Standing in the Shadows

by Shannon McKenna

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t you like your meal?”

  Nah, just want to dip you in drawn butter like a juicy prawn and then lick you all over. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “Food’s great.”

  She eyed him as she chewed another careful bite. “So, your brother Davy. Is he in law enforcement as well?”

  He sliced off a chunk of steak. “Private investigator,” he corrected.

  “Older or younger?”

  “Two years older.”

  “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

  “Another brother, four years younger. Sean is his name.”

  “And where is your family from?” she inquired politely.

  He hesitated, a fried prawn halfway to his mouth. “How much do you know about my family?” he asked. “Did Ed ever talk about me?”

  Her eyes slid away from his, and her color deepened. “Sometimes,” she said. “He had theories about all of his colleagues, and he talked about them with Mom. But he never talked about them with me. I just overheard. Or eavesdropped, I suppose I should say.”

  “So what was his theory about me?”

  She looked trapped. “Um…once I heard him say that the reason you were so good undercover was because you’d been undercover all your life. But I never knew what he meant by that. And when I asked him, he told me it was none of my damn business.”

  He started to grin. “You asked him about me?”

  Her eyelashes swept down. She cut an oyster into perfect quarters and daintily ate one. “I was curious. What did he mean, anyway?”

  He stared down at his steak. “Well, uh, it’s a long story.”

  She popped another oyster quarter into her lush, sexy mouth and gave him an encouraging smile.

  He took a swig of beer and groped around for a logical beginning place. “Well…my mom died when I was eight, and Davy was ten—”

  Her fork clattered onto her plate. “Oh, my God, I’m sorry,” she said. “How awful for you.”

  “Yeah, it was bad,” he admitted. “The twins were only four—”

  “Twins?” Her eyes widened. “You didn’t mention twins.”

  “I used to have three brothers,” he explained. “Sean had a twin. His name was Kevin. He died ten years ago. Ran his truck off a cliff.”

  Her eyes widened in horrified dismay. She lifted her napkin to her mouth. “God, Connor. I didn’t mean to bring back painful memories.”

  “And I didn’t mean to freak you out with a Shakespearean tragedy, either,” he said grimly. “I started out wrong. Sorry. Rewind. Let me try this again. So Dad and the four of us lived way out in the hills behind Endicott Falls. Don’t know if you’re familiar with the area.”

  She nodded. “I know Endicott Falls. Cindy goes to college there.”

  “I see. So anyhow, when Mom died, my dad went kind of nuts. He was a Vietnam vet, and I don’t think the war experience did a lot for his mental stability to begin with. But when he lost her, he lost his grip. He home-schooled us, since the school bus didn’t get within twenty miles of our place. Dad’s curriculum was very…personalized.”

  He stopped, surprised. Usually he avoided talking about his strange childhood. The inevitable stupid questions and snap judgments irritated him. But the glow of interest in Erin’s eyes made it easier.

  “Dad was convinced that the end of civilization was at hand,” he went on. “He was preparing us for the breakdown of the world order. So, along with reading and writing and math, it was hand-to-hand combat, social and political history, gardening, hunting, tracking. We learned how to build a lethal bomb out of ordinary stuff. How to dry meat, tan skins, eat grubs, sew up a wound. Everything a guy might need to know after the crash. Survival in the midst of anarchy.”

  “That’s amazing,” she said.

  He dug into his steak. “A social worker came out to check on us once. Dad hid us in the woods, told her he’d sent us to live with his folks in upstate New York. Then he told her what was in store for her after the crash. Traumatized the poor woman. She ran away.”

  “What did you and your brothers think of all this?”

  He shrugged. “Dad was a charismatic guy. Very convincing. And we were so isolated, no TV, no radio. Dad didn’t want us brainwashed by mass media. For a long time we bought the whole story. But then Davy decided he wanted to go to high school. Told Dad he was going on a recon mission into enemy territory, but he was just desperate to meet some girls.” He smiled at the memory; then his smile faded. “That was close to the end for Dad. He had a stroke later that year.”

  She reached across the table and placed her hand on his. Electricity sparked, and she jerked her hand back with a soft murmur.

  He stared down at his hand, wishing she had left hers on top of it. “That’s probably what Ed was referring to,” he said. “Blending in, after growing up on another planet. You learn survival skills quick.”

  “So what happened when your father died?” she asked.

  “We buried him out there on the land. I don’t think that’s legal, but we didn’t know that. Davy got a job at the mill. We stuck together until I got through high school, and then Davy joined the Navy and I took over at the mill.” He shrugged. “We got on with it.”

  “How old were you when he died?”

  “Davy was eighteen, I was sixteen. Kevin and Sean were twelve.”

  Erin bit her lip. She was getting teary-eyed. It alarmed him.

  “Look, you don’t have to feel sorry for me,” he assured her. “It was a strange way to grow up, but not a bad one. It was a beautiful place. I had my brothers for company. I don’t regret learning what Dad taught us. If Mom hadn’t died, I would’ve called myself lucky.”

  She mopped her eyes, a quick, furtive gesture, and smiled at him. “What was she like?” she asked.

  He thought about it for a moment. “I was really small when she died,” he said. “I’ve lost a lot of details. But I remember her laughing. My dad was a silent, moody type, but she could make him laugh. She was the only one who could. After she died, he never laughed again.”

  “How did she…” Her voice trailed off. “Uh, sorry,” she murmured. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Tubal pregnancy,” he said. “We were too far from the hospital. It was January. Three feet of snow. She bled to death.”

  She looked down and lifted her napkin to her mouth.

  “I’m OK,” he said helplessly. Christ, he hadn’t meant to make her cry. “Don’t get all worked up. It was almost thirty years ago.”

  She sniffed, and looked up at him with a soggy, embarrassed laugh. Her golden brown eyes were swimming with tears.

  He didn’t decide to do it, it just happened. He reached out to touch the fine-textured skin of her cheek, capturing the tear on his finger. He lifted his hand to his lips and tasted it.

  A salty drop of distilled compassion.

  The hunger simmering in his body roared up into something huge. She swayed away from him, her tear-bright eyes wide with feminine caution. There was a clatter, a spreading wetness. His hands had clenched on the tablecloth, knocking over a long-stemmed water glass. “Whoa,” he muttered. He threw his napkin on top of the puddle. “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s all right,” she whispered.

  They took a time-out, concentrating on the food left on their plates. Forks clinking in the heavy silence made him think of his father. Eamon McCloud had not tolerated frivolous chatter at the table. He had believed in keeping your mouth shut unless you had something relevant to say. Davy was almost as taciturn as Dad had been, but that mandatory silence had been pure hell on Sean, the born chatterbox.

  But Erin hadn’t been raised by Eamon McCloud. She didn’t know how to cope with enormous silences like he did. She took a deep breath and tried again. “So, what are your brothers like?” she asked brightly.

  Her determination made him smile. “They’re unique.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said fervently. �
�Are they married?”

  “No,” he said. “Davy was married once, back when he was in the service. We only knew about it because he got drunk one night and told us in a moment of weakness. She made a big impression on him, though. He doesn’t want another wife ever again. Davy never learned how to have fun. He had little brothers to look after when he should’ve been out raising hell, and as soon as I was old enough to look after Sean and Kevin, he got shipped out to the Persian Gulf. The world according to Davy is a grim, dangerous place.”

  “And Sean?” she prompted. “What’s he like?”

  Connor smiled. “The polar opposite of Davy. He’s a basket case, but in a good way. He’s got a wild streak, and he’s too handsome for his own good. A chick magnet since he was thirteen. Incredibly smart, like Davy, but he’s got some problems with impulse control. And he gets into serious trouble when he’s bored. The world according to Sean is a big playground, and everything in it is a joke. What are you smiling at?”

  “You,” she said. “I can see how much you love your brothers from the way you describe them.”

  He stared down at his plate, wondering what the hell a guy was supposed to say after a comment like that.

  Erin propped her elbows on the table and steepled her fingers together under her chin. “So if the world according to Davy is grim and dangerous, and the world according to Sean is a playground, then what’s the world according to Connor?”

  He finished off the last swallow of beer, his eyes fixed on her lush, gleaming lips. “The vote’s not in on that yet.”

  The waitress arrived and started collecting their dishes. “The special dessert tonight is fresh baked Dutch apple pie with homemade vanilla ice cream,” she informed them.

  They looked at each other. “Go for it,” Connor said.

  “Only if you do,” she replied.

  Connor grinned at the waitress. “Two,” he said.

  The pie proved to be delicious. The apples were tangy and sweet and buttery, the crust was crisp and crumbling, blending with the melting ice cream into a goopy, fabulous mess.

  Erin closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure every time she puckered her beautiful lips around the dessert spoon, sucking it so it came out of her mouth hot and shiny clean, polished. Everything about her was turning him on, every little innocuous thing.

  And it was going to get worse. He was going to see her in her nightgown. He was going to watch her sleep. See her tousled and sleep-flushed in the morning. He was going to press his face into her sheets when she went into the bathroom. Inhale her scent, absorb her warmth as he pictured the water streaming down over her soft, curvy body.

  His head might explode before dawn, to say nothing of his balls.

  The only solution was to escape into the shower and spend a minute or two trying to relieve the pressure with his fist.

  Erin peeked at him in the elevator, daunted by the grim look on his face. Her decision to seduce Connor McCloud was signed and sealed but the actual execution of the seduction was still a scary question mark. She’d thought to make some progress when he opened up about his family, but when she started bawling like a ninny, he clammed right up again. Just thinking about his mother made her throat tighten up.

  He looked tense, almost angry, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. He preceded her to the door, gestured for her to wait, and pulled out a gun from the back of his chinos. He checked the room before he let her come in, and silently reattached the weird devices onto the door and window.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  “Alarms. I got them from my friend Seth. He calls them squealers.”

  “What a fortress,” she murmured.

  His eyes hardened. “They can’t hurt.” He flipped a switch, and a tiny red light on the device attached to the window began to blink.

  She felt so shy. She would never work up the courage to come on to him when he looked so fierce.

  He threw his coat on the bed. “Do you need the bathroom for the next few minutes? I want to take a quick shower.”

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  He disappeared into the bathroom. She listened to the water run. He hadn’t locked the bathroom door. If she really were a bold, naughty seductress, she would just shuck her clothes and join him.

  And then? She had all kinds of fantasies, but so little practical experience. The shower pounded, like the rain that pounded against the picture window, the surf that pounded on the beach below. She buried her face in her hands and moaned in frustration. His big, gorgeous body was stark naked and soaking wet in there. And she was sitting out here.

  A few minutes later Connor came out, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair tangled around his shoulders. He rummaged through his duffel, pulling out a fine-tooth comb with at least a third of the teeth missing. He dragged it through his hair. Erin flinched in protest at the sound of hairs stretching and snapping. “Ouch! Stop that!”

  He looked startled. “Stop what?”

  “Stop torturing your hair! You’ll ruin it!”

  He gave her a doubtful look. “Uh, my hair is used to it, Erin.”

  She shook her finger at him. “You have dry, split ends because you stretch it and break it with that awful comb. I’ve had long hair all my life. I know how to treat long hair. And how not to.”

  “But it’s tangled. What am I supposed to do? Leave it in dreads?”

  “Have you ever seen a hair conditioner commercial on TV?”

  “I never did get into the habit of watching TV,” he admitted.

  She slid off the bed and unzipped her suitcase. “You need a deep conditioning pack. And you’re in luck, because I’ve got some with me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Uh, Erin. I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m really not the deep conditioning pack type.”

  “Then it stands to reason that you’re not the long hair type, either,” she said. “Want me to cut it short? I brought my good scissors.”

  “Oh, God,” he muttered.

  “Choose,” she said briskly. “One or the other.”

  He took a step back. “You’re scaring me.”

  She pulled her toiletries case out of the suitcase. “Don’t be afraid, Connor. Just give in. You can’t control everything, remember? You’ll just hurt yourself.” She pulled the scissors out with a flourish. “Voila!”

  “That’s not fair. Don’t throw my words back in my face.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly.” She felt more centered now that she had a goal to accomplish. It let her natural bossiness spring to the fore. “Putting goop on your hair will only make it softer and shinier. It will have no discernible effect upon your virility.”

  “Promise?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said rashly. “I promise.”

  There was a hot flash in his eyes. “Want to put it to the test?”

  The scissors dropped from her suddenly numb fingers and thumped onto the bed. Yes, she wanted to say, let’s test it right now.

  The words wouldn’t come out. The silence just got heavier.

  He broke eye contact. “Sorry,” he said. “Forget I said that.”

  He sat down on the bed. She stared at his broad back, at the thick, tangled mass of water-darkened blond hair that she’d always dreamed of touching. She wanted so badly to fuss over him and care for him. Just some small, comforting thing, no matter how insignificant.

  “Connor. Let me do this,” she pleaded. “Let me fix your hair.”

  He hesitated, and let out a long sigh. “Oh, what the hell.”

  “Excellent.” Erin sprang into action, gathering scissors, shampoo, conditioner, plastic ice bucket, and comb. She kicked off her shoes and flung open the bathroom door. “Come on in here. We’ll get started.”

  He waited in the bathroom doorway while she set the water running to warm it up. She folded a towel and draped it so that the chilly porcelain tub wouldn’t touch his back.

  “I can do this myself.” His voice was tense. “Just tell me how.”

 
“No, I want to,” she fussed. “Take your shirt off. It’ll just get wet.”

  He hesitated for so long that she looked up at him, puzzled.

  His face was tight and miserable. He was clutching the bottom of his T-shirt like a bashful little boy.

  She smoothed the towel into place. “Connor? What’s the matter?”

  He would not meet her eyes. “I don’t look so good right now. The scars. They, uh…look like hell.”

  Dear God, how ironic. He was insecure about his body. She covered up a rush of startled tears with a forced laugh. She went over to him, seized the bottom of his T-shirt and tugged it up.

  He seized her hands. “Erin, I—”

  “Shhh,” she soothed. “Up with your arms.”

  He let her peel the shirt off. Her breath stuck in her lungs. He was incredibly beautiful. Racehorse lean and broad and sinewy, his ropy muscles were thick and tough, every finely cut detail showing beneath his smooth, pale golden skin. The burn scar blazed down over his ribs, left shoulder, arm, and hand. It chilled her to see how close he had come to death. “God, Connor,” she whispered.

  “Told you.” His voice was colorless. “Pretty bad, huh?”

  She brushed her fingertips across his shoulder. He jerked away.

  “I’m sorry. Does it still hurt?” she asked anxiously.

  He shook his head. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  She wanted to memorize every dip and curve with her hands and mouth. The scar intensified his masculine beauty, by poignant contrast.

  She could lean forward right now, press her lips against his hard chest. Nuzzle that whorl of flat, dark blond hair. Take that taut male nipple between her teeth and suckle it. She took an unsteady step backwards. “Sit by the tub and lean your head back.” Her voice shook.

  He did so, leaning his head back and stretching his long legs out in front of him. She stepped into the tub and sat down next to him.

  “I’m going to shampoo your hair first,” she told him.

  He lifted his eyebrows. “I just washed it.”

  “Not with my good shampoo you didn’t.” She picked up the ice bucket and poured hot water slowly over his hair. “Scoot back further so I can hold your head in my hands.”