by S A Monk
He smiled at his mom, then at Hanna. “Feels nice— having two beautiful ladies waiting for me to make sure I’m okay.”
“How did it go?” his mother asked him.
Nick stepped into the light, and for the first time, Hanna saw him clearly. He was wearing the leggings to his wet suit, but he’d removed the zipped jacket, and was now wearing a short-sleeved, black t-shirt. Clothed entirely in black, he had painted his face a dark greenish color. Only his white eyeballs showed. He had a dark stocking cap on, which he removed and tossed aside. His short hair stuck out at odd angles. Self-consciously, he raked his hand through it, restoring some order to it.
“I got the place bugged and wired. Then I took a look around.”
Jessie rose from the sofa and walked up to her son. “I don’t suppose you found your little brother, did you?”
The question was so poignantly touching, it nearly broke Hanna’s heart. She heard the suppressed tears and the slender thread of hope in Jessie’s voice.
“Oh, Mom!” Nick pulled his mother into his arms. “No, I didn’t, but I will. I promise you I will.”
“But he’s been missing over four weeks now!” she cried, the sound of her anguished voice muffled against his chest.
It was such an intimate moment, Hanna almost left mother and son alone, but because she loved Jessie like a mother, she got up and went to comfort her.
Nick looked over at Hanna and caught her hand, pulling her close. “I don’t have any good answers yet, Mom, but bugging Yancy’s restaurant and house will give me some soon, I’m certain. All I can tell you is that I don’t feel like Lance is dead. I know it’s not much, but....”
Jessie put her fingers to her son’s lips. “I trust your intuition. I know how close you and Lance have always been, close enough to sense things.” She turned and gave Hanna a watery smile. “Thank you, sweetheart, for sitting with me. Feel free to spend the night. Colleen knows you’re here. She won’t worry. I’m going to bed. The wine has made me sleepy. See you in the morning, dear,” she told Nick with a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sleep in. You look tired.”
Nick returned his mother’s kiss, then watched her walk slowly up the stairs. “Good night, Mom.” When she was out of sight, he turned to Hanna and rubbed the back of his neck, clearly troubled. “Maybe I shouldn’t get her hopes up. What if I can’t find Lance?”
Hanna put her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t lose confidence, Nick. You’ve laid a lot of good ground work. I’m sure something will turn up soon.” He gazed down at her a long time, frowning, immersed in worried thought. She coaxed a smile out of him finally, a small one. “You look strange with that face paint on. Are you really under all that?” Her finger traced a short path along his high cheekbone, through the color.
“It’s camouflage paint. It keeps us shiny white boys from showing up in the dark,” he joked, moving closer until their bodies were lightly touching. “Want to kiss me?”
“Definitely not at the moment, thank you!”
He stepped back and laughed. “So, are you going to spend the night?” The husky invitation in his voice made her heart skip a beat. “You could sleep in my bed.” He let that image linger in the long silence between them, then shot her one of his typically teasing half grins. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“I better go home.”
He nodded. “Let me take a quick shower, then I’ll walk you home.”
“I can get there by myself.”
“You’ll wait for me.”
She sent him a smart salute. “All right, Colonel. Go take your shower. I’ll wait.”
Satisfied, he walked to the back of the house to use the downstairs bathroom, next to the laundry room. Hanna stretched out on the sofa on her side to wait for him, positioning a couple of loose throw pillows under her head. With a heartfelt prayer of gratitude for Nick’s safe return, she shifted until she was thoroughly comfortable. Relief washed over her draining all the tension from her body. She closed her eyes with a big sigh.
When Nick returned thirty minutes later, she was sound asleep, curled up like a contented cat, wrapped snugly in the afghan. He couldn’t bring himself to wake her.
She looked so pretty, he didn’t want to leave her. Her gold-highlighted hair spilled over her forehead to partially cover her face. Her thick rimmed glasses had slipped down her nose. Carefully, he lifted them off her face and set them on the end table, next to her head.
Returning a few moments later with a blanket for himself and a couple of pillows, he turned out the lamp, and then stretched out on the floor alongside the front of the sofa. A few minutes after he got settled, he felt Hanna’s hand land on his shoulder.
Catching it in his, he gently kissed the back of it. She murmured something unintelligible in her sleep. As he drifted off to sleep himself, he wondered if she ever dreamed about him the way he did about her.
TOM AND JERRY’S GOOD NATURED BICKERING woke Hanna from a sound sleep. Tom and Jerry? Had she been dreaming of the cartoon characters? Lord, she hadn’t watched them since she was a little girl!
She opened her eyes and realized she’d fallen asleep on Jessie’s sofa late last night. Where was Nick? He was supposed to have walked her home. He must have come out of the shower, found her asleep, and decided not to disturb her.
She was lying on her stomach, with the afghan twisted around her legs. She pushed the hair out of her eyes and squinted toward the sound of the television. Everything was its typical blur without her glasses. Extending a hand toward the floor, she was groping around for them when she came into contact with a big hard body. Startled, she peeked over the edge of the sofa.
On his back, lying on the floor, Nick gave her a drowsy smile. At least she thought it was a smile. “Hey, sleepy head,” he greeted her huskily.
Without her glasses, he was a blur. “Nick? Why are you sleeping on the floor?”
It looked like he put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.... Christopher is asleep down here, next to me. He came down about six this morning and wanted to “sumber party” with us. He turned on cartoons and promptly went back to sleep.”
Hanna could barely make out Nick, let alone his nephew. “Have you seen my glasses?”
“What are you doing up so early? No one else is awake.”
She nodded toward the T.V. “Tom and Jerry woke me up.” She looked around for her glasses. “I can’t see anything, Nick.”
He chuckled. “You don’t need to see anything. You need to go back to sleep and slumber party with us.” Before she could protest further, he snatched her around the waist and pulled her off the sofa. She fell onto the top of him with a muted squeak.
“I should go home,” she protested in a whisper, her legs entangled in the afghan that had spilled down with her.
“You should stay here with me.” His arms ensnared her, while his hands slid under her short cotton top. “I’m not getting up to walk you home this early.”
She was nearly nose to nose with him. His features finally came into focus. “Nick, I need my glasses. I can barely see you.” She wiggled in protest, but he wouldn’t let her slide off his body. His arms were like gurney straps!
Grinning at her, he pushed her hair out of her eyes, off her forehead, sweeping his fingers through the silky soft tangles. “You sure look pretty in the morning, Doctor.”
Whisper soft, his voice was disturbingly husky. He cupped her cheek in his palm. She couldn’t seem to catch a decent breath as his thumb moved slowly back and forth over her slightly parted lips.
His knee was wedged between her legs. She felt the heavy muscular pressure of his thigh between hers. Her chest was flattened on his. Both of them were wearing sweat pants and white cotton t-shirts. His contoured his muscles. Hers was pulled tight across her unrestrained breasts. Involuntarily, her nipples tightened. She knew he felt them. For one covetous moment, she ached for his big hands to slip underneath her shirt and caress them.
She tried to look away before he saw what she wanted
, but he held her face gently in place. The intimacy between them was so tangible, it almost hurt. His lips touched hers in a kiss that was like the touch of a butterfly wing. Then with a barely audible groan, he turned and rolled her off his body. Moving smoothly with her, he set her on her side to face away from him, then tucked her into the long muscular curve of his body. With one arm curled around her waist, he pulled her snugly up against him so she couldn’t retreat. Now her butt was pressed squarely against his pelvis.
The new position wasn’t any less arousing than the prior one. He was rock hard, poking against her bottom. Hanna looked over at Christopher, who was still sound asleep, not more than an arms’ length away. She wondered if she shouldn’t just go home. She squirmed a little, trying to ease away from him.
But Nick refused to release her. His warm breath stirred her hair and tickled her ear. “Lie still,” he commanded, his voice a low, sensual rumble in his chest. “It will go away eventually.”
Hanna’s entire body was on fire, and it didn’t help at all when his hand dipped into her sweat pants, just under the elastic waistband. Her breathing halted, suspended in her lungs. She was certain he could feel the faint contractions in her lower body. Oh heavens, she was dying here! And he knew what he was doing to her. She just knew he did.
“Shhh.... Relax,” he murmured into her ear, his long, rough-tipped fingers splaying wide over her abdomen. “This isn’t the right time or place. I can be a good boy— for now.”
Hanna forced herself to start breathing again— to take deep, slow breaths to ease her sexual tension; to cool her over-heated body. If she got any hotter, she was going to self-ignite.
“I just want to be close to you while you sleep.” His chest rumbled with the feel of his muted laughter. “And stop blushing. We’ve lain like this before— without any clothes on. Don’t you remember?”
Oh my! Did she remember? Every intimate detail! It had been three long lonely years since she’d given her long-held virginity to Nick Kelly, but the memory of that night was etched into her brain indelibly. She had never spoken of it to anyone. She supposed she was afraid the magic of that night would shatter if she ever made it real enough to put into words. For her, it had been a glorious dream come true. For him, it had probably just been convenient sex.
Looking back on the memory, she remembered how she had brought him home half-drunk from Yancy’s bar, saving him from a night in the local jail. Once she’d gotten him home, she’d helped him upstairs to his room and made him drink several cups of coffee. Sitting on the edge of his bed with him, she’d listened to his harrowing experience in Pakistan.
She had never seen him so torn up about anything before. The loss of so many of his men had eaten a hole in his soul.
She’d thrown her arms around him and held him tight upon hearing the pain in his voice. You couldn’t love a man the way she loved Nick Kelly, and not want to comfort him enough to chase his demons away. There had never been a time in her life when she wouldn’t have given him whatever he needed.
And it hadn’t given her a moment’s hesitation to sleep with him when he’d asked her to stay the night. She’d waited forever for him to be her first lover, anyway. After all that wanting and waiting, she’d nearly given up on her foolish dream. So when the opportunity had finally presented itself, she’d grabbed it with both hands, literally.
And Nick Kelly had been everything she had dreamed he’d be as a lover. He’d been passionate, tender, and considerate. No doubt very skilled, too, although she had no experience with which to compare him. Her knowledge of sexual relations between a man and a woman came from her medical books and her practice.
Nick had said once in a letter soon afterward that she had been special, but the truth was, she had probably been so unskilled, she had been less than thrilling. She might be his special friend, but she doubted she ranked up there with his more memorable sexual experiences.
Settling back to sleep in his arms, she remembered exactly how incredible it had felt to lay naked with him in bed all night. She’d had to go to work early the next morning, and he’d still been asleep in his rumpled bed. He’d been lying on his back, with the blankets tangled around his hips, leaving his dark-haired, muscular chest exposed. His thick lashes had been resting softly against his sun-darkened skin. The lips that had kissed every part of her the night past had been slightly parted as he breathed in and out in his deep sleep. He’d looked so unbelievably handsome and vulnerable that it had nearly been impossible to leave him.
And oh, how many times had she recalled that particular vision of him in the three years since? Sometimes, just that memory alone was all it took to start a fiery tingling between her legs. And now he was home, reigniting all that sexual tension again. Fall asleep close to her, indeed! Did he know that if he had moved his hand any lower, he would have set her off like a Fourth of July firecracker? Damn! Was he just playing with her? Like every other night in the last two weeks, she fell asleep wondering what Nick Kelly wanted from her this time.
Two hours later, Hanna was awakened once again, this time by Christopher, who was tugging on her.
“Antie Hanna, wake up, wake up!”
She opened her eyes just a little and smiled at him. “Why?”
“Cause.”
“Cause? What kind of reason is that?” Catching him around the middle, she pulled him close and tickled him. He giggled until she made him cry uncle.
Reminded of Nick, she rolled onto her back. He wasn’t on the floor, lying behind her, with his arm wrapped around her and his hand halfway down her pants any longer. Only his blanket and pillow remained. She turned her face into the pillow he’d used and took a deep breath of his lingering scent.
“Grandma make breakfast,” Christopher informed her, looking at her hugging Nick’s pillow like she was weird.
“Where’s your Uncle Nick?”
“Right here.”
The deep masculine voice made her drop the pillow guiltily and sit up. He was on the sofa, holding her glasses out for her. Damn and double damn! She was too old for this idiotic lovesick nonsense! Trying to hide her blush, she combed her fingers through her disheveled hair.
Nick leaned forward, handed her glasses to her, and whispered in her ear. “You look sexy as hell first thing in the morning, Doctor.”
“Oh yeah, right!”
“Will you hug me instead of my pillow? The real thing is better. I promise.”
Pushing to her feet, Hanna proceeded to busy herself folding the blankets. Nick chuckled.
“Breakfast is ready,” Jessie announced from the doorway to the kitchen.
Hanna jumped at the chance to escape Nick. She nearly beat Christopher to the table.
But Nick was right behind her. He pulled out her chair for her, perfectly composed and grinning wickedly. She wished she had that kind of control over her emotions. Winking at her, he then proceeded to help his mother serve breakfast. When it was all on the table, he pulled Jessie’s chair out for her, too.
“Such a gentleman, son. You learn that in the Corps?”
Nick laughed. “No, Mom. You taught Lance and me our manners.” When they were all seated, he looked at the two women at the table. “I’ve been recording whatever my bugs pick up. Things are looking up this morning.” He glanced at Christopher. “After sport goes outside to feed the dog and do his chores,” he looked pointedly at his nephew, “I’ll fill you both in.”
When Christopher left, Jessie, who looked tired and red-eyed this morning, waved Hanna and Nick off. “You two go listen to the recordings. I don’t want to hear firsthand what those thugs are up to.”
“Then leave the dishes, Jessie. I’ll clean up when we’re done,” Hanna told her. “Go have coffee with Colleen.” She handed Nick’s mother a fresh cup of coffee and urged her out the back door. When the older woman was gone, she looked over at Nick. “Colleen will help lighten her spirits. Your poor mom is going to get sick with all this worrying. We have to find Lance soon.”
Nick nodded, as concerned as Hanna. “Let’s go upstairs so you can listen to what I’ve picked up so far.”
Considering her thoughts this morning about him, she wasn’t sure how smart it was to follow him into his bedroom, but she was anxious to hear what he had picked up with his high tech bugging devices.
Inside, his double oak bed was neatly made up, testimony to the fact that he hadn’t slept in it last night. There was a big pile of clothes on the bed, though. Laundry day apparently.
He pointed her toward an oak desk on which he had a laptop computer and a bunch of other electronic gadgets. She recognized some of the things she’d already seen him use. There was also a small parabolic dish of some sort, sitting on his window sill, pointed toward the northeast. Below it, there were a printer and a recording unit.
“Are these all your spy toys?”
“Tools of the intelligence gathering business.” He smiled back at her like a little boy with a chest full of special things. “Sophisticated toys.”
“Your laptop looks odd,” she commented. “It looks like a small briefcase.”
Nick typed in a message that brought up a screen of transcript. “It’s a military model we use in the field. It does all the things your laptop will do, just a few more, and it’s made to withstand rugged conditions like cold and heat, water and dust. You can drop it, jump with it, read it at night so the light isn’t visible to the enemy, and link all kinds of gadgets up to it, and the network is satellite driven and very secure. Standard military operational stuff.”
“Right,” she said with a lift of one eyebrow. “Just your normal spy model.”
Nick pointed to the screen. “This is a written log or transcript of what I’ve recorded so far off the bugs I planted at Yancy’s restaurant and house.”
He let her read it for a bit, then summarized for her. “As you can see, Sheriff Thomas has been in frequent contact with Yancy. He’s not happy about the girl that died of an overdose— your patient from last Friday. He doesn’t mention your brother, but he does tell Yancy they can’t afford to have any more slip-ups, like the one they had last month. He might be talking about Dylan’s death. He tells Yancy his mules shouldn’t have gone out to the pickup site until after dark.”