Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes Book 1) (20 page)

He chuckled. “Okay, man. Be safe. Glad
you’re okay.”

“Me too,” I said, hanging
up.

When I finally got home, I was bushed.
Beyond bushed. Thankfully, Kyle was still at my house and I’d
called him from O’Neill’s phone to let him know I’d be pulling up,
because God knows where my keys were. Buried under some rock at the
bottom of that river, I suppose.

“Hey, man!” Kyle said, opening the
door after I’d rung the bell.

It was after midnight and it didn’t
even dawn on me until after I rang the bell that I might wake up
his kid.

Lucy ran up to me and licked my hand,
and I petted her golden head. “Hey, girl.” She nuzzled her face
against my leg.

“Night-night time, Lucy,” Kyle said to
the dog. She went trotting back to the bedrooms.

“Hey, man. Hope I didn’t wake up your
boy.”

He chuckled, limping over to the
kitchen with me following – also limping. We were quite a sight,
the two of us disabled vets. “Nah, that kid can sleep through
anything.”

I nodded. “Awesome.”

He looked me up and down. “You do
surgery today, doc?”

I gazed down at my scrubs. “Shit, this
was all they gave me to wear. I need a hot shower STAT.” My attempt
a doctor joke.

He smiled at that but something looked
sad about it. I didn’t have the energy to ask him about it, because
obviously I was a tired, selfish asshole at the moment. He turned
and pulled something out of the microwave and set it in front of
me.

“I made a lasagna. Want a
piece?”

My mouth watered staring at the
greasy, cheesy lump of pasta and meat. “Yes.”

He laughed and handed me a fork, then
rested himself against the counter. As I ate, I looked at his
tattooed arms, his preppie blonde hair, and the prosthetic left leg
extending out from under his shorts below the knee. Poor fucking
bastard. I really did need to stop pitying the guy. First off, he
had told me to stop a long time ago. Secondly, I bet his leg didn’t
hurt anymore like mine did. All the fucking time.

“This is damn good, Adams,” I said,
scraping the rest of the meal from my plate.

“Thanks. You okay, man?” he asked,
looking concerned.

I nodded. “I will be. I just need my
own damn bed.”

“I hear ya. Luke and I will be gone
tomorrow, thanks for letting us stay.”

“It’s me who owes you. I wouldn’t have
slept well at night if you hadn’t been watching my place. Stay as
long as you want. I mean it.”

He smiled and I walked to my bedroom
and closed the door. The shower was quick but hot, and after
throwing on some shorts, I slid into bed, falling asleep as soon as
my head hit the pillow.

Chapter 24

Rayanne

I wrapped my arms around myself and
sat on the hotel room’s bed somewhere in bum-fuck Georgia. This was
the most awkward situation ever.

Agent Diaz sat on the other
queen-sized bed of the room. His back to me, doing something on his
phone. He wore a white T-shirt and sweatpants. His one and only
duffel bag sat next to his bed, and his gun was lying next to his
thigh as he sat there.

The TV was on, and I was pretending to
be engrossed in whatever was on it, but I wasn’t. I was scared,
confused, upset, and most of all… missing Duke. Just when I had
grown comfortable with him, he’d been ripped away from me. I was
stuck with Mr. Stiff Pants over there. He reminded me of the cute
FBI agent from the movie Miss Congeniality who was all stuffy and
bossy. Except unlike Sandra Bullock’s character, there would be no
falling for this guy.

I was exhausted and couldn’t keep my
eyes open any longer. “Um, Mr. Diaz, I’m gonna go to sleep
now.”

He turned his head around and said,
“You can call me Mike. And okay. I’ll let you know if I get any
updates by morning.”

First off, I would never call him
Mike. Secondly, what the hell kind of updates did I need? I wasn’t
confident they’d catch Shane. That little asshole had probably
gotten away and I’d have to be scared for the rest of my life after
I testified on Thursday and possibly put his daddy and uncle in
jail for the rest of their natural lives.

I sighed and slid under the covers on
the side furthest away from Mike’s bed. Once on my side, a tear
slipped out. I had never been in such a stressful situation in my
life. The sight of that poor agent getting whacked over the head by
Shane played over and over in my mind. My scream and the squeal of
tires as we pealed out of there… the terror as they had caught up
with us… the car careening over that cliff with all my stuff in it…
us jumping over it into the icy cold breath-stealing water, and my
terror those few seconds before Duke had emerged, safe.

Then visions of him kissing me in the
water, his passion pouring into me. He had meant everything he’d
said to me, and I knew this because he’d said it in a stressful
situation, and usually people told the truth in those situations.
I’d meant what I’d said, too. I loved him, and I could only hope…
pray… daydream… that once this was all over, that I could see him
again. Thankfully, I had committed his address to memory when I’d
seen his driver’s license, and if I didn’t hear from him, he’d be
hearing from me. That man had branded something onto my heart,
searing it there with his white-hot kiss, leaving a permanent mark
I wasn’t sure I wanted to let go of.

He’d said he was going to be at the
trial. I tried not to get my hopes up, but I just couldn’t help it.
It was so strange to me how much I’d disliked the guy for so long
and now, it was like insta-love or something.

Oh, my God! Maybe I had that syndrome,
what was it called? Stockholm Syndrome? No, that was when someone
started to care for their captor. But honestly, it had felt like
Duke and the government had been my captors. They had kept me
hostage for days and that was enough time to get to know someone as
intimately as I had known Duke. I’d memorized the way he walked,
and how his limp would get more exaggerated around 4 p.m., or after
a long car ride. How he only dipped into his can of chew when he
seemed stressed or distracted. How he rubbed his hand over his
beard when he was angry, his jaw pulsing under it when he would try
to keep from saying something. The way his dark blue eyes raged
like a storm when he was angry or aroused, which seemed to be his
main two emotions. Duke would look at me – check me out – when he
thought I wasn’t looking, but I always noticed from the corner of
my eye. Men don’t think women notice these things, but we do. I
knew Duke was a decent enough cook, but I didn’t know where he’d
learned it. I knew he had a younger brother who was also a cop but
had a different last name. I knew his father had been in the Navy.
I knew that limp of his was from a war injury he’d sustained in the
Marine Corps while serving overseas. And while I knew all these
things about him, I thought about how knowing little facts and
quirks about someone doesn’t mean you actually know the person. So
I had to ask myself – did I really know-know him? Admittedly, I
hadn’t thought too much about it because I knew what I felt, and if
that was just an infatuation or a crush, then so be it.

But something told me it was something
much more than that. I loved him with all his flaws and not in
spite of them.

The days in the hotel room with Diaz
were even worse than the ones in the cabin had been. But,
thankfully, the day before the trial, Diaz had received word that
Shane Watson had been captured. They’d found him holed up in a
local motel room in Pembroke, nursing a pretty badly infected
bullet wound that had grazed his neck. I cheered silently that Duke
had hit him before we’d jumped over that cliff. The asshole had
been too scared to go to the emergency room and was barely
functional when they’d arrested him. I wanted to punch the air with
my fist when Diaz had told me. What I had also wanted to do was to
call Duke and share in the excitement. But of course I couldn’t. I
was even as desperate at one time to ask Diaz if he could somehow
get ahold of Duke so I could talk to him, and he’d practically
laughed in my face, his perfectly straight, white teeth glimmering
in the fluorescent lights of the room as he’d tipped his head back
and laughed. Dick.

The day before the trial, Mike drove
me back to St. Petersburg and I had cried when I walked through the
door to my condo, surrounded by my own things. FBI said I couldn’t
have my cell phone or internet back until after the trial, but I
could live with that. They said there could still be more threats,
as Shane had had people with him. Something told me those people
were probably in hiding, though. Still, Mike stayed and slept on my
couch. I was just happy to have my own bed, clothes, and
kitchen.

I woke up the morning of the trial
nervous and sick to my stomach. I still didn’t know why George and
Elmo had been charged with Murder-For-Hire, but I was about to find
out. Dressed in my nicest skirt suit and cute, but conservative
heels, two FBI agents picked me up in an unmarked car with dark
tint over the windows. The drive to the federal courthouse was only
about 10 minutes from my condo, but by the time we got there, my
palms were sweaty and I was trying to even out my erratic
breathing. I was nervous as hell.

Yesterday, an agent had come over and
had briefed me for hours on how to testify, what to say and what
not to say, and he told me that if I cried on the stand, it was
okay, but to try to maintain my composure as best as I could.
Thankfully for me, and lucky for them, I had been in court several
times and had witnessed the process. I’d taken notes for my bosses
before, but only on the big cases. I’d seen what sharks both
prosecuting and defense attorneys could be. But in all honesty, I
thought the defense lawyers were the worst of the two. I never
truly understand how someone would put money before their scruples.
Defending the worst of the worst – and the Watsons hadn’t been any
better. I’d bit my tongue so many times over the past 5 years I’m
surprised it was still intact. The agent seemed satisfied with my
answers as he’d quizzed me over and over, and before he left, I had
only asked him one question: Why had they been charged with
Murder-For-Hire? His answer shook me to my very core.

Chapter 25

Duke

A feeling of déjà vu came over me as I
once again found myself sitting in my boss’s small office. Jeffery
had a manila folder in front of him and he studied the contents
with his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. I loosened my
tie with my index finger. I was going to keep my calm this time, as
I knew whatever I had coming I would deserve. Resisting the urge to
pull the can of dip from my jacket pocket, I sighed when I realized
I didn’t even have it. I’d left it in my desk drawer so I wouldn’t
be tempted to grab for it. I really did need to quit that
shit.

Jeffrey removed his glasses and set
them down and looked at me.

Attempting a smile that probably
looked more like a grimace, I said, “Just give it to me, boss. I
know what I have coming.”

He quirked an eyebrow at me and said,
“And what exactly do you have coming?”

Shit. Walked right into that one.
“I’ll shut up now,” I murmured.