CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts)

by Dodd, Christina

  "There are worse things to be." He put the bag back on his eye, as if the discussion was closed.

  "Than a bimbo?" Outrage lifted Kate out of her momentary weepiness. "No, there aren't!"

  "You could be dead!"

  "They weren't going to kill me. They were going to kill you." She stuck her finger in his face. "You yelled at me for not letting them kill you."

  "I'm supposed to be protecting you."

  He seemed to suffer from male-onset deafness, so she repeated herself. "You yelled at me for not letting them kill you."

  He repeated himself "I'm supposed to be protecting you."

  Apparently she was mistaken. It wasn't male-onset deafness. It was male-onset idiocy. "This is too much. I've learned my lesson. I let love sweep me off my feet and out of any good sense I ever learned, but today showed me my mistake. First I get yelled at by Brad for not doing my job. Then I have to talk to that creep Oberlin three times." She showed Teague three fingers. "Then you shout at me because I didn't run away screaming like one of those dim-bulb girls you usually sleep with. Fine. I'm going to do what I do best. I'm going to find the story on Oberlin, expose him for one murder and God knows how many more, and then get my life back to normal."

  "Normal? Get your life back to normal?" With controlled force, he threw the ice bag into the sink. "Do you know how stupid that sounds? Your life won't be back to normal! You'll be dead like Evelyn Oberlin. Like Lana Whoever it was he killed. Like the other people he possibly took out. We haven't said it yet, but do you realize we're talking about a serial killer? One with money and power and who kills without remorse?"

  "A serial killer who appears to be after you." That shut him up—for about five seconds.

  "I'm not the target. He wants me out of the way so he can get to you."

  "My incredibly brilliant analytical mind already figured that out. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether you're the real target, you'll be just as dead." Today Oberlin had made her skin crawl. The way he'd looked at her, the way he'd made excuses to touch her . . . she hadn't told Teague, but Oberlin had said things. Things that sounded innocuous, but weren't.

  Kate, from the first minute I saw you, I knew you were the one woman who could help me through my wife's death.

  But Senator, when we first met, your wife wasn't dead.

  He laughed genially. Oh, Kate, you're smart—and pretty, too. I have to take care of you. After all, you're my own special reporter.

  She couldn't tell Teague that stuff. He'd go ballistic, try to put her in an ivory tower and rush himself into harm's way to get to Oberlin. She was flattered that Teague thought enough of her to be so concerned—actually, more than flattered, she was plunging more deeply in love than ever—but she couldn't let him protect her at the expense of his own life.

  She'd already lost her father to torment and death. She couldn't lose Teague, too. She couldn't bear that.

  "I'm a damned good reporter," she said, "and I'm going to do what I do best. I'll do my research, get my facts—"

  "I've got a man doing that. Rolf's been researching him on the Internet, and Oberlin's clean as a whistle."

  "That's impossible. There's no way a senator couldn't have people who hate him." The red fog of rage and fear cleared a little, and her brain started clicking through the facts. "The Democrats, the Republicans, the conservatives, the liberals—somebody hates him."

  "Apparently no one is allowed to express an adverse public opinion."

  She whistled in amazement. "That's fascinating. I'll have to go to the source." "What are you talking about?" He enunciated each word.

  "I'll have to go to Hobart." Mentally, she was rubbing her hands together. She was going to search out some hidden thing that desperately needed to be revealed. This was a story.

  "No." Teague shook his head as if he knew the right thing to do. "No, you do not have to go to Hobart."

  "Don't be silly. That's where Oberlin's from. That's where Mrs. Oberlin was from. They have to have family there."

  "Unless he killed them all."

  "Don't exaggerate. My God, you act as if I would rush in, announce I'm investigating Senator Oberlin and his previous murders, and allow his local goons to take me out." She tried to control her exasperation, tried to talk sense to a man who had none. "Hobart is just a town, Teague, a little town of about five thousand with four stoplights and the county rodeo grounds outside the city limits."

  "You've already investigated the place," he said, obviously aghast. "When did you do that?"

  "As soon as I realized Senator Oberlin was after me. I called the city council for the stats."

  "No." Teague slapped his palm on the table. "You're not going."

  "No? Are you telling me no?" Kate itched to slap her palm, too—against his bruised, superior, smart-aleck face. "You're not my boss. You're not my husband. You're just my lover, and you've proved very conclusively today that there are big differences in how we view our relationship."

  "There are big differences in how we view the world. You had money that protected you. You had parents who sheltered you. You're a privileged woman. You think that good triumphs and evil is punished, but that's absolute bullshit. I've been all over with the Marines, and evil triumphs all the time."

  "Is that who you think I am?" How could he have lived with her, talked to her, been with her, and still be so wrong? "Some fairy-tale princess who sees good in everyone? Some child to be protected from life?"

  "With this plan to chase after Oberlin, you've proved that's who you are."

  "And you've proved you don't know me at all." With his opinions and his words, he was stomping her into the ground, making her less than she knew herself to be. In a low voice, she said, "I've lived in countries where women are valued less than horses, where unwanted babies are exposed to the elements to die. I've seen children starve, their bellies swollen, their bones protruding; and we couldn't feed them fast enough to save them. I've seen women torn by gang rape and villages destroyed by war." The images paraded across her mind. "And yes, when I was a child my parents protected me, but they wanted me to know the world I lived in. They wanted me to be the kind of person who called other members of the human race my brothers and sisters. So when I was old enough, I saw it all. My dad and mom and I worked in refugee camps. We worked in hospitals. We helped."

  She must have looked like she was about to go nuclear, because he started backpedaling with all his might. "All right. I was mistaken. You've seen the world. I simply meant—"

  "I recognize brutality. I recognize senseless death." She didn't give a damn what he meant. "Do you know that when my father died, the government advised my mother and me not to look at the body? His murder had been too brutal." She lowered her voice to a whisper because if she didn't, she knew she would scream. Scream in agony like she'd screamed before. "So the men who had done that to him . . . sent us photos through the Internet. Sent us photos of . . . the torture. Sent us photos of . . . Dad's mutilated body."

  "My God, Kate . . ." Teague started toward her, his expression horrified.

  She backed up. She hadn't realized it, but she was crying. Tears dripped off her face. Her throat hurt from holding back the sobs. "You've never had anyone you cared for, so you never lost anyone . . . you loved." Her voice broke and, desolate, she hugged herself. "I have, so don't tell me . . . that I'm weak and you're strong, that you can face the demons . . . and I can't, because you haven't . . . passed the greatest test of all. You haven't died of a broken heart . . . and awoken the next day to die again."

  She made a dash for the stairway, but he caught up with her before she cleared the kitchen door. He wrapped her in his arms and held her. She tried to escape, but she couldn't bring herself to punch him in his ribs, and her own consideration made her weep harder.

  She was a well-brought-up, privileged woman, and right now she wanted to be a callous bitch.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I mean, I knew, but not that you . . . You're a brave woman." He
kept one arm around her and, with the other, stroked her hair.

  Just what she didn't need now. Compassion. What a lousy, cheap ploy on his part to make her like him again.

  "When the kidnappers first sent those photos to my mother and me, they were in my mind all the time." She trembled in Teague's arms. "Everywhere I looked, all day and all night, I saw blood and gore. I couldn't stop thinking about him. He raised me. He loved me. He taught me sports, confidence, humor. He taught me to do the right thing. And he had been tortured." She took a painful breath. "They flayed him. All I could think was that he died in agony. Mom said the memories would fade." Kate shook her head, the truth too big and raw to wrap her mind around. "But she was in agony, too. I heard her crying at night."

  Teague rubbed his hand up and down her back.

  "She was right, though. The memories eventually faded. I see them every once in a while—at night in my dreams and in the daytime when I cover a child abuse case or a five-car pileup." Kate's heart ached. She recognized the sensation. She had spent the months following her father's death, suffering this exact feeling.

  Now the fight with Teague had dredged them up again, and she was hurting once more. "I h-hate you."

  She was lying.

  It wasn't Teague she hated. It was the memories.

  "I know. You should. I'm a jerk." He walked her toward a kitchen chair. He sat and drew her into his lap and lightly hugged her until she stopped weeping. "As soon as we get Oberlin taken care of, you should wipe your feet on me and walk away."

  "I w-will." Too bad the idea made her feel worse when she already felt like hell. Crying did that to her.

  She knew she looked like hell. Crying always did that, too.

  Teague didn't seem to notice. He was staring at her as if she were the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.

  No fair.

  "I shouldn't have said that stuff. But you want to know stuff about me? Bad stuff?" He kissed her forehead. "I'll tell you. I envy you your parents. It's not a nice envy, either, it's a bone-deep, ugly jealousy that you have something I've _never had and never will have." He was making her feel sympathy for him.

  She didn't want to. "I need a Kleenex."

  "My mother despised me." He handed her a kitchen towel off the table. "My father abandoned her before he knew she was expecting. Her father threw her out when he discovered she was pregnant. Her brother barely tolerated her. She had a chip on her shoulder the size of a Volkswagen. From the day I was born she hated me and the burden I placed on her."

  She stared at the towel, then shrugged and wiped her eyes. "You never gave me a hint about that. Have you ever told me the whole truth about anything?"

  "I'm telling you now. Do you want to hear it or not?"

  Of course she did. She wanted any little crumb of knowledge she could gather about Teague. She closed her eyes, but another tear seeped out. She didn't want to love like this. It hurt too much.

  "Tell me," she said.

  "My mother used to say, 'You think you're so smart. You think you can be more than scum in the gutter. More than me. You are what you are, one of the bastards of the biggest bastard of all, and you'll die here like the rest of us.' "

  Kate didn't want to feel empathy, but she did. He described the desolation of his youth in a matter-of-fact tone, but the reality was—he had suffered. Suffered just like her, yet more slowly, an agony of loneliness and lovelessness that leaked over all of his childhood and into his whole life.

  "She said . . . she said, 'Teague, you goddamned little bastard, you're a stupid half-breed gringo, and if you get knifed, no one will care. I sure as hell won't.' But that . . . but that kid—" He stopped, breathing hard.

  Kate had wanted to see him in pain. Now she had her wish. Each word seemed to stab at his heart. His .breathing faltered.

  "It's all right." Kate hugged him lightly, taking care not to hurt his broken ribs. "She didn't mean it."

  "What?" He stared at her as if he'd forgotten she sat on his lap.

  "Your mother didn't mean what she said about not caring if you got killed."

  "She meant it. The irony was, she died that day. We had a gang war. I was one of the big shots. She didn't want me to . . . she didn't want me to go, but I knew best. And when it was all over, she'd gone into the streets and been shot by a stray bullet. And worse"—he took a long, harsh breath—"worse ." He stared at Kate as if he wanted to speak, but the words wouldn't come.

  Kate held her breath, waiting for the confidence that proved that, even if he didn't love her, he trusted her. At last, he shook his head and sagged against the back of the chair.

  "Okay." Kate battled disappointment. "First of all, you didn't kill her. I suppose it feels that way, since she came to the war to get you."

  He snorted. "No, Kate. Not me."

  "Who then?"

  He shrugged and turned his head away.

  Kate made a resolution. When this situation was over, she was going to abandon her principles and investigate Teague. Whatever secret he hid was destroying him—and them. "But as for that stuff she said to you about being in the gutter—she's wrong." Kate didn't have a doubt about that. "You're smart and you're ambitious and you're talented. You're on your way to the top, and nothing is going to stop you."

  "Thank you." He sat up straighter. "I think that most of the time, then I hear her voice in my head and remember the sounds of that day and . . . that's why I envy you, and that makes this whole thing worse. Your mother is everything I ever dreamed a mother could be. She bakes, she sews, she's funny, she . . . loves you. So much. It's like . . . a Kodak commercial, she loves you so much."

  Kate realized where he was going with this, but she couldn't see a way out.

  "I swore to her I'd keep you safe. You have to let me try, if not for you or me, then for her. She's a good woman, and she deserves better than her kid in a coffin.

  For a man who hadn't had a mother to teach him, he was awfully good at wielding guilt. "Yes, and I can't stand waiting for trouble. It reminds me of those days of being helpless, not knowing what was going to happen to Dad, not being able to do anything to help."

  She wasn't bad at wielding guilt, either.

  With all seriousness, he considered her. "I can understand that. All right. Let's compromise. If you give me three days to figure out the lay of the land with Oberlin, I won't interfere with your work."

  She could hardly believe it. Her mom said you could teach a man, but you couldn't teach him much. Teague had proved her mother wrong. He understood her concerns; he was willing to negotiate. "You won't follow me all the time?"

  "As long as you'll promise to check in every couple of hours."

  "Every four hours. And you won't send someone to follow me either?"

  "You're awfully suspicious."

  She crossed her arms over her chest.

  "I won't follow you, have anyone else follow you, as long as you tell me where you're going and—"

  "Check in every four hours," she finished for him. "You'll trust me even if I have to deal with Oberlin, and you'll keep me informed of any progress you make."

  She could see by his expression that he didn't want to give her that. But they had survived their first fight. It had been a fight that revealed too much too soon, and showed feelings so tender she ached for herself, and ached for him. She slid out of his lap. "Come on. You can do this. I can't live in a prison of safety."

  He closed his eyes. He seemed to be searching for the right words, for the right emotion. She could see his struggle. "I would keep you in a prison if I could. I'd do anything to keep you safe."

  His eyes popped open. They were dark, but not bleak. Not empty.

  Warm, alive, intense.

  "But at some point," he said, "I'm going to have to let you go."

  It was, she thought, a classic and graceful surrender. "I'm an adult. I've lived through more in twenty-four years than most women live through in a hundred."

  "I'm going to do my best to make sur
e you don't live through more experiences that make you feel a hundred years old." He stood, too. "I've got bruises all over, cracked ribs, my face is still swelling, and my lips feel like hamburger." He sighed wistfully. "But I'll be good as new in a couple of weeks."

  "So." She offered her hand. "Do you want to go upstairs and let me tend your wounds?"

  He put his hand in hers and let her lead him. "Please."

  Gabriel had been the Prescott family's foster child, with his dark hair, green eyes, and the cheekbones of a Mayan statue. He had been an orphan all his life, and as a child he'd learned to be wary of affection. During his early years, affection had been a trick to make him behave, or a precursor to a slap. So when he was twelve, and the Prescotts took him in, he had spent the first year wary and standoffish. He hadn't made trouble, but neither had he joined in the family celebrations or the group hugs.

  He'd gone to church because Mr. Prescott was the minister. He'd helped in the parish because Mrs. Prescott was the minister's wife. He'd been polite to the oldest girl, Hope, because she was so good at everything—playing sports, creating art, being responsible and perky—that if he was rude to her, she'd just try harder to win him over. He couldn't bear that.

  He'd gone to school and made good grades because the family had enough trouble with Pepper, who hated being the preacher's middle kid, and they didn't need any more.

  He'd helped with the baby, Caitlin, because . . . well, because he couldn't help it. He liked babies, always had, and with her dark wisp of hair and her blue eyes, she was a cutie.

  She looked like her mother's baby pictures.

  Eventually, the Prescotts wore him down.

  From his first day, Pepper seemed to think he was a rebel like her, and she had run to him with her problems. He found himself explaining her outrageous behavior to her parents, and, as often as not, he got her free from time-outs.