The Enforcer (12 page)

Milly panted to keep up, but Tobias remained as stealthy and athletic after a few beers as he was sober. As they passed the ruins of the Episcopal Church, he slanted her a grin that put an effervescent feeling in her stomach.

The path grew ever steeper. “You’re not going to push me off a cliff, are you?” he teased.  

“
Don’t tempt me.”   

His baritone chuckle made her feel as light as a feather.
He came back
.

The river flowed quietly below them. The air smelled sweet and cool. It had been ages since she
’d climbed to this spot. As the only child of elderly parents, she’d explored it many times, but always on her own. Walking with a man and his dog felt strangely intimate. She couldn’t insist on her authority, out here. She wasn’t his commander when there was no one to see them. She was just an ordinary woman with no greater concerns than whether her companion would try to steal a kiss.

She mocked herself.
You want him to, don’t you?

When he caught up her hand unexpectedly, her pulse kicked. She ordered herself to pull away, but the tender restraint with which he cradled her fingers made her recall the way he
’d touched her the previous night, unleashing such sweet pleasure. In comfortable silence, they plodded the steep path to an ever-higher altitude. 

Zigzag steps carved out of the mountain conveyed them to the pinnacle. There, the giant boulders she had climbed upon in her youth stood spotlighted by the setting sun. Piggybacked on the largest boulder was a flat slab of rock held aloft by four sturdy pillars.

Tobias stared at it. “What’s that?”

“
Jefferson’s Rock.” She gestured. “Our founding father stood right there in 1783, and later he wrote that the view was worth a voyage across the Atlantic.”

“
Let’s see if he was right.” He dropped Milly’s leash, signaling for her to stay, and tugged Dylan toward the monument. 

“
No, we can’t. It’s a monument now. You’re not allowed to stand on it.”

“
You’re such a rule follower. Who’s going to see?”

“
It’s dangerous,” she added, halfheartedly resisting.

“
I won’t let you fall.”

His confidence prompted a snort of irony as he scrambled up the toe-holds in the worn shale, dragging her with him onto the first large boulder.
“You’re the one who’s inebriated,” she reminded him.

“
Am I?”

Inebriated or not, he seemed certain of himself. Dylan clung to his hand, leery of the edges. Stepping onto the forbidden platform, he pulled her up alongside him, where the view kept the breath wedged in her lungs. Tobias
’s arm stole around her, keeping her secure as she sent her gaze past the steeple of her church toward the bridge that spanned the merging rivers.  

The amber remnants of a sun now gone from view gilded the purple mountains that rippled off into the distance. Closer in, where the rivers met, the lights of the town and the bridge twinkled on the water
’s surface. She could hear the Shenandoah River sliding leisurely past the rocks below.

Without warning, Tobias broke into song in the velvety baritone that had taken her aback that morning. The familiar song heralded the view while setting a sentimental tone.

“John Denver,” she said, identifying the original artist. “He died in a plane crash.”

Tobias clicked his tongue.
“Don’t go sucking all the joy out of the moment,” he reproved. “Denver didn’t die. His music lives forever. Just listen to the breeze and you’ll hear him singing.”

She listened. A puff of cool air ruffled the dry leaves all around them, and Tobias picked up where he
’d left off, singing softly, reverently about both the ancientness and the youth of the mountains.

She joined him on the refrain, in a voice rusty from disuse. This particular song of Denver
’s was practically the state anthem. Unaccustomed tears moistened Dylan’s eyes as she reflected on the beauty of West Virginia, her home from birth.

A sweet comfortable silence fell between them. Toby drew a deep breath and let it out again, inviting her to relax against him.
“This view is most definitely worth the voyage,” he declared.

Her throat tightened. She
’d taken a voyage of her own—a long and painful detour—when she’d left for Afghanistan four years ago. She hadn’t realized how blessed she was to be home again; how grateful she was to born an American, where, despite the corrupt government’s attempt to wrest them away, the Constitution guaranteed her certain liberties. 

Tobias turned her in his arms to face him and her innards cartwheeled as she beheld his crooked smile.
“Are you a mountain mama?” he inquired.   

She shrugged.
“My mother’s people were miners, so, yes, I suppose I am.” His solid warmth made her want to stay in this very spot, bantering with him, all night.

He lifted his hands to the bun at the back of her head. One by one, he plucked loose the pins that kept her hair in a tight knot. Silky skeins slipped through his fingers giving rise to pleasant shivers.

“This is who you really are,” he said as her hair fluttered loose in the breeze.

He
’d said that the other night when he first kissed her, too. She wasn’t so sure who she was. But it didn’t seem to matter, not when he tipped her chin up with his fingers and gave her the kiss she’d been craving since he first got off the train. His lips plied hers, teasing them apart. He’d discarded his gum on the trail somewhere, but his mouth still tasted of spearmint with a trace of beer that was not at all unpleasant. Dylan coiled her arms around his shoulders and crushed her breasts to his chest, all too willing to be seduced again.

“
I thought about you all damn day,” he grated, moving his lips to her throat where he besieged the tender skin there. 

The confession thrilled her though she wondered at his half-angry tone.
“Is that a bad thing?”   

“
You tell me.” He kissed her harder, his tongue seeking every corner of her mouth as if the answer lay hidden there. His hands, warm and skilled, found their way beneath her coat to squeeze her bottom, pulling her hips against the proof of his manifest desire. 

I want him
, she acknowledged. In fact, if he asked her to lie down right here on this stone where Thomas Jefferson had once stood, she’d be sorely tempted.

Just then, Milly growled below them, and Tobias tore his lips from Dylan
’s to search the forest. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered.

Following his gaze, she spied the orb of a flashlight bobbing toward them.

“The park ranger,” she replied, both alarmed and annoyed by the interloper’s timing.

“
Yep.” Tobias leapt off the flat rock and scooped her off it. She slid down the front of his body—a poor substitute for what might have been. With a hand around her elbow, he helped her off the larger boulder. 

The light came closer.
“You there,” called an authoritative, yet familiar voice. “No one’s allowed to stand on the monument. And what’s more the park is closed.”

Dylan blinked against the invasive light. Ah, yes. Corbin Harrison, a member of her militia, worked for the National Park Service.

“Oh, sorry Captain,” Corbin said recognizing her simultaneously. “I didn’t realize it was you.” He directed his flashlight at Tobias. “Sergeant,” he acknowledged stiffly.

“
No reason to apologize,” Dylan said. “We were in the wrong and hoping to catch the view before the sunset. We’re leaving now.”

“
I’d better escort you. It’s even steeper going downhill,” Corbin insisted.

“
Thank you. We’d appreciate that.” Truth to tell, she would rather push Corbin off a ledge for ruining such a special moment, but since he’d caught them fraternizing, the gracious thing to do was to agree to his escort in the hopes that he would keep his conclusions to himself. In a town this small, word was bound to get around.

The prospect stole a portion of her contentment.

As they descended the path back to her church and the steep shale steps toward Lower Town, the consequences of Dylan’s actions started drifting down like particles of debris in the aftermath of an explosion.

She
’d loved every second of her stolen interlude with Tobias—loved it far too much. Her reliance on him was fast becoming an emotional need—an addiction even more unhealthy than her love of coffee.

On Church Street, they parted company with Corbin. By the time they arrived back at the train station, Dylan had arrived at a painful decision. As appealing as Tobias was, as much as his presence made her feel alive and joyous again, her reliance on him for her emotional well-being posed a danger to her.

Yes, he had come back tonight, which gave her hope that he might agree to be her new XO, when Terrence’s illness forced him to step down.

But, in her heart of hearts, she knew Tobias Burke had not returned out of a sense of commitment to the SAM, or even to her. So, why had he returned at all?

From the day they’d met, he’d been harder to read than most people, and that was still the case. He didn’t need her the way the others did. He might claim to require a service dog for his PTSD, but she’d never seen him display signs of that disorder. According to Morrison, who’d talked at length with him, Tobias had earned a college degree, which meant that he could go anywhere, do anything.

For now, he had chosen to play war with her militia and to help them to be better soldiers. But how long would that last? The novelty of being in a militia was bound to fade, and when it did, Tobias would head off for the next adventure awaiting him.

She’d spent a year putting the pieces of her shattered self back together. How stupid could she be, putting her faith in someone who was bound to walk away?

Dylan, you idiot
.

She
’d lost her boys in one fell swoop. She was going to lose Terrence Ashby sometime soon. Tobias’s departure might just be the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’d hovered too close to losing her mind not to realize that the point of no return lay closer than she cared to admit.

For her sanity
’s sake, she had to think of him as just another one of her NCOs. He could stay for as long as he chose, but she would keep him at arm’s distance or pay the consequences later.

Something had happened, and he had no idea what.

Toby studied Dylan as she drove them home. Apart from Milly
’s panting, silence filled the interior of the vehicle. Dylan’s grip on the wheel and the firm line of her mouth suggested that she was having second thoughts about what had almost transpired up there on Jefferson’s rock.

Well, damn
.

Ike
’s demands that he figure her out had made him push too hard, too fast. And now she was regretting it. The demands of his job were eating at him, too. Torn between the need to pick Dylan’s brain and defend her radical philosophies, he’d downed one too many beers which, in turn, had skewed his judgment. If she changed her mind about letting him get closer, it could only be his fault.

“
You okay?” he asked, a tad worried now. If she shut him out completely, he would fail the Taskforce, meaning—if she really was a terrorist—she would get away with murder a little longer.

The wheels of the SUV jiggled through a pothole she didn
’t see. “Fine,” she answered.

But she obviously wasn
’t. Several seconds ticked by and the silence thickened.

At last, she cleared her throat.
“Sergeant Burke,” she said, addressing him in the voice she used when speaking to her soldiers, “I have to ask you never to kiss me again. In fact, in the future, when you speak to me, kindly do so with company present.”

Double damn
. He’d really screwed up. “Look, if I said or did something wrong, I didn’t mean to—”

“
It’s not you,” she assured him, her tone thawing slightly. “It’s me. I’m not … I’m not able to involve myself. I can’t—” She shook her head, unable to finish.

Well, shit
. He sat back in his seat and stared at the dark, winding road ahead of them. The emptiness he was feeling had nothing to do with failing to meet Ike’s expectations. He’d preyed on Dylan’s vulnerabilities and now he felt bad about it. Emotional frailty like hers required a protective barrier and he’d crashed right through it, leaving her no choice but to pull away. 

And if she pulled away, he might never determine whether she had masterminded Nolan
’s death or not.

“
I understand,” he said wearily, knowing he would have to double his efforts just to get back to where they’d been the night before.

At his words, he noticed Dylan
’s grip on the steering wheel slowly relax. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Was that regret lacing her tone? God, he hoped so, and not just because the Taskforce was counting on him. He enjoyed getting to know her better. The more layers he peeled back, the more layers he discovered, the more interesting she became. He didn
’t want to have to back off now.