Shock Waves (15 page)

Aside from the time with Jorak, she’d not said a single freaking word. It was spooky how completely she could withdraw from the world.

No more. He was done lurking on the sidelines, sulking like a schoolboy. He’d waited long enough. The need for answers burned too hot. Time ran too short.

The sand burned the bottoms of his feet, but he welcomed the sensation. He approached her quietly, careful to stay out of her line of vision. He didn’t want to give her a chance to prepare.

The dog, a Border collie mix of some sorts, swam back to shore, brought his prize to Brenna and shook the water from his drenched coat, and again she laughed.

“Such a good boy,” she cooed, rubbing his head. The mutt’s eyes glowed with eagerness and warmth. His tongue lolled in anticipation.

The fact Ethan could relate frayed his patience even more.

“Here you go,” she said, and launched the ball farther into the surf. With an excited bark, the dog took off.

She stood with her back to him, sunlight streaming off her golden hair. He took a step closer and put his arms around her waist, urged her back against his chest. “How long are you going to pretend I don’t exist?”

He didn’t mean for the question to come out husky, but damned if it didn’t. He felt her stiffen, all that fluidity and grace coalescing into cold, hard stone, and resented the loss.

“I know you exist.”

The words were curt, matter-of-fact. “That’s why you won’t even look at me?”

He’d wanted to catch her off guard, but somehow she turned the tables on him. Nothing prepared him for her to turn in the circle of his arms. He’d expected her to keep staring off toward the glimmering turquoise water, where the black-and-white dog paddled toward the bobbing red ball. But she turned. She turned and looked up at him, bringing her face only inches from his.

“I’ll look at you.”

It was like a swift kick to the gut, the feel of her in his arms, her breasts pressing against his chest. “That’s a start.”

Her mouth twisted and she started to pull away, but he locked his hands together and held her closer. “They’re watching,” he reminded, brushing his lips over hers. He meant to leave it at that. Stop, pull away. But then a soft sound rasped from her throat, and he felt himself leaning in for more. He’d already kissed her several times, but this was different. This time was soft not hard, slow not demanding, leisurely, like a long rainy Sunday morning spent in bed.

Another sound then, deeper, ragged, and he didn’t know whether it tore from her throat or his own. The haze gripped him harder, and he lifted a hand to her face, cradled the side of her cheek.

She pulled back and looked beyond him, to where three armed guards stood beneath a frayed, yellowing palm at the edge of the beach. “What do you want from me?” she asked, returning her gaze to Ethan. Her eyes were dark, turbulent like the sea beyond. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

The question grated, the answer condemned.

Because he couldn’t.

Their lives had tangled. Their futures were intertwined. He couldn’t ignore her, not when he had to share a bed with her, not when every time he closed his eyes, she was there waiting. “I think you know what I want.” He watched her eyes flare, wondered just what she thought he meant. To taste her again? Yes, he did want that, God help him. God help them both. But he wanted more. “The truth.”

The wind whipped long, blond hair into her face, which she jerkily pushed back. “The truth?” she returned, but then the dog was there, soaking wet and nudging against her legs. She cut Ethan a hard look and turned her attention to the mutt.

“Good boy,” she cooed again, reaching down to lovingly stroke its muzzle, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be willingly touched by her. “More?” she asked, and Ethan could only think yes. God, yes.

The thought ground through him. He wasn’t some lovesick schoolboy, damn it, and Brenna was not the object of his latest fantasy.

“Here you go.” She launched the ball back into the water toward the pier, and again the besotted dog took off.

“I’m waiting,” he said more roughly than he’d intended.

She spun back to face him, her eyes aglow with an emotion he couldn’t name. “The truth?” she asked. “You want the truth?” Her voice was hard, almost angry. “Tell me something,” she said, and for a moment he could see her in a courtroom, turning the tables on the most skilled prosecutors. “What is the truth? How do you know when it’s real?”

“I’ll know.” Because he always knew.

Liar, chided a nasty little voice deep inside, but he ignored it.

The wind returned the hair to her face, and this time a strand stuck to the soft pink of her lips. “Let me tell you something about the truth,” she said. “It’s nothing more than those clouds I told you about, the ones my grandmother called shape shifters.”

The ones he’d long since quit seeing.

“Nothing is concrete,” she said. “Nothing is etched in stone. That’s all an illusion, a matter of the lens you use. One man’s truth is another man’s lie.”

Ethan just stared. He felt as if he’d been thrown onto the stand to be prosecuted and wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She twisted out of his arms, but didn’t put distance between them, just balled her hands into fists and glared up at him. “You and Jorak. You say you want to bring him to justice. He says he wants revenge against you.”

The shaggy wet dog raced toward them, but before he could interrupt, Ethan relieved him of the ball and pitched it again, as far as he could.

“What you both fail to see,” she said, “is that one man’s justice is another’s revenge. They’re the same thing, Ethan. They both seek to punish for some perceived hurt.”

Something inside him snapped. “Perceived hurt?” She made it sound as if they were fighting over spilled milk. “Do you have any idea what that man did?”

She pushed the hair back from her mouth. “He hurt you,” she said quietly. “He hurt you bad.”

Ethan felt himself go very still, felt the glare of the sun, the warm breeze whipping sand against his legs and chest. She couldn’t know. “Is that what you saw in your dream?”

“No. It’s what I see in your eyes.”

The soft words cut through him, bringing a surge of denial. This wasn’t about hurt. This wasn’t about betrayal. It was about justice.

“What about last night?” He retrieved a pair of sunglasses from his khaki shorts and slid them into place. “Tell me what you saw in the darkness. Tell me what turned your skin colder than ice.” Why she’d clung to him. “What made you cry out.”

It was her turn to pull back, pull away. She put distance between them this time, wading deeper into the water. It swirled up around her knees now, not quite warm, but not cold either.

“I thought you didn’t have time for dreams,” she said in that defiant way of hers, then just like he’d come to expect, she lifted her chin. “Isn’t that what you told me by the river?”

God help him, her bravado made him want to laugh. Knowing that would be a severe tactical error, he bit back the urge and waded after her, reached for her shoulders, “Careful, angel,” he warned above the roar of the ocean. “I told you I don’t like to be played with.”

She tensed beneath his hands. “And I,” she said very slowly, “told you I don’t like to be touched.”

He stared down at his hands curled around the pale skin of her upper arms, and wondered why she was lying to herself.

“You didn’t seem to mind last night,” he reminded, lifting his gaze from her arms to her eyes. The denial swimming there almost stopped him. Almost.

“Was it me?” His body braced for the answer. “Were you dreaming of me again?”

He expected her to look away, evade his question. She didn’t. “Yes.”

The single word rushed through him like a shot of fine, aged whiskey. “And? Was this one any better?”

Now she did look away from him, toward a pair of pelicans flying low over the pier. “No.”

Frustration nudged closer. “What then? What did you see?”

“You,” she said, returning her gaze to his. “And Jorak.”

Before, he’d scoffed at her stories of dreams and visions. Before, he’d discounted everything she’d had to say. But now, now curiosity burned through him. Not because he was starting to believe her claims of precognition, he assured himself, but because he wanted to know why this tough, gutsy woman had come undone in his arms.

“The same dream as before?” Just because she dreamed of him and Jorak didn’t mean she knew anything. Hell, as a kid he’d had some damn fine dreams featuring centerfolds, the University of Virginia homecoming queen, a time or two about
Charlie’s Angels.
That didn’t mean he knew them, and it sure as hell didn’t mean what he’d enjoyed with them there in the darkness of his adolescent bed had come true.

“Worse,” she said, absently taking the ball from the dog. She patted its head and again sent him running, but her eyes never left Ethan. “More detail.”

Detail that had turned her skin cold and clammy like something fragile and precious left out in subfreezing temperatures. “Is that why you almost blacked out when Jorak touched you?”

She frowned. “No.”

“Tell me,” he said, urging her closer.

This time she didn’t resist. “It’s … complicated.”

“Try me.” The need to know, to understand, burned like a white-hot poker.

“Why, Ethan? Why is this suddenly so important to you?”

“Because no matter what you think of me, I’m not a man to stand by and watch others suffering.”

“I’m not suffering.”

But she was. “Don’t lie, angel. Not to me. Not now.”

Chapter 9

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S
he didn’t want him
looking at her like that. She didn’t want him speaking to her in that whiskey-smooth, Old-Virginia voice. She preferred the hard edge of the prosecutor. That, she could defend against. That, she could ignore. She could remain detached, safe behind the brick and mortar of self-protection, insulated from the sweet curl of longing.

But Ethan Carrington didn’t play fair.

He was a man who played to win, knew how to get what he wanted. He knew when to employ cunning, when to use finesse. And, God help her, standing there with the warm turquoise water swirling around her legs, the roar of the ocean behind her and the endless azure sky above her, she knew she’d met her match. She’d been trying so damn hard to hold herself apart from this man, to ignore the steady draw that pulled her toward him like a full moon seducing the seas, but now she didn’t want to fight. Didn’t want to deny. Didn’t want to pretend.

The pelicans returned, sweeping low over the water and diving for dinner, then arching back up toward the sky. She watched them, not wanting to see Ethan standing in the surf against a backdrop of shape-shifting clouds, a tall man with raven hair and piercing eyes, dressed only in a pair of khaki cargo shorts. Who as a boy saw sailboats but now saw nothing.

“Brenna.” A single finger came to rest under her chin, and slowly he turned her to face him.

Her breath caught. This is what she hadn’t wanted to see, what she was finding harder and harder to resist. At least he’d slid on sunglasses and she no longer had to see his eyes, those dark, primeval chips of emerald that damned her with insight she didn’t want. The pain. The longing. The scorn that would be there the second she told him the truth.

In protecting himself, he’d protected them both.

“Everyone is familiar with the five senses,” she said through the tightness in her throat. Images flashed back, of the first fruitless trip to the police station. All those closed, hard faces, brows tight in scorn, eyes quietly mocking. Arms crossed over chests. It was always the same. “Sight and touch and hearing…” The commodities on which this man relied. “Smell—”

“And taste,” he finished for her, sliding his index finger to her lower lip and rubbing.

The sun bore down mercilessly, but deep inside, she shivered. Pull away, some voice inside instructed, but the truth held her motionless. He was touching her. Just as he’d done during the fragile hours of the night before when she’d fought the fringes of the dream. And the images, they didn’t form. Didn’t consume. There was only a quiet strength.

“And taste,” she said, remembering how he’d tasted when he’d put his mouth to hers the day before, the sweet combination of whiskey and man. And today the slight salty spray.

The dog bumped into her from behind, rubbing the back of her thigh with his cold nose and wet fur. He’d been on the beach when they came down, almost as though he was waiting for her, and her spirits had immediately lifted.

“Good boy,” she cooed, and again took and tossed the ball, this time toward the wide expanse of white sandy beach.

“We’re born with other senses,” she said, returning her attention to Ethan. He was watching her intently, the lines of his face tight. She could feel his eyes burning into her, despite the dark sunglasses that separated them. “Intuition is the most common.”

Gut instinct, people commonly called it, and they trusted it with their lives, even the most jaded, cynical of cops. Even the ones who’d laughed at her.

“Is that why you called me? Because you had a feeling something bad was going to happen?”

She wished it was that simple. “No. My gift is another form of precognition.”

Against the glare of the sun, she saw his mouth tighten, and felt the wince cut clear to the bone. “Precognition?”

“Telepathy,” she explained. “I…” God, this was the hard part. “I see things that happen to other people.” Hear things. Feel things. “Usually before they happen.”

Ethan just stood there. He would have looked like a picture, except for the constant motion of the waves swishing against his legs and dampening the bottom of his cargo shorts. “I see.”

No, he didn’t. And he wouldn’t. Men like him never did.

But she had to try.

“I didn’t know what it was at first,” she said, wrapping her arms around her waist. She’d heard the scream first, there alone in the darkness of her childhood bed. Then she’d seen the blood. The nude and abused body, abandoned beneath a willow tree.

“My mother told me what I’d seen was just a nightmare,” she recalled, and though she looked at Ethan, she saw her mom as she’d been that night, in her soft pink floral nightgown, holding a seven-year-old Brenna to her chest, rocking, rocking. “And she was right. It was.”

But not in the way Maggie Scott had meant.

“What you saw,” Ethan said, then stopped abruptly. “Brenna.”

She blinked up at him. “What?”

He swore softly. “Don’t do that to me,” he ground out, and though the words were rough, they fluttered around her heart like a gentle caress.

“Don’t do what?”

His mouth tightened. “Check out on me.”

Instinctively she closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, fought the tattered remains of darkness. “I’m here.”

“And I’m not letting you go anywhere again,” he said, then stunned her by taking her hands in his. “What you saw,” he said again. “It happened.”

Yes. God, yes.
Slowly she nodded.

He said nothing, just continued to watch her from behind his sunglasses and hold her hands. The heat staggered her. She’d always had cold hands and feet, had never known anyone’s touch could be so warm and vital. So sustaining. For the past twenty years, touching had been her enemy.

“My grandmother was the one who finally figured out what was happening.” The one who’d explained the gift, the one from whom she’d inherited it.

“And this…” She could tell he was struggling, the man versus the prosecutor, one wanting to understand, the other wanting to scorn. “This just happens randomly?”

“No.” The word shot out of her. Not random, thank heaven. Once she’d learned how and why it happened, she’d been able to control it. To an extent.

“Then how?”

Brenna glanced beyond him to the glowing white beach where the black-and-white dog had given up on her and lay sprawled in the sand, panting and soaking up the sun.

“A touch,” she said.

His fingers, wrapped around her hands, squeezed. “A touch?”

She looked up at him and felt her chest tighten. “Everyone is surrounded by an energy field,” she explained. “And when I touch someone, or sometimes just something that belonged to a person, I tap into their energy field.” She paused, searched for words to make him understand. “It’s like shock waves,” she said. “Running through me. Little jolts of electricity.”

He released her hands, stepped back. “Shock waves.”

She heard the doubt in his voice, didn’t understand why it cut so deep, not when it was what she’d come to expect. “Yes.”

He looked past her shoulder to the ocean beyond, where turquoise melted into azure. She bit the inside of her lip and waited, scanned the horizon for the pelicans, saw only a lone seagull.

“It doesn’t happen all the time,” she said. “Sometimes there’s nothing there.” Those were the blessed times. “But other times it’s immediate.” Like with Jorak and his men, when death and desecration stained their energy field. “And then there are the times like with you, when the images come to me later.” Under the cover of darkness, when her own defenses ebbed low. “That’s where the precognition comes into play.”

Ethan swore softly. “There’s just one problem,” he pointed out, and she heard the hard edge of the prosecutor return.

“Just one?”

He took off his sunglasses and let her see his eyes, darker than usual, but still penetrating. Still burning. “We’ve never met. Never touched until that night by the James.”

The memory washed through her of the night in question, when she’d seen him standing alongside the river. She’d sensed the same solitude about him she’d sensed when she’d seen him surrounded by a mob of reporters earlier in the day outside the courthouse. And when he’d touched her—God. When he’d touched her there’d been no ugliness, no dark, hurtful images. Only heat, a low, hot energy curling through her.

That’s why she’d jerked away.

“That’s not true,” she said, and refused to feel the disappointment. There was no reason he should remember her, not when she’d made a habit of fading into the background. “We touched once before, almost two weeks ago.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s not possible. I would remember meeting a woman like—” He broke off the words. “I would remember meeting you.”

She stared up at him, wondered what kind of woman he thought she was. “But you don’t,” she said, and this time the blade of disappointment nicked harder. “It was at Doc Magiver’s clinic,” she explained. “The night you brought in the emaciated Dalmatian you found while running by the river.”

A wave crashed around them, but not strong enough to send Ethan staggering back from her the way he did. “You were there?”

“I’m one of his technicians,” she said with a smile that streamed from her heart. “I pull the night shift.” That way she slept during the daylight and tended to animals when the darkness pushed close.

Ethan shoved a hand through his hair. “Christ.”

“It was almost 10:00 p.m. when you came in,” she said to prove her story. “It had been raining, and you were soaking wet. Your tank top was clinging to your body.” She’d seen him pacing the small waiting area, and her heart had taken a long, slow freefall through her chest. Even without a touch, his presence had jolted her. “The dog was barely more than skin and bones.”

Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, opened them a moment later, said nothing.

She’d gone out of her way to avoid him, instinctively knowing trouble would follow. “You were carrying the dog down the hall, and I tried to get out of your way, but you brushed against me anyway.”

“Sweet Mary,” he swore. “That was you?”

A little thrill burst through her. “Just a touch,” she murmured. “That’s all it takes.”

Another wave broke against her, this one thrusting her toward him. He caught her, held her by the shoulders. “And then you dreamed of me.”

Longing streamed to every nerve ending, punishing her with the desire to step closer, wrap her arms around his waist and see if the flesh there would be as warm as his hands. “That’s why I called you. I … knew you were a good man.” Emotion knotted in her throat. “I … I couldn’t just let you die.”

He swore again, this time harder and more creative, a combination of words she’d never heard strung together. He swung toward the beach, where the guards still stood beneath the battered palm, then back to her. “Come on,” he growled, taking her hand and practically dragging her toward the shore.

She stumbled after him, fighting the pull of the water returning to the ocean. “Ethan—”

He turned toward her and lifted a hand to her cheek, and though the lines of his face were hard, troubled, his touch was gentle. But still troubled. “I don’t want you to burn.”

Emotion swarmed her throat. Fighting it, she brought her hand to his, skimmed her fingers along the backs of his. “I’m tougher than I look.”

He frowned. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

* * *

Silence fell between them. They’d not spoken on the way down to the beach, either, but he’d held her hand then. Now he strode through the sugary sand with so much agitation she almost had to jog to keep up with him. One guard led the way, two followed close behind.

Ethan seemed oblivious.

Brenna welcomed the cooling breeze rustling the palms, despite the pinging of sand against her arms and back. Ethan was right. She had been starting to burn. But that wasn’t the reason he’d pulled away, and she knew it. She watched him navigating the narrow trail toward the compound, the tension in his darkly tanned back and shoulders, the way his damp cargo shorts hugged his backside, the taut lines of his legs. Runner’s legs, she knew. Finely muscled and strong. His feet were bare, but as tanned as his arms and chest.

She wondered if the same golden color graced all his body.

The thought stunned her, the corresponding image disturbed. Her body didn’t seem to care. With staggering ease she could imagine what he would look like walking in front of her completely naked, those powerful legs carrying his body with the masculine grace of a big, powerfully built cat, the way his muscles would bunch, the sun-kissed color of his skin.

Dangerous.

Brenna shoved the hair from her face and concentrated on the Mediterranean villa with the red-tiled roof. Emotional attachment led to pain. She knew that, had long realized she was better
off,
safer, steering clear of intimate relationships.

Relationships.
The word almost made her laugh. Almost. Instead it sharpened the pierce of longing.

“This way,” one of the guards instructed, opening a door to the compound. Ethan let Brenna step inside, then followed. She blinked hard, adjusting to the dim lighting after the bright wash of late-afternoon sun. Cool air embraced her.