the sink, grabbed a glass from the cabinet next to the kitchen sink and filled it with water from the tap. He downed the liquid in about three gulps. He refilled the glass and took another swallow before turning to face her. “Want some?”
“No, thanks.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better.” She couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “Cooped up, actually.”
“I’d be going stir-crazy.” He studied her for a moment. “I was headed to the barn to finish my workout, if you’d like to walk down with me?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly, anxious to move, to get out of the house for any reason. “If you’re sure I won’t be in your way.”
“You won’t.”
They went down the hall past the guest bedroom and then through his room, where Laura had never been. The area was spacious with a king-size bed, a matching tallboy dresser and nightstands on either side of the bed. A navy comforter and a matching valance over the French doors were the only color in the room. Combined with the dark wood, the decor pegged the room as completely masculine.
Laura paused at the French doors then she followed Griffin out. They stepped onto a back porch furnished with four seasoned rocking chairs that looked out on a small pond. Brittle cracked grass edged the water, which glittered like murky glass in the afternoon sun.
Yesterday it had been storming with a brisk north wind. Today it was nearly fifty degrees, the sun was shining and the wind was relatively calm.
Laura smiled. She had actually missed the crazy weather here.
She followed Griffin around the corner of the house to a long attached room. Opening the door, he motioned her to look inside.
“This is where the water pump is kept, along with a propane tank hookup and generator.”
“This is just above the Batcave,” she said.
He nodded. “That’s why the sounds were so loud when the pump shorted out and caught fire. It’s fixed now. I worked on it while you were resting.”
The smell of smoke lingered in the air. Griffin guided her out the door and locked it. “I just wanted you to know where everything happened earlier. And to tell you that if the power goes out, the generator will kick on.”
“Thanks.”
“Ready?”
She nodded, walking with him down a path that cut through a pasture of winter-brown grass.
He glanced at her. “I found out that Arrico’s attorney has a birthmark on his left wrist and it spreads to the back of his hand. Could that have been what you saw that day?”
“Yes.” She tried to rein in her excitement. “Everything happened so fast. All I really got was an impression. So this Thompson fellow could really be the guy who tried to kill me.”
“Could be. I had Ghost check his whereabouts during the attack on you at the hospital. Thompson didn’t have a case on the docket at the courthouse during that time. Nor was he in his office.”
She knew that didn’t prove anything, but she couldn’t stop a jolt of excitement.
“Ghost also hacked into Thompson’s cell phone records to try and use the GPS coordinates to track him, but the phone was off.”
“Maybe because he was in the ladies’ room at the hospital,” she muttered.
“Or maybe because he was in a deposition. Or at a doctor’s appointment.”
“Or anywhere else he would’ve had to turn off his phone,” she finished, irked by the possibility. At least Griffin had a lead. That was something.
Would she get any answers before she left? Laura tried to temper her impatience, tried to still the frustration sawing at her. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Sure,” he said as they started down the hill. “Joy came back after church to change clothes. She didn’t want to wake you.”
“She left a note saying Sydney was taking her to the rehab hospital for her volunteer shift. Is that the hospital where she met you?”
“Yeah.”
Laura walked briskly to keep up with his long strides. It felt good to be outside. She loved not having to feel on guard every second. “Have you ever gone to church with Joy?” Laura asked.
“No.”
“Do you attend anywhere?”
“No.” He glanced at her, his eyes guarded. “Do you?”
“I found a church I really liked in Pueblo.” They topped a small rise. Laura could see the barn in a clearing ahead. “Guess I’ll have to find another one wherever I end up.”
She really didn’t want to think about her next identity, her next residence. “Did you know the people who lived here before?”
“No.” He seemed to relax when she changed the subject. “The seller was an older gentleman who’d just lost his wife.”
“And this was a farm?”
“Yes.”
“Did all of this land belong to him?”
Griffin nodded as they approached the barn. From several yards away, she could see that the weathered wood still had a hint of red paint. The afternoon sun gave the structure an old-world charm. Double doors slid open to reveal an interior wide enough to accommodate a vehicle. Or the battle-scarred buckboard wagon parked along the west wall.
The pitched roof came to a point on both ends, providing an awning of sorts for the doors that opened to the loft. A couple of small windows on each side let in the light. The scent of leaves and grass drifted on the breeze as Laura and Griffin came to a halt inside the barn. Straw littered the dirt floor. A sturdy but crude-looking ladder was propped against the wall.
She looked around, taking in the neatly kept interior, the perfectly placed tools on a pegboard on the wall. Dust motes floated in the patches of sunlight. “It’s a neat old barn, but it’s not high-tech like your Batcave. You didn’t want to get rid of it when you bought this place?”
“No.” He glanced around, a fond look on his face. “Never even crossed my mind. It’s been standing here in t
his same place longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere. Makes me feel permanent, I guess.”
Probably not only because he’d likely been gone more than he’d been home as a SEAL, but also because of his childhood spent in foster homes.
“I like it the way it is. I keep it maintained, like the ladder and the roof, the loft, but mostly I leave it alone.”
She could see why. It had a certain charm, a peace about it, away from the hectic pace of most people’s lives. As her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, she spied a worn leather speed bag hanging in one of the stalls. In the opposite corner of that space was a traditional heavy punching bag. A pair of large boxing gloves hung on a wall peg and an aged, beat-up trunk sat below against the wall.
“You have quite a setup down here.” She smiled. “Are you a boxer?”
“It’s something I do to let off steam.”
She had some steam she could have let off right now, if she’d had any strength in her arms. She walked over to the boxing gloves, admiring the brown-and-white faded leather. “You’ve had these awhile.”
“Yeah, they’ve been around.”
Next to her hands, they looked like gorilla mitts.
Griffin walked over to her and knelt, opening the trunk. He pulled out a much smaller pair and handed them to her. The dark gloves were discolored from age. “Here, try these.”
“I wish I’d known how to do this when I lived with Vin.”
He frowned at the mention of her ex.
“Where did you get these?”
“They were mine as a kid.”
And he still had them. Interesting. She grinned when one worn-out glove slipped over her hand.
“I don’t think I could keep these on long enough to do any damage. How do you put these on by yourself?”
“You can’t. I use gloves with Velcro straps when I’m working out by myself.” He tipped his chin toward her hands. “These were the first gloves I had. Got them out of the trash one day after school. Let me lace them.”
She turned her hands palm-up and he gathered the strings.
As he worked to unknot the laces, she noticed something on his inner wrist. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
She realized what it was. Her SEAL had a tattoo. “You have a tattoo.”
Love Inspired Suspense May 2015 #2 Page 30