More Than Friends (The Warriors) (11 page)

Fueled by inner determination, she stepped away from him and bent down to retrieve the menu from the floor. "I guess I’ll have to prove you wrong, won’t I?"

"Good luck with that."

Leah watched Brett rake careless fingers through his thick hair as he turned away and returned to his chair. Slouching down in it, he grabbed the map he’d discarded earlier and proceeded to stare at it.

Leah dialed the number for room service, aware that she’d finally made a dent in his constant restraint. Instinct, not simply the emotions Brett stirred in her, compelled her to dismantle the walls he’d built around himself, the same walls constructed to keep them apart. She didn’t intend to fail. She’d also just discovered something crucial about herself—she was stubborn. All–day–long stubborn. With Brett, she decided, she would need to be.

** ** **

An hour later, a waiter delivered a room service cart filled with covered dishes that contained crabmeat cocktails, a Caesar salad for two, broiled lobster tails with drawn butter, jasmine–scented rice, corn on the cob, sourdough bread, and an array of desert selections.

Brett barely allowed the bewildered young man to step into the suite before collecting the check, signing it, and sending him on his way with a generous tip. The waiter was still offering to uncork a bottle of white wine from a well–known Napa Valley vintner that Leah had ordered when Brett closed and locked the suite door.

"I don’t like sharing you," he told Leah when he noticed her chagrined expression.

"You’re hopeless."

"When you’re concerned, that’s truer than you know."

She considered the various meanings of his remark as they adjourned to the awning–covered balcony. Using the misting rain as an excuse, he pulled a small table and two chairs away from the railing and created a new arrangement against the exterior wall of the suite after mopping up the dampness with a towel.

A sniper, even one with a powerful night scope, would be hard–pressed to turn Leah into a target once he seated her in the most protected spot on the balcony. He felt satisfied that she would be able to see the cloud–filled sky and a periodic star, while no one would see her. Attired in heavy sweaters to ward off the chill of the damp night air, they settled in to enjoy their meal.

"I think we should kidnap the chef," she commented after groaning her pleasure over their meal.

Brett winced at her innocent remark. He pushed aside the plate that held his dessert, what remained of his appetite disappearing. Sinking back in his chair, he absently sipped his wine.

"You’re very quiet all of a sudden," Leah said after eating the last bite of her cheesecake.

Brett voiced the first thought that entered his head. "I was thinking about how different we are."

She smiled. "I assume you’re speaking of things other than the obvious anatomical differences."

He nodded, but he didn’t return her smile. Instead, he pondered the contents of his wine glass, his thoughts centered on Leah and what it would be like to experience her passion again after so many years. His body reacted almost immediately, and desire streaked through him like hot lightning.

"Tell me about your family," she encouraged. "You’ve hardly said a word about your past, and you promised you would."

"There’s nothing to tell," he said, his tone abrupt.

"Of course, there is."

"I didn’t have a family, at least not like yours. I was placed in foster care before I was old enough to walk. I grew up in a variety of homes, some good, some not. I lucked out with the last family that took me in while I was in high school. They were retired Navy. My grades and athletic ability were above average, so Bob Stone, my foster father, helped me to apply to the Naval Academy. Much to everyone’s amazement, I received a Congressional appointment. The rest, as they say, is history."

"History I don’t know." She set aside her empty wine glass. Curling her legs beneath her, she studied him for a long moment. "What happened to your birth parents?"

"I don’t know anything about them. I was abandoned shortly after birth." Brett shrugged. "Whoever they were, they gave me life and a name that was written on a slip of paper and pinned to my blanket. I took it from there."

Leah looked stunned. "You must have been terrified."

"Not really. I was too young to know that my life wasn’t normal when I was being passed from one foster family to another. By the time I did figure it out, I was old enough to realize that there are some things you can’t change."

"You really do understand just how disconnected I feel, don’t you?"

Brett nodded and kept his facial expression neutral. "I have a pretty good idea."

"Is the lack of emotional security in your childhood one of the reasons you like my family so much?"

Unsettled by her question, he decided not to dodge it. "I’ve always envied the closeness of the Holbrook clan." Had he ever been this truthful with Leah before? Probably not, he realized. "To be honest, I’d never seen or experienced anything like them. At first, I didn’t believe they were real."

"What convinced you?"

"Being welcomed into the Holbrook family circle without question or hesitation," he answered simply. "Your parents treated me like one of their own. Amazingly enough, they still do."
And I’ve repaid their kindness,
he recalled with no small amount of self–disgust,
by abandoning their daughter and turning my own son into a bastard.

"You said we met in D.C. courtesy of my eldest brother, right?"

"Yes. I’d been to Seattle with Micah a few times during our Naval Academy days, but you were always away at school during those visits. You stayed with Micah while you completed a political–science internship as a congressional aide for a few months during your senior year of college. You were offered the same job when you graduated, and you moved into one of the spare rooms at his condo." He recalled then the immediate and intense chemistry they’d both experienced when they’d finally come face to face after having heard about each other for more than a few years.

She asked. "Politics in D.C. to a Monterey flower shop… that’s quite a leap. How exactly did that happen?"

"I don’t know all of the details, but you wanted a change," he said carefully. "You don’t suffer fools easily, Leah. You never have. You once told me you loathed having to deal with the power brokers who worked in the upper echelons of government. Sarah Kelly’s husband died a few years after you accepted the job with Congressman Hardiman. She was in danger of losing the shop, and she needed a partner to keep it solvent. You’d had enough of backroom politics and the sleazy crowd you had to deal with on Capitol Hill, so you took your savings, packed everything you owned, and made the cross–country move. You left a note for Micah, because he and I were in Europe on assignment at the time. You didn’t look back."

"I sound very decisive, but it can’t have been that simple."

He smiled grimly. "It wasn’t, but you’ve always been decisive. The people who know you and understand you don’t expect you to change. As for the decision you made to leave Washington, everything happened within the space of a few weeks."

"Were we… good friends even then?" she asked.

"The three of us, plus whoever Micah happened to be seeing at the time, spent all of our off–duty time together. Trips to the shore, picnics, skiing in the winter, concerts… that sort of thing."

He saw her frown. Although he sensed that she didn’t believe his cursory description of their past, he didn’t intend to provide her with a detailed description of their affair or broken engagement.

"Sounds… busy."

"It was a great time." He kept his emotions shielded behind an even expression. Listening to the rain intensify in force, Brett recalled Leah’s penchant for long walks in the warm summer rain, usually after they’d spent a lazy Sunday afternoon making love in the privacy of his Arlington, Virginia apartment.

"You obviously work in some capacity in law enforcement. Do you like what you do?" she asked.

He blinked and refocused on her. Once again, he proceeded with caution. "I’m on the move a lot, both in the U.S. and abroad."

"That must mean you’re in federal law enforcement… must be fascinating and perhaps a little dangerous."

He passed a hand across his eyes, his fingertips lingering at the bridge of his nose as he massaged the ache there. "I really can’t talk about it, except in general terms. Most of what I do is highly classified. The people I deal with aren’t your run–of–the–mill criminals. They don’t rob corner banks or knock over liquor stores on the wrong side of town. They mount revolutions, subvert legitimate governments, and take over countries, and they don’t give a damn how many lives they destroy in the process."

Leah leaned forward, rested her elbows on the edge of the table, and propped her chin in her palms. She studied him for a long moment. "I don’t mean to pry, but chasing criminals around the globe has to wear a person down after a while. Doesn’t it get to you? I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for you to be constantly alert to any possible threat that might come your way."

Leave it to Leah, he thought, to pinpoint and articulate an important part of his frustration with the violence–filled world he inhabited. "It’s not quite that intense, but there’s damn little down–time."

"You must be good at your job," she observed.

"Why do you say that?"

"You’re alive. And for the record, it sounds very intense to me."

Brett shrugged, got to his feet, and walked to the edge of the balcony. After peering first left, then right, he studied the lighted rooftop of the building situated across from their hotel for anything that looked amiss. And as he stood there, he gripped the railing with both hands and tried to banish the images of death and destruction that filled his mind. He’d seen far too much of both, and he was bone–weary from so many years of it.

While he’d once derived satisfaction from tracking down and either jailing or executing his quarry, he now felt emotionally bankrupt from the years he’d spent crawling through the cesspools of evil across the globe. And because he’d periodically had to play the role of a gun for hire or an extremist capable of murder, he knew he carried the taint of those years and all of its collective ugliness. He suspected he always would.

"How can it not be?" Leah asked. "Intense, I mean. If these people are as deadly as you’ve implied, then you’re at risk all of the time, aren’t you?"

"Anyone who does what I do is at risk. It’s part of the job description. When you can’t take it anymore, you get the hell out. Otherwise, you jeopardize yourself and the people you’re responsible for."

"Brett…"

He turned to find her standing beside him. Alarm bells went off in his head. Starved for her compassion, but also desperate to keep her safe, he slipped his arm around her with as much calm as he could muster.

"Have I touched a nerve?" she asked as he guided her away from the railing and back under the awning.

He gave her a tight smile as he steadily moved them to the entrance of their suite. "Perhaps, but it wasn’t intentional, so don’t worry about it."

She paused, still in the circle of his arm, and looked up at him. "Your work… I mean, you could… die." That last word she said in a whisper.

Unprepared for the anxiety he saw in her eyes and heard in her voice, Brett quelled his desire to drag her into his bed and submerge himself in the volatility of her passion. He needed her so much right now, his soul ached.

Despite her earlier assurances, he remained convinced that, once she regained her memory of him and what had happened between them, she would cast him aside without a moment’s hesitation. "Doubtful," he said.

"What you
aren’t
saying is feeding my imagination."

He heard large raindrops splatter across the awning above their heads. The sound reminded him of rounds being fired from an automatic weapon. "Let’s go inside now."

Leah didn’t protest. She simply went along with him, her expression still troubled. He kept his arm around her as he secured the door and closed the drapes.

Raindrops sparkled like diamonds on her cheeks and in her golden hair, the latter fashioned into a simple chignon at her nape. Brett used his fingertips to smooth away a droplet of water caught in the seam of her lips. He felt a warm gust of air wash across his fingers. He registered her surprise that he’d touched her so intimately in the widening of her beautiful eyes. Shaken by the play of emotions in her expressive features, he lowered his hand and willed himself not to touch her again.

"You don’t like your life very much anymore, and you aren’t happy, are you?"

Startled by her perceptiveness, he shrugged. "It has its moments."

"Don’t lie to me," she said, a combative note in her voice. "Your eyes and facial expression are bleak when you talk about your work."

"I’ve been chasing bad guys for a long time, Leah. You get used to it."

"Or you get burned out," she countered. "Is that what’s happened to you? Is that one of the reasons we decided to take a vacation together? Did you need some time out of the line of fire in order to decide what you wanted to do in the future?"

He attempted a smile, but all he managed was a grimace. "Been reading my mind again?" he tried to joke, but his voice lacked even a hint of humor.

She gripped his forearms. "I am so sorry."

"What the hell for?"

"I’ve become an unexpected burden when you needed my understanding and support. Maybe you should put me on a plane. I could fly up to Seattle, and my…"

He jerked her forward, his arms like bands of steel around her as he brought her against his solid body. Leah stared up at him, shock and something more in her expression.

Brett glared at her with eyes that burned with a combination of sexual fever and unadulterated fury. "You’re not a damned burden, so get that idiotic thought out of your head right now."

"How can I not be?" she demanded as she tried to twist free of him.

Brett tensed, his body exploding with hunger as she struggled against him. He felt every seductive inch of her, and he died a little more inside because he knew his future would be cursed without her.