COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) (12 page)

Amber

I stood under the spray of the shower, my mind wandering from one thing to another, not really sticking on a single thing. My body ached, but it was a good ache. I kept hearing Cole’s voice, those sweet words spilling from his lips last night. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. Not even the jerks at the diner who were desperate to get into my pants.

When the baby woke, I thought he’d ask me to go back to my own bed. Instead, he laid the baby on the mattress between us and studied him as if he was a great work of art. He picked up his hands and studied his fingers. He ran his finger down his belly, then lifted his little feet and held them in the palm of his hand. He probably would have played with each toe individually if they weren’t covered by his little blue sleeper. I watched, amazed with how much love radiated from him. He clearly loved my little boy. And that meant almost more to me than the words he’d said to me.

Almost.

I’d already washed up. I was just loving the way the water beat against my shoulders. The bathroom in the hallway was nice, but this shower had three showerheads, and each one was more powerful than the one in the other bathroom. It was like having someone massage every inch of my body all at once. I wouldn’t have come in here, but Cole told me to make myself at home.

He was so kind. Kind in a different way from Peter, but still kind. The way he looked at me made me feel like I could be someone different. He made me feel like it didn’t matter who my mother was. He made me feel like I could wash the dust of Ada off my boots and become someone else. He made me believe in myself with just a look.

I was just about to turn the water off, wondering how PJ was doing. But when I turned, Cole was standing there, leaning against the wall, watching me.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

I blushed. “I almost believe you.”

“You should.”

He crossed to me and pushed me up against the cool tiles of the shower wall. We kissed like last night had just been a taste of what was to come. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him lift me up so that we were eye to eye. His hands moved over my body, his touch like silk sliding off the back of a leather chair, smooth and almost not there. It wasn’t like the groping touch of the men at the diner, like the touches I saw men offer my mom. It wasn’t like the smacks on the ass my fellow students offered me in high school. It was kind. Affectionate. Personal.

Intimate. That’s what it really was. Intimate. Nobody’s business but ours.

A part of me wrapped itself around this, around the idea that Cole could be mine. Just mine. But a larger part of me warned that this was temporary. Happiness like this could never last.

He touched me everywhere, his hands not content to just rest on the curves of my hips or the angle of my ribs. He didn’t just want to touch my breasts, my nipples hard against his palms, or my cunt, my labia spread to his probing fingers. He didn’t just want to tease my clit or stroke that tender spot at the small of my back. He wanted everything; he wanted to touch every inch. And then his mouth got in on it, moving over my throat, my shoulder. Some of the sounds that came out of my mouth were so foreign to me that I didn’t even recognize them.

When his cock filled me, I closed my eyes and simply went for the ride. But then I felt the heat of his breath against my throat and I needed to see his face. I pushed him back and watched his face as pleasure washed over it. He watched me, too, our eyes meeting in the heat of passion, connecting on a deep-in-the-soul level. It was almost spiritual until I simply couldn’t do it anymore. The pleasure was too much. I had to close my eyes, had to give myself completely to it. A ripple of excitement rushed through me, tearing through my body until it reached my lips and came out on a scream. I felt him shudder as he, too, rocked to his climax, holding me so tight that I thought I might suffocate from the intensity of it all. But then he loosened his hold and cradled me against his body.

“You feel so good,” he whispered against my throat.

“Do I?”

“Like heaven.”

I ran my hand over the top of his head. “Thank you.”

He chuckled softly, pulling back to look me in the eye. “Thank you? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that response to such a comment.”

“Then what should I say?”

“That I feel good, too? That you’ve never had anyone better?”

“Well, since I’ve only ever been with you and Peter, I think saying I’ve never had anyone better would be insulting to you on one level or another.”

He frowned. “Is that true?”

“I think so. And you don’t take offense well.”

“No, I mean about your experience.”

I blushed, wanting to turn away so that he couldn’t really see it. But there wasn’t a whole lot of room to turn away.

“Amber…?”

He brushed wet hair from my face and kissed the tip of my nose. I leaned up a little and kissed his lips, loving the way he almost instantly asked to come inside, to taste me the way I loved to taste him.

“Did you think that I slept with all those clowns in the diner?” I asked after a moment.

“No. But you’re not exactly a kid.”

“Not exactly the girl the decent boys of Ada wanted to be associated with either. If I wasn’t willing to sneak behind the bleachers at the high school, they didn’t want anything to do with me.”

He was quiet for a second, but I could see this muscle jumping in his jaw. It was an expression I’d come to recognize as his angry look.

“What they must have put you through…”

“Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“No, babe…” He touched my face again. “I don’t feel sorry for you. I admire you for surviving all the bullshit they put you through.”

No one had ever admired me before. If I didn’t stop listening to Cole, he was going to give me such a big head that I wouldn’t be able to fit through his doorways anymore.

He reached over and shut off the water, then carried me out into the bathroom. He wrapped me up in a heavy white towel, rubbing my skin lightly to dry it. He even dried my hair a little, rubbing it between the corners of the towel. Then he lifted me up and carried me into the bedroom.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Someone needs to treat you like the lady you are.”

I took his arm before he could move away again and kissed him. He pulled me into his arms, and we touched again, exploring each other. When he made love to me this time, it was slow. Intimate. Sexy. Everything it was supposed to be and so much more.

Cole

“He was doing what?”

“He was investigating the illegal sale of software from Bradford Telecommunications.”

I studied Megan’s face. “Are you sure?”

“Why?”

I pushed away from the wall where I was standing and moved closer to Megan’s desk.

“I…the bald guy said it was about something more than that. I mean, he implied it. And then the guy at the mall—did you ever figure out what he was up to?”

“No. He wouldn’t talk, and we ended up just turning him over to the cops.”

“Why would someone send a man with a gun after Amber if all this was about was some illegally sold software?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked worried, as she played with a pen that sat on her desk.

“What?”

She took a deep breath, then looked up at me. “There’s something else, something I’m not sure has anything to do with anything. But it might…”

“What?”

“Kurt Sanchez is under investigation by the CIA.”

“For what?”

“Acts of terror.”

“What?” I crossed my arms, trying to imagine pimple-faced Kurt Sanchez blowing up a foreign embassy or something. “I thought the CIA couldn’t investigate American citizens.”

“They can if they suspect them of being part of a foreign-planned act of terror.”

“They actually think Kurt Sanchez might be part of some sort of terrorist attack?”

“Of planning one. Dominic caught two CIA agents following Kurt. He talked to them, and they told him that Kurt has friends in Afghanistan that they suspect of planning a terror attack.”

“What does that have to do with Peter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what did Kurt tell you?”

“That he had reason to believe that a company out of Huntsville was using an unlicensed version of Bradford Telecommunication software.”

“Huntsville?”

“Yeah. Bald guy’s company.”

“How do you—?”

“I described him to Kurt, and he said that guy owns the company up in Huntsville.” She looked a little apologetic. “He probably lied to you to get you to let him go.”

“Then why was he following Amber, really?”

“I don’t know. But I thought maybe the three of us should take a ride up there, have another talk with that guy.”

“I’m not sure I want to drag Amber into any more of this. She’s got the baby to think about.”

“Yeah, well, she’s the only one who saw Peter during this time. She’s the one that this guy was after the night you scared him off. It all revolves around her whether you like it or not.”

I didn’t like it. Amber had already suggested that she give the baby up. I didn’t want to do anything to put more thoughts like that in her head. But Megan was right…Amber was pretty much the only person who might have an inkling of what Peter was really doing up there.

“Let me go get her. Let me explain what we want.”

Megan studied my face for a second, a knowing frown on her pouty lips.

“Are you getting in over your head, little brother?”

“I’m doing the job you asked me to do.”

“Yeah, well, you delivered her baby, and you’ve had her living in your house for weeks. It would be surprising if you
didn’t
develop feelings for her.”

“Are you asking me if I’m falling in love with the mother of our brother’s son?”

“I think I am. Yes.”

I didn’t bother to answer. I knew she already knew the answer. Besides, this was between Amber and me, not Megan, Amber, and me.

“Meet us at Mom and Dad’s in an hour.”

***

Amber didn’t like the idea the minute I presented it to her.

“This guy followed me around for a week. You want me to go to his business and ask him why?”

“Megan just wants you there. She thinks you might know more about what Peter was up to than you think you do.”

“I’ve already told Megan everything I know.”

“Yeah, well, she thinks this might help jog your memory.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my memory. And I really don’t want to leave PJ with your parents for that long. What if he needs more milk than what I’ve been able to pump for him? What if he needs me?”

“He’ll always need you, babe. But it’s good for him to spend time with his grandparents.”

“I know. I just…”

“I know.”

I sat beside her on the couch and slipped my arm around her. “I want you to feel safe. I want you to be able to take the baby to the park without worrying about who might be following you. The quickest way for that to happen is if we can find out who’s been following you and what they want from you.”

“And then what?”

“Then you’ll be free to do whatever it is you want to do. You can go back to Ada; you can stay here; you can go shopping without looking over your shoulder all the time.”

She slid her arms around herself, holding herself as if she was the child, her arms the mother. It was a comforting gesture that I recognized from soldiers I served with overseas, guys who’d curl up in their bunks and unconsciously do the same thing she was doing, hold themselves and rock slightly, trying to draw comfort from their own touch.

“Amber, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She leaned into me. “I know.”

“But we need to do this. We need to know what the hell is going on.”

“Okay. If this is what you want.”

“It’s what needs to be done.”

Megan

There is nothing that I hate more than not knowing the answer to some puzzle. Not knowing where Luke ran off to. Not knowing how or why Peter died. Not knowing where I was headed with this investigation, if I was going to like the solution or wish I hadn’t gotten started down this road.

Hayden handed me a report just as I was leaving the office this evening. He’d gone to the police and looked at the files on the investigation into Peter’s accident. Then he went to the scene. The police were satisfied that Peter had been distracted and he missed the curve. Hayden, however, noticed several things that the cops missed or simply chose not to notice. There was paint—the wrong color paint—scraped along the side of Peter’s car, like some other car had rubbed up against his. And then he noted that there was a tail light out on the back of Peter’s car, but the police hadn’t found any other damage to the backside of the car or evidence that the light was broken there at the site of the accident. But the light had been intact when Peter was pulled over the night before for speeding, here in Houston.

It was Hayden’s opinion that Peter’s accident was caused by another car hitting him multiple times from behind.

The who and why, however, were still a mystery.

Cole insisted on taking his car to Huntsville. I sat in the back, staring out the window into the bright sunlight of the warm winter afternoon, trying not to notice Cole’s hand resting on Amber’s thigh. There was a familiarity between them that hadn’t been there the other night. Something had changed, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I wanted Cole to be happy, but getting involved with Peter’s one-night stand didn’t seem like a good way for him to achieve happiness.

But who was I to judge them? My secretive fiancé left me at the altar.

I ran it all over in my mind again, thinking about the things that Daddy had told me about the papers in the manila envelope that Peter had left with Amber. Peter thought someone was selling fake licenses to the company’s software. He thought that they were using it for personal gain, at least that’s what Kurt had suggested. But it seemed to me that it was too easy to get caught, too easy for everything to come back into the lap of the person doing it. Wouldn’t that be incentive enough for them to cover their tracks a little better? Especially if it was someone still working for the company? To be that obvious about it, it would seem they would have a better reason to do it.

And that made me wonder if it really was someone at Bradford Telecommunications. Was it possible that someone who knew a lot about that type of software could have altered it enough to sell fake licenses to it? But what motivation would someone have to do that?

Daddy also said there was more to the paperwork, something about snippets of code that showed up in unusual places, code that didn’t fit where they were finding it. What did that mean? Was someone trying to use these phones and other devices the software was used with to do something with them they weren’t designed to do? And if that was it, what were they trying to get these devices to do?

And how did the CIA come into it all?

I wished Luke was here. He could answer so many of these questions for me, especially the ones about the CIA. He was CIA for several years. He could give me an idea of the kind of thing the CIA would be looking at with Kurt. Nothing specific, but enough insight that I might be able to figure it out on my own.

Damn, Luke! Why did you have to leave me?

Maybe it was the sight of Cole and Amber together. Maybe it was just the thought of PJ, of Peter and Amber, of all the things that’d been happening lately. But Luke was on my mind more and more. I thought I’d finally made my peace with the whole thing, accepted that something more important than me had taken him away. I believed for a while that he would come back to me. But Peter helped me realize that Luke would likely never come back. He made his choice, and that choice did not include living happily ever after with me. I thought I was okay with that, that I’d accepted that Luke was out there somewhere, saving the world. That he was doing what we both had always wanted to do with our lives.

I thought I’d accepted it. But…it hurt more than I could wrap my own head around, being without him and not knowing where he was.

I closed my eyes, and this one, very vivid memory started to play itself out in my head. Luke and I, our senior year of high school, taking a drive just like this one on a day very much like this. He took me down to Galveston, to the public beach where we spent most of our summer months before. We walked along the water’s edge, holding hands, not really talking. Then he suddenly stopped and turned to face me.

“I know we’re too young to think too much about the future, but I love you. Every time I think about being with someone else, I just…I want to be with you and no one else.”

It was intense. We were young, but we’d known each other for most of our lives. I’d known Luke even longer than Sam or Rebecca, my two best friends at the time. It was a moment that seemed to define us, that made it clear who we were, where we were going, and how we were going to get there. I never doubted that I was meant to be with Luke, and that moment just made that fact clearer to both of us. To be alone now…it was simply illogical to me.

I missed him like I would miss an arm if it was suddenly amputated.

“You okay back there, Megan?”

I opened my eyes, a little discombobulated. Cole was watching me in the rearview mirror, concern etched on his face.

“Are we almost there?”

“Ten more minutes.”

I leaned forward, resting my cheek against the back of his seat. “When we get there, I want the two of you to let me take the lead.”

“No problem,” Amber said. Cole squeezed her knee.

“You, too, Cole.”

“What exactly are we doing?” Cole asked.

“We’re going to barge in on this fellow and demand to know everything he knows about Peter and his investigation into this software issue. And then we’re going to hope that he gives us some insight that will help us figure out what happened to Peter.”

“Do you think these people—whoever they are—killed Peter?” Amber wanted to know.

“I do.”

Amber grew thoughtful. Cole squeezed her knee again.

“We’ll figure this out.”

“Has someone been following you again?” I wanted to know.

Amber shook her head. “Not as far as I know. But we haven’t gone out much.”

“I think this guy will give us some answers. And then, maybe, you’ll be able to return to something of a normal life.”

“I’m not sure I even know what that is.”

I touched her shoulder. “I think you do,” I said softly. “And I think it’s something the two of you deserve.”

She glanced back at me, a grateful smile transforming her pretty face into a gorgeous face.

We pulled into the parking lot of the chip manufacturing business not a minute later. The three of us climbed out of the car and stretched, each of us cramped from the long drive. The receptionist inside took one look at each of us and picked up the phone, warning someone of our arrival. A second later, a tall, bald man came toward us down a long corridor.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he said, looking wearily at Cole before he approached Amber. “Ms. Zavalas, I’d like to apologize for the misunderstanding between us.”

Amber glanced at Cole, who moved up behind her and slipped his hand down the length of her back. The sight of such a simple act of affection hit me right in the stomach. But then the bald guy was inviting us to follow him down the corridor from which he’d just appeared.

John Fuller. That was the name on the door of the office into which he led us.

A secretary followed us inside and asked if anyone wanted a drink. When no one answered right away, Mr. Fuller sent her away.

“What can I do for you?” he asked when we were all alone.

I leaned forward in the chair I’d taken. “I’m Megan Bradford, owner and president of Dragon Security. This is my brother, Cole Bradford. And you’ve already met Amber Zavalas.”

“Not met, but I know who she is.” Fuller nodded toward each of us. “Again. What can I do for you?”

He was polite, but there was clear annoyance in his voice.

“We need to know what you know about Peter Bradford and his investigation into misused software.”

Fuller’s eyes narrowed as he studied each of us. I noticed each time he looked at Cole, he flinched a little, as though remembering the feel of the gun against his temple. I wondered briefly if we could use that to our advantage. We could use any advantage we could get.

“I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do,” Cole said, leaning forward in his chair, too. “You said his name to me that night on the side of the road.”

“You must be mistaken. I’ve never set eyes on you before.”

“Of course you have.”

The man looked from me to Cole, then back again. Finally, his eyes settled on Amber.

“Again, I apologize for what happened between us, Ms. Zavalas. I understand that you got your phone turned off, and that’s why I was unable to get ahold of you. And I’m sure you understand why I turned up in Ada looking for you.”

Amber glanced at Cole and me. She clearly had no idea what the man was talking about.

“I don’t understand,” Amber mumbled.

“The night we met, you were very kind and suggested I look you up. I wanted to talk to you, but you were so busy.”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said to Cole, a touch of a whine in her voice.

“Sure you do,” Fuller insisted. “We spent that lovely night at your trailer—”

“Enough!”

Cole stood and shoved Fuller back up against his desk as he passed him to get Amber.

“Cole…”

I watched them walk out of the room—or storm was a more apt description. Fuller seemed surprised, his eyes widened a little as he studied the door.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but we’re going to get the answers we need.”

Fuller focused on me.

“You should be very careful where you ask your questions, Ms. Bradford.”

Amber and Cole were standing in the parking lot when I came out a few minutes later. Amber was agitated, pacing beside Cole’s car. He was talking to her, but she wouldn’t stop and didn’t seem to be listening. When she saw me, she marched over and confronted me.

“I don’t know what he was talking about. I only saw that guy once before he started following me around—and that was the night he came to talk to Peter. I don’t know why he would—”

“He’s scared.”

Amber tilted her head. “What?”

“We shouldn’t have come here to his place of work. He’s obviously got people watching him. He doesn’t want them knowing who we are and what we’re after.”

“You think his office is bugged?” Cole asked.

“I think he thinks it is.”

“Great. So we just wasted our whole afternoon.”

“Not necessarily. I think we know more now than we did. We know someone else is investigating the same leads Peter was checking out. We know that someone’s not just watching Kurt Sanchez, but this guy, too.” I dragged my fingers through my hair. “I think Peter stumbled onto something that was much bigger than someone in his company selling company software without a license. I think whoever was doing that was connected to something much, much bigger.”

“What?”

I looked at my brother and shook my head. “That’s what I still haven’t figured out. But it’s big.”

We stood there, looking at each other for a minute, then Amber moved into Cole’s arms, and he wrapped his arms around her. It killed my soul to look at the amount of affection being exchanged between the two of them. It made my own loneliness just that much more acute.

I stormed around them and climbed into the car, leaning back and closing my eyes. I needed to think this through. It felt like there was an answer just in front of me. I simply couldn’t grasp it long enough to figure it out.

I needed to get out of here. I needed to go home and soak in a hot bath. Maybe then I could clear my head enough to start making the connections.

Maybe.