The Call of Bravery

CHAPTER NINE



CONALL HAD NEVER been obsessed with a woman before. He thought about Lia as he was waiting for sleep, and first thing in the morning. He could hardly wait to see her. The sound of her voice coming from another room was as tactile as a touch. Every other day, when it was Jeff’s turn to eat dinner downstairs, Conall felt resentful and sulky, banished to the attic.

It was ridiculous and embarrassing. So, okay, he wanted her. There had been women he’d wanted and not had. Maybe not one he had to share quarters with for weeks on end, but he could have avoided her more than he did. He was the idiot who’d taken to playing house with a beautiful woman and a couple of boys who reminded him uncomfortably of himself at their ages, not to mention a pretty, sometimes shy teenage girl who also, if he wasn’t mistaken, was suppressing a whole lot of anger and anxiety.

What he should do was start spending more time in the attic and less downstairs. He could do it gradually, so as not to hurt the boys’ feelings.

Conall couldn’t make himself do what he should do. Damn it, he was having fun with Walker and Brendan. What’s more, he was good for them. They were blossoming by the day. Truth was, he’d miss them when he left.

And Lia. Damn it, he’d miss Lia. He’d never missed a woman before, either. Not even his mother.

He relived the scene in the dark hall a hundred times, but in his imagination his mouth caught hers. He found out what she tasted like, what sounds she’d make, whether her mouth would soften, how she’d feel pressed up to him. Unfortunately, his fantasies weren’t healthy for a man trying to fall asleep. They weren’t great when he was spending so much time around a bunch of kids, either. He was willing to talk about almost anything with them, but would prefer not to include sex as one of those topics.

Today, he was pouring his usual late-morning bowl of cereal when he heard footsteps coming into the kitchen. Conall stiffened slightly, bracing himself for his reaction to Lia when he turned around. It was the boys, though, not her, and he relaxed. “Hey.”

“We’re bored,” Walker announced.

Some mornings Conall found them watching The Transformers, or occasionally something that was on TV, but increasingly they were lying in wait for him. He found it really hard to say, No, I can’t do anything with you, I need to go back upstairs.

He waved a spoon. “I’m game for something after I eat.”

The younger boy’s face brightened. “Cool.”

He pulled out a chair and sat, crunching away on his too-sweet cereal. They sat, too. Walker drummed his heels on the chair legs and watched Conall eat. Brendan looked withdrawn, more as he had when Conall first came. He stared at the tabletop.

Conall got up to pour his coffee. “Have trouble sleeping last night, Bren?”

He looked up, his eyes haunted. “Kind of.” He went quiet then said in a sudden burst, “I keep thinking about Mom. Does she…does she still look like Mom?”

Oh, damn, Conall thought. Maybe he would rather talk about sex.

“Um…that depends.”

They both fixed their eyes on him with unnerving intensity. “On what?” Brendan asked.

“Well…” Did parents normally have these kinds of conversations with their kids? “She wasn’t cremated, was she?”

“What’s cremated?” Walker asked.

“Ah…burning the body. So you’re left with only ashes.”

The horror on their faces made his first swallow of coffee go down wrong. He coughed and finally had to wipe his face with the back of his hand.

Walker looked at his brother. “They didn’t do that to Mommy, did they?”

“I don’t think so,” Brendan said uncertainly. “There was a coffin. If they do that, is there still a coffin?”

Conall was glad to be able to shake his head. “No. She wasn’t cremated then. Um, did you see her after she died?”

“Right after. She looked like she was asleep.” Brendan hesitated. “Kind of.”

Conall knew what he meant. People sometimes said that—Oh, he looked like he was sleeping—but really, he hadn’t. Conall wasn’t a spiritual man, which was probably just as well given his profession and the fact that he’d killed a few people along the way. But there was no question something left the body at the moment of death. A dead person didn’t look peaceful, he looked dead.

Keeping his voice matter-of-fact, he said, “Your mom was probably embalmed, which means chemicals were used that will keep her from decomposing.” He could see from their expressions that they didn’t know the word. Well, crap. “Rotting,” he admitted. “Normally, living things rot after they die. If a raccoon dies in the woods, its body eventually enriches the soil that helps plants grow that will feed that raccoon’s kits—that’s their babies—and their kits and so on.”

Lia walked into the kitchen right then. Conall was fiercely glad to see her, and not only for the usual reason. She gave them a general smile that didn’t linger on him any more than on the boys. “What are you talking about? What kind of kits?”

“We’re talking about what happens to dead people,” Brendan said.

Her gaze flew to Conall’s. He grimaced.

“And…what does this have to do with kits?”

Brendan explained about how raccoons died like people did, and how their bodies helped make berries and stuff like that grow better to feed baby coons. “And they’re called kits. Right, Conall?”

“Right.”

She blinked. “Okay. Um, do you mind if I join you? I might have a cup of coffee.”

He noticed belatedly that she was grubby. She’d been working in the garden, then. Actually, the boys were pretty dirty, too, especially beneath the fingernails. He tilted his head to one side and saw that the knees of their jeans were filthy. So she’d succeeded in putting them to work this morning. No wonder they were desperate for new entertainment.

“Do you know anyone who’s dead?” Brendan asked her.

“Not well,” she admitted. “I mean, my great-aunt died a few years ago, but the funeral wasn’t open-casket.”

They turned aghast looks on her and she hastily explained how sometimes at funeral services the casket was open so mourners could view the body.

After which they’d all murmur that he or she looked so peaceful, Conall thought cynically.

More horror showed on the two young faces.

Lia stood, went around the table and gave each of them a hug. “Your mom would want you to remember her alive. Smiling at you, playing with you. She can keep living in your memories.”

They thought about that as she returned to her chair. She’d obviously plopped down on her butt between rows in the garden. She must have no idea how enticingly the circle of dirt emphasized one of Conall’s favorite parts of her body.

Having thought about their mother alive—or not—the boys turned as one to Conall. “Have you ever seen anyone who’s dead?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it. Lia’s eyes had widened in alarm. He was momentarily distracted by the way they seemed to deepen in color. Sunlight, oddly enough, brought out the brown, making the color rich and warm and earthy. Indoors like this, the green predominated, making him think of the mysterious, green light in old-growth forests.

God.

He dragged his focus back to the subject. He wasn’t enthusiastic about remembering the faces of men he’d shot. They had not looked peaceful when he was done with them. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I have.”

“Did you go to any of their funerals?”

“Once.” He’d been under deep that time, for over a year, with a Central American crime cartel. He hadn’t lost himself, exactly, but by the end he’d been grimly holding on to memories of what life for a normal American was like. He’d needed desperately to think of a man mowing the lawn, the scent of newly cut grass sharp in the air; people texting on their fancy phones as they stood in line at a Starbucks to order a Cinnamon Dolce Frappuccino, kids throwing wadded up paper balls at each other on the school bus. People who weren’t ruthlessly killing to achieve their ends and satisfy their egos. He’d been caught somewhere he shouldn’t have been and had had to knife a man, and, yeah, four days later he attended the solemn church service for that vile excuse for humanity. He hadn’t wasted time contemplating the dearly departed’s soul. Instead, Conall had sat there wondering how much humanity he still clung to.

There was no part of that he wanted to share with two boys who were still grieving a mother who had actually loved them.

“He was Catholic,” he told them. “The priest droned on and on. The service was in Spanish,” he added. Yeah, that was the way to go; throw a bunch of irrelevant details at them and maybe they could talk about what the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant was, or why a priest talked so long, or—

“Did he die because he was sick, like Mom?” asked Walker.

Conall’s eyes met Lia’s again.

No, he died because I stuck a big honking knife blade into his body right beneath his rib cage and then I thrust upward until blood gushed and his eyes went sightless and his knees sagged.

“It was…an accident.” He thought he’d done well in keeping his voice free of any inflection whatsoever, but she heard or saw too much.

“That’s enough talk about death and dying,” she said, sounding sharp. “Why aren’t you kicking a soccer ball instead?”

“Because I haven’t finished my morning cup of coffee?” he said mildly.

“Well, why don’t you?” Lia suggested.

“We’re almost hungry for lunch. Is it time for lunch?” Brendan asked.

“Nope. Why don’t you each have an apple or a banana? Or there are some baby carrots already peeled in the crisper.”

Walker turned big eyes on her. “Can we have a cookie if we have an apple first?”

“We have dessert after some meals. Not after snacks.” Lia stood. “I’m going back to my weeding.”

Her coffee, Conall saw, was almost untouched. That wasn’t really why she’d come in. She’d been checking on the boys.

Maybe she wanted to see me. It was a wisp of hope that felt embarrassingly juvenile. He felt thirteen years old again, like poor Sorrel, slumped at his desk in Language Arts as Mrs. Barnes talked about organizing information into a coherent piece of writing. He was wondering for a fleeting, agonizingly sweet second whether Kayla Czernek had flipped her hair to get his attention, before he saw her peek beneath her eyelashes at Guy Hedman and he knew that, of course, she didn’t even know Conall MacLachlan existed.

For a second almost as fleeting he felt ashamed, the way he had that day, and even angry. Then he got a grip. There was nothing wrong with the boys being Lia’s priority. And also…he knew damn well she was as aware of him as he was of her. She could pretend all she wanted, but she looked for him, too. She couldn’t help herself any more than he could.

And yeah, he’d hurt her if she let herself get involved with him. He wasn’t her type. He wouldn’t stay around. She needed a guy cut out to be a husband and father, not an emotionally scarred man who had no problem conjuring the faces of the dead, because he’d killed them.

He took his dishes to the sink. “So what’s it going to be, soccer or baseball?”

He let the boys squabble over which sport they’d play as he ushered them outside, wondering why he was so content spending half his days playing daddy when he didn’t actually want to be one.

* * *

LIA WAS IN TURMOIL when she returned to the incessant weeding and watering a huge garden required. She wished the two men would go away.

No, I don’t.

Yes, she did.

For one thing, the whole time she was out here she remained aware that Jeff was upstairs at the attic window, able to watch her if he felt inclined. She didn’t know if he did; she hadn’t gotten any sexual vibes from him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t bored enough to keep an eye on her anyway.

She was also aware of the voices on the other side of the house. Mostly the boys’ carried, high-pitched and excited. Occasionally she’d catch the deeper bass note of Conall’s reply.

How was it possible he could be so blasted good with two unhappy boys? She didn’t get it. Lia examined the possibility that she was jealous because Brendan and Walker were clearly more attached to Conall than they were to her. But she really thought she was being honest with herself when she concluded that didn’t bother her. She was glad they had him.

What upset her was that he was such an enigma. A man who, she sensed, didn’t let himself feel much attachment to other people. He had the murkiest depths of anyone she’d ever met, and that was saying something. Her own were less than crystalline.

She brooded as she thinned the new shoots of lettuce. Just listen to him out there, Lia thought indignantly. Being kind and funny and caring and domesticated. And yet he’d chosen a job that was exceedingly dangerous, undoubtedly violent and took him away from home—assuming he actually had one—for months at a time.

Did he die because he was sick, like Mom?

She heard Walker asking the question in all innocence and saw again the way Conall’s face had frozen. He was very, very good at wiping his expression clean, but not so good she hadn’t seen something, however fleeting, that had shocked her. He’d killed, she knew it. Probably ruthlessly, but not without conscience, or he wouldn’t be haunted by faces he didn’t want to remember.

Her hands went still and she frowned toward the fence, not really seeing it. He’d said a few things about being undercover. A person would have to be something of a chameleon to do that—to immerse himself in a role night and day with no weekends or holidays to shed the new skin. Appalled, she wondered if that was all he was doing here: assuming a suitable personality, sliding deftly into the role that would allow him to fit in the best. Dad.

Did he want her only because if he was dad, well, she was mom? The thought made her feel sick to her stomach.

“No,” she said aloud. “I don’t believe it.”

How could she be falling in love with him, when there was so much about him she didn’t know?

A strange, choked sound broke from her throat. A near sob. Her eyes were dry, but anguish clutched her.

Please let this be lust, curiosity… Anything but love. Conall didn’t only have a dangerous job. He was dangerous.

And he could entertain himself with the boys today. She would do her damnedest to avoid him.

* * *

LIA SUCCEEDED IN HAVING very little to do with either of her unwanted houseguests for a good part of a week. She absented herself for most of one day doing errands: bank, hardware store, grocery store, post office and farm co-op. Conall had agreed to keep an eye on Walker and Brendan. My DEA agent babysitter, Lia thought semi-hysterically.

She took the boys on a couple more outings that didn’t include Conall. Once, she said, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy some peace and quiet” as she swept them out the door, and didn’t let herself look back in case he felt abandoned rather than pleased not to have a pair of boys trailing him everywhere.

She picked and froze blueberries. She made everyone help her pick the raspberries and made enough jam to see her household through the year. She tried not to be touched that Conall had insisted on helping pick. Instead, she was careful to stay a row or two away from him at all times. And she somewhat sharply declined any assistance in the kitchen.

She cleaned the bathroom upstairs when he was downstairs talking to the boys. When midmorning came, his usual time for getting up, she made sure she was washing windows or outside fertilizing annuals.

The awful thing was, she remained painfully conscious of him. She’d turn her head and see him striding past the window, head thrown back as he laughed at something one of the boys said. At the dinner table she’d fixate on his hands as he reached for a dish or wielded knife and fork. It was stupid that his hands in particular made her shiver inside, but they did. They were so purely masculine: broad across the palm, long-fingered, strong. She knew he had calluses. She could close her eyes and remember the feel of those hands sliding up and down her arms.

His voice was low and calm, but she always heard it like the thump of bass in another car at a stoplight, deep enough to rattle her bones. And she tried but couldn’t always prevent herself from meeting his eyes, gray and invariably thoughtful.

Oh, yes, he’d noticed she was avoiding him and hadn’t said anything, but he was thinking about it, and her, and… Lia didn’t know what, only that something was going on in his head when he looked at her. And, damn it, he looked at her a lot. Even when she thought she was alone, she’d feel a prickle and glance up to discover he was passing in the hall or standing on the porch, his eyes resting on her.

It had gotten so she was having trouble sleeping.

Conall took over for Jeff in the early evening. Lia was secretly a little relieved that Jeff had chosen to sleep in the attic so far rather than in the bedroom across the hall from hers. She still met him coming and going to the bathroom sometimes and they’d exchange greetings, but she didn’t feel anything except, sometimes, mild startlement because who was that strange man coming out of her bathroom? The truth was, she could forget his existence for hours on end, while she couldn’t seem to forget Conall’s for a single moment.

Thank goodness Conall was in the attic in the evenings. Daytimes were difficult enough. At least in the evening she could read and sew or do some mending or spend time with the kids without him being there, too. This week she’d started the boys on some schoolwork, an hour in the mornings before Conall appeared, another hour or two in the evening. The boys and she would all have been distracted if he’d been around.

And she could brush her teeth and wash her face and move back and forth between bathroom and bedroom without worrying about running into him.

Which did not prevent her from picturing him the minute she was in bed with her eyes closed. How could he sit up there for hours on end the way he did? Wasn’t he bored to death? Or was he like any predator, endlessly patient?

Lia knew he always carried that big, black gun. She wasn’t sure the boys had noticed. She hoped not. She didn’t want them to become curious about it. Conall would have the sense not to show it to them if they asked, wouldn’t he?

Most nights she eventually dropped off, but she also often woke when he came downstairs at three or four in the morning. As a foster mom, she’d become super sensitized to any sound in the night; she mostly woke if one of the boys or Sorrel got up to use the bathroom, too. The plumbing in the house wasn’t quite antique, but it was old enough to be noisy, which didn’t help. The thing was, she heard Conall from the moment the attic door quietly opened and closed. He moved soundlessly down the hall, but she knew where he was every second, knew he sometimes paused outside her bedroom. She would lie rigid in bed, aching for him to push the door wider and come in. One night, when he stood out there for a particularly long time, she had to bite the back of her hand to keep from whispering his name.

Then there would be the equally quiet click of the bathroom door, water running, the toilet flushing. Sometimes he’d hesitate outside her room again. And at last his door would close. Silence would last for a couple of minutes, during which she imagined him stripping. Then the bed would creak as he lay down.

By that time—she couldn’t help herself—she’d be so turned on she could hardly bear the weight of the covers. She could feel the dampness between her legs, the need clenching in her belly. Staying still nearly killed her, but if she so much as moved restlessly, her bed would creak and he would hear and he might know that she was lying awake thinking about him.

Wednesday she had less success than usual avoiding him. It was drizzling, which meant all of them except Sorrel, who’d gone to school, were stuck inside. Lia pretended to be busy with housework for an hour, but really the house had never been cleaner, thanks to days of evasive maneuvers. Then she insisted on an hour sitting at the kitchen table with the boys working on a math CHAPTER from their respective textbooks. Finally she succumbed and agreed to play Monopoly with Conall and the boys.

They let her be the banker. Walker turned out to have a ruthless streak almost as deep and long as Conall’s, while Brendan didn’t get lucky rolls and Lia was—she had to admit—too softhearted. Even so, they all had fun. Her heart ached at the boys’ giggles and whoops and Conall’s lazy grins, many directed at her. So much fun, she was sorry when she had to admit to bankruptcy and left the two remaining real estate moguls to duke it out while she started dinner. By that time, Sorrel was home and happily ensconced on the sofa behind Walker to root him on.

“Why him? Why not me?” Conall was complaining when Lia left the room.

The good mood lasted through dinner but was killed when Conall’s cell phone buzzed before he’d finished dessert. He glanced at it, said, “Jeff needs me,” and disappeared with startling haste.

Was the indefinable something finally happening? The something that would mean she could have her house back? She made the evening as normal as she could for the kids while living with a clutch of anxiety in her chest so big and dense, she suspected it would form a dark shadow on an X-ray.

Sleep was more elusive than ever. Didn’t Conall know they would all worry? Would it have killed him to pop down and say, “False alarm?” Or “I’ve got what I need to get a warrant, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time?”

She woke abruptly and lay rigid, knowing she’d heard…a whimper? Or was that part of a dream? No, there was another muffled cry, and she jumped from bed and hurried to the hall, where she had to stand still until the next sad sound came. Sorrel’s room, not the boys’.

Lia pushed open the door. “Sorrel? Honey?”

The teenager moved restlessly. “No.” A gasp. “No, please! Please! No.”

Lia went to the bed and sat, laying a gentle hand on her foster daughter’s back. “Wake up, honey. It’s a bad dream. Only a dream.”

“Mommy?” Sorrel whispered.

“It’s Lia.” She moved her hand in a soothing circle, murmuring, “Shh, you were having a nightmare.”

She kept talking for a couple of minutes in a near sing-song, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. Gradually Sorrel’s body relaxed beneath Lia’s hands, and finally her breathing deepened. Lia kept sitting there, waiting, but the girl’s sleep was peaceful now.

Lia slipped out of the room and eased the door shut.

A deep, low voice asked, “Is she all right?”

Lia squeaked in alarm and swung around.

Conall’s big hands gripped her arms. “Hey, it’s me. I’m sorry, I thought you’d heard me.”

“No.” Her heart was slamming.

“What’s wrong with Sorrel?”

“A nightmare. She kept saying, ‘No, no, please.’”

“You don’t know her history?”

Lia hesitated. “Let’s get away from her door.”

He let go of one of her arms but maintained his hold on the other. It was only a few steps to her bedroom door, and once they reached it Conall steered her inside.

“Let me turn on the light,” she said. The memory of their other encounter in the dark hall was too vivid. He let her go, and she went to her bedside to switch on the lamp.

She felt a shock when she saw Conall wearing only jeans, zipped but unsnapped. He must have left his T-shirt in the bathroom laundry hamper. His bare chest was all male—hard muscles and dark hair in a triangle like a kite with a tail that disappeared inside the denim of his jeans. He took her breath away.

His darkened eyes swept over her, making her painfully aware of her skimpy attire, only flannel boxer shorts and a well-worn tank top. She’d never thought of them as sexy before.

“Sorrel?” he asked hoarsely.

“Oh, um.” Her mind was astonishingly blank. Remembering who Sorrel was took an embarrassing moment. “She was sexually molested.”

He went very still, but his expression didn’t change. “Yeah,” he said after a minute. “I thought it was something like that.”

“I shouldn’t tell you more than that. I really need to keep the kids’ problems confidential.”

“That’s okay.” His voice was a gentle rumble. “I understand.”

“She hasn’t had a nightmare in weeks that I’m aware of. She had a counseling session yesterday.” He nodded; she’d left the boys with him when she went to pick Sorrel up. “Maybe whatever they talked about triggered this.”

Conall took a long stride closer to her. Lia crossed her arms in self-defense and he stopped.

“Lia?”

Oh, dear Lord, don’t let me do something stupid.

She was breathing in quick gusts. She couldn’t look away from Conall. Those eyes, so dark a charcoal right now they might have been black. His hair, coarse and ruffled and wavy, droplets of water clinging here and there. The shadow of a beard on his jaw, the hollow at the base of his throat, his utter self-containment. His whole, big body had remained still, waiting, rigid with tension.

It seemed the Lord wasn’t listening right now, or the temptation was too great. Lia wanted this man more than she’d wanted anything in her whole life.

She let her hands drop to her sides. Took a step herself and saw him break.

The next second he’d crushed her in his arms and his mouth devoured hers.