The worst part of all was that she was right. All this time, he’d been absolutely certain she’d warned Becca. That she was the reason Emerich had gotten away.
Damn. What if he’d been wrong?
He caught up to her and grasped her arm again, more gently this time.
“I’m not leaving,” he said firmly.
She turned back to him looking wary, worn out, and defeated all at once. “Kyle—”
“Don’t even bother,” he said, slamming closed the lid on his unwanted emotions, receding back into that cold, professional they both wanted him to be. “Just open the damn box.”
…
Reluctantly Genie stared at him. She could see it was no use arguing, or trying to keep Kyle from seeing whatever her father had left her. She placed the box on the kitchen counter and opened it.
It was like she’d been sucker-punched. The first thing she saw was a bundle of pictures of her mother, tied together with a pink ribbon. Pictures of her smiling, young, on her wedding day, and one with her holding her three babies. With an uneven breath, Genie set them aside. Beneath them was a newspaper clipping. An article about the disappearance of a scientist.
She frowned, lifting it to read the caption. The scientist’s name was Tom Garrison.
“Who is that?” Kyle asked, looking over her shoulder.
Genie shook her head, and handed him the article. “I don’t know.” She continued looking through the box, but there was nothing else of interest. Without untying the ribbon, she gingerly placed the pictures back into the box and carefully closed the lid. As Kyle scanned the article, she wondered how she was going to slip away from him to go to the other side of the island and find her father. His guess about her reasoning for her renewed interest in ditching him had been absolutely correct, and the man wasn’t about to willingly let her out of his sight. As he perused the clipping, she thought about what he’d said earlier.
And what he hadn’t said. Or done.
He’d wanted to kiss her. She was sure of it.
He’d been furious at her, probably even hated her, and yet he’d still wanted to hold her and kiss her. His desire, his heat, had been rolling off him in hurricane force waves. It wouldn’t have taken much and she’d have given in to him, given in to her own desires.
Not good. She had to stay strong, to stay on course, and send him away. But his want, his need for her, had roared through her, and settled deep in her midsection, making her insides flutter and throb with the hope of it. Hell, she’d wanted him to kiss her. No matter how much she’d been railing against him, letting him get under her skin, hating the very thought of him being there with her, reporting back to Cameron, she’d needed him to kiss her. To pull her into his arms and make her stop thinking. Make the hurt and the anger and the confusion go away.
But he hadn’t.
And it was pure agony now, how much she wished he had.
Instead he’d pressed his lips tightly together and turned his back on her, shutting off his desire like a switch. And now he was totally absorbed in a fourteen-year-old newspaper article. Part of her wanted to reach out and touch him, to pull him back. To demand his attention. She just didn’t know how to deal with the onslaught of unwanted emotions flooding her system—his, hers, theirs—co-mingled and blended together, until they were a primordial soup from which there was no sorting out or escaping.
She wanted to make him understand, to confide in him. Everything. Especially the hidden secret that burdened her soul—her gift, her curse, the thing that made her and her sisters not right, not normal. She wanted to hear him tell her it was okay. That he didn’t care if she was different. He didn’t mind that she could read him. That, even now, she could sense that he was barely hanging onto control himself.
For a second, the compulsion overwhelmed her and she did reach for him, her hand hovering close to his back. But she stopped herself.
She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. It would be crazy. Foolish.
And yet…
Without meaning to, she stepped closer. Maybe if she gave him a chance, just this once, he’d prove to her that he really did have her back, when it mattered most. That he would help her, even if he didn’t understand what was going on. That he would keep her secrets, even when they made no sense to him.
He was on her side, that much was clear. She could feel it in everything he said and did. But would he put her first, when the shit hit the fan with her father? Before Cameron’s orders? Before doing his job? Could she take the chance of telling him the truth about where she believed her father was hiding, and trust he’d keep that secret, too?
She just didn’t know.
But she had to try.
“Kyle,” she whispered, and placed her hand on his arm. It was a small touch, a gentle touch, and yet she wanted it to say so darn much.
He turned back to her, his eyes locking onto hers. But he subtly withdrew his arm to break the connection, and when he spoke it was all business.
“This has to be important.” He waved the article.
She swallowed her disappointment and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
So that’s how it was to be. “About what?”
“Where is your father, Genie?”
She didn’t say anything. He had the most uncanny ability almost to read her thoughts. It was truly annoying. She was the one with that gift.
“I know you know,” Kyle said. “Your father somehow must have known Emerich was coming for him. He had plenty of time to plan an escape.”
Still she said nothing. She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to confess it all. She just couldn’t seem to do it, couldn’t seem to cross that line.
She saw the pain, the anger and confusion in his expression, but more than that she felt it. She hated that she was the cause of all his angst. When all she had to do was tell him the truth and make it stop. But she couldn’t let herself. This wasn’t just her secret to tell, her life that would be impacted. Damn.
She took another step back from it, from him, as the intensity of his emotions rolled over her. Yet another step, and her back bumped up against the counter. He leaned over her, his face mere inches from hers. “I’m here to help you,” he gritted out. “Why won’t you let me? Why won’t you be honest with me? What could be so bad, you can’t tell me the truth?”
The heat in his gaze was almost more than she could bear. She couldn’t stop herself, her gaze flitted from his eyes to his mouth. It was all the invitation he needed. He grabbed her and pulled her to him, his lips crushing hers. His tongue plunged inside her mouth, forceful and demanding. She melted under the onslaught of his kiss. No longer able to fight him, to fight herself. Her knees went weak. Her breath grew shallow. Her heartbeat took off at a hundred miles an hour as her blood rushed through her veins, pulsing a delicious beat as her need built with each thrust of his tongue.
She twined her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his, harder, tighter. Heat rose up her chest, flooding her, stealing her thoughts, so all she could do was feel and want and need.
“I’m—”
His phone rang. The ringing reaching into her fogged brain and dragging her out of her lust-induced stupor and back to her senses. She pulled away. Kyle swore under his breath then answered the phone.
“All right. Yes, sir, we did.” Kyle looked at her, his eyes filling with an apology. “Yes, we spoke to her. Marsters had forewarning. We think he’s hiding somewhere, maybe even close by. The box?”
The box?
Kyle hadn’t had time yet to call Cameron about the box Mary had given them.
Cold realization slithered like a venomous snake inside her. Genie’s hand fluttered to her stomach as she took a step back from him. Her gaze quickly searched the room, the cabinets, behind the bowl of fruit on the counter, the plant on the kitchen table. Where was it?
“Yes, a newspaper article about a missing scientist. A Tom Garrison.” He nodded. “We’d appreciate anyt
hing you can find out about him. Yes, we’re going after Marsters now.” Kyle hung up the phone.
“He’s bugged my father’s house. This house.”
Kyle nodded woodenly. “Would appear so.”
“You’re not surprised?”
He snorted softly. “Are you?”
Dammit, she shouldn’t be. The realization hit her like a slap in the face. Kyle had been questioning her about Becca right there in that room, knowing full well Cameron was listening to every word they’d said. Before her face betrayed her sudden anguish, she turned and sprinted out the back door.
How could she have been so stupid? Kyle Montgomery was a company man, first and foremost. He always had been. She couldn’t believe she’d let herself forget that so quickly. She couldn’t trust him. Not ever. Not with her family, not with their—her—secrets, and most certainly not with her heart. What had she been thinking kissing him like that, worrying about whether or not she could tell him everything? Letting him get that much closer?
With Kyle, his job would always come first. Always.
She would always be a distant second. And that was not the way she wanted to live.
Sure as hell not the way she wanted to love.
…
Kyle bolted out the door after her. The last thing he needed was her running off half-cocked and disappearing again. He wouldn’t put it past her. Not for a hot minute. She was stubborn, infuriating, impossible, and… Damn it! “Genie!”
He found her sitting on the ground at the base of a large tree on the far side of the back lawn before the trail that led through the woods back to the docks. Her head was bent forward, her face resting in the crook of her arms, her shoulders making tiny jerking motions. Seeing her like that, lost and alone, sucked the anger right out of him. He felt an urge to scoop her up into his arms and tell her everything would be okay.
But that would be a lie. He knew it wouldn’t be okay. Not for them, anyway. Too much had happened, the gulf between them had grown too wide.
He sat down next to her and slung his arm across her shoulder like he used to do back in training camp when she’d been his buddy, his confidant, his best friend. He pulled her close. She didn’t raise her head, but she didn’t draw away either. He could tell from her unsettled breathing she’d been crying. Maybe still was. Though he hoped he was wrong. Seeing tears in those beautiful blue eyes would be his undoing. Even if they were tears of fury. Against him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t remotely thinking about Cameron or even the possibility that he might have bugged the house. He must have done it in case Emerich’s men came back. I should have guessed, but I haven’t been thinking right all afternoon.”
She raised her head to look at him. “Where’s the box?”
“I left it on the counter.” He stared at her red-rimmed eyes and even though there were no longer any tears, the raw emotion tearing her face apart sliced through him. Should he tell her the truth? Tell her that even after all this time she still muddled his brain and twisted him up inside like a pretzel? “Do you want to go back for it?”
She didn’t answer, just sat there in miserable silence. He could take her screaming at him, take her adolescent impossible temper tantrums, but damn, he could never handle it when she just sat there and said nothing.
“I guess there have been too many secrets between us,” he started. “Too many things left unsaid. I can’t wrap my mind around it all. Can’t figure out how I feel or what to do about it.”
She paused a second, her fingers reaching down to play with a blade of grass. She sighed. “When you grow up with Stuart Marsters as a father, you learn it’s easier to live life on a need-to-know basis.”
Had that been an attempt at an apology? He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the first truly honest thing she’d ever said to him. “I wouldn’t consider two sisters need-to-know.”
She shook her head. “It didn’t make a difference whether you knew or not. It’s not like they would be coming over for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Maybe not. But I did need to know when one of them showed up as a person of interest. Becca was sleeping with Emerich, a known terrorist and our target. I needed to know that.” His anger was rearing its ugly head again. He could feel it ballooning up within him. He knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything, probably the opposite, but he just couldn’t get past it.
Genie took a deep breath, but didn’t say anything. No excuse, no explanation, no nothing. He supposed that was his answer. If he even needed one.
“We all could have died in that explosion,” he said quietly, unable to abandon all hope of reaching her. “Your sister did die.”
She still didn’t say anything.
He paused a beat, then took one last chance and opened up to her. “I waited for you to come to the hospital. To explain. To help me. I was so damn broken. I needed you.” So much.
Hell, he hadn’t meant to say all that. He wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t bear to see the pity in her eyes. She hadn’t come to him because she hadn’t cared. Not as much as he’d thought she had, anyway.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t,” she whispered.
Right. “You mean you wouldn’t.”
“You were being monitored every second. Cameron would have picked me up.”
“Would that have been so bad?”
“I couldn’t take the chance of Emerich getting to me.”
He risked a look at her. “How?”
“How do you think?”
That surprised him. “You think Emerich has someone working for him in CTA?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
“Based on what?”
“He is always a step ahead of us. He knows things he shouldn’t know.”
Kyle considered. “Like?”
She met his gaze and must have realized he was taking her seriously. “Like this whole thing today. How did he know where I was living? No one knew but my dad. Not to mention Cat. But there was even more, back before the warehouse. Stuff no one should have known about my life, and definitely not Emerich. That day of the explosion, I had been running late and hadn’t made it out to the harbor with the rest of you yet when I got a text from Becca. She told me to meet her at that warehouse. I knew something was wrong as soon as I got there. The place was empty. Abandoned. But more than that, it just didn’t feel right.”
Kyle took a deep breath, holding in his questions, not wanting to stop her now that she was finally telling him what happened that day.
“Instead of calling Cameron, instead of calling you, I went in. And I’ve regretted it every minute since. You’re right, I had already turned off my GPS. I’d hoped to find Becca before the rest of you got worried when I didn’t meet you at the docks, and started looking for me. I wanted to talk to her first, to hear from her own lips what the hell was going on. Why she was involved with that despicable man. What were they up to. But I never got the chance.”
“You didn’t see her at all? You’re sure?”
For a split second, something shifted in her eyes. Confusion? Another one of her damn secrets? He couldn’t be sure.
“No.”
Her confession mildly shocked him. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I almost got you killed at that warehouse. When I found out a girder had come down on you, I thought I had killed you. When I found out you were still alive, it was a miracle. I wasn’t about to make that same mistake, risk your life again. You were safer not knowing. Not being involved.”
“Wow, thanks. I feel totally emasculated now.”
She smiled. A real, genuine long-lost Genie smile, and something lurched inside him.
“One thing I don’t understand though.”
“What?”
“You said you didn’t call me.”
“That’s right. I didn’t call anyone.”
“But I got a text from you on my secure line. You said you were at the warehouse with Becca. You said to meet you there.”
/>
“What? No.” The color drained from Genie’s cheeks. “I didn’t send that.”
He frowned. “Then who did?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, glancing nervously around her. “This is why you should go away. Why you shouldn’t be anywhere near me. Someone obviously wanted you at the warehouse that day. Someone wanted to hurt you, and they used me to get to you.”
That made no sense, except for how worried she clearly was—about him. “Or maybe it was the other way around, and they wanted me to save you.”
She blinked. Then shook her head. “This is crazy. What is happening here?” she whispered.
“Seems to me we’re never going to find out unless we work together.” A partnership he wanted back far more than he’d realized.
Her luminous blue eyes looked haunted. “No. You need to stay away from me.”
He didn’t like that look. Didn’t like the way it or the desperation in her words made him feel. “You don’t need to protect me, Genie.”
“I know that,” she said, a touch too quickly. Perhaps all this time she’d been pushing him away more out of concern, than doubt that he’d really be there for her.
“I’m a big boy, fully capable of taking care of myself.” He inched closer when she didn’t respond, when she wouldn’t look at him. “A very big boy,” he murmured low in her ear.
“I’m aware of that, too.” Her voice caught, even more of her defenses crumbling.
“Are you sure? Maybe I need to remind you…”
Chapter Seven
Kyle watched Genie’s eyes widen then fill with surprise. A small smile lifted her lips. No, he needn’t remind her. Heat coiled within him as the soft tip of her tongue slipped out and moistened her lips. Their earlier kiss had knocked him off his axis, driving home how good they could be together. How good they were together. He hadn’t been able to keep his distance since. He wasn’t certain he wanted to. Especially if the wedge she’d been trying to force between them was more about keeping him safe, than keeping him in the dark about her plans.
She took a deep breath, as if she were feeling the same out-of-control insanity he was, her ample breasts rising toward him. He leaned closer, his lips inches from hers, needing, asking. His anger and frustration were gone, leaving only an undeniable need he couldn’t keep bottled up any longer. “I…I’ve really missed you.”
Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies Page 9
