by Hope Franke
Her fingers drew small circles on his chest and he held in a moan.
Then she broke the silence.
“Why aren’t you in witness protection?”
Callum let out a long breath. He didn’t actually want to talk about this, but it was a good distraction to where his mind was going. He really needed the distraction.
“I wasn’t the one involved directly.”
“But you’re his brother and you look, or at least you looked, just like him.”
“I presented that same argument. Plus, they murdered our father.”
Her head popped up and she gawked at him. “He didn’t die of a heart attack?”
“No. They injected him with something, just ran into him with a needle as he was walking down High Street, here in Emsworth. He collapsed on the pavement and died before help arrived.”
She rested her head against his chest once again. “I’m so sorry.”
“Unless I was Lennon’s spouse or his child,” Callum continued, “they couldn’t help me. At least not like that.”
“How could they help you?”
“They suggested I join the army.”
“Wasn’t that as dangerous?”
He chuckled, but not because he thought it was funny. “At least there I was armed. The training was good, made me stronger and faster.”
“And you changed your last name?”
“I wanted something too common to be tracked easily. Callum Leatherby no longer exists. I was Corporal Private Callum Jones for almost a year before the troops were pulled out.”
She tilted her head to look at him and he was taken in once again by her spectacular eyes.
“Do you really work for the city?” she asked.
Callum shifted and pulled her on top of him. He spoke into her ear. “You know what? You do talk too much.”
HIS LIPS WERE on hers before Gabriele knew what was happening. They were warm, soft and tasted of coffee. They belonged to Lennon’s brother.
She froze. Her heart rattled. She was legally and morally free to kiss another man, but was she ready? Did she want to kiss this man?
Callum pulled back. “I’m sorry.”
Gabriele stared at his burning dark eyes. She was an alcoholic hanging onto a bottle of vodka, mesmerized and paralyzed. She should run as far and fast as she could away from the temptation, but for mercy’s sake, she wanted a drink.
She traced his eyebrows with her fingers, the bridge of his nose, his cheekbones and the rough surface of his jaw. He had Lennon’s face. He had Lennon’s face!
She wasn’t strong enough. She grabbed the shot glass and drank. Her mouth was on his and suddenly she was desperate. She couldn’t stop at one glass, she needed the whole bottle.
Callum responded to her urgency. He was thirsty, too. They were both so parched from their pain. The loss of a brother. The loss of a spouse.
She kissed him as if her kisses were keeping them alive. As if, should they stop for one moment, they would have to deal with the truth, with their reality, and with all the horrible agony of the last year. She couldn’t bear it.
She kissed him because he looked like Lennon. And because he wasn’t Lennon. And because she was angry with Lennon.
Their breath came in fast, hard bursts. She was taking it out on Callum, using him to exorcize her demons. By the way he poured himself into her, she suspected he was using her as well.
She felt her face grow wet with tears. Her heart was breaking all over again and all she could do was drink, drink, drink. She kissed his face, his eyes, his jaw, his lips.
“You’re crying.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She stared back at him. His eyes were glassy with desire, but they flickered with a darkness she didn’t want to examine. She bent low and kissed his forehead. His lips moved along her cheek, wiping up her tears.
She trembled with nerves and passion and a longing that sprung from deep within. She needed to be kissed and touched and wanted. She was a desert after a year of no water. Callum was her thunderstorm. Her moan morphed into an unattractive sob. Loud hiccups echoed in the small room. She tried to control it, knowing how it must appear to Callum.
Her mind split in two: she was somehow both in the situation and watching the situation. She judged herself harshly. She was weak and pathetic. She pressed a palm to her face.
Callum wrapped his arms around her, holding her trembling body tight. She sobbed into his neck. He stroked her hair and let out a long, steady breath. “It’s okay, Gabriele.”
She willed her heart to slow and her mind to clear. She felt so stupid. Why couldn’t she keep her crap together?
She squeezed her eyes shut, stopping the stream of tears that pooled on Callum’s shoulder. She felt the pulse in his neck thump against her ear and she could tell he was working to gain control.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“I wasn’t, you know…”
“You weren’t what?”
“I was kissing you.”
It was half true. At moments she had been kissing Lennon, and she grieved his passing. But mostly she had been kissing Callum, and she mourned what she could never have with him. She was a mess and a wreck. She rested her face on his chest.
His lips touched her forehead. “I’m glad.”
The candle flickered weakly, reaching the end of its quick. Soon they would be cast into total darkness.
“Do you hear that?” Callum said softly.
All she could hear was the slowing rhythm of his heart. “Hear what?”
“The storm. I think the worst has passed.”
Gabriele cocked her head to listen. The storm had abated with quiet slipping in to take its place.
Gabriele gingerly lifted herself off Callum and climbed out of the tub. She stretched the kinks out of her back and ran her fingers through her hair, unsure what she was to do next. She avoided looking in the mirror, not wanting to see the reckless, half-crazed, blurry-eyed woman standing there.
Callum jumped out after her and raked his hair back with his hands. He faced her and they eyed each other awkwardly.
“I’m not sorry,” Callum repeated.
Gabriele didn’t know what to say. She was sorry. Not because he wasn’t Lennon, but because she knew she and Callum never had a chance.
He reached for her hand, wove his fingers through hers. “I wish there was a way...” He paused and the words left unsaid confirmed Gabriele’s fears. They would part soon and all this would be over. A memory. Another sweet, bitter memory to add to her collection.
“Me, too.”
A deafening siren erupted in the house. Callum stiffened.
Gabriele’s eyes sprung wide. “I thought you disabled the alarm?”
“I did. This is a different one. They found us.”
GABRIELE SHIVERED as Callum’s eyes grew blacker. He tightened his grip on her hand and brought a finger to his lips, then he blew out the candle, throwing them into darkness.
Callum led her out of the bathroom and down the hall, and Gabriele had to hold onto his shirt to keep from stumbling. Callum navigated the darkness adeptly. They reached the end of the hall, and he slowly opened a door, pulling Gabriele inside. He carefully eased it closed again.
Callum turned on his phone for light. The room had angled ceilings that met in a peak in the middle He hurried to a desk and reached underneath with his hand, apparently for a button since a drawer suddenly popped open. He withdrew a gun.
Gabriele swallowed. She knew things were bad, but now she knew they were really bad. Callum tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans and then waved her over.
“We’re over the garage,” Callum whispered. He opened a hinged door on the floor behind the desk, listened, shone his light inside.
“I’ll go first, then I’ll help you down. It’s a bit of a jump.”
He disappeared before she could respond, but her instincts kicked in. With no time to think about how scared she was or
that she might break a leg, she pushed herself into the hole.
Callum caught her as promised, and she was never so grateful to feel his bulging biceps around her as she was at that moment. He helped her to get steady on her feet and then opened the door to a box on wheels and motioned for her to climb inside.
“A Smart Car?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.
“Great fuel mileage and a dream to park.” Callum pushed the garage door button.
“Get down,” he said as he got in.
He stepped on the gas and roared out of the building. The boom of gunshots was followed by a sharp crack. The back window shattered. Gabriele ducked and yelped. More shots sounded and she flinched. Callum proved to have excellent driving skills as he swerved with precision around storm debris and parked cars, and she began to see the wisdom of dodging out of a small town in a go-cart.
A tear through the dark clouds let in the dawn. Gabriele inched up in her seat and chanced a look back. She spotted headlights racing from behind. Callum had the advantage of having intimate knowledge of the village and squealed around corners into short, narrow streets. They were being chased by a dark blue vehicle that looked fast. And expensive.
“What kind of car is that?”
Callum shifted down and spun into a narrow lane.
“A Porsche. They have money to burn.”
He squealed sharply around the corner of a building just past the fire hall. Gabriele gripped the door, glad she’d taken the time to put on her seatbelt. The space was tight, not meant for vehicle travel. The Smart Car barely fit through. The Porsche slammed to a stop. The hot squealing of tires filled the quiet morning air as the Porsche shifted into reverse and stepped on the pedal.
Callum maneuvered along the other side of the building, knocking into trash bins and taking out a collection of bikes in a rack.
“Sorry, mates,” Callum said through tense lips.
They whisked across the main road just as the Porsche reversed into position behind them.
Callum cursed. He turned sharply down the pedestrian underground. It was like trying on a too-small cardigan. The side mirror scraped along the cement walls, removing a strip of the mural. There was no way the Porsche could follow, but the driver could figure out where they would exit from quite easily.
Callum must’ve had the same thought since he suddenly shifted into reverse, driving with his neck cranked and his eyes set on the cracked back window.
Gabriele’s heart hammered in her chest as she gripped the door handle with white knuckles. They bumped back onto the street, knocking over a grit bin.
Gabriele spotted the Porsche ahead of them, sitting at the opening of the underground passage on the other side of the roundabout.
Callum scooted onto another side road, disappearing as the Porsche entered the ring in pursuit. Gabriele thought they had lost the vehicle, but then headlights appeared behind them, racing to catch up.
Callum drove north out of Emsworth over a grass median. He yanked on the hand brake, spinning the auto one hundred and eighty degrees, and throwing Gabriele against the door. The stern look on Callum’s face grew more determined as he shifted the gear up, leaving a patch of rubber behind as he made a sharp turn. They crisscrossed through an industrial section. Gabriele had lost her bearings and had no idea where they were. She peeked through the crack under the headrest. Her eyes strained to see beyond, to the left and the right. No headlights. No revving engine. She let out several short breaths.
“I think we lost them.”
GABRIELE BREATHED STEADILY through her nose. Her mind did laps around her heart, processing everything that had happened in the last twenty minutes. She and Callum had been shot at and chased.
Someone wanted to kill… her.
With one hand firmly on the steering wheel, Callum pressed his phone to his ear with the other. “They found us. We need a safe house.” He paused. “It was too dark. I didn’t see their faces.” He glanced at Gabriele. “She’s a little shook up, but no injuries. Yeah. Meet you there.”
Gabriele frowned and held Callum with a questioning glare. This man was not a simple civil servant working on sustainability projects.
“Who do you work for, really?”
“The city.”
“Yeah, right. The sustainability department.” Gabriele let out an exasperated huff. “Please Callum, tell me the truth.”
Callum tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his golden brown eyes darting her way, calculating. “You’re right,” he finally said. “I don’t work for the department of sustainability. I’m in Her Majesty’s service.”
“As what, her butler?”
Callum shot her a look.
“Okay, CIA?”
“That’s American.”
“Right, the British Secret Service?”
Callum cocked a brow. “MI5.”
“Seriously?”
“They saw potential in me through the whole Sati Habib fiasco and with the skills I developed in Iraq. I was recruited last year.”
Gabriele let her head fall back against the headrest. “You’re a spy.”
“Yes.”
“And...” She peered at him sharply. “Lennon?”
“No. But I had access to secure communication lines, which was why we were able to communicate, even though technically we weren’t supposed to.”
Gabriele shook her head and rubbed tired eyes. “This is all so unbelievable.”
Callum frowned. “Yet true.”
Gabriele turned back to Callum and studied his profile. So much of what had happened over the last few days—his strange, psychotic behaviour—made sense. He’d finally answered her questions, but they only led to new ones.
“So now what?” she asked.
“I’m taking you to a safe house, and then we’ll decide what to do next.”
Like what flight to book her on. It was clear as day now why Callum had been so intent on sending her back to Germany as soon as possible. But that was before… the whole bathtub event. Had that changed anything at all?
Once the adrenaline rush from being shot at and chased had subsided, shivers set in—from the cold or nerves, Gabriele wasn’t sure. She’d left her cardigan behind and her feet were bare. She pulled them up and tucked them underneath her thighs.
Callum noticed and was quick to turn on the heater. Fingers of light from early dawn continued to stretch through thinning dark clouds. The sunrise was beautiful, a symbol of tranquility after the passing storm. Gabriele was still immersed in a storm of another kind and she wasn’t sure she would ever find peace within it.
She cupped her eyes with her palm as if shielding them from the sun, but the reality was she didn’t want Callum to see her struggle.
Callum reached over, his arm resting on her leg, and opened the glove box. He produced a pair of sunglasses and handed them to her.
She received them gratefully to shield the sun and to protect herself from Callum’s scrutiny. They also gave her a way of watching Callum without being obvious.
He had a hand on the steering wheel and the other fisted over the gear shift. The stubble on his face was darker, as were the rings under his eyes. His jaw was tense, and his brow was pulled down. Gabriele could almost see the gears turning.
He had more pieces to this live-action jigsaw puzzle than she had, but by the way his eye twitched, she doubted they were fitting together.
And why did he kiss her if he planned to never see her again?
Sure, she’d kissed him back, ravenously, but he’d started it. He kissed her first.
Every few minutes, Callum’s gaze flickered to the rearview mirror and more often toward Gabriele. She rested her head against the window pretending to sleep and they remained silent until they entered the outskirts of the city. Callum took an exit east onto the M25. Gabriele didn’t know the area and was soon lost in a maze of brick row homes. Callum pulled the Smart Car to the curb at an end unit.
Gabriele handed the su
nglasses back to Callum. “This is the safe house?”
“For now.”
Callum rubbed the back of his neck as he assessed the damage to his little car. “Bollocks.”
Gabriele took in the deep scratches along the black doors and the dents in the back end and shook her head. “It’s pretty bad.”
“Yeah, but fixable. Let’s get inside.”
She followed Callum to the back where he entered a code into a number pad, unlocking the door. It opened to a square, sparse kitchen with closed blinds on the windows. The air inside was stuffy.
Callum twisted the blinds open to let in a little light. Gabriele stepped through the kitchen to look around the rest of the house. The hall led to an entrance at the front of the home. On the left was a living area and on the right, a set of stairs leading up to the next floor where she assumed the bedrooms were.
When she returned to the kitchen, she found Callum sitting at the table with a laptop open and holding his phone to his ear. Gabriele didn’t know where the laptop came from, but it must have been hidden away in one of the kitchen cupboards.
The counters were bare with the exception of a toaster and a knife block. There was a microwave over the stove and a washer and dryer under the counter beside a dishwasher.
A peek in the fridge was a cause for disappointment, as it contained only a selection of condiment containers and a six-pack of bottled water. She helped herself to one of the bottles and waved one in the air toward Callum, who was no longer on the phone but was studying something with intensity on his laptop.
“Sure,” he said, and, “thanks,” when she handed it to him.
She tried to glance at his monitor but it had a privacy shield, making it impossible to see anything unless seated directly in front of it.
Callum leaned back and smiled gently. “You must be knackered. There are a couple bedrooms upstairs. Why don’t you pick one and try to sleep?”
