by Dale Mayer
He chuckled and hugged her, kissing his sister on the cheek. “Stay safe.”
And, with that, he led the way down, where they disembarked on a small Zodiac that would take them to shore. Once they got back on the dock, they walked along the pier.
As they headed to the main parking lot, she asked, “Do you guys have wheels? And don’t tell me that we’re traveling in that neon-green Jeep.”
“The Jeep is what we want right now,” Gavin said. “We want to be seen.”
She stayed quiet at that. “Okay,” she said, “and I did eat, and I did have coffee, so I guess let’s go and get this started.”
Lennox looked at her, smiled, and kissed her gently. “It will be fine. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I have to trust that, if you came halfway across the world to save us, you’d keep me safe on home ground.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Besides, now I’ve got an awful lot more reasons to keep you safe.”
She flushed bright red as his laughter rolled through the Jeep. She shook her head and muttered, “Men.” She stared out at the city around them.
He grinned. Life was pretty damn good right now. And it needed to stay damn good. Then the smile fell off his face. He would be pretty damn pissed if either of those men took away what he had waited five years for.
No way in hell he would let that happen.
Chapter 15
With Lennox beside her, she hopped out of the Jeep and looked up at her apartment. “You know something? For a long time,” she said, “it looked like I would never come back here.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t rent it out,” Lennox said.
“I didn’t need the money,” she said. “I always wanted to have it available, even for our breaks, even when we were going to Munich.”
“That’s what I mean. I thought you would have rented it,” he said.
She shrugged. “I’m thinking about selling it.”
“And buying something else or just not having a home base?”
“That was the problem. I did have a home base,” she said, “but I never returned to it. The last two years I’ve only been here not even a handful of times.”
“Well, you’ve been pretty busy traveling around the world.”
“Yep,” she said, yawning, “but that’s coming to an end now too. So maybe I will be back here more often.”
“More often or all the time?” he asked. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and walked her toward the apartment building. She looked around but saw no sign of Gavin. She glanced up at Lennox sideways. “I presume eyes are on us?”
“Lots of them.”
“It’s a little too obvious, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t what too obvious?” he asked.
“Well, surely Rob and Stefano will be expecting surveillance.”
“Yep, they will,” he said, “which is why we have to be a little tricky.”
She entered the security code, walked into the building as the door opened, and looked around. It felt foreign, yet familiar. “It doesn’t feel like home anymore,” she said abruptly.
“Particularly after all this mess,” he said.
They took the stairs up to her second-floor apartment. As she walked down the hallway, she looked around and said, “I don’t know any of the neighbors. I don’t know anybody who even lives in the building.”
“You haven’t been here enough to make friends,” he said. “You have to actually live in a place to meet your neighbors.”
“Right.” At her door, she looked at it and said, “I may not have my key with me.” But she went through her purse, pulled out her wallet, and found her key. She popped it in and unlocked the door, and, as soon as it was open, Lennox stepped forward and entered first. With her following close behind, he walked in.
Helena put her purse down on the table and stared around that room. It was the refuge she’d built for herself after she had left her husband. For a retreat, nothing was friendly or cozy about it. Then she hadn’t lived here enough to make it hers either. She needed a place stay, and this had been it. But, because the apartment wasn’t home, she’d been more than happy to leave it behind. She shook her head at the vagaries of human nature and walked into her bedroom. As she opened up the closets, she found clothes that she’d forgotten about. She smiled as she pulled out several outfits and laid them on the bed.
“What are you doing?” Lennox asked.
She stopped, frowned, and then shrugged. “I guess I was picking up more clothes.”
“Interesting,” he said, but his voice turned to almost a growl, and he crossed his arms over his chest.
She looked up at him and frowned. “Why not? It doesn’t feel like home,” she said with a shrug. “I think I’d rather go to a hotel.”
“Interesting,” he said again, “because of Rob and Stefano both being in here?”
“Maybe,” she said, “but you know what? The furniture I bought at a secondhand store, so it’s not even what I wanted. I just needed a base after the divorce.”
“Do you associate this place with the divorce?”
“I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “I don’t know.”
“But neither do you want to stay here, considering you’re already packing up more clothes?”
She couldn’t help herself from agreeing with that, as she walked back to her closet and pulled out a large suitcase. “I feel like I’m packing to leave,” she said, “and I know I haven’t really decided that, but it’s what I feel like I need to do.”
And she opened up the large suitcase, found a smaller one inside, and opened it up too. She proceeded to go through the clothing in her closet. Almost nothing was here. She’d taken a significant amount with her but, over time, had gotten rid of the excess and had only kept a few outfits because she wore scrubs most of the time. She packed up what there was, then went to the dresser, and sorted all that. And it still just barely filled the one suitcase. She looked around and said, “The place looks so sterile.”
“Again because you haven’t lived here.”
“True,” she said. “I don’t want to live here either.”
“And where do you want to live?” he asked, his tone curious, as if he wondered what she was doing.
She turned, looked at him, planted her hands on her hips, and asked, “Honestly?”
He nodded. “Yes, that’s why I asked.”
“With you.” There, she’d said it. He had opened his heart up to her last night, and she hadn’t had a chance to do very much in return. But, right now, in this cold empty apartment, it’s how she felt.
He looked at her in surprise.
She raised both hands, then planted her fists on her hips. “And yet you don’t say anything.”
“Well, I’m a little stunned,” he said slowly, as he walked toward her. His hands stretched out, reaching for hers.
“Well, you shouldn’t be,” she said crossly. “It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to wait until this nightmare scenario was over.”
“And I didn’t want to wait,” he said, tugging her into his arms. “And you’re right. We’ve been heading for this moment for a long time, and there’s no need for us to live apart.”
She tilted her head back. “But I don’t think we’re ready for a commitment, like moving in together.”
“I don’t know about you,” he said calmly, “but I am. And obviously you’re not committed to staying here.”
She looked around and said, “I feel like I’ve already removed the little bit that was me.”
“I think so too. What about the bathroom? Do you have more in there? Because, when we leave today, we can leave permanently. We can get a company in to move all your furniture out. If you don’t want any of it, maybe it can go to charity, or you can sell it.”
“Not a bad idea,” she said, brightening. “But,” she said, turning to look back at him, “is it okay to move in with you? Do you live on base? Have you
got a place of your own? What’s going on in your life?”
And he laughed. “It’s a good time to ask,” he said, smiling at her. “I am in a new job, as you know,” he stated. “I am still with the government, but it’s black ops, so you won’t ever hear too much information about the type of work I do. Sometimes I’ll be home. Sometimes I’ll be gone, but I have a home here.”
“Good, I’ll likely be gone too,” she said. “A house or a townhome or what?”
He smiled, leaned over to kiss her nose, and said, “You’ll find out.”
She shrugged. “I’m good with that. I prefer a house over an apartment any day though.” In the bathroom was a bottle of shampoo and conditioner and a couple creams, her toothpaste, and a pack of unopened toothbrushes. “Like I said, sterile.” And she quickly packed up the little bits and pieces with the one suitcase still not quite full and the second one empty. She walked into the kitchen. “Maybe there’s a coffeemaker,” she said. “I think I have all that kind of stuff here.”
He went ahead and opened up a few cupboards. “I see a few canned goods and a couple appliances,” he said, “but not a whole lot else.”
“And they’re almost brand-new,” she said. “Honestly I think some are still in the closet.”
“What are?”
“The boxes that came with the appliances,” she said. She walked over to the front closet. And she pulled it open, and there was the coffeemaker box and a toaster box and a coffee grinder box. He just laughed, grabbed them, and said, “Well, let’s pack the appliances up in these too,” he said. “You never know when you’ll need a spare.”
“Maybe we should make some coffee first,” she said, and she quickly put on a pot. As she looked at him, she said, “How long do we wait?”
“We’re here until …” he said, and he didn’t finish his sentence.
“Fine,” she said. “That works.” She had to avoid thinking about it. “We’ll need lunch though.”
He opened the fridge, but it was 100 percent empty, except for a box of baking soda. “There’s not even ketchup or mustard packets here.”
She shrugged. “Not exactly my thing.”
“We can always order in.”
“Or maybe we can walk down and pick up something too. After all, somebody has to have an opportunity to come in and grab me.”
He just raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
She realized he already had plans but wasn’t sharing them. She went through the kitchen cupboards and found a set of pots and some cutlery, but 90 percent of the cabinets were empty. This packing up activity pushed up bits and pieces in her memory. “I remember the last time I was here, about eight months ago,” she said. “I was thinking how my home kitchen was like a hotel kitchenette. The basics but nothing personal.”
“Did you walk away from your marriage with nothing?”
She shot him a shuttered look. “Mostly,” she said. “I wanted nothing as a reminder. He wanted it all.”
“I hope you got your fair share.”
“I did,” she said, “after the lawyers wrangled about it.”
“He should have gone to jail.”
“And I just wanted to walk away,” she said. “Yes, he could have gone to jail, and we could have had a big trial and all the whole nasty mess of it,” she said. “But he ended up with the house and all the contents, and I took the bank accounts. I was good with that.”
“And then came a stern warning,” Lennox said.
She stopped, slowly turned, looked at him, and said, “What stern warning?”
He just looked at her steadily.
“You?”
He shrugged. “How do you think I felt, finding out what he’d done to you for all those years? Years that I had wanted to be with you, and instead you were with him, with an asshole who used to take his temper out on you.”
“Carolina’s husband was worse than mine,” she said slowly. “But I did learn what fear was, and that’s something new in my life now.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“I am too. It took me long enough to realize what was happening, with the verbal abuse—the bullying, the manipulation, the attack on my mind—but, once he really beat me up,” she said, “I never went back. Up until then, it was just lots of threats and the odd smack and a grip that was a little too hard and a shove that was a bit too forceful. But, once he lost it, well, believe me, we were done.”
“Good,” he said. “He won’t be beating up any other female either.”
“Did you scare him that badly?”
Again he just stared at her.
“Good,” she said, her heart light, her voice cheerful. “I hope you punched him a good one for me.”
“More than one. Pretty sure I identically bruised his body and inflicted the same damage on him that he inflicted on you.”
She thought about that for a long moment, then smiled. “Thank you.”
He gave a self-conscious shrug.
“No,” she said, walking across the floor, stroking his cheek, before stretching up on her tiptoes to kiss him gently. “I mean, thank you. You did what I couldn’t do.”
He nodded. “Somebody needed to, and, if you wouldn’t take him to court, he needed to know that his behavior wasn’t acceptable and that he couldn’t go around beating up women.”
“He’s one of those scaredy-cats. So, if you scared him right, he’ll never touch another woman again,” she said with a big grin.
Crack!
Lennox threw Helena to the floor, her head coming down hard, only to land in his hand. She looked up at him in shock.
“Stay down,” he said hoarsely. He raced to the living room window. Glass had shattered into the apartment. Standing where he was, he peered through the curtains, his phone out as he contacted Gavin. “Sniper’s in the apartment building across from us,” he said.
“We’ve got two cops over there,” Gavin said.
“Well, somebody may have taken them out.” He watched and saw a glint of light and said, “He’s at the corner apartment.”
“Yeah, that’s not where the cops are,” Gavin said. “I’ll contact them to make sure they are okay. Are either of you hurt?”
“No,” Lennox said. “Now the question is, Who’s the shooter? Rob or this Stefano guy?” He turned to check on Helena. She curled around the kitchen counter, staring at him. “The shooter was on the apartment balcony across the street.”
She nodded. “My first guess is Stefano. But then I doubt he’d miss. So maybe Rob?” She shrugged. “So, now what?”
“Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t want to stay here,” he said. “Make sure you keep your shoes on.”
“Is it safe to clean up the glass?”
“Not until we get the word that nobody is out there looking to take a second shot.”
“And do you think they’ll come here and check to see if they succeeded?”
“Somebody should,” he said. “Why don’t you take a cup of coffee and maybe just stay in your bedroom?”
“I can do that,” she said. She walked over to the coffeemaker, quickly poured herself a cup of coffee, and headed back into the bedroom. She finished packing, even securing the smaller folding suitcase inside the larger one. She put it close to her bedroom door. That would go with her. She sat on her bed, intent on getting anything she really wanted during this trip. This visit would be her last one here. There was the bedding to pack up too.
She remembered she had a few moving boxes in the storage room too. She could use those to pack up the rest of her kitchen.
As she sat here, she realized that, if necessary, in an hour she could be completely packed up, and everything moved out. Such a bizarre feeling. She’d put a lot of time and effort into setting up her first marital home. That had been a complete wash by the end of two years of marriage. But she was okay with the mistake she’d made. She just didn’t plan on making more like it. As she waited for Lennox to join her, a shadow fell across her bedroom doorway,
and she still jolted.
“It’s just me,” he said in a calming tone.
“Of course it is,” she said, taking a deep breath. She sat, frozen on the bed, and looked up at him. “It’s just so weird.”
“I know,” he said, “but somebody has made a move, and that means people are jumping on it and trying to track him down.”
“But is it the kidnapper or Rob?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m expecting both to be here.”
She smiled, nodded, and said, “I have empty boxes in my storage room downstairs. If we could get a few of those, we can have the entire kitchen and whatever else I’ve forgotten about all packed up and moved out right away. Today. A company can come in and move the few pieces of big furniture.” As she looked around, she said, “I only have a dresser, a night table, and a bed in here. A couch and a chair in the living room, and that little kitchen table is folding.”
“We can arrange for that later,” he said.
“I guess that sniper shot means we can’t get to the storage room and get those boxes, huh?”
He frowned, thought about it, and said, “You know that’s a bad idea. Still, we can possibly meet our sniper head-on. Leave your suitcase here, grab your purse, and let’s go down and take a look.”
She frowned. “What are you expecting?”
“I’m not expecting anything,” he said, “but we need to do something to shake them up.”
“As long as you can protect me, I’m good with it,” she said.
“Believe it or not, a half-dozen guys are here.”
“I believe it,” she said. “But I also know what these assholes are like. And I don’t think they’ll particularly care where they take me out, as long as they do.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s not you they’re after.”
She stopped, frowned, looked at him, and whispered, “That bullet was for you, wasn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Well then, I can go down to the storage locker, and you stay here.” He just shot her a look, and she shrugged. “Otherwise we wait. Because it’s you they’re after. They’re looking for an opportunity to take you out, and that is something I don’t want to happen.”
