In the Air Tonight (6 page)

And so Caleb continued with the check-ins, getting to know his past, getting comfortable with his present and not sure at all about his future.

He wondered if Paige was a bigger part of Mace’s future than the man realized. Mace was worried as hell that Paige would discover something, and Cael was determined that he would discover it first.

There was something so vulnerable about Paige. She was tough, for sure, judging by the fierce way she’d taken down Big Harvey earlier that night—the guy’d had it coming. But she was scared, running from something, and even though he was doing the opposite—solidly running toward his memories rather than away from them—he could understand.

She’d be safe here, for as long as she needed the shelter.

——

A
fter Caleb left, Paige stood in the center of the room for a long time without moving.

She’d upset him with her talk of memories, and she hadn’t meant to at all. But why he had none, that was something she needed to find out. Because true amnesia was rare and the circumstances surrounding it needed to be extremely traumatic.

Watching Gray get killed certainly qualified, she reminded herself, the dull ache returning with a vengeance. Whatever Mace knew, maybe it
was
better if she remained in the dark—but then, she’d learned her lesson long ago.

Secrets could kill.

She stared at the picture of the three men on the shelf closest to her—her brother, flanked by Mace on one side and Cael on the other. A good-looking group, despite the fact that they all wore their scary, grim soldier faces.

Gray’s dog tags hung outside his shirt, as did Caleb’s. Mace’s were hidden underneath his T-shirt, but the outline was visible.

She picked up the frame and ran a finger over his chest. Of all three, he was the most intimidating. Dark hair, blue-green eyes—the picture didn’t do them justice. No, in person, they were the color of the ocean and just as ever changing, depending on his mood. In the picture, his eyebrows were knitted together in a frown—it was the same look he’d given her when he’d first seen her enter his bar.

The same one he’d given her when they’d first met.

He was all hard edges. And she liked it, found herself pulled toward the danger that seemed to radiate
from him. Wanted to know what it was like to be joined with all that fury.

A noise outside made her jump, and she put the frame back and tried to look out the window, but the snow was coming down too fiercely to see anything but the fluffy white flakes.

It was probably beautiful outside. Crisp and quiet and she was in the middle of a storm with two elite, highly trained soldiers. Nothing could happen to her here.

As if mocking her, the lights immediately slammed off. She felt for the lantern, not realizing for the first few seconds that she was reaching under the table on the wrong side of the bed. She heard voices and she panicked, moved blindly toward where she thought the door was.

Instead, her hands met a body—a hard chest. When her palms made the connection, she caught a flash of something. Danger. Terror. Escape.

Murder.

Immediately, she was grabbed by the wrists. Her hands lost contact and everything faded.

“Scared of the dark, Paige?” Mace’s voice was low and gruff and impossibly sexy.

“I’m scared of you.”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken the words out loud until he said, “You should be.”

He let her go and turned on a portable lamp. He handed it to her and she held it by her side as he remained in front of her, his eyes flashing in the dim light. “Don’t touch Caleb,” he warned.

Yes, the man had secrets and her hands were more
of a threat than any weapon. “Caleb told me about his memory loss.”

Mace cursed and then muttered something she didn’t catch under his breath. “You have no idea what you’re up against,” he told her finally.

“He asked me if I could read him, but I told him no. I wouldn’t, and not because you told me not to. His memory needs to come back on its own.”

“At least we agree on something.”

“You don’t want me here. I know that.”

“You want to know things I can’t tell you, Paige. The Army has classification protocols for a reason.”

“Yes, that’s what I was told when they came by my apartment to tell me Gray had been killed.” She shut her eyes to block out that memory and when she opened them again, he was staring at her, his bright blue-green eyes glittering with some emotion—but not the anger she’d seen earlier. “I just thought … he was your best friend …”

After a long pause, Mace spoke quietly. “He was.”

She didn’t know what else to say. There was so much pain here, and all she did was bring more, dragging her wreckage behind her like the unwelcome visitor she was.

God, she thought she was tougher than this, had forced herself to grow a thick skin, to shake off bad vibes, and still, here she was, shaking. She’d worked some of the roughest ERs on the streets of New York City, had her life threatened but she’d never been as frightened as she was now—only she didn’t know where the threat was coming from.

“Paige?” Mace said her name softly. “Shit, you
must be freezing. I’ve got a fire going in the main room.”

“No, I’m fine,” she lied, but Mace took a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her, then led her through the halls to the main living room.

She didn’t protest the warmth or the company. Instead, she set the lamp down on the coffee table in front of her and, still wrapped in the blanket, curled into a corner of the couch, attempting to be invisible while Mace poured her a glass of what she quickly discovered was brandy. The first shot went down hard, the second, a bit easier, and the third produced an almost immediate, pleasant buzz.

She stared into the fireplace as the brandy settled, until Mace asked, “Better?”

She nodded. And then, emboldened by the alcohol, she pointed to his throat. “Did that happen on the mission where Gray was killed?”

He downed his own third shot, his eyes glittering with some emotion, but not the anger she’d expected. And he put the glass down on the table far more gently than she’d expected as well, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stared at her. “I can’t tell you things, Paige. Don’t you understand? It’s for your own good … and for mine. For Cael’s.”

She stood, letting the blanket drop as she approached him. She reached out to touch him without thinking, to comfort him, but he held her wrists again so she couldn’t. Still, he didn’t stop her from standing on her toes and leaning in to kiss him, the way she’d wanted to when he held her earlier … the way she’d wanted to that morning in her apartment four years ago.

He kissed her back immediately, pulled her close
even as he pushed her hands down to her sides and then behind her back, even as she rubbed her belly against his erection.

He tasted like brandy and man. She felt the danger lurking beneath the protective nature he’d shown her, and that only made her revel more in the feel of him.

She never thought she could like danger, but Mace’s was deep and dark and so rich, and the way it beckoned her like a beacon in a storm, she knew there was no way she could ever resist it. Not for long anyway.

Nor did she want to.

He continued to kiss her like a man who couldn’t get his fill and she matched him, her tongue dancing with his, the thrill catching her deep in her womb. His arousal was a hard column against her belly, proving his want, and she’d needed to know that. She wanted to be naked under him, wanted him to fill her until all she could feel was pleasure, because she’d had enough of the pain. Her pulse hammered and
my God
, she could unravel easily for him, detonate in seconds if he was half as talented with his other body parts as he was with his tongue.

She was willing to find out. Wanted to let him take her with an unmatched frenzy; while her feelings scared her, she was more than willing to go along for his ride.

But clearer heads than hers prevailed, because Mace tore his mouth off hers with a rough curse, then picked her up and carried her to the couch. She grabbed his shoulders, kept her hands fisted so she couldn’t read him.

He placed her gently on the soft cushions, told her,
“You don’t want to start this now, Paige. Because I’m going to want to finish it, and that’s not a good idea.”

Funny, because it seemed like an excellent one to her. But the alcohol won as she settled in and didn’t push for more contact. He covered her with the blanket. Her nerve endings were still ablaze, but despite her unrelieved arousal, she drifted off, aware that there was more than one rough male voice near her. And she dreamed that she was back in the house with Jeffrey and she would see it all happen again while she slept, knew that as certainly as she knew she’d made the right decision coming here.

There was nothing she could do to stop it; she wouldn’t wake until she relived it, start to finish, every horrifying moment as real as it was the day it happened.

Early morning. She woke, sick to her stomach, as though the evil was emanating from Jeffrey and infecting her, no matter how much distance she tried to put between them
.

No one will believe you … no one ever has
.

Her girlfriends all had a crush on him. He was one of the cool kids, not a loner, no one you would pick out and say, This kid’s going to massacre students one day
.

She’d picked up on something, though, had tried to let her parents know and had been rebuffed. Jeffrey was an A student. Popular, handsome. And a sadistic son of a bitch
.

Her stomach hurt more. She pulled the covers over her head, curled up in a ball and tried to hide from the feelings
.

“Paige, hurry,” her mother called up the stairs, and
Paige struggled from the bed. Through her opened window, she heard Jeffrey’s car rumble out of the driveway and away from the house, and relief unfurled in her belly. She wouldn’t have to ride with her brother to school that morning
.

She showered quickly, dressed and dried her hair. And still, the lingering evil remained unsettling as she headed down the stairs and into the kitchen
.

Her mother, usually scattered, was beyond exasperated
.

“Come on, Paige—your brother told me at the last minute he had an early meeting at school and couldn’t drive you. Grab something to eat in the car or else you’ll make me late for work.”

Neither of them had any way of knowing that it would be her last day of work. The last day close to anything normal they’d ever have again. “I’m not hungry,” Paige mumbled, picked up her backpack and followed her mom out to the car
.

She wanted to talk to her mother about Jeffrey again, to tell her he’d destroyed her homework last week. That she was sure he was the one who’d killed the neighbors’ cat and left it on their car the weekend before. That he was responsible for so much more destruction. But since she’d been shut down so many times, even sent to a psychologist last year to discuss why she was out to get her brother, she had given up
.

So she simply gave her mom a kiss and went to find her friends and start her day. Met up with her best friend, Mandy, in the parking lot and they walked into the caf, arms linked, giggling about something she couldn’t remember, no matter how hard she tried
.

What happened next, she would never forget
.

They separated, Mandy headed to a table and Paige to grab some food. That’s when things went from raucous to nearly silent in a matter of seconds and she was still holding her warm bagel when she realized how still everyone had gotten
.

Mandy was staring over Paige’s shoulder, terror in her eyes
.

“What’s wrong?” The words echoed in the room, and then she was being dragged backward, an arm across her throat, her feet barely touching the floor
.

She heard people screaming her brother’s name, but she would’ve known it was Jeffrey the second he’d touched her
.

A swirl of feelings and images hit her, a dark, decaying tunnel to the deepest recesses of his mind, leading straight to hell
.

It was terrifying that he hid all of that from the world
.

Combined with the massacre going on before her eyes, she wondered if the heart-wrenching pain would ever end. It was as if each shot he fired went through her as well. She expected that if she looked down, she would find herself bleeding
.

Mandy went down first in a hail of bullets from what Paige would later learn was a sawed-off AK-47 he’d bought from a local dealer. One by one, she watched her closest friends die, as Jeffrey hunted them down, under tables, behind chairs, all of that insufficient to shield them from the bullets or his rage. And he dragged her along for the ride, so she saw each killing, up close and personal
.

Camillie. Sandra. Evan. Lori. Joe. Perry
.

When all was said and done, seven people were dead. But at the time, she wasn’t counting—was screaming inside her mind, praying, clawing at Jeffrey’s arm
.

And then Jeffrey released her, made her kneel on the floor facing him
.

“Look at me, Paige.”

She didn’t want to, shook her head no, screwed her eyes shut tight, but he said, “Do you want more people to die because of you?”

Said it so quietly that no one else heard. But she opened her eyes and looked at him
.

It was then that he put the barrel of the gun to her forehead and she went completely numb. He kept it there as he stared at her and she tried to remain upright, the dizzying combination of fear and the smell of blood overwhelming her senses
.

Finally, he spoke—his voice a low chuckle—as he removed the gun from where it had been pressed to her forehead. “It’d be too easy to put you out of your misery. It’ll be way more fun for me to know you’ll remember this was all your fault for the rest of your life. And all because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut about me.”