by Nicole Hall
“I met Alex in training. He was my only competition for top marks in class.”
Sabine had mentioned something about Alex being in the Army, but honestly, Lindsey had only been half paying attention. She allowed herself a leisurely perusal of his body. Damn, the man had some fine assets. His shoulders were almost as big as his ego. Either way, she wasn’t about to let the towel thief here think he’d finally impressed her.
Lindsey tossed the damp towel over one shoulder and sent him a knowing smile. “Clown school?”
To her surprise, he laughed. A rough sound that came from his belly and did funny things to her insides. Most guys with that much confidence didn’t appreciate her delicate wit.
“You could call it that. U.S. Army. Cyber warfare division.”
All joking aside, Lindsey had a solid respect for anyone willing to put their life on the line for the protection of everyone else. “Thank you for your service. Are you on leave?”
Dax leaned against the rail where he’d retreated and crossed his arms. “That’s two questions, but I’ll allow it. No, I served my term. And now for you.”
She tensed, expecting him to repeat his earlier request. “Go ahead.”
“Where are you injured?”
Lindsey pressed her lips together and mulled over his restraint before answering. She didn’t talk about cases, but she could answer him without revealing any details. “Back of my left shoulder. Blunt force trauma put a kink in the muscles.”
“Anywhere else?”
“Not today.”
“Good to know. I’ve been told I have talented hands if you need someone to ease the ache.”
His smile offered mischief, but Lindsey dismissed the promise there as careless arrogance.
“I think you’ve done enough with your hands.” She hadn’t meant it as a barb, but his slight flinch made it clear he’d taken it that way.
Dax inclined his head. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
The apology made her reassess her assumption. Careless arrogance would make him easier to disregard, but that didn’t seem to be his style. He’d found a way to get the information he wanted without pushing her to give more than she was willing, and he’d taken responsibility when it wasn’t necessary. The distinction made him all the more appealing, much to her frustration.
“Not your fault. You didn’t know.”
“You should have told me. I would’ve been gentler with you.” The playfulness had left his tone, and even from across the deck, she could see he intended to hold on to the blame. Lindsey didn’t want him assigning her the role of damsel in distress. She could take care of herself.
“I got the towel, didn’t I?” With a parting smirk, she sauntered into the house.
She’d ice her shoulder later. For now, all she needed was a shower and a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Unfortunately, sleep would have to wait. Lindsey gazed longingly at the neatly made bed in the guest room Sabine had assigned her. With the Dax drama, she’d forgotten that she’d left all her bags in her SUV. Her go-pack only held the bikini she currently wore and a change of undies. What were the chances her surprise roommate would be lingering near the front door?
As if on cue, the sound of water running in their shared bathroom answered her question. Like her, Dax had opted for a shower. Unlike her, he seemed to have unpacked already. Awesome.
Still in her bikini, Lindsey marched downstairs and outside to her pride and joy. She traveled all over the country, and she needed a vehicle that could keep up. One that had the latest GPS and front seats that reclined all the way back.
The dark grey SUV was the first thing she’d saved up for after finishing her criminal justice degree, and it had served her well until she’d traded it in for the newest model last year. Unlike the last one, this version didn’t have the cage in the backseat for her quarry.
Dax had made an assumption that she retrieved people who skipped bail—and she had, for years—but that wasn’t entirely accurate anymore. She’d started with people, but her real talent lay with finding missing objects. Honestly, she preferred it that way since priceless family heirlooms generally didn’t try to kick out her back windows. Bonus: she didn’t have to stay in one state for years to make the licensing worth it.
Once she’d made the right contacts, there was no shortage of work. Hunting people paid well, but hunting trinkets paid better. Any time she got nostalgic, a metal pipe to the back was more than enough to remind her why she’d transitioned.
The nomadic lifestyle suited her. Since leaving home at eighteen, she’d had the itch to move. Before, even. Her mom had done more than enough to destroy any urge to put down roots. Nothing like constant belittlement to convince a young girl home was the last place she wanted to be.
Lindsey grabbed her two duffel bags from the back, then pivoted, wincing when the gravel dug into her bare feet. The hairs on her arms stood up as she stopped and surveyed the overgrown yard surrounded by forest. No one on the main road could see this far past the trees, but she became acutely aware of her lack of clothing anyway. Nothing stirred, but she still felt like she was being watched.
She turned and checked the front windows of the two-story farmhouse, but all were empty. Dax’s bedroom overlooked the back of the property, just like hers. It was possible he could be spying on her from the living room or the master, despite Sabine’s assurances. In Lindsey’s experience, people usually didn’t know their friends nearly as well as they thought they did.
Lindsey dropped one of the bags and slammed the back hatch closed. Movement in the lower left window caught her eye, and she shook her head. She hadn’t noticed the cat sitting in the shadows until it startled at the noise.
Suspicions assuaged, she hurried inside. The sound of the shower further confirmed that Dax probably hadn’t snuck out naked to watch her retrieve her bags. Lindsey sighed at her quick jump to the worst possible conclusion. The constant skepticism was something she’d been working on, with little success.
The shower shut off with Lindsey halfway up the steps, and she treated herself to the memory of water sluicing down his abs to parts lower. Wrestling with Dax on the back deck had felt weirdly comfortable, as if she’d known him a lot longer than an hour. Lindsey liked him—what she knew of him—but she also knew people were made to disappoint.
How long before Dax disappointed her?
Lindsey hadn’t told anyone about the voice or the light, and especially not about the fire she was pretty sure she’d accidentally caused with her mind. The fire department had blamed faulty wiring, but she’d been right there when it started. No wires had been involved.
Sabine encouraged her to trust Dax, but even Sabine didn’t know the truth. And she was probably Lindsey’s closest friend. Besides, how could he possibly help her when all the evidence pointed to either latent mutant powers or mental illness? Both of those she could handle on her own, thanks very much.
Lindsey dropped her bags next to her bed and turned to close the door, but a sleek little tortoiseshell cat sat in the threshold. She crouched down and held out a hand.
“Aren’t you pretty? You must be Calliope. Sabine said you were a picky eater, but as long as you leave my stuff alone, I think we can come to an arrangement.”
The cat sniffed her hand, then met her eyes. I have no interest in your belongings, and we have bigger issues to discuss than my eating habits.
Lindsey fell backward onto her ass with her mouth hanging open. The voice had been barely a whisper—one she couldn’t understand—until that afternoon. Through her shock, she hoped this development pushed the answer closer to latent mutant powers.
“You can talk,” Lindsey whispered. “Does Sabine know?”
I can talk. Sabine knows, though I daresay she isn’t aware you can hear me.
She hadn’t expected an answer, but a couple of other things made sense with this information. Sabine had been adamant that her cat needed special attention. She’d also insisted that Linds
ey stay close to the house in case any wandering strangers randomly showed up.
Lindsey snapped her mouth closed as the cat continued to stare at her. The world shifted, and she realized Dax wasn’t the one she should have been worried about.
Sabine had kept one hell of a secret.
2
Dax
Damn Alex and his meddling. Cold water pounded down on Dax’s shoulders as he tried in vain to think of anything other than the satisfied smile Lindsey had tossed his way. His best friend and boss had failed to tell him that the nice cat-sitter would be living with him at the house.
He didn’t fool himself into thinking that Alex had forgotten. Alex never forgot things. More likely, he and Lindsey had been set up.
The deal had sounded too good to be true from the beginning. Guard a relic and do some prelim work in exchange for lodging, and he didn’t have to worry about actually taking care of the house? No hesitation in accepting. Then he’d arrived to discover Lindsey in all her glory.
If he hadn’t found her all flushed and disheveled, he might have had a chance at resisting. Even then, if she’d been shy or nervous, he’d have done his best to put her at ease and kept his distance. Lindsey was not the shy type. Prickly, confident, beautiful, sneaky…yeah. He’d never get that smile out of his head.
Dax shivered and twisted the knob to stop the flow of cold water. The effort would probably be in vain since Lindsey’s answers hadn’t exactly been forthcoming. He should probably accept her rebuff and leave her be, but she intrigued him. No harm in being curious about the lady bounty hunter.
Now that he thought about it, Lindsey was also uniquely qualified to guard a priceless artifact. How much had he been played?
Dax had already been prepping to move to the area after signing on with Alex’s company, so the opportunity seemed perfect to scout around and decide if he wanted to stay. His family would be pissed that he wasn’t returning to the fold, but he craved isolation and independence after all the years following orders.
Isolation that Alex had promised, but hadn’t delivered. Dax couldn’t bring himself to be upset. He stepped out of the shower and glanced at the closed door opposite his open one. Was Lindsey waiting on the other side?
He shook his head and took the towel into his own room before he did something stupid.
His phone belted out the chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody as he pulled on his jeans. The tune made him smile because his mom insisted that Queen was the only appropriate ring tone for her.
Dax stood for a moment letting the music play before sending the call to voicemail. She’d been reaching out more often in the last couple of months since his grandma had died—like she had after Beth’s death. He sighed and sank onto the edge of the bed. She was used to him not answering because of his job, and he tried to make sure he called her back so she wouldn’t worry. But recently, she’d been pushing hard for him to move home now that he’d been discharged.
He loved his family, but something held him back. The certainty that he needed to be somewhere else. Dax couldn’t explain it, but his grandma had understood. She’d told him to listen to his heart. From anyone else it would sound corny, but Elle Kendrick knew things. She claimed she had the Sight, and Dax had never questioned her advice.
The last time his mom had called, he’d nearly caved. Then Alex had offered him the job here, and everything changed.
Dax eyed the now-closed bathroom door again. Grandma Elle would tell him not to waste time lollygagging. If the choice felt right, it felt right, no matter how many ways he examined it in his mind.
This job felt right. The place felt right. Even Lindsey felt right, especially when she’d been pressed against him. But he was no Grandma Elle with the infallible intuition. He’d followed his heart to serve his country, and he hadn’t been there when his grandma had needed him.
Without her guidance, caution was the safer bet. He shoved his phone in his pocket and yanked a tee-shirt over his head.
A flash of light streaked across the ceiling, like the reflection off a moving car. Only his window faced the hot tub and an expanse of woods. Dax frowned as a frisson of unease rolled down his spine. The flimsy, see-through curtains didn’t offer much protection, so he stood to the side of the window and peered out.
The sun had dropped behind the trees, casting the patio in shadow. Everything looked the same as it had when he’d come in. The hot tub cover appeared secure, the chairs remained scattered from his impromptu battle with Lindsey, and his towel still sat wadded up on the far side of the stone patio where he’d tossed it.
Dax controlled his breathing and kept absolutely still, watching for movement. Flowers swayed in the light breeze, moving with the tree branches higher up, but nothing that could have caused the flash of light. Deeper in the shadows of the forest, well past the cleared area, something flickered with a barely discernable glow. Not quite firelight, but close.
As he watched, the glow disappeared. Satisfied that nothing posed an immediate threat, Dax eased away from the window. He stared at the ceiling and figured the angles. Whatever it was had to have been in the backyard for the reflection to end up in his bedroom. Closer than the hot tub. He’d been at the window in seconds, so there was no way the light in the trees could have been the source.
When he’d offered the job, Alex had pushed the remoteness of the house and their need for someone to guard the things inside as grave concerns. Dax hadn’t taken him seriously. East Texas wasn’t exactly a hotbed for the tomb raider underground, and who else would be interested in old pottery?
That had been before he’d known Lindsey would be living there. If a threat existed, she was in danger too, and he needed all the information available. With the disquiet still flitting across the edges of his mind, Dax thought it might be time for a more explicit conversation with his best friend.
He dug the phone out of his pocket and took another look outside while he waited for Alex to pick up.
“What’s wrong now?”
No change from before, but the shadows deepened as they headed toward twilight. “Why does something have to be wrong?”
“Because you hate talking on the phone.”
Dax grimaced. “Everyone hates talking on the phone. I’m not special. Are you alone?”
A somber silence descended as footsteps echoed and a door shut. “I am now. What’s going on?”
“I need you to tell me why you were so adamant that the house needs to be protected while you’re gone.”
“Did something happen?”
Dax hesitated. “I saw a weird glow in the woods behind the house, and another flash of light that I can’t explain, unless someone was on the patio.”
Alex groaned. “You’re sure it wasn’t Lindsey?”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Lindsey could have been messing around on the deck, but that wouldn’t explain the light out in the trees. And it felt wrong. The heavy foreboding prefaced something else.
“Dax?”
“No. It wasn’t Lindsey.”
Alex’s voice lowered to almost a whisper. “I know you thought I was embellishing the importance of the seal, but if you hadn’t agreed to stay for the summer, I would have passed on this opportunity so I could stay near it.”
“I need more information if you want me to do my job.” Frustration made Dax’s comment sharper than he intended, so he took a breath and tried again. “I can’t work effectively if I don’t know what I’m guarding against.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know where the threat is coming from, or if there even is a threat right now. Sabine and I had some issues a while back when we first found it, but it’s been quiet since.”
“What kind of issues?”
“Someone tried to take it. We convinced him that was a bad idea on his part.”
Dax shook his head. “That’s the poorest excuse for a report I’ve ever heard.”
A knock sounded in the background, but Alex ignored it. “That’s all
you’re going to get. You’ve worked with less.”
“Not voluntarily.” Dax ran a hand through his hair. Alex didn’t mess around with assignments. If he couldn’t provide more intel, there was a good reason. “This is more than broken pottery, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Dax blinked at the straightforward answer. “All right. I’ll accept that, for now. But if anything—and I mean anything—happens that puts Lindsey in danger, you have to tell me every detail, or I’m out of here and I’m taking her with me.”
Alex barked out a laugh. “You have a thing for her.”
“I’ve only known her for a couple of hours. Even I don’t work that fast.” The instinctive denial slipped easily off his tongue, but it felt surprisingly close to a lie.
“Sure. And your sudden concern for my ‘broken pottery’ has no relation to a certain retrieval specialist with do not touch practically stamped across her ass?”
Anger churned in Dax’s gut. “What would you know about her ass?”
“It was just an expression, man. The only ass I’m interested in is Sabine’s. You, on the other hand…”
Dax relaxed his death grip on the phone at Alex’s teasing tone. “I handled Lindsey’s ass just fine.”
“Handled, huh? And how does that not prove my point?”
“She started it. Mostly. She may have had some assistance in getting there.”
“I don’t want to know if you had sex on my bed. Actually, new rule: no sex on my bed.”
“It’s not like that. There might have been a small scuffle when I took her towel and she tried to take it back.” Dax sank onto the bed, remembering the hot press of Lindsey’s body against his.
“I hope you went easy on her.”
Dax cleared his throat. “I did not.”
Alex didn’t even attempt to disguise the joy in his voice. “She got the towel, didn’t she?”
“She did.” Dax waited while Alex laughed. “Are you done?”