I’d been rationalizing the guilt associated with my physical reaction to Pierce for a while. Probably ever since I'd met him. Mitch was the first man I’d touched whose thoughts matched his words. He cared about me, and didn’t just make pretty comments to get me into bed. My ESP fingers had made intimate relationships almost impossible for most of my life, and Mitch had changed all that.
Enter Tynan Pierce. His words and thoughts matched, too. Two honest men. And I wanted, no, needed to explore exactly what that meant to me. Yeah, it was rationalization at its worst, but Pierce had never once tried to do more than kiss me. And I knew he would continue to respect that boundary. My fingers kept him honest, showed me the rules he'd imposed on himself when he touched me. The man had strong morals.
Exploring my femininity was one thing. Hurting Mitch—unacceptable. So, I squelched the lust humming through my veins and focused on the differences between this dangerous Irishman and my absent photographer. Pierce represented an opportunity for me to learn who I was, and about my strength and courage. My Mitch personified home, hearth, family, and love. Everything that really mattered to me.
Pierce must have sensed my change in mood because he slipped his shades on with a firm push. "Talk."
"Nothing here tells me where Grandma is now or what happened to her. The images were all of normal, quiet times. I didn’t pick up a threat—" I shrugged— "or anything other than peace and contentment."
Pierce ran his finger down my cheek. "You must have her skin. No freckles."
"That's a blessing." I’d always wondered how I came up with dark red hair and completely bypassed the freckles that usually went along with it. Now I knew, and the connection between Grandma and me spread warmly through my body.
"Doesn’t explain your eyes, though." Pierce's attention drifted to the rocking chair.
Where was he going with this? "I don’t know anything about my grandfather, but my mother had dark blue eyes like mine."
Pierce turned away from me, pulled his cell out of his back pocket, and started punching in numbers. It gave me the perfect opportunity to ease through the back door and into the kitchen. I snuck a peek out the window. He met my gaze, and gave me a nod, so I went back to work. Strange, since he hadn’t been more than arms distance away since we’d arrived.
A sigh of relief escaped from someplace deep in my psyche. The timing was perfect for me to do some sleuthing about the images I hadn’t shared with him. Like the fact that Grandma had been writing a letter to me while she sat in the rocking chair.
I needed to find that letter, preferably while Pierce was otherwise occupied. I inhaled the damp scent of decay. Not age. It was more like fresh mold than the dryness of antiquity. I ran my fingers along the inside of the door, and followed the image of my grandmother carrying the letter into the house.
Okay. I was on the right track, but didn’t have a clue where to go next. I brushed my fingers over the torn, stained wallpaper and an image of the kitchen flashed on my internal monitor. It was in pretty good shape, considering—small with worn wood floors and rain-stained walls. "Tell me where to look," I whispered to the essence of my grandmother. "Help would be good here."
I ran my fingers over the refrigerator door and picked up a faint undercurrent of furtive energy. Who knew what insects had set up housekeeping inside? Cockroaches grew big in the tropics, and I’d once seen them in a closed and locked dishwasher. Telltale mouse droppings were scattered around the floor, making me equally reluctant to open any cupboard doors. Not that bugs and critters would keep me from following my grandmother's lead, but if I didn't have to deal with them, why disturb their happy home life?
Instinct led me to a kitchen table, circa the nineteen-forties. It had a small drawer tucked under the laminate surface that caught my attention. When I touched it, energy pinged through my fingertips. The letter was in there. I glanced through the shards of broken window, and it looked like Pierce was about to slid his cell into his pocket.
No time to waste.
I crossed to the desk with two quick steps and pulled the drawer open.
No letter.
Damn.
It had to be in there. My spidey sense was sure of it. Besides, where else would a grandmother hide something so important but in her kitchen?
She wanted me to find it. Planned for me to find it. In the rocking chair image she'd looked right at me. Knew I’d be here. How she knew had about tweaked my curiosity to the breaking point, but I'd have to wait and explore that later.
I only had seconds to find that letter.
My fingers brushed something crunchy, and I jerked back. No time to worry about bugs. I stuck my hand in the back of the drawer and pulled out a book just as Pierce stepped through the back door. The Hawaii Kai Cookbook.
"Find something?"
I shook my head, and held it up for him to see. "Just an old cookbook. I didn’t open the cupboards or the refrigerator." I pointed at the mouse droppings. "Surprise encounters aren’t my thing. And there was rustling in that one." I nodded toward the cupboard door on my right.
While he went through the cupboards, I thumbed through the cookbook, trying to look casual. If I seemed too interested, Pierce would notice. The man knew things, and he had a chronic case of prickly neck intuition.
I turned a few pages, my fingertips itchy with excitement.
There it was. Snugly folded between Maui Pineapple Chicken and Coconut Crusted Cornish Hens. Now all I had to do was keep Pierce from taking any interest in an old cookbook.
Casual was the key. Like it didn’t matter.
I closed the book and slipped it under my arm as I wandered into the front part of the house. Judging from the holes and abundant droppings, mice had set up housekeeping in the sofa. I steered away from any and all upholstered furniture and made my way into the bedroom. It was as unappealing as the rest of the house, except for the chest of drawers. It called to me. I ran my fingers over the surface leaving streaks in the dust. There were a few partial images of Grandma, but they weren’t clear enough to help me find her. The key to her whereabouts remained safely tucked in the cookbook. I hoped.
Pierce came up behind me. "Find anything?"
"Not a thing." I faced him. "Images, but nothing I haven’t already told you."
He grunted and slid the cookbook from under my arm. I pretended interest in the view from the bedroom window, and hoped the panic racing through me wouldn’t be obvious.
He flipped the cover open. "Nineteen-seventy," he read, slowly turning the pages.
Seven
My breath hitched, and I grabbed Pierce’s arm. "Could you?" I pointed at the chest of drawers.
He slapped the cookbook closed and handed it to me with a glare. "What did you see when you touched me?"
I casually slipped the book under my arm, my fingers shaking. Saved. Maybe. Not knowing any other Hawaiian goddesses, I sent silent thanks to Pele. "Nothing. The contact was blurred with other stuff. Sorry. Didn’t mean to let my fingers trespass. I’m curious about what’s in the drawers, and don’t want to bump into any bugs."
His brows arched.
"Okay, so maybe I touched you because I wanted to see what your phone call was about. But don’t worry, because nothing hit my radar. You know I wouldn’t get words anyway." I shrugged. "Maybe some emotion if you were agitated."
"Huh," he grunted and slid open the top drawer of the dresser.
Whew. I’d pulled it off. Who knew I had so many lies stored in my mental repertoire? I hadn’t completely distracted Pierce, but at least I’d rescued the cookbook before he found my letter.
By the time we’d looked through all five drawers, I had a major case of the twitchies. "Pierce?"
"Yeah—" he scrubbed the back of his neck— "something’s about to go down."
I scanned the room for whatever was giving me the creepy-crawlies. "It’s not in here." Fear knotted between my shoulder blades. My grandmother’s presence had faded, slipped away from me, from this h
ouse.
He cupped my elbow and led me toward the back door. It didn’t do much to stop the premonition that filled my belly with quivering fear. Something was very wrong.
"Do you feel the emptiness?" I asked, stepping off the back porch. Panic chased me toward a clearing about thirty feet from the house. Pierce followed. I sensed him moving in a well-rehearsed surveillance pattern—searching for bad guys, maybe. But this wasn’t about that kind of danger, at least I didn't think it was. My feet dragged with the sure knowledge that I didn’t want to know what lay ahead.
My grandmother had been choreographing this whole scenario. And if that wasn’t mind-boggling enough, it brought back uncomfortable memories of a séance I'd monitored for Mitch's sister, Jayne, a few months back. Chatting with the dead wasn't my thing, but it hadn't been nearly as disconcerting as being led around this homestead by my grandmother's will. I scrubbed at my arms. A powerful woman, my grandmother.
Clouds rolled in and the air pressed against me, heavy with the scent of rain. I stumbled over a rock, landed on my hands and knees, the cookbook tumbling from under my arm. The dry grass scraped my palms. Pierce scooped up the book with one hand, and pulled me to my feet with the other. "You okay?"
"No. I…" I reached for the cookbook, hugging it tightly, then took a step—faltered—my legs shaking. Wind spun around us, wild with the coming rain, and blew the tall grass aside.
It was there, just on the other side of a small pile of dirt.
A stone slab that marked the final resting place of…someone.
"Grandma," I whispered, pain clogging my throat. The first drops of rain caught in my hair and trickled down my face.
Pierce hugged me close against his side. "Easy, El. We don’t know who’s buried there."
My heart pounded, a solemn lament against my ribs.
I knew.
My feet moved, hesitant, until I reached the grave. Kneeled. My fingers shook, and the sky opened to shower me in a warm, fragrant bath. The letters carved into the stone blurred beneath my fingers as I traced her name. Makani Leialoha.
Pierce touched my shoulder. "Makani means wind and Leialoha means beloved child. She was named to be a beloved free spirit." His words were soft, disappearing into the sound of rain beating against the earth.
The pieces of my dream splintered, and then the stone under my fingers warmed, and love poured through my body. "Grandma."
"I’m sorry." Pierce’s brogue was heavy.
I frantically scanned my internal monitor, pulling up the images of my grandmother. They flashed vibrant for a few seconds before disappearing into nothingness—like life fades into death.
"I didn’t get to meet her, but she’s safe now. Safe from you, and from whoever else wanted information from her." I threw the words at Pierce, angry at losing Grandma before I found her.
His hand closed tightly on my shoulder. "We need to leave, Everly." His voice was brittle, his touch insistent as he wedged his left hand under my arm and pulled me to my feet. His right hand stayed loose, next to his body.
Pierce’s tension slammed through my pain. "Trouble?" I asked.
"Feels wrong."
"Nothing could be more wrong than my grandmother’s grave. I need to be here with her. She’s safe now. We’re safe. No one can hurt—"
Pierce squeezed my shoulder—hard enough to get my attention. "You’re the only living link. Ripe for potential kidnapping."
"Kidnapping?" The word echoed in my mind.
Pierce wrapped his arm around my shoulders, dragging me toward the Boxster at a jog.
My neck prickled.
Rain splashed against my face, blurring my vision.
He pushed me forward, tossed me the car keys. "Start the car."
My mind was sluggish, grieving. "You want me to drive?"
"No," he snapped, pulling a gun from an ankle holster and palming it a single fluid motion.
I ducked into the passenger side of the Boxster, slid the key into the ignition, and revved the engine. The tiny convertible didn’t offer much protection from prying eyes, and every hair on my body stood at attention. I bent to slip the cookbook into my handbag and a bullet whizzed over my head, splintering the front window.
Bloody, bloody hell.
Pierce returned fire, the sound sending a rush of adrenaline through my veins, and filling my ears with bone-shattering vibrations. He paused for a few seconds in front of Grandma’s house, then made a run for the Boxster, jumped into the driver’s seat, and shoved me onto the floor.
He took off at warp speed. What the car lacked in protection, it would have made up for in power, except that we were on a dirt road full of ruts.
"You okay?" Pierce yelled between returning fire and dodging holes in the road.
"Fine," I yelled back, frantically searching under the seat for another weapon. Pierce usually surrounded himself with an arsenal, so I wasn't surprised when, within seconds, my fingers bumped into hard plastic. I grabbed the weapon, blanked out the images flashing on my internal video, and hoisted myself onto the seat.
"Get the hell down. This is not fine." His protective instinct was running hot.
I hunkered down, peeked over the top of the seat, and fired a round at the vehicle chasing us.
"It's fine. Really it is." Not that I enjoyed being a target, but it sure as all hell beat cowering on the floor. Besides, fine was an excellent word choice. It covered everything from being ecstatically happy to the murky dregs of gloom, doom, despair and possible gunshot wounds.
The ride began to smooth out, telling me that we'd be in a populated area soon. Our pursuers must have recognized the change in terrain, because they'd slowed, dropping out of firing range.
I sucked in a much-needed breath, and then Pierce handed me his weapon, blasting me with images of previous targets. I pushed them through my internal screening process so fast they became an indistinguishable blur—the only way to survive eavesdropping on Pierce’s spy life and still keep my sanity intact.
I quickly tucked my weapon under the seat as well, but I'd already processed those images, faded them into the black hole where I stored violence.
"You okay?" He mouthed the words, knowing neither of us would be able to hear a thing until the ringing in our ears stopped.
His ironic smile had loosed some of the grief knotting my chest. "I'm fine."
I fastened my seatbelt, and closed my eyes until the whisk of tires on pavement told me we were nearing the protective chaos of civilization.
Pierce stepped on the gas, then eyed me with a sideways glance. "What the hell was that about?"
"I don't like being a target, and I don't want to talk about it." The dregs of my adrenaline rush were apparently making me cranky.
I’d shot someone in self-defense not too long ago, wounded her, and had been spending time at the firing range ever since. Annie, Mitch, and Adam saw to it. But guns still put my muscles into spasm. Thank Pele my reflexes had taken over.
"You can keep the Kimber." Pierce was referring to the weapon I'd been using. "Empty the chamber and stow it in your handbag."
The car smelled damp and heavy with the scent of sweat and fear. The sweat probably belonged to Pierce. The fear was all mine. My wet clothes were cold, itchy against my skin. I wanted to pull them off and stand under a hot shower until I cried out the grief of losing my grandmother before I'd met her.
I sucked in another deep breath, fighting the aftermath of my adrenaline rush, and then I took care of the weapon, tucking it away where I could easily reach it. And then I leaned against the headrest, and a sob escaped from the back of my throat. It hurt. Living after you've lost someone hurt.
Pierce shoved a bottle of water in my hands. "Can’t let you fall apart yet."
I gulped half the liquid, swallowing my grief along with the tepid water. "Who tried to kill me?" My words left the bleeding edge of fear behind.
"Not a professional. Or he was going for a scare, not a kill."
"Not going f
or a kill?" I pointed a trembling finger at the hole in the window. "That’s where my head was."
He grinned, all Irish. "Good thing you bent over."
I pulled the Kimber from my handbag, clicked the cartridge back into place, and wedged the weapon into the space between the seat and the car door. It would take too long to get it out of my handbag. Not that I would shoot Pierce. Really, I wouldn’t.
The rain had stopped as abruptly as it started, leaving too much silence clinging to the splashes of pink, orange and gold that decorated the early evening sky. Pierce clicked on the headlights, and my eyes drifted closed, shutting out the grief.
"They weren’t trying to kill you, Everly." His voice sounded magical, the brogue sweet against my ears. "They want you, not a dead body. But it doesn’t matter. You’re not available."
His reassurance washed over me, comforting, and I slept.
Low voices penetrated the sleep-fog that had taken over my mind, jerking me awake. The Boxster was parked. A guardhouse sat off to my right, manned by a guy in light colored camouflage. Military? I swiveled around, trying to figure out where Pierce had taken us.
Without turning his attention from the guard, he shoved his hand in my direction. A hand that held my driver’s license. I snatched it from his grasp, and tucked it back in my handbag, checking to be sure the cookbook was still there. It was. So was the Kimber. I must have been really out of it for Pierce to invade my handbag, steal my license, and rescue the gun from where I'd stuffed it, all without waking me.
I opened my mouth, questions ready to tumble out, but Pierce held up his hand. A clear indication I was supposed to sit still and be quiet.
Like that was gonna happen. I leaned forward to get a look at uniform guy. My damp clothes stuck to me, and the itching was quickly reaching unbearable status.
Pierce signed a fistful of papers, handed them back to the guard, and then drove away, sliding a glance in my direction. "Hickam."
My mind wrapped around the word. I’d noticed signs along the freeway and put it together with the Air Force Base located on Oahu. "You’re military?" I asked. It was worth a try. Neither Annie nor Pierce ever mentioned exactly who they worked for, and the omission had created a hell of a hot button for my curiosity.
a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure) Page 5
