When a Man Loves a Weapon (25 page)

She heard footsteps and felt the bop of relief that Trevor had broken away. She’d barely raised her head from where it rested on her forearm and peeked: it was Cam.

She closed her eyes, not wanting him to see her disappointment.

A padded chair scuffed across the carpet as he pulled it up and flopped into it, then propping first one, then the other, boot on the opposite chair. How many conversations had they had like this? Three thousand?

“Baby, you okay?” He rattled something plastic.

She pried her eyes open and he held out a grocery bag of clothes and tennis shoes. “Gracie brought these.” Gracie was one of his sisters—he had a huge family, more siblings and in-laws than Bobbie Faye could count, and the majority of them loved each other and actually wanted to spend time together. They were weird like that. “She said these would fit. I don’t know how you women know this stuff.”

“Aw, c’mon. You don’t have Benoit’s jean size memorized?”

He smiled at the mention of their mutual friend who was still recovering from gunshot wounds. It was the first real smile she’d seen from him in a long, long time. It made her heart clutch and ache for him, and for the pain she saw in his eyes. He handed her the clothes. “Just his favorite color. I think that’s enough.”

“Let me guess: purple? Or gold?” LSU colors.

“You mean, they’re two different colors? I thought it was all one.
Purplengold
.”

She felt herself smile. “Yeah, I think every LSU fan’s a little freaked out that they bleed ’Bama colors. It’s just wrong.” She’d meant to keep the tone light, but the word
bleed
reminded her of the kid lying in a pool of his own blood in the middle of those stables, and she choked a little and put her forehead back down on her knees. She couldn’t cry in front of Cam.

He stayed silent for minute, ’til she got it under control.

They sat for a while in companionable silence. She’d seen him do this with horses at his uncle’s farm—wait quiet, just stillness itself, until even the most skittish colt relaxed and nuzzled him out of curiosity. It was a marvel to her, sometimes, how a man so bossy could also be a well of patience when he wanted to be. It was the same trait he’d used to such success on the football field, waiting for the right moment for the right play. She could feel him analyzing her strategically. She didn’t even have to look up to see that his eyes were closed, and that he’d slouched down comfortably in the chair, his head against the back, arms crossed, resting, listening, waiting.

She could hear Trevor in the other room as he and ASAC Brennan issued orders and made phone calls.

She eyed the bag of clothes. “Did you check those for itching powder?” She had scads of suspicion where Gracie was concerned.

“Only poison. You’re on your own if it’s itching powder.” He paused as they both remembered that summer she dubbed Sumac Insanity, when she tried to help in the yard
one
time, and ended up a walking billboard for Caladryl Lotion. And oven mitts, because Cam had had to tape them over her hands to keep her from scratching.

“I wouldn’t put it past Gracie,” she muttered, eyeing those clothes. Gracie had, after all, introduced Cam to someone who didn’t “take” and she still blamed Bobbie Faye.

“You’re always fighting someone,” Cam said. She glanced
at him, saw he’d turned serious. “And I’m always going to be there.”

“You hate that.” She sank her face into her hands again. God, she was so tired, her head weighed a zillion pounds, and she hurt. Her chest ached. Her heart ached.

He grabbed a pillow from the headboard, put it nearer to where she sat, and then settled back in his chair as she struggled with whether to give in and accept the gesture or stay resolute, as if she didn’t need the help. She gave in, finally, lying on the pillow, curling onto her side, facing him with her eyes closed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly. “I know you’re tired. And I know you’re hurting.” He paused, then asked, “Remember the game senior year?”

The
game. As if there were only one. But she knew which one he meant. He always referred to it as
the
game. It was the one that still ate at him. He’d played in spite of his knee swelling up twice its size.

“Remember what you yelled at me after the game?”

“I did
not
yell at you.” She glanced up at him to see his classic
yeah, right
gaze. “I merely emphasized. Loudly,” she amended.

“The entire student section ducked.”

“Liar.”

“You accused me of tunnel vision.”

Oh, yeah, she remembered that. She’d accused him of reacting. Of playing the other team’s game instead of his own. Of ignoring his instincts, ignoring his own training, and just
responding
instead of staying ahead of the game, playing his own strategy.

“Yeah, you sucked that game,” she agreed, and he gave her the mock-hurt look he always gave her when they had this conversation. “Well, you did.”

He’d gone on to win the SEC and then the national championship, so she didn’t mind pointing out his one loss.

“Yeah? Well, you’re sucking in this one.”

She blinked. She thought for a second he was referring to this game with Sean, this cat-and-mouse torment, but she
realized that, dammit, no, he was pushing her. He’d been pushing her for the last four months, ever since his declaration in the hospital the night she’d been shot, ever since she’d recuperated and Trevor had moved in with her, ever since Trevor found them a home.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” she said. “Can you wait ’til tomorrow to be a complete ass?”

He sighed, then scraped his hands across his face.

“No,” he said, his voice soft, gentle. “Because you’re
reacting
. You’re not
choosing
. I know it, and I know you know it. You don’t want to admit you were wrong, and you don’t want to have to examine how you feel and dammit, you’re too loyal for your own good.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah? Explain Alex to me, then.”

“That’s not fair.” She’d dated Alex mostly to make Cam notice her. She’d had no clue Cam had thought of her as anything beyond a dear friend, because try as she might, she couldn’t get him to ask her out. She would have asked him, except every freaking cheerleader and girly girl at LSU already fawned all over him and he’d griped about the women showing up at his apartment. She hadn’t wanted to be just another groupie. She’d wanted him to make the first move. When she’d finally gotten frustrated and given up, she’d met Alex in a bar and realized, holy shit, attractive guy, someone who wasn’t Cam, wasn’t even in the same hemisphere as Cam (and therefore wouldn’t be a constant pale reminder of what she didn’t have), and bang, before she knew it, she and Alex were dating.

And fighting. Huge, loud, horrible arguments. Spiraling to the point where Cam had had enough as her best friend and showed up one day, moved all of her stuff out of Alex’s place, threatened Alex within an inch of his life, and informed her they were now dating.

She’d have argued with him at the time, except she knew that he’d finally deduced how she felt about him prior to dating Alex. Or maybe he’d finally realized that if
he
didn’t change their status of “best friends,” then nothing would.

“You’re wrong, this isn’t—”

He kept his voice soft, though she could feel the tension pouring from him. “You didn’t love Alex. You know it, and I know it. You stubbornly refused to admit that things were bad because you were afraid of admitting what you really wanted. I was afraid we’d screw up our friendship, which was the most important thing to me. But we took a chance. We fucked it up—I fucked it up when I arrested Lori Ann, the way I handled that—but we found our friendship again, when neither one of us thought that was possible. If you’d give us a chance, we could weather anything.”

“Cam. No. . . . Trevor is not like Alex—”

“No?
Look
at it, baby. Cormier is
thisclose
to being so much like Alex, it’s not even funny.” He ticked the list off on his fingers. “He’s got you as isolated as he can possibly get you without sticking you on an island, and I’ll give him five minutes after this is over and be shocked if he isn’t moving you offshore. He’s dangerous, he’s mysterious, he’s never introduced you to his family, he kills people for a living, and he’s a control freak. You feel grateful, I get it. You’re in his debt and he’s working damned hard to keep you there. He’s—”

“Done enough damage yet, Moreau?” Trevor growled from the open doorway.

“A seven-foot-tall psycho in a hockey mask carrying a chain saw? I can deal with that. Bobbie Faye when she’s on a tear? Any sane person runs for cover . . .”

—William Simon, Director, Homeland Security Tactical Division

Shit
. Trevor spun away without an answer. He could not go into that room.

It wasn’t just the words, though a knife twisted in his gut when she hadn’t stopped Moreau. It was the history, the friendship, the intimacy. He just . . . he could not go into that room, not like this, not furious, not wanting to kill Moreau. Not furious that she was blind, or intentionally sticking her head in the sand—no—she didn’t need that. Not after this night, and if he walked in there homicidal, he’d be no better than Moreau and
fuck,
giving Bobbie Faye the respect of space to choose the life she wanted was the only thing he could hold onto for the moment.

Breathing through the anger, he held himself in tight rein as he rejoined the team in the living room portion of the suite, where ASAC Brennan was on the phone to FBIHQ, talking to the Unit Chief. The SWAT commander issued orders on his own cell phone, activating teams across Louisiana—since the action had moved from Lake Charles to Lafayette in just a few hours, everyone needed a heads-up. MacGreggor was not done yet.

Controlled chaos—that was the feeling in the room as everyone picked up their laptops and supplies, maps and faxes. The entire group was relocating downstairs to a conference room where they could spread out. They were tripping over each other in here.

Trevor had hoped he’d have ten minutes alone with her. He needed ten minutes alone with her. And a shower. He stared down at the bag in his hand, ferried in by one of the field agents he’d sent to some local outfitters to get them new clothes.

“Trevor,” she said behind him and he stiffened.

The way she’d lain there, curled in toward Moreau. The memory of her body language slammed down his throat and ripped out his heart.

“Not. Now. I’m working. You,” he called to an agent so young, so scrubbed and shiny, he practically had “sun-ripened fresh” stamped on his forehead. “Get a couple of other agents and get on the phone to leasing offices—here and Baton Rouge and New Orleans. See what apartments have been rented lately for cash only. MacGreggor will want something nice, so start on the high end.”

“B-but, you s-said to—” the young guy stammered.

“Fuck what I said, do
this
.” Because when Trevor had glanced down at the clothes, he’d had the sudden realization that MacGreggor would want to set up somewhere permanently. Seeing the multiple people coming and going in this hotel room made it clear: MacGreggor had put too much thought into this plan to not have realized that logistically, being in an apartment or a house rather than a hotel would be an advantage. Hotels created issues—having to keep moving, worrying about being discovered by maids or bellhops. Furthermore, a bunch of men with Irish accents camping out in one hotel for months, with all of the BOLO notifications floating around, would have aroused at least
some
suspicion. Houses in high-end areas were nearly the same problem: lots of nosy neighbors, neighborhood watch, guards at gates. If MacGreggor was just a man on his own? No one would notice. But they knew MacGreggor had more than a few men with him, and several men going into and out of a high-end home wouldn’t be normal—and would incite suspicion.

Trevor was willing to bet money that MacGreggor wouldn’t risk a house or an apartment in a slum or even a
low-income area—too many rats who’d be willing to turn him in for the reward money. No, he’d go with a high-end apartment, probably something newly renovated, so the neighbors weren’t as familiar with one another.

He hurled the bag of clothes and toiletries to the sofa.
Dammit,
he should have thought of this earlier.

“Trevor,” Bobbie Faye tried again, positioning herself in front of him. “We need to talk.”

He ignored her as Moreau passed by, exiting the room, nearly yanking the heavy hotel door off its hinges when he opened it, barely dodging Laura, a support staffer out of the New Orleans office, who was entering.

“Ten minutes,” Bobbie Faye said, her right hand fisting his t-shirt, lightly tugging it ’til he met her gaze and he recognized that determined gleam. “We need ten. They have to get the conference room set up anyway.” He looked away and she said, “Please.”

Jesus, she was killing him.

Sixty seconds later, the living room was silent. Empty.

They glared at one another. He crossed his arms, waiting. He couldn’t say anything—didn’t trust himself to say anything. Moreau’s list was true. Not entirely accurate, but true. It had been bad enough to know Moreau had kissed her, to know it wasn’t theory or in the past. But when he’d walked in that bedroom and had seen how relaxed they were together, how intimately they were arguing—Moreau sitting so close, leaning forward, Bobbie Faye curled toward him—he could picture that kiss, picture Moreau’s intent with heartbreaking clarity. It was all he could do to keep from obliterating the man.

He still wanted to obliterate him.

It must’ve shown in his expression, because she sighed, “Cam’s just . . . stubborn. Could you please not kill him?”

The anger that throbbed through Trevor thankfully jammed the words he wanted to say and he
hmphed,
not an answer. How in the
hell
could she keep making excuses for him?

“Do you realize what he almost did today?” she asked
him, exhaustion and pain quivering around the edges of her eyes. He closed his own, blocking her out, and thought,
yeah, he almost came between us
. She continued, “When that laser sight was on your back, I thought I was going to lose you.” She swallowed hard, staring at the drapes. “Then the kid . . . all that blood . . . Sean could’ve done that to you.”