“I was in the way,” I said weakly.
“Never,” he replied. “But I let you think that, I know.”
My mouth closed on the words I’d been forming. I couldn’t find anything else.
Niall lifted his face to the ceiling and sighed. “I might not have understood how you were affected by the whole attack, but I did know you were pissed at the investigation, and the stream of people coming in and out of the apartment, and the fact that things had gone so wrong.” He breathed deeply. “I let it slide, regardless. You see, I was distracted. By my own problems.”
“Shit, Niall.”
“No, let me talk. I was furious at being injured, angry that I couldn’t contribute to Mission Dove. It was important to me… to be useful. To make a difference. And now I was out of it all.” He paused a moment. “Mixed up with that, I was pissed at you. Pissed that I couldn’t understand you, that I couldn’t seem to be the right person for you. But I shouldn’t have left it like that. I knew you particularly resented Joe being there—and I confess I let that continue.” He looked back at me, and his hand lifted slightly from his side, like he wanted to appeal to me. “Both Joe and I were thoughtless, but it was my fault.”
Shit. I ran a hand around the back of my neck. “Never heard so much from you before, Niall. Hell of a dangerous time to be baring our souls.”
“I know. But that’s how it is.” He turned away. “I think we agree we’re dangerous to each other.”
I thought vividly of his fingers on my skin and his thighs pressing against mine. “There’s more than one kind of danger,” I whispered. I don’t think he heard.
WE SWITCHED the light on again, and I held the cell phone while Niall settled himself back on the couch to sleep. “Okay? Need another blanket?”
“No, this is fine. I’m fine.”
“Good. Me too.” That coded conversation again. I leaned over to flip off the lamp again. My eyes blinked, trying to accustom to the sudden darkening.
“You need your sleep, Tanner.” Niall wriggled his shoulders into the lumpy cushions, trying to get comfy. “I’m sorry I kept you awake before. This has all been… very unsettling.”
Too fucking right. I was ashamed of myself, really. Niall had shown a side of himself I’d never seen. He’d shared thoughts I never knew tumbled around inside that coolly controlled brain of his, yet I was still nursing resentment and pain that was doing me no earthly good at all. How come I was meant to have all those people-skills, but I missed so much about the man I was living with?
“I was a prick, Niall.”
He sighed. He’d turned slightly away from me so that I could only see his profile now. “So was I. It was a damned difficult time.”
“No,” I said, firmly. “I was a prick before the attack. Before I met you, really. I’ve never really bothered about looking into myself, about growing up. I just liked a good time, a joke, a thrill.” But I wasn’t as great as I thought I was, was I? “When I met you, I thought it’d all slot into place without any help. Couldn’t understand why you didn’t react the same way as I did.”
He laughed softly. “You’re a rollercoaster, MacKay. A thrill of a ride, and I don’t just mean that in a sexual sense. But you require strong nerves. I don’t always respond as quickly as you do. Or, in fact, as you’d like.”
I still thought he was being too damned kind. “That’s what I mean. Yeah, I handled it fucking badly, but I was right in thinking you and Joe were so much better suited. Much more your type, a much better companion for you. Not as much trouble, right? Easier to get on with.”
“Tanner,” Niall muttered. “God.” He didn’t turn his head to look at me. Was he falling asleep? “I didn’t choose easy when I fell for you. But it’s what I chose, regardless.”
I was a couple of feet away, my body half turned to go back to my room, but suddenly I was frozen to the spot. I stared at him and he rolled back over until he faced me. It was like that first time, you know? When I’d first met him—when my body had shaken with reaction, when my gut had churned with the feelings he ignited in me.
“Niall.” I was hesitant, a little scared, but I knew what I wanted to say. “Come to bed with me. Now. Please.”
We stared at each other some more.
And then he pulled the blanket over him and rolled away from me again. “No.” His voice was very gentle. “You were right to stop me earlier. It’s not fair to use each other when we don’t know what we want. Neither of us would benefit from it… well, apart from the obvious. Damn.” He made a sound of frustration, struggling for those words again.
Personally, I thought his mastery of language so far had been unsurpassed.
“Okay,” I heard myself saying. “Uh… sleep well.” And I made it back to my room without either stumbling or weeping.
Fuck it, I felt like both.
Wednesday 05:27
…buzz…
This time it was I who scrabbled for the cell phone when it rang. It was on the floor of my bedroom, and I snatched it up, my tired eyes wincing against the onslaught of the morning sun. For a second, I forgot where I was; I just cupped the cell tightly against my ear in the hopes of not waking Niall beside me.
Then realized he wasn’t. Of course.
“Niall?” someone barked.
“No,” I grunted. “Tanner. And good morning to you, too, Joe Lam.”
He made a growling noise on the other end of the line. “No time for your sarcasm, MacKay. Are you both safe?”
“Yeah.” I was still trying to wake up properly and remember what the hell was going on. “So what’s new with you?”
“I wanted to check something with Niall. I’ve had a chance to finish our analysis of the toxins that were used on Judith. I’ve also examined the debris from the Westbridge bomb to identify the explosives.”
“Dammit.” I groaned. “Aren’t you meant to be post-operative, confined to a hospital bed?”
He grunted. This conversation was decidedly animalistic. “Things are moving on around us, MacKay, regardless of personal irritations. Brad tells me that you’ve been shot, and there’s been the second attack on Judith’s office. It’s critical that we find out who’s doing this and why.”
“Brad’s there with you?”
“Got here early this morning. He told me he spoke to you on the way.”
“And Judith’s there as well?”
“She’s also on her way, driving over with Cissy. We’ll use this place as a base for the moment. It’s well protected. We’ll gather all the Team members here and consolidate our knowledge. Is Sutherland there?”
I sat up and stretched, rolling my legs over the side of the mattress. I’d spent the night in my clothes, and although my wound was feeling much better, the muscles of my arm had stiffened up. And I’d probably been snoring—my mouth felt as if I’d been eating damp, rotting leaves all night and the skin on my cheeks felt tight. All in all, I was less than vibrant. “He’s still asleep. Tell me what you’ve discovered.”
Joe was silent for a moment, and I could just picture the look on his face, cautious and ready to disapprove. It was almost a surprise when he finally did speak to me.
“There are several concerns that I have. All of the supplies were internal—the poison, the explosives, the fuses. Even the packaging.”
“Internal? You mean from the Team’s own suppliers?”
“Indeed. To the very same specification. One of the fuses only came into our catalog at the beginning of Mission Dove. It’s very new, and was offered solely due to the links Judith has forged with the development team. I mean, it’s not publicly available anywhere else yet. Either I’m leaping to conclusions, or this has serious security implications. I also need to talk to Simon about it, to discuss the control of access to our equipment and stores.”
“Yes,” I said carefully. “You do. He’s not there yet?”
There was another pause. For the first time I could hear medical equipment beeping in the background, and dis
tant voices echoing off plain, high hospital ceilings. “No. No one can reach him, it seems. MacKay….” He coughed. “Maybe you and Sutherland have some views on all this that may help.”
“I’ll let you know when he gets up,” I said. “Maybe we ought to come down to the hospital too. You trust me to pass all this on to Niall without losing things in the translation?” I know I sounded rather petulant, but the conversation had reopened all the previous day’s worries, like raw wounds. As Joe said, things were moving on around us regardless.
“Yes.” His voice was calm and confident. “Of course I trust you to handle the information correctly. I always have trusted you, MacKay, else I couldn’t have worked with you in the first place.”
I was temporarily speechless. There was another beep at the hospital end of the conversation.
“How….” I paused, trying to make my dry morning mouth work properly. “So how are you, Joe?”
He was quiet for a heartbeat, too, and then he laughed—a short, humorless sound. “Reports of my one legged-ness have been greatly exaggerated.”
Fuck, was that a joke? From Lam? I couldn’t help myself, a smile of relief crept across my face. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Believe me, it’s good news to me too. It’s bad enough being out of action for several weeks, let alone giving someone the satisfaction of crippling me for life. How is Niall?”
“Not so bad,” I said. “Cuts, bruises, a little shock.”
“The truth, MacKay, not the patronizing trivia the doctors feed you here.”
I swallowed. Like I once said, Lam was a fierce guy. “He’s tense. Reactions a little slowed, a wrenched hamstring. The hearing loss has passed.”
Joe was silent. I hung on to the cell, wondering what else he’d wanted to hear.
“And what about you, Mackay?”
Me? “What the fuck do you care about me, Joe? I’m not the one got buried under the rubble with you.”
“You were shot, Brad said. If we’re still all under threat, it’s important to know what status we all are.”
Status? “I’ll tell you what status we are,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I need a fucking good bath and a decent meal. I need eight hours’ sleep, minimum. My knees are skinned like a kid’s, and my left arm has a tapestry pattern on the skin that’s seriously going to restrict any future career as a nude model. On top of that, I need Niall Sutherland out of my hair and this homicidal lunatic caught and castrated, all before breakfast. That too much to ask?”
“A certain degree of stress, then,” said Joe’s steady voice. I could see him there in the hospital bed, leg up in traction, snapping orders to simpering, too-young nurses. “I warned Judith not to place Sutherland with you, but she seemed to think I wasn’t equipped at the time to make sensible decisions regarding strategy. I didn’t think either of you would benefit from meeting up again under such circumstances.”
“And you’d fucking know about that.” I was tempted to raise my voice, though I didn’t want to wake Niall. But I wanted Joe to get the hell off the line so I could have a proper think about his news. And I wanted a coffee. Or two. Hell, I didn’t know what I wanted.
“Yes, I would know,” he snapped back, startling me. “Listen to me, MacKay. I have an almost pathological dislike of discussing my personal life with anyone not directly involved, but I think it’s time that I was a little more forthcoming. Maybe my change of attitude is the result of lying under a heavy wooden door, surrounded by piles of smoking rubble and knowing that someone wanted it to be even more permanent.” He cleared his throat; his voice had become rather hoarse. “You were always very hostile towards my friendship with Niall, and for a while I couldn’t understand why. But someone has recently explained to me that you may have developed some personal—and obviously irrational—jealousy of us. I thought Niall would have made everything clear to you, but then he never seemed to be very objective in his actions towards you. If you had let me explain instead—”
“Now isn’t the time, Lam,” I ground out.
He’d ignored me; he was still talking. “I mean, I can see the attraction, if I were interested in men that way, because he has a good physique and a superb intelligence. His sense of loyalty and fine ethical standards would make him an excellent partner, personally as well as professionally.”
Roll that across me again, will you?
“Wait up, Lam. You don’t see Niall as a lover?”
“Tanner, aren’t you listening to me? I’ve no time to waste on coy confusion. No, I am contentedly heterosexual, although I don’t have my sexual preferences tattooed on my forehead, and I may not have broadcast the fact around my friends. One wonders why it should be necessary, to be honest….”
“You’ve got a girl, then?” My face felt like it was twisted in an almost painful mixture of humiliation, amazement and a grin. Sure glad I didn’t have a mirror to hand.
“Tanner.” His sigh was very protracted. “I don’t see the point of gossiping about this like schoolboys, but yes, I do have a current relationship with a woman.”
“So tell me who?” Now I wasn’t asking for anything to do with my past relationship with Niall, I was just damned curious.
“I’m not about to tell you over the telephone, MacKay. It’s obviously a private matter.”
“Neither of you want it to interfere with your professional relationship, eh?”
“Well of course we both consider that the main issue, but I hardly think….” He went silent. “MacKay, forget I said that. I despise your tactics.”
“You won’t be the first.” I grinned. I could guess now who he was dating. There weren’t many women could match the proud perfectionist Joe Lam. And it’d have to be someone who could match him in the dojo as well as the classroom. I cleared my own throat, rather self-consciously. “Guess I’ve been a prize asshole, haven’t I?” Joe’s silence confirmed it. “Guess I owe you an apology.” And doesn’t that sound feeble.
“None required,” he said sharply. “I never intended that I should be part of the problem, Tanner.”
“I know,” I said grudgingly. “I think you’ll find it was a big pile of other shit, as well, Lam. But I admit my jealousy was no help to the mix.” It was both a symptom and a cause, I thought. My head hurt from too much soul searching at this hour of the morning, and my body was still recovering from the battering it’d taken over the last twenty-four hours. My heart hurt from a regret that was both painful and ingrained.
“MacKay… Tanner? Are you still there? There are some things that I have less inhibition in discussing, though I know you still won’t like it. I wanted you to seek some help after the incident at the club, at the beginning of Mission Dove. I thought that your behavior had become erratic.” He coughed again. “Even more erratic than usual, that is. There was no pattern or consistency to your reactions. You were obviously distressed by the attack, though all the attention was directed to Niall’s physical injuries and the punishment of the perpetrator. Neither you nor Sutherland would listen to me about it, though, and we were all needed elsewhere. I thought the best I could do was help get Sutherland discharged from hospital and recovered as soon as possible. I thought the rest would settle itself. I never thought to pursue it further, I’m no psychiatrist myself—”
“It’s okay,” I broke in. “I’m good.”
He made a sound suspiciously like a snort. “That day, the day of your… altercation, at the end of the mission. I got to the pair of you as soon as I could, to break you up, but the damage was done by then. Judith couldn’t have condoned such behavior on duty.”
“Sure. I understand. Own worst enemies, and all that.”
But he didn’t seem satisfied with my continuing self-condemnation, continuing firmly. “You were a good complement to each other, Tanner. I could see that each of you brought out some good traits in the other. It was a… pity to have lost it all. Niall has many regrets about it, I believe. He doesn’t speak easily about personal things.”
“I know.” What fucking inadequate words they were, eh? “But we’ve… sort of cleared the air a bit over the last day or so.”
“You have?” He sounded almost admiring. Definitely surprised.
“You reckon we brought out some good shit in each other?”
He snorted again. “Not quite the words I used, but yes. I’ve neither the skills nor the appetite to analyze your relationship any further.”
I laughed, then. “Never thought I’d be taking lonely hearts advice from you, eh, Lam?”
“Is that how it is?” came his earnest voice. “You have a lonely heart?”
“Fuck’s sake.” I groaned to myself. “It’s just a phrase….”
And then he laughed.
I grinned, wishing he could see it. “Okay, you got me. Joe… look, I appreciate all this. All that stuff about you being concerned about me.”
He made a tutting sound. “I have to go. The consultant’s review is at 06:30. Call me at once with any theories you have about the materials used.”
“Will do. Give my regards to Judith, okay? When she gets there, keep the welcome kisses to a minimum and tell her to call us as soon as she can.”
“I will.” His angry growl crackled down the line. “That crack about the welcome kisses—I expect you to honor the confidentiality of this conversation, MacKay.”
“That’s a given,” I said, almost cheerily. “Go concentrate on getting better, Hopalong.”
There was a sound of annoyance and the connection was broken at once.
NIALL CAME grumbling into the kitchen. “Why the hell didn’t you wake me? Brad will be at the hospital by now, and we can contact Judith—”
“He’s already there,” I said rather smugly. “Joe just called. No Judith yet, though. But they’ll all be together soon, all the Team. Just us missing.”
“You called them?” He poured some coffee as he spoke, as if he were on automatic pilot. “Is Simon there too?”
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 89
