Brie shut her eyes and turned her head to one side, feeling nauseous. “Then you know…” she whispered rawly.
He reached over, sliding his fingers across hers, which were curled tightly into a fist. He massaged her hand until he felt her fingers loosening. Her flesh was damp and cool. “Yes, I know, kitten. That’s what I wanted to tell you the morning you woke up screaming from that nightmare. I understand your shyness and not wanting anyone to see those scars.” His voice deepened, and he gripped her hand firmly in his. “More importantly, I know what courage it takes to fight back from something like this, Brie. I saw the psychological damage it inflicted on Dick. They gave him support and therapy, but he was never the same. But you—” he swallowed hard against a sudden overwhelming torrent of emotion “—you’re whole. You’re functioning despite the burns. And the loss of John. Believe me when I tell you, lady, you are brave in a way I’ve seen few people be in my life.”
Tears pricked her eyes, and for a moment, Brie thought she was going to cry. But the tears just stayed there, and so did that huge, clawing sensation in her chest. Without a word, she lifted Linc’s hand and pressed her cheek against the back of it. “Thank you.”
Silence returned to the van. Brie held his hand for a long time, his touch giving stability to the world falling apart around her. Linc understood in a way few ever would. At times, she could feel his gaze upon her, but it didn’t bother her as it did before. There was so much she wanted to blurt out and share with him, but the time and place were wrong. They were going to Cleveland. To a warehouse very close to the location where John had lost his life. And this time, Linc was with her. A searing pain ripped through Brie. What if Linc was killed? That would mean the loss of yet another partner. Brie couldn’t stand the avalanche of pain that followed. She bit down hard on her lower lip, afraid that she would cry out.
* * *
The garish lights provided by a fire engine washed over the area. Brie walked at Linc’s side, careful to make her face devoid of any emotion as they made their way toward the huddled group of fire fighters, police and reporters. Linc’s presence shored Brie up enough so that she could think and act coherently. He stood to her side and slightly behind her, saying little as she covered all the salient points with the officials.
Linc stared at the aging warehouse made of wood; its roof was sagging. The full moon rode high in a sky tinged from light gray to terrifying total blackness. Linc kept his ears on Brie’s conversation with the police bomb squad while his gaze swept the area. Except for the red and white lights flashing against the warehouse, the place looked like a scene from someone’s worst nightmare.
A plan was made. Linc would make a careful, thorough investigation with Brie at his side while the rest of the officials remained at a safe distance. With Brie’s drawing of the wires from the previous explosion and powerful flashlights in hand, they began a painstaking inspection of the outer perimeter of the warehouse. From time to time, Linc would stop and show Brie certain items, teaching her his trade. He didn’t tell her, but in his mind they were no longer in Ohio. Right now, they were out in the jungles of Nam looking for a hidden trip wire that could blow them all away.
Sweat glistened on Brie’s tense features as they completed the inspection of the perimeter, satisfied no wires led outside from the warehouse. She looked up at Linc’s hard, unreadable face.
“We have to go inside.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, but I want you to wait out here for me, Brie.” She was still a suspect and could possibly put him in a situation where he could be killed.
Her eyes widened enormously. “No!” It was just like before—John sending her away while he moved closer to investigate. She wouldn’t do it again!
Linc gave her a patient look. “You have to trust me, Brie. There’s no sense two of us going in there. I’ve got your drawing. That’s all I need.”
Stubbornly, she shook her head. “I won’t let you go alone. We’re a team. I won’t stay out here.”
His mouth remained compressed. Using all his instincts and experience, he studied her ruthlessly. Brie didn’t have the face or eyes of a killer. All his senses told him she was scared to death. If she came along, he’d have to be on guard toward her and toward the situation. A double-edged sword. Damn. The look in her eyes told him she wasn’t going to be left behind. “All right, let’s go. But stick close. If I tell you to hit the deck, do it.”
“Fine,” she answered faintly, taking a better grip on the flashlight.
He took her arm. “Let’s go.”
Brie’s heart pounded without letup. Her chest was aching and her throat so tightly constricted that it hurt to breathe. She and Linc headed toward the area where the explosives had been located. The beam from the flashlight stabbed through the pitch blackness, and Brie slipped her hand through Linc’s arm. There was no sound except for her harsh breathing and the scrape of their boots against the dusty, cracked concrete beneath them.
Linc froze. “There.” He moved the light down slightly.
Brie swallowed hard. There were five sticks of dynamite on the floor between two stacks of crates. Next to the dynamite was a mason jar with a blue lid.
“Kneel down,” he ordered quietly.
She knelt, keeping her trembling light focused on the explosives. Brie watched in fascination as Linc shone his beam at different angles. Finally, he slowly got to his feet. He turned, his face grim.
“Stay here,” he growled.
The cold command rooted her to the spot. This was a different Linc Tanner than the one she knew. Brie watched as he moved like a cat, no sounds coming from his heavy boots as he approached the explosives. Her breath caught as he stood only a few feet from them, carefully searching for wires that might lead from them. Tears stung her eyes, and Brie wanted to call out for him to be more careful than he ever had in his whole life. Her limbs froze, and her stomach shrank into a fierce, white-hot knot.
Linc dropped to his belly, all his awareness focused on that lone jar. He was a foot away from it. Sweat ran down his tense face, and he narrowed his eyes as he studied the contents. The bomb squad was ten feet away when it had first discovered the explosives and had backed away. There was a tattered label on the side, and he gently slid forward, his breath lodged in his throat as he read the faded label: picric acid. Swallowing, he gauged the crystals with even more respect. One jolting movement and he’d have his face blown off. If one crystal fell and struck another, it would set off an explosion that would level one third of the warehouse. He didn’t forget that Brie was only ten feet away. She would probably be killed, too. The thought made his mouth go bitter with bile. He got lightly to his feet, the front of his uniform filthy with dust.
Brie watched him walk back to her as if he were on eggs. He reached out, lifting her from her crouched position, his hand firm on her elbow. He didn’t know who was more scared in that moment. Brie’s eyes were wide with terror. The moment he touched her elbow, he saw some of the fear drain from her eyes, and he was thankful that he had such a profound effect on her.
“It’s picric acid,” he told her softly. “There are about four ounces of it.”
“Crystallized?” she croaked.
“Yes. Enough to blow this warehouse to hell and back. Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll leave through the opposite entrance. I don’t even want to risk walking by that stuff.”
Brie agreed, her fingers at the base of her aching throat. Her knees were suddenly wobbly, and it took all her remaining strength to walk under her own power. Once outside, the cool night air hit them. Linc shut off his light, and darkness engulfed them.
“Come here,” he grated softly, taking her into his arms, realizing she couldn’t possibly be acting. In that instant, Linc knew she was a victim, not a suspect. As he folded her into his arms, he realized that all that remained to be done was to prove that to the satisfaction of everyone else.
She came without question, and his arms went around her,
drawing her against him. A ragged sigh broke from her lips as she nestled her head beneath his hard jaw. The silence cloaked them, and all she was aware of was his sweaty male scent, the roughness of the uniform beneath her cheek and the drumlike beat of his heart. Brie sensed that some sort of emotional bonding was taking place between them. Time wound slowly to a halt as he held her tightly, his cheek against her hair. Nothing else mattered in that minute. Finally, Linc released her. She could barely make out the features of his face as she looked up at him. He gave her a grim smile.
“Come on, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
* * *
They greeted the rising sun with bloodshot eyes. Brie watched as the bomb squad trailer, bearing the jar of volatile picric acid in a sand-filled metal case, slowly pulled away. Taking out the dynamite had been easy in comparison. Brie was grateful that the bomb squad removed the jar. She had lost count of how many times she had removed the liquid and crystallized form of acid. It took incredibly steady hands and no fear of dying. She had neither right now. She lifted her chin, meeting Linc’s weary eyes, aware of the warmth that continued to throb between them.
“What do you say we go home and get some sleep?” she asked.
He pushed several strands of dark hair off his brow. “I’d say it sounds like one hell of an idea.”
Brie nodded. “You want to drive? I’ll go to the fire chief and sign the last of the forms.”
“Yeah, I’ll do it.” Linc started to turn away, then hesitated. “What about Homely Homer? Shouldn’t she be hungry by now?”
A softened look came to Brie’s features. For someone who knew little about animals and professed a dislike for them, Linc was turning out to be suspiciously different. She would ask him about that change some time. “Yes, there’s a jar of baby food next to the cage. Just put it in there for her. And don’t get alarmed if she starts nuzzling you with her beak when you do it. She’ll think you’re her mother.”
He snorted and turned. “First time I’ve been a mother in that sense of the word,” he grumbled, walking away. There was more to digest. As Linc fed the pigeon, he assessed Brie’s actions throughout the crisis. There were several times she could have endangered his life and hadn’t. Grimacing, Linc realized that Brie was a victim, and he disliked the sham he had to continue to play with her. Linc would rather have had Brie be a suspect. That way, he could continue to fight his attraction to her. Now that she was a victim, all his overprotective feelings would emerge, throwing an entirely different light on his relationship with her.
“A mess,” Linc growled, putting the bird back in the cage.
* * *
Brie handed Linc the last of the coffee from their thermos. The interstate highways were heavy with rush-hour traffic into Cleveland. Thankfully, they were leaving. She felt an inner glow as Linc gave her that heated look that always suspended her breath for an instant.
“When you finish your coffee, why don’t you stretch out in the back and catch a few winks,” he suggested.
Brie sipped the coffee. “No, I’ll stay up here and help keep you awake.”
His mouth quirked. “Anyone ever appreciate how the haz-mat people go beyond and above the call of duty?”
“No. It’s an expected part of our job, Linc. I warned you about putting in long hours.”
He nodded. “All I want is a shower. I smell.”
“Far be it from me to say that.”
“You’re a saucy cat for this time of the morning.”
Heat stole into Brie’s cheeks as she met his smiling blue eyes. “Jeff accused me of having a sense of humor at the worst of times. I guess it’s true.”
Linc squinted against the rising sun. “I like your humor. In my business I’ve found the people who can keep it in the worst situations are the ones who are the most reliable. They won’t buckle under the stress.”
Brie agreed. “I think our brand of comedy is labeled black humor at best.”
“To an outsider hearing us, I’m sure it is. What they don’t realize is that it’s a way to relieve the stress and pressure we’re feeling.”
“Speaking of stress, did you manage to feed Homely Homer?”
He smiled, and she noted how his teeth were white against his growth of beard.
“Yeah.”
“You like her?”
He gave a slight shrug. “She’s okay for a pigeon, I guess.”
Brie was watching him closely. “I think you like animals a lot more than you want anyone to know.”
“Just never was raised around them much as a kid,” he mumbled evasively.
“What happened, Linc?” Brie asked in a softened tone. “You try and make me believe you’re a big, pushy bully who hates women, children and animals. I know you don’t hate women too much, or we wouldn’t be working so well as a team. I haven’t seen you around children, so I’ll reserve my opinion on that. The other night when you met Homely Homer, I saw the look in your eyes.”
Linc shot her a disgruntled glare. Brie was too damn good at people watching. Much better than he gave her credit for. Agents had that knack of noticing the most minute of body language signals, not someone like Brie. “What look?” he growled, trying to bluff his way out of the situation.
Brie chortled delightedly, putting both feet on the dash and relaxing. “What look?” she mimicked. Her green eyes, although ringed with exhaustion, were filled with tenderness. “Despite all your growling, I think you wanted to pet and hold her.”
“You have an unnerving habit of being insightful, Ms. Williams,” he muttered.
“But I’ll never use it against you, Linc.”
“My experience has been different with women, Brie.”
“Time will prove me on that point. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.”
Now she was teasing him, he was sure. “Am I complaining?”
Brie met his smile, drowning in the warmth she saw in his face. “So, tell me about the animals in your life, Linc Tanner. Why are you so afraid to reach out and share yourself with that little bird?”
He sobered abruptly, twisting beneath her laserlike insight. “You missed your calling,” he muttered. “You should have been a shrink.”
Her laughter was spontaneous and lilting. “Oh, please! Why should it bother you that someone besides you has the ability to see past walls and facades of another human being? Do you think I’ll use that information against you, Linc? No, on second thought, don’t answer that.”
“The more someone knows about you, the more vulnerable you become to them,” he stated stubbornly. “You bare your soul to another person and you’re practically telling them where your Achilles heel is located.”
Brie had the good sense to remain sober beneath his assumption. “You’re right.”
“And I don’t think either of us is the kind of individual who gives much of himself away to anyone.”
She was quiet for a moment, digesting their conversation. Linc was right, as usual. Gently, Brie steered him back to the subject she wanted him to talk about. “Who took the joy of loving animals away from you as a child, Linc? I can tell you like Homely Homer or you wouldn’t have remembered to feed her or offered to do it.”
Linc rubbed his face. “A long time ago, when I was about eight years old and living in the Bronx, I found this little gray kitten under a cardboard box by a trash dumpster outside an Italian restaurant. He couldn’t have been very old, because his eyes were barely open. The family I was living with at that time had six foster kids, including me.” His voice turned grim. “The old lady was getting a hefty allotment check for keeping the six of us. She spent it on new clothes and a car while she fed us cheap junk food.
“The kitten was mewing, and I rummaged through the boxes around the bottom of the dumpster until I found him.” He smiled softly. “He was the furriest little thing. I’d seen cats before in the neighborhood, but they always ran when you tried to go up and pet them. Not that I blamed them. A lot of the kids hated cats
and would throw anything they could get their hands on at them. I guess he thought I was his mother or something because he kept crying and sucking my fingers when I held him. So I tucked him inside my shirt and went to the back door of the restaurant.
“There was a cook there by the name of Davis. He always knew I hung around. I got up my courage and pounded on that back door until someone answered it. Thank God, it was him. I showed him the kitten and he broke into this big, toothy smile and told me what I had to do. He came back about ten minutes later with some warm milk and a glass eyedropper. He showed me how to fill the eyedropper and feed the kitten. So, before school, I’d race over to the restaurant where I had a box by the back door, feed the kitten and barely make it to class on time. After school, I’d run back there and feed him again. And at night, I’d sneak out the window in our bedroom where we all slept, and feed him a third time.”
Brie swallowed, her eyes luminous. “That was wonderful. And Davis…the man had a heart.”
Linc nodded grimly, keeping his eyes on the road before them. “Yeah, things went pretty good for a while. The kitten grew fast. He had big yellow eyes and long gray fur. And it got so he’d hear me coming and meet me. I couldn’t believe an animal would do that. He’d begged to be lifted and carried. And when I would pick him up, he’d lick my chin and purr like crazy. I really liked that.”
Brie heard the pain in his voice. “Something happened to the kitten, didn’t it, Linc?”
He nodded his head. “It seemed like everything I touched, no matter how much I loved it, was taken from me. At one foster home I was happy. The man and woman really loved me. And then she finally got pregnant and they reluctantly gave me back to the orphanage because they just didn’t have the money to support two children. Then I landed in that viper’s nest where the woman used us to obtain extra money.” He shook his head, silence settling between them. Finally, Linc said, “The kitten was hit by a garbage truck. When I found him that night, I just sat huddled against the brick building in that alley holding him and cried my eyes out. After that, I swore no one would ever hurt me again. I wouldn’t let any human or animal get close enough to me to make me cry. I just couldn’t accept it anymore, and in my eight-year-old mind, it was the only acceptable solution to the situation.”
Come Gentle the Dawn Page 13
