True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3)) (20 page)

Elizabeth
picked out a tea bag that Gabe had sent, and it slipped from her hand. As she leaned over to pick it up, she heard the noise and stood fast. Pointed directly at her face was a gun and shaking hand holding it.

“Oh my God, Elizabeth! I’m so sorry,” said Desdemona, as she lowered the gun.
This was great. She just held her boss at gunpoint in the kitchen. Wait, not just her boss but a very pregnant woman that didn’t like her. When Callen Whitefox and Ethan Blackhawk heard about this, she was going to be walking back to her home. It was going to be a long lonely walk back, where she could contemplate her recent unemployment.

Elizabeth felt her heart start to beat again
, and she could tell the woman was about to cry. “Shhhhh. Doctor Adare, it’s okay. Let’s not wake the men.” She felt another pain and almost doubled over.

“Are you okay?” she asked her boss,
rushing to her side, and placing the gun on the island.

“Really bad pain,” she muttered
, trying to breathe through it.

Desdemona put her boss’
s arm over her shoulder. “Let’s get you to the couch and have you lay flat. I’ll check you out,” she whispered.

“Okay,” she practically growled from
between clenched teeth. That’s how bad it was, when she was going to allow her Medical Examiner to play OB-GYN on her while her very nervous husband could wander downstairs at any second.

Elizabeth let the woman help her to the couch. As she lay down, the pain subsided again and she hoped it never came back.

“Tell me what it feels like,” Desdemona whispered. “Where is the pain?”

Elizabeth pointed to the spot on her stomach where it radiated from. “It feels like someone’s running my stomach through a ringer.”

“No bleeding?”

“No.”

Doctor Adare ran her hands over her stomach and felt for the baby. Pushing in one spot, and then another until she got a response. “Is he moving a lot today?” she asked, as she continually checked her body. “Or barely moving?”

“He
’s moving a lot,” she answered, her eyes filling with tears. “Is he okay?” Now she was completely freaked out. Maybe waking her husband would be a good idea after all.

“Yes, he’s fine.
I can feel his head over here,” she took Elizabeth’s hand and pushed it into the one side of her belly. “And here’s his foot,” she showed her with her other hand.

“Then what’s the pain?” She was still nervous.

“Braxton-Hicks contractions. They start about twenty six weeks and will continue until the real ones start. They’re supposed to get a mother ready for what’s coming. Practice contractions,” she said grinning.

“Well
hell, if that was the pretend ones, I can’t wait to see the real deal,” she whispered back. “Thanks Doctor Adare.”

“You're welcome, and I did a rotation in medical school in obstetrics
. It was my second choice as a profession,” she smiled. It looked like Elizabeth Blackhawk was human after all and could feel pain and fear.

“Can I ask Doctor, why
an ME if you liked obstetrics?”

“Pregnant women bitch and moan too much for me. I like my patients to be very quiet,” she answered
, jokingly. “Besides, expecting mothers get freaked out when the doctor walks in wearing skulls.”

Elizabeth laughed.

“Let me make you some tea.” Desdemona stood and started for the kitchen.

“Thanks Doctor Adare.”

The woman took a chance. “Desdemona is fine Elizabeth,” she waited to see what the woman would do.

“Thank you Desdemona. I appreciate it.”

Adding water to the cup, she forgot to ask Elizabeth how she liked her tea. It occurred to her that maybe Callen had been right. Elizabeth wasn’t as tough as she thought. After all, she had just seen the fear in her eyes when she was worried about her baby.

When she carried the mug back in it wasn’t going to matter at all. Her boss had fallen asleep. Her wedding banded hand protectively over the baby in her body. Desdemona put the cup down beside her, and grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch.
Tucking the woman in, she stared down at her.

Yeah, maybe the book can’t be judged by its cover.
 

Morning came early, and Ethan rolled over to cuddle with his wife, and she was missing. He looked over at the clock on the bed stand, and it was barely six a.m. The house was silent, and then he got that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that something had happened to his wife. He rolled out of bed and was out the door and down the stairs in a panic. He rushed into the living room and slid to a stop. His wife was asleep on the couch, tucked in and safe, and Doctor Adare was sitting in a chair across from her, reading the tech reports that she had received an hour ago.

“Is she okay?” he asked, looking panicked. Never had she ever left their bed to sleep on the couch.

“She was having Braxton-Hicks contractions,” she whispered, trying to not wake her boss. “It was an uncomfortable night but nothing more.”

The man looked completely horrified that his wife had been having contractions and somehow he managed to sleep through it. “Will she be okay?” he asked, sincerely scared for his wife.

Doctor Adare nodded. “Perfectly normal from now until the end.” She looked up to see Callen rush down the stairs with his gun in his hand to stand behind his brother. All that went through her head was one word.

W
arriors!

Wow!

She had to admit that when her boss came down, she was flabbergasted, as he rushed into the room in just his boxers. Being a medical professional, a naked person wasn’t the shocking part. The truly amazing part about her boss was the tattoos covering his shoulders and chest. The director seemed so straitlaced, but across his body were multiple tattoos. One was a giant raven and the other was a tattoo paying homage to Elizabeth. Then she got round two of shocking. Callen rushed in too, same state- boxers and very shirtless. Yeah, half-naked it was clear that they definitely were brothers. Both men were a genetic match when it came to body and form plus the matching tattoo around their biceps.

Holy shit
times two.

That answered the question
s that had been plaguing her mind, if he was all angles and lines underneath his clothes. He was, and he too had tattoos. On his very defined abs was a tattooed fox. Desdemona felt the room getting very warm. Both men had the same matching tattoo around their bicep of their left arm, and she only hoped she wasn’t leering.

“What happened,” Callen looked around, and then he noticed Elizabeth asleep on the couch. “Is she oka
y?” he looked over at Desdemona, his eyes full of worry for his sister-in-law.

Unable to speak thanks to the
hot flash she was currently having, she simply nodded. Whitefox was a very sexy man. He and his brother both hit the genetic jackpot. They were two tattooed sex gods and she prayed she wasn’t staring like an idiot.

Oh crap, thinking about her boss like that w
as probably some cardinal sin, especially while Elizabeth lay in the room asleep.

“
Elizabeth was up in the middle of the night having Braxton-Hicks contractions. I stayed up to just make sure she was fine. I got some tech report reading done.” Desdemona smiled at both men, trying to sound professional. It occurred to her she could be talking very fast.

Whitefox
began calming down and noticed a couple of things. The first thing being that Desdemona Adare was wearing glasses to read, and they were sexy black schoolmarm ones that immediately heated his blood. The second thing was that he was partially naked and Doctor Adare was staring at both men.

“Uh, we should go get dressed
.” Whitefox punched his brother in the arm, trying to give him the hint that neither was dressed appropriately to be standing in front of the doctor. If it were just Elizabeth, he wouldn’t bat an eye, because it was a normal thing, but with the ME, that was crossing the line of comfort even for him.

Ethan just realized that he was partially naked himself. “Good idea,” he said, as both men made a hasty retreat.

Desdemona watched them both walk up the stairs, and both men had tattoos all over their backs too. Oh wow!

When both men were out of range, Desdemona let out a breath.

Elizabeth started giggling. When she opened her eyes, they were filled with laughter and understanding.

“I should probably apologize for ogling your half naked husband and brother-in-law,” Desdemona said, wondering if the laughter was the calm before the storm or if she was truly entertained.
“But really they weren’t easy to ignore.”

“They’re something, aren’t they?” she said, sitting up.

“Yeah, yeah they are, but I’m not sure that the word ‘something’ covers it. That’s a lot of tattoos between them,” she said, fanning herself with the tech report.

“For the record
, you don’t really ever get used to it. They walk around our house like that all the time. It can be distracting.”

“Great.” She made a mental note to avoid any situations where both men would be topless.
Then she realized how insane that would be. Who avoided naked perfection?

Elizabeth stood and stretched. “Thanks for not letting
Ethan freak out,” she said, finally. The fact Desdemona was checking out her husband didn’t bother her, but what intrigued her was the flush of heat that she could see across her face.

“You’re welcome
.” Doctor Adare knew she was still blushing.

“Which one got you all hot and bothered?” she asked,
watching the woman’s face carefully. She’d interrogated a lot of criminals, and could spot a lie a mile away.

Desdemona flushed further
, but felt like she needed to answer. “Callen,” she said honestly, and then blushed more, finally changing the subject.

“When I first saw them together, shirtless
in just jeans, they were working on the tree house in our back yard; I almost had to take a cold shower. From behind without the tattoos they’re identical.”

Desdemona laughed.
“I would have needed one definitely.”

The woman seemed to be relaxing a little more around her, and that was probably a good thing, since she was going to go out on a limb and take one for the Blackhawk team.
“It’s one of my fondest memories of all time. Topless Natives doing yard work.”

“They are definitely brothers. The matching tattoos were hard to miss.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Yeah, they certainly are brothers. I like the ones on their arms, but the raven on Ethan is my favorite.”

Desdemona noticed she didn’t mention her favorit
e one on Callen, and she suspected it was the heart with her initials on his back. Yeah, it was hard not to notice the beautiful script inside the heart, and she needed to change the subject, as she felt a wave of jealousy. “Thanks for not telling them about the gun in your face last night.”

“Girlfriend code strictly prohibits me telling the opposite sex anything like that.” Elizabeth let it hang there in the air between them. She opened the door and was giving the
doctor a chance to walk through it or walk away. It had to be her choice, and she figured the woman deserved a shot. It wasn’t only for what she did for her, but because she’d walk on glass for Callen Whitefox, and he asked her personally to keep the woman safe.

Desdemona didn’t know what to say. In all her life she never had a girlfriend, unless you counted her sister. “Thank god for the girlfriend code,” she said, standing
and joining her new friend.

“Coffee Desdemona?”

“Absolutely, Elizabeth.”

                             *       *       *

She stood in her secret hideaway and admired the collection. Lying behind her was the love of her life. He was silent now, and saying nothing, but that would come to an end soon. Shortly, he would be back to his old self, and then everything would be perfect again.

When she leaned over his body, she patted his dried cheek. No longer were there the horrific smells of decay lingering. His body was past that stage, and soon he’d be ready to be put back together again.

Piece by piece.

Part by part.

Limb by limb.

“What shou
ld be next, my love?” she asked and waited for his reply.

“Excellent choice, darling. I shall find you some eyes
, so you can gaze into my face and see how much I love you.

                         *       *       *

Elizabeth and Desdemona Adare stood in the kitchen together drinking coffee. Both women were dressed, but completely different. Elizabeth was a creature of habit. Today she was wearing a black stretchy top that was tucked into her well-worn low rise jeans. At Elizabeth’s hip was her gun and badge. She brought her cowboy boots, but wasn’t sure if she’d wear them or not. Something about the boots just gave her a sense of security, and always had since leaving home for the FBI. It was like carrying a piece of home with her everywhere, and she didn’t want to ruin them. It may be a snow boot kind of day.