Operation Blind Date (12 page)

Chapter 19

“I
t’s really true.”

Laney knew her voice sounded tiny, shaken, but it was how she felt. Even knowing Foxworth would continue the search as promised didn’t help just now.

“Something’s wrong, yes,” Teague said, never taking his eyes off the road. Probably didn’t want to look at her, for fear she’d be crying. Again. It was a wonder he hadn’t turned and run that first day in the shop. If he hadn’t been there for Cutter, maybe he would have.

It was odd. Almost unfair. She rarely cried. When things went wrong, or got tough, she usually just dug in and kept going. Determined, her father said. Stubborn, her mother said.

“Whatever that thought was, hang on to it.”

Teague’s words echoed in the car. Had she thought he wasn’t watching her? He hadn’t turned his head, so if he’d caught a shift in her expression he must have peripheral vision as wide as the sky.

“My parents,” she said. “My father always said I was determined. My mother called it stubborn.”

“Stubborn is good.”

“Stubborn is good?”

“Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets you through.”

She didn’t miss the implication that there were tougher times ahead. And her words weren’t a question. “You’re saying I’m going to need it.”

“I think you already know that.”

She only nodded, because she could think of nothing to say.

She directed him around to the back where the outside entrance to her small apartment was. She avoided looking at the window of the shop with the Closed sign hanging somewhat forlornly in the center of the door glass. She had managed her two already scheduled appointments but hadn’t made any new ones. She knew she was risking damaging the business, but—

“Let us do what we do, Laney. You need to be here, take care of business,” Teague said. Laney’s head snapped around as he practically read her mind. It wasn’t the first time, but it was no less unnerving.

“I’d be afraid I couldn’t concentrate. I don’t want to hurt an animal because I’m not focused.”

“You didn’t hurt Cutter.”

“Only because he’s the most patient dog I’ve ever groomed.”

“Cutter? Patient?” Teague sounded laughingly disbelieving.

“He is,” she insisted. “He’s perfect for me, every time. Even when he’s blowing coat and it takes an extra hour, he’s incredibly patient.”

“You’ll have to teach us the trick,” he said as he pulled his car in behind hers; there wasn’t room to park beside it. “He runs out of patience with us all the time, and when he does, everybody knows it.”

His tone was so rueful she had to smile. It felt strange, and she realized how grim she’d become in the last few days.

“Maybe it’s because I do what he wants.”

Teague chuckled. “Well, that could be it. We’re probably slower on the uptake. I think he gets impatient because we can’t read his mind the way he seems to read ours.”

The fact that he sounded amused but accepting of Cutter’s unusual talents made her smile again.

Yes, she had been unrelentingly grim of late, she admitted to herself as they got out of the car and walked the short distance to her door.

“I don’t usually cry a lot.”

She wasn’t sure why she’d felt compelled to say it, to explain to him that the teary-eyed woman he’d first met wasn’t the usual her. Nor did she want to analyze the compulsion just now. She tried to concentrate instead on getting her door unlocked and open. It was inordinately hard for some reason, the key slipping from her fingers, then seeming to not fit the lock.

“You have reason,” Teague said as he reached out and took the key from her and slid it into the lock without fuss. And she just stood there and let him.

The door swung open on its own, as it always did. For a moment she just stood there. It seemed impossible to step inside, where nothing had changed, where there was no sign of the chaos that was churning around inside her. How could it be so impervious, so unaffected by her life being turned upside down? It didn’t seem right, there should be some sign.

“Yes,” she said, “I do have reason. Amber’s my best friend, and I miss her so much. I miss talking to her.” Her mouth twisted slightly. “Venting to her. I suppose guys don’t do that to their friends?”

“Sure we do, only we call it unloading and there’s usually alcohol involved,” Teague said. “It’s a necessary function that keeps us from going airborne now and then.”

It so perfectly described how she’d been feeling that she nearly laughed herself. Which again reminded her how far she’d been from feeling anything pleasant since Amber had disappeared.

“That’s it, exactly,” she said. And then, before she really thought about it, she said, “Will you come in? I can make coffee.”

He hesitated. Long enough that she felt embarrassed at having made the offer.

“Don’t feel you have to. I’m not going to shatter if you leave me alone.”

“I never thought you would. Stubborn,” he reminded her.

“I was holding up all right before you and Foxworth came along. Despite the crying.”

He nodded. “Funny, isn’t it, how help sometimes makes us weaker?”

“Weaker?”

“I wasn’t saying you’re weak,” he said hastily.

“I know.”

What was funny, Laney thought, was how she was so certain he wasn’t casting any aspersion on her with that. He wasn’t calling her weak, because he wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t. In fact, she had the distinct feeling he was speaking more of his own experience than her situation.

But it made him step inside and close the door behind him, even if it was only so he could explain.

“I just meant if you’re in a rough spot, and you hold it together, then if you finally do get help, all of a sudden you can’t do it anymore.”

Yes, he was talking from personal experience, Laney thought as she took the keys back from him and put them on the small table by the door, placed there for that purpose. She wondered again what horrors he had seen, had been through. What he’d been through with his sister vanishing and his parents’ resulting blame and destruction was bad enough. But then his best friend dying like that. That was an image she shied violently away from; it hit far too close to the bone for her just now.

But she guessed there were probably more. She knew there had to be more. Horrors of war and all that.

“Maybe,” she said, “it’s just that you’re too tired after holding it together, if it takes all you’ve got. You have to let down when you can, when there’s finally help.”

He looked at her for a moment, and she thought she saw a trace of surprise in his eyes before he nodded. Had he not expected her to understand? Or had he just not thought about it like that?

“Maybe.”

He sounded almost grateful, and it hit her that he had been worried she had really taken offense at the thought of being called weak. And she thought it was nothing less than a miracle that he was as sane and normal as he was. It spoke to a strength she wasn’t sure she herself had, no matter what her folks said. Here she was, so rattled by this, when he’d been through much, much worse and was still functioning. Was, in fact, helping others. That said a great deal about who this man was. No wonder she was so attracted to him, she thought, admitting it in so many words for the first time, albeit silently.

And that admission brought with it the answer to her own earlier question about why she’d been so set on him realizing she wasn’t just some weepy woman who
was
so weak all she could do when confronted with a problem was continually cry. She had wanted him to see her as more than just the woman Foxworth was helping.

When she set the mug of coffee on the eating bar in front of him, the sharp sound of it felt like punctuation to a new determination.

“No more crying, I promise,” she said. “It’s useless.”

“Crying is fine as a release. Sometimes I envy women because it’s easier for them. And I get it when they say they feel better after.” He took a sip, nodded as if in approval of the taste, and set the mug down before adding, “But as a long-term strategy, yeah, it sucks.”

Laney stared at him for a long moment. “You,” she finally said, “are almost as good at this comfort thing as Cutter is.”

She didn’t know if it was the sense of what she’d said or the unfussy way she’d said it that made him laugh, but she’d take it either way.

“Not something I’m often accused of. I usually have no idea what to do or say.”

“You did back at Foxworth,” she said, then wondered why on earth she’d brought that up. If that flooding warmth she’d felt when he’d put his arms around her, if that shocking zap she’d felt when he’d touched her hand later in the office only went one way, then she was opening the door to some pretty serious humiliation here.

“I know you were only trying to make me feel better, not so alone, I know that that’s all it was, don’t worry, I won’t misinterpret, I mean I didn’t think you were—”

“That’s how it started.”

His flat statement cut off her ridiculous spate of words. She usually didn’t chatter mindlessly, either; that was more Amber’s department.

And then the sense of his welcome interruption hit her. “Started?”

“I know it was out of line, and I apol—”

“Don’t.” She cut him off as he had her. “Don’t apologize.”

For a long, silent moment she just looked at him. Her common sense warred with need, a need unlike anything she’d felt before. As if the few men before him were just practice, and finally she was feeling the real thing. She told herself it was that she was so off-kilter, so worried, and he was strong and solid and everything she wasn’t just now. That was what pulled her to him so powerfully. She needed his strength, his calm, that was all.

“I needed exactly what you gave,” she said, certain she’d resolved to simply thank him and move on. What came out next was totally different. “But I wanted more.”

“Laney—”

“I’m not one to live dangerously. I’m the cautious one.”

“Then stay that way,” he said, and there was no mistaking the warning in his voice.

“That was before I met you.”

“Don’t stir this fire, Laney.”

Her heart leaped at his words. Did he mean there was a fire to stir, that he felt it, too, this electric connection? Was that what he’d meant when he said he’d started out only wanting to comfort? That it had changed, for him as well as for her, into something much different? Much...more?

“I know this is— I know I’m a job, a client.”

“Ethics,” he said, his voice tight. “Quinn’s big on that.”

She hadn’t quite thought of that. That he could get in trouble if they crossed whatever line Quinn set for dealing with clients. It was like stepping into a cold shower. Or back from the edge of a precipice from which there was no return. Where nothing else had succeeded in tamping down this strange new feeling, the thought of getting him in trouble with his boss did.

The emotional trouble she could have gotten herself into didn’t seem to matter at all.

Chapter 20

“I
t could have been me.”

Laney’s quiet words drew him out of his brooding contemplation of his nearly empty coffee mug. He wondered if he was really resisting taking that last sip because once the mug was empty, he had no reason to stay and every reason to go.

And he didn’t want to go.

“I know that’s incredibly selfish of me to even think about, but...”

Her voice trailed off. Teague barely managed not to reach out and take her hand once more. They’d come perilously close to throwing gas on that fire already tonight.

“It’s not,” he said, keeping both hands wrapped around the mug, a blue-and-green stoneware piece that looked as if it had been handmade. It went with the colors in the apartment. The kind of touch only designers or women seemed to think of; his own small place was utilitarian and safely neutral in color. “It’s only natural.”

“He seemed nice enough. I could have said yes and gone out with him.”

Teague ignored the stab in the gut the words gave him.

“If I hadn’t been so busy with the shop, trying to build it up, I might have.”

“No other reason not to?”

Her expression changed, to a worried frown. She shook her head slightly. “I swear, he seemed nice enough.”

That hadn’t been what he’d meant. And now he felt guilty, for trying to ferret out if there was another man in her life while she was still so worried about her friend.

Another
man
?

Get your head out of your backside,
he ordered himself.
You’re not in her life, not like that, and you’re not going to be.
At least, not until this was resolved. After that? He didn’t want to admit how fiercely he was clinging to that thought.

“I didn’t get any weird vibe from him that made me say no, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “I just wasn’t attracted.”

He nodded, as if that was what he’d been trying to ask all along. And suddenly he realized he had his answer anyway. He’d been right all along. There couldn’t be anyone serious in her life, or she wouldn’t have even considered going out with someone else. She just wasn’t the type. He wasn’t sure how he knew, why he was so certain, but he was. Laney Adams was a one-at-a-time kind of girl. No playing a wide field for her.

“Not consciously, anyway,” she said, staring into her own mug now. After a moment she looked up again, meeting his gaze with her own troubled eyes. “God, you don’t think maybe I did? That maybe I sensed something under the surface that some part of me knew he was dangerous, and that’s really why I said no?”

“It can happen,” he said, keeping his tone carefully even. “Quinn says that’s what instincts often are. That in fact you’re processing information so fast your conscious mind skips a few steps, so what seems like intuitive jumps are really just the end of a lightning-fast thinking process.”

“But if that’s true, then why would I tell Amber he seemed nice?” Her voice had risen slightly as her tension at the idea ratcheted up.

“Laney, it takes time to learn to trust those instincts. And in normal, everyday life for most people, unless you’re in dangerous territory, it’s not necessary.”

“But if I sensed something was wrong about him, and then turned around and told Amber he was okay—”

“Stop,” he said, sharply. He’d traveled the guilt road too often himself to want to see her careen down it. “You already said it, Laney. If it was there at all, it was subconsciously. You couldn’t act on what you weren’t consciously aware of.”

“But you do.” It was building; he could hear it in her voice. He couldn’t see her eyes; she was staring down into that mug of coffee as if it held all the answers. He knew because he’d just been doing it himself. “People who are trained, like you, I mean. You act on those instincts.”

“
Trained
being the operational word. In your world, you’re trained not to follow them. Instincts, intuition are often ignored for the sake of being polite and civil, or politically correct. Because in your world, your life doesn’t usually depend on it.”

“But Amber’s did.”

She was there, full-blown guilt.

He’d been where she was right now, for so long, it tore at him to see her do this to herself.

“Don’t go there, Laney.” His voice broke slightly on her name, but he made himself go on. “It’s a damnable place to live.”

She lifted her head to meet his gaze.

“It’s not your fault,” he insisted.

Something changed in her expression then. It shifted, softened somehow. “Your sister wasn’t yours, either.”

It stunned him that she would think of that, try to ease his long-ago pain in the midst of her own.

“And I can’t believe your parents really blamed you.”

His fingers tightened involuntarily around the heavy mug. “I’d promised. To take care of her, look out for her. I was her big brother, it was my job.”

“And theirs.”

He couldn’t stop the harsh, compressed sound from escaping. “Well, I abandoned them, too. I abandoned them all, going off to pursue a dream. The dream my mother hated.”

“Hated? She should have been proud!”

“That would go against her beliefs, and nothing matters more to her.”

“Surely your father, at least, was proud?”

He let out a short, sharp laugh. “He barely spoke to me. I found out later he told his friends he didn’t have a son anymore.”

“Teague, no. That is all so wrong, so awful. They were wrong. You know that, don’t you?”

“In my head, yes.” With an effort, he reined the emotions she’d somehow triggered back in. “Don’t go there,” he said again. “You don’t need that nightmare of guilt and self-recriminations. They can take years to cage.”

She was quiet for a long moment, and the pure empathy in her eyes was more soothing than he ever would have imagined possible.

“And sometimes they still threaten to break loose, don’t they?”

“Yes.” There didn’t seem any point in denying the obvious. He hadn’t meant to let it show, but then he hadn’t meant to tell her any of this in the first place. It wasn’t something he easily discussed. It wasn’t something he usually discussed at all.

But with Laney, it seemed different. Many things seemed different.

“It was more their responsibility than yours,” she said. “They were her parents. They probably blamed themselves. And took it out on you.”

“My mother has never blamed herself for anything in her life. Responsibility is not her thing.”

She stared at him. Set down her mug. “I don’t think I’d have liked your parents much.”

He gave a half shrug. “That’s okay. I didn’t, either.”

Something flashed in her eyes. He looked away. If she was feeling pity, he didn’t want to see it.

When he looked up again, she was looking at the battered leather jacket he’d slipped off and laid on the bar. It was indeed in rough shape, scraped here, some odd darker spots there. Spots outlined with tiny holes, where patches had once been sewn. Unit patch, the flag patch and some other, less authorized patches that expressed opinion more than identification.

“You always wear this?” she asked.

He shrugged. “A lot.”

She reached out, fingered a small tear in one arm. “You could get that repaired, so it doesn’t get worse.”

“No.”

“Sure. There’s a shoe repair shop in—”

“I meant I don’t want it repaired.”

She yanked her hand back as if the sudden edge in his voice had startled her. He let out a compressed breath.

“It was Drake’s,” he said.

Understanding flooded her voice. “Oh. No wonder, then.”

She blinked, and he saw the sudden welling of moisture in her eyes. She nearly jumped when he reached out to her, lifted her chin with a gentle finger.

“What’s that for?”

“For him. For you. For all of you.”

His stomach knotted, but not in a bad way. He swallowed tightly. The memories hovered, ready to swoop down, and he had the crazy thought that if he let them she would somehow feel them, as if they were so powerful they would brush her in passing.

She slipped from the counter-height seat. He noticed it wasn’t much of a reach for her, with those long legs that he tried not to think about too much. And then she blasted that effort to bits when she crossed the two feet between them, pushed the swivel chair around and put her arms around him.

He nearly dropped the mug to the counter. As it was, it hit with a heavy thud.

She was holding him, so close her heat was searing him, burning away the remnants of the painful memories that had been stirred up. Her head rested against his chest and he could smell the scent of whatever shampoo she used, something light and faintly citrusy.

He realized with a little shock his arms were around her in turn. He hadn’t realized he’d done that. And now, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from sliding out of the chair so he could stand and pull her closer.

He would have sworn he could feel every inch of her, in his mind he could see every inch of her, his suddenly explosive imagination able to supply every detail he’d never seen.

“If your parents were truly not proud of you, then they were fools,” she said softly.

He fought for control in a way he hadn’t had to do in years. She was simply returning the favor as it were. He had to remember that that’s all this was, that she didn’t mean anything more by this. Just a kind soul offering comfort and understanding.

What he couldn’t understand was how this had turned on its head, how his urge to ease her distress had somehow turned into her comforting him.

And then she kissed him.

He was sure she’d probably meant it to be a peck on the cheek, but he’d moved to pull her even closer and their lips brushed. The spark was instant, the fuel his imaginings of every hour since he’d met her, and the blaze caught and flared so quickly any thought of control was too late. His mouth was on hers.

He felt ravenous, a starving man who’d found sustenance at last, a man dying of thirst who had at last found clean, fresh water and a taste of sweetness unlike anything he’d ever known.

It was a heady brew, and he felt himself slipping further out of control as he deepened the kiss. The more he tasted the more he wanted, and the blaze flashed into an inferno.

The fierceness of it startled him. Some part of his passion-numbed brain was aware of one crucial thing: she was responding with the same fierceness he was feeling. She was tasting, probing, not tentatively but with an eagerness that took what little breath he had left away.

If she’d been hesitant, if she’d shown the slightest resistance, he could have pulled back. He would have pulled back. But she didn’t, and restraint was beyond him.

His hands traced the curves he’d imagined, found he’d been a bit off, her waist nipped in more than he’d thought under the sweater, making the curve to her hip the perfect spot for his hands. He tugged her closer, wanting the feel of her body pressed against him even as he knew it would drive him crazy. And still the kiss went on, deep, fiery, maddening.

He slid his hands upward, over her taut rib cage, until his fingers encountered the soft, warm flesh of her breasts. This somehow seemed the point of no return. If he did as his body demanded, if he cupped those curves, caressed them, and if she responded with the same intensity as she had to this kiss, he’d be lost. Completely lost.

Or found.

And he would be on a path he shouldn’t even be thinking about. And those warning bells were finally loud enough he couldn’t ignore them, or the message they sent. If he went down this path, there’d be no turning back.