Bringing Benjy Home (Security Ops) (14 page)

“I’m walking around the town.” The same streets that someone had strolled Benjy through, past the same stores, the same buildings. She never bothered to look at him. “You can go back to the car and wait if you wish.” She neither noticed nor cared whether he followed.

It was a quaint town, one maintained primarily for the tourists it attracted during the summer months. They passed eateries, arcades and laundries. Jaida never hesitated before any of them. She trudged past the antique stores and souvenir stands. Finally she came to a stop.

Trey gave her a wary look. “What is it?”

“In there.” Her breath left her with a visible shudder and she pulled her sweater closer around her. She was an oddity on the street, with most people milling around in swimsuits and tank tops.

He gazed past her and frowned. “An ice-cream shop? You want to stop for ice cream now?” His voice was disbelieving.

She pulled open the door and went inside. The air conditioner in the small shop hummed. A man with brown hair and a mustache wiped off the counter in front of him with a lazy purpose that spoke of a slow day. He looked up as the bell over the door signaled their arrival.

“What can I get you folks?”

Trey glanced at Jaida, but she said nothing, seemingly frozen in place. Her breathing was noticeably labored.

“We got over forty flavors,” the man behind the counter offered. “They’re all up on the sign. And we’re running a special. If you want to sample the new trial flavor, you can suggest a name for it. Winner of the best name will get a gallon of ice cream each month for a year.” He slung the rag he’d been cleaning with over his shoulder. Long moments stretched and he glanced, puzzled, from Trey to Jaida and back. “You guys want something, or what?”

“Your lost and found.” Jaida’s voice sounded hoarse and strained. “Do you have one?”

The man didn’t answer, appearing to find her manner odd.

After a swift look at Jaida’s white, set features and trembling lips, Trey stepped in. He gave the man a rueful smile. “Sorry. We’re not here for ice cream, at least not this time. We were here—” his hesitation was barely noticeable “—a couple of days ago. My . . . wife lost something, and she’s hoping she left it here that day. What do you do with lost items?”

The man seemed to accept Trey’s explanation with alacrity. “We’ve got a box in the back room. We keep things for about a month. You wouldn’t believe what we find in here. Craziest things . . .” His words were lost as he entered the back room. He returned moments later with a large box. “Go ahead and look through this stuff if you want. There’s nothing real valuable in here, although there have been times we’ve found wallets, rings, ladies’ purses, the works.”

Jaida focused on the box he was holding out to Trey. She remained rooted in place. After a glance toward her, Trey took the box from the man and set it on the floor in front of him. Cursing silently, he started going through the items, unsure even what to pretend to be searching for. The man had been right; there was all manner of odds and ends in the box. Beach towels, sunglasses, hats and, inexplicably, a bikini top. Then his hand faltered in its search. Slowly, disbelievingly, he pushed aside the rest of the items and grasped what he’d at first thought was another towel. Freeing it from the rest of the junk, he drew out a small blanket.

It wasn’t the sort of thing one would expect to take to the beach. It was small and quilted, printed with a selection of friendly animals, all smiling merrily. The colors had faded from their original state of primary brightness, and one end was looking rather ragged. It brought an immediate sense of recognition to his gut, and a hard knot formed in his throat.

It was the same blanket his nephew had clutched in his fist every day since he’d begun to crawl.

Trey’s eyes slowly lifted to meet Jaida’s.

It was the same blanket that had been in Benjy’s stroller the day he’d vanished.

Chapter 9

“I’ve already told you, Detective, it doesn’t just
look
like Benjy’s blanket, it
is
his. I’m certain of it.” Trey paused to listen to the man’s response on the phone. His voice lost all semblance of civility. “Yes, it was purchased commercially, and no, I don’t have any idea how many blankets just like that were sold. But one corner of Benjy’s blanket was getting frayed, and this blanket has the same . . .” After a brief pause he said harshly, “What the hell do you mean, coincidence? A damn DNA test will prove I’m right.”

The one-sided conversation drifted clearly through the open French doors. Jaida sat outside the motel room on a small terrace overlooking a Tidy-Bowl blue pool. The sun was fading in glorious splendor, but the beauty of her surroundings was lost on her. She wanted to put her head down on the plastic white table in front of her and be sent off into immediate, oblivious slumber. She didn’t move. Sleep, if it came at all, would be impossible for many more hours.

It took an enormous effort to turn her head enough to see Trey profiled in the room, his expression forbidding. “For a man who’s come up with nothing so far on the disappearance of my nephew, you’re damn casual about the first real lead we’ve got in this case.” He listened for another moment, then snarled dangerously, “Fine. I’ll Express Mail it to you tomorrow morning to take to the lab. And I want you to pass this information along to the Bureau. Maybe they’ll take it more seriously than you do.” He replaced the receiver with an audible bang.

Trey seemed to have forgotten her presence. He wheeled around agitatedly, and his gaze fell upon the crumpled child’s quilt lying on the top of the bed. With footsteps slow and measured, he moved to the bed and reached down to pick it up. His fingers clenched on the soft, worn material, and the muscles in his jaw worked reflexively. He sank down on the edge of the bed and dropped his head, Benjy’s quilt clutched in his big hand.

The poignancy of the scene brought Jaida out of her psychic-induced lethargy. Her heart ached for him. The sight of that dark head, so proud and confident, bent in sorrow stirred something in her she didn’t dare name. But it was impossible to see Trey in pain and not wish to offer comfort.

She approached him silently and dropped to her knees in front of him. He didn’t look at her. For a long time they were both quiet. His voice, when it came, sounded rusty.

“Lauren was three years old when our mother died. I was eight. She’d never been much of a mother, but she’d given me Lauren. I vowed then that nothing in this world was ever going to hurt my sister. She wasn’t going to learn how ugly life could be, because I was going to do whatever it took to take care of her.” The sigh he gave seemed ripped out of him. “I was cocky, big for my age and an accomplished thief. I could handle our drunk of a father, could steal enough food for the two of us, but I was no match for the great social system that supposedly rescues kids from unhealthy homes. We knocked about in foster homes for about a year and a half.”

“Your father?” she whispered, remembering with clarity the startling image she’d had once through an accidental touch.

“Signed over his rights after he’d been charged with abuse and neglect. When I was ten Lauren was adopted by a couple who thought
incorrigible
was stamped on my forehead.” One side of his mouth pulled up in a parody of amusement. “They were probably right. The last sight I had of Lauren was of the social worker pulling her away while she had her arms stretched out to me, crying.” It had taken three adults to hold him back, to keep him from chasing after his sister. And after that, no adults, no foster home, could keep him when he chose to run. And he’d chosen to run often.

The expression in his eyes was terrible to see. Jaida had often wished she could tear through his guarded defenses, read the emotions she knew he must feel. But being faced now with his agony was heartbreaking.

“I failed her,” he said in a low tone. “I promised to protect her, but I couldn’t. I thought I had a second chance when I found her again and Benjy was born. And then Benjy was kidnapped.”

Her eyes filled with tears, blurring her vision. She blinked rapidly, determined not to let them fall. “I heard you on the phone with that detective,” she murmured, her voice trembling. “Trey, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. I know this blanket belongs to Benjy. I know he was on that beach, in that ice-cream store.” She shook her head helplessly. “I realize you didn’t believe me at first—”

“I believe you,” he interrupted her, his voice almost soundless. He could read the confusion and the hope in her eyes. And something else, something much more intriguing. “God knows, I don’t want to. I don’t pretend to understand this, but I have to believe what I can see, what I can touch.” He raised his hand, indicating the soft quilt. “I don’t need fancy tests and lab work to tell me what I’m holding in my hand. And all the lab work in the world won’t explain how you knew where to go, how to find what we did.”

She looked away. The yearning was obvious in her voice. “Some things have to be taken on faith.”

“I’m not a man to whom faith comes easily.”

She turned her head slowly to meet his gaze again. No, he wasn’t a man given to putting his faith in people or things. Life had taught him to depend only on himself. It was easy to understand why after hearing some of the events that had shaped his childhood. And that made his professed belief in her all the sweeter.

“I can’t fail again,” he said hoarsely. “Not this time. Too much is at stake. Lauren’s happiness . . .”

Benjy’s life.

The rest of the sentence wasn’t uttered, but they both heard it nonetheless. Their connection was beginning to seem so normal that it was hard to remember how unusual it was, how frightening. How . . . tempting.

“Benjy is alive,” Jaida whispered, her lips trembling. She reached her hand out involuntarily, touching his knee lightly, for once failing to guard herself against a casual touch. Her instinct to comfort was far greater than her need to protect herself. “And we won’t fail. We won’t.”

Trey stared at the delicate hand resting on his leg. He wanted to believe her words, but knew that he’d have to hold his young nephew again before the fear would be completely banished. He’d have to put Benjy in his mother’s arms, and then he’d see to it that the people who’d torn their lives apart were punished. He wouldn’t be satisfied until they were destroyed, as they had tried to destroy his family.

The feminine hand on his knee shook, and he was reminded with a rush that Jaida touched no one. Not willingly. His gaze traveled from that fragile white hand back to her face. He set the quilt on the bed next to him. Then his own hand covered hers.

Panic flared for a second in her eyes, before it was tempered by wariness. He guessed the exact moment she would pull away, both from him and from the touch that caused flickers of energy to prickle their skin. He tightened his hand over hers before she could move, then moved his other hand to her shoulder. He leaned toward her, urging her forward at the same time.

He was close enough to count the golden flecks in her mysterious blue eyes, and their mouths were only inches apart. “I don’t pretend to understand this,” he rasped. “I don’t pretend to be comfortable with it. But if you’re the only chance I have to find Benjy, then by God, that’s a chance I’m going to take.”

“We will find him,” she promised tremulously. She wasn’t sure whether her certainty stemmed from her visions or from a continued need to provide him solace. Providing him solace could be dangerous. It could encompass all sorts of things she could only guess at. The remembrance of her inexperience served as another reminder of the seductive danger she was courting, now, with this man.

“Let me go,” she said softly.

His hand on her shoulders flexed and smoothed caressingly. He shook his head slightly.

“Please.”

The word was a whimper in her throat, and he interpreted it as he wished. He slid off the bed to face her, kneeling just as she was. His stance was wide and he trailed his hands down to force her hips into the cradle of his.

Her gasp was buried against his chest. His mouth went immediately to her throat. She shuddered and reached up to anchor herself by clutching his biceps. More than anything else he wanted to lose himself in this woman. Emotion churned through him, aching for a release. He knew her skin burned where it met his, just as his did. Pinpoints of electricity danced between them everywhere they touched. The vision of black, silk sheets under their entwined bodies beckoned him further.

He captured the pulse that beat at the base of her neck with his mouth, teasing it with his tongue. It fluttered madly, signaling her distress, or her desire. He recognized the complexity of her emotions, because they mirrored his own.

Jaida shuddered. This time there was no conscious fear of visions that would intrude. Her response to his touch was too magnetic for that. Its nature was even more terrifying. She’d lived her life carefully, sure she’d never find a man she could trust enough to be vulnerable in this way. And she was vulnerable. His touch stripped her of all illusions, leaving her nowhere to hide, no way to pretend she could control her own responses.

Her lips parted naturally as his mouth covered hers, already knowing him, ready for his taste. Her fingers dug into his taut skin, and her head was driven back with the force of their passion. Their tongues mated, and a shiver of delight spiraled down to her stomach. When his hand rose to cover her breast, she felt scorched through her clothes. Still, she couldn’t prevent herself from thrusting forward into his palm. He closed his hand around her, taunting her nipple with his thumb. The pleasure that careened through her was wildfire, leaving embers of desire in its wake.

She felt the carpet at her back, and her eyelids flickered dazedly; she was unaware she and Trey had moved. He was leaning half over her. As he dropped a series of kisses at the corner of her mouth, his knee parted her legs and pressed against her warm center. His mouth came down on hers more fiercely then, and he pulled her shirt from her waistband and slid his hand up her smooth waist to cup her breast once more. The intimate actions combined to jolt her from her desire-induced lethargy, and she cried out in a mixture of surprise and fear.

He murmured something into her ear, low and soothing, but she couldn’t concentrate on his words. Last night had proven that she couldn’t predict her reaction to him. Far from being assailed by his emotional sensations, she was swamped by her own. They were exciting, enticing and totally unfamiliar.

They scared her to death.

“Let me go.” Her words were more a plea than a demand, and he went instantly still. A moment later he moved away from her, using exaggerated care, and she rose, fleeing to the terrace.

She sat down, hugging her knees against her chest. She wished fiercely that Trey would leave without further words. They’d been forced to travel almost forty minutes inland before they’d found a motel with rooms for each of them. She was fervently grateful for that. She needed time away from him, away from the flames that leaped so easily to life between them.

His approach was silent, but she sensed the moment he stepped out onto the terrace.

“You have your own room,” she informed him, her voice shaking. “Use it.”

“No.”

“Leave me alone, Trey!”

“Not yet. Not until we talk this out.”

“There’s nothing to talk out. I want you to stay away from me.”

“That’s going to be a little difficult, given the circumstances.”

“You know what I mean,” she said a little wildly. He was being deliberately obtuse, and he wouldn’t be denied. He was as persistent as water wearing on a rock. She didn’t have the strength to argue with him.

“Why don’t you tell me what has you running scared every time I touch you?” he suggested. When she didn’t reply, he continued, “I know that the reaction you have to me is new for you. We’ve already established that. It’s new to me, too.” She refused to answer. He contented himself for the moment by examining her delicate profile in the approaching dusk. Her features were fine; her soft, pink mouth sulky. He was pushing her, and she didn’t like to be pushed. He resisted the urge to cover that sulky mouth with his own.

“I don’t have a lot of experience,” she said in a low voice.

Her words, not totally unexpected, sent a curl of satisfaction through him. “That can’t be from lack of opportunity.”

She gave a little laugh that was devoid of amusement. “I’m a freak, remember?” She didn’t look at him, didn’t dare. She was afraid she’d see the agreement on his features. “I’ve dated, but I couldn’t . . . I could never . . . .” She stopped, chewed her bottom lip and wondered how to explain. “Being that close to someone, I couldn’t block anything out. It’s an enormous strain trying to shield myself from a person’s thoughts and emotions any time I’m touched. I can’t maintain that sort of defense indefinitely. And so I would pick up all his feelings, and they would just overwhelm my own. Or I’d get a glimpse of a vision and that . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment. When it resumed, it was tinged with irony. “It sort of ruins the moment, if you know what I mean.”

His voice was inflectionless. “Is that what happened in there? Are you saying it’s the same with me, Jaida?”

She gave a bitter little smile in the falling darkness. She sensed the urgency behind that question. She wished she could lie to him. The one thing that Trey would be unable to tolerate was allowing someone close enough to sense what he was thinking.