Live Wire

chapter 5




“Hey, Teylor, you’re here early,” Kyle the bartender called out as she entered the dim interior of the bar and looked around.

The Saturday afternoon regulars were there, no more than half a dozen. Journey was there as well, a plate of Wing Dings, the bar’s exceptional chicken wings, and a glass of soda sat next to a heavy text book she had been reading. Friendly’s had become her only hangout, Journey had told Tehya a few weeks before. It was the only place she felt comfortable, she claimed.

Journey lifted her head and a smile crossed her face as she raised her hand in greeting before turning her attention back to her book, obviously more interested in studying than socializing.

Shoulder-length fiery gold hair fell over a delicate face as she frowned fiercely at whatever she was reading.

“This is the wrong place to attempt to study,” Tehya chided her in amusement as she caught Journey’s nails tapping against the table in time to the music. “I hope the test isn’t being given anytime soon.”

Journey grimaced as she lifted her head and pushed the book away. “A very boring dissertation on an even more boring poet. I’m still trying to convince grandfather to allow me to drop the English major for one of graphic design.”

“She’ll make a lousy English major with that attitude.” Casey stated sympathetically from the table next to Journey. “She needs to simply do what she wants and tell the rest of them to kiss her ass.”

“Is that your best advice, Casey?” Tehya shot him a look of amusement that took effort. “Maybe you should give her tips on pissing her grandfather off.”

“I would, but she keeps throwing that damned boyfriend up at me.” He shot her a quick grin. “I keep telling her Sebastian’s a sissy name and there’s no way he’ll stand up to good ole grandpop with her.”

Tehya gave a low, easy laugh. Another response that she didn’t feel. Journey had begun seeing Sebastian several weeks before, though she had only mentioned him to Tehya a few times and never with a last name.

After getting his beer, Casey came back to the table and Journey, who was still staring at her book.

Tehya headed over to the bar and accepted the cold bottle of beer Kyle set in front of her. She moved beside Journey as she remained silent, gripped the bottle and sipped.

Hell, why had she run here? Tehya wondered as she looked around the small bar. Journey was studiously ignoring Casey now as she always did when he teased her over Sebastian.

“Hey, Tey, you’re quiet today.” Casey looked over to her a few minutes later as he sipped at his beer, his brown eyes curious. “Everything cool?”

She nodded absently. “Fine, Casey. Just at loose ends at the moment.”

Tehya didn’t work Saturdays and Sundays. She usually cleaned house, took care of the yard, or did paperwork. Normally, she didn’t arrive at the bar until late for a drink, and to watch other customers while pretending she was a part of the joviality that existed among them.

Friendly’s was just what its name implied. No one put on airs, no one pretended to be superior to the others. It was simply a nice little place for a beer, friendly company, and a chance to unwind.

And still, she felt out of place. And today, she definitely wasn’t unwinding, while the sense of not belonging felt sharper than normal.

Always on the outside looking in.

Always dreaming about life, but never living it. She’d never had a chance to live, to love without fear, or to work to realize her dreams. And she hated that.

A shaft of light speared through the side entrance, drawing her gaze as she lifted the beer to her lips, pausing before taking a sip.

Tehya wanted to groan in frustration. Instead, she pretended not to see the new arrival as he strode to the table and pulled out the chair before sitting down.

That didn’t keep the few women in the bar from turning to stare. After all, he was tall, broad shouldered, arrogant, and had an air of sexy, dominant danger about him.

He was dressed in jeans, a casual dark shirt, leather jacket and boots, and there were probably no less than half a dozen weapons hidden on his body. Breathing out wearily she stood from the table, ignoring Casey and Journey’s curious gazes as she moved to the bar, followed by the silent, dark-eyed male everyone seemed to be watching. His arrival told her far more than words ever could. Jordan was serious about this unsanctioned operation. And he was serious about making certain someone was watching her.

He slid onto the barstool beside her. “Give me what she’s having,” he ordered the bartender, nodding at her beer.

Kyle shot her a surprised look before filling the order and taking the money tossed onto the bar.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice low as she lifted the bottle to her lips. “And who do you have following me? I know it wasn’t you.” She would have seen him. Micah wouldn’t have tried to hide from her.

“Nope, wasn’t me.” A flash of white teeth in sun-darkened flesh, the glimmer of devil’s black eyes.

Micah Sloane, aka Maverick.

She sighed. “You should be home with your family.”

What the hell had Jordan done, pulled in the whole freakin’ team?

“Seen the pictures lately? I’m telling you, that little rugrat is hell on wheels.” Pure pride filled Micah’s voice as he pulled a photo from his inside jacket pocket.

Tehya almost rolled her eyes at the proud papa move.

Laughing, radiant. It was almost as if the picture itself were infused with the love shining from his young blond wife and the toddler, black-haired, black-eyed Trace, she held in her arms. Micah sat beside her, his arm around her, and in his free arm he held an infant dressed in pink. Six-month-old Emmaline Allegiance Sloane.

The boy had a mischievous grin on his face, the daughter innocently content in her father’s arms, and the mother stared back with a secretive Mona Lisa smile. She was a woman who knew the joys, the secrets of being loved by a strong, powerful man.

He tucked the photo away again.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, taking another long sip. “Why aren’t you home with them?”

From the corner of her eye she watched as he reached up and scratched his jaw while staring at her profile. Black eyes were gentle, his expression compassionate.

“Well, see, I have this friend,” he confided, his voice low enough to carry to her ears only. “She’s in trouble and doesn’t want to accept help. Then I have this other friend. He’s lost his heart and doesn’t want to accept it. I’m here to help both of them. I’m a nice guy like that.”

And she wanted to cry, because he truly was a good friend like that and thought nothing of endangering himself to help a friend.

“Your friend hasn’t lost his heart,” she said, knowing exactly who he was talking about. “Trust me, it’s right there in his chest, just as hard and cold as it ever was.”

Micah chuckled.

“Hey, Teylor, this yahoo botherin’ you?” Casey’s voice came from behind her. It sounded more aggressive than she had ever heard him, and filled with a warning to Micah. Lord love him, Casey had no idea the weapon he was close to challenging.

She could only shake her head wearily.

“Hey, man, I got this,” Micah assured him with an amused, patient smile. “Go find a little plaything of your own, why don’t ya?”

Tehya choked as she fought back a weary groan. She really didn’t need the male posturing right now.

“It’s fine, Casey,” she turned and said to him. “What my friend means is that he’s a smart-mouthed ass, but he’s cool all the same.”

“Oh.” Casey looked at Micah, narrowing his gaze on him, his expression forbidding. “He looks like bad news to me, Tey.”

“Naw, he just likes to bring bad news,” she told him. “Everything’s fine, Casey, I promise.”

Casey scratched his head in confusion, as he looked from Tehya to Micah and back again for a long moment.

“I should just go back and aggravate Journey some more maybe?” he suggested, though Tehya could see the suspicion still darkening his gaze.

Tehya’s nodded somberly. “Yeah, I’d do that, Casey.”

He gave another glance toward Micah before grunting irritably and returning to a still-silent, studious Journey.

“You know, Tey,” Micah drawled, “your choice of friends here is a little immature. Sure you don’t want to come out and play with the big boys and girls again?”

She gave a heavy sigh. “I guess you’re parked here until I leave, right?”

He leaned closer, his expression becoming serious. “It’s like this. I followed you from the house. You had a tail keeping well back for the better part of the way. When you turned in here, they drove off and simply disappeared. Now, what does that suggest to you?”

That she was in a shitload of trouble. That the panic building in her gut wasn’t simply paranoia, it was danger. The kind of danger that had murdered her mother, her friends, and had made her life hell until six years before. It told her she was in over her head here.

“Either his partner is here, or he would have arrived within minutes after I did,” she answered painfully.

He gave a subtle nod. “And I didn’t see anyone come in after you. Did you?”

She shook her head slowly. There were three entrances, impossible for one person to watch unless he were inside. Tehya had been inside and no one had entered after her, except Micah.

“No one came in,” she said softly, painfully. “They’ve been watching me long enough to know my habits, to be able to guess my moves.”

“Long enough to know if you have any weaknesses,” he reminded her.

She swallowed tightly, but forced herself not to look around. She knew everyone here. They were all regulars. That meant whoever was watching her had been here from the beginning. She had run a very thorough background search on everyone here, and they had all been above suspicion.

If Micah was right, someone was backed by a hell of a lot of money and power to be able to pull that off. Those commodities were essential to building a background that would pass a check like the ones Tehya was capable of making.

She let her gaze rove discreetly around the bar once again as regret built inside her.

She had needed to feel a part of something, and she had chosen this place because she had believed it was neutral enough, that it was safe enough. Had she been more wrong than she could have ever imagined? Who here had managed to fool her to that extent?

“The situation is delicate, then,” she murmured as she lifted the beer to her lips. “Explains why you’re in covert mode.”

She had wondered, when she had first seen him, about the slight differences in his cheekbones, the longer hair, the scar slashing down the side of his face that he didn’t really have. If a picture were taken of him, it would show other differences that she wasn’t catching in the dimness of the room. Differences that would disappear once he returned to his wife and children. Enough differences that he would never be mistaken for Micah Sloane, a personal security expert in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Yeah, that explains it,” he agreed as he turned his head and looked back at her. “Doesn’t explain why you’re here rather than safe at home helping everyone come up with the plans, the contingency plans, and countercontingency plans the boss man always requires, though.”

She was almost amused. Jordan definitely believed in contingency plans, and the countercontingencies.

She finally sighed. “All of you need to let me handle this myself.” Though she was beginning to suspect it was far worse than she imagined.

“Aw, darlin’, you know that’s not going to happen, right?” Gentle affection filled his tone. “You’re family, Tey. We don’t turn our backs on family anymore than you slacked on the job when we needed you.”

She had to swallow tightly to hold back her tears.

“I don’t know if I can do this again,” she said when Micah said nothing more. “I don’t know if I can bear losing everything I’ve built here.” She could feel the grief tearing at her chest.

“I think we both know it’s too late to back out. You can run and hide, or you can stand and fight. There’s no in-between, Tey.”

Yeah, she knew there was no in-between. That didn’t mean her choices didn’t suck.

“He told me to warn you that if you run without him, he’ll have your car targeted and disabled,” Micah continued with quiet sincerity. “And I’d help him. It’s too late to run.”

She propped her chin against her hand and stared over at him morosely. Just what she needed, Jordan finding ways to dictate to her and he wasn’t even there.

“That’s just exceptionally wrong,” she muttered. “He knows that’s just exceptionally wrong, Micah. That’s my car. It’s not his any longer.”

He rose slowly from the barstool, his black eyes glinting in the dim light.

He bent down so his lips were close to her ear. “I’m going to fade back into the shadows now,” he said softly. “Head home soon, darlin’. You’re closer than you know to possessing everything you’ve wanted for the past six years. Don’t give up just when you’ve received the chance to enter the fight.”

She almost shook her head at his advice as she watched him stroll casually to the exit, sunlight flooding the darkened bar as he opened the door, then abruptly disappeared as it closed.

If he meant Jordan’s heart, then he was so wrong. Jordan had showed her during that last night at base that, at least where she was concerned, he didn’t possess a heart. Now didn’t count. Jordan felt he had to be there with her. He hadn’t come for her because he had needed her for himself.

What he possessed instead was a sexual appetite that set fire to her own, and only drew her closer to a broken heart.

“Hey, Tey.” Journey sidled up to the stool next to her. “Who was that piece of hot stuff you were talking to?” She flashed Tehya a wicked grin as she waggled her brows suggestively.

“Someone with a complex,” Tehya sighed as she wondered who in the bar could be the enemy. She was a fool, because she couldn’t believe any of them could be a danger to her.

She had learned as a teenager that the enemy could pose as anyone, even a friend. Yet evidently, that lesson hadn’t impressed itself upon her effectively enough.

It could be Casey, it could be Kyle, or even Journey. Tehya had known the other girl was a risk from the beginning, but not the type of risk Micah was watching for.

“Someone with a complex and a seriously nice ass,” Journey laughed.

“More than a seriously nice ass matters, Journey,” Tehya said. “And on that note, it’s time for me to leave.”

She had to get out of the bar, away from whoever was there specifically to watch her, to betray her. To complete Sorrel’s mission and destroy her.

It wasn’t as safe here as she had believed it was. For all her careful surveillance and background checks, somehow she had still managed to f*ck up. Still, she had allowed herself to be fooled.

That, or she had been located within those first two months of moving to Hagerstown and was being watched even as she was watching those around her.

That would have allowed whoever was following her to put someone in place and prepare a proper background. Especially if she had been led there, or if her enemy had known her well enough to guess where she would head.

The thought that she was under surveillance for months and had never guessed until the past few weeks, had a chill of terror racing through her.

Looking around, she didn’t catch sight of Micah or anyone else. She felt the eyes on her, though. God, she should have paid attention to her instincts and run that first night she had felt the back of her neck itch.

Two weeks ago.

But if her suspicions were right, if Micah’s were right, it had been too late long before that. But why hadn’t she felt the danger then? Why had she only begun feeling those eyes on her in the last two weeks?

Slipping the small electronic key fob from her jeans, she started the ignition to the car before crossing the street. Once she got to the vehicle, she walked around it, watching the screen on the fob intently for any sign of electronic devices or explosives.

The screen showed clear.

Once inside the vehicle she sat still and quiet and stared out the windshield, as she tried to get a grip on the fear building inside her, and the final realization, the acceptance that her father truly was reaching out from the grave to drag her into hell with him.

She wouldn’t get rid of Jordan or the others. If he had pulled the team in before he had showed up on her doorstep—and it appeared he had done exactly that—then he’d intended to learn who was searching for her on his own once he had placed her at base or in a safe house.

She knew Jordan; He didn’t do anything without a carefully thought out plan. He would have shipped her off to the Elite Ops base and then gone after anyone that seemed to be interested in her. He would have attempted to take care of the matter on his own.

What he couldn’t have realized was the moment she disappeared, her shadows would have disappeared as well. And eventually they would have found her again. They always did. And someone always died.

How many times had someone ended up dead because they thought they could fight her battles for her? Because they thought they could save her or her mother, no matter the odds.

However, unlike the others, Jordan had come prepared, and Tehya knew he had. She knew how he worked, how he planned, how he waged war.

Pulling out of the parking lot, Tehya headed home. Watching the rearview and side mirrors carefully, she drove around for a while, hoping to catch sight of anyone that could be tailing her. At least, perhaps she would give Micah a chance to catch sight of them, though she doubted whoever it was would be so careless at this late date.

She knew Micah was most likely behind her somewhere, but she couldn’t catch sight of him, either. Had she lost her edge? There had been a time when her instincts, her ability to draw out a tail had been so much better than this.

By the time Tehya pulled into her garage she was frustrated, irritated, and riding a temperamental edge that she rarely allowed herself to visit. Fear did this to her. It made her crazy with the need to run, to hide, to draw the danger away from friends or acquaintances.

When she was too weak to control the fear, her mother used to tell her that her redheaded temper would get her in more trouble than what they had following them.

She’d had a horrible temper as a child when under stress. She had believed she had conquered it as a teenager, though. Hell, she hadn’t had a choice. It was control her temper or risk her mother, or a protector’s life. But now, she could feel it rising inside her like a storm that couldn’t be stopped. She felt as though she were being infected by the fear. As though it were crawling inside her, burning her guts.

Parking the car in the garage, Tehya got out and walked into the house only to come face-to-face with more people than she had left there.

Jordan and the two couples were waiting, but with him was his nephew, another former Elite Ops agent, Noah Blake. Micah and Nik were slipping through the patio entrance even as she locked the door between the kitchen and the garage.

“Did I give you enough time to catch my tail?” she asked Micah as she leaned against the door.

A grin quirked the hard line of his lips. “Not this time. They followed you in, but they didn’t follow you out. We crisscrossed behind as well as ahead of you and didn’t glimpse anything or anyone suspicious.”

She turned to Jordan. “You didn’t tell me you brought the whole damned team in.” She then glared at his nephew. “Isn’t Sabella close to giving birth?”

Noah’s wife was pregnant with their second child, and she knew from the first pregnancy that he became a temperamental son of a bitch if he even suspected a mission would interfere with his ability to be with his wife during the birth, or in those first weeks afterward.

“I have permission to head home if I need to.” Noah grinned back at her, his dark blue eyes amused yet concerned. “I have an understanding boss this time around.”

The last time Sabella was close to her due date just as a mission had ended. Jordan had found himself sporting a black eye hours later when he had mockingly asked Noah for a written report on the mission before he left for home.

“Did you learn anything while I was gone?” she asked Jordan.

He sat at the kitchen counter in front of John and Travis, and now Micah and Nik. Noah took the seat beside him. The two women were on the living room couch working on several laptops they had set up on her coffee table. Her living room was now a f*cking command center.

“We’re working on it,” he stated coolly, but the tension radiating from his body was impossible to miss. He was furious that she had run out as she had.

“Well, I see you made yourselves at home. Should I find a place for all of you to sleep?” She straightened from the door and moved farther into the kitchen. “I hope sleeping bags will do.”

Jordan stood up, his broad shoulders appearing wider. His eyes bluer.

“Are you finished running?” he asked, his voice low, dangerous, and filled with a blatant challenge.

Tehya’s brows lifted and she came to a stop in the middle of the ceramic tile floor, aware that all eyes had turned to her and Jordan.

Surprisingly, the moment she had walked into the house and caught sight of Jordan she had felt a spark of life suddenly flare inside her that hadn’t been there before. A glimmer of hope perhaps.

Adrenaline, anticipation. A flare of hunger, she couldn’t extinguish if she wanted to.

“Probably not,” she said, her tone flippant as she fought the anger she knew she couldn’t hide if she tried. She glanced at Micah. “Or at least not until I can find a way to outrun the Rottweilers you sicced on me.”

A bark of surprised, amused laughter burst from Noah and Micah.

“I think he’s more like a junkyard mutt,” Noah said, laughing at Micah.

“You’ve always said that,” Micah agreed with a grin. “I prefer her description though.”

Tehya felt a tug at her heart. It was almost like those days back at the base. The camaraderie, male-bonding bullshit, and insanity that she had always loved watching.

“They’re all dogs,” Lilly piped up as she tossed her husband a wicked grin. “Aren’t you, darling?”

Travis gave a low, sexy growl. Tehya glanced at Jordan, only to find him looking back at her, and she felt the tension between the two of them rise.

Did he envy the others as well? Was there a part of him, as there was in her, that hungered painfully for that same emotional bonding. A hunger she knew no man could sate with the exception of Jordan.

Sometimes, she felt as though she had been cursed by him. No matter how she had tried in the months since leaving the ops, she couldn’t get him out of her head, or out of her heart. He was a weakness she now knew she had no chance of resisting. Just as she knew he had ruined her for any other man.

“You have your orders,” Jordan stated to the others, his gaze still locked with hers. “Make the necessary contacts and we’ll get this started.”

Jordan used the tone that everyone knew meant business. It made the team jump and head for the nearest safety zone. It just made her hot. It always had. It made her wet and never failed to keep her p-ssy throbbing in need.

Everyone was leaving except Lilly and Bailey. They rose gracefully to their feet and came into the kitchen while the men gathered files and prepared to leave.

“I contacted Ian and Kira, Tehya,” Lilly told her. “They’ve been in D.C. for months. Kira said she’s been trying to reach you since you left base. I’m certain you’ll be hearing from her soon.”

A heavy breath escaped her and she closed her eyes. She didn’t want anyone else involved in this.

“I wish you hadn’t called them,” she said.

“Darling, Kira would have killed me, and made sure it hurt. Badly,” Lilly told her, clearly amused. “But never fear, we have several excellent plans here that Ian and Kira conferenced with us on. We’re going to have such fun saving your temperamental little hide. You’ll actually thank us later.”

Laughing lightly, Lilly kissed her cheek and then Bailey gave her a quick hug. “Take care dear, and we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

Tehya remained still, watching them warily now. She’d seen these two play their little high jinks on the men of the unit, but this was the first time she had been a recipient. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. Now, she almost regretted the plots she had helped them with.

Within minutes, the small crowd had dispersed, slipping silently from the house, and leaving her alone with Jordan and the hunger heating between her thighs again.

Tehya wasn’t used to having neighbors, so the fact that her house was in the middle of a large block had been her opportunity to learn how to live among people. It wasn’t a crowded block, though. The houses were spaced a good distance apart, ensuring privacy. Her house sat in front of a line of sheltering trees and the two neighbors on the left of her were related and currently vacationing together.

Walking into the living room while Jordan locked up, Tehya pulled the heavy drapes carefully over the French doors, ensuring there wasn’t so much as a crack between the material for prying eyes to see into the house.

“So, you have plans C, D, E, and F?” she asked as he turned to her once again.

“G, H, and I, as well,” he informed her coolly. “You can never have too many plans, Tehya.”

Arrogance settled around him like a royal cloak.

“So you say.” She shrugged, crossed her arms over her breasts, cocked her hip and stared back at him, her brow arched.

“Don’t give me that look,” he warned her. “You could have stuck around to contribute to planning your own protection, rather than running off as you did.”

“Well, it was leave or commit murder,” she told him archly “Has anyone told you that you’re damned arrogant Jordan? Or that you could make a saint conspire to murder?

“Only every day you were around,” he snorted. He dropped his arms and stared back at her with a look of pure, hard dominance. “Why did you run, Tehya?”

She hadn’t expected him to question her.

“I’ve all but lived with you for six years, and you can’t guess that one?” she asked with a hint of sarcasm. “Do you have any idea how hard this is for me to accept? Sorrel is supposed to be dead!” she suddenly cried out, surprised by the vehemence that tore from her. “He’s not supposed to haunt me like this.”

Jordan heard the pain in her voice and once again fought the tearing at him, that urge to just do something to make her pain go away. It killed him to see or hear her pain.

Hell, she’d always had the power to do this to him. She forced him to feel emotions he didn’t know how to handle. She made him feel as though he were betraying both of them by being unable to what she made him feel when it rose tight and hard inside him as it did now.

“Tehya, the people who helped when you were young weren’t qualified to go up against Sorrel, and neither were you.” He braced his hands on the counter and forced himself not to touch her. “You were a child, not an adult, and it was no fault of yours. There was nothing you could do to change any of it.”

She turned her head away from him, her tongue peeking out to touch the point of her upper lip. Somber grief tightened her expression as she gave a little shrug, as though the explanations, the reasons why, really didn’t matter.

Her fingers raked through the heavy hair at the top of her head, causing those long, riotous curls to bounce around her shoulders, down her back and tempt his fingers. “It will never be over,” she whispered, her voice harsh. “He swore he would never release me, and even in death he’s managing to keep a hold on me.”

“It doesn’t matter how far you run, Tehya, or how hard you fight it, you’re going to have to realize the only hold Sorrel has on you is the one you’re allowing. I won’t let the past destroy you. And neither will your friends. But we need you to see, to believe we can do this together.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. She was irritated, frightened, and he was damned if he knew how to help.

The need to do something though, anything, to wipe that fear from her eyes clawed at the heart he didn’t know he still possessed until he met Tehya.

Her lips tightened as her dark green eyes seemed to glow in the frame of her pale face. That little spattering of freckles stood out in stark relief on her nose, clearly visible despite the tan that he knew covered her entire body.

“When Mother first escaped, she hid with me in a convent with Sister Mary, a friend she had known since she was young. She stayed only for a while, then left to make certain Father’s men hadn’t followed her. She called Sister Mary late one night, about three years later. Sister Mary pulled me from my bed and we ran. As we ran through the forest, I remember hearing gunshots. His men raped several of the sisters. The Reverend Mother had been tortured before they killed her. Horribly.”

He knew that. He had the file on the horrendous murders of the sisters at the Holy Blessings Convent.

“Sister Mary and I ran for several years,” she continued. “I saw Mother only rarely. Then one night we met with an ex-marine. Matthew Thomas.” She rubbed at her arms as though suddenly cold.

“Matthew slipped me into America, and I thought I would be safe with him. I thought he could defeat any monster, he was so strong. He and Mother had evidently had a relationship. I think they may have even loved each other.” She swallowed tightly her gaze stark with painful memories. “Several months later, Sister Mary’s body was found. She had died just after handing me over to Matthew. He and I both knew she would have told Sorrel who I was with, and where I was. She was so fragile, Jordan. So tiny.”

She stared back at him with those eyes so haunted it broke his heart. “When Matthew sent me to his friend Boyd in the Washington mountains, he told me he was going to take care of the problem once and for all. Then he would bring Mother to me, and we would be safe.” The pain in her face had his fingers aching to clench into fists. “Two months later Boyd pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night and we were on the run.” The first tear eased down her cheek. “Matthew’s body had been found. He had been skinned alive.”

Jordan couldn’t stand still another moment longer.

“Goddammit, I have the f*cking files,” he bit out furiously as he took her in his arms and held her to him with an overwhelming need to take those painful memories out of her head. “I have the files, Tehya.”

“Then you know.” She sobbed, anger, fear, and desperation in her cries. “If these are Sorrel’s men, then you know what they are. You know what they’re capable of doing. Why, Jordan? Why won’t they let me go? Why won’t they leave me alone?”

His hands gripped her upper arms as he pulled back and stared down at her before lifting one hand to wipe the wetness from her cheek.

“Tehya, sweetheart,” he whispered. “We kept you hidden rather than taking care of this when we should have. Sorrel isn’t haunting you, but it’s obvious someone associated with him believes you have something they want. We’ll just have to figure out what that something is.”

It was the only thing that made sense.

She shook her head. “I didn’t take anything from the estate while I was there. I even left the clothes I had brought myself the night I was attacked there.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he promised her. Nine times out of ten it was something as simple as a file she may have seen, or some insignificant piece of information Sorrel had given her before the night he died.

For now though, all he could do was hold her. All he could do was comfort her and ache for the years of her life that had been stolen from her.

“I’m fine.” She gave a hard shake of her head as she pulled away from him and moved to the counter before turning to face him once again.

Letting her go wasn’t easy, but it was easier than seeing that pain in her eyes.

“You’ll be fine,” he promised her. “We’ll see to that, darlin’.”

Jordan saw the determination on her face, the pain, the belief that somehow she could protect herself, protect her heart, if she had just found a way to defeat Sorrel when she was younger.

“Will you?” she asked then, her expression closing on him, her gaze becoming shuttered. “Will it be better, Jordan? Or will the past steal the rest of my life?” She gave a hard, brief laugh. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t buy that puppy I wanted. This would be a hell of a life for a little dog, wouldn’t it, Jordan?”

A tear slipped down her cheek. “It’s just a puppy.” Her breathing hitched. “I can’t even have a f*cking puppy.”

Before he could pull her to him again she swung away, her hand pressed to her mouth, more tears obviously following as she rushed to her room for a second time that day.

And hell, he hadn’t even known she wanted a puppy.