“I don’t think that’s possible, Granddad. I’m not one for leaving home. I like my adventure here, with you,” he admitted, and it was true.
Honestly, he worried about his grandfather. He was in his sixties, running around being the shaman, and sometimes, he forgot to eat or lock his door. The man needed a babysitter, and he was it.
It scared him that he’d come back and something would have happened to him. This was the only person in the whole world who loved him, and he couldn’t bear to lose him. Timothy was the center of his universe.
“Callen James, I will be fine. You’re hovering over me and worried for no reason. I can lock my door.”
“Stop with the creepy mojo, Granddad,” he said, smiling at him.
The older man laughed.
“I am not reading your mind, son. I can see that look on your face.”
“Someone has to worry about you. You’ve worried about me all these years, and it’s my turn.”
Callen couldn’t imagine a day without him. He hoped he never had to. Timothy would put a hole in his life if he were to leave him behind.
Timothy patted the arm of the man who was more like a son than a grandson.
“I have something for you,” he said, pulling the beads from his pocket.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A token of good luck and hospitality. You leave it for the person who takes care of you. When you no longer need it, you pass it on.”
He let his grandfather put it over his head.
“I love you, Callen James.”
It softened him.
This man…he had that effect on him. Callen couldn’t love anyone more than he did Timothy. He’d saved him, he’d loved him, and he’d given him a life he probably shouldn’t have had.
He was blessed.
“I love you, too, Granddad. You’re so important to me. You’re my father.”
He smiled.
“You have one of those.”
Callen laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
“Yeah, so they keep telling me. Aren’t I the lucky one? Wyler took the time not to pull out.”
Timothy smacked him on the arm.
“CJ, you stop being so stubborn,” he ordered. “He’s still your father.”
His grandfather only shortened his name when he was getting angry. So, he stopped talking shit about his deadbeat, alcoholic father.
He didn’t want to rile him up.
“The truth is the truth, Granddad. You are still my father, and you always will be,” he said.
Timothy held him.
The boy was bigger than him now, but he was still his precious child. Callen was so very special to him. The boy gave him another chance at fatherhood when it wasn’t in the stars. He’d love him forever.
“If you see your…?”
He cut him off.
“Granddad…”
Timothy returned the favor.
“Callen, your brother needs your love. He’s struggling too. Just go to his home and try. It’s all you can do. If you keep trying, you’ll at least know you didn’t quit. In the end, that’s what will make all the difference.”
“I’ve tried, Granddad. I’ve called, he’s changed his number. I’ve emailed, he’s blocked mine. I don’t know how much more I can do. I might have to come to the conclusion that he hates me and always will.”
“You keep trying. Family sticks. You don’t ever give up on your brother. No matter how bad it gets, he’s your blood. You NEVER give up, Callen.”
“Maybe I’m not strong enough to fight that battle. Maybe I’m meant to lose this one.”
His grandfather yanked on his braid.
Hard!
“Jesus! That hurt!”
“So do your words. You are strong. I raised you and him. I know you both better than you know yourself. He needs you, CJ. He can’t begin to start his life without the things that matter most. Believe me if not yourself.”
“Okay, I’ll go to his house, risk public humiliation, and let him kick my ass for you, Granddad. Only you.”
He hugged the man he considered his son.
“Thank you,” he said, patting his cheek. “You were always my favorite one.”
He laughed.
“You do realize that I know you told both of us that all the time, right?” he asked.
The older man simply smiled.
“Did I?”
Callen James had a special place in his heart. While he loved Ethan, Callen…he was the son he wanted more than anything. Wyler had left him, but Callen was his rock. This man was destined to do great things if he could get him on the right path.
“Be safe while I’m gone, okay, Granddad?” he asked, really worried about him. “Make sure you eat, lock your doors, and don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’ll be in my tipi. I have some smoke to stare into, my boy.”
Callen didn’t ask anything more.
Timothy did his thing.
And it looked like he was going to do his.
Unwillingly.
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
Elizabeth LaRue’s
Brownstone
When she got home, Elizabeth quietly packed her bag. She didn’t want to wake Chris, especially since he was snoozing soundly in her bed.
She could tell by his telltale in and out breathing as he didn’t even move.
He was exhausted.
She understood that. Being a Fed was a tough job, and it drained you.
Staring at him, she mulled over the situation, trying to decide what she thought was the right thing to do.
Leaving a note seemed impersonal, and leaving, then calling later….it seemed to be a shitty option too.
So, she opted to climb into bed and gently wake him. Chris had always fallen asleep fast, and he likely would when she was gone.
Kicking off her boots, she gently moved onto her bed, trying not to startle him. She knew if it were her, she wouldn’t like it if someone scared the shit out of her.
She’d likely shoot them.
Elizabeth was a tad bit trigger happy.
When she settled against him, she gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek.
“Christopher,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes and looked around as if trying to figure out where he was, and what time it was.
“Honey, is it lunchtime already?” he asked, moving into her body beside him. He’d been dreaming about her, and he wanted to wake exactly like this.
With her.
Always with her.
“No, Christopher. I have a case. I’m heading out, and I didn’t want to leave and not tell you,” she said.
Yeah, she had it so damn bad.
Now she was checking in with a man who wanted nothing more than sex from her. How pathetic was that?
At her words, Chris was wide-awake.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m heading out of town. Can you water my ficus? Said no sane person ever.”
He didn’t laugh.
This was serious shit.
“Where are you going? Why didn’t I get the message that we were heading out?” he asked, grabbing his phone off her nightstand.
Well, she had bad news for him.
“Gabe is giving you the day off since you had a rough one. I’m going in with Tony, and I’ll be using the city ME when I arrive in Boston.”
He stared at her.
Oh, he didn’t like that at all.
While he genuinely liked Tony, he didn’t like him enough to trust him around Elizabeth. He was always checking her out, and it made him nuts.
“Honey.”
She went with her gut. Elizabeth didn’t want a fight, so she gave him a kiss.
It caught him off guard.
His arms went around her, and she went against his body to get lost in that mating of mouths. What had started as nothing more than friendly and fun, had now heated up and filled with
something so much more.
God!
She was terrified of these emotions.
Elizabeth didn’t know how to love. She didn’t know if she was even capable of it. Her mom died early, and she didn’t get to see Catherine and her father as a couple for long. As a kid, she didn’t get it.
Then there was Charlie and his harpy second wife. There was no love there, and she knew it.
This was a mystery.
It was one that she was going to have to navigate and learn as she went. Elizabeth hoped she didn’t screw it up too badly.
Chris deepened the kiss, knowing that he had to figure this out and fast. He didn’t want to risk what he wanted in life. While he never wanted a wife, he still wanted her.
They were a unit.
A safe.
Tight.
Unit.
She was his solace in a rough sea, and he needed to figure this out and without her help. There was so much on the line for both of them.
“Christopher,” she muttered, as his mouth moved across her throat and to her ear.
“I can be fast. I want you. I need you.”
She stared into his eyes.
Chris waited for her to tell him no.
Only, she didn’t.
“Seriously, you have ten minutes max. I have to pick Tony up at his house and the jet leaves in forty. I’ll be cutting it close as it is.”
Yeah, well, then he’d make those ten minutes count.
For him.
For her.
For them.
He began pulling at her clothes, his clothes, and then back to hers again.
She was laughing and smiling at him, and her icy blue eyes sent shivers down his spine. Chris had to believe there was something more there—hidden in the depths of that blue.
He felt more.
He prayed she did too.
“Just remember, you said fast,” he said, as he stood up to kick off his pants.
She did the same.
“Fast is always good when it’s with you. Everything is better with you, Christopher,” she admitted, realizing what that sounded like.
Oh, shit!
He stared at her, clearly caught off guard.
Chris needed more.
He needed all.
“Elizabeth, we need to talk about us.”
That fear crept into her, knowing that she’d just blown it. She sounded needy. She sounded…like some love-struck idiot, and he realized it.
This was it.
He was going to toss her ass to the roadside.
“We don’t have time,” she said, knowing this was the worst time to have a personal discussion, and she couldn’t be distracted. There was a mob man waiting for her.
“When?” he asked.
“When I get back.”
He’d give her this, only because he wanted her to think about him while she was flying to Boston. There was no way he was letting her out of his sight.
He knew he had a good thing.
And he knew she didn’t have a partner.
Well, he’d have her back.
As they fell back onto the bed, he trapped her beneath him. Chris’s mouth found hers again, and they fell into the kiss. As his hands wandered, he stroked her, and she shook.
Yeah, she was ready.
“Because of the time constraint,” he muttered, sliding into her body, “we have to skip the foreplay part of this production,” he stated.
She moaned, and so did he.
As Chris began moving, Elizabeth stared up at him, and her eyes were troubled.
“I love you,” he said, his heart skipping in his chest.
She didn’t doubt it.
“I love you too.”
She wanted to tell him so much, and she wanted to weep too. This man had turned her inside out, upside down, and into a softer version of herself.
Because of him, his kindness, his gentleness, she wanted to show him those same things. Elizabeth hadn’t been the teacher the last few months.
He had.
He taught her love, and she didn’t want it to stop.
“You feel so good,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear.
Elizabeth was inundated with feelings for this man.
She wanted to say more to him, but when he hit that perfect spot, she tumbled from the edge, and into the dizzying array of colors.
The pressure and stress left her, and she was floating—until her world turned and she found herself in his lap.
“One more time,” he said, holding her by her hips.
Gently, she began moving, and Chris was already breathless. His whole body was aware of hers, and he didn’t want her to stop until they both fell again.
“Elizabeth,” he muttered, trying to focus on anything but her breasts bouncing in front of his face or the way his erection was disappearing into her body.
There was never a more perfect feeling.
There was never more love than that moment. That’s why he knew he needed her to be his.
She began moving faster, trying to race them up that pinnacle and to the edge.
“So close,” he muttered. “God! So close! Please don’t stop!”
She was very close too.
Then they teetered and fell into the pleasure.
Finding his mouth as they both tumbled, they both rode out the storm, and it was perfection.
He held her, refusing to let her go.
She let him, happy to hold onto him.
For the next few minutes, Elizabeth stayed against his body, and she gave him her heart. She was tender and gentle.
It was her gift to him.
And he loved it.
Chris was content and happy. That was the beauty of Elizabeth. While she was a wild hellion in the world, in bed, she was sweet and delicate like a flower.
Chris wanted to protect her.
When she lifted her head from his shoulder, she blew a wisp of hair from her face. He caught it and tucked it behind her ear.
“Is Tony the only one going with you?” he asked, trying not to go territorial on her, but it was hard. It was his dick in her body, but some other guy was going to be watching her back.
It sucked.
“I have a few techs too. Gabe said we’re running thin on staff. Apparently, killing is up in DC and hiring is down. Go figure.”
“I’ll call him and…”
She stopped him.
“You can’t call our boss, Christopher. We agreed that this thing between us would have to stay quiet. You can’t call Gabe and tell him you are going. You just pulled ten days straight. You need to rest too.”
“Honey, who will have your back?” he asked. “Who will be your partner?”
She gave him a gentle kiss.
This was the way their relationship worked. She had to leave and do her job like he’d had to leave to do his.
It was the nature of the beast.
“You will have my back, but it’ll have to be from a long distance.”
He was NOT good with that.
As she climbed off his body, he could tell she was still upset about something, but he didn’t know what.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
Chris couldn’t help but think the end was coming. He was going to lose her. He could feel it. She was tense and when a woman said they were fine, they weren’t.
That was in the manual, wasn’t it?
Christ!
He had to do something.
“Please be safe. What’s the case you’re heading out to?” he asked, as he watched her.
Elizabeth pulled on her clothes and shared everything she’d learned about it.
“Here’s the abridged version. There’s a ‘Boston Strangler’ copycat, and he’s raping and killing women in their beds. I have to find him.”
Oh, he did NOT like that at all.
She was a woman.
She was going to be sleeping there.
Jesus
!
This was NOT good.
“While they sleep alone?” he asked, trying to breathe through the panic and keep it from his voice.
“Yeah, and the twist in this case is Michael O’Banion. He’s blocking the local cops from doing their job.”
At the mere mention of his name, Chris wanted to puke. Surely, he’d heard her wrong.
“As in the mob guy—Michael O’Banion?” he asked, sitting up in bed.
“Yeah, you’ve heard of him?” she asked, grabbing her Kevlar from her closet to throw on under her shirt.
Had he heard of him?
Was she serious?
Everyone knew who he was. The man was all over the news for about a thousand different unsolved cases—that no one could pin to him.
Chris wanted to puke.
“Honey, his wife was killed, he has a million strip clubs as he tries to find wife number two, and he hates cops. We’ve all heard of him.”
Yeah, and she was a woman, sexy, and a cop.
Oh, Jesus.
Yeah, this was bad.
Chris began panicking on the inside as he tried to remain calm on the outside. She wasn’t his. He had no right to tell her not to take this case.
“Yeah, so I’ve heard,” she said, laughing. “I’ll be fine. I know what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, you can’t possibly know what I’m thinking.”
She touched his cheek.
“Yeah, I could. I know my best friend. He’s worried about me going alone.”
Yeah, and so much more.
He was worried about her being poached.
He was worried about the mob guy finding a girl—his girl.
He was worried about her getting killed.
Yeah, she had no clue what was driving him to the edge and threatening to shove him over.
Chris was worried.
No.
Scared.
Elizabeth clipped on her gun and badge and tugged her pullover down over them.
She was officially ready.
This was always the hardest part. She hated seeing that look on his face.
“I’ll call you later, okay? Maybe if you miss me, we can have some phone sex,” she teased.
He didn’t laugh.
Shit.
That was bad.
When he opened his mouth, she had to stop him.
“I can’t, Christopher,” she said. “Please, Newton, give me this. Don’t make this harder for me.”
Dawn of Evil_FBI Flashback Page 6
