Bound by Danger (2 page)

Despite his ordering her to stay put, she crossed the landing and peeked into her apartment. She really didn’t think she had a bad guy in her place. Maybe maintenance staff?

Dave pointed his gun at the intruder hidden by the walls surrounding her kitchen. “Texas State Police Officer Dave Carter! Raise your hands above your head.
Now!
”

He
was
a police officer?

The shattering of glass followed. She held her breath.

A tall, lanky blond male walked out of the kitchen with his hands raised.

Deidre gaped at her brother, then grinned. “Omigod,
Charlie
. Why didn’t you tell me you were in town and going to be dropping by?”

“Can I put my arms down, Officer?” Charlie was his usual easy-going self, not really taking any of this seriously.

“You know this yahoo?” Dave waved his hand at him, acting as though he still didn’t trust the man, but he had lowered the gun.

“Uh, sort of. He’s my long lost twin brother.”

“Oh. Well, I guess if everything’s all right then.” Dave continued to warily eye Charlie as if he wasn’t sure the guy was safe
or
her brother.

Charlie motioned to Dave. “Who’s
he
? New boyfriend?” He raised his brows, mouth hitching up at one corner.

Deidre narrowed her eyes at her brother. “
No
, a new neighbor.”

“Ah.” Her brother looked Dave over again, then nodded and motioned to the kitchen. “I was getting a glass of orange juice. Anybody want some?”

“Sure.” Dave hurried into the kitchen, looking worried that she might quickly
un
invite him.

How could her brother pop in on her like this unannounced after two years and then invite a perfect stranger into her apartment? She would strangle him if it wasn’t for the unwelcome company. She left the apartment and closed Dave’s door, then returned to her own and shut hers with a clunk.

She moved into the kitchen, rested her shopping bag on the counter, and was surprised to see Dave wiping up the orange juice and broken glass all over her linoleum floor with a paper towel. Which she couldn’t help but appreciate.

Charlie poured glasses of orange juice for the three of them, so she took a seat at the kitchen bar. “What are you doing here, Charlie?”

“I have a new girlfriend I thought you might check out and tell me what you think.”

“No.”

Dave watched her with a curious expression, one eyebrow cocked.

If her brother spilled the beans about her secret…

“But, Deidre, you’re so good with—”

“Not in front of company, Charlie.”

“He seems all right. He came to your rescue…six-gun at the ready. He’s a police officer and—”

Dave cleared his throat. “Well, not exactly. I mean, I served as a military police officer, but I left the Army a month ago and—”

“You mean, you don’t really have a license for that thing?” Deidre pointed to the weapon he’d laid on the counter. She wasn’t sure about this Dave Carter. He appeared a little too eager to make her acquaintance, rescue her from the bad guys, and clean up her brother’s mess.

“I certainly do. But I didn’t want the guy who broke into your apartment to think I was just a civilian.”

Charlie refilled his juice glass. “What is it you do, then?”

“I’m a reporter.”

Deidre rolled her eyes. A reporter—on the same par as an IRS agent. How could she have gotten so lucky? It was time to find a new apartment.

Charlie laughed. “You’ll never make any headway with my sister with a job like that.”

Her whole body heated. She would definitely kill her brother as soon as Dave left.

“So what did you buy?” Charlie grabbed her package before she could and pulled out her new bathing suit. He held it up and smiled. “Hmm, what do you think, Dave?”

Dave grinned and nodded as Deidre’s cheeks burned as if they were on fire.

Charlie set his empty glass on the counter. “Want to join us at the pool, Dave?” Dave looked at Deidre, but Charlie slapped him on the shoulder. “My sister’s shy around men. She wouldn’t invite you in a million years. Grab your trunks and meet us downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

Deidre stifled the urge to throw her porcelain napkin holder at Charlie. When she caught Dave’s eye, she thought his smile couldn’t have stretched any bigger if he’d tried.

Dave set his glass in the sink. “Sounds great to me.”

He crossed the kitchen and headed for the front door.

Deidre tapped her fingernails on the bar. “Forgetting something, aren’t you?”

Dave retrieved his gun, his face red with discomfort. “See you both in a jiff.”

The door closed with a click. Deidre immediately pounced on her brother who had already positioned himself in a Kung Fu defensive cat stance. Before she could slug him, he pinned her to the floor.

“Get off me, you idiot!”

“Not until you agree to meet my girlfriend.”

“Charlie, it’s not a game with me. I can’t always tell when something’s wrong.”

“You told me my last girl had another guy.”

“Yes, because I saw her with him on three separate occasions…in intimate poses.” She shoved at her brother who sat squarely on her stomach. “Get off me!”

“Will you promise to meet her?”

“No!”

“If I promise to do something for you?”

She frowned at him. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, Deidre. You can think of something later.”

“Oh, all right.”

“A double date—tonight?”

“Double?”

“We’ll ask Dave to go.”

“Are
you
nuts?”

“The guy has the hots for you. Stuck his life on the line. Cleaned up your mess—”

“He cleaned up
your
mess.”

Charlie grinned. “Come on, Deidre. When was the last time you had a date?”

“Not long ago.”

Charlie let her, up and plopped his tall frame onto her floral sofa. His piercing blue eyes studied her as he waited to hear more.

She sat in a wide-winged chair across from him. “Three months ago.”

“And?”

“The guy fixed dinner for me and thought that was the way into my bed.”

Charlie frowned. “What did you say?” Deidre threw a pillow at Charlie’s head, but he caught it midair. “Come on, what would it hurt?”

“He’s probably attached.”

“It’s settled. Double date tonight. Slip into your new bathing suit. Let’s go for a swim.”

She knew this would be a big mistake. Already she felt a tingle of a premonition coming on.

Meeting Charlie’s new girlfriend and spending another second with a reporter wasn’t a good idea. Her special skills drew a lot of unwanted attention, something she could ill afford.

Her senior rater, Lieutenant Colonel Ramstodt, already didn’t like her because she was a woman. If she wasn’t careful, he could write her Officer Evaluation Report with just the right words to make sure she never made her next promotion. And then where would she be? She already had six years in the service. She looked forward to wearing the silver oak leaf cluster on her shoulders like her senior rater wore now.

In another fourteen years, she’d draw a retirement check and be young enough to start another career. Good pay, the chance to manage an office straight out of college, the added benefits of free health care, a tax-free housing allowance and subsistence pay, and thirty days paid vacation—all added to her desire to make the military a career. Financially, she couldn’t do better.

The Army wouldn’t want to hear she saw glimpses of the future though.

No, Dave wasn’t the kind of guy she could get interested in at all. After the last reporter poked his camera in her face despite her saying no repeatedly to a story about her special abilities, she vowed never to let another one near her again.

When she saw a crisis, she had to deal with it. Then the questions followed. A pesky reporter chased all the leads like a foxhound on the trail of a fox’s scent.

How did she know the mugger had targeted the woman out of all the customers at a busy shopping mall? How did she manage to thwart bank robbers at the local bank? Or rescue a child who slipped into a septic tank? She’d be frontline news if Dave learned about her second vision. Then she could say goodbye to her Army career. He couldn’t help himself. It was his job, after all.

She slipped into her bathing suit and poked her feet into her sandals. When she walked into the living room, she saw Charlie flipping through a garden magazine. She pulled a lace cover-up over her swimsuit. “You know how much I dislike reporters. This is a mistake, Charlie. What if something goes wrong?”

"Nothing will go wrong," Charlie said and that's when she had the uncanny feeling something would—right in front of one bloodhound of a reporter.

Chapter 2

Dave dressed in his swimming trunks faster than it took him to say “yes” to the unexpected turn of events. He’d had every intention of getting close to the subject, only he hadn’t planned on her looking so enticing. He could have kicked himself when he nearly left his gun behind in her apartment. Acting like a teenager over a new heartthrob, he’d nearly lost it.

He’d been so busy trying to set up his place to entertain her when she arrived, he hadn’t even realized Charlie had gained entrance to her apartment. Then again, where the hell was Bill? He was supposed to be keeping him updated on what was going on if he thought anyone suspicious was headed his way. They couldn’t make any more mistakes.

He thought winning her confidence would prove difficult, too. But with Charlie’s help…

Dave smiled. Everything was working better than he’d ever planned. He would have thanked Charlie for his assistance, if her brother hadn’t been the major focus of their investigation.

His cell phone rang, and he grabbed it off his dresser. “Yeah, Bill?”

“How’s it going with you and Charlie’s sister?” his partner asked.

“How come you didn’t see her brother arrive?” Dave asked, not curbing the annoyance in his voice. Not that it didn’t work out well. He probably wouldn’t have acted all
Robo Cop
on her if he had known the guy in her apartment was just her brother. So he hoped he looked totally sincere that he wanted to keep her safe.

“Hell, Dave, he’s there?”

“Yeah. Where the hell were you?”

“Right here. I was watching a dude in a black running suit, sweatpants in this heat? He looked suspicious. So I was observing him. Her brother’s really here?”

Dave let out his breath. “Yeah. What about the guy in the sweatpants?”

“He went into one of the apartments.”

“Okay, well I’ve got things under control here. I’m headed down to the pool now to meet the two of them.”

Bill chuckled.

Dave smiled. Bill, his high school friend and also a former military police officer, knew just what he had on his mind. Like a brother, Bill needled Dave incessantly when it came to his limited involvement with women.

“Business first,” Bill reminded him.

“Yeah, Bill.”

“I think headquarters sent the wrong photo for the gal.”

“I agree. For the guy, too. Or at least not an updated one. He’s tall and blond, but way more muscular and his hair is cut shorter, not long and shaggy.” He knew Bill well enough to know he wished
he’d
gotten the chance to work closer with the subject instead. “Got to go. Talk to you later.”

Dave ended the call and clipped his cell onto his trunks. What he wouldn’t have given to tackle the blue-eyed blonde in the pool’s azure water. But for now, he had to win her trust.

***

Charlie rose from the sofa in Deidre’s apartment. “Dave seems like a nice guy.”

“Until he finds he has a story. Jeez, a guy nearly stole my purse at the mall today, that I’d had visions of earlier.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to talk about it in front of Dave. A lot of guys aren’t comfortable knowing I can see things as I do, Charlie. I don’t tell anyone about it, but it just pops up during our relationship. Remember when the elderly man next door took an overdose of his pain medication?”

“Yeah, I remember. That loser of a boyfriend of yours, Gerald, kept asking you how you knew, and you finally flat out told him.”

“He vanished from my life, without a word. I try to keep my abilities a secret. You know how things just happen, and before you know it, lots of questions get asked. On top of that, if Dave knew how I had tackled the offender at the mall…”

Charlie chuckled. “You’d make a good wrestling partner. He might find that rather intriguing, being an ex-military cop.”

“I’d beat him every time. Men don’t like it when a woman can outdo them.”

“So you do like Dave. I
knew
it.”

Deidre hit him with her soft tube of sunscreen as they walked out of the apartment. “
No
, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s only that I don’t date much because guys tend to shy away from me.”

But yeah, she did like Dave. She’d never met a man so eager to make her acquaintance, and protect her at the same time.

“Dave doesn’t seem like the shy kind of guy.”

“No, especially when he’s packing. That’s not the point. I don’t like the idea he’s a reporter. They have a nose for news, and I don’t want him to think he has a news story in me.”

“All right. So what happened with the mugging?”

“He didn’t get my purse.”

Charlie laughed. “No, but the impish look on your face indicates he got something else.”

Deidre nodded as she pulled her door closed. “I’d forgotten you had a spare key to my apartment.”

“You said any time I needed a place to stay—”

“Are you here for good?”

He ran down the stairs beside her. “Got a job at the biggest real estate office in Killeen.”

“Good.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to use your spare bedroom until I find a place of my own.”

“You’re welcome to it, Charlie.”

“I’ll pay part of the rent—”

“When you start selling properties, you can.”

They walked across the parking lot as Dave spread his multicolored beach towel on a lounge chair poolside. She stared at his bronzed muscles. When did a reporter have time to look like that?