A moment after Emily drops that fingerprint bomb, Cody claims the seat Agent Dennis has just vacated. “Before you blast me,” he says, holding up his hands stop-sign fashion, “letting Dennis get to you was not my call. Nick didn’t allow me to intercept him. He wanted to know what the guy was going to say to you.”
“Nick should have given me a heads-up,” I say, slipping the envelope Dennis gave me inside my jacket pocket.
“I agree,” Cody says. “But he’s the boss. What did he want?”
“My fingerprints,” Emily says. “He took my napkin.” She looks between us. “What if he finds out I’m Reagan, a dead girl in Texas?”
“Then he’s shit out of luck,” Cody says. “Your prints will pull up as Emily Stevens. Just like the woman in Texas who was identified as Reagan pulls up as Reagan.”
“We’re certain of this?” Emily presses.
“One hundred percent,” Cody assures her. “So if he took your prints, he took your prints. No harm. No foul.” He looks at me. “Nick wants you to call him.”
“Tell Nick that Dennis offered us his friendship, took Emily’s napkin, and left. There’s nothing more to tell. He needs to figure out the who, when, where, and why, not me. I’m enjoying a glass of wine with Emily.”
“This is where you want me to leave, correct?” Cody asks.
“This is where I want you to leave,” I confirm. “And tell Nick to give me a fucking heads-up next time.”
“I’ll pass that message along,” he assures me, and smartly stands, my gaze tracking him as he walks to the door.
“You didn’t tell him about Jennie,” Emily says, drawing my attention.
“And I’m not going to either,” I say. “I trust Seth. We’ll get him the envelope in the morning in a discreet way, when no one is watching or standing over his shoulder, expecting me to call him. We’ll let him validate the information.”
“How bad is this, Shane?”
“If Dennis is being up-front with us, this is good, not bad.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I never trust anyone without a hell of a lot of reason to do so,” I say. “Which is why we’ll have Seth check him out. And why we’ll watch him and deal with him with caution.”
“He took my fingerprints,” she reminds me.
“Which will get him nowhere,” I remind her.
“Why would he do that? What does he know?”
“I have no doubt he wants a way to force me to help him. That doesn’t make him one of the bad guys. It makes him good at his job.”
“He wants to find a way to force you to help him.”
“But he won’t, and the bottom line here is that our newfound agent buddy gave us a golden ticket. If Martina comes at us outside the boundaries I’ve set with him, we have ammunition to shut him down and protect our interests and our safety.”
“By threatening Jennie.”
“It’s a chess game, sweetheart,” I say. “And should I have to play with Adrian, I will play and win.”
“By putting her in danger.”
“If anyone ends up dead, it will be him, not this woman. You have to trust me on this. This woman is our insurance. It’s protection and peace of mind. This is all good, sweetheart. Not bad.”
“Protection from a drug cartel while I’m hiding from a hacking organization.” She downs the rest of her wine. “It’s like an alternate universe that would be bad, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“We wouldn’t exist if those other things didn’t exist too. And I love us.”
“I love us too, sweetheart,” I say, tossing money onto the table. “Let’s go home. Our home.”
“Our home,” she says, her voice warming. “I will never get tired of hearing those words.”
“Neither will I,” I say, rounding the table, offering her my hand, and helping her to her feet, our eyes locked, the connection between us suddenly electric. We don’t speak, but in unison, we are both smiling. That is the power of this bond I have with her. We can smile for no reason, in the middle of a storm that has yet to fully pass.
I help her with her jacket, my hand covering her smaller one, this deep, clawing need to protect her overtaking me without warning, followed by a flickering image of my brother’s casket that I’ve managed to suppress all day today, until now. I combat it by inhaling Emily’s sweet floral scent and guiding her outside to begin the short walk to our apartment.
We manage two steps and she sways. “Easy there, sweetheart,” I say, catching her waist and holding her close.
“O … kay,” she says, her hands settling on my chest. “Too much wine for me. Good thing we only have a block to walk. I think I need protection from the sidewalk.”
I laugh, turning us forward and setting us in motion. And I indeed protect her from the sidewalk the way I plan to protect her from everything for the rest of our lives. My brother is gone. And no one, most especially Adrian Martina, will ever, ever take Emily from me.
* * *
Once we’re home and inside our apartment, I help Emily remove her coat, and then carry her up the stairs to the bedroom. “No more wine for me ever,” she murmurs as I settle her onto the mattress. “My God,” she adds, kicking off her shoes. “How did this happen? I was fine at the table.” The doorbell rings, and she peeks through her fingers. “If that’s Nick, you’re going to kill him and I can’t stop you right now.”
“I’m fairly certain he can take care of himself,” I assure her as the doorbell rings again. “Go to sleep,” I order, heading for the door.
“Not until I know what happens down there,” she calls out, and I smile at her groggy voice, certain she won’t make it five more minutes before she’s out cold.
I head down the stairs, and I’m a few steps from the door when my cell phone buzzes with a text from Seth telling me he’s at the door, which I open. “I heard about Dennis,” he says, ironically wearing a gray suit not so unlike Dennis’s, with one exception: it’s pressed. And while I’d assume this indicates Seth is a man of control while Dennis is not, I get the impression that Dennis wants to be underestimated.
I reach into my pocket and hand Seth the envelope Dennis gave me, and then I turn away, walking down the hallway and cutting across the living room to the bar. I’ve just poured us each a glass of Scotch when he appears by my side, holding up the envelope. “What am I looking at?”
“Supposedly the love of Adrian Martina’s life, who’s in hiding from his enemies.” I take a drink. “A gift from Dennis that he doesn’t want shared with anyone, including Nick.”
He gives me a two-second deadpan stare and then slips the envelope into his jacket pocket. “What did Dennis want in exchange?”
“If I use the information, he hopes I’ll throw him a pebble about Martina—that’s a direct quote. The words ‘hope’ and ‘pebble’ were both used. There were no demands, and he claims to understand my pain, so to speak, and wants to help.”
“That’s because his brother was a DEA agent who disappeared while undercover with Martina. And I checked him out after his hospital visit. By all appearances, he’s a good agent and a good man. Potentially, an excellent ally.”
“Emily believes he took a sample of her fingerprints. I assume he wants the same ammunition against me that he has against Martina.”
“Know who you’re dealing with and how to control them,” he says. “He’d be foolish if he handled himself any other way. A motto that is far from unfamiliar to me or you, since I use it to protect you and yours. But I’ll cover all bases with Dennis.” He picks up his glass and downs his Scotch. “On another topic. I managed to review your brother’s will. He left everything to Teresa, right down to his underwear, but the legal team can’t reach her.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Then make sure she gets what my brother intended for her to have.”
“Understood,” he says, glancing at his watch. “I’ll check out the information he gave you and text you within the hour.” He starts walking, and I don’t linger behind to watch him go. I down my Scotch and follow him, locking up after he exits, and then climb the stairs to the bedroom. I pause in the doorway to find both lamps on and Emily under the covers, on her side, her hand on my pillow. There was a time when I swore I would never share my bed with another woman. And then Emily happened.
I walk to her bedside and turn off her light, then cross to the closet, undress, and pull on a pair of pajama bottoms before climbing into the bed. The instant I’m beside her, Emily snuggles up to me, casting me a groggy look. “Did you kill him?”
“Yes,” I say, “but I haven’t buried the body yet, so don’t go downstairs.”
“I’ll help you find a good spot tomorrow,” she says, resting her head on my shoulder. “After we sleep.”
I smile, set my phone on the edge of the nightstand, and flip off the light to allow Emily to rest. And rest she does, her body softening against mine, the wine obviously overcoming her worries. I lie there, my eyes wide open, and inside the silence, with the exception of Emily’s soft breathing, I’m back to the reality that I’ve managed to suppress all day. Derek is still gone and my father is still a bastard. And Rick was not only created in the same bastard mold, he’s become the biggest threat to her safety. I decide right then that the assumption that he’s not a problem, because he believes she’s dead, is not good enough.
Emily shifts beside me and I shift with her, my lashes lowering, and sanity comes as I replay that first day I met her, back at the restaurant, sitting across from her. Intrigued by the secrets I already knew she possessed. I remember leaning in, drawing in that sweet scent that I obsess over now. Staring into her eyes as I asked, “Who burned you, Emily?”
A hint of panic flicked through her eyes and then was quickly banked. “Who says anyone burned me?”
“I see it in your eyes,” I’d said.
“Back to my eyes,” she said, because it wasn’t the first time I’d commented on what I’d seen in her eyes.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Back to your eyes.”
“Stop looking,” she admonished me.
“I can’t,” I told her, and I still can’t, I think now.
And those two words sizzled between us before she said, “Then stop asking so many questions.”
I leaned in close then, my lips a breath from hers, my fingers settling on her jaw. “What if I want to know more about you?” I asked.
“What if I don’t want to talk?”
“Are you suggesting I shut up and kiss you?”
My lips curve with that memory, my mind going to the first taste of her. So sweet. So damn sweet. And yet there was always something a little wild about her, the promise of the challenge she has proven to be over and over.
I begin to doze off with that thought, with her in my arms, and at some point I must fall asleep, because I jolt awake with Emily shouting out and bolting upright. I follow her to a sitting position, wrapping my arm around her. “Easy, sweetheart. You had a nightmare.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, I did.” She scrambles out of bed, her fingers sliding into her brown hair before she slips into her pink silk robe while I shift to sit on the edge of the mattress.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. Yes.” She turns to face me. “It was a tornado.”
“Have you ever been in a tornado?”
“No. My brother’s dead.” Her gaze goes to her nightstand and she reaches for her phone.
I’m on my feet, intercepting her in a flat second. “Easy, sweetheart,” I say again. “Who are you calling?”
“Seth. I need to confirm what I already know. My brother—”
“It was a nightmare, Emily. And what does any of this have to do with a tornado?”
“It’s a death thing. For some reason that’s how I see death.” She draws in a breath and lets it out. “I had my first tornado nightmare right after my father died and for several months following. They started again right after my mother died. My brother is dead.”
“My brother is dead, not yours. And Reagan is dead. This isn’t about your brother, sweetheart.”
“Can you just call Seth, please?”
“Yes. I’ll call.”
I set her phone on the nightstand and walk around the bed to grab mine, punching in Seth’s auto-dial and then placing him on speaker. “I’m with Emily on speaker,” I say when he answers and Emily and I meet at the end of the bed.
“Jennie checks out,” he says, assuming that’s why we’re calling. “I just got the final reports I promised in the text message I sent early this morning.” The one I fell asleep without looking at, I think. “Additionally,” he continues, “Nick insists that Dennis would never put someone else at risk for his own cause.”
“What’s the word on my brother?” Emily asks.
“Nothing’s changed,” he confirms. “We’ll give him a few more days to make contact with the police himself, and if he doesn’t, as discussed, we’ll do it for him.”
Emily folds her arms in front of herself. “He won’t make contact,” she says, her voice tight. “He’s dead.” She looks at me. “I’m going to take a shower.” She turns and walks toward the bathroom.
“What am I missing here?” Seth asks.
I exit the bedroom to the hallway and take the call off speaker. “It’s just you and me again,” I say. “And it’s a gut feeling she’s dealing with.”
“She thinks he’s dead.”
“Yes. She thinks he’s dead.”
“That might be for the best,” he says, no emotion to his voice.
“That he’s dead or that she thinks he’s dead?”
“Either,” he says. “Both give her closure. And let’s face it. A dead, dangerous asshole is a lot less painful than a living, dangerous asshole.”
We end the call and I press my hands to the railing, but before I can even process my thoughts, I hear, “He’s right.”
I turn to find Emily in the doorway, still in her robe. “He’s right about what?”
“My dangerous asshole of a brother,” she says, resting her shoulder on the door frame. “I know who and what he is. We talked about this last night, and me getting all uptight about it was the catalyst to the nightmare that wasn’t really about death despite my insistence that it was. I was just so immersed in it when I woke up and made you call Seth.”
“If it wasn’t about death, what was it about?”
“I went to a counselor years ago about this, and she said the tornado represents anything I can’t control. And of all the things that qualify as of late, ranging from a coma to death to Martina, my brother is number one.”
“Which is why your nightmare had you focused on him.”
“Exactly, but I’ve come to know that these nightmares come when I’m ready to fight back. It’s almost like I need to see myself as helpless to get pissed off at myself for being helpless.”
“You are the last person I would call helpless.”
“I was in a coma,” she says. “And I stood next to your brother’s casket. Both scream helplessness. But you know what? Screw helpless and screw my damn brother. I will not obsess over him. He will not keep us from the good. And that good includes our soon-to-be-famous fashion and makeup line, which is why I’m going to shower, dress in something fabulous, but not as fabulous as our new lines will be, and go to work.” She turns and disappears into the bathroom, but a beat later she’s peeking around the corner, a shy, sexy smile in her eyes and on her lips. “I’ll be naked any second now if you want to be naked with me.” She disappears again.
I don’t need to be tempted twice. I pursue her with one thing in mind: if she’s naked and I’m naked, it’s definitely all good. Everything, it seems, is as it should be.