by Sylvie Kurtz
“That’s okay, Uncle S. I won’t be needing college money for a while.”
“What?” Paula’s eyes rounded as wide as the troll’s on his cup.
“I want to try out a few things before I settle down.”
“That’s a good idea.” Liv slipped the cake into the oven. Her hands barely wobbled. She was getting stronger every day. “It won’t hurt to find out who you are before you choose a career.”
Paula glared at all three, then dropped into a chair as if she needed the force of gravity behind her weight to solidify her intentions. “We’re staying.”
He looked at Liv across the kitchen and found they could still have a conversation without speaking a word. They needed to get rid of all this interference for the chance to find out what else they still had in common.
But first he owed Sutton a call.
“WE’RE MISSING SOMETHING,” Sebastian said to Sutton over the phone. He settled at his desk in his office. The quiet of the room was a balm. His report sat in front of him, and all he could see were the gaping holes that seemed to mutate into trenches before his eyes.
“Look, Falconer, don’t make this more complicated than it is. The two fugitives are back in their pen. Kershaw is dead. Case closed.”
For you. The pencil in his hand drew question marks across the report. “You want me to just forget that someone blew Kershaw’s face off?”
“Not related.”
“How can you say that?” Why was he trying so hard to bury this loose end?
“Every case has inconsistencies. That’s just the nature of the beast.”
“I know that.” Sebastian frowned and pitched the pencil on the desktop. It rolled to the floor. Holes in logic he could accept. After all, the criminal mind wasn’t a healthy one. But when the edges of these holes were filed to make theories line up, that didn’t sit well with him. Justice shouldn’t waver as if it stood in front of a fun house mirror.
“What’s important here is that the mess is contained. No harm done.”
“Except to my wife.” As if thinking of her had conjured her up, Liv appeared at the door. His heart actually fluttered. After ten years of marriage, shouldn’t he be used to the sight of her? Then he remembered. The last time he’d seen her standing like that, she’d left him. He plopped his boot heels on the desk and waved her in. Her smile glowed straight into his solar plexus, warming him.
“Kershaw’s dead, Falconer,” Sutton said. “Your wife is safe. There’s no evidence Kershaw was responsible for her accident. The report you forwarded even says the electric short wasn’t the cause.”
“Which supports my theory that there’s more to the situation than we’re seeing.” Sebastian’s gaze tracked Olivia as she moved into the room.
“We’re all on the same side here.”
She sat in Kingsley’s command-center chair and gathered the pieces of paper he’d left behind when he’d gone to bed. With a grace and efficiency Sebastian had seen in her when she painted, she filed and logged. He didn’t understand why his heart should beat so fast or why his pulse should kick up a notch. It wasn’t as if she were peeling off the bright blue sweater. She wasn’t even trying to flirt, for pete’s sake. She hadn’t even said a word. She was just sitting. Filing.
Maybe that was the problem. She was here in his world.
And she fit.
Sebastian massaged the back of his neck. “There are holes.”
“I don’t see any,” Sutton insisted. “The bad guys are where they belong, and they’ll add time for murder to their sentences. They won’t see the light of day again in this lifetime. The good guys win another round.”
Not to mention that the press had played Sutton up to look like a hero for ending this threat to society. Too neat. “I don’t want easy, Sutton. I want the truth. Something doesn’t fit.”
“Don’t start with that crap.”
“Blowing off a face is personal.”
“So he pissed somebody off. That’s not exactly big news.”
“Whoever tampered with the car is still out there.” And that was the biggest hole of all.
“He’s the only one with motive for hurting you.”
“In this business, every mutt we collar is a threat.”
“You’re looking for trouble where there isn’t any.”
Maybe Sutton was right. Maybe he was looking for trouble. Maybe he just needed to keep moving so he could stay ahead of the twisted snarl of his feelings for Liv. She caught him staring at her and smiled again. He frowned.
This went deeper than playing chicken with himself. Something about this case still gave him indigestion. Gut gave him direction, but he never let it rule. He backed it up with hard evidence and facts. Every time. He wasn’t going to make an exception just because Sutton wanted neat.
“What about the jail break?”
“They took advantage of an unrelated situation. It was contained.”
“What if Kershaw orchestrated the situation?”
Sutton barked like a seal. “He was a model prisoner.”
One with a seething need for revenge. “What about Greco and Carmichael?”
“What about them?”
“Two trained, armed marshals couldn’t handle unarmed prisoners?”
“They were desperate. Took our guys by surprise.”
“And they didn’t fight back?”
“They were cornered and disarmed. They didn’t have a chance.”
“Doesn’t fit.”
Sutton sighed. “Look, some people would rather you just let things stand as they are.”
“Who? Why?”
“I’m ordering you to take some time off,” Sutton said. “Send the team home.”
“I need to see this to the finish.”
“The last thing the Service needs, deputy, is a hot dog.”
Sebastian heard the unspoken warning loud and clear.
Time off suddenly seemed like the perfect solution. Sutton’s package was tied neat and pretty—even if the box was full of holes. As far as Sutton was concerned, the case was closed. If Sebastian didn’t take the time off offered, he’d end up working another caseload in no time.
Someone had killed Kershaw. That someone was still out there. He needed to know who. He needed to know why. He needed to be sure Liv wasn’t in anymore danger. And for that, he’d have to buy time.
When he had his answers, he could put this mess behind him and concentrate on what he was going to do next. He looked up at Liv and cursed the gnaw of hunger just seeing her could stir. He’d put Olivia on hold too many times and it had nearly cost him his marriage. He wanted another chance to make it right.
“The team’s been working overtime for a week,” he said as a plan formed. “They deserve some time off, too.”
Sutton seemed relieved Sebastian had backed down. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Sebastian cut the connection. When he looked up, his gaze spliced with Liv’s. Her sweater’s color reflected in her eyes, making them bluer, brighter than usual. And there leaped that primitive urge to devour and possess again, leaving him heavy and aching. Not reaching for her took all he had. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to twist his mind back to the plan.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” she said. The file cabinet snicked shut behind her.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Okay, then, I’m in.”
“In?”
Her chin rose. Not much. Just enough to dare. Opposition. Olivia would have backed down with a look. Liv was already digging in her heels. “It concerns me, too. I want to help.”
He was suddenly tired of fighting the whole world. Kershaw. Sutton. Paula. And now Liv. He needed someone on his side. And before, Olivia had always taken his side—on his terms, but his side. Keeping Liv close by didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He’d be there. And if he was right and this case wasn’t closed, this time he’d be able to protect her. So he gave in and opened the door he’
d sworn would always keep the two halves of his world separate. “Get me Kershaw’s file.”
Her smile alone was worth the small yield of control. He’d always liked pleasing her. It didn’t take much. Hot chocolate after skating. Blueberry picking after a paddle on the pond. A picnic on top of Mount Monadnock after the long hike up. Food and Olivia and passion. They were all mixed together. Was it any wonder he was always hungry when she was around?
She rolled Kingsley’s chair next to his and spread the file before them. “Where do we start?”
He glanced at Liv’s dark head bent over the file. The scent of her so close wrapped him in warmth. Home. Yearning unraveled. And when his arm touched hers, he let the contact stand. “At the beginning.”
Always a good place to start.
THEY PUT IN A FEW HOURS of work when Liv suddenly looked up. The room spun a half circle before it steadied. Her muscles were as stiff as dried paint from sitting still so long. The air in the office was growing stale and a headache was starting to pound at her temple. She needed air. And Sebastian needed a distraction. “Let’s run away.”
“No time.” Sebastian’s fingers clicked keys so fast they made a melody. The computer’s blue screen bleached his skin corpse gray in the low light.
When they’d squeezed all the information they could out of Kershaw’s file, Sebastian had widened the net, looking for those elusive threads that would somehow connect him with the damage done to her car and Kershaw’s death. On one hand, she’d found the logical track of his thought process fascinating. Hers seemed to run in spirals and loops, skipping and dipping. On the other hand, she saw him change as following those threads took him deeper and deeper into the dark web. Putting himself in Kershaw’s mind, then in some other twisted mind, seemed to suck the life out of Sebastian, make him harder, grimmer. No wonder he frowned so much.
“Fresh air will do us both some good. Clear our heads.” The lure of the mountain called to her. She wanted to feel wind flow through her hair and pinch her cheeks.
He looked up and gave her a speculative look. Calculating odds?
She leaned across the desk, putting her elbows on the top and her chin in her upturned hands. “Take me somewhere. Show me some place we both like.”
He toyed with the mouse he otherwise had not used all day, then tented his hands above the keyboard. The corner of his mouth twitched up and, like a flag reaching out for the breeze, a smile unfurled. She sucked in a breath. “Do that again.”
“What?”
“That thing you do with your mouth.”
This time laughter spilled like the sputters from a rusty engine and its echo purred inside her. “Did we do that often…before?”
He reached for one of the curls brushing the edge of her face and twined it around his finger. “Your laugh was one of my favorite sounds.”
“Show me.” She tugged on the cuffs of his sleeves.
He let her haul him up to his feet. He skimmed a quick kiss across her forehead, then pushed her gently toward the door. “Go put on layers.”
She craned her neck over her shoulder while a warm maple syrup kind of feeling slid through her. She hadn’t known she’d been waiting for this until part of the thick wall around him cracked. “Where are we going?”
He smiled again as he shut down the computer. “Skating.”
“WHAT DO I DO FIRST?” Olivia looked up at him expectantly. No, not Olivia. Liv. The woman in front of him was not the shy Olivia who’d charmed him with her softness all those years ago and made him believe he could follow two obsessions at once without getting burned. This was a woman brimming with curiosity and crackling with energy. He wasn’t sure how to handle her, only that he couldn’t let her go.
The specter of the unknown mutt out to hurt Olivia still clouded his mind. But the crime-scene team was still crawling around the cabin and the curious locals rolled through extra patrols of Mountain Road often during daylight. The pond should be safe enough to give Liv a half hour of sunshine to bloom.
As he took her gloved hand in his, a quilted calm came over him, and he knew everything would be all right. One step at a time. That’s how he’d won her. That’s how he would reach her once again. She might not be the Olivia he remembered, but she was still his, and he was still hers. For the first time in a long while, he let tension unwind, dropped his guard and gave Liv all of his attention.
“First, you separate your feet.”
She giggled as she mimicked his widened stance on the ice of the pond. The sound teased him as gently as the breeze. She’d been a good skater. He had no doubt she would catch on fast.
“Skating is like walking. First, put your weight on one side. Like this.” He stood next to her and glided forward a few feet on his right foot. “Then on the other. Like that.”
Liv copied his every move. Her body remembered how to skate, even if her mind didn’t remember she had. Her smile, her laughter, her pure pleasure tugged at his heartstrings, connecting her to him.
At that moment he wanted to believe in happy endings.
When he sensed fatigue overtaking her, he led her to the big rock on the point of the island. The pond was shaped like an hourglass—two rounded ends with a cinched-in waist. Blueberry Island sat square in the middle like a showy belt buckle, leaving two narrow strips of water on each side to connect the two fat ends of the pond. The sun had melted the snow off the flat-topped rock at the west end of the island, making it perfect for sitting. He wished he had hot chocolate for her, but he hadn’t dared go in the kitchen when Paula was there. He didn’t need to debate the merits of wanting to spend time alone with his own wife.
He pointed to bare bushes along the rocky edge of the island. “In the summer, we kayak over to this area and pick blueberries right from the boats.”
“Does anyone live there?”
“On the island? No. It’s a wildlife preserve. There’s a trail that goes all around it.”
“Let’s go.” She started to get up, but he pulled her back down.
“I need to rest for a couple of minutes.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her head against his. They sat in companionable silence for a long time, and he wished he could bottle this moment.
“Can you hear it?” Her breath tickled his ear.
“What?”
“The whisper of the wind in the trees. It’s like a song.”
And it was. Soft like a lullaby, the breeze swished by.
Smiling, he tugged her up, drew her close and spun her in lazy circles over the rough surface of the ice. The navy of their gloves, clasped close to their chests, melded hand to hand and body to body so that he could barely figure out where he ended and where she began. For a moment, Kershaw, the unsolved puzzle of the tampered car, Paula’s wish to pound in a wedge of mistrust between him and Liv, faded, shrinking the world to only the woman in his arms. He sighed into her. “God, I’ve missed you.”
She leaned back in his arms, trusting he would hold her. Her eyes glittered more brightly than the sapphire he’d given her for their last anniversary. “My heart remembers you.”
His heart took a plunge down to his feet before it found its right rhythm.
She twined her hands around his neck, smiling as she pulled his face closer. “Kiss me, Sebastian. I want to know you all over again.”
As always when it came to her, he could not resist. His gloved fingers tangled in her hair. His kiss opened her, and he breathed in her fire. It was like the first time all over again. The heat, the need, the slight edge of desperation as if parting would leave them both lost. She fit against him as she always had—perfectly. She followed his lead, then surprised him by asking for more.
“Liv.” He breathed her name as if it were an incantation that could save him.
Eleven years ago, after their first kiss, he’d tried to let her go. He’d tried to pretend she didn’t invade his dreams. He’d tried to use the danger he had to pursue to slice her out of his life. But he couldn’t.
He’d needed to find himself in her goodness as much as he’d needed to put evil behind bars. He’d given into his weakness, married her, and lived with the sweet hell of coming home to her only to have to leave her again.
“I can’t.” He gently pushed her away. He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t pretend he could keep her safe as long as his work dragged him through the muck of evil. He couldn’t stop hunting. But he didn’t know how to let her go.
“Can’t what?”
He shook his head. “We should head back.”
She stiffened against him. “Don’t shut me out.”
Only their hands touched now and it felt like goodbye. “You’re tired.”
“My memories might be gone, but I still live in this body. I feel just fine.”
He rammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Your legs are shaking.”
She planted the toe pick of one skate into the ice, spitting up shards. He thought of a bull pawing as it saw red and already felt the horn of her anger gore him between two ribs.
“You know what your problem is?” she asked, forehead rucked, eyes narrowed. “Your problem is that you’re afraid, and you’re afraid of being afraid.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Liv.” He turned from her and took a step toward shore. He lived with fear day in and day out. He didn’t fear fear. Fear kept him sharp, kept him strong.
She grabbed on to the tail of his jacket. “Then give, Sebastian. Share. Don’t keep all your sewage bottled up inside of you. It just festers there.”
“You don’t want to go there.” He skated forward. She didn’t let go, and he tugged her along. If he tainted her with the stain of his job, then what would he have to come home to?
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t ask.”
“You have no idea how dark it is in here.”
“How can I when you won’t let me in?”
“It’s safer.”
“For you or for me?”
He stopped and spun to look at her. “For both of us.”
