Bound by Danger (3 page)

Charlie waved to get his attention.

Deidre rolled her eyes again. She couldn’t help it. The guy looked like Gerald Butler with the same mischievous twinkle in his eye. Broad shouldered and as handsome as a swimsuit model. Her gaze shifted to the fine smattering of dark hair trailing down his well-muscled stomach to the waistband of his blue trunks. She quickly looked up and discovered he was studying her just as closely. Her body instantly warmed, and not due to the hot Texas sun either.

Charlie maneuvered a chair closer, forcing Deidre to take the one in the middle. She rested her towel and sunscreen on the chair, giving her brother a look of scorn as her eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed.

Before anyone could say a word, Charlie spoke again. “Deidre and I wondered if you’re free for supper tonight. I wanted her to meet my new girlfriend, Marilyn Johnson, and thought we might double-date.” Without waiting for a response, Charlie added, “Deidre hasn’t dated anyone in three months, and she’d love for you to join us.”

She could have slugged Charlie! For not only saying that she hadn’t had a date in eons, but that
she
had wanted Dave to join them! If Charlie hadn’t known more martial arts maneuvers than she did, she’d knock him on his butt. Army personnel officers just didn’t get enough hand-to-hand combat training to give her an edge with her brother. Yet when it came to Charlie, she had to admit, she really had difficulty saying no.

Dave smiled. “Yes, I’d love to join you for dinner. I don’t know anybody here yet.”

Deidre rubbed her temple and glanced at the pool.

Charlie touched her hand. “What’s wrong?”

She stared at the pool’s crystal blue water rippling in the hot breeze. “No children are swimming in the pool.”

No swimmers played in the water at all. Only sunbathers stretched out on blue and white chaise lounges at the shallow end of the pool, baring their backs to the hot golden sphere clinging to the cloud-free sky above.

Dave shook his head as he unclipped his phone and left it on his towel. “Not a one. There shouldn’t be as this is the adult pool—only eighteen or older—”

“What do you see, Deidre?” Charlie asked.

“What?” Deidre stared at her brother’s inquisitive look. She shook her head. “Nothing.” She walked over to the edge of the pool, then dove in. She never minded telling her brother what she saw, but she couldn’t let Dave know. He might have thought she was crazy, or worse…wanted the story.

Her forehead pounded. She heard splashes nearby. In her mind’s eye, she could see the boy at the bottom of the pool when she closed her eyes and yet when she opened them, there was no one…no one but Dave and Charlie now floating beside her.

“Are you all right?” Dave asked.

She couldn’t tell them what she saw. No matter how much she wanted to leave the pool, she had to watch the scene play out. Avoidance wouldn’t make it go away.

Charlie cleared his throat. “Listen, do you have a ball in your apartment, Deidre? Maybe we could play a—”

She shook her head.

“Me neither,” Dave said. “How about Marco Polo?” He motioned to the deep end of the pool.

“Sure, sounds good to me. I’ll be
it
first.” Charlie closed his eyes and counted out loud to ten. “Marco!” he shouted.

“Polo!” Dave responded.

Charlie dove for him. He rose to the surface. “Marco!”

Deidre climbed out of the pool, goose bumps trailing down her arms.

Dave yelled from the swimming pool, “Polo!”

Charlie hesitated. “Deidre?”

She stood on the edge of the pool, staring into the water. She waited for the boy to suddenly appear just as she could see him in her mind’s eye.

Charlie swam to the edge and looked up at her. “What’s wrong, Deidre?”

“A boy is at the bottom of the pool.”

Charlie climbed out. He stared down at the clear bottom. “No one is there. Did you want to go back to your place?”

She shook her head. “You know it’ll happen, Charlie. It always does.”

“Come, play with us then. When it happens, we’ll deal with it.” He wrapped his wet arm around her, as Dave treaded water some distance away, watching the two of them.

She nodded. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I
hate
when this happens, especially when I’m with friends and family. At least at other times I can deal with it alone.”

“No need for that. We’ll help when the need arises. Come on.”

They dove back into the water, and when they resurfaced, Dave said, “I’ll be
it
next.”

“No, I will.” Deidre closed her eyes and counted to ten. She needed a distraction for the moment. Worrying about the inevitable wouldn’t help her to solve the problem. “Marco!”

“Polo!” the two men shouted.

She dove for her brother. “Marco!”

“Polo!”

“Polo!”

Dave’s voice sounded closer. Either he wasn’t a good swimmer or he wanted her to catch him. She dove for her brother. “Marco!”

“Polo!”

“Polo!”

Again, Dave swam closer to her.
All right, we’ll end this quickly enough.

She dove under the surface, reached out for him, her fingers touching a leg. Only the leg was small…like that of a child’s. She opened her eyes, the chlorine stinging them as she witnessed a young boy wearing blue swim trunks sinking to the bottom.

Her heart nearly leapt from her chest as she dove for him, already knowing she needed another breath of air to rescue him.

Chapter 3

Deidre’s lungs screamed for oxygen as she tried to swim to the bottom of the pool where the boy’s lifeless form rested. She fought the urge to resurface for air without reaching him first.

The pressure of diving so deep created a piercing pain in her ears and sinuses. She couldn’t quite reach his arm. Her fingers stretched out to his, but the buoyancy of her body made her struggle against being pushed to the pool’s surface.

Finally getting close enough, she grabbed hold of his wrist. With him in tow, she kicked to the surface with all her might. The few seconds dragged like hours. Then to her surprise and guarded relief, Dave and Charlie joined her as she burst from the water. Charlie pulled the boy away from her, then lifted him to the pavement. Dave’s firm hands gripped her arms as he assisted her out of the pool.

“I’m…all…right. Take…care…of the…boy.” She coughed, bent over, wheezing as she attempted to catch her breath. Lightheaded, it took a second before she noticed the commotion around her. Concerned sunbathers, prematurely dragged from their sun worship, hovered over them as someone called 911. Tears filled her eyes as Dave joined Charlie, moving the boy onto his side. Her heart sent the blood rushing to her ears, pounding with worry.

Water escaped the boy’s mouth, but he wasn’t breathing. Dave cleared his passageway, then breathed into his mouth. The boy coughed. Deidre took a ragged breath.

An ambulance’s siren peeled into the parking lot. A woman’s scream shattered the otherwise silent scene. “Tommy!”

“What’s your name? Are you all right?” Dave asked. He attempted to make sure the boy could speak.

“Where’s…my…ball?” The boy’s face remained deathly pale as his eyes glazed over.

A sunbather handed him the brightly colored ball as a woman, undoubtedly the boy’s mother, ran toward the fenced-in pool area.

“What on earth!” the frazzled looking redheaded woman shouted, racing through the gate to the pool.

“The wind…” The boy coughed, his voice raspy. “Caught…
cough
… my ball, Momma.”

Dave made him lie still to prevent shock as one of the onlookers handed him a towel to wrap the soaking wet youngster in.

Once the emergency technicians rushed into the pool area, Dave rejoined Deidre as Charlie retrieved their things.

Dave rubbed her arms with tenderness. As she finally took notice, she stood, her legs trembling from the incident. Chill bumps dotted her skin.

The medical personnel loaded the boy into the ambulance. Relieved he would be fine, she still felt shaken. Did Dave sense she had a gift? She hoped not.

“I’m going to run in and change, if you guys don’t mind.”

Dave stuck close to her. “I’ll walk you back to the apartment.”

“See you in a minute,” Charlie said.

Charlie handed Dave her cover-up, and he wrapped it over her shoulders. His warm hands touched her gently, and her whole body reacted again. Her sensitivity to his touch drove her nuts when he got too close. Drawn inexplicably to him, she felt unnerved by him. She fought wanting to get to know him better. He was a reporter, for heaven sakes.

His deep voice shook her from her distraction, and she realized he was studying her with concern. “That was some rescue you did back there. Charlie and I swam to different parts of the pool to avoid being tagged by you. A few seconds later, we realized you weren’t coming after us. Then when you didn’t resurface, we got worried and dove under to search for you.”

“I thought you were swimming near me.”

His eyes sparkled in the sunlight as he smiled. “I like to live dangerously. But I’m not truly an easy catch.”

She caught him watching her breasts jiggling with every step she took. Her cover-up had slipped to the sides, and now she wished she’d gotten the button-up kind. Her body heated with mortification. She imagined the bodice of her wet swimsuit revealed more than she wanted this stranger to see. A smile spread across his face when she furrowed her brow at him.

His ears turned red as chagrin flashed across his face at getting caught in the act as they walked up the stairs to their landing. He attempted to change the subject. “Do you know what kind of clothes we should wear to…”

The ringing of her phone made him pause as she fumbled to unlock her door. Dashing through the apartment, she grabbed the phone off the kitchen wall. “Hello?” Dave walked into her living room while she took a deep breath and repeated again, “Hello?”

She couldn’t hear the caller’s breath, but she knew he listened to her, silently, deadly, waiting for something, like a sea anemone watching for its prey. She sensed the caller gripped the receiver in his hand with a crushing grasp. His peach-freckled knuckles whitened with tension, but…she couldn’t make out his face.

Her forehead tingled.

The calls and hang-ups occurred more frequently now.

Only this one was truly evil. He dared her to hang up on him. She wouldn’t. She closed her eyes as she tried to see his face. Why did her visions fail her now?

If the unknown caller held on long enough, maybe Deidre could see his face…identify him so if he came for her, she’d know him at once.

The line clicked dead. She won the confrontation, but she hadn’t won the battle. After hanging up the phone, she stared at the wall for a second.

Dave cleared his throat. “Another hang-up?”

His question shook her from her puzzlement. “What?” How did he know it was a hang-up and it wasn’t the first?

“About tonight, exactly what would be appropriate to wear?” Dave asked.

“Something nice,” Charlie chimed in, walking into the apartment. “We’ll go to Le Creperie, a new French restaurant downtown. Marilyn said she’d meet us there.”

Deidre turned to question Dave about the phone, but the door clicked shut behind him on his way out before she could open her mouth to speak.

The phone rang again. She grabbed the receiver feeling a mixture of dread, anticipation, and total frustration. “Hello!”

“Are you the owner of the house? Siding can be—”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” She slammed down the receiver.

Charlie was in the guest bedroom changing, but before she could rinse off in the shower, not two seconds after she hung up the phone, it rang again. “Hello!”

“Deidre?”

“Dave?” She couldn’t believe it was him. Hopefully, he’d know she didn’t always answer her phone like she was ready to bite off the caller’s head, just on general principle.

“Yes, I needed to know what time we were leaving for dinner.”

“Oh. Wait a minute. I’ll check with Charlie.”

She knocked on her brother’s bedroom door. “Charlie, Dave wants to know what time we’re going to dinner.”

“In an hour. Six o’clock. Tell him to be sure to wear dancing shoes.”

“What?”

“Dancing shoes. We’ll go dancing afterward.”

“Ah, Charlie.”

Charlie said nothing in response, and Deidre knew she was stuck the whole night on a date with Dave whether she liked it or not.

She sighed deeply. “Six,” she said into the phone, “and Charlie says to wear dancing shoes, though if you don’t like to dance, that’s fine with me. We can have a drink and watch—”

“Love to dance!”

Somehow she knew he’d say that. “Yes, well, six it is.” She paused. “How did you—” The line clicked dead in her ear. “…know about the phone hang-ups?”

***

Dave knew the job had to come first. But dancing nice and slow with Deidre suited him fine. Where did it say in his agent handbook he couldn’t gain her confidence with moves like that?

The notion he could hold her tight instantly weakened his resolve to remain professional. If he wasn’t careful, another agent would replace him. Bill, more than likely. No way could he allow his old friend a chance to be with her.

He chuckled. Poor, Bill. As easygoing as he was, he fumed about not getting the role Dave played this time around. And yet, Bill had had his chance. When he learned the subject served as an Army officer, he bowed out, relegating the job to Dave. Figuring it was just another assignment, Dave took the job, but boy, had he hit the big time.

He pulled dress trousers and his favorite shirt from the closet. Stripping off his wet bathing suit, he envisioned dating Deidre longer than his assignment in Killeen. The banter between the siblings amused him. And she appeared kind and considerate, but a tad shy around men. Something simmered just below the surface, and he was determined to find out what. He knew the way she had studied his appearance both on the landing and poolside, she liked the way he looked. But when she learned what he really was doing there and that his assignment was only temporary…