Bringing Benjy Home (Security Ops)

by Brant, Kylie

  “Lauren was three years old when our mother died. I was eight. She’d never been much of a mother, but she’d given me Lauren. I vowed then that nothing in this world was ever going to hurt my sister. She wasn’t going to learn how ugly life could be, because I was going to do whatever it took to take care of her.” The sigh he gave seemed ripped out of him. “I was cocky, big for my age and an accomplished thief. I could handle our drunk of a father, could steal enough food for the two of us, but I was no match for the great social system that supposedly rescues kids from unhealthy homes. We knocked about in foster homes for about a year and a half.”

  “Your father?” she whispered, remembering with clarity the startling image she’d had once through an accidental touch.

  “Signed over his rights after he’d been charged with abuse and neglect. When I was ten Lauren was adopted by a couple who thought incorrigible was stamped on my forehead.” One side of his mouth pulled up in a parody of amusement. “They were probably right. The last sight I had of Lauren was of the social worker pulling her away while she had her arms stretched out to me, crying.” It had taken three adults to hold him back, to keep him from chasing after his sister. And after that, no adults, no foster home, could keep him when he chose to run. And he’d chosen to run often.

  The expression in his eyes was terrible to see. Jaida had often wished she could tear through his guarded defenses, read the emotions she knew he must feel. But being faced now with his agony was heartbreaking.

  “I failed her,” he said in a low tone. “I promised to protect her, but I couldn’t. I thought I had a second chance when I found her again and Benjy was born. And then Benjy was kidnapped.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, blurring her vision. She blinked rapidly, determined not to let them fall. “I heard you on the phone with that detective,” she murmured, her voice trembling. “Trey, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. I know this blanket belongs to Benjy. I know he was on that beach, in that ice-cream store.” She shook her head helplessly. “I realize you didn’t believe me at first—”

  “I believe you,” he interrupted her, his voice almost soundless. He could read the confusion and the hope in her eyes. And something else, something much more intriguing. “God knows, I don’t want to. I don’t pretend to understand this, but I have to believe what I can see, what I can touch.” He raised his hand, indicating the soft quilt. “I don’t need fancy tests and lab work to tell me what I’m holding in my hand. And all the lab work in the world won’t explain how you knew where to go, how to find what we did.”

  She looked away. The yearning was obvious in her voice. “Some things have to be taken on faith.”

  “I’m not a man to whom faith comes easily.”

  She turned her head slowly to meet his gaze again. No, he wasn’t a man given to putting his faith in people or things. Life had taught him to depend only on himself. It was easy to understand why after hearing some of the events that had shaped his childhood. And that made his professed belief in her all the sweeter.

  “I can’t fail again,” he said hoarsely. “Not this time. Too much is at stake. Lauren’s happiness . . .”

  Benjy’s life.

  The rest of the sentence wasn’t uttered, but they both heard it nonetheless. Their connection was beginning to seem so normal that it was hard to remember how unusual it was, how frightening. How . . . tempting.

  “Benjy is alive,” Jaida whispered, her lips trembling. She reached her hand out involuntarily, touching his knee lightly, for once failing to guard herself against a casual touch. Her instinct to comfort was far greater than her need to protect herself. “And we won’t fail. We won’t.”

  Trey stared at the delicate hand resting on his leg. He wanted to believe her words, but knew that he’d have to hold his young nephew again before the fear would be completely banished. He’d have to put Benjy in his mother’s arms, and then he’d see to it that the people who’d torn their lives apart were punished. He wouldn’t be satisfied until they were destroyed, as they had tried to destroy his family.

  The feminine hand on his knee shook, and he was reminded with a rush that Jaida touched no one. Not willingly. His gaze traveled from that fragile white hand back to her face. He set the quilt on the bed next to him. Then his own hand covered hers.

  Panic flared for a second in her eyes, before it was tempered by wariness. He guessed the exact moment she would pull away, both from him and from the touch that caused flickers of energy to prickle their skin. He tightened his hand over hers before she could move, then moved his other hand to her shoulder. He leaned toward her, urging her forward at the same time.

  He was close enough to count the golden flecks in her mysterious blue eyes, and their mouths were only inches apart. “I don’t pretend to understand this,” he rasped. “I don’t pretend to be comfortable with it. But if you’re the only chance I have to find Benjy, then by God, that’s a chance I’m going to take.”

  “We will find him,” she promised tremulously. She wasn’t sure whether her certainty stemmed from her visions or from a continued need to provide him solace. Providing him solace could be dangerous. It could encompass all sorts of things she could only guess at. The remembrance of her inexperience served as another reminder of the seductive danger she was courting, now, with this man.

  “Let me go,” she said softly.

  His hand on her shoulders flexed and smoothed caressingly. He shook his head slightly.

  “Please.”

  The word was a whimper in her throat, and he interpreted it as he wished. He slid off the bed to face her, kneeling just as she was. His stance was wide and he trailed his hands down to force her hips into the cradle of his.

  Her gasp was buried against his chest. His mouth went immediately to her throat. She shuddered and reached up to anchor herself by clutching his biceps. More than anything else he wanted to lose himself in this woman. Emotion churned through him, aching for a release. He knew her skin burned where it met his, just as his did. Pinpoints of electricity danced between them everywhere they touched. The vision of black, silk sheets under their entwined bodies beckoned him further.

  He captured the pulse that beat at the base of her neck with his mouth, teasing it with his tongue. It fluttered madly, signaling her distress, or her desire. He recognized the complexity of her emotions, because they mirrored his own.

  Jaida shuddered. This time there was no conscious fear of visions that would intrude. Her response to his touch was too magnetic for that. Its nature was even more terrifying. She’d lived her life carefully, sure she’d never find a man she could trust enough to be vulnerable in this way. And she was vulnerable. His touch stripped her of all illusions, leaving her nowhere to hide, no way to pretend she could control her own responses.

  Her lips parted naturally as his mouth covered hers, already knowing him, ready for his taste. Her fingers dug into his taut skin, and her head was driven back with the force of their passion. Their tongues mated, and a shiver of delight spiraled down to her stomach. When his hand rose to cover her breast, she felt scorched through her clothes. Still, she couldn’t prevent herself from thrusting forward into his palm. He closed his hand around her, taunting her nipple with his thumb. The pleasure that careened through her was wildfire, leaving embers of desire in its wake.

  She felt the carpet at her back, and her eyelids flickered dazedly; she was unaware she and Trey had moved. He was leaning half over her. As he dropped a series of kisses at the corner of her mouth, his knee parted her legs and pressed against her warm center. His mouth came down on hers more fiercely then, and he pulled her shirt from her waistband and slid his hand up her smooth waist to cup her breast once more. The intimate actions combined to jolt her from her desire-induced lethargy, and she cried out in a mixture of surprise and fear.

  He murmured something into her ear, low and soothing, but she couldn’t concentrate on his words. Last night had proven that she couldn’t predict her reaction to him. Far fr
om being assailed by his emotional sensations, she was swamped by her own. They were exciting, enticing and totally unfamiliar.

  They scared her to death.

  “Let me go.” Her words were more a plea than a demand, and he went instantly still. A moment later he moved away from her, using exaggerated care, and she rose, fleeing to the terrace.

  She sat down, hugging her knees against her chest. She wished fiercely that Trey would leave without further words. They’d been forced to travel almost forty minutes inland before they’d found a motel with rooms for each of them. She was fervently grateful for that. She needed time away from him, away from the flames that leaped so easily to life between them.

  His approach was silent, but she sensed the moment he stepped out onto the terrace.

  “You have your own room,” she informed him, her voice shaking. “Use it.”

  “No.”

  “Leave me alone, Trey!”

  “Not yet. Not until we talk this out.”

  “There’s nothing to talk out. I want you to stay away from me.”

  “That’s going to be a little difficult, given the circumstances.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said a little wildly. He was being deliberately obtuse, and he wouldn’t be denied. He was as persistent as water wearing on a rock. She didn’t have the strength to argue with him.

  “Why don’t you tell me what has you running scared every time I touch you?” he suggested. When she didn’t reply, he continued, “I know that the reaction you have to me is new for you. We’ve already established that. It’s new to me, too.” She refused to answer. He contented himself for the moment by examining her delicate profile in the approaching dusk. Her features were fine; her soft, pink mouth sulky. He was pushing her, and she didn’t like to be pushed. He resisted the urge to cover that sulky mouth with his own.

  “I don’t have a lot of experience,” she said in a low voice.

  Her words, not totally unexpected, sent a curl of satisfaction through him. “That can’t be from lack of opportunity.”

  She gave a little laugh that was devoid of amusement. “I’m a freak, remember?” She didn’t look at him, didn’t dare. She was afraid she’d see the agreement on his features. “I’ve dated, but I couldn’t . . . I could never . . . .” She stopped, chewed her bottom lip and wondered how to explain. “Being that close to someone, I couldn’t block anything out. It’s an enormous strain trying to shield myself from a person’s thoughts and emotions any time I’m touched. I can’t maintain that sort of defense indefinitely. And so I would pick up all his feelings, and they would just overwhelm my own. Or I’d get a glimpse of a vision and that . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment. When it resumed, it was tinged with irony. “It sort of ruins the moment, if you know what I mean.”

  His voice was inflectionless. “Is that what happened in there? Are you saying it’s the same with me, Jaida?”

  She gave a bitter little smile in the falling darkness. She sensed the urgency behind that question. She wished she could lie to him. The one thing that Trey would be unable to tolerate was allowing someone close enough to sense what he was thinking.

  “No.” She shook her head uncomprehendingly. “And I don’t understand that, either. Everything inside gets all jumbled up, and the feelings skyrocket through me. But they’re not yours—they’re mine. It’s so different.” She didn’t mention the erotic image she’d had of both of them against black silk sheets. That had seemed more a fantasy than vision, at any rate.

  A primordial surge of possessiveness arrowed through his gut. He doubted she recognized the significance of her confession, but he did. He suspected that she’d never felt real desire before. Once she had, with him, she found her emotions too engulfing to sense his. He was undeniably relieved at the realization. He was also completely, primitively, aroused. He’d have to be made of stone not to respond to her words.

  The futility of the desire still pulsed in him, and frustration ate at his patience. He rounded the table and put both hands down on its surface, leaning toward her. “I think you’re beginning to understand what scares you so much, honey, but you can’t run away from it forever. There’s something between us, Jaida. And after we find Benjy, when we’re sure he’s safe . . .” He paused meaningfully until she raised her gaze to meet his.

  “Then you and I will finish it.”

  He stared hard at her pale, still face before abruptly leaving. Moments later, she heard the door to the adjoining room close.

  She took a deep breath and let it out in one long, shuddering gasp. His words had been rife with meaning, and her body couldn’t decide whether to react with delight or fear. She hadn’t replied to his words, hadn’t needed to. She knew he spoke the truth. She should have realized long ago what it meant, this strange connection that leaped to life each time they touched. Certainly she’d understood enough to be wary.

  But not wary enough. A wary woman wouldn’t have gotten in over her head, wouldn’t have cared so very much about making a man believe in her. A wary woman wouldn’t have sought to comfort him at the risk of sending her own normally skittish reactions haywire.

  A wary woman wouldn’t have fallen in love with such a man to begin with.

  She buried her face in her hands. How was it possible to be so certain of her feelings for a man she’d met less than a week ago, a man she hadn’t been certain she even liked? Yet something inside her had known him the first moment they’d met, something that caused this purely electrical current when they touched.

  She’d always been a sympathetic person, always become somewhat emotionally involved in a case. But never had she thought she might be in love as a result. She had picked a hopeless man to love. As sweet as it had been to hear him say he believed her, finally, she knew well what a long way that was from any deeper feeling. He’d said he was a man without faith.

  She wondered if that meant faith in emotion . . . in love.

  Yet she knew he was capable of emotion. At first she’d been convinced that he was incapable of feeling, but then she’d seen him with Lauren and known she was wrong. And her encounter with William Penning had taught her what a true lack of feeling felt like. Trey wasn’t like Penning, although he guarded his emotions closely.

  Granny had seen him so clearly the first time he’d come to the valley. She’d said there was a void inside him, and now that Jaida had a better understanding of what had caused it, she doubted even more her ability to fill it. Trey let only a chosen few into his heart, into his trust. What he had offered her— promised her, rather—was something else altogether.

  She shivered at the tantalizing prospect of fulfilling that promise, before rising and returning to her room. She closed and locked the terrace doors behind her. Benjy’s blanket still lay forlornly across her bed, reminding her that there was something even more important to finish than whatever existed between Trey and her.

  With deliberate steps, she moved toward the brightly colored blanket. She knew even before she reached it that their desperate journey was near its end.

  She awoke in stages, slowly and groggily. Her eyes stayed closed as she waited for awareness to completely set in.

  Her sense of smell was the first of her senses to become alert, and after a moment one eye opened. She was unsurprised to see Trey sitting on a chair next to her bed. She was startled, however, to see the tray he’d set on the bedside table. The sight wakened her completely, and she sat up in bed.

  Trey had learned a few things about Jaida West on this little trip. Waking her wasn’t done easily and, for both their sakes, shouldn’t be done by touching her. Still, short of an alarm clock in a cooking pot, he hadn’t been sure how to get the job done. He’d hit on the idea of the breakfast tray, guessing that food would accomplish what he couldn’t, or didn’t dare to. He was amused to observe that his estimation had been correct.

  “Breakfast in bed,” she murmured delightedly, her voice sounding raspy with sleep.

  The sou
nd of that sleep-laden drawl had an immediate, predictable effect on his groin. He almost groaned out loud. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so hasty in congratulating himself for coming up with this plan. His eyes drooped as he watched her sit up, the covers falling to her waist as she reached for the tray. The nightgown this time was green, with tiny flowers strewn across it. It was as demure as her last one had been, but unable to hide her womanly shape for all that.

  “You certainly know the way to a woman’s heart,” she noted happily. Spreading a napkin across her lap, she dug into the huge mound of scrambled eggs and fried ham. “You ate earlier?”

  Amusement sparked again at her automatic assumption that the generous portions were for one. Which they were, of course. He’d observed her eating habits enough to realize the portions necessary to fill her up. “I ate earlier. I figured this was the best way to get you out of bed before noon.”

  She shook her head at him, her mouth full. Swallowing, she inquired, “Did I sleep late? What time is it?”

  “Barely nine.”

  “That’s not bad,” she replied. “The post office can’t even be open yet, can it? Is that how you were going to mail the blanket back?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you speak to Lauren last night?” she asked after a moment.

  “Yes.” He’d called his sister after he’d left Jaida, and the tears he’d heard in Lauren’s voice were just another reason he’d had difficulty sleeping last night. Although most of the credit was sitting in front of him, daintily downing a meal most truckers couldn’t handle. “She was thrilled with what we found, but it’s very difficult for her. The waiting.”

  “It’s difficult for you, too,” she said softly, watching him.

  “I promised her it wasn’t going to be much longer. I hope I didn’t lie to her. Lauren can’t take much more disappointment.” Everyone knew the risks, had the same fears. The detective had told them that the chances for success in solving a crime declined significantly after the first three days. And Benjy had been gone nearly three weeks. It had been impossible for Trey to keep from reassuring his sister. It went against everything inside him to put his trust in another, but Jaida was the best chance they had for finding Benjy. Their future, Benjy’s future, was in her hands.