The Lost (17 page)

The link he couldn’t explain came instantly and trickled
energy back and forth between them, providing him strength. Providing her balance, he realized, as he saw her cane lying on the ground by the back of his Bentley. It reminded him of her injuries, as did the awkward steps she took, and yet here she was, offering him assistance.

They neared the passenger side and he rested against the side of the car, taxed by the short walk. As she opened the door, he reached out and cradled the side of her face before tunneling his fingers into her shoulder-length hair.

She gazed at him quizzically, obviously confused, especially considering how he had rejected her earlier advance.

“I’m sorry. I was out of control. The energy was searing my brain and I was afraid of hurting you,” he said, and she dipped her head, acknowledging the apology while at the same time still obviously hurt.

“There’s a lot we need to figure out,” she replied, as needy as he for an explanation for all that had happened.

He nodded and realized that in the scintilla of memory that had returned to him after the incident, there might be the start of an answer.

The question was whether to share it with her.

She had warned him that she didn’t want to be involved in another battle, that she’d had enough of war, and there was one thing of which he was certain: This was definitely war.

T
he emotions swirled around her in the confined space inside the garage, tinting her aura that deep indigo again. As she met his gaze, uncertainty deepened the hue of her whiskey-colored eyes to that of amber syrup.

“Will you be okay if I leave?” she asked after she cut the ignition.

“I will. What about you? Are you okay?” he questioned, concerned about her, given the attack she had survived.

Bobbie shrugged. “A few aches and pains, but surprisingly okay.”

“What about the chief? Are you worried about what he might do?” He focused on a spot directly in front of him where an assortment of tools was neatly pegged to the garage wall to try to hide his fear about possible police investigations and to try to combat the headache that had been steadily growing on their ride home.

Her touch came immediately, the brush of fingers
along the tightness of his jaw, urging him to face her once again.

“I am. My cousin and brother are cops in the next town over. The chief will definitely tell them and I’ll have to try to explain. But I’m also concerned about you. What happened tonight… Her hands fluttered in the air, as if she was grasping for the words to finish, but they eluded her.

“I wish I could explain, but I don’t know how I did it,” he admitted.

Bobbie heard the subtext beneath what he was saying and called him on it. “But you do know something else. Something you’re not saying.”

He averted his gaze, but she wouldn’t let him off the hook, especially not when whatever had occurred had nearly killed them both that night. This time she cradled his jaw more forcefully, since he had not shunned her advance a second ago. She applied determined pressure until he was facing her, unable to avoid what had to be acknowledged, although he tried.

“This isn’t a good time to discuss this,” he said, afraid of the growing heaviness in his core that warned he had to acknowledge the power within him and that it needed something more.

“When is a good time? When someone is dead?”

Her words catapulted him into action.

“Inside,” he barked and surged out of the car, although he faltered for a moment and braced himself on the hood of the Bentley.

She tamped down the worry she felt. If she had learned one thing as a sergeant, it was that sometimes you had to let someone find his own footing. With danger behind them, this was one of those times.

She exited the car more gingerly. Every bone and muscle in her ached, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the impact with the car aggravating her injuries or from the electrical blast she had sustained. It was clear he was hurting, given the cautious way he was moving after his initial burst of motion.

Together they hobbled into his living room, but this time there were no civilities. No scotch or offer of anything, which was fine by her. There was only one thing she wanted from him—the truth.

He seemed to understand that, since as soon as they were seated beside each other, he began to talk.

“I don’t know how I tossed that ball of energy. I didn’t know I could do that,” he confessed with a hunch of his shoulders. His hands were fisted on his thighs, his head cast downward.

“Just like you didn’t know you could heal?” She reached over and enclosed one fist with her hand, urging him to relax with a gentle squeeze. He shot her a half-glance, slightly more relaxed, although still hesitant. At another squeeze of her hand, he continued.

“I think your powers are more like mine than we thought.”

She didn’t seem surprised at his comment, but her words were guarded when she spoke. “What makes you think that?”

“Whenever we touch, the power shifts between us, as if it’s one and the same.” He demonstrated by opening himself up to her, and there was no denying the link that blossomed between them. There was something almost calming about it, although desire shimmered beneath its surface as the prick of power ebbed back and forth.

“How is that possible?” was all she could say.

“Maybe it’s the aura that swirls around you. Tony has one that I didn’t notice before, but it’s not as strong as yours.” His uncertainty was painfully obvious.

“So you think it’s power like yours?”

A little less hesitation this time. “Maybe, although it feels different somehow.”

Bobbie racked her brains, trying to make sense of it. Thoughts spilled out and became words. “Tony, Mick, and I were always more alike. My older sister, Liliana, was always the odd one out. We were athletic and strong. People always looked to us. For help. For leadership.”

“Power is innate. People perceive that,” he explained, and it made perfect sense to her. After all, she had been drawn to him for much the same reason at first. But now there was a whole lot more going on between them, she thought, the tie between their joined hands still alive, still pulsing with vitality.

“But that doesn’t explain what happened with those men. Why you can—”

“Toss balls of energy and heal people? Speed across distances? That’s another one I discovered recently.” He swiveled on the couch until he was facing her, and his eyes were shadowed again, his turmoil evident.

She leaned close and cupped his cheek. Ran her thumb along the sandpapery roughness of his face in a soothing gesture. “There’s more, isn’t there, Adam?”

“The blast left my body sore. Achy, as if it was the day after a massive workout or as if I had just recovered from the flu.”

She was feeling the same way, but she sensed it meant more to him. “You’ve felt like that before, haven’t you?”

He nodded, and his gaze grew shuttered. “On the day I first met my dad—Salvatore.”

There was no denying how difficult it was for him, remembering that day. But then he surprised her, and maybe even himself, by saying, “I think I’ve seen those energy balls before. When Salvatore found me. Before I forgot who I was.”

“Forgot who you were?” she questioned, seeking clarification, because she didn’t want to misunderstand what he meant.

“When I woke up, I had no memories of who I was or where I came from. I still don’t, except…”

“You remember the energy. The way the men tossed it. The way you returned fire,” she put out for him to consider.

He nodded and screwed his eyes shut, as if forcing himself back to that time and those memories, but then he expelled a harsh sigh and shook his head. “I can’t remember any more.”

“It’ll come to you.”

“It hasn’t come to me in twenty years, Bobbie. What makes you think it’ll happen now?” he challenged, obviously frustrated.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose. Maybe now it’s time for you to figure it all out,” she said, paraphrasing an old scriptural passage she’d heard in church.

“You expect me to have faith, but I’m not a religious man,” he warned.

“Hasn’t there been anyone in your life in whom you had faith?” she asked, but as a river of emotions washed over him and transferred itself to her, she knew the sad
answer to that. Because she didn’t want to press and cause him more heartache, she rose from the couch.

“It’s time I went home.”

“Stay,” he said, but quickly added, “I’ve got half a dozen empty rooms, all beautifully decorated by some famous designer whose name I can’t even remember. Just choose a room.”

Insanely, she knew what room she wanted to choose, but tempered that rashness. It would only create more issues, and much as she had told him, there was a season and a time for everything.

It was not yet time for that. It might not ever be, since the last thing she needed was to get involved in another conflict. But accepting his offer of hospitality was only common sense considering the lateness of the hour and the way her body pained her.

“I’ll take you up on that,” she said, and a relieved smile erupted on his face.

He rose from the couch and held out his hand. “Let me show you to a room.”

I
f the designer had been going for all-out luxury, he or she had accomplished that admirably.

The sleekly modern stainless steel variation on a four-poster bed was decidedly decadent, possibly because of the plush mattress and gazillion-count sheets. Or maybe it was just the comfort of Adam’s well-worn MIT T-shirt, which he’d lent to her as sleepwear.

Not that sleep was coming easily as her mind raced over all that had happened that day. Much as she had after each mission, she considered every event that had occurred, and catalogued the mistakes she had made so as to not repeat them in the future—like exposing herself by standing beside Adam without regard to a possible enemy just yards away.

She had no doubt about that any longer. Whoever was after Adam was the enemy. Her actions had jeopardized not only her, but Adam, who had absorbed the second blast from their foe, protecting her after she had been hit.
He might have been killed. For that matter, she might have been killed.

She had thought that when she returned from Iraq she would be safe; she had already paid too dear a price for God and country. She had hoped to put the past behind her and rebuild the fragments of her life, to lead a peaceful existence. A home-with-a-picket-fence kind of life. Maybe even one with kids, if she adopted, since she could no longer have any of her own.

Meeting Adam threatened that idea big-time. He obviously had enemies. Powerful ones, judging from the number of men at their command and the very expensive mansion they had made their command center. And given the events of the last two days, it was obviously war, which meant the risk of casualties.

Luckily, both she and Adam were fine. This time. She wasn’t sure she was ready to sacrifice more. But she had never been one to turn tail and run when the fight was justified.

But was the fight the right thing to do this time? she wondered and ran her hand down the arm Adam had healed. Even now her skin came alive as she recalled his touch and the current that had alternated between them as Adam had saved her life. Those superhuman capabilities were clearly the reason the men were after him. Who wouldn’t want to know the secrets of a human energy source like that? Especially one that could heal or hurt or seemingly allow one to vanish into thin air?

No one, except maybe her.

Even with all his apparently fabulous powers, she remained more intrigued by Adam the man. Although he had been alone most of his life, she sensed there was
a well of deep emotion, cosmic in size, behind his enigmatic façade. The time she had spent with him over the last two days had made her want to explore the vastness of those emotions, but with caution, because she didn’t want to get caught up in the turmoil surrounding him.

As her mind continued to churn, she decided she needed something more to help her sleep. Something to quiet the demons creating such unrest within her. That nervous energy drove her from the bed.

Maybe a soak in the gigantic Jacuzzi in the room’s private bath, she thought as she opened the door to reveal polished marble and gleaming chrome plumbing and accessories.

Then she rethought it and stalked as best as she could to the well-stocked bar tucked into one corner, thinking a shot of liquor might quell her nerves, but she couldn’t choose her poison. She had never been much of a drinker.

Possibly a novel or DVD borrowed from the entertainment center across the way from the massive four-poster bed? she mused. But as she faced that bed, looming large in the space, its loneliness provided the potential remedy she sought.

Adam lay on the chaise longue on his balcony, soaking up the free-floating energy and feeling the weakness in his core disappear. Opening his eyes, he stared at the midnight sky as dozens of fragmented thoughts and images pummeled his brain. One kept on repeating endlessly: the image of the energy ball striking Bobbie.