Live Wire (8 page)

All he knew was that nothing could happen to Tehya. He hadn’t had a chance to figure out what he felt yet. He hadn’t had a chance to decide the pros and cons of a decision he knew he’d been making for the past nine months. He hadn’t had a chance to see her smile again, laugh again, or piss her off again. He hadn’t had the chance to make love to her again.

And he’d be damned if he’d allow anyone to take those chances from him.

Especially not a past that should have been dead and buried eight years before at the same time her father, Sorrel, had died.

Hagerstown, Maryland

The back of her neck was itching.

Tehya rubbed at her nape, her fingers pushing beneath the heavy fall of rich red-gold curls as they cascaded down her back. As she glanced around the narrow confines of Friendly’s Bar, her lips thinned in irritation.

Nine months away from the Elite Ops wasn’t nearly enough, it seemed. The paranoia that had been part of the life she had lived before Jordan had taken her into the group had returned now.

She had officially been free for nine months. It felt like yesterday.

“Your turn there, Tey.” Voice slurred, body weaving, the customer she was shooting pool with called her attention back to the game.

“Got it, Casey,” she murmured, the music from the jukebox covering her response as she sank the eight ball and shot him a teasing smile before snapping up the wager they had on the game.

“ ’Nother game,” Casey announced, glaring at the table as though it were the table’s fault rather than his own that he’d lost the small wager.

“Not tonight, Casey.” She gave a quick shake of her head as she glanced around the room once again. “Sober up first.”

She swore she could feel eyes watching her, someone stalking her. She’d felt that way for weeks now. No matter where she went or what she did, she had that feeling of impending danger stalking her.

There couldn’t be any danger, though. She was as careful, as cautious, here as she had been most of her life. She never caught anyone tailing her or managed to glimpse anyone tracking her. No one seemed unusually interested in her, and no one appeared to be lingering where they shouldn’t.

The security systems attached to her car as well as surrounding her home never caught anyone sitting in surveillance. No one attempted to break in, nor did they attempt to slip onto her property.

The back of her neck was still itching like hell, though. That primal survival instinct was in high gear, making her restless and ill at ease.

Crossing the small, empty dance floor, she headed back to the bar and ordered another beer as she laid several dollars on the scarred wood slab.

Kyle, the bartender, slid the cold bottle across the bar to her. Gripping it, she lifted it to her lips as she gave the area another quick glance.

There were few people in the bar at this time of night. All were regulars, all had been coming in far longer than she had, and all had passed the background check she had done on them. Well, except Casey. He’d shown up the night before, but her initial check on him hadn’t blipped her radar.

So why the hell was her neck itching?

“Tey, you need to get a life.” Journey Taite, one of the few young women there that night, grinned back at her from where she sat at one of the high tables against the wall. “It’s one o’clock on a Saturday morning, shouldn’t you be, like, sharing time with a lover or something at your advanced age?” There was a teasing snicker on the younger girl’s face, amusement gleaming in her green eyes.

It broke her heart every time she looked at the other girl, just as it had the day Teyha had hired her. Journey Taite, her second cousin. Tehya had come to Hagerstown to watch over her, never imagining she would have the chance to get to know her.

“At my advanced age?” Tehya’s brow arched as she fought back the regret that seared her because she could never reveal her identity to the other girl. “It’s called experience, young’un, and learning the value of sleeping alone.”

Journey lifted her beer with a light laugh, her gaze more open now than it had been the day she first came to work for the company just after Tehya had bought it.

“Hell, a man would take his life in his own hands sleeping with either one of you,” Casey grunted, his expression drunkenly amused. “I’d be scared.”

“Naw, Casey, you’d just be drunk. You’d never remember,” Journey teased as she pushed back the shoulder-length, ribbon-straight strands of sunlit red and gold hair. Both the red as well as the streaks of gold were natural, blending and mingling to a color that was unique to the Taite women. Tehya had darkened her own hair when she left the ops, simply because of that unusual trait.

The red of her hair was darker, the highlights less natural and applied in her bathroom.

It was attractive, close enough to a natural blend of sunlit and red-gold hues, but closer to a strawberry blond than that of Journey.

Tehya tipped her beer to the younger girl as she held back her laughter due to the little pout on Casey’s face.

He was her age, perhaps a few years older. He was cute, built like a damned tank but acting more like a gentle giant.

He was one of the newer customers at the bar and a recent employee at the lumberyard next door to the landscaping company Tehya had bought six months before.

He’d been coming in for the past few nights, since moving to the area from Florida. A former army Ranger, he’d been discharged for medical reasons, though it was hard to imagine the heavily muscled left arm had the pins and rods in it she knew it had. Her investigation of him had been perhaps more in-depth than others simply because of his military background.

“Wicked women,” Casey grunted as he rubbed at his cheek before sliding onto a barstool next to Journey. “Ya just wanna make a grown man cry is all.” Chocolate-brown eyes blinked back at her as he gave her a drunkenly charming rogue’s smile.

Tehya rolled her eyes and Journey nearly snorted the sip of beer she had taken as laughter choked her.

“And on that note, it’s time for me to say good night.” Tehya rose from the barstool, the sensation at her neck becoming a constant irritant.

Casey sighed lustily. “She’s desertin’ me, Journ. My heart’s abreakin’.”

“Your heart’s drowning in booze, Casey,” Journey accused him with a laugh. “Come on, I’ll cheat you at a game of pool before I head on home myself.”

Casey’s eyes widened in pleasure as he staggered to his feet.

“You’re on.” His grin was slightly lopsided as Tehya turned to leave, her gaze moving around the bar again, touching on faces, searching for anything, anyone, out of the ordinary, and finding nothing.

“Later, Teylor,” the bartender called out as she moved to the door, causing her to almost pause, to betray herself with her unfamiliarity with her own name, even after nine months.

Teylor. She still wasn’t used to the name. It wasn’t familiar, and it didn’t feel like her. But it was the name Jordan had picked out, the identity he had wanted her to have, so she had gone with it.

“Later.” Lifting her hand, she called out a farewell as she left by the back entrance, entering a small Laundromat before stepping out into the parking lot.

The parking area was small, barely large enough for a dozen vehicles. She didn’t dare park the Viper there, she was terrified a customer would leave a little too inebriated and swipe the expensive little car.

It was her pride and joy. The only thing she had that Jordan had seemed to care about. And all she had left to remember her time with him.

A damned car. How sad was that? Even sadder was the fact that having it gave her some small measure of comfort.

Loping across the street, she moved quickly to the shadowed area where she had parked the car as she held the large key she carried for safety between her fingers.

When she stepped to the curb she hit the ignition switch to the Viper remote. Lights came on, the motor revved. Rounding the back of the vehicle, she pressed the door locks and within seconds was sitting securely in the driver’s seat.

Before sliding the car into gear, she programmed the security device attached to the vehicle and waited for a notification of any potential devices that could have been attached to the undercarriage.

A tracker or explosives. Either would have been all she needed to tell her that itch at the back of her neck was right.

There was no notification.
“System Clear.”
The words flashed against the digital screen, assuring her the car was secure.

She had lived too long in the shadows, spent too many years hiding and worrying before Jordan had taken her into the Elite Ops. That had to be the reason for her growing paranoia now. She simply wasn’t used to any sense of freedom.

Accelerating out of the parking lot and pulling onto the street, Tehya tried to tell herself those years were just catching up on her. She didn’t know how to relax and live rather than fight and run. She simply didn’t know how to be free. Even driving home, the roads nearly deserted, and still, she was searching for shadows.

The drive back to her small house was quick, the lack of traffic on the streets assuring her she wasn’t followed. But her neck was still aching, her senses still on alert.

At any other time in the past, she would have left the area once this feeling hit. She would have packed up and run. Hell, this was the longest she had ever lived anywhere other than the suite at the Elite Ops base, anyway. She had lived there for six years. For a while, she had had something resembling a family and a home. She hadn’t realized how thin that resemblance had really been, though, until it was over.

Once the team had broken up there had been no contact. Everyone had gone their separate ways, and although she still had the secure satellite phone, the secure number she had been given, there hadn’t been a call. They had forgotten her.

Mocking amusement flitted through her mind. Had she really expected anything more? She was the daughter of the man who had ordered the torture of one of their own. Who had aided in the kidnapping of a young woman who had become the wife of one of their own. The man who had murdered the parents of one of their own.

There were days she had been amazed they had even allowed her to live. Of course, killing her own father might have contributed to the tolerance they had given her in the breathing area, but they hadn’t needed to allow her to become part of the team.

They had protected her. They had given her a secure life for the time she had been there. She had to admit, she hadn’t expected them to desert her once it was over, though. She had thought she would receive a call at least from Kira, perhaps Bailey. She hadn’t expected to be forgotten.

Running wasn’t an option, she realized. She had grown tired of running even before she had joined the Ops. She had finally put down roots, and until now, she hadn’t realized how deep, how firmly entrenched, those roots had grown until now. Until she had begun to sense danger and decided to try to face it rather than running.

As she pulled into the small driveway of her home, the garage door slid open, allowing her to drive smoothly inside. As the doors closed behind the car and the security display once again flashed the words “system clear,” Tehya turned off the ignition and set the parking brake.

There hadn’t been so much as a Girl Scout selling cookies at her door. Her neighbors didn’t visit often, but they did wave when they saw her. Sometimes, when she was cutting grass or pruning her flowers, they would stop to chat. Once, a nice young couple at the end of the lane had invited her to a party they had thrown. Tehya hadn’t gone to the party; instead, she had watched from a hidden, shadowed area at the edge of the yard, both amused at and envious of the innocent hilarity that had often erupted. On the outside looking in, she’d thought at the time

It had been everything she could do to hold herself back, to remain in those shadows. Past lessons were too ingrained, though: to stay hidden, to keep everyone at a distance, to protect those that an enemy might strike at if they couldn’t strike at her.

It was best not to have friends, but she had neighbors, and she enjoyed that. She saw the same people everyday and the routine was treasured.

The block she lived on was peaceful. It was quiet and serene. In the six months since she had moved into the house she thought she may have felt a part of her soul healing.

So what the hell had her senses on high alert?

Sliding from the car, she closed the door softly before moving to the entrance leading into the kitchen through a connecting door.

The security wired into the house had dim lighting flipping on as she opened the door. She hated coming into a dark house. She hated coming into an empty house.

Maybe it was time to get a cat. Or better yet, one of those little toy dogs she had always wanted. Because if this was paranoia, then she was going to end up driving herself insane.

Locking the door, she reset the security alarm before turning and staring around the open kitchen, dining, and living area of the neat little ranch she had bought.

Hell, she had bought a house. Teylor Johnson had a mortgage. She couldn’t run. She had a business, with employees and responsibilities. She didn’t want to run. She didn’t want to revisit the time in her life that had been a living hell.

She wanted to live for a change.

It had taken a while to decide the type of home she wanted, where she wanted to live. The minute she had seen this little house with its nice little enclosed patio, she had fallen in love with it.

She had come to Hagerstown because of Journey. Tehya had been keeping an eye on the young woman ever since she had come to Maryland from England to attend college. It was a Taite family tradition to send their sons and daughters to the best colleges in America for additional schooling before they married.

Tehya had watched, she had waited, knowing the girl would be arriving. Journey had arrived in Hagerstown from England just before the Ops had been disbanded, moving into the apartment her family had provided, and unlike other Taite daughters, she had immediately set out to find a part-time job. She’d never had a job, she’d told Tehya, when she applied for the opening after Tehya bought the company.