by TL Schaefer
She aimed the lantern’s beam up toward the low ceiling, dimly illuminating the room, and settled into a crouch opposite him, leaning back against the wall, arms draped across her knees.
“So tell me again why I risked my butt to save yours? I think I missed something in the translation back there while we were ducking tornadoes.”
Nick prepped himself to recite his cover again but allowed a moment to study her in the half-light, remembering their brief moment of contact and the thrill that had shot straight to his groin.
What was it about the woman that set him on point? It certainly wasn’t the way she looked. Due to her sprint in the storm, she now resembled a drowned rat. An attractive one, to be sure, but not usually his type. She was small, feisty and had a history that made him shudder. At least what he could remember of it.
She was a risk-taker, someone who didn’t think of the consequences before acting. Their terrifying escape from the garage only solidified what he’d heard, even if they had made it through unscathed.
Adrenaline junkie or not, she looked like she was starting to come down. The baby blues he’d first noticed now looked tired rather than ramped up with excitement, and her posture reflected exhaustion.
He could understand the feeling, but not the woman beneath it. Cleaned up, she was probably cute as a button, but he’d seen a strength of character he wouldn’t have expected from such a tiny thing, or from someone with her history. In his experience, women who looked like Cristine O’Connor were on the hunt for someone to take care of them. Someone to make the mean old world go away. Or something.
In the long run, none of it really mattered. She’d given him a convenient way out of the situation he’d been in, and he had no doubt the men who’d put him there would be back for him, probably to put a bullet in his brain. Or at least try. This gave him more time to formulate a game plan.
Looking back, he was almost positive they didn’t know he was with her. He’d ducked low as they came out of the garage, more in an instinctual move than a covert one, and her little crash-and-burn with their car would’ve given him a chance to escape, if he’d stayed back in the garage.
No, the more he thought about it, the more he figured they had no idea where he was. Which, in the long run, was a darned good thing.
He knew they were safe from the weather. Growing up in northeast Oklahoma had given him a pretty good handle on how to gauge storms. The one they’d been caught in was dangerous to anyone above ground, but down here they were in the most protected spot in the state.
And now they had to kill the time until the tornado passed, until the storm siren stopped its distant wailing.
She was still looking at him, so he figured he’d better answer her question before he blew his cover even more.
“Like I said before, I work for a bunch of auto execs in Detroit. Some of the numbers looked weird, so they sent me down to look at the books firsthand. Next thing I know I’m being kidnapped from the hotel parking lot. Got a doozy of a beating while they tried to figure out what I knew, which wasn’t much, and then they tossed me into the trunk.”
What he didn’t say was that her timely intervention and run-in with his captors had given him a huge piece of information and saved a prime piece of evidence since the ‘Vette wasn’t a charcoal briquette right about now. The fraud ring he was investigating did involve cops. Or at least that was the way it looked, but in this situation, who knew? Either way, it was a bad scenario all the way around.
“So what were they going to do with you then?”
“Kind of rhetorical, huh? I’d imagine they were going to kill me.” At least that part was true.
She kept looking at him, judging his response with narrowed eyes.
“You don’t seem to be too shaken up by it, Nick. I mean, if I knew someone was going to off me, I think I’d be pretty darn scared.”
Ah man. He had to move fast and knew it. This was why he didn’t work undercover. This was why he was a field training officer, not an operative.
“I’m from Detroit. We see some pretty nasty stuff there, even in the good neighborhoods. Guess I’ve had enough time to recover from the concept.” It was lame, but maybe it would do, given how exhausted she looked.
She looked at him for a moment more, then dropped her head back against the wall, exposing a long, creamy expanse of throat, stretching her damp tee shirt across generous breasts.
Nick gulped. Jesus, why’d she have to do that? Hers was the kind of neck a man could feast on, before moving down to devour... He shook his head. What was he thinking?
This was Cristine O’Connor, of all people, and he was on a job.
“Well, things like this may happen every day in Detroit, but they don’t happen in Oklahoma City. At least not that I’ve ever seen.” Her tired reply made his reluctant attraction even worse. Her husky voice was unguarded, true for the first time since they’d begun this encounter and zoomed straight along his nerve endings.
He’d just started to formulate a semi-coherent reply when they both heard it. A low rumble and shriek eerily reminiscent of a freight train. The tornado was coming, and it was close. They both shot to their feet, looking at the trap door with wide eyes.
Nick knew they were safe, but it didn’t stop the surge of terror that shot through him, turning his blood to ice water.
The steel-reinforced door started to vibrate, rattling against the deadbolt as the sound grew deafening and the air seemed to be sucked out of the tiny room.
Nick lunged forward, wrapped an arm around her waist and dropped to the floor, shielding her with his body.
The roaring, rattling vacuum seemed to last for hours. And even though Nick knew, rationally, that they were safe, it didn’t seem to matter to the creative side of his brain. It told him they were going to die, and in a particularly unpleasant manner. He flashed back to the battlefield, to the carnage, the deafening explosion of a mortar round exploding, the screams of the wounded, the silence of the dead.
The force of the tornado merged with his memory…he could feel it trying to suck them up into its deadly vortex, and his instinct took flight. He crushed her body beneath his, sheltering her from the fury of the storm directly over their heads, the bloodbath he relived in his mind.
As abruptly as it had begun, a deathly silence descended on the hole in the ground. It was tomb quiet, and if there’d been a clock ticking on the wall, Nick knew he could have heard each second as it passed. The silence pulled him back from his past. There were no screams in the here-and-now.
It was over. His practical, cop mind tried to take in the overwhelming silence, the awesome flood of adrenaline coursing through him, and failed. Instead of focusing on the safety he now felt, his body registered the warm, wet woman beneath him. The warm, wet woman who’d begun squirming to get out from under his weight.
All higher brain functions rocketed straight south as her annoyed, breathless voice reached his ears.
“Let me up. Storm’s over.”
He laid there for a moment, simply enjoying the sensation of curves, the scent of woman, then pushed his body up, propping on an elbow as she levered into a sitting position.
She swiped a hand across her brow, pushing away her hair and laughed a little nervously.
“Um, thanks, even if we were safe.”
He knew, as the adrenaline slowed its frenzied rush through his system, that he shouldn’t be looking at this woman the way he was. She personified everything he’d been pushing away for years. Brash, ballsy, impulsive.
But that didn’t matter one little bit as she raised her eyes and he saw the same spark of desire that was now kindling in his belly.
What could one little taste hurt? As soon as they got out of this storm shelter he’d be on his way, back to doing what he was supposed to do, bring down the bad guys. Yeah, what could one little taste, one last walk on the wild side, hurt?
He leaned across and cupped her neck with his free hand, leaned in...and was stopped b
y her hand on his chest.
Chapter 4
Cris felt Nick’s heart leaping wildly under her fingers, felt the warmth of his body rising through the wet material of his shirt, smelled the musky, tantalizing scent of him as it rolled over her senses in a fury.
The thud of her own pulse, of her own desire, mirrored his.
But the rational part of her, the part that had both cursed and saved her in the past, kicked in, pushing the want, the need, down deep.
Instead of giving in to what could certainly be hot, given the electricity arcing between them, she used him as leverage, pushing to her feet.
Nothing, not one good thing, could come of her reluctant, newly minted attraction to this stranger. She’d made enough mistakes in her lifetime with men to know that much.
Standing on shaky legs, she extended a hand. “C’mon, let’s see if we can get out of here.”
Nick looked at her for a long moment before grasping her hand, using her as a help-up. Heat and fire coursed through her again, and only his voice brought her back to herself.
“All right, you’re the boss.”
Cris lifted her chin stubbornly, pride snaking through her to replace the feelings that shook her so.
Was he making fun of her? It wouldn’t be the first time, nor probably the last.
But his face was a mask of calm, belying none of the emotion that had churned so closely to the surface just seconds ago.
No, he wasn’t making fun of her.
And because of that, she wasn’t sure what he was all about. It certainly wasn’t the demeanor she’d expect of an accountant. It wasn’t the behavior she’d experienced in her marriage to Trent. In fact, she couldn’t remember any man treating her with this kind of considering respect except her dad and her brothers.
She shook loose her hand. Shaking Nick Coleman from her thoughts wasn’t so easy.
“You’re right. In this situation I am the boss.” She stepped away and strode to the shelter door. Reaching up, she tugged on the deadbolt, sliding it back with a rasp of metal on metal, then pushed up on the door that should have opened easily. And didn’t. Frowning, she climbed the concrete stairs and put her shoulder into it, grunting as she heaved her body weight into the unforgiving steel. Still nothing.
She looked down at Coleman, who was eyeing her with an amused expression.
“Want me to give it a try?”
Oh yeah, he was unquestionably laughing at her now, but it wasn’t meanspirited. It was almost teasing, which given their circumstances was just plain weird, even if it felt nicer than it should. “That’d be good,” You dumbass bean counter, she added silently.
She stepped down, letting him past, and watched with a combination of glee and frustration when he couldn’t get the door to budge either. Served him right. Then again, they were trapped down here for who knew how long, so proving him wrong didn’t seem like quite the victory it should have been.
“Give it a rest, Nick. There’s obviously something lying on top of it. We’re stuck until Linc gets home.” She sunk down on the bench, pulling out her phone. It was doubtful it would work in the steel-reinforced room, but it was worth a shot.
Sure enough, the reception was squat. She couldn’t even get a text out, probably due to the fact she was in a hole in the ground and everyone else in Oklahoma City was hoovering up the data stream.
“Won’t it work down here?” Nick’s question was quiet, and right next to her ear.
Cris jerked away instinctively and scooted down the bench. He was invading her space, and after her reaction to him, she needed all the space she could get.
“Nope. Too much rebar and crap in the walls, even for a text. I didn’t expect it to, but I’d have been a fool if I hadn’t tried.”
He laughed, a low chuckle that raced through her like fine wine. “I haven’t known you long, Cristine, but I doubt you play the fool very often.”
She looked up in surprise. Even with his words and actions just moments ago, it wasn’t the statement she’d expected from him, maybe from anyone. He kept surprising her, this mysterious accountant--nix that, auditor.
“Thanks, I think.” Cris paused and cocked her head. “So, since we’re obviously stuck down here for a bit, I guess there’s one real question I have to ask, and it’s probably late in coming. What do we do when we get out?”
“That’s the question of the day, isn’t it?” Nick’s answer slipped under her guard—again—and she fought against a grin. At least he wasn’t trying to get all caveman on her and dictate everything she said and did. She got enough of that from her brother, Adam.
God, her family would be freaking out right about now, hearing that a tornado had touched down near the yard. As soon as she figured out what to do with Coleman, she’d give them a call and let them know she was all right.
“So what’s the answer?” he cut into her thoughts. “I’m not from here, and by saving me, you now have the onus of taking care of me for the rest of my life.” He smiled for the first time, and about stopped her heart. Even through the bumps and bruises, Nick Coleman was a stunningly good-looking man, and somehow those good looks and his easygoing attitude didn’t fit with her preconceived notion of how he made his living.
“I don’t think that’s how the proverb goes, Nick. Let’s stick with figuring out what we’re going to do when Linc lets us out, and we’ll go from there, all right?”
“Sounds fair to me. What do you suggest?”
“First off, I want Linc to look into this guy England’s credentials. He acted like a cop, but this whole morning doesn’t add up. Cops don’t try to force citizens off the road, even when they think the driver is a felon. Not when there’s a two and a half story drop off from the interstate. Shooting at us when we left the garage was fundamentally wrong, especially after the song-and-dance England gave me about mistaking me for a skip. Even if they were after you, and we both know that was the case, cops don’t do that. Not good cops, at least.”
“You seem to know a lot about it…” Nick’s trailing statement made Cris squirm.
“Um, yeah. I guess you could say that.” She stopped, staring at the concrete framed between her feet for a long moment. With everything that had happened, she realized she’d completely forgotten about her panic attack, her flashbacks. It was weirdly comforting.
With a deep breath, she raised her head and continued with her previous thought, as if he hadn’t spoken, and she hadn’t answered far too unsteadily.
“What I’m trying to figure out is why I trust you more than I trust the word of a cop, no matter how inappropriately he acted.”
Nick sat back against the wall with a sigh. “I don’t know what to tell you, Cris. The fact I’m telling you the truth might have something to do with it. I don’t know if those guys really are cops, but if they are, it scares the crap out of me because then who are the good guys?”
Cris sat up straight as the truth of his statement swept through her. While she knew the answer, hearing it stated so baldly sent a shiver of foreboding through her.
“Well,” she replied slowly, still shaken by the chill snaking through her. “I’m one of the good guys, and I know for a fact Linc is, so you’re safe, at least for now.” She let out a shaky laugh. “This is probably the safest place in the state right now.”
She turned her head to look at Nick, not so surprised to find him watching her with eyes that were entirely too aware, too predatory, to be a bean counter.
“Who are you, Nick Coleman? Really?” The question escaped her without conscious thought, and the moment the words were out, she wished them back. She wasn’t a cop anymore, but old habits died hard. But nothing could stop her questions, or, apparently, the careful way Nick rearranged his features to appear non-threatening once again.
“I’m exactly what I said. I don’t know what you mean.”
But he did, she could see it in his eyes, even though he tried to hide it. That should have bothered her mightily, but it didn’t. For
some ungodly reason, her instincts told her to go with Nick Coleman. And her instincts were almost always right. It was when she tried to apply rationality and procedure that everything went south.
For that reason alone, she didn’t press him. At least not right now. Because there was more lurking beneath the surface of her companion. A profound, soul-deep weariness she understood on a fundamental level, yet only saw in brief flashes. Just her imagination, she’d first thought. Now she recognized it as her psychological training reasserting itself after eighteen long, dormant months.
“Somehow, I doubt that, Nick. But we’ll let it go. For now.” She leaned her head against the concrete wall and closed her eyes, suddenly tired beyond belief.
The worst part was, she still trusted him more than the men who were after him, and that freaked her out more than anything else that had happened this entire crazy morning.
Nick let the silence envelop them, and even though her closing words should have made it uncomfortable, it was anything but.
Once again, he berated himself for being so lousy at undercover work. Why had he let them talk him into it again, especially after last time? He was a good Field Training Officer and pretending to be something he wasn’t stuck in his craw. But he was also a Marine at heart, he thought with an ironic smile, and did as he was told, even when it went against his better instincts.
He stretched out his bad leg and smothered a grimace. The medics had taken out more than part of his knee that day in the sandbox, they’d snatched a piece of his soul. And when he’d come home, trying to build a new life, a new destiny, he’d found himself plunked down in the same hellhole of a home he’d spent eighteen years trying to leave.
His mother was still a drunk—a nurse who took her morning coffee with a good dollop of whiskey—and his father was still her enabler.
Most of the time they were just that, dysfunctional as hell. But about twice a year all hell would break loose, and words and dishes flew.
