Healing Heather

by Aiki Flinthart

  ‘Thank y—’ She broke off, then gasped and wrenched free of Torin. Her cheek was pale, her eyes shadowed. She sagged against Logan and he held her close.

  ‘Mr O’Connor,’ Logan said, ushering Rowan to the door, ‘we appreciate your help and discretion. Call if you have any questions about the file.’

  Rowan paused at the exit. Her expression was grave when she addressed Torin.

  ‘Mr O’Connor.’ Her jaw sharpened.

  ‘Rowan, don’t,’ Logan said.

  She ignored him and continued, ‘When your partner finds that woman, he’s going to need your help. Keep your chopper on standby.’

  ‘How—’

  She spoke over Torin’s query. ‘But she’s going to need your help, too. She’s…important. To both of you. Take care of her. She’s in great danger.’ Rowan spoke in a rush. ‘If you don’t, she’ll die.’

  ‘But how—’

  She cut him off with a sharp gesture. ‘And I think our cases might…possibly…be connected.’ She made a frustrated noise. ‘I’m not sure. I can’t see—’

  ‘Rowan!’ Logan’s low-voiced warning stopped her mid-sentence.

  Sending Torin a piercing look, she added, ‘When he finds her, if she survives, call us. She’ll need us.’

  After they left, Torin drummed on the desk phone, debating whether to call Kade. But what could he say? “A teenager has predicted some weird shit would happen when you find Carleton’s target?” He uttered a mirthless laugh and left the phone unused.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HEATHER

  The sensation of being watched tingled at the nape of Heather’s neck, overriding her pleasure in a warm autumn day and a decent cup of coffee. The feeling was too strong to ignore any longer. She sipped her coffee, brushed aside a strand of straight blonde hair and eyed the other café patrons with feigned casualness.

  An elderly couple bickering over the price of breakfast; a pretty young college student texting while her impatient boyfriend watched on; the waiter, yawning already at eight in the morning. No one special. She made a show of rubbing her neck as if to ease sore muscles, then twisted her head to look around.

  There. Leaning against a pole near the counter. A tall man, observing her with covert interest and admiration. Sunglasses on his head framed a strong, angular face and light grey eyes, narrowed against the morning glare. Auburn highlights glinted in dark brown hair. He exuded an aura of strength, sexual potency and leashed energy that matched his muscular frame. One hand was jammed casually into the rear pocket of his jeans, the other held his phone.

  Accidentally catching his gaze, Heather looked away in polite disinterest, hiding her relief. She sipped her coffee. Admirers she could ignore. She was jumpy today, that was all. Sensing danger where there should be none. Her skin prickled with anticipation of…something. Perhaps Angela or Carmelita would call today. They were both due to. Then she would have something to do other than sit around and wait and worry. It would be better if this weren’t her day off work. At least at work she was too busy to worry.

  She swiped a page of the online news and tried to ignore the miserable headlines. War, famine, death. Why did she bother? What difference did she make in this stupid, self-destructive world anyway?

  Sighing, she tilted her head to catch the warm sunshine, to draw a breath of soft air that hinted at mown grass and flowers, letting the end-of-summer’s bounty of life restore her own. She couldn’t afford to think like that. She did what she could and made a tiny difference to a few people. That’s all she could ask of herself. All anyone could ask.

  A shadow fell across the table.

  Her handsome admirer from the counter blocked the sun. She squinted to better study his light-haloed face.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, shading her eyes. My lord, but he was handsome. Tanned, dark-haired with the most intelligent, grey eyes she’d ever seen. His lips curved in a quirky smile that invited trust.

  He gripped the back of the chair opposite, his strong hands wrapped around the gleaming metal. Broad shoulders, lean hips, long legs. Casually dressed in jeans, sneakers and a grey sports shirt. Radiating confidence and humour. Her heartrate jumped.

  ‘I was standing over there. Noticed you.’ His voice was deep and slightly rough—like he’d spent too long yelling at a football game the night before.

  Heather shivered, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Tension coiled in her stomach and her feet moved to gain purchase on the rough, brick-paved ground beneath her chair. This was what she had been anticipating.

  Him.

  But the sense of him wasn’t only the red-gold of sexual attraction; it held the darker blood tinge of potential anger as well. She repressed her instinctive reaction to run. It never helped. Instead, she opted for flirty, knowing it to be expected.

  Flicking him coyness from beneath her lashes, she said, ‘I noticed.’

  The man shifted his position. He crossed one arm over his chest and rested an elbow on it, stroking his jaw with long fingers.

  ‘You remind me of someone. Do I know you?’

  Heather gathered her handbag into one fist beneath the table. ‘That has to be the oldest pickup line in the book.’ She tried to recall the area around the café. Alleys. Little hidden shops. Somewhere to disappear.

  ‘Sorry.’ He raised both palms, submissive. ‘Not trying to be stalkerey. Let me start again.’ He grinned and, in spite of her distraction, Heather noted the sheer force of his charm—and refused to succumb to it. He stuck out a hand. ‘I’m Kade Miller.’

  Heather froze. Touching was risky. Something she rarely did with anyone. She stayed still. Surely he would get the message? He kept his arm extended, apparently oblivious to the idiocy of his position.

  Reluctantly, Heather touched the tips of her fingers to his. He grasped her entire palm in a warm, tight grip that rocked her senses. A sharp tingling coursed through her arm, shooting from the centre of her body, sucking resistance from her.

  She jumped to her feet, trying to pull free. He didn’t let go. Her knees weakened and she tugged harder. Glancing up, she made the mistake of meeting his eyes and saw her nemesis in their cool grey depths.

  He knew.

  The tingling sensation grew stronger. Her knees weakened and his eyes widened. She clutched at the chair, head swimming. He was stronger than she. Needy. Hurting. Angry. Wanting her on many levels. Taking more and more when she couldn’t afford to take back.

  She had to break this contact.

  Wrenching free, she scooped up her sunglasses. ‘Nice meeting you. Running late. Sorry. Have my table. Bye.’

  She spun on one heel, striding as rapidly as her shaking legs would permit, out of the café. Once outside the planter-box border, she turned left without hesitation. She knew he followed at a distance. It didn’t worry her. He would be easy to lose. She’d had a lot of practice.

  The taste of him, though, that lingered in her mind. That would be harder to shake.

  Settling into her little car, she paused. Unexpected tears formed. One of her contacts shifted, tinging the world a weird brown. She blotted the tears away before the darned thing came out altogether.

  This just wasn’t fair. When did she get a break? Or was she destined to die young, like her mother? Giving too much. Never finding love. Worn out at 30.

  Heather clenched her teeth and jammed the car into gear. Wallowing was for idiots. Time to run.

  Again.

  Driving at a smart pace, she checked for tails several times; taking odd and devious turns before feeling certain she was no longer being followed. He was good. She was better. She’d been doing this a long, long time.

  Then she found a mechanic who’d been recommended by a friend of a client. At his tiny, oily shop she did some sharp haggling before catching a taxi into the middle of town. Nothing like a mall to shake any remaining tagalongs.

  At the mall she mingled with the mindless masses, shopping with apparent randomness but with serious inte
nt—hopefully belied by her vague smile and blonde, doll-perfect looks. Finally, after once more checking for unwelcome tails, she ducked into a high-traffic bathroom and, to all intents and purposes, disappeared.

  KADE MILLER

  Kade smacked a tiled wall in frustration. She’d given him the slip—again. Damn!

  He’d lost her in the maze of back streets behind the café, and had almost abandoned hope when a phone call from Luke, who was staking out the mall, had sent him hightailing it over to that end of town. She was good. Too good.

  He suspected the reason he’d been able to follow her around the mall was that she thought she’d lost any tails in the car. Even then, she’d almost tricked him three times in the busy shopping centre. Luckily, some sixth sense kept drawing his attention, wherever she went. Then that had failed him.

  Now she was gone.

  It didn’t make sense.

  He reviewed the situation.

  He’d spotted Meagan O’Hara sitting at the café, as she did each morning. For three days previously, her morning routine had been unvaried. She rose at six am, did some strenuous yoga and martial arts exercises in her living room, showered, and went to the café for a breakfast of fruit, yoghurt and coffee. Then she went to her day job as a midwife in an obstetrics clinic. Nothing unusual.

  It was her other activities that interested both Kade and Andrew Carleton. The ones that put young women in danger. The clandestine, illegal ones. Life threatening ones. But he couldn’t kidnap her in broad daylight, and was reluctant to move on her without proof of criminal activity.

  Meeting Carleton had inspired Kade with loathing and an inclination to protect anyone the man’s lascivious gaze fell on.

  So far, Meagan O’Hara had done nothing illegal. He’d followed her on ten legitimate house calls to pregnant women. But that was all.

  Finally, frustration had got to him. Or perhaps he had given in to the stupid, insane desire to talk to her that had fizzed in him since seeing her photo. One examination of those big brown eyes haunting him from a fuzzy photo, and he’d taken a job he’d already decided to reject. He still didn’t know why.

  She seemed to be somewhere in her late twenties, tall, ordinary, and too-slender. Lush mouth, but a face easy to miss in a crowd. Hard to believe she was a killer; even harder to believe he was attracted to a woman who was quite possibly a murderer.

  He’d expected the job to take only a few days to complete. Andrew Carleton’s information had been sketchy at best: two known aliases and addresses with only that one candid, slightly blurry, photograph. But he’d dealt with less.

  Of course, the job was made harder when she’d dyed her hair from brown to blonde, even if that did make her delicate features and creamy skin more obvious. But he’d picked up her last known trail in Phoenix and followed her fairly easily to Oklahoma City, where he’d spoken to several of her bewildered legitimate clients after she left town. No leads.

  They all agreed: one day, she’d vanished.

  She was good at hiding, Kade had to give her that. Professional-level good. It made her seemingly-innocuous daytime activities all the more suspicious in his book. He’d tracked her to a medical centre in Nashville, figuring her work as a midwife would be the link in each city, even if her name and appearance changed.

  Now, after only a measly three days of surveillance, he’d given in to his libidinous desires and spoken to her. Stupid. Unprofessional. Unnecessary.

  And look what it had got him. She was gone. And he had to start all over again. Neither Torin nor Carleton would be impressed with him. Hell, he wasn’t impressed with himself.

  With absent habit, Kade flexed a stiff shoulder but a lingering ache of the old injury was gone for once. He went to find a quiet place to report his blunder and plan his next move. At least he’d managed to get a decent photo of her.

  Studying the brown-eyed blonde who smiled out of the image in his phone, Kade grinned. She had that effect on him.

  He dialled Tor’s number. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said, not even bothering with a greeting. ‘I lost her.’

  ‘Shit,’ Tor’s deep voice ground out. ‘Carleton is already breathing down my neck. We’re out of retainer money and he wasn’t thrilled when I asked for more last time.’

  Kade glared at a random woman who bumped him as she passed by in the mall. She flipped the bird at him and he chuckled.

  ‘I’ll do this next find for free, Tor. This woman is too damned good to be an amateur. I don’t like Carleton any more than you, but I think he’s right to be suspicious. She’s hiding something.’

  Torin paused then groaned. ‘Fine. You’re on your own, then. I’ll have to take out Luke and Allison to put them onto the Finn Andvarisson case. Those clients need him found asap.’

  ‘Fair call,’ Kade replied. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

  HEATHER

  ‘It’s ok Juanita. You’re doing great.’ Heather checked on the woman. Woman—what a joke. Juanita was barely sixteen, her beautiful, brown face twisted in pain and fear; her skin sheened with perspiration. Her thin hands twisted the colourful blanket draped across her distended stomach. The smell of blood on the bed mingled with the rich scent of spicy cooking that drifted in from the kitchen next door in the tiny, two-room flat. Juanita gave a screaming sob and overhead someone thumped three times on the ceiling, cursing audibly through the thin boards.

  Heather refocussed on her job. It wasn’t her place to condemn a frightened sixteen year old for having sex, for getting pregnant, for being too poor to go to hospital. It was her job to help with the birth.

  The baby’s head crowned and Heather nodded at Juanita’s mother.

  ‘Get ready.’ She spoke in Spanish, since the soon-to-be-grandmother didn’t speak English. ‘Juanita, I’ve got the baby. Don’t push for a minute while I position him for the shoulders to come out.’ Damn. Her fingers encountered the umbilical cord, wrapped around the baby’s little neck. It wasn’t tight yet, but it would be once the shoulders were clear. She’d have to work fast to make sure the baby didn’t lose circulation and die.

  Not again, please. She sent a silent plea to whatever deity happened to be listening. After fifteen years of this, it was hard to believe in any at all.

  ‘Ok. His shoulders are almost clear. One more big push and we’ll be done.’

  Juanita, sobbed, tears smearing her cheeks. ‘I can’t. I can’t.’

  Heather wavered, torn between comforting and encouraging the mother, and forcing her to squeeze again for fear of the baby’s life. She cast a pleading look at the grandmother, who set her jaw. A sharp smack echoed as the plump Mexican woman brought the flat of her palm across her daughter’s cheek and told her not to be lazy.

  In a less dire situation, Heather would have laughed at the shock from the young girl. Crying and snuffling, Juanita took a deep breath and grunted once more. The baby slid into Heather’s gloved hands, his face beginning to blue.

  She unwound the cord, her actions steady in spite of the adrenalin spiking through her gut. There was no time to wait for the cord to stop pulsing. She clamped and cut it. Wrapping the baby in swaddling, she shielded him with her body; the two women mustn’t see what she was going to try next.

  Would it work, though?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HEATHER

  She stripped off a glove and felt the baby’s chest, concentrating as she pressed with more than just her fingers. A tiny cough from newly opened lungs. A thin wail echoed through the apartment, then a delighted sob from the new mother when she heard her baby’s first cry. The tiny boy was perfectly ok.

  Heather returned to the girl, hiding the weakness in her legs as she placed the baby on his mother’s breast. And there it was: that look of awe, of unbelieving wonder, of pride and humility. Fresh tears streaked both Juanita’s and her mother’s cheeks and they examined the baby. Juanita’s mother murmured praise and reassurance, stroking her daughter’s sweat-soaked hair.

  Heather app
lied herself to the job of checking the placenta was intact, and cleaning up.

  An hour later, mother and baby asleep, Heather emerged into the cool midnight air and dragged in a deep, relieved breath. Her shoulders slumped and she stumbled the few steps to her car and climbed in. A light autumn rain soaked the asphalt into a blurry, dark mirror, reflecting streetlights. The streets were almost empty at this hour, which was good. She was so tired she wasn’t sure she could cope with traffic.

  Each difficult birth took more of a toll than it used to. The drain to her energy levels outweighed the renewals three to one. Maybe it was time she took a break. Didn’t she deserve one? Hadn’t she sworn never to become like her mother—grey and broken by the age of thirty-five; dead of exhaustion by thirty-seven?

  Here she was, twenty-seven and life hadn’t changed since she was eleven. The only difference was that now the responsibility was on her shoulders, instead of her mother’s. The job of midwifery was hers to carry on. Could she really quit, knowing how many women needed her?

  She sighed, switched on the ignition, and drove to her apartment. After parking, Heather pulled her coat close and hurried through the sleeting wind to the barred glass of her shabby apartment block. Toeing aside a little pile of plastic wrappers and drink cans, she tried the door handle. Locked. A cold wind slipped between buildings and twisted around her body and she shivered. She fumbled amongst her keys for the one to the grille, her fingers made clumsy by fatigue and cold.

  A shadow detached itself from the wall and imposed on her space. It was a measure of her exhaustion that she didn’t register a threat.

  ‘Meagan O’Hara?’

  Heather jumped. Panic sheeted through her system and she raised both arms in automatic self-defence. But the man stayed half-hidden in the darkened corner of the doorway and some of her initial fear dissipated. Finally, the words he’d spoken triggered a response. Sense reasserted itself and she shaped a denial.