by Liliana Hart
Shane went about turning the fan on and putting the toiletries in the bathroom, noticing that Rachel still stood in front of the door chewing on her bottom lip. She was staring at the king-sized bed like it was leading her down the path to hell, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing when she spotted the circular mirror on the ceiling.
He knew exactly what she was feeling because the bed had given him more than a moment of concern, but as long as he remembered that she was a client and he was being paid to protect her, all thoughts of wanting to make love to her disappeared. Or at least mostly disappeared. He’d have to be dead not to think of it a little.
“Why don’t you go ahead and take the first shower? You look dead on your feet,” he said while he unhooked his ankle holster and put the .22 on the nightstand closest to the door.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, still staring at the bed. “So I guess you’re planning for both of us to sleep there.”
“Unless you want to sleep in the tub. Don’t worry, your virtue will stay intact. I never take advantage of a client.”
“So I guess the kiss you gave me earlier was saying something like, ‘Way to go, pal,’” she said with a raised eyebrow and quirk of lips.
“Just take your shower. We’ve got to be up at dawn and on our way to St. Louis.”
“I take it your friend has agreed to help us?”
“Yes. He’ll have everything we need and give us a place to stay for a couple of days while we’re trying to figure out the mess of how to get you to Chicago in one piece. Don’t use all the hot water,” Shane said and lay back on the bed fully clothed.
***
Rachel went into the bathroom and grimaced at the avocado green fixtures. At least the color probably hid the mold well. A dingy shower curtain hung limply from a tarnished rod and she jerked it open quickly, expecting to see either a knife-wielding maniac or a spider the size of her fist. She blew out a breath of relief when she saw neither.
Rachel took her clothes off in the tub so she wouldn’t have to stand in her bare feet on the grimy tile and folded her ruined clothes over the back of the toilet. She turned the water on and was thankful that at least the hot water worked and came out of the shower nozzle in more than a trickle. If she closed her eyes, she was pretty sure standing in the moldy shower of Jake’s otel was the best experience she’d had in a long time.
Fatigue was starting to take its toll, so she washed her hair and body quickly and then turned the water off. A rod on the wall held two paper thin towels, so she grabbed one and dried her body quickly and then wrapped the towel around her sopping head. She washed her underwear in the sink and hung it to dry over the rod and slipped on the plain white t-shirt Shane had bought her. It barely covered her backside, but it was the only thing she had to sleep in. Sleeping next to Shane was enough temptation in itself. What she really needed was full body armor and a chastity belt.
Rachel left the light on in the bathroom and made her way to her side of the bed quickly, slipping under the covers before Shane had a chance to glance in her direction. She didn’t know that Shane had noticed everything about her—how the shirt clung to her damp body or how long her legs were.
She fell asleep blissfully unaware that she was torturing her protector.
Chapter Seven
The late afternoon sun baked the city and tortured pedestrians as they scurried to their destinations. Washington was in the middle of a heat wave, the hottest the city had seen in years, and beads of sweat ran down Shane’s temples and into his eyes—the salt stinging and the sun glaring.
The Federal Reserve Building on Constitution Avenue was full of people just after lunch—tour groups, employees and government officials. He was positioned on top of the Roosevelt building across the street. Black tar from the roof stuck to his clothes and his rifle was set on a tripod stand aimed at the building. He had a perfect view to the inside of the building through his scope.
The gunman had gathered all of the hostages and made them sit in the center of the room, legs crossed and hands flat on the floor. It had only taken a glance through the scope to see the people were terrified—children from a tour group sat huddled in fear and the men and women around them tried to offer comfort and dry their tears.
His wife stood out like a beacon. An authority figure who was in complete control, though he could tell by the way she rubbed her hands on her black skirt that she was nervous. But she didn’t show her captor fear. Her posture was straight and defiant and her expression angry as she followed the gunman’s every movement.
A negotiator was called in to speak with the gunman, but the standard tactics weren’t working. The gunman was becoming more agitated with every call. He paced back and forth across the marble tile like a caged animal, the people at his feet forgotten and his demands growing stronger. Minutes turned into hours and the heat intensified as the sun crept higher.
A car alarm blared from down the block and a chopper circled overhead. The smell of hot tar and exhaust made the inside of his nose raw as he looked through the scope of his rifle. The streets were cordoned off around the building. The gunman had asked for an armored truck to load gold bars into, and it sat big and black and shiny in front of the Federal Reserve Building. The gunman picked hostages to load the truck and then had them return to the bank and sit back down on the floor.
The gunman grabbed a woman from the floor and used her as a shield as he began to leave the building. From all appearances, it looked like he was going to let the other hostages go.
“Fire when ready,” Director Hudson ordered Shane. “I don’t want the bastard to step foot outside of that building. We don’t need any more of a media circus than we’ve already got.”
“What about the hostage?” Shane asked, his voice hollow.
“Take the shot, Quincy,” Director Hudson ordered again, and Shane knew the life of the woman wasn’t as important as the bigger picture to a man like Hudson.
But Shane followed orders. His finger was steady on the trigger as he slowly pulled it back. The rifle jerked in his arms and the bullet cut through the waves of heat pouring up from the pavement as if it were in slow motion. The gunman was unsuspecting, his focus on the struggling woman and getting them both to the truck.
The other hostages were restless and beginning to stand, relieved the ordeal was over. The crack of the rifle firing was delayed, the bullet faster than the speed of sound, and Shane watched as it sliced through the glass doors of the Federal Reserve and into the gunman’s heart, missing the woman by only a fraction of an inch. But in the end it hadn’t mattered. She’d died anyway.
Real time whooshed back in an instant as the man fell to his knees. The city was still, a void in space, and then all hell broke loose. The explosion rocketed through the front of the building, engulfing it in black smoke and flame. Debris rained from the sky and large chunks of concrete catapulted into the street, damaging cars and breaking the windows of the surrounding buildings. The lives of so many people had meant less than 400 ounce rectangles of metal.
Shane’s life as he’d known it had ended in an instant.
***
He woke gasping for air and his skin slicked with sweat. He was disoriented and cold and his muscles cramped in fear. And when a soft hand touched him on the shoulder he had to fight to keep from jumping out of the bed like a coward.
“Shane?” Rachel asked.
He didn’t answer her. Couldn’t answer her. The soft hand began rubbing slow circles over his back until his breathing slowed. Rain pounded against the window and thunder cracked loudly, shaking the glass.
“Shane? Are you okay?” she asked again.
“Yeah, just give me a minute.” The dream was always the same. He’d killed his wife. Killed all of those people. The children. Despite the higher ups who had given him the order to fire, it had been only his finger on the trigger. Not theirs.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Shane laughed sardon
ically and rubbed his hands across his face. “Hell, no. I lived it. Why would I want to talk about it? You sound like one of the FBI shrinks.”
He was churned up, feeling mean and nasty, and he desperately wanted a bottle of Jim Beam. But he’d given up the hard stuff and taken up running instead. And now he was stuck in a motel room with a woman who made him crazy and neither of his vices were available.
Shane lay back down and turned onto his side, facing away from Rachel. The sweat on his skin was drying, leaving him clammy and cold. Rachel’s fingers were driving him to distraction. He’d never considered sex as a way to chase away the bad dreams, but he was beginning to think it might not be a bad idea to take up a third vice just in case he was ever in a situation like this one again.
He hadn’t touched a woman in two years, and the need rose up in him swiftly, hardening him to the point of pain. His senses were heightened—the smell of her skin and the way her breath feathered across his cheek. She snuggled up close behind him, her hand continuously soothing, while his body coiled with tension. Would she continue to soothe him if he decided to use her body and pound away his frustrations? He couldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t do it to anyone. No one deserved to be treated that way. Which led him back to running or Jim Beam. He choked on a laugh, but it was a sob that caught in his throat.
“I always hear you leave your apartment in the middle of the night,” she said, breaking the silence. “Where do you go?”
“Running through the city. It’s beautiful at night,” he said, trying to think of anything but the touch of her hand or her softness pressed against him. “I tried drowning myself in alcohol for a few months, but I didn’t like that version of me when I looked in the mirror any more than the version I see now. So I poured the bottles down the drain and stopped looking at myself in the mirror altogether. I didn’t realize my sleep habits kept you awake.”
“I’d try to stay awake until you came back, just so I could listen to you play the piano for awhile. Such sad music comes out of you, Shane. Sometimes it would make me cry.”
“Well, the blues isn’t meant to be happy.”
“No, I suppose not, but I enjoyed hearing you all the same. You have strong hands,” she said, running her fingers down the length of his arm to the tips of his fingers.
His hands were rough and his fingers calloused, but she was right. They were strong. If only the rest of his body and mind could live up to the potential. The tension slowly drained from his body with every gentle stroke of her hand. It was a comfortable feeling to wake up beside a woman in the middle of the night. He’d forgotten the intimacy, the feeling of knowing a lover’s touch or the sighs that said they were dreaming peacefully. The vise around his chest loosened and he was able to breath easier. And before he could help himself, the words started pouring out of his mouth.
“I killed my wife,” Shane said, expecting Rachel to distance herself from him. To slap him or gasp in horror. She did neither. She just listened.
***
Rachel felt sick inside. What kind of horrors had Shane been living with? She didn’t believe for a moment that he’d killed his wife. He was too honorable, too loyal. He was a protector of the innocent, and his basic characteristics would never let him be anything else.
So when he dropped the bombshell about his wife, she listened with an open mind while her heart broke over the tragedy. He told her of his nightmares, and how he relived those last moments night after night, shouldering the blame for something he’d had no control over. And she listened with envy as he spoke of the woman he’d loved—her beauty, her strength and her faith in him that he was making a difference in the world.
“I’ve spent my entire adult life obeying someone else’s orders—in the Marines and then again in the FBI,” Shane said. “I’ve always been a pawn in someone else’s game. What does that say about me that I never stopped to think for myself? That I just followed the orders of others so blindly without first thinking of all the consequences?”
“I’d say it made you the best person to do your job. The job does not define the man, Shane. You’re still your own person, with your own beliefs and priorities. And no one can fault you for doing what you had to do in those last seconds.”
“Well, they did fault me. And I can’t blame them.”
“Trying to relive history, to rethink the outcome of situations will never give you peace. You can’t say for certain that he wouldn’t have detonated the bomb strapped to his chest anyway. He was a sociopath. It was he who was responsible for the loss of all those lives. Not you. There are a hundred different scenarios that could have played out that day, and they all could have ended badly. From the way you described your wife I’d think she wouldn’t be too happy with the way you’re blaming yourself. What would she say?”
She’d probably tell him to stop moping and get the job done. “I don’t know, but every day I pray that she would have forgiven me if she was still alive. She was strong. Stronger than me. Everything was black and white with Maggie. Right or wrong. There were no gray areas to get lost in. It seemed I was always skirting the gray areas in my line of work, and she’d just give me that look that said, ‘Suck it up and do what’s right.’”
“She sounds like an amazing woman,” Rachel said.
“She was. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of her. She’s my conscience. And loving her taught me something very important. That emotions always cloud the issues. I’ll never let myself love anyone as whole-heartedly as I did her. The body’s not meant to withstand that much torture, that much loss. It’s okay to put yourself into work and relationships, but there’s no reason for them to matter too much. It can only lead to disaster.”
The first tear snaked down Rachel’s cheek before she could stop it. Her hand had stilled on his and her breath was caught in her throat. What had she been thinking, dragging Shane into a mess of her own making and then becoming attached to him? He was everything a real man should be—honorable and trustworthy and honest. And he continued to be that way despite the pain that weighed him down. She was past the point of where she could lie to herself. She was already in love with him. How could she not be?
“Maggie would have forgiven you,” she said softly, but he didn’t hear her. His breathing had steadied under her hand and she realized he’d fallen asleep, the nightmares purged from his soul with his confessions. But Rachel was wide awake. And more alone than she’d ever been. She rolled away from Shane and curled into a ball, letting the tears fall silently. It was the first time she’d cried since she was a child. And all because she was in love with a man who would never love her in return.
She’d stay with Shane Quincy until the papers were safely in the possession of the FBI, and then tell him goodbye with a confidence and bravado that had come from years of practice and guidance from her father. And then she’d never look back.
Chapter Eight
Rachel woke the moment Shane left the bed. She’d spent the night tossing and turning, a deep sleep eluding her for uncomfortable dreams and thoughts of the man beside her.
The bed dipped and raised and she opened her eyes. The room was still pitched in darkness and no glimmer of morning light peaked underneath the curtains. Shane flicked on the bedside lamp and she watched the muscles in his back flex as he reached toward the ceiling in a stretch that left her mouth watering. A pair of snug boxer-briefs hugged his hips, his hair was mussed and a day’s worth of beard shadowed his face. He wasn’t making it easy for her to stick to her plan.
He pulled on his clothes and strapped the .22 back to his ankle, checking the cylinder even though the amount of bullets in the chamber hadn’t changed since the day before. He moved around the room silently, packing up their meager belongings. He reminded her of a big cat, the way he moved so efficiently, almost lazily, but the power was coiled just beneath the surface. Always ready.
“Rise and shine, Sugar. I want to be out of here before light hits. We’re supposed to meet Wildcat in
St. Louis at noon.”
“I’m awake. And don’t call me Sugar,” Rachel said as she shuffled into the bathroom to get dressed. She threw on her clothes, washed her face, brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. The bags under her eyes spoke of a sleepless night and her skin was pale against the harsh lighting in the bathroom. She probably wouldn’t have to worry about any more kisses from Shane.
Shane was standing by the door impatiently by the time she emerged from the bathroom, and he avoided making eye contact with her. Tension hung thick in the air between them, and words spoken in the dark of night lay heavy on both their minds.
Rachel noticed the .22 in Shane’s hand.
“Stay behind me and to my right. The dumpsters will give us good coverage until we can make it to the Explorer. You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Shane opened the door and she followed close behind him. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but it didn’t look like Jake’s otel had changed much over the last few hours. The thunderstorm had turned into a light mist and water filled the holes in the parking lot. If it was possible, Jake’s otel looked even more pitiful than it had the night before, soggy and neglected.
They were behind the dumpsters and Rachel’s pulse picked up as she thought of how long they’d be an open target on the way to the car. Her Uncle Angelo could have men placed anywhere—on the rooftops, under cars or at the liquor store across the street. She didn’t like the thought of Shane putting himself in front of her. Weren’t two sets of searching eyes better than one? She tried to move around him so she could see, but he stubbornly kept his body in front of hers as they edged out from behind the dumpsters.
The fine hairs on her arms and the nape of her neck prickled a moment before the gunshot rang out. Shane pushed her to the ground and into the wet, covering her body with his own. She felt his body jerk against her and they went down hard, bodies tangling. Her elbows cracked against the concrete and the breath whooshed out of her lungs, making it impossible for her to draw in a breath. Shane dropped the gun seconds before his head bounced off the pavement and his body went limp on top of hers.
