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The SEAL in my Attic
ISBN #978-1-78184-002-3
©Copyright Jan Irving 2012
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2012
Edited by Laura Hulley
Total-E-Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination
and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or
places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form,
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and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator
of the artwork.
Published in 2012 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL,
United Kingdom.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This
story has a heat rating of Total-e-burning and a sexometer of 2.
This story contains 92 pages, additionally there is also a free excerpt at the end of the book
containing 7 pages.
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Lightning Strikes
THE SEAL IN MY ATTIC
Jan Irving
www.total-e-bound.com
Book three in the Lightning Strikes series
On the run with his sexy SEAL Caleb Black, Doctor Murphy Walton is looking for answers while
trying to avoid getting his heart stomped a second time.
Doctor Murphy Walton is having a really bad day. His favourite patient died in surgery and
now he’s on forced leave. He comes home and discovers sizzling cowboy Caleb Black
skulking in his attic. He’s never forgotten the SEAL or the passionate week they shared,
though he hasn’t heard from Caleb in more than a year.
But now things are different. Caleb doesn’t remember who he is or why he came to Murph.
All Caleb knows is he has to retrieve something from Murph’s attic…and keep him breathing
when assassins try to eliminate the one person he could never forget—shy, sweet Murph.
Dedication
To my friend Heather Eschuk, siren-voiced yogini who teaches the Nidra and has a mean
way with an hourglass. What if everything you are right now is as it should be? We only
have the now, we are only the grains of sand in the middle of the hourglass, falling.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following
wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Charlie Brown: Charles M. Schulz
Starbucks: Starbucks Corporation
The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You: Bryan Adams
Jameson: Pernod Ricard
Nero Wolfe: Rex Stout
Star Wars: George Lucas, 20
th
Century Fox
YouTube: Google Inc.
The X Files: 20
th
Century Fox Television, Chris Carter
Jeep: Chrylser Group LLC
Hummer: General Motors
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Chapter One
“It wasn’t your fault, Murph. You have to stop thinking you can save everyone,” Lilah
Blake told me over my phone.
I sat slumped in my rusted sedan, rubbing my eyes. As of now, I was on a forced
sabbatical, which could be permanent. I’d fucked up the first week of my residency in
surgery and, unless I could convince the all-mighty Dr Royce I wouldn’t fall apart the next
time I lost a patient on the table, I was out.
So much for heading back to the small town where I’d come from and running a needed
medical clinic. So much for all the years of grinding work. So much for the brass shingle I
hoped to hang—Dr Murphy Walton, Surgeon.
“It was my fault.” Even as I heard myself say it, I knew it wasn’t. Not unless I was God.
And I wasn’t. But damn, tonight I wanted to be.
“It’s not like you froze on the table. You did everything you could for Jeremy.” Lilah’s
voice was like relentless rain. If she only knew she wasn’t doing me any good. Whatever she
said, it just hurt.
“Anyone but me, Lilah. It shouldn’t have been me.” I’d been too close to the fourteen-
year-old who had passed away from complications. I’d known him for three years. He’d
been courageous, funny, smart as hell. And he’d wanted to be a doctor, never mind his heart
had been half the size it needed to be.
“Life sucks. Medicine more so.”
“Yeah.” My voice cracked. My mother had been a nurse and she’d warned me not to go
into medicine. Too grim, she’d said.
“When was the last time you slept?”
“No idea.”
“Get some rest. You’ve got a week off and I’d make the most of it. Then you can talk to
Royce and get your ass reinstated in the programme.”
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My body creaked as I got out of the car, still wearing the greens I’d worn in surgery. I
could smell myself, perspiration and fear and tears. The tears at least I’d shed in the privacy
of my locked car.
It had been the shittiest day ever…save one.
As I staggered up my sagging front steps, I knew I should take time to shower and have
breakfast. I couldn’t remember when I’d eaten anything and I knew my body was in serious
crash mode. If I let myself fall on my bed, I wouldn’t wake up for hours and I needed food
and water or I’d be hung over.
But when I walked into my kitchen, I stiffened. My favourite Charlie Brown Christmas
mug was on the table, but I hadn’t had time to make coffee the previous day. I’d gone
through a Starbucks drive-in on the way to the hospital instead. The pasta I’d made two
nights ago was on a plate. What hadn’t been consumed was drying into unappetising curls
while scattered bandages and a crumpled washcloth took up the rest of the space on my
kitchen island.
“The hell…?” Okay, I was a slob, no question, but I didn’t remember making this mess.
A warning tingle ran down the base of my spine, waking me out of my depressed fog.
I was not alone in my house.
I picked up the washcloth and saw it was stained with crimson clouds. Blood. There
were more dark stains on the floor, as if my intruder had bled on it.
Fabulous.
I should call the cops. I knew that. I even knew a few of them since cops and medical
personnel met up frequently in the battleground of the ER.
A loud thump from my attic above had me grabbing my phone. “Fuck this shit.”
And that’s when I spotted it, a wallet lying on the floor. Wow, crooks really did need to
take night courses in B&Es because I didn’t think leaving your wallet at the scene of the
crime was genius.
I flipped it open and stared at the driver’s licence.
“Un-fucking-believeable.”
My bad day had just got worse.
I found him curled in the foetal position.
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He was lying in the deepest shadows of my attic, his clothing dirty, torn and bloody. He
was shivering compulsively.
Despite that, his cornflower blue eyes were as beautiful as ever.
“Caleb.”
He just stared through me, like he didn’t know who I was, like he didn’t care.
“Some things never change,” I muttered.
His forehead was crusted with blood. The healer in me took over and I reached to
examine him.
One moment my hand was outstretched, the next I was flipped on my back, his forearm
digging into my neck. “Fuccckk!” I gasped. “Caleb, get…get off me!”
Those pretty eyes were blank, animal-like. He was running on reflex and that was scary,
given what he was. I let my hands fall to my sides. I didn’t fight him. If I fought him,
somehow I knew he’d kill me.
I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I heard my harsh breathing whistling in and out. God,
I needed to breathe!
He let me go abruptly, falling back on his butt, rocking.
“Caleb…” My voice was raspy. “What. The. Fuck.”
He buried his face against his raised knees.
Pain, he was in some kind of pain.
I sat up, rubbing my throat. Emotion swallowed me. I wanted to hit him. He deserved it
for what he’d put me through. I was glad he was a mess, the fucker—
I reached out slowly. “Caleb.”
His body tensed.
“Caleb, you know I’m a doctor. Let me look at you. You’re hurting…”
“I don’t…” His voice was strange, muffled. Didn’t sound like him. Caleb Black was
confident and used clipped military-speak—when he spoke at all.
“Caleb, come on.” I waited until he looked at me. I was taking no chances. Had the
stress from his job somehow broken him? I knew he was out of the country for months,
living under God knows what kind of conditions… “You must have wanted a house call, or
why are you here?” I tried a smile.
“You want to hit me,” he croaked.
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I laughed. “Yeah.”
He frowned, looking lost. “Why?”
Jesus, was he really that clueless? “Let me count the ways…” I growled, feeling the tide
of anger rise.
It didn’t help that, despite the dirt, despite the blood and edgy look in his eyes, he was
as gorgeous as ever. He wasn’t muscle-bound, but sleek, built for speed, built for deadly
intentions, the perfect killing machine. His brown hair was longer than I remembered,
hanging to just above his shoulders, giving him a wild look. His olive skin was pale and he
was unshaven, his jaw shaded with bruises. He was wearing a black wifebeater that showed
off the firm, rounded shape of his shoulders. His jeans were torn, spattered with mud.
And he stank.
“What happened to you?”
He only shook his head.
“I need to examine you. Caleb, no, don’t—Damn it!” I reached out and gripped his
upper arms, my heart thudding. You didn’t take liberties with Caleb. He was like a tiger that
allowed a caress on his terms, but if he decided he was done playing with you, he’d maul the
hell out of you.
And I was all too aware I meant nothing to Caleb.
“Hurts.”
I froze. Caleb saying ‘ouch!’ was totally out of character. The guy could eat bullets and
ask for more with a laugh, or so he’d always come across. All part of the image. He didn’t say
‘hurts’. He didn’t look lost. Hell, for all I knew, he didn’t bleed. Except…he did.
“Let. Me. See.”
I took his chin in my hand and looked into his eyes, checking out his pupils as best I
could in the shadowy attic. Next, I ran my hands gently over his face. He flinched when I
brushed fingers over a knot on the back of his skull. Mother fucker, that was one big lump.
“Okay, I know that hurt,” I said. “I need you back in the kitchen.”
He resisted, and Caleb resisting meant we went nowhere.
“I need better light.”
“It’s exposed,” he whispered. “A security risk.”
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Another chill went down my back. “I can’t help you if I can’t get a proper look. You
should be in a hospital!”
“No hospital.”
He went rigid under my hands.
“Caleb…”
“No hospital. First place…first place they’d look.” His head bent. He was panting,
shuddering in my arms, ice cold.
“Okay. Okay, look at me.”
He looked but then his gaze jerked around the room.
“Caleb, no hospital.” Unless I decided he needed one, then I’d renegotiate. “Come on,
let’s get you downstairs.”
He leaned on me, bent over like an old man. He was limping.
I put an arm around him, protectiveness rising. No one was going to hurt him. I didn’t
know what was happening, but no one was going to hurt him.
In the kitchen, he dragged one of the chairs against the wall before sitting in it. “You’re
late today,” he said.
I blinked. “Like you know my schedule,” I said sarcastically.
“Yeah, I do.” He said it like it was a fact.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand you. You show up after a year, you’re all beat to
hell—” He winced as I pulled the cotton of his wifebeater off some scrapes encrusted with
blood. “Just what did you do to yourself? You look like you’ve been running in the woods.”
“Woods, yes. Couldn’t risk a vehicle. Not here. Not coming here.”
He wasn’t making any sense. I examined his pupils again. “That lump on your head
was bad. I’d really like to get you checked out properly.”
“No.”
“Caleb, your colour isn’t good, you sound confused—”
“I’m…operational.”
“Barely.”
Except for a few scrapes, his chest, arms and back were fine. He took off his jeans,
revealing he still went commando. “You pulled a muscle in your knee?” His knee had some
previous scarring from what looked like a bullet wound.
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He ran a bemused hand over the white lines above the kneecap. “I don’t know.” He
looked at me sharply. “I don’t know!”
“All right. It’s okay, Caleb.” But it wasn’t okay. How could he not remember how he’d
hurt himself? Unless that knock on the head was a factor. “I really think you need some
tests.”
“No tests.” He jerked me close, his eyes running over my face. “You help me. You said
you were a doctor.”
I frowned. “You know I’m a doctor but I can’t—”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Help me in twenty minutes. Starting now. Go.”
“Jesus, Caleb, this isn’t some kind of game.”
But he sat back and I knew he wasn’t bluffing. Caleb never bluffed.
I went back to the sink, filled a bowl with hot water and soap and used it on his scrapes.
I washed the blood from his forehead and the back of his head. I wasn’t gentle when I probed
the injury.
“I’ll get you some clean clothing.” I still had some of my brother’s clothes, a towering
kid who played college football. He was about Caleb’s size.
When I returned with the clothing, Caleb was looking out of my front window. His
body was lined up with the drape so he wouldn’t be visible from the outside.
“Just what are you expecting, a SWAT team?” I tossed the clothes at him, fed up. He
caught them and unselfconsciously began to cover up that glorious body. Damn him. He
didn’t even look at me.
“Don’t know…” he whispered.
“Don’t know what?” I was so over him…
“Don’t know what’s happening.”
“Caleb, you really need to go to a hospital.”
He smoothed the blue cotton down his chest, then looked at me. “Thank you.”
That was another thing Caleb Black never did. Say thank you. “You’re creeping me
out.”
His brow furrowed. “By saying ‘thank you’?”
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“What are you doing here, Caleb? It’s for more than free medical help. You’re capable
of taking care of a few scrapes.”
He picked up the bowl and threw its murky pink contents into the sink, running the
tap. “Do you have a mop?”
“Huh?”
“A mop. You need to wipe up the blood on the floor.”
“I can house clean later. Right now I want answers.”
He strode into my living room with the rags and his filthy clothing.
“Caleb!” I ran after him, watching as he started a fire, building kindling, adding wood,
striking a match. When it caught, he tossed the rags and clothing into the fireplace.
“I’ll wipe down the kitchen,” he said. “The attic.”
My mouth was dry. I licked my lips. “You’re scaring me.”
He ignored my comment, using his T-shirt to wipe the table, chair, light switch. Then,
while I waited in the kitchen, I listened to him go up the stairs. Wiping things down. Why
would he need to do that?
When he returned I had the mop and bucket out. He put his dishes in the dishwasher
and even though it was only half full, he ran it. I mopped up the blood and dirt.
“Someone’s after you. Someone hurt you.”
He looked in the hall mirror, examining himself. “I have to cut my hair. I’ll do it
somewhere else.” He looked at me, face hard. “We have to go.”
I shoved the mop and emptied bucket into my cleaning closet. “What the fuck is going
on?”
He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit!”
He shoved me against the wall, breathing hard. “I don’t know!”
His elbow was against my throat. I held my hands up. “All right. What do you know?”
He dropped the arm, thank Christ. “I…woke up.”
“Where? When?”
“In…the woods. The woods near your house. This morning. I woke up and I was cold.”
“What are you doing here?”
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“I came… There’s something here.” His face changed. “I left something here. Months
ago.”
“You haven’t been here in more than a year,” I spat.
He shook his head. “No, I’ve been here. I left it here.”
“What?”
He ran his gaze over me. “Change. Do it now. You can’t be here when I leave; it’s not
safe for you here.”
I laughed. “This is my home. I’m not—”
He pulled out a gun. Shit, I hadn’t seen it, even when I’d stripped him. How had he
managed to conceal it? He pointed it at the floor but I got the message in his expressionless
face. “You know I’ll use it.”
“Yes,” I rasped.
He followed me to my bedroom, watched me as I sat on the bed where we’d once
tangled, sweaty and desperate, my hair in his fist, his body thrusting into mine… There was
no trace in his cold eyes that he remembered what we’d done here. I changed my clothes and
he grabbed my upper arm, herding me from the room. The gun had disappeared again but
he didn’t need it to intimidate me.
“What’s going on, Caleb, have you left your SEAL team?” I didn’t expect him to tell me.
He’d always been so secretive and now—
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice a monotone. “I don’t know, all right? I don’t know
who I am! I don’t know who you are.” He was trembling, breathing hard, sweat beading his
forehead. “I just came here. I had to come here.”
“You’re Caleb Black.”
He stared at me and I could see he was afraid, so afraid. “Caleb… I’m Caleb?”
“Yes, you’re—”
Glass broke downstairs in my entry way.
Caleb shoved me against the wall, covered my mouth with his hand. “Stay here,” he
whispered.
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Chapter Two
I couldn’t just stay here.
Caleb had disappeared like a puff of smoke.
I inched into my hallway, looking down the stairs towards the front door. The window
that ran vertically beside it had a round hole through it. Below it were broken shards and a
large rock on the tile floor.
My front door hung open, swaying slightly in the breeze.
I wiped the sweat on my upper lip.
Holy shit, what was Caleb mixed up in?
I crept down the stairs, listening hard, but somehow the air in my house made me feel
like it was now empty.
Caleb must have gone through that open door—after whoever had thrown the rock?
I hesitated. If I left the safety of my house, I would be entering Caleb’s world, one
where I didn’t belong. I was not a warrior. I had never killed anyone with my bare hands,
but I was willing to bet Caleb had.
I wanted to stay inside. I wanted to stay safe. But Caleb was out there and he wasn’t
himself. He was hurt, he was confused.
I blew through the open door and then dived behind my car. If it was just some kid
who’d thrown that rock, I’d be embarrassed. But I didn’t live close to any kids and I knew
Caleb sure as fuck hadn’t thrown it.
I stifled the sound of my breathing, listening to the tall grass rustling in my yard and
the woods beyond. When was the last time I’d been outdoors and really listened? I heard the
rake of claws as a crow lighted on a branch, watched as it squawked at a squirrel that froze
and then zipped up a tree.
I’d avoided the woods for a year. Since…Caleb. One of the few things we’d seemed to
have in common was love of the forest that bordered my property. Caleb and I had spent
hours walking the trails and had even made love there, me leaning against a tree, him
holding me, so it felt as if he’d been stroking me with his entire body.
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The concrete in the carport was cold and I was still in stocking feet, not having had time
to put on some shoes. Why hadn’t I done that before I’d come out here? Clearly I was a
failure at commando one-o-one.
But now I was out here I wanted to find Caleb and I wouldn’t find him hiding behind
my car.
I sucked in a deep breath and ran to the cherry trees in the old orchard. Pebbles and
roots dug into my feet. I made it beyond the clearing and clung to a sapling.
Nothing. I was alone out here. Had Caleb just…run off? How could he not know who
he was, unless the knock on his head was responsible? I really needed to convince him to go
to a hospital for tests as soon as possible. I—
Hands shoved me. I fell, hitting soft, leaf-covered earth.
“Stay down!” The voice wasn’t Caleb’s. It was harsher, with a southern accent. I was so
surprised, I looked up.
A boot smashed into my face. “Uh!” I caught my head in my hands, blood wetting
them. Christ, I hurt.
Running feet pounded towards me and my assailant. Whoever it was wasn’t bothering
to be stealthy. “Any sign of him?” Southern demanded.
“No.” The newcomer sounded winded. I didn’t recognise his voice either, though why I
should I don’t know. People in my everyday boring life didn’t shove me to the ground and
kick me in the face.
“I told you he’s not here.” Disgust flavoured Southern’s voice.
“I looked in the kitchen and it was clean. Looks like no one’s been around but the Doc
here.”
“You expect he’d leave any sign if he was here? Remember it’s him we’re talkin’ about,”
Southern said.
“So what do we do with the doctor?”
“What do you think? Take him deeper into the woods and do him.” Southern kicked
me for emphasis. I huffed through the red agony of his boot to the ribs. I’m getting fucking
tired of being kicked.
So do something about it, I ordered myself, or do you really want to go deeper into the woods
and let Southern’s pal do you?
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I leapt at Southern’s legs. “The fuc—” he yelped. I grabbed his balls, twisting—
We rolled, smacking into the base of a tree. He punched me in the head. My teeth
clicked together hard. I elbowed him and he grunted. “You little shit!”
An explosion, the loudest I’d ever heard. My face stung as I looked up through
watering eyes.
“Travers, you stupid asshole!” Southern yelled. “You’ll hit me!”
A shadowy figure loomed over us, something long and crooked in his fist. Caleb. He
was wearing white runners with blood caking the seams. My runners from my last rotation
in surgery.
“He didn’t mean to shoot at you,” Caleb said in a gentle voice.
“You!” Southern pointed his gun. I shoved him. It went off, that louder-than-God
sound I already hated.
Caleb leapt and he and Southern crashed beyond me. I heard the wet thud of fists into
flesh, a choked off sound. Then…the wind in the grass. The leaves rustling.
“Caleb?” I croaked. My face throbbed, my ears still rang from Southern’s fist.
Caleb made no sound. He was just there, touching my face. “Murph,” he whispered.
“Look at you.”
I grabbed him, squeezing my eyes shut. Oh, God, Caleb…
He pushed me back carefully. “We need to take a look at you.”
“Back at the house. I have antiseptic, bandages.”
“I remember.” There was a little sliver of humour in those bleak eyes. “It’s about all I
remember.”
“Peachy.” He had to help me to my feet. “What about those men?” But I spotted
Southern, his hands above his head, his eyes open and a tree branch studded through the
centre of his torso. I had seen gross injury before, but this was different. This was… I covered
my mouth, breathing shallowly. Sweat coated me. “Caleb, what have you—”
He dragged me towards the house. I saw the other man, his head twisted, left like
debris in my woods. “They…they were going to kill me, weren’t they?”
Caleb didn’t answer. He lifted me off my feet, carrying me under one arm towards the
house. My nose was running, the blood pounding pain through my face. And then I was in
my kitchen, hunched in a chair, and Caleb calmly pulled out the first aid kit.
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“Tweezers,” I rasped. “For my face it would be best.”
“I know what I’m doing,” he muttered. “Don’t you worry, Doc.”
I laughed because…oh, my God! How could I not be worried? I closed my eyes,
concentrated on my breathing and let Caleb pull out the splinters.
“Ricochet,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“From the bullet that idiot Travers fired when I—Never mind. That’s why you’ve got
splinters from a tree embedded in your face.”
“Oh.” I guess it was helpful to know that. “You killed those men.” I swallowed
convulsively. “You killed them.”
“They were going to kill you. Or worse.”
“Worse? What could be worse?”
He looked at me and I didn’t want to ask him what would have been worse than them
killing me. Because he looked like he’d tell me and I really, really didn’t want to know. My
ears were buzzing and I was swallowing and swallowing and my saliva made me sick. It
tasted like iron and blood.
He wiped my face. Crying, I was crying.
“Murph.” His tone said he was sorry.
“You fucking bastard.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s twice you’ve wrecked my life.”
“I did?” He looked surprised at the very idea he’d have that kind of power over me.
“We have to call the police. We have to—”
He was shaking his head. “They can’t help you.”
“Caleb—”
“They can’t. This is… They just can’t help. All that will happen is they’ll lock you up, at
best as a material witness and then you’ll be helpless. And then they will come for you.”
“More of those men?”
He nodded.
“Why did they want me dead?” I sounded plaintive, like a child.
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“It’s me they want. Like you said, twice I’ve wrecked your life.” He stood. “We’ve got
to leave. Now. I’ll be upstairs. Put some shoes on, Doc, and grab some clothes.”
“Caleb, I can’t just—”
“Don’t ask me to leave you behind, Doc.” His voice was hoarse. “Don’t ask. Because if I
do that, they’ll kill you and I can’t stand anything happening to you.”
He was gone before I could ask him more questions, demand answers. God damn him.
Gone before I could even figure out what the hell I was feeling.
I stood, my bones creaking, aching, sore.
I found some shoes in the closet, put them on, groaning because it hurt like a bitch
when I bent over. Ribs were probably bruised from that kick Southern had given me.
Upstairs I threw some clothes into a duffle bag, coming out of my bedroom in time to find
Caleb waiting for me, cradling a metal box I didn’t recognise.
“What’s that?”
He rubbed his forehead. “I…left it here.”
“I had no idea.”
“No.”
“So you came back for it.” Not me. He hadn’t come back to talk to me. If he hadn’t been
hurt, confused, I wondered if I’d ever have even known he’d come at all.
“We have to leave.” He opened the closet and took out one of my sports coats, covering
up the gun and holster he was wearing over my T-shirt. “Come on.”
Since I had no choice, I followed him to my car. “You drive,” he ordered.
“Where to?” My tone was sarcastic but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Away from here, but drive the way you normally do, like a senior out for a Sunday
drive.”
“Screw you, I don’t drive like that!”
“Yeah, you do.” He settled in beside me, still holding tight to the box he’d retrieved.
“How do you know if you don’t remember me?”
He blinked. “Don’t know.”
“What about those men…their bodies?” I had to wipe my mouth as I pulled out of my
driveway. I was having trouble swallowing again. “We need to call someone!”
“Stop.” His voice was flat. “Just drive, Doc.”
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“Caleb, those men will be found and—”
“No, they won’t. Not the way you think.” He put the box aside and pulled out the maps
I kept in the passenger door. “Your home will be sanitised.”
“Sanitised?”
“Cleaned up.” He opened a map, spreading it wide and studying it. “The police won’t
be involved.”
And why did that make the nausea worse? “Who did those men work for?”
“The…” He paused. The way he closed his eyes made me think his head was hurting.
“Institute.”
“The institute.” Well, that told me a lot. “I thought you were a Navy SEAL.”
“I am.” But he was pale, sweat beading his skin. “I…think.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
Blue eyes the colour of summer flowers glared at me. “Drive north. When you hit the
interstate we’ll stick with it until we’re a town over, then we’ll switch to the back roads.”
“What is this institute?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was flat, a verbal slap.
“You knew enough to know they’d come after you.”
“I’m going to catch a nap.” He wrapped his arms around himself, almost protectively,
closing his eyes.
“A nap?” How the hell could he sleep? “Listen, I don’t know if that’s a good idea with
your head injury.”
But he was already asleep, his eyes in rapid eye movement and I remembered how he’d
told me part of his training had been to snatch sleep in short takes.
Which was just dandy because it left me turning onto the interstate with no idea if I
could trust him.
What did I really know about Caleb Black?
The highway was too empty, the car too quiet. Despite Caleb’s naptime, I switched on
the radio and Bryan Adams rasped The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You.
Oh, Jesus.
That took me back. Right back to the night I’d first met Caleb.
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“I think he’s checking you out,” Lilah said, nudging me as we sat together at the bar of The
Lonely Cowboy club, where she’d dragged me.
“Who?” I’d been up for twenty-four hours. I felt kind of spacy. I knew from past experience that
when I crashed I’d fall like a redwood.
“Hot muscle T-shirt guy. He’s sitting alone at the table by the juke box.” Lilah made a smacking
sound with her lips. “Maybe it’s me he wants… Damn it, no. He’s staring at your ass.”
I gave her a groggy look. “This isn’t a gay bar. It’s a craptastic country and western bar. I am
not getting checked out.” Sometimes logic worked in talking my best friend down from her optimistic
view of life.
“He’s into you.”
“Not even likely.” My last boyfriend had been… I blinked since I couldn’t remember. Years. It
had been years since someone had touched me. Jesus, now that was depressing.
“No getting depressed on your birthday,” Lilah scolded.
“Yeah, like that’ll work. You ever work the ER at Christmas?”
“Oh, shit!” Lilah’s voice took on an awed tone. “He’s coming over here.”
I had to look then. What I saw was an impressive six-three of long, tall, dangerous looking
cowboy. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with two camels kissing on it. A hand-woven band
around one thick wrist. His cowboy boots were scarred, like he really used them for more than city
walking. And his eyes… His eyes were lit gasoline, burning into me.
I swallowed my beer the wrong way and next thing I was gasping and spitting and Lilah was
thumping me. Wow, I was a real siren. I could see why Lilah was sure the guy was into me.
But when I looked up, the arms that held me, had thumped me a bit more heartily than I
appreciated, belonged to the sizzling cowboy.
“You were not checking out my ass,” I said, then wanted to die all over again. But no way was
someone like him, so…beautiful coming on to me in this crappy bar.
He raised a brow and then looked down at my rear. “It’s a cute ass.”
“I…yeah?”
Lilah shoved me and my mainframe came back online. “I’m Murphy and this is my friend
Lilah.”
He nodded to Lilah who was watching us, spellbound.
“Caleb Black.” He looked at me. “I’m on leave so I don’t have time to fuck around. I want you.”
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My breath got stalled somewhere between my chest and my throat. People just didn’t say things
like that. Not to me.
His brows lowered and he bent close, as if absorbing my scent. “Yes or no?”
My brain was still misfiring. I got lost in his eyes.
“Yes.”
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Chapter Three
“Oh my God, what happened to you?” Lilah Green demanded as soon as she opened
her apartment door. Her Labrador retriever, Bingo, sniffed at my leg, then lost interest in me
and Caleb, ambling back to the sprawling dog bed that dominated Lilah’s small open-space
living room.
“I’m okay,” I reassured her. “Just a little banged up.”
“A little. Trust a doctor to be a lousy judge,” she grumbled. Then she blinked, seeing
who was with me as Caleb stepped out of the shadows, his gaze on the stairwell behind us.
He was charged up, giving off that warrior vibe, which sent a chill ghosting up my spine.
“Caleb!”
Caleb looked at her. “I know you?”
“Huh?” She frowned at me, as if I could explain my perplexing boyfriend.
“It’s a long story.”
“Apparently. Come in,” she ordered in a brisk tone. “I’ll get my supplies.”
I grimaced, knowing I was in for a thorough exam and an even more thorough clean-up
of my throbbing face.
Lilah pushed her long brown hair out of her eyes, leading me firmly to the island that
divided her kitchen and living room. “Sit,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.” I shrugged out of my coat, watching as Caleb paced the room, his gaze
sweeping over the windows, the doors to the bathroom and bedroom. I was willing to bet, if
we were suddenly under a full-scale attack, he’d already decided the best line of
retreat…which didn’t help me relax as Lilah returned and tipped my chin up to take a look at
my punctured skin.
“Ouch,” she said with sympathy. “What have you done to my doctor, handsome?” She
glared at Caleb.
“Saved my life, Lilah,” I told her, heading her off. She was my best friend, a nurse at the
same hospital where I worked and she’d sat with me in the lounge too many nights when I’d
checked my phone and email, dying for a bat signal from Caleb.
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“What’s going on?” Lilah used cotton balls and liberal amounts of antiseptic to burn
what was left of the skin off my face. I gave her advice on my treatment, which she ignored.
“No bandages,” Caleb said when Lilah took out a roll.
“Why not?” Lilah asked.
“Too noticeable.”
“Uh-huh.” Lilah sat back and folded her arms, giving me her best nurse glare.
“I came home and found him,” I spilled. “Caleb was in my attic, hurt and confused.”
“Hurt?” She ran her gaze over him but my dragon didn’t demand Caleb come over for
a taste of antiseptic. Wise woman.
“He’s got a head injury I’m concerned about.”
“It’s nothing.” Caleb shrugged.
“Sure, which is why you don’t remember who you are.” Caleb seemed unmoved by my
sarcasm. “Jesus, aren’t you concerned?”
“Yeah, I am!” He looked away.
A tense moment drew out like a string about to give on a guitar. I waited, but still Caleb
didn’t speak, didn’t look at me. It was like he was hiding. From me or from himself, I didn’t
know. “All right. I want to take a better look at you now we’re here at Lilah’s,” I said, falling
back on routine. “Strip.”
“I told you I was fine.”
I just laughed at that one. When he still didn’t move, I decided to throw some logic into
the picture. “You don’t know what’s happened to you, even…who you are. Consider that
your body is like a clue in an episode of CSI.”
He lifted one of his hands, broad in the palm, scarred on the wrist. “I don’t remember
how I got this scar.” His tone was so mild it spooked me.
“So we’ll get it back. We will, Caleb. Despite my recent reversal of fortune, I’m a damn
good doctor, so strip.”
He blinked at me, then something that might have been a smile on anyone else touched
his mouth. “You were never into domination, Doc.”
“How do you know that?”
“I…” He winced, shook his head. “Like your driving. Just…do.”
“He should be in a hospital!” Lilah grumbled.
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“You think?” I glared at Caleb.
Without a word he put aside the box he hadn’t wanted to leave behind in my car and
began to strip out of his borrowed clothes. Lilah opened her mouth then shut it, as if she’d
decided she might as well treat herself to a look at Caleb.
Looking at him in the mix of sepia and shadows reflected from the street, I flashed back
to the first time he’d stripped for me. The motel with the stereotypical flashing light—rooms
available, twenty-four-seven. His body in charcoals, highlighted by neon.
Our first time.
As soon as we entered the motel room, Caleb put his hands on his hips, glaring at me. “What,
you were expecting, true heart Valentine’s? This is a fuck. You are going to get fucked. I am going to
fuck you.”
I sat up on the double bed, glaring back. “I know why we’re here.”
He cocked his head. “How many boyfriends have you had?”
“How many for you?” I shot back.
“None.”
I blinked. “Um, you’re a virgin?”
He smirked. “Oh, hell, yeah.”
“Liar.”
“Let me guess,” he said as he slowly lifted his T-shirt up, revealing smooth, olive skin like warm
human silk over muscle, his tightly beaded nipples, the heavy shoulders, the thin runner’s waist. “You
have relationships.”
“They’re the most satisfying.” Why was I with him? He was a jerk. Then I saw the cowboy hat
he’d left on the side of the bed and remembered. Oh, yeah, sexy cowboy. That fantasy really worked for
me…but it didn’t explain the way my breath got caught in my chest when I looked at him, hurting.
“You’re an asshole.”
“You need to remember that.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doin’ what?”
“Being such an asshole. It’s not necessary.”
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He moved to the window, looked out at the parking lot. “I shouldn’t be with you, Doc. I should
know better.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Better for you.”
I got up, went to the window, deciding I wanted to look into his eyes, get a shot at reading his
expression. “I don’t think so.”
He took hold of me. Fingers fisted in my T-shirt, he slammed me against the wall. The breath left
my body in shock and I wasn’t sure if he was going to hurt me. There was violence crackling like
summer lightning in those blue eyes.
And then he kissed me, devoured me, and it was Caleb who was shaking, Caleb seeking comfort.
“What’s wrong, tell me what’s wrong?” I asked softly.
But he only knelt at my feet, looking up at me like I was the rising moon. “I want to see you,” he
said.
I swallowed, feeling hot and sweaty and goddamned awkward. This was, oh yeah, why I never
did one-nighters. They were just too…embarrassing. “I’m not much to look at.” I winced, hating the
adolescent insecurity I hadn’t been able to shake. I was usually much smoother now with my lovers but
they were always friends, their bodies familiar, comfortable.
Caleb was about as friendly as a rabid wolf and as comfortable as an earthquake.
“I disagree.” His voice was absorbed as he lifted my T-shirt and put his mouth to the centre of
my chest. A soft brush of lips, almost tickling me as I closed my eyes and all my awareness lived in
that moment.
“I want to see you too,” I groaned. He was the chocolate cake, the dessert I wanted to reward
myself with, even though I knew he was bad for me. From the first moment I’d seen him with that
attitude blazing and those low-cut jeans, I’d wanted to see him in nothing but skin.
“Beautiful skin,” I muttered now as I tugged on his T-shirt.
“Hey there, Mr Impatient. It’ll be better if you wait.”
“I’m sexually deprived and you’re tall, dark and brooding. That’s foreplay.”
He laughed and I grinned back. Well, well. He also has a sense of humour. Nice.
Then he put his mouth against my abdomen, sucking gently.
A raw sound burned out of my throat. Never. Never had I felt anything like that. He touched me
and I came alive, like I’d never been alive before.
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“Earth to Murphy.” Lilah’s sharp tone was a slap.
“Oh, Caleb,” I whispered. He was thinner than I remembered, almost emaciated, his
ribs standing out like spines on a fan. “What have they been feeding you?”
Not only thin, but bruised, dark flowers blooming under the flesh. The healer in me had
to reach out with compassion. Not for the first time I wished I had it in me to heal someone
just from my touch.
I ran my hands over his chest and Lilah appeared at my side with a paper and pen.
“Bruising on the upper chest. On the belly.” Fists. Someone had done this with fists.
Anger lit like a match in my gut.
I looked at Caleb but he remained silent, looking at the damage on his body with a
distant kind of curiosity.
“Do you remember how you got them?”
He shook his head. “Look a couple of days old from the colour.”
“What were you doing a couple of days ago?”
“I…” He rubbed his forehead. “In the woods. I was in the woods.”
I stroked his shoulder. “Good. That’s good, Caleb.”
“It doesn’t tell me why!”
“Pieces. This is a puzzle, remember? And I thought the SEAL’s motto was ‘the only
easy day was yesterday’?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Pieces. I will come back from this.”
“Damn straight.” I had him raise his arms and ran my hands over him but all I
discovered was that he was extraordinarily sensitive on the inside of his wrists and
underarms. His wrists were also circled in bruises. From being restrained? When I asked, I
got another shake of the head—he didn’t remember.
I was quick and impersonal as I examined his lower body, though I remembered
putting my lips on his thighs, on his—
I closed my eyes, inhaled sharply, then I snapped back into action, even looking at the
space between his toes. “Little red bump here. Possibly from an injection?” I took a closer
look at the juncture between his big toe and second toe.
“I don’t…” Caleb didn’t finish.
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“All right.” I worked my way up the back of his legs and thought maybe there were
other possible injection sites on the backs of his knees. It was odd… Why inject him there,
unless in the hope it was somehow more discreet? Unless he’d been injecting himself with
something, a drug that might have resulted in memory loss?
Lilah recorded everything as I reached his rear end and gently separated the cheeks.
“Caleb, any discomfort here?”
He frowned, then his eyes widened. “No.”
I nodded, relieved.
I stroked up his back, feeling each vertebra, then came to a dead stop. “Oh…”
“What?” Caleb twisted around, annoyed.
“Your back.”
“What about it?”
I touched the first of the scars. “You didn’t have these a year ago,” I said.
He reached back and brushed at the scars that covered him from mid back to his
shoulders. “Nothing new.”
No. From the look of them, white snakes breaking his skin, they’d been inflicted some
time shortly after he’d disappeared from my life.
“Do you remember how you got them?” I asked.
“No.” He studied my face. “They don’t hurt, Doc.”
“Not now.” But they must have hurt and, from the look of them, no one had bothered
to stitch up the deeper ones. “Jesus.”
I sat back on my heels, feeling how much bigger this was than me, a country doctor
wannabe. “Those men and now this… What the hell are you into, Caleb?”
He reached for his pants.
I sighed, then headed for Lilah’s small Chinese-replica cabinet. She kept the Jameson
there. I poured myself a glass, swallowed it whole, then could breathe again.
“We need to look in the box I retrieved,” Caleb said.
We. That was something else different about him. He’d always been the ultimate loner,
making it clear that he didn’t see himself in a relationship. Ever. How fucking perfect the
universe was that when he opened up, it was because he was broken.
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He sat on the floor and opened the box. It was disappointingly empty except for two
things. I knelt beside him, staring at the photo.
He looked at it, then at me.
“Um.” Lilah headed for the cabinet. “I think I need a drink too.”
The photo had been taken at dawn in my bedroom. Caleb must have pushed back the
curtains I used habitually to block out the sun so I could get as much sleep as possible. I was
spread out on my bed, naked, and still damp from good sex.
I was sleeping.
“You took this,” I said.
He reached out and traced the line of my back much the same way as I had his a few
moments before. “Yes.”
“You remember?”
“No. But… I had to keep it secret, that’s why it was in the box.”
He picked up the key that was the second item, turning it over in his hand.
“Looks like it opens a bus locker, maybe,” I said. “Look, there’s some printing.”
He frowned, squinting. “Can’t make it out.”
“Try a rubbing.” Lilah went to her desk and retrieved more paper and a pencil,
bringing it to Caleb. He nodded his thanks and then began scribbling. Letters appeared in
relief…
“Mason depot.” He was rubbing his forehead, hard. I grabbed his hand, pulled it away.
“Hurts?”
“A little.”
“I really think we should get you into a hospital.”
“I go there, I die. And then they’ll come for you. I can’t protect you if I’m dead.”
“But how do they—whoever they are—know about me?”
“Because of who you are,” he said. “They must have found out.”
“Found out what?” This was getting more and more confusing.
“Are you up for a road trip, Doc?” He slammed the empty box closed, pocketing the
key…and the photo.
“Found out what, Caleb?” I glared at him, making it clear I went nowhere until he
explained himself.
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“That I love you,” he said flatly.
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Chapter Four
“I’m not running out on Murph,” Lilah said, blasting me a look to remind me of my
birthday. Damn, like I was going to forget that miserable night. It had been a year ago and I’d
been so sure Caleb would call me, maybe show up and—
But it hadn’t happened.
“You need to stay safe for Murphy,” Caleb said quietly. He was hunched in the
shadows so about all I could make out was the gleam of his eyes. He was sitting at Lilah’s
small dining room table, putting together a pack of necessities—which included knives from
her butcher block. The plan was we would light out before dawn, but Lilah wasn’t happy
about that.
Of course my best friend wanted to come with us.
Caleb was against the idea. So was I.
“You don’t even know who these men were, Murph,” she said, turning to me. “What if
they worked for the government?” Her meaning was clear. In other words, what if Caleb was
hunted man for good reason?
I swallowed around a suddenly bone-dry throat. “I don’t know, Lilah. They didn’t act
on the up and up. They tried to kill me and they didn’t exactly show off identification.”
“They had none,” Caleb said. “The bodies didn’t have any identification.”
The bodies. I swallowed, swallowed again.
Lilah looked sick too. “Is that significant?”
“Yes.”
We waited but he didn’t add anything.
“Enough with the cryptic!” Lilah burst out. “Why is it significant to those of us who
haven’t attended super-spook school?”
“They didn’t want to be identified if something went wrong with their op.”
“Which was?”
“Find me. Either secure or kill me. Kill Murphy.”
“Kill…” Lilah gripped my hand. “Murph, what have you got into?”
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“That’s just it, Lilah. Caleb and I have to find out and we can’t do that if we’re worried
about you.”
“Sexist…”
“Hardly. But if you want to hang me for being protective, then fine. It’s the way I’m
wired.”
“I don’t need your protection, Murph.”
“Listen to me, Lilah.” Caleb’s voice signalled he was out of patience. “This isn’t your
ordinary life. This is something you have no experience with.” Caleb shoved the pack aside
and knelt beside Lilah, where she was seated next to me on the sofa. He took her face in his
palms. “These men are very good at what they do. The best. And they will find you and they
will interrogate you and you will not enjoy it. After you’ve outlived your usefulness, they
will end your life. Believe it, absolutely.”
Whoa, Jesus. Navy SEAL meets Terminator.
“Baby, just go stay with your folks in the Appalachians. Whatever’s happening, I don’t
want you to be a part of it. And Caleb’s sure they’ll trace you sooner or later because you’re a
close friend of mine.”
“But I don’t want to leave you,” she repeated.
“Yes, you do,” Caleb said. “You really do.”
“That’s reassuring,” she snapped. “You already did a number on Murph. I mean, has he
slept with anyone else since you? No.”
I winced.
Caleb’s eyes were hot when he looked at me, reminding me of that night in the crappy
bar when we’d first met. “No one?”
“Can we stay on topic here?” I held Lilah’s gaze. “I need to do this with Caleb.”
“You need a wingman—or, in this case, wingwoman. I can see leaving my place for a
while, but I can check into a motel under another name.”
I looked at Caleb and he shrugged. Short of mind control, I think it was the only way I
was going to get Lilah safe. “Okay, that will work. You could be the base of operations. Caleb
and I could hook up with you after we track down the locker his key opens.”
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“Go to the bank in the morning,” Caleb instructed. “Take out cash. Not too much for it
to look suspicious but enough to hold you for a while. Don’t use your debit or credit cards
anywhere. Can you switch cars with anyone?”
She chewed her lip. “Yeah, I guess. Millie would probably do that. Her car’s a real
beater so she’d love to drive my SUV. She could also cover for me at work…as long as this
doesn’t drag on forever.” Lilah looked mournful at the idea of leaving her car and job, but
she was obviously getting into the game. “Anything else?”
“Leave your cell phone here. Buy an anonymous one.” Caleb pulled out one of those
temporary cell phones from his pocket and gave Lilah the number. “And don’t contact
anyone you know. You need to disappear, Lilah. We’ll be in touch.”
He picked up the pack and looked at me and I realised he wanted to leave. Now.
Lilah grabbed my arm. “I’ll be in a motel that takes pets.”
“All right.”
“Murph…” She lowered her voice, glanced at Caleb. “Be careful. I’m not sure you can
trust him.”
Caleb’s expression was bland, though he must have caught Lilah’s words.
“Bus is leaving,” he told me.
“Can I ask you something?” I rubbed my eyes, slumped in the passenger side of the car
Caleb had stolen at three a.m. that morning. “Did you refrain from telling me the big heaping
news that you’re in love with me because of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’?”
Caleb blinked, bars of light and darkness from the highway hitting his face and making
it even harder for me to read. “No.”
“Do you know why you were such an asshole when we were together?”
He frowned in concentration. “No.”
“Uh-huh.”
He reached over and slid a hand through my hair, stroking it off my face. The gesture
was so tender I caught my breath. “You need to sleep, Doc.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.” I was beyond tired after the long shitty shift in the OR, then
finding Caleb and almost getting killed. My heart ached as if it was bruised. Why did it hurt
to know he’d loved me? I curled up and rested my head on the window.
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“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Caleb said. “That’s a promise.”
“It would help if we knew who was trying to hurt me.”
His face hardened. “When I find out, it won’t be an issue.”
I believed him. One thing Caleb was, for sure, was a man of his word.
He cleared his throat, looked at me. “Will you…tell me about yourself?”
“Huh?”
His lips quirked. “Since I don’t remember anything about you, other than you’re a
doctor and you’re cute as hell.”
“Cute?” I wasn’t sure I liked being called cute. Okay, the way he was looking at me, I
guessed it was all right. “I don’t know what to say.” This felt as awkward as that night in the
bar. Hello, you’re hot. Let’s get it on.
“Do you have any, you know, hobbies? Like growing orchids?”
“I’m not Nero Wolfe,” I said.
He laughed, obviously getting the reference to the iconic detective who had grown
orchids.
“Wow, you like Rex Stout?” I asked.
“I… Yeah.” He frowned. “Weird I can remember the plot to most of his books and not
what I did last Monday.”
“You really need to get a proper work-up.” I waved my hand when he opened his
mouth. “After we settle this. Promise me.”
“If it’s feasible, Doc.”
“Caleb…”
“I can’t make promises like that. I don’t know if I’ll have to disappear.”
“Disappear? Shit.” I rubbed my eyes again. “I don’t want to know.” This thing between
us was as doomed as it had been the first time. “I don’t grow orchids but when I have time
away from my crazy schedule I like to garden.”
He nodded. “I noticed the piled rocks and pond at your place and all those spiny little
plants that look like cacti.”
“Succulents. They’re tough enough to get through the winters if you put them
somewhere protected.” I didn’t add that I’d done all the heavy lifting for that garden when
he’d left me. I’d wanted to be exhausted, to stop thinking about him, to stop missing him.
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“I wonder if you could eat them.”
I blinked. “Eat succulents?”
“I’ve had to forage in some unfriendly places sometimes. I always check out the plant
life.”
“Like a hunter-gatherer.”
“Essentially. What else do you like to do in your free time?”
Dance with you. But I couldn’t say it, of course. He didn’t remember. “Go to clubs. Hook
up with hot guys.”
“Liar.” But uncertainty flashed like lightning in his blue eyes.
“I’m really more of a home body. It was a fluke that I met you at all.”
“Bet you wish you hadn’t.”
I closed my eyes. “Yeah, sometimes.”
“I’m sorry. I should have stayed away from you. I don’t know why I didn’t… I must
have known…”
“Known what?”
He shrugged. “We’re ten minutes out from Mason depot according to the GPS. Can you
take the map out of the glove compartment? I want to take another look at this side road.”
I pulled it free and fanned it open. “Wow, whole lot of nowhere around this place,” I
noted. I looked at him. “I’m not even sure it’s still in operation. It lists it as some kind of train
and bus depot but it looks like maybe the route was abandoned.”
“I guess we’ll see.”
Fifteen minutes later we pulled up beside a rusted chain stretching across the pitted
secondary road. A drunken sign with neon graffiti splashed like blood across it read ‘Mason
Depot’.
“Not very promising.” I got out of the car, needing to stretch my legs to stay awake. It
was very quiet and very, very dark. I couldn’t make out the light from buildings anywhere
close by. We were alone with the whisper of leaves rustling and the sky studded with cold
stars and the setting moon.
Caleb stood frozen in front of the chain.
“What?” His posture was giving me the creeps. It was like he was listening for
something I couldn’t hear.
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“I’ve…been here before.”
“What do you remember?”
“This is a bad place,” he said softly. “A very bad place.”
Chilled, I wrapped my arms around myself. I had the same feeling of being watched I’d
had when the men had attacked us in my woods.
He unclipped the chain and tossed it in a heap on the side of the road. “You should stay
here with the car, Doc.”
“I feel a helluva lot safer with you than waiting alone.”
“So be it.” We both got back in the car and I felt a primitive relief to feel the metal and
glass as a shield between me and the stretch of lonely countryside.
Caleb drove without the lights, inching us forward. Finally he stopped the car again
and looked at me. “Dawn’s about an hour away.”
I imagined staying here in the car, listening hard at every night sound, waiting for
Caleb. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You do exactly what I say,” he said. “In case you hadn’t picked up on it, we’re not
alone out here.”
“How do you know that? Is it something you remember?”
He shook his head. “I feel it.”
Great. That was just great. “I don’t see a sign for the depot. Are we lost?”
“It’s further on. Safer if we walk there.”
He handed me one of Lilah’s kitchen knives. I shoved it back at him. “I don’t think I can
use that!”
“Not even to save your life or mine?” He held it out, waiting. “Put it in your jeans
pocket, Doc.”
I took it from him, swallowing hard.
He pulled his gun out. “Stay behind me. Walk where I walk.”
I nodded. My heart was thundering. I didn’t want to do this. I wasn’t cut out for this.
I was going with him anyway.
He eased the door on the car shut and I emulated him before crunching gingerly across
the gravel-strewn road to stand behind him. He stood there, T-shirt billowing from a sudden
chilly wind, eyes gleaming catlike under starlight. I could hear the faint sound of his
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breathing. Then he ghosted forward and I stumbled less gracefully after him, wincing as I
crunched a twig under foot.
“This road hasn’t been used in a while. Look at all the debris.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. Then he cleared his throat. “How’s your brother doing?”
I looked at him, surprised he remembered me talking about my family. “He just
finished his third year in law school. He’s met a girl and it’s getting pretty serious from what
I understand.”
“Sounds…nice. Regular life.” He made it sound exotic. But, to him, maybe it was.
“I guess. We were close once, but he couldn’t handle what happened to Dad, the
dementia.”
“I remember that much.” Caleb nodded soberly. “You said your father clung to you like
a life raft when his short-term memory went.”
“Yeah.” It hurt even now, remembering those years. I’d been in first year medicine. “He
didn’t want me to stop, to just leave school and take care of him full-time. Whenever I
brought it up, we fought.”
“Love is the last light to go out,” Caleb said. “When the darkness comes.”
My throat tightened. He understood. “What about your family? You never talk about
them.”
“Foster brat,” Caleb said. “Didn’t have any. Then I joined the Navy and I found my
place.”
“More like earned it, if what I’ve read about hell week is true for SEALs.”
His lips twisted wryly. “That, I wish I could forget.”
I looked at him then, couldn’t help myself. In the dim light I caught his blue eyes
smiling into mine, his unshaven jaw, the rumpled brown hair that looked like I’d run my
fingers through it.
He almost looked like the very hot boy-next-door, except there was something more to
him, an edge I’d felt from the beginning.
Dangerous. He was a dangerous man, capable of things I couldn’t imagine.
“I called you,” he said, gaze falling away.
“Excuse me?”
“I, uh… I read the obituary for your father and I called you.”
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“You read it?”
“I got your local paper. I watched over you, Doc.”
“I didn’t get your message.”
“I didn’t leave one.”
“Oh.” I sucked in a deep breath, remembering those dark days when my father had
passed away and Caleb was gone. “I appreciate the thought, I guess.”
“It was a mistake. That’s probably how they learned about you. I just couldn’t let go.”
“Caleb…” But when I looked up from my careful watch of my footing, Caleb was gone.
Cold iced my back and instinctively I stopped, crouching, feeling horribly exposed.
“Caleb?” I whispered.
The breeze picked up, scattering leaves like crackling paper. Shadows moved, swaying
like worshipping dancers under the sinking moon. Soon it would be light but it wasn’t much
of a fucking comfort right now.
I got to my feet, veering to the side of the road and into the deepest pool of darkness.
Heart thumping, I made my way as quietly as possible down the road. We’d come here to
find a locker in Mason depot, which was apparently abandoned. Caleb had given me the key
for safe keeping so I was going to follow through. What else could I do?
Finally, after I’d walked what seemed like another mile, a rectangle of darkness blotted
out the moon. I stepped over rusted train track that bisected the road. Across from me was a
raised concrete platform above the train tracks. Mason Depot. Okay, this was it. I walked
across the tracks and then hefted myself up onto the platform, seeing the door to the men’s
bathroom was sagging open. A silver clock was frozen at two-twenty p.m. In the station
house window, glass gleamed like secretive eyes, dark and fathomless.
I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing briskly.
I was staring so intently inside the building that I caught the flicker of movement. My
heart pounded and I took a step back. Jesus. Someone was in there. Was it Caleb?
Two choices. I could stay out here sweating or go inside.
I swallowed then made up my mind. The door into the station creaked in cranky
invitation as I opened it.
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All right. Lockers were usually right inside for travellers to stow their belongings en
route. I’d go in, check it out and hopefully find the locker we were searching for. Then, if
Caleb still didn’t show up, I’d retrace my steps to the car.
I hoped to hell Caleb was already in here and it was him I’d caught a glimpse of. Or
maybe it was a cat. Yeah, I liked that. A big, fat tomcat feasting on the mice that no doubt
inhabited this deserted building.
Taking a gulp of air as if I were about to do a deep dive, I walked inside. I could just
make out the pay window on one side, the round open glass where you could speak to the
ticket master, the metal slot where tokens and cash or credit could be exchanged.
Lockers. Must be… I spotted them opposite the ticket station, some hanging open. I
pulled the key out of my pocket, brushing my fingers against the knife Caleb had insisted I
carry.
The knife.
I grasped it tightly with my free hand, holding it up so it spiked towards the ceiling.
I reached the first of the lockers, had to squint to read the number. Two-five-six… I was
searching for three-eight-nine. I’d have to go farther down the stalls, but that was a problem
because it was so goddamned black I couldn’t make anything out.
Light switch… Did this place still have power?
I froze at the first note, ghostly as a flute.
Whistling. Someone was whistling.
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Chapter Five
I hunched close to the lockers, sweat stinging my skin.
The whistling stopped.
“Here, birdie-birdie,” a voice called in a high, sing-song voice. “Come out and play.”
A bad place, Caleb had said. But I’d only imagined a place with more men like we’d
encountered in the woods outside my house. I hadn’t imagined the creepy whistler.
The locker door I was leaning against trembled from my weight. Oh shit! I had a second
to see disaster coming. I swung around to try to catch it but it was too late. The empty metal
shell crashed to the floor with the percussion of a collapsing drum kit.
Silence except for the sound of my ragged breathing. I inched further back into the
cavernous space, careful this time not to put too much of my weight against the lockers.
“Birdie’s here,” the soft voice called. “Birdie, birdie…”
My tormentor had moved. Now he was standing directly between me and the way I’d
come in. I couldn’t leave and run back to the car. I couldn’t search for the locker that had
brought Caleb and me here in the first place.
“Comin’ to get you, birdie.”
I caught the gleam of milky eyes in the wash of moonlight. Weird eyes that glowed. My
stalker was coming closer—
I shoved two lockers.
“Fuck, that hurt! I’ll tear your fuckin’ head off, birdie. You’ll bleed!”
I backed away and hit the wall. Nowhere to go. He stood, face twisted, eyes…eyes were
wrong. It was so dark but they seemed to burn hate.
“Got you!” he sang.
I gripped the knife.
More lockers crashed, falling like dominos.
Caleb. I saw him in a flash of movement. My stalker whirled and then they both went
down, the darkness amplifying the sounds of their struggle. A choked-off hiss, a slap of flesh
against flesh.
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I plunged forward, stumbled over someone’s leg. I reached the light switch on the wall
and hit it. For a moment nothing happened, then a bulb directly above flickered. In the
yellow light I saw Caleb underneath a man roughly the same size as he was, my stalker
giggling as if he was wrestling for fun.
I dropped the knife and picked up a fallen plastic chair and hit the man from behind.
He didn’t let loose of Caleb even though I could see Caleb bucking and fighting savagely to
be free of him. Instead, the man looked at me. His eyes were almost pupil-less, swimming
with fluid. “Wait your turn,” he ordered.
He leaned closer to Caleb. “You’re back. You haven’t been around here for a while…”
“I…was here?” Caleb gasped.
“They didn’t let me play with you,” the man’s voice was mournful. “I like to play with
birdies, rip their heads off.”
“Dooocc, help me—”
The man’s fingers tightened around Caleb’s throat. Caleb wasn’t weak, despite his
terrible thinness. Why was he so outmatched?
“Hey!” I yelled.
My stalker looked up, mouth open to reveal teeth filed to sharp points. Tears dripped
freely from those terrible, oozing eyes.
I hit him again with the chair, smacking one leg deliberately into his pale, swollen face.
He screeched and leapt off Caleb, coming for me now, his hands fisted into claws.
Caleb grabbed him from behind, arm around the stranger’s neck. His face was utterly
expressionless as his gaze met mine. At the last moment I looked away. A sharp crack. Heavy
breathing. The thud of a body hitting the floor.
I jumped when Caleb touched my arm. “Are you…” He coughed. “All right?”
“You left me.”
He blinked. “Ah, yeah, I did. I had a feeling we were being watched. I needed our
friend here focused on you so I could sneak up on him. It’s not easy to…” He coughed again
but I was unmoved. “To…sneak up on one of them.”
I looked at the crumpled form. “One of them? Oh, God, oh, Jesus.”
Caleb caught me, shaking me. “Come on, Doc, keep it together.”
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“What the fuck? I was not fainting. And, if I was fainting, I don’t want you to ever shake
me—it pisses me off.”
“All right.”
“Ever!” I glared at him, then I grabbed him, holding tight.
“It’s okay, Doc. I told you I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.” His lips covered mine and it
was fever. He’d just killed a man and I wanted him. My hands were in his hair, tearing it in
my impatience to get closer, to get under his skin, to become a part of him.
“Missed you,” I croaked. “You bastard.”
“Yeah, I am.”
I bit his mouth. “You son of a bitch.” I kissed him. I was on the bare dirty floor and he
caged me with his arms, his blue eyes molten as he took my mouth.
“I am a son of a bitch. I’m a bastard. You need to stay away from me,” Caleb panted.
I wrenched him closer with a fistful of his T-shirt. “Too late.”
“I’ll take care of you, Doc. I’ll take such good care of you if you let me—” Caleb tore at
my jeans and I lifted up. I was both submissive and demanding. I took his hand and put it on
me.
He stroked me as he kissed me, his hand a little rough, the way he knew I liked it, while
his kisses gentled, became delicate-tasting. It was unbearable after all these months. I’d been
waiting for him. It was so uncool to face that, but it was true. All this time, and my heart had
opened again when I’d found him in my attic.
I wanted him. Only him. Oh, Jesus, this was bad.
“I thought you’d left me again.”
“No. You think I ever wanted to leave you? I took you with me into the dark. You were
the prayer on my lips.” He sucked in a breath, his voice still hoarse from the throttling he’d
endured. “You’re so beautiful. Look at you, wanton for my hand on you. I love the way you
let yourself go with me.”
“Harder, God damn you. I want to come. You are going to make me come. Now.” I
arched up, groaning as the sweet friction rode me hard. I could picture myself, legs open,
lower body exposed, slutty and driven with his hand on me. “Now… Oh, God…”
“Come apart for me. Let go, baby,” he whispered. “Give it up for me. I want to see you,
taste you. I want to be the man who makes you perform.”
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“Too many words.”
He laughed. “I’m trying to be…thoughtful.”
“It’s not you.” I looked him dead in the eye. “I know who you are. A killer. And my
lover.” I needed him to be both. I needed him to keep me alive so I could—
The cry burned like acid out of my throat. I came again and again, shaking and
grabbing for breath in the aftermath.
Caleb pulled me into his arms, kissing my cheeks, the side of my face as I leaned against
him, dazed and satisfied. “God damn, you owed me that,” I growled.
He laughed. “Doc, is it any wonder I couldn’t completely wipe you from my mind?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid I’d say something embarrassing like ‘I love you’.
Another declaration of love was all this car wreck needed. No way was this going to have a
happy ending any more than the first time we’d got together.
But I held onto him, smelt his skin, felt his warmth and protectiveness and the rasp of
his growing whiskers against my hair and face.
I cleared my throat. “All right, give me some space.”
He laughed again. “Gracious as always.” Then he sobered. “You used to be so sweet.”
“Look where that got me.”
“Yeah.” His voice was soft. “I’m a bad bet.”
“Preaching to the choir.” Lacking any way to clean myself up, I peeled off my T-shirt
and used it to wipe my lower body. I would not think about the hours we’d once lingered in
bed, when Caleb had licked me clean after climax, made me so sensitive, held me down and
made me take it again…
I cleared my throat again. Yeah, right I wouldn’t think of it. I tossed the T-shirt aside
and did up my jeans. “I need to examine the body.”
“Doc…” Caleb looked wary.
“I know you killed him. I don’t see you had much choice. It was him or us. But there’s
something very strange about him and we’re here for answers, right?”
Caleb swallowed but then nodded. “All right.”
I gave him an impatient look. “He acted like he knew you.”
“He was one of them.”
“One of whom? Like those men who came after us at my place?”
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“No. He’s one of the subjects…”
I lifted a brow.
“One of the men that went wrong. The drug twisted him up.”
“You’re remembering more?”
“Flashes. Seeing him brought some of it back. I remember him in a cage. He never slept,
always pacing. He liked to eat things that were still alive.”
I rubbed my arms. “He sounds insane.”
“They made him that way, Doc. I told you this was a bad place.”
I knelt beside the body, gently untwisting it. “Hand me that small knife I dropped.”
Silently Caleb did as I asked and I used it to cut open the man’s filthy T-shirt. I spread
it, mapping his upper body. His skin was pale. Scarred here and there, but otherwise
unmarked. On his left biceps was the tattoo of an anchor.
“He was in the Navy,” Caleb went on, grazing his fingers over the tattoo. “I remember
that now. He was a commander.”
“You’re enlisted, right?”
“Right. I was… I left the teams after I left you.”
I paused, stunned. “You left the SEALs? You loved being a SEAL.”
His face was tense, sweating, as if putting the pieces together was painful. “Yeah, I did.
But I had no choice.” His voice softened so I could barely hear it. “I’m sorry.”
I knew he wasn’t speaking to me but the stranger lying dead on the floor.
“Help me cut off his jeans. What the hell has this man been doing with himself? These
clothes are practically stuck to him.”
“You get like that when you can’t wash,” Caleb said.
The smell of urine and mud stung the air. His lower body and legs were unremarkable.
Caleb and I turned him over carefully. I caught my breath. “He’s been whipped! Like you
were…” I touched the faint scars on the man’s back.
Caleb pulled back, huddling into himself.
I reached out and touched his shoulder, squeezed it. “All right?”
He shrugged.
“Is that a ‘yes, Mom, I’m all right’, or a ‘I’m not all right but I’m a rough, tough dude
and we don’t like to admit it’.”
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Caleb’s lips quirked. “The second. You’re good for me, Doc.”
“I’m good at a lot of things.” My voice was husky. Why was it husky? Oh yeah, the way
he looked at me with those blue, burning eyes. And wasn’t this peachy, foreplay over a
body? When we got back to the car, I’d have to assimilate how I’d jumped Caleb after he’d
killed someone…
“Survival instinct,” Caleb said, as if reading my mind. “Don’t worry, I know it doesn’t
mean anything. Just a wild ride.”
I nodded. As a doctor I had felt it before, the need to grab onto life when I’d been
touched by death. “I’ll deal,” I said. “But I reserve the right to come apart when it’s safe to do
so.”
His eyes gleamed. “No problem.”
I knew he was thinking that my coming apart might wind up being my coming with
him. Just now he hadn’t climaxed. But I hadn’t cared when I’d made him bring me off.
I returned my attention to the body, turning it over again after finding no identification.
“He’s thinner than you are.”
“Living off the land, probably,” Caleb said, cocking his head and studying the body.
I’d saved the worst for last.
I peeled back his eyelids, staring into those uncanny milky eyes. Fluid was drying at the
corners of his eyes. “How could he even see like this? This man should be blind.”
“He was, in the…technical sense, I guess. But he had other abilities that compensated
for it.”
On a hunch, I asked, “So this wasn’t an abnormality he was born with? Don’t answer
that,” I held up a hand. “Of course not, or the Navy wouldn’t have taken him.”
Caleb nodded sombrely. “He was made this way.”
“You said you needed a distraction so you could sneak up on him. He seemed
unbelievably strong when you fought…”
“Oh, he was.” Caleb touched his throat. “He could have taken me easy.”
“So he was…enhanced somehow.” I closed the man’s eyes, leaving my palm on his face
as I wished him peace in whatever afterlife might exist.
“Enhanced, yeah.” Caleb’s face twisted. “He was Joe normal when he joined our little
group.”
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How odd that moments ago Caleb had fought and killed and now I was the strong one.
I pulled the man’s clothing back over his body. “Can we do something for him?”
“No. They’ll find him eventually,” Caleb said. “We need to move.”
I got to my feet, taking the key out and grimacing at the messy state of the lockers. “We
have to get what we came for.”
Caleb and I shouldered fallen lockers aside until we found the one we were looking for.
To my disappointment, it hung open and appeared to be empty. Shit. All that, a man dead,
and for what?
“Wait…” Caleb pulled the locker gently out from the others, turning it around.
Something thick was taped to the back. Caleb tore it free and stuffed it in his pocket. He took
my arm. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
Sudden chill moved through me. “That man… He’s not the only one like that, is he?”
“No,” Caleb said. “He’s not.”
We ran lightly out of the station house. Caleb’s gaze darted around the still dark woods,
the glowing ball of sun just rising. “You feel it?” Caleb rasped.
I nodded, ice poking my spine. “We’re being watched.”
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Chapter Six
“It can’t be gone.”
Jeez, I sounded like a whiny kid, but I felt like one. A very, very scared one.
Caleb knelt where we’d left our car, which was now missing. His fingers brushed tyre
tracks. “I need to follow these.”
“What?” I rubbed my face. I felt punch drunk from lack of sleep. “Follow these tracks?”
Caleb looked up, his eyes assessing me coolly. “But first you need rest, Doc.”
“I—” I was about to tell him I was fine, but then I shrugged. “Yeah, I do. I’m beat.”
He nodded, then without saying anything further headed back into the brush.
“Where the hell are you going now?” I yelled after him. I didn’t care at that moment if
more milky-eyed supermen were stalking these woods. He was not leaving me again, damn
it!
“Follow me.”
“Very informative as always!” I huffed after him, scratched my arm on some blackberry
bush and cursed some more. Caleb glanced over his shoulder at me, amusement warming his
eyes. “You make a lot of noise, Doc.”
“Excuse me for not being a commando-god like you are.”
He laughed.
“Do not disappear before we have breakfast.” Then I realised I wouldn’t be having any,
not stranded out here in the middle of freaking nowhere. Jesus, there was only so much a
man could put up with. I’d been dreaming of pancakes at Denny’s. And coffee. Lots and lots
of coffee. I sighed. “Okay, forget breakfast. I just need sleep. Do you think the car is close
by?” Fresh hope rose.
“Nope.” I finally caught up with him. He was kneeling by a brook, the water cascading
swiftly over rocks, carrying twigs and other flotsam downstream. Hearing the water sounds
made my shoulders relax. Jeez, I had no idea how tensely I’d been holding myself until that
moment.
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I knelt beside Caleb, watching with interest as he used the largest knife he’d brought
with him to cut wood he’d found by the stream into strips.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a shelter so you can catch some Zs.”
“Oh.” That was promising.
He wove the wood into a barrel shape in no time, then put pine boughs over it. I was
amazed how quickly he could make a cosy bed. “I won’t eat any bugs, you hear me? I don’t
care what they train you Special Forces types to do to survive. That’s where my outdoor
adventure ends.”
He leaned over, kissed me firmly on the mouth. My heart jumped at his touch.
“No bugs, Doc. But let me take care of you.” The same sexy tone he’d used when he’d
brought me off. I had to clear my throat.
“You better, since it’s your fault I’m in this mess.”
His eyes darkened. “I know.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean—” Jerk. I was being a jerk. Assigning blame was not going to help
us and…life had got out of hand. It was bigger than one person’s mistakes. I knew that when
I wasn’t tired and bitchy and immature.
But he was striding away into the woods before I could try to erase the hurt I’d seen in
his eyes. Damn it! There was nothing to do, so I curled up in the little nest and closed my
eyes. My lips held the impression of his kiss. I wished he was here, lying on top of me and
kissing me and making out with me.
One kiss and my body would be throbbing.
I’d nearly dropped off when I felt his arm heavy across my belly. I turned around and
nestled my face against his neck.
We wrapped around each other like we were the last people on earth.
“Hungry?”
I sat up, shoving my hair out of my eyes. The sun had sunk low in the trees and a cool
breeze made me shiver as I moved out of the warm little shelter.
“Yeah.” I settled beside Caleb. He had a tiny fire going, no bigger than my hand. He
was cooking fish on a plank of wood. My stomach growled loudly. “What time is it?”
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“Three-thirty. You slept a while.”
“Needed it.” He handed me a crude wooden cup that still smelt of freshly carved wood.
Had he made it just for this meal? “What is this?”
“Tea made from bark and some wild herbs. It’s not coffee but it’s hot.”
I took a cautious sip. He’d sweetened it with something—wild honey? “Not bad,
cowboy.”
“Glad you approve.” His lips quirked.
Hesitantly I leaned close to him and brushed my lips against his. His eyes flared like a
lit match. “Careful, Murph. My control is not perfect when it comes to you.”
I shrugged and went back to drinking my tea. “‘Tomorrow we may die’ and all that.”
“Uh-huh.” He gave me a speculative look. “Does that mean you’ll let me have you?”
I choked on the tea and he whacked my back. “S-stop!” I held up a hand. “I don’t need
thumping, remember?”
“Sorry.” He didn’t look it. “Answer the question.”
“Can you try to be subtle just once?”
“What for?”
I made him wait, sipping my tea. His lips twisted as if he knew I was drawing out the
moment.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I began.
“Let me have you again.” His voice was low and sure and sent a hard shiver down my
back. “I’ll hold you down the way you like it.”
My heart thudded like driving rain as I remembered the night he’d done just that. He’d
used his belt our first time…
“You ever do anything kinky?” Caleb asked me. We were sitting across from each other on the
motel bed. He hadn’t kissed me since we’d shifted to the bed. He just…sat there, watching me.
It was arousing.
And intimidating.
“Uh, no.”
“Never let anyone tie you up?”
“God, no.” I laughed. “That stuff is just too weird.”
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“Weird to give yourself to someone so completely?”
I didn’t know what to say. My voice seemed to have dried up.
“You’ve never done that.” He made a chiding sound. “All those nice boyfriends and you kept
them all at a distance, didn’t you?”
“You don’t seem the type to give relationship advice—” I began hotly.
“Nope. But I know when someone is hiding from me. You’re like a creature in one of those
Nautilus shells.”
“I’m easy to read.”
“Huh, don’t think so. I thought for sure you’d blow me off when I approached you.”
“Me too,” I admitted a little glumly. Why the hell hadn’t I?
He reached out, traced my throat with gentle fingers. I shivered violently under his touch.
“You’re right to be wary of me. I’ve killed people. I’ve hurt them.”
“You said you were in the military.”
He shrugged. “If it makes you more at ease to buy the hero trip.”
“Why are you trying to scare me?” I got in his face and he blinked. “You wanted this hook-up.
You said you’d fuck me. Well, I want to be fucked.”
Colour burned in his cheeks. His eyelids fell. “Let me tie you up.”
“All right.”
“That easy?”
“No.” But I couldn’t explain why I’d let him do something to me I’d never considered remotely
sexy with any other man I’d been with.
“It’s dangerous, letting a stranger do that to you,” he said, studying me. “Is that why you’d let
me—the thrill?”
“I don’t know.” My heart beat frantically. Sweat beaded on my upper lip.
He stood and took off his belt. “We’ll use this for your wrists.” He waited. The moment hung full
of possibilities. One of them was for me to say ‘no’.
I didn’t say anything.
“Take your clothes off.”
In control. This stranger was in control. But hadn’t he been since the first moment we’d met?
He’d singled me out. He’d told me what he wanted to do with me. He’d driven me to this motel.
The night had been one long unrolling map of choices and all along I’d chosen to say ‘yes’.
I didn’t look at him as I stripped out of my clothes. Heat coloured my cheeks.
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He cupped my face when I was naked, vulnerable. “I like that you’ve never let any other man do
this to you.” He was tender, taking me by surprise. Shouldn’t he be rough with me, to show he was in
charge?
But he didn’t need to be rough to be in charge.
“You get under my skin like a thorn,” I complained. “I can’t reconcile you.”
I held my breath as I lay on the bed and he took firm hold of my wrists, wrapping his belt around
them and then looping it through the bed frame. “Don’t pull too hard or it’ll just come off.”
“Okay,” I agreed. The bondage was just for show, so why did it feel so significant?
He spread my thighs and knelt between them, still dressed.
“You wearing clothes is arousing,” I said.
“You naked and helpless is arousing,” he countered wryly.
I laughed, again caught off guard. Weren’t we supposed to get all serious now that he’d tied me
with his belt? But instead I was laughing.
“I like being this way for you,” I admitted shyly.
“Keep talkin’,” he said. “I want to hear all about what you like. It’s hot as hell being with a bed
partner who talks to me.”
“Yeah, some guys think that telepathy is the way to erotic bliss.”
I felt him smile against my lower belly as he kissed it. “Any allergies, baby?”
I knew what he was really asking me. He was asking if there was something I didn’t like to do in
bed. He wasn’t making assumptions that what he liked I’d just be happy to go along with. How was it
that I was spread out, at his mercy, and yet I felt like I was playing the starring role?
He kissed my open thigh, tonguing the skin. “I love how you taste, how you smell.”
Lucky I’d showered after my long stretch in the ER that night. Then he put his—ohhhh!—his
mouth against the side of my balls. He lifted them almost delicately in one of his big, callused hands.
“You like this?”
“God, yes!” I arched on the bed, digging my heels in.
“Mmmmm.” He squeezed my sac. It excited me, the way my hands were above my head and my
body so open for him. He wet a finger and then slowly began to circle my opening. When he put his
mouth against my balls, his finger broached me.
I shouted, more moved than I’d ever been from so little play.
“Give it to me. I want your spend splashing my hands, my face…”
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Oh, Jesus. As if I wasn’t already on edge. I moaned when he opened me further and put his
mouth against me, sucking intimately. The bands of leather around my wrists intensified everything.
They cut into my skin as I shifted, my skin pebbled from the cool temperature of the room coupled with
Caleb’s hot mouth as he tasted me, taking my needy cock in his hand.
“Oh!” He stroked me so perfectly. Just a bit rough so I’d feel that edge of danger.
He looked at me, his eyes heavy-lidded, his lips wet and swollen. “I’m a soldier. When I get home
what I want is open legs and an easy lay.”
He’d found that with me.
“Too bad they don’t allow camp followers anymore. If we’d lived in other times I would have
brought you with me. I’d come to you fresh from the field, fuckin’ glad to be alive and you’d submit for
me.”
“Touch me,” I rasped. “Make me come.”
He kept up his strokes even as he shoved his jeans down his legs and gloved himself with a
condom. Then he held my gaze as he penetrated me, taking forever so all I could do was groan out the
pain-pleasure of it as he filled me, claimed me.
His hands ran up my arms, covering them where I was bound for him.
“You’re mine now. No goin’ back, Doc.”
I stared at Caleb, seeing the bruises from the ordeal he didn’t remember, seeing the
growing whiskers, the wild hair…and the heat in his pretty eyes.
“You still want me.” He reached out as if to touch me but I knew if he did, I’d
surrender. I was so easy for him it was painful. Right now all I wanted to do was lie down
and let him do what he wanted with me.
“It’s not a good idea.” I took a step back and his eyes hardened.
“I don’t go where I’m not invited.”
I swallowed. “I know.” I couldn’t say I was more afraid of myself than him. It was all I
could do not to jump him. “You said you were going to track our car before we took some
time out.”
He looked away as if he didn’t want me to read his expression. “Yeah. It would be safer
if you stayed here.”
“So we’re separated and some creepy guy with milky eyes can kill or kidnap me?”
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He laughed. “I guess that’s a cliché.”
“In just about every action movie I’ve seen. We stick together, cowboy.”
He shrugged.
“What’s wrong?”
He gave me a burning look. “I don’t like you seeing me for who I am.”
“You don’t know who you are.” I cocked a brow. “That’s why we’re here.”
“I mean… I kill people. It feels like something I’ve done a lot of.” He rubbed his
forehead. “How can I atone for that? And how can you, a healer, want me?”
A lot of what he asked were questions he’d have to work out alone. “I would really like
to know the real Caleb Black.”
He held my gaze. “You won’t like who you find.”
“That’s for me to decide, isn’t it?”
His jaw tightened. “Yeah.”
“So…what was in that packet we rescued from the locker?”
Caleb sighed then took it out of his pocket, flipping it to me. I opened it and…hello,
gibberish.
“It’s in code.”
“Some of it. I think it’s a formula.”
“For what?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. But obviously something important.”
“Okay.” I handed back the packet. “Let’s…hit the saddle, I guess.”
“Hit the saddle?” Now amusement lightened his face. In the late afternoon, his features
looked stark and still exhausted, despite our nap. Well, I’d slept much longer than he had, I
realised. He’d made time to hunt up honey, herbs and fish.
“I’d really like to get our car back.” I rubbed the back of my neck, stiff from sleeping on
the ground.
“We will. I want you to walk behind me and…” He sighed. “Try not to make so much
noise, will you, Doc?”
I grimaced. “I didn’t play commando in the backyard growing up. It was always search
and rescue.”
“Very prophetic.” He nodded. “Come on, daylight’s burning.”
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I had a feeling he could track just as well in the dark. Certainly he did it fast enough
now. He ran ahead of me in spurts, stopping to kneel and examine tyre tracks every now and
then when I just had to catch my breath. Our car had been taken off the main road, if you
could dignify the rutted track by calling it that. Whoever had stolen it—technically for the
second time in twenty-four hours—had driven it onto a dried-up streambed that was rocky
underfoot.
I stepped over a large rounded rock carefully and glanced at Caleb…and no Caleb.
He’d disappeared again.
My belly tightened and I waited to see if he’d return as soundlessly as he’d melted
away, sweat drying on my skin.
They came out of the trees, milky eyes fixed on me. Three…six…nine men.
Oh shit.
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Chapter Seven
“Okay, this can go one of two ways,” I said, holding up my hands. I hoped the
supermen surrounding me wouldn’t see just how these hands were shaking, but the way my
luck was running, all bets were off.
“Is that right?” The tallest of the bunch crossed his arms, staring at me with the
unmistakable stance of the leader. Well, things were looking up. At least he wasn’t talking
about ripping my head off. He was menacing, sure, but he seemed sane.
I took a moment to study the group since it didn’t seem like they were going to
immediately end me. Their leader had lank blond hair that looked as if it had grown out
without any attempt at styling. Was he also former military like Caleb and the man Caleb
had been forced to kill?
The men’s clothing was ground-in dirty and none of them wore any jewellery like a
wedding band or watch, but Caleb had told me that operatives didn’t take such things with
them into danger zones. So could these men also be former operatives?
The eyes were spooky but I also saw weariness in the harsh lines on their faces.
They were without hope. It generated a reluctant empathy inside me.
“You guys can rip me to shreds. Or we can talk. I can help you.” I sucked in a breath. “I
want to help you, damn it all.”
Tall guy frowned. “Just how can you help us?” He looked pissed off and some of the
others muttered among themselves. Obviously I’d said something to set them off.
“I’m a doctor.”
One minute I was confronting them in the middle of the dry streambed and the next I
was on the ground, the leader’s hand wrapped around my throat. “Doctor! Just what we
need.” Hatred burned in those uncanny eyes. “I’m going to rip your arms off first.”
I grunted and he eased his grip. “Look…” I coughed. “Something was done to you. I
just want to understand it. If I can do that, maybe there’s a way I can help.”
“We’ve had all the help we need from scientists, thanks.”
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“I’m not a scientist. I’m just a country doctor.” It was true, or would be after I finished
my residency.
I was about to press my point when from behind us rocks were spat out from under
tyres like bullets. The roar got louder and the men surrounding me threw themselves into the
brush.
Their leader grabbed my arm.
Our stolen car skidded into sight, Caleb behind the wheel. He drove straight for us.
“Jesus Christ!” Tall and lanky yelled.
I yanked my arm free, rolling—
The car came to a halt an inch from my head. Caleb flung open the door, eyes wild, big
gun out. He looked thoroughly spooked, which was unlike him. “Get in the car, Doc,” he
ordered, his soft voice a contrast to the labouring engine.
“Shit, you nearly ran me over!”
He grabbed my arm and I winced. That was twice I’d been manhandled. It was
beginning to piss me off.
“Caleb Black.” The leader stepped out of hiding.
“You know me?” Caleb didn’t lower his weapon.
Some instinct made me grip his wrist. “It’s all right,” I whispered. Caleb quivered
under my touch but didn’t look at me. “He didn’t hurt me.”
Caleb gave me a cold and pitiless look. Okay, he obviously thought I was taking the
Pollyanna view, but screw it. “He didn’t. And I want to help him. I have a feeling, if I can, I’ll
be helping you.”
“Yeah, you got that right!” the leader guffawed.
Caleb frowned at the man. “He’s telling the truth, he only wants to help you. He’s not
like you and me.”
Tall and lanky gave a grunt that might have been another laugh. “I didn’t think you’d
ever have the balls to come back here, Black.”
Caleb rubbed his forehead. “We’ve met before.”
“Of course we have, son. You were one of the lucky ones. But time’s runnin’ out, isn’t
it? You can feel it.”
“How is Caleb lucky?” I crossed my arms. I was getting to the bottom of this, oh yeah.
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“Lucky as in the experiments didn’t work on him. He didn’t…transform. He’s not a
goddamned mutant like the rest of us. You can go back to your life, Caleb.”
“That’s just it.” Caleb held the man’s gaze. “I don’t remember it. I barely remember ever
being here or what was done to me.”
“All right, we get you’re bitter,” I told the leader. “But that doesn’t help you or us. What
might help you is someone with medical training. You all have bruises, cuts… I’ll do what I
can for you if you’ll in turn help Caleb remember what happened to him here.”
“I’m Templeton,” tall and lanky finally offered. He scrubbed his unshaven cheeks.
“You’re a real doctor?”
I nodded. “I have some medical supplies in our car. Uh, as long as you didn’t take
them.”
“What do you think?” Templeton said.
“I think you took them. Give them back and I’ll help you.”
Templeton considered. “We all have basic medic training.”
“I have more than basic.”
“Peters!” Templeton called. “Bring the supplies.”
“Do they hurt you?” I studied Templeton’s eyes. I couldn’t figure out how he could see
with them, but it was obvious his vision was fine—possibly better than my own. His hearing
and reflexes had already proved to be superior.
“What do you think?”
“I think I’m waiting for you to tell me. I don’t make assumptions.”
He sighed. “I get headaches. We all do. It’s the change.”
I settled back and took a sip of the tea one of the men had brewed. We were sitting in a
rough clearing next to where Caleb had left the car. A fire was going and a few of the men
were resting. They were thin and undernourished but despite their sorry state Caleb hadn’t
left my side or put the gun away. He wasn’t exactly the trusting sort.
“What’s the change?”
“You haven’t told him?” Templeton gave Caleb an accusing look. “I haven’t seen my
wife in over two years. I wouldn’t…not the way I am now.” Templeton squeezed his eyes
shut. “I want her to remember who I was. Not some freak show.”
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“Caleb doesn’t remember what happened to him. That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“The change,” Templeton said with leaden emphasis, “is how they made us—super
soldiers. We were the best, could do things that would have been impossible previously.” He
gestured to his eyes. “Then this happened. They shut us away. Some they had to put down
because they went crazy. We could see what was in the wind so my men and I escaped.”
“Escaped from where?”
“There’s a facility not far from here,” Caleb said. He was rubbing his forehead again.
Templeton nodded. “You remember that much. You should, since the escape was your
idea.”
Caleb blinked. “A cage. I see you in a cage, colonel.”
“Yeah.” Templeton’s voice was suddenly husky. “That’s where you found me.”
“Why haven’t your…employers come looking for you?” I asked. “They came after
Caleb and me.”
“I don’t think their operation is very big. I think they lied about what happened to us
and now they don’t have the resources to round us all up.” Templeton lifted his hand, which
was shaking minutely. “And, anyway, I’ve already got the shakes. Soon I’ll go crazy like the
others.” He held Caleb’s eyes. “I’ve already asked my men to take care of it, when the time
comes.”
I swallowed hard, having a pretty good idea what Templeton meant. “Not acceptable,
soldier.” I resumed cleaning an open sore on his thick wrist. “Something has to be done to
help you and your men.”
“You’d need access to the labs where they cooked the shit up,” Caleb said. “If you could
see what went down, you’d be better able to help.”
“Yes,” I agreed absently. Then I caught the ramifications of his idea. “Oh, hell, no,” I
groaned.
“It’s the only way, Doc. The only hope these men have. I have no way to decipher what
was done to them but you…”
“I’m not a scientist.”
“You’re better than that. You care. Didn’t you wind up taking a sabbatical because you
cared too much about one of your patients? I know who I want lookin’ into this with me,
Doc.”
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Now I was rubbing my forehead. “I lose perspective.”
“Do you really believe that? Because I’ve been a soldier and I’ve done my duty but it
didn’t make me a fucking machine. I cared about people, wanted to protect the innocent
from the scumbags of the world.”
Sometime while he argued with me, Caleb had lowered his gun.
“Oh, hell,” I grumped. “Why not?”
Caleb grinned at me.
“We’ll visit the site after I’ve seen to all the men.” I gave Templeton a sober look.
“Those open sores…”
He nodded. “My immune system is screwy—it’s another sign.”
“I’ll do what I can to help you. Will you come with me and Caleb?”
Templeton shuddered. “Not for worlds. And he wouldn’t either, if he could remember
it. But I guess Caleb has no choice. Time is running out for him too.”
Caleb didn’t meet my questioning look. “What do you mean?”
“Like I said, we were all normal, except for enhanced vision and hearing, strength…
And then we changed again. It’s only a matter of time before Caleb is like the rest of us. He’s
a dead man walking, Doc.”
* * * *
“We’re going to talk about this,” I told Caleb later. “As soon as we get out of here, we’re
going to find a way to do a decent work-up on you.”
“Whatever you say, Doc, but can we postpone long enough for me to break into a secret
government facility?”
I gulped. “Ah, sure…”
He gave me a wicked look. “Don’t worry, we’re already in over our heads.”
“Very reassuring,” I said dryly.
“I’m a ray of sunshine.”
The door was dull metal, rusted where water from a run-off in the tunnel seeped over
it. “Are you sure this isn’t… I don’t know, part of the sewage system out here?”
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“I’m sure.” He leaned his head against the door and using a couple of pins began to
manipulate the lock.
The wind hit my back, chilly and playful. I thought I caught the sound of brush moving
behind us. It could just be the breeze.
“Is it going to take much longer to do that?”
“It takes as long as it takes.” Caleb gave me an amused look. Okay, so obviously he
wasn’t spooked. Good for him. “Ah…”
A second later he pushed the door open with a protesting creeaaaaakkking sound that
rubbed my raw nerves. Inside was the enticing sound of dripping water and complete
darkness.
“Is this where you escaped from?”
He blinked. “No. I just…knew this was here. From the schematics of the facility.”
“You’re remembering more?”
“Bits.”
“That’s good.”
But he didn’t look like he thought it was a good thing. He hesitated. “About what
Templeton said…”
“I don’t believe it,” I said flatly. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Doc…” His head fell back as he let out a deep sigh. Then he looked at me. “I wanted to
see you again. Just see you again.”
“Don’t you dare finish that with ‘one last time’.”
“I never loved anyone in my life the way I love you. I don’t need to remember to know
that,” he rasped.
“You haven’t exhibited the same symptoms as those men. Do you have super
strength?”
“I wish…”
“Then I think we shouldn’t make assumptions, Caleb. What we need are answers, and,
as unappealing as this tunnel is, I’m hoping we’ll get some.”
“This place… It was abandoned but it may not be exactly empty.”
My gut chilled. “I figured. Come on, Caleb. You deserve answers.”
“You deserve better than this. I fucked up your life, Doc.”
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“So we’ll unfuck it.”
The words resonated but they should. I’d said them before. And as he looked at me, I
saw Caleb remember.
“I don’t want to fuck up your life,” Caleb murmured, his eyes closed. He was lying on top of me
in the clearing by my house, our bodies still sweaty from lovemaking.
“I’ll just unfuck it if you do.” I carefully kept my voice casual but it was increasingly hard to
keep things light with him. Words ached under my breastbone. I loved him. I wanted to tell him. I was
afraid to tell him. “Are you sure you have to leave Monday?”
His face hardened. “I’m sure.”
“Will you write?”
“Doc…” He sat up, reaching for his shirt.
“How about calling? Or you could hire a plane to fly over head with one of those messages…” I
caught his expression. “Don’t. I won’t stop hoping.”
“Don’t hope,” he said harshly. “Just don’t.”
I grasped his face in my hands. “Don’t tell me not to hope. I can’t do that.” I kissed him. “Be
with me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice was so soft I barely made out the words. “Why the fuck
couldn’t I stay away from you?”
“Too late.”
“Still regret hookin’ up with me?” he asked me now.
“Are you kidding, who else would show me such a good time? Being attacked by
strange killers and now visiting this palace.”
“Okay then.” A slight smile touched his mouth.
I took a deep breath and followed him into the darkness. His flashlight was a small pool
of yellow, casting just enough light to help with our footing. Sounds echoed. Our footsteps,
the endless drizzle of water, the wind blowing through the mouth of the tunnel.
We splashed through a stream, the root branching down, deeper into the earth.
“You said the first time you saw Templeton, he was in a cage,” I said.
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“Yeah, I got this flash of him… His eyes weren’t as milky as they are now, just a little
white showin’. He was the only specimen still alive in the room.”
“Specimen? God!”
“It’s what we were to them. I bet if I checked with Templeton’s wife they told her he’d
died on a mission.”
“How could they do that?” My hands balled. “She needs to know the truth. And
whatever he says, I don’t think it’s right she’s denied the chance to see him again.”
“Why would she want to?” Caleb’s face was impassive when I glanced at him before
turning my attention back to my footing.
“Because. She loves him, presumably. And a chance to be with someone you love is all
we’ve got in this life.”
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Chapter Eight
The institute didn’t seem any more intimidating at first look than the admin part of a
hospital.
Caleb led us into a maze of hallways, lit by flickering fluorescent bars overhead. We
passed doors labelled ‘Dr Phillip Drew’, or ‘Lounge 15’. At the lounge, Caleb broke the door
and hit the light switch.
“Looks just like the one in the hospital,” I mused, taking in the plastic chairs and cheap
faux wood table. And the abandoned coffee mugs… “Looks like they left in a hurry.”
“Yeah.” Caleb went over to a vending machine. I was going to ask him if he had any
change when he yanked it from the wall and upended it. Produce spilled out like
prospector’s gold.
“Here, Doc. Granola bars, which I know you jones for, candy bars, gum—”
“I adore the ground you walk on.” I sat down and took two of the bars, stuffing them in
my mouth with my eyes closed.
“That’s what all the cute guys say,” Caleb quipped. There was a rumbling sound and
when I looked up, I saw he was using the other vending machine for two hot chocolates.
“You need the cals,” he said. “You lose a lot when you’re out in the cold weather.”
Now he mentioned it, I realised I was shivering. I wasn’t cold now, although this
underground facility wasn’t exactly toasty, but it was such a relief to be out of the constant
chill breeze, my body was shivering in reaction. “Are there showers somewhere?”
“Yep. I’ll watch over you while you have one.” Amusement lit his eyes. “It’s a hard
job.”
“Yeah, right.” But the thought of being nude and under hot water while he watched
me… I swallowed hard on the candy.
He handed me a hot chocolate, then a coffee. I smiled at how Caleb always covered all
his bases. He was thorough, which brought my imagination back to his lovemaking. No part
of me untouched by his hands, his mouth. Surrounded by him, big and lusty and yet tender.
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“You’re thinkin’ about it too,” Caleb said. “I can always tell because your eyes go a
deeper colour and your cheeks flush. It’s your sexy tell.”
“I have a sexy tell?” I repeated before raising a hand. “Never mind. This place…it seems
so normal.”
“Parts of it are, I reckon. Just the work they did in here wouldn’t exactly stand up to
public scrutiny.”
“The kind of thinking where you can so divorce yourself from morality to do the things
to the men we saw—it’s kind of an extreme version of the head surgeon in my hospital, Dr
Royce.”
“He put you on sabbatical.”
“How do you know what is going on in my life?” I shook my head. “Never mind, you
said you were keeping watch on me. I’m not up to all your super-spy tricks.”
“Nope,” he agreed laconically, so much the cowboy in that moment that all he needed
were his scarred boots and his hat.
“Dr Royce and I are constantly locking heads. I don’t mean to but…”
“To go along with his perspective meant not bein’ yourself. And you’re already a
doctor.”
“Yes. You have to have a certain confidence in yourself in order to diagnose and take
action, sometimes without a lot of time. I worked the ER.”
“Kind of like being under fire.”
I nodded. Caleb had a lot of insight. Perhaps being a soldier and a doctor weren’t so
dissimilar. We both fought, just on different battlefields. “Things came to a head when I lost
Jeremy. He was a special kid. I didn’t just see him as a patient, I spent time with him. He was
a killer card sharp.”
“Royce treated him like just another patient?”
“Yeah. And he expected me to do the same. He was fed up with me getting too
personal, but I’ve never been able to help myself. It’s why I became a doctor.”
He held my gaze, slouching next to me. I wanted to go to him, tangle with him like he
was my boyfriend. My patients weren’t the only place where I couldn’t keep perspective.
“Seems to me you’re working something out about you and Royce.”
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“I’m not going back.” The words burst from me. I rubbed my upper lip, feeling sweat
prickle at the sudden epiphany. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to be a surgeon. I think I was
doing it for all the wrong reasons, because it was tough, because it was a challenge.”
“I get going the tough route. Are you sure it’s not just this dude colouring things?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s too removed for me. I want to treat the whole person. Lilah is
also into natural remedies and sometimes… I think we’re too hidebound in medicine.”
“You want to practice your kind of medicine, whatever it turns out to be.” He crossed
his arms.
“Yeah.” I felt a pang. Caleb wasn’t just a man I found maddening and sexy. He was also
a friend, maybe my best friend in the moments we spent together.
Soul mate.
I wanted to scoff at the idea but I couldn’t.
I gusted out a sigh, disgusted with myself. “I’m going to make some changes when I get
back to my life. Uh, that is, if I get back.”
His face hardened. “You will, Doc.”
“Not at the cost of losing you.”
He stared at me very intently, before saying softly, “You want to start again? I mean,
you and me.” Then he laughed and rubbed his hair. “Yeah, right.”
I opened my mouth but whatever I was going to say—Christ knows!—was lost in the
sudden racket.
“Is that coming from the floor below us?” I whispered.
Caleb was by the door to the lounge, gun held at his thigh. “Sounds like. Stuff some of
that junk food in your pack, Doc. We’ll hit the showers next.”
Showers? He thought I could take a shower after hearing those sounds?
“We’re really not alone here.”
“No.”
“Oh, yeah, I really want a shower here now.”
He looked at me, quirking his brow. “You’re already in hot water. Might as well get a
taste of the real thing. Besides, you need to shave before I’ll let you kiss me. You might
scratch my sensitive skin.”
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“Jerk.” Somehow he eased my anxiety, like he was a bright window in the dark. “That
banging sound…”
Caleb shrugged. “I don’t know, Doc. But chances are, we’re going to meet up with
someone. You’ll just have to trust me to take care of you.”
The showers were just as standard issue as the lounge had been. A long row of them,
sans stalls. I folded my T-shirt again, running a hand over the edges. I was feeling shy. What
the hell?
“You’re stalling, Doc,” Caleb said in a husky voice. He was leaning against the far wall,
watching me. He shouldn’t have made this long rectangle of a room seem too small, but he
did. He was tall and lean and tanned and scarred and infuriating and he caught at me. He
always had.
I could feel his desire like the building heat from a fire.
Anything I said would be superfluous, so I peeled off my underwear and headed to the
nearest shower without meeting his gaze. I turned on the water, waited until it wasn’t
scalding or cold enough to curl my balls back up my body. All the time I did I felt his hunger.
I closed my eyes to try to shut him out but still I felt him. I felt his gaze on my nipples
and they tightened in reaction as if he’d sucked them hard into his mouth. I felt them ripen
under his touch, pulsing sensitivity with every beat of my heart.
My cock responded, stiffening eagerly.
I heard Caleb’s soft intake of breath even over the pounding water.
Touch me. Suck me.
I had only to ask and he would. He would get down on his knees to please me.
With my eyes still tightly shut, I let my head fall back and the spray hit my face,
clearing away fatigue and warming tense muscle. I felt purified, but not only by the mere
habitual cleansing of the shower.
It was Caleb’s gaze, searing away layers of heartbreak, of loneliness, of rage in the
middle of the night when I’d paced and cursed myself for not being able to forget him.
“I always want you, Doc,” he whispered.
My eyes snapped open.
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Caleb was close enough almost to reach out to me. “I, uh, locked the door. We’re safe
here for the moment.”
I stared into his eyes, seeing loneliness I recognised as the same dull, hopeless feeling
that had lived so long under my breastbone.
He ached as I ached.
He hurt as I hurt.
I lifted a hand, unable to stop myself.
His eyes flared and he walked into the water.
“Idiot, you’re getting soaked!” I choked out.
He ignored my scolding, pushing me against the wall, hard, his mouth coming down
over mine equally hard.
Taken, I was being taken and I was so needy.
He crushed his body against mine. Desperate, I yanked up his soaking T-shirt and put
my hands on his chest, digging in, feeling muscle and lean strength and how goddamned
thin he was.
“Someone took you from me,” I gasped. “It pisses me off so much.”
“I know.”
“I want to know why. I just want to understand why.”
He let me take off his sopping shirt. It hit the shower floor with a splat. I grazed my
fingers over his shoulders, taking in the width before putting my mouth on the left one
where he had a crescent-shaped mole.
“You always liked that ol’ birthmark,” he said, his hand tangling in my wet hair.
“I love everything about you,” I mumbled.
He stiffened and I knew what he wanted, but I couldn’t say the words. They burned,
but I was afraid.
“It’s all right, Doc.” His voice was raspy, his eyes full of regret. “You said those words
to me and I walked out.”
I didn’t want to remember that day so I blotted it out by loosening his jeans, and he was
in my hand, long and full and as desperate as I was. He groaned, rubbing himself into my
grasp.
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“I’m taking you back. You’re mine. Do you hear?” I yanked his hair so he’d look at me.
When he did, I saw only a thin sliver of iris around his pupils. He was far gone into the heat,
the feel of our wet flesh meeting.
“They can probably hear you in the next state, Doc.” He kissed my neck and again my
head fell back. I felt him bite down, the sting of his teeth, and knew he’d marked me. Damn
it, I was going to mark him too. “I’m yours. You haven’t asked, but there hasn’t been anyone.
Not anyone since you.”
The flower of hurt inside unravelled a little more.
“That’s because you’re mine.”
“Christ, yeah.” He used a sliver of soap, lathered his hand and reached between our
bodies. I whimpered at the slick hand around my cock, his grip moving up and down slowly
while he deliberately looked into my eyes.
“Love you.” He lifted me. My back slid up against chilly tile. I wrapped my legs around
his hips as our sexes grazed, as he took us both in hand and stroked us together.
“Oh… Oh, my God, my God…”
He grinned and I pinched his arm in retaliation. “Sorry, it’s just a little flattering.”
“I haven’t—Me either, Caleb. Haven’t been with anyone.” Haven’t thought of anyone,
haven’t wanted anyone. But Caleb.
His forehead rested against mine. “I’m glad there hasn’t been anyone else. I don’t want
some other guy touching you.”
My heart galloped as we locked together, frantic to come. Every touch of his callused
hand branded me, lit me up so I was surprised I wasn’t glowing with an incandescent light.
I want you, I want you. Words spilled out, raw and hot, the way he made me come.
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Chapter Nine
“Are you okay, Doc?” he gasped. His legs gave out and we slid down the wall, both of
us sucking in oxygen like it was our last breath.
“I think my legs are missing.” He looked down at his curled limbs, at me collapsed over
him. “No, still there.”
“I can’t feel anything but the back of my eyeballs and my nipples.”
His eyes fired up and he leant forward to lick one. I made a gasping sound that might
have been a plea. More, Christ! Please more.
“You were always so sensitive there. Almost as much as your dick,” he said.
“It’s just all the deprivation,” I said, trembling. I wasn’t ready to do him again. I
couldn’t be after the tsunami I’d just lived through. “We’ve both admitted it’s been more
than a year since we’ve been with anyone.”
“What if I said I always feel this way with you?” His voice cracked.
For a moment all I could hear was my heart beat as his words reverberated through me.
“You sure didn’t act that way when we first met.”
“I lied.” He swallowed. “I had to.”
I frowned. “But that was before you were involved in…whatever it was you became
involved in.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I think it was. Before I met you, I remembered flashes of my
last mission as a SEAL.”
Water continued to pound down on us. I didn’t want to move. I wanted him again. I
always wanted him.
But it wasn’t going to help us get out of this fix.
“Help me up.”
“I think you’re going to help me up, Doc. You and maybe one of those cranes for
building a high-rise.”
We propped each other up and made use of the wall to struggle to our feet. “You’re
soaking wet.”
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He shrugged. “I should be able to find something lying around. I can carry my shoes
until they dry out.”
He stripped out of the rest of his clothing until he was naked. For a moment he faced
me and I saw I wasn’t the only one who was feeling renewed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” But I knew. I just couldn’t help myself. Damn.
“Like you’d like to eat me. You always were an amazing cock sucker. Those healer’s
hands on me, squeezing my balls while you—” He heaved in a deep breath. “Right. We’re on
a mission.”
“Find out what we can about this site and see if we can help those men.”
He nodded. “We got time to shave and rustle up some fresh clothes for me. Come on.”
I followed him into an adjoining room full of lockers and sinks and mirrors. He busted
open one of the lockers and produced an electric shaver, which he passed me, then he took
out the green surgical scrubs he also found inside and placed them in front of his chest.
“These things are really one-size fits all.”
“They have the virtue of being comfortable.”
“Which is why you medical personnel wear them even in your off hours.” He smiled
into my eyes and I remembered how often I’d returned from a shift when we’d been together
wearing my greens.
“I can imagine you all done up in tiger-striped grease paint and wearing camos.” And
the thought made my palms a little damp. “Promise me something.”
“If I can.” His face darkened.
“If we… When we get out of here, I’d like a striptease sometime.”
“Me shedding my uniform?” He grinned. “I’d wear the ice cream suit just for you.”
I knew he meant his set of whites. Oh, boy, there was just something about a sailor. And
I nearly cut my chin with the shaver, which shouldn’t have been possible. I forced my
attention back to what I was doing.
Caleb also dug up a set of greens for me and I was grateful since I hadn’t relished
putting on my dirty clothes again.
“It’s weird they left so much stuff behind,” I noted when Caleb had finished shaving
and brushing his teeth. It felt weirdly homey, doing these chores together even in this
cavernous and alien place.
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“They had to get out quick because of the fire.”
“There was a fire?”
“Yeah, there—” He broke off and rubbed his forehead in his familiar gesture. “I don’t
remember all of it.”
I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “You will. We’re here, right, ground zero?”
“Roger that,” he said. “You’re good for me, Doc.”
“I’ve got a good bedside manner.”
He shook his head. “No, you. You’re good for me. I wish—”
But whatever he would have said next died on his lips.
“More banging sounds. Are they closer this time or is it my imagination?”
The sounds were rhythmic, kind of gong-like, as if someone was striking a pipe
somewhere in the deep guts of this building. They’d tap then pause. “It’s not Morse code or
something, is it?”
“No, it’s just a jumble of sounds,” Caleb said. “I’d really like to locate who is making
them.”
Cold crept down my spine. “Oh, yeah.”
He looked amused. “For information.”
“Uh-huh.”
“From what I remember, this level was the personnel zone. The ones below are where
experiments took place.”
“Okay, then.” I crossed my arms, looking him over. “Let’s go, Soldier.”
I got a kiss. Hot silken lips, freshly shaved skin, damp hair brushing my face.
“You stick close now, Doc,” he warned me.
I gave him a wry look. “If you keep that up, it’s guaranteed, never mind whatever
danger lurks in those lower levels.”
He smiled, a little shyness, a lot of smugness. “Maybe…we do have a shot. You ever
think that?”
“Sometimes,” I had to admit. “Sometimes I can’t help myself, cowboy.”
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I wanted to call Lilah and check in but I couldn’t get reception for my phone in the
underground building. Caleb assured me he thought she’d be fine, as long as she’d followed
his directives.
“She would have—she’s smart and capable.” Still, I couldn’t help being worried for her.
As soon as we got free of this place, I was going to find her and arrange to meet for a big
breakfast at Denny’s. “You think the people looking for you would have tracked her down
that fast?”
“They would have found those men back on your property by now. Cleaned that up
and gone right on rollin’ on to locate you. I don’t figure they would see me coming back here.
That’s our only advantage, Doc. That and the fact they haven’t sent one of the supers after
us.”
“The supers… You mean what those men were like before their health was
compromised by whatever was done to them.”
“Yep.” The elevator lurched, missing the third floor we’d requested and passing on to
the fourth. “Now that’s interesting,” Caleb said, studying the elevator panel.
“Could it be damage from the fire affecting it?” The door slid open to partial darkness.
Down here on the fourth level, some of the strips of florescent lights were flickering or non-
functional. It didn’t make for a very appealing place to investigate. All we needed was a
flashlight that was low on batteries and the horror movie cliché would be complete.
“Possibly. Or the third floor was restricted and the elevator went into automatic
lockdown during the evacuation.” Caleb ventured deeper down the hallway, looking
confident and alert. I could imagine him in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever they’d sent him
as a SEAL. He was a natural warrior.
The fourth floor was a disappointment. The first room we explored was a large
gymnasium with silently swaying heavy bags and treadmills and other workout gear. The
next was another cafeteria, but its supply of junk food had been raided, machines left
upended and empty. The rest were conference rooms and janitorial spaces.
“Are you getting anything?” I asked, watching Caleb closely. A fine tension seemed to
vibrate from him.
“I think…I was in that gym a time or two. Preparing for…” He winced and shook his
head.
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“Wait.” I reached up and looked into his eyes, seeing the pupils were blown. “It hurts
you when you get those flashes of memory.”
“Like a mother.”
“Maybe someone did something to make sure you never fully remembered. Your
symptoms seem to be psychosomatic, possibly induced by some trauma.” I couldn’t stop
myself from reaching out and gently massaging his temples. He sighed and then rested his
forehead against mine.
“What exactly are we looking for?” I finally asked.
“It would help if we could find a computer,” Caleb said. “Or a file room. They have to
have records somewhere…”
I nodded. “You’re hoping to find your file, why you were here.”
His hand massaged his shoulder where one of the deepest scars crisscrossed his back.
“And what they did to me.”
“Could those marks have been the result of some kind of…discipline? I mean, both you
and the man who attacked us bore the same scars. And you both originally come from the
military.”
Caleb shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Maybe both of you rebelled in some way, hence the extremity of your punishment.”
Caleb looked down at his fingernails. “I remember losing a couple of these. I just don’t
know when.”
Torture. My gut tightened but I pushed my emotions back. “Well, this floor seems a
wash.”
“It does tell us that whoever is haunting this installation has been here, from the
missing food.” Caleb headed back to the elevator. “Come on, Doc, time to get a look see at
level three.”
“But the elevator doesn’t stop there.”
He looked over his shoulder at me almost coyly. “Ex-Navy SEAL here.”
“Right,” I muttered. “Forgive me for forgetting you walk on water.”
“You’re forgiven.” I watched him enter the elevator and disappear.
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“Son of a—You’ve got to stop doing that.” Standing underneath him in the elevator, I
saw he had shimmied up to the ceiling, somehow balancing himself as he opened a little
square entry panel at the top of the lift. “The whole disappearing act thing, I mean.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“Do that.”
The plate fell and he swung himself up and again was out of sight. A moment later he
offered his hand. “Can you make it?”
“You bet.” I braced myself, did some shimmying of my own…and Caleb somehow took
most of my weight. “Are you sure you’re not one of those supers?”
“Yep,” he huffed. “Because you’re not a lightweight, even with your cute butt.”
“I have a heavy bone structure.” We were in a dusty and confined space. Caleb shone
his flashlight and I saw the closed doors just above us, which belonged to the floor we’d
bypassed.
“Now we do some climbing.”
It wasn’t easy, not as easy as Caleb made it seem. But I managed to clamber behind him,
getting hot and dusty and dinging my left hand a good one on some kind of hook. The walls
were so close together I tried not to remember the scene in Star Wars with the trash
compactor.
“I’d do better with a little C-4,” Caleb gritted. He was striving to pull open one of the
closed doors. I positioned myself on the opposite side and helped him, feeling the muscles in
my back like hot, hurting strings.
The door gave suddenly and we both fell through the open space into a hallway that
was completely black, like the maw of a sleeping beast.
“Shit!”
“What?” I gasped.
“I lost the flashlight when the door opened.”
“Okay.”
He laughed. “You’re a brave one, Doc.”
“We might be able to find another.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Are you sticking with me while I go exploring or waiting here?”
“Sticking with you.”
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He climbed to his feet and I felt his hand grasp mine, helping me up. I was stiff from the
climbing. How Caleb could see anything in the abyss surrounding us, I didn’t know.
We groped our way down the hallway, our progress slowed by the need to explore
each room without the benefit of light. Finally, in the fourth room, another lounge space,
Caleb hit gold.
“A laptop.”
As soon as he booted it up the screen offered a faint greenish illumination, enough for
me to see that this room actually had glass windows. I walked over to one and looked
through it, seeing dirt and rock and tree roots. I shivered, feeling like we were buried alive.
“Can we email Lilah?”
“I just logged on to do that.” My throat tightened. Of course he would know how much
I needed to make sure she was okay.
Caleb gestured for me to take his vacant seat and I wasted no time in writing her a
quick note.
“Denny’s?” Caleb grinned at me. “Sounds good, Doc. I could use a stack of pancakes.”
The exchange gave me a little glow of hope. I was counting on sitting with Caleb and
Lilah soon over too much food.
“Now what?”
Caleb closed the email and began looking through the directory. “Password protected.
Look around, will you? At the photos and books in this little cubbyhole. Most people use
something familiar, so it’s easy to remember.”
There were a number of ski holiday photos with various people sporting beery smiles
and tall glasses. A hunk of coral on the file cabinet and a few books. I read the spines,
disregarding the scientific titles as too clinical. One little book caught my eye. “Poetry book.”
I opened it, flipping through words and sketches. “Looks self-published.”
Caleb took it and after trying a dozen titles from the not-so-great poetry we
discovered—whoever the scientist was, he should keep his day job—we hit pay dirt a second
time.
“Dickwad33.” Caleb laughed. “Interesting password.”
“His age—thirty-three—and his girlfriend’s favourite nickname for him. Somehow I
don’t think their relationship had potential.”
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The directory smoothed out from gibberish into intelligible headings. I stiffened at the
first one. “Subject Black, Caleb A.”
Caleb hesitated and I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. Then he clicked on the
mouse to open the file.
The first part consisted of physical statistics and Caleb’s background. He bumped
quickly through the listing of his medals as a SEAL but I could imagine if he was in uniform
he’d wear a helluva lot of them.
Finally we got to the journal entries. It turned out the scientist who’d made them liked
to do the YouTube version, recording himself.
Caleb stiffened as a man with a long face, wispy moustache and pale eyes appeared on
the computer screen.
“You know him, don’t you?”
Caleb nodded. “Yeah, you could say.” His tone had the edge of a blade. “His name is
Hamilton, Doctor Hamilton.”
“What a day, kids!”
Doctor Hamilton’s cheery recorded voice broke in before I could ask Caleb for more
details.
“Jeffries is on the rampage, needing new candidates.” Hamilton paused and took a deep gulp
from a mug. “We’re coming up short since the last batch is out in the field but we got an ideal subject
today—Caleb Black, a Navy SEAL no less. Hopefully now Jeffries will get off my ass. I’ve got orders to
push Black through the programme quickly.”
“Huh, this is dated almost a year ago,” I noted. “Who is the Jeffries he refers to?”
“Doctor Jeffries ran the whole show. We don’t have time to go through all of these
recordings, not now. Skip ahead,” Caleb ordered.
I checked the dates and jumped ahead by three months.
Now Hamilton wore dark circles under his eyes but his voice remained annoyingly
bright. Apparently he loved his work.
“I’ve gone through all the procedures to prepare Black for fieldwork but he’s either very smart, or
very stupid. I’ve come close to breaking him a couple of times, but when he emerges from his cell the
next day, it’s like he’s hit a rewind button. What the fuck is he holding on to? I’ll find out.”
Hamilton’s eyes burned. “And I’ll take it away from him.”
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Jesus. I scrubbed my cheeks and jumped ahead to the final entry.
Hamilton looked even more haggard. His face was unshaven and his hair stood up in
spikes.
“I wasn’t able to make a breakthrough with Black and that lunatic Jeffries just won’t listen to my
theory—Jeffries gets crazier by the day, I swear. But I think I found out why I’d failed when I
examined Black’s cell myself.” He gave a ragged laugh. Scared, the man was scared. “All that is moot
now. Caleb Black is more than we thought. A mole. A fucking mole.”
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Chapter Ten
Caleb’s silence gave me an itch in the middle of my back.
“Hey,” I said and touched him. His back was rigid and he was sweating visibly.
“Hamilton’s dead,” Caleb said, his voice without any inflection.
That itch turned cold and prickly. “How do you know?”
He looked me in the eye. “Because I killed him, Doc.”
Breath escaped me in a long exhale. Somehow I wasn’t surprised.
“Then you must have had a good reason.”
His eyes widened. “That’s all?”
“What else is there? At the core, you are still the same man you were when we met in
that cheesy bar. I let you do things to me that night I wouldn’t with any other man. I trusted
who you are.”
Now Caleb sighed. “You are naïve.”
“Why are people who see the glass half full considered naïve?” I griped. “Without a
positive outlook, I don’t think you can be very productive.”
Speaking of productivity, I returned to the file cabinet and opened it, searching. When I
found Caleb’s hard copy file, I pulled it out and sat on the desk next to Caleb. He was still
staring at the computer screen. I ached to know what he was thinking, but I thought it better
not to push him right now. He was still perspiring, his face glowing pale and sick.
I began to read. The coldly outlined procedures that Hamilton had referred to turned
my guts. Caleb had been deprived of food and water, given hallucinogenic drugs. He’d been
driven by severe physical exercise and abuse, tested by pain.
“This Jeffries and crew lack imagination,” I noted. “This isn’t science—it’s torture.”
Caleb glanced at the file. “Waterboarding. I don’t remember much of it.”
“Thank Christ for that! And this shit was before they knew you were a mole.”
He held my gaze. “I knew I had to break out. They’d find you, find out what I might
have told you. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
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“You closed me out when we first met. I think I hated you for how secretive you were
but all along you were keeping me safe, weren’t you?”
“Keeping secrets doesn’t go over well in relationship 101. But it’s who I am, Murph. If I
were still a SEAL, I wouldn’t be able to talk about my missions.”
“They broke your bones. Broke your ribs and left you alone in your cell for days
without food or water. It’s a miracle you survived.”
He looked away. Swallowed. “I’m not sure what came out on the other side. I’m
not…the man I was. I feel like an old coffee mug that’s been shattered over and over again.”
“You’ve added some glue to that mug and I’d say it’s standing up.” I looked down at
the spread papers. “As near as I can make out, they didn’t use anything on you that was
experimental.”
“So I’m not a super.” He let out a breath. “That’s one thing. Guess I should have known
because the supers were much faster at healing than I was.”
Anger burned. “What the hell kind of place is this?”
“Like I said, a bad place.”
The sudden clanging sound seemed to give emphasis to his words. My hands clenched
on the papers.
“I think it’s time we find out who’s making that sound,” Caleb said casually.
I grabbed his arm.
“This is what I spent years training for, Doc,” Caleb chided. “I’m the sharp end of the
stick. I go to the bad places.”
And however shattered he thought himself, I could see he was still essentially that same
man.
I made myself let go, but it was hard, so freaking hard. I wanted to protect him. “All
right. I’m going to stay here, find out as much as I can.”
Caleb looked at the thick file with his name on it. I knew he hungered to know what
they’d done to him, everything they’d done to him. “We may not have much time. You better
find out how they experimented on those men.”
“Okay,” I said.
Caleb ghosted to the door.
“Caleb,” I said.
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“Yeah?”
“Come back to me.”
A smile touched his lips. “Always.”
Reluctantly, I put aside Caleb’s file and dug deeper into the despicable Hamilton’s
work. I found more videos, some showing live action of Caleb’s torture.
I couldn’t watch them.
I sat back in the chair, listening to it creak as I rocked meditatively. I was still washed
out and my brain felt heavy and slow.
There was no repeat of the clanging sound, which should have made me grateful but,
when an hour passed, I was getting increasingly anxious.
Had Caleb run into trouble?
What was I thinking? Caleb was all about trouble. I’d tagged that about him on our first
meeting.
But he could handle himself. I reminded myself he could handle himself before I buried
myself in the files on other subjects, finding mention of a formula A-33. The files documented
the milky eyes as the first sign of a breakdown in physiology. Deterioration continued until a
kind of madness, then death.
Various therapies were applied but all of it had the feel of too few lifeboats on the
Titanic.
Desperation. Something had been unleashed they were powerless to control.
When Caleb didn’t return for another hour, I left the files and went searching for him.
I’d found a small flashlight in Hamilton’s desk, more like a penlight for computer repairs,
but it was better than nothing.
After studying Caleb’s file, I had a hunch where I could find him—if he hadn’t run into
something he couldn’t handle with our resident noise-maker.
I passed rooms with examination tables, so like the hospital where I worked, but used
for a much more sinister purpose. I couldn’t help but imagine Caleb on one of them.
I hated the idea of him, helpless.
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The cells were at the end of the corridor, through a steel door with some unsettling fist-
sized dents in it. From one of the subjects in the last stages of breakdown? What had these
scientists done, coldly locked them up when their subjects didn’t respond to therapy?
I found Caleb curled up in a small cell. He looked as fragile as the first time I’d seen him
in my attic.
“Hey.” I made my voice gentle. “Didn’t find whoever was making those noises, huh?”
He shook his head.
I crawled in with him. The place wasn’t even large enough for a grown man to stand.
“I thought…” He rubbed his forehead. “I thought more of it would come back if I came
here.”
I nodded. “Makes sense.” It hurt seeing him like this.
His lips quirked, but there was only darkness in his eyes. “You’ve got a good bedside
manner, Doc.”
“Did anything more come back?”
“Only one thing.” He shifted and I blinked at him. “Give me the flashlight. Pretty
frickin’ useless toy.”
“Hey, it beats a lighter.” Which was what he’d been holding when I’d found him.
“Whatever works.” He pointed the little star of light and I stiffened.
“So that’s how you beat Hamilton?”
His voice came out like rusty water from a pipe. “Yeah.”
Scratched into his cell wall was a single word—Murphy.
“And people say romance is dead.” It was stupid, trying to make light of it. Seeing that
word was huge, big as the world. I felt it expanding in my chest, making my eyes sting.
“I told you I took you into the dark with me.”
He’d meant it. Literally. Jesus.
“Caleb.” I cupped his cheeks. “I love you. I love you.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. He was shaking.
We bumped noses when we made to kiss, awkward like the first time. I met searing
blue eyes, felt him claim me with that look. When our lips met I moaned. He gave a husky
laugh and his hand was gripping my head, wild in my hair.
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“I came here lookin’ for me and all I found was you. I thought about you in here,
relived every moment we were together, every word you said, the way your eyes crinkle
when you smile, that sarcastic sense of humour.”
“Who are you calling sarcastic?” I demanded breathlessly.
“You.” He laughed again. “God, I love that about you. You don’t back down from me.
A lot of guys…and women. They’re like groupies, you know?”
I could imagine. Excited by what he did and not who he was.
“Believe me, a guy in the military is the last person I saw myself with.” His face
stiffened so I shook him gently. “Not because you aren’t honourable and deserving but
because I’m a coward.”
“Yeah, right. You’re such a coward.”
I flushed, realising it was a stupid thing to say when I was in a cell with him after
breaking into a secret facility. “Okay, maybe just half a coward.”
“You’re a coward the way Scully from The X Files is a coward.”
“I guess that makes you Mulder.”
“I’ve got the half-assed flashlight to prove it.” He lifted my pilfered penlight.
Somehow I was kissing him again, hungry for his touch, for his breath on my lips, for
the feel of him surrounding me, large and very male, his lips offering me poetry I’d never
hear from him—not in this lifetime.
“What are you smiling at, Doc?”
“You. Just who you are.”
“Who I am is enough to make a smart man run.”
“Oh, yeah.” Our tongues met, teasing, sliding together. Delicious friction that made my
heart thunder like an unbroken horse. Wild, he made me as wild as he was when he touched
me.
When his hands went to my waist I grabbed them.
“No?” His voice came out slow and foggy. His eyes were dilated. “Too fast, Doc? I can
go slow. I can give you whatever you want, be whoever you want.”
“Idiot. I don’t want you to give to me.” I wasn’t sure how to put my idea into words. I
hadn’t ever done anything remotely kinky until I’d hooked up with Caleb. And this…this
was a kind of healing. “I thought we’d do it on one of the tables,” I blurted out.
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Now Caleb blinked. Then a slow smile touched his lips. “Why, Doc…” he drawled.
I was blushing. Damn, why was it I did that with Caleb? “Um, if you want.”
“A little medical kink to white out what happened to me here?”
Now I hurt for him again. I couldn’t speak so I just nodded.
He kissed me, tenderness and heat and his hand around the back of my head, holding
me close. “I fuckin’ love your bedside manner.”
I expected to feel self-conscious but I hadn’t bargained on Caleb.
He took command, taking my arm and guiding me to the examination room adjacent to
the cells. He was breathing heavily, sweat on his upper lip. He switched on the large
overhead lamp and the sudden light struck my eyes.
“They hurt you here,” I said.
Caleb nodded. “Hamilton especially. I think the cheerful doctor got off on it.”
A wave of sickness obscured the desire I’d been feeling. “It was a stupid idea, Caleb.
I’m sorry.”
He cupped my face. “Why be sorry, Doc? You want to make it better, just take it away.
You’re a healer.”
“I’m a jerk.”
“Why? You took it away for me when I was here before. This isn’t any different.” He
locked the door with a decisive click that set my pulse pounding again. His hard, chiselled
features were suddenly intimidating. What had I let myself in for?
He leaned against the locked door and crossed his arms. “Take off your clothes, Doc.”
“I—” Whatever I was going to say flew from my head when he slowly shook his head.
“You offered to be mine. You think I’m going to give you up?”
“But we have to—”
“This is going to be quick and rough and very satisfying. We’ll save the world after I
have you. But I’m going to have you.”
The burn of his eyes on my body made my hands shake as I pulled off the greens I’d
snagged. First the shirt, my nipples puckering in the cool air, then the pants, my hard cock
falling out, needy and unsubtle.
In two strides he was beside me. He hefted me off my feet.
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“Jeez!” I gasped. His strength somehow always took me by surprise.
He dumped me on the examination table, spreading my legs and clamping my ankles
into restraints. The cool metal cuffs grounded me down.
He was going to do me, really do me.
Caleb wasted no time in tearing the extra sheet into strips, the sound of the rending
cloth primitive emphasis for what we were about to do. He used one strip to tie my hands
above my head. Then he held my gaze. “I want to gag you.”
My heart jumped in my throat.
He looked down my body at my weeping cock. “You like the idea.”
There could be no lies with him. Never with him. “Yes,” I whispered.
“If you need me to stop at any time, I want you to pound your hands down on the
table,” Caleb said as he gagged me with the second strip. “And I’ll stop and set you free.”
I nodded, since he’d taken away my ability to speak. Taken it away and left me
deliciously helpless. God help me, I wasn’t thinking of what they’d done to him now. I was
just thinking of what he was doing to me and how much I wanted him to treat me like this.
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Chapter Eleven
“Are you ready for this?” His voice was a silken noose, capturing me as much as he’d
already done physically. He stroked himself through the medical scrubs he was wearing and
suddenly the term medical kink had all new meaning to me. I’d never played this way before,
despite all the usual jokes at work.
I nodded again and a hint of a smile touched his lips as if he could clearly sense my
eagerness.
Well, it wasn’t hard to see. I was on display for him and my cock was stiff.
He moved to the end of the table and separated my legs even wider. As I watched
avidly he opened a drawer and put on rubber gloves.
I moaned and he gave a husky laugh. “You are so into this, baby.”
The snapping sound went straight to the base of my spine, where desire curled.
Next he lathered his fingers generously with lubricant before breaching me in a
business-like manner.
I made a soft sound at the heavy feel of thick fingers inside me. It had been so long.
“You want me to have you again, don’t you, Doc?” he demanded softly.
I held his heavy-lidded gaze and nodded. Yes, I want you. I want to be this way for you.
Only you.
His eyes flared like a lit match, as if he could read my thoughts.
“Doc, I…” His voice was husky. I read what he couldn’t say in his eyes. I want to be this
way for you. To please you. To be your man.
There was a soft rustle of clothing and then he revealed himself to me. With his shirt on
and his pants pushed down, that single, blatant strip of nudity seemed to stand out. He was
long and wet-tipped, his penis crowned with a plumy head. Breathless, I watched him touch
himself, running a fingertip over a thick vein. He hissed as if he was touching something
super-hot—which in my opinion, he was. Oh, Jesus. I could almost come looking at him.
“You like lookin’ at the goods, huh?” He smiled at me.
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How often when we’d first been together had he woken up with my face buried
between his legs? I loved the look, taste and smell of him, his crinkly pubic hair brushing my
skin, the moles on his thighs, the scar on his ass, everything that made him Caleb.
“Oh, no.” He bent closer and his hard flesh grazed against my open thighs. I inhaled
sharply. “Not yet. I want to draw it out for you.”
The maddening man moved away from where I needed him.
I was forced to lie there while a hand grazed over the back of my arm, tracing the veins
that were blue against my pale skin. Then I felt a tongue gently probe a bruise. How could he
do that with his lips and his breath, tease a fire in me that I was afraid would burn away
everything I was?
I was conscious of the alien feel of a gag in my mouth, the cotton stretching across the
lower half of my face. The tie on my wrists was loose enough so I could work myself free if I
wanted, but the feel of it only emphasised our shared fantasy.
I moaned again, but he only laughed and brushed aside my hair to feast gently, slowly,
licking where my shoulder met my neck and oh, God—why hadn’t I ever known how
sensitive I was there?
My body felt like something new under his hands, something wild that he’d moulded
from prosaic clay. Had I been alive since the last time he’d loved me? I squeezed my eyes
shut. No, I had just existed. All those months I’d told myself I was getting over him, better,
stronger every day. Building a wall.
But inside that wall I was bleeding.
He took one nipple in his mouth, rolling and nipping it until it pulsed. He pinched the
other one, his focus so intense that I knew for him this was every bit as exciting as being
inside me.
Was there anything sexier than a man who got off on foreplay? Except this wasn’t
foreplay for Caleb. This was pleasing me. And pleasing me was what he needed, what he
craved more than anything else. My pleasure had always been Caleb’s pleasure.
His hands meshed through mine and he looked into my eyes, possessing me in that
flicker of a moment.
I cried out when he thrust inside me.
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The bones of his face stood out, brutal in the harsh heat of the lamp. His rumpled
clothing, my splayed legs should have made this merely an act of fucking but my gaze
caught in his made it more.
He gritted his teeth. I could feel his hands tremble against my thighs.
Then I felt something like a shower of sparks deep in my body as he plied me, angling
his cock.
The room was hushed except for the creak-creak of the table and his panting. He slid
home, over and over again, so that my thighs shook and I lifted my body to meet his every
thrust.
Sweat ran down his dark brow to drip off the side of his face. His hands bit into me.
“The only one. If I don’t make it out of this…you’ll be the last thing I see, the last thing I
think of.”
I didn’t want to hear him say things like that. It made that pain expand again, that fear
of living without him. I could do it, but God damn it, I didn’t want to. I wanted to wake up
every day with him in my bed, grumpy since he wasn’t remotely a morning person. If he
wanted to continue to be a SEAL or work for a security company or whatever, fine, I’d move
where he needed to move. As long as I could fall asleep with him and wake up to the scent of
burned toast and worse coffee and his long body in my shower.
The fear added a bittersweet edge to our loving. I saw it in his eyes. He wanted to stay
with me as much as I wanted him there.
Suddenly he was pounding into me, my toes curling as he thrust deep, a cry burning up
from my throat as I spilled and spilled and I heard his husky sound of completion.
When I could process again he was on the table. The gag was gone and he was curled
around me protectively.
“I didn’t think about what went down here. Not once.”
I blinked. Shit, hadn’t this been an attempt to heal him? “Uh, great.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you forgot. This stuff…it’s been a shadow on my life.”
“So we’ll handle it.”
He exhaled. “Yeah, we will. I know we need to get up and play hero. I wish I could
spend a few days with you in bed.”
“Sleeping. And eating huge pancake house breakfasts. And making love.”
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“You always called it making love. Even that first time when I made fun of you for
being sentimental. But it was never making love for me until you.”
“You just needed the best,” I said.
“You’re definitely SEAL significant other material, with that attitude,” he teased.
Too soon he was up on his feet, handing me a towel he’d dunked under warm water. I
cleaned myself and dressed quickly. My heart was pounding and sweat broke out in my
armpits.
Our respite was over.
When I looked at my watch, I couldn’t believe it. He’d swung me off my axis and I was
now rotating at a different angle. All in just over twenty minutes.
“I know,” he said, leaning his forehead against mine. “I’m not the same either. You
cleaned me out. I feel empty…and free.”
“Bleach for the soul.” I tried to make a joke of it but my voice was gritty to my own
ears.
“Ready?” he asked.
Hell, no. I nodded.
Caleb flipped the lock and we slipped back into the hallway.
And face to face with Caleb’s ghosts of Christmas past.
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Chapter Twelve
“Oh, shit.” Six men. Holding guns trained on us. Sharp eyes, killer eyes. Warriors, they
were warriors the way Caleb was a warrior.
A slight man strode confidently from their heart.
“Jeffries,” Caleb whispered.
Dr Daniel Jeffries, head of research. King of the ant hill Caleb had kicked over.
The man was thin, stoop shouldered with neatly combed, wispy brown hair and a linen
bow tie. The only things incongruous about him were the stains on his lab coat. Jeez, they
looked at least a couple of days old.
Caleb shoved me behind him.
“Caleb Black. Just the man we were looking for,” Jeffries drawled. “Considerate of you
to come back here just as we’re cleaning things up.”
“You sent those men after me.”
Jeffries’ lips tightened. “To secure the doctor. No way for us to know how much you’d
compromised yourself by”—distaste flickered over Jeffries’ face—“talking to him.
Fortunately you’ve also brought him so now all the loose ends will be tied up at the same
time.”
“You won’t get away with this.” I heard myself say it and wanted to wince. Hello, hero
cliché. All we needed now was a rusty set of train tracks for these guys to tie me to.
Jeffries smiled. “Because in the end good always triumphs.” Jeffries signalled to a burly
guy built like a tank. “Take care of them. It doesn’t matter if it gets messy. Not now.”
Tank Guy raised his gun and two things happened at hyper speed—Caleb shoved me
so I lost my balance and Tank Guy was suddenly flying through the air, striking the other
men in the narrow hallway like pinballs.
On the floor I caught flash frames of the fight. Grunts. Blood flying, Caleb’s leg arcing
and Jeffries hitting the floor. He snarled and I saw the white gleam of his teeth, his eyes.
A hand bit into my arm and I was tossed back in the room where we’d made love.
Caleb locked the door and staggered back, huffing as he examined the room.
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“Get that chair.” He glared at me. “Get it!”
I got it.
The door vibrated under tremendous pressure.
Caleb put the chair against the wall then used it to reach a vent. He smashed his elbow
into it. Jip rock spattered like icing sugar.
“Up here, Doc.”
He was already inside the freaking vent.
I climbed on the chair, wobbled and took his hand. It was bleeding from his fight with
the men, the knuckles—
“How did you… Those men all had guns.”
“I’m aware.” He yanked me into the vent. I lost some skin on my forearms. “Move.
Move!”
I skittered behind him, harsh breaths, sweat stinging my eyes. Behind me I heard the
door implode, then a sound like pebbles hitting metal. Shooting at us. They were shooting at
the vent.
We reached a corner and Caleb kicked out powerfully, smashing through another
opening. One minute he was there, the next he was gone.
Behind me I glimpsed a pale face.
I jumped head first out of the vent.
And into Caleb’s arms.
We collapsed onto the floor.
Caleb was up, limping, urging me on. “Come on!”
He yanked open the door into the hallway and we ran through it, retracing our steps.
Behind us I could see Jeffries and some of his men chasing us. The elevator shaft was a black
hole. Caleb fell into it, pulling me with him. I struck the side of the shaft, felt something give
in my hand. My eyes watered at the sudden sizzling, wild pain.
Caleb pushed me through the opening we’d made earlier and we were in the elevator
car. Behind us those hot striking pebble sounds returned with a vengeance, like we were in
the middle of a hail storm.
“Hit G, Doc,” Caleb rasped. His gun was up, pointing to the opening. He fired through
it and something heavy hit the elevator. Oh, Jesus—a body?
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I hit G for ground? Garage? Who the fuck knew. The elevator took a hundred years and
then lurched down.
Caleb coolly shoved another clip into his gun, but now his focus was on the elevator
doors.
“You think…” I huffed in breath, cradling my hand against my chest. “Someone could
be waiting for us?”
“Get down on the floor!”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
The elevator came to a halt, dinging with a bizarre kind of cheer, as if everything was
fine and dandy as long as you’d reached your destination.
Caleb rolled through it, came up with his eerie brand of grace, his gun hand moving
like a search light.
The minutes ticked. I swallowed. A bead of sweat rolled down my face.
My hand was swelling. I had a gash…broken fingers? Felt like it.
Caleb jerked his head and I jumped. I was so keyed up, even that movement had
shocked my system.
I crept out of the elevator, staying close to Caleb.
Behind us, the doors slid shut.
“They’ll be coming,” Caleb said.
He didn’t need to tell me that. My gut weighed like lead as I heard the elevator move
from our floor.
We were in a space as large as a hangar for an aeroplane. Inside were vehicles, rows of
military Jeeps with the occasional Hummer thrown in for colour. I hated those things, took
up so much room on the freeway and they had to be a bitch to park…
“Jeffries’ eyes,” I muttered. “They were white at the edges. And his lab coat was filthy.
He was dressed like a neat freak except for that coat.”
“He’s a very sick man.” Caleb nodded.
“He experimented on himself?”
“That’s where it all started as near as I can tell. Why do you think he’s so desperate for a
cure?”
“He wasn’t as bad as those men in the woods.”
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“It was different with him. I don’t know why. I don’t know medical stuff.” Caleb ran to
the nearest Hummer. “We’ll take this one.”
I sprinted after him, watched as he took his shirt off, wrapped his arm.
I flinched as he smashed through the glass.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m going to get you out of this, but we have to go now. Right
now.”
“I only have the files on those men.” I grabbed Caleb’s arm. “I don’t have all of your
information, not all the tests they performed on you—” I couldn’t fill in all his gaps.
“It doesn’t matter.” His expression was closed off, like a door, slammed in my face.
“Get inside. They left the keys. I want you to drive.”
My hand hurt like a bitch but I nodded.
Caleb sprinted to the passenger side, opened the door.
“Caleb!”
Bullets sprayed the vehicle.
Something stung my neck.
Caleb went down and I threw myself from the Hummer.
Grunts. A sound like a donkey kick.
Huge shadows writhed against the wall thrown by Caleb and his adversary.
I watched as Caleb struggled for the gun.
The man he was fighting hit his kidney.
Caleb drove his elbow into the other man’s face.
They hit the ground. More smacking sounds. Caleb’s head swung back on impact and
then he leapt upright, shot his leg out…and was thrown through the air to crash into a Jeep.
He panted, teeth bared, launched himself.
Caleb was on the other man’s shoulders, fingers dug deep into his eyes.
The man screamed, a scream I knew I’d hear in nightmares.
Bleeding, Caleb took a step towards me, fell—
I grabbed him, helped him to the Hummer, threw him inside and ran to the driver’s
side. The thing roared to life like a pissed off lion.
Oh, Jesus, the man was on his feet, hand cupping his ruined eyes, gun pointed at us—
I yelled. What, I have no fucking clue.
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The Hummer mowed him down.
We shot for the closed metal doors and I didn’t even think about it.
I drove straight into them.
As a peel of metal slid off the fractured glass of our windshield Caleb was already
calmly reloading another clip.
“Are you hurt?” I demanded.
He gave me a blank look.
“You’re bleeding over the seat.”
“We have to get some distance. Now. Floor it, Doc.”
We flew over gravel, hit concrete and the big machine skittered and then dug in.
“What’s going on, what am I missing?” I wiped a hand over my mouth and came up
with blood. My hands were shaking so much on the wheel it was a wonder I could steer.
“Clean-up crew,” Caleb said. “They’re here to clean up the site.”
Clean-up.
Clean. Up.
The words jumbled in my head like dancing dice as we roared through another gully
and then sprang up a hill. The Hummer was no race car, but it had mother-fuckin’ traction
going for it.
Behind us fire mushroomed soundlessly in the rear-view mirror before the heat and
noise caught up like a freight train.
Our ride skidded, revolving, black marks on asphalt—
Caleb grabbed the wheel.
I was screaming at him but I couldn’t hear myself over the noise.
We shuddered to a stop halfway off the road.
I was lying against Caleb. He was holding me, holding on so tight.
“I’m going to make a call,” he said in that distant voice.
“You… You remember who you are,” I panted.
“Enough.”
Behind us another fireball crescendoed across the horizon.
“They destroyed the site. Blew it the fuck up.”
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“Yeah.” He hit speed dial on his phone. “It’s me. Yeah, I know it’s been a while since
my last check-in—”
He looked at me. His eyes were blue and burning and suddenly my stomach tightened.
I knew that look. He was memorising my face.
“I want to come in but you have to do something first.”
Caleb covered the phone. “Drive,” he ordered me.
“Caleb…”
“Drive, God damn you, Doc. You think those men went up with the building?”
No, of course they hadn’t. That would be too easy.
I pulled the Hummer back onto the road.
Caleb made a couple more cryptic statements into the phone then shoved it into his
pocket.
“Doc, I—”
“Save it.” Did he think I was stupid? “You’re going to ditch me, aren’t you? There’s that
little town we passed through. I guess that’s a good place as any to leave me.”
He made no effort to deny it.
Don’t say it. Don’t. Have some fucking pride.
But I couldn’t stop myself. I had no pride, no dignity where Caleb was concerned.
“Am I going to see you again?” My voice broke on the words. Perfect, just perfect.
Caleb’s jaw flexed as he faced the road, his face hard and young and brutal and his
fingernails red with the half-moons of dried blood and his eye swelling and he was the other
half of me, God damn him, the half that made everything make sense.
He’d already left me behind.
* * * *
At the bus station two towns over, Caleb gripped my arm. “Call Lilah, Doc. You call her
and lay low for a couple of days. This should be tied up by then…”
We were at the bus station. I was about to climb on the bus going…I don’t fucking
remember. Did it matter? Away from him, which was what he wanted.
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I looked at him, his body hunched against the cold wind, his bruises colouring up like a
sunset.
“I want to help you finish out this mission.”
Exasperation and something like tenderness moved over his face. “Don’t you get it,
Doc? All along, you were my mission.”
Keeping you safe.
I climbed into the bus, settling carefully down in a seat, my body sore and creaking and
my freaking hand swollen. Oh, yeah. Maybe two of the fingers were busted.
I closed my eyes.
They snapped open a second later. Tired, I was so freaking tired, which was my only
excuse. Why hadn’t Caleb wanted me to come with him? Because he knew he’d do anything
to protect me.
You are my mission.
Including kill anyone who threatened me.
Jesus. It was a long time before I could trust my voice to speak to Lilah but when I could
I called her.
At least I’d soon have that pancake breakfast I’d been dreaming about.
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Epilogue
Finger Springs, Montana, wasn’t a metropolis, but it was perfect for my needs. I’d even
made time to hike over to the small hot springs that gave the town its name. They weren’t
much bigger than a finger’s width, but they provided some nice pools to lie in and close my
eyes and put my ears under the surface so I couldn’t even hear the trails of aeroplanes as
they went over head.
It made me feel like I was living a hundred years ago.
Yeah, a hundred years ago Caleb would probably have been a US Marshall or a town
sheriff. He would have been trouble with guns riding low on his hips and a black, tall,
crowned hat.
Because thinking of my cowboy hurt and could make me crazy with worry I inhaled
deeply, trying some of the breathing techniques I was picking up in the local yoga studio.
Trying fricking yoga.
It was definitely the sign of a man with a broken heart.
Seven months had passed since I’d last seen Caleb at the bus station. I’d expected… I
don’t know what. But definitely not to be in limbo this long. Not that I’d allowed myself to
live that way.
After leaving him I’d hooked up with Lilah and we’d holed up together for a week in a
dingy little motel room. I’d had my pancakes at Denny’s, but finally we’d been on the verge
of running out of money and I’d needed to get back.
At least renovating my life had given me something else to think about other than the
fear that Caleb was dead or that Caleb had fully recovered and realised I wasn’t as important
to him as he’d thought or—
Yep, happy thoughts to keep a man from sleeping at night.
I sighed and forced myself to sit up in the water.
I’d changed more than just where I was living over the past few months.
After my experiences with science-gone-wrong, I’d recognised that I didn’t have the
emotional distance prized by my surgeon mentor. I’d gone into general practice, hanging out
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a shingle in a small town the way I’d always wanted. Here I was just about the only doctor in
a good fifty miles so it kept me busy, which was good.
Lilah had also come with me, taking a pay cut to become my nurse and office assistant.
She was crazy to do it but, damn, if I wasn’t glad she and her oversized dog had followed me
out West.
She was family and right now I needed family.
I looked over to where I’d left my clothes. I was wearing only a pair of boxers since I’d
forgotten to bring a suit with me on this first hike. Well, I hadn’t known the water would be
so soothing I’d be tempted to go in.
Guess I should get out soon.
“Doc.”
The voice was raspy with feeling, deep and dark like a chocolate sin cake.
A voice I heard in my dreams.
A voice that couldn’t possibly be here.
Jeez, could I get no relief? Caleb haunted me everywhere.
“Go ‘way,” I muttered.
“Doc, God damn it.” The irritation in the voice had me snapping my eyes open. Fantasy
men were rarely irritated.
And sweaty, dirty and grumpy looking.
Caleb Black stood at the edge of my pool wearing scarred cowboy boots and dusty
jeans. His black T-shirt moulded a body that had filled out in the months since I’d touched
him, ran my hands over him.
“It’s hot as hell.”
I blinked. Oh, he didn’t mean his body but the temperature out here.
“I got lost once trying to find this place. The map isn’t accurate.” He dragged off one of
those boots as I watched him.
“You got lost,” I echoed. Then anger came to my rescue. “For months?”
His lips twisted. “I figured you might be a little pissed off at me.”
“You figured right!” I was halfway out of the warm water. So much for my relaxation
therapy. My body was vibrating. My heart was pounding and my blood pressure had no
doubt risen to a dangerous boil.
THE SEAL IN MY ATTIC
Jan Irving
97
www.total-e-bound.com
Yep, Caleb was back in my life.
“Now, Doc.” He raised his palms, backing away as if he was afraid of me.
Yeah, right. But he soon would be!
Hands on my hips, I glowered at him.
His lips twitched again.
I considered flattening him and dragging his unconscious body into the pool.
“I couldn’t contact you,” he said. “I couldn’t risk it.”
“I didn’t know if you were alive or dead,” I said through my teeth. “I didn’t know what
happened to those poor men we found or if those assholes who tried to kill us were still
roaming free—”
“They aren’t.” His face hardened. “What’s left of them are in custody. Jeffries is dead.”
“Good.”
He looked a little taken aback by my bloodthirsty tone. Well, hell, Jeffries had tortured
people, including Caleb, then tried to kill us.
“I’m, ah, proud of you, Doc.”
I cocked a brow.
He looked a little deflated by my continued attitude. “You went after what you truly
wanted, redefined your dream.”
“If you mean coming out here and following my bliss, then yeah. But I didn’t have any
options that included you since you were poof—gone.”
“I didn’t have any right to ask you to change your life for me. Not after what I put you
through.”
“I think that would be my decision.” I sighed. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
“I thought we could—”
I pointed at the ground and snapped my fingers.
He grinned. “Pushy, Doc. I could get into it.”
I had a vision of his wrists tied to my bed. He would be a pushy bottom, making me
please him. And I was getting hot thinking about it.
“I need a few of the blanks filled in.”
THE SEAL IN MY ATTIC
Jan Irving
98
www.total-e-bound.com
Caleb pulled off his second boot and tossed it aside before sitting down and folding his
legs. I sat closer to the water, wanting a little distance between us so I didn’t just up and
jump him.
He removed his cowboy hat. His flattened and slightly damp hair should not have been
appealing, but he looked like a mussed-up range worker, fresh from riding cattle. I hadn’t
lost my yen for cowboys.
“What happened after I left you?”
“I didn’t want you brought into it,” Caleb said. “I met with my contact, came in from
the cold.”
I’d read enough Le Carré novels to know he meant returned to the fold of whatever
agency he’d been working for. “And then what?”
“I handed over the files we collected, filled them in as much as I could remember. I still
have…gaps. Things I don’t remember.”
I nodded. It made sense, since he wasn’t a machine, but a person who had been through
a traumatic experience. From the reading I’d done since we’d parted ways, he might
remember things all at once or over time, in dreams and snatches. “Were the people you
worked for able to help the men in the woods?” Those men had haunted me almost as much
as Caleb.
Caleb nodded. “They have slowed the progression of the illness. Turns out that packet
we found in the locker had the formulas for all the wonder drugs Jeffries had dreamed up.
And… I pushed for the men to be reunited with their families. I thought you would
approve.”
“Oh, yeah. People get better if they have hope.” I swallowed, getting lost in his intense
burning blue eyes. “What about you, are you back with the SEALs?”
He shook his head. “I am getting older and being a SEAL is a young man’s game. I’m
twenty-nine years old. If I stayed with them, sooner or later I’d have to leave the fun part
behind.”
Being a SEAL was fun? Who was this guy I was so totally, completely gone over?
He grinned and I saw the reckless heart of him.
“I guess settling down in a small town is going to be a big let-down.” From my reading,
I knew someone like him could make a very good living working for security firms.
THE SEAL IN MY ATTIC
Jan Irving
www.total-e-bound.com
99
“That depends on you.” He took my hand, rubbing his callused fingers over my
smoother ones. I felt that touch light me up. “Since I couldn’t stay away from you any longer
and I didn’t want to re-up, I thought I’d take some contract work. I have a few contacts out in
the real world. And… I’ll do some ranch work again, maybe invest in a small spread. It’s
what I did before I joined the Navy.” He let out a long exhalation and I imagined he was
shedding years of living a very specific and dangerous life.
“I rarely sleep through the nights, since I’m always on call out here,” I warned him.
“I might have to go in and do a little, uh, freelance work from time to time,” Caleb said.
“I’ve never lived with someone for more than a year.”
“The longest I’ve lived with someone is just over a week.”
“I’m a morning person.”
He winced. “I can work around it.”
“I take up most of the bed.”
“I remember.” He leaned close. “Doc, there is all this shit goin’ on in our lives. And it
won’t stop and it won’t be easy but one thing I know is I want you. I just want you in my life.
When everything went dark, and I was lost and confused, I came to you.”
“And you made sure I was safe.”
“That’s all there was for me. Now… I don’t know how I’ll do, trying to live the happy
ending, you know?” Uncertainty in his gaze now. He loved me but he was being honest with
me. We were total opposites and he had never had a real relationship.
But he was willing to try.
For me, he was willing to try.
“Come here, cowboy.”
Caleb wasted no time. I was crushed against him, smelling man and leather and the hot
day and fresh grass.
He kissed me and oh…the lights went back on. The engine revved. Places opened
inside me that had been shut down, boarded up.
“Let’s give the happy ending a shot,” I said.
Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
His Landlady
Jan Irving
Excerpt
Chapter One
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks within, awakens ~ Carl Jung
Diana Moore hesitated outside the kickboxing studio, her attention caught by a poster
of the sleek body of a young male kickboxer, his leg straight up in a martial arts kick.
Although every muscle was warrior defined, it was the expression on his face that
fixed her attention. He was gazing into the distance, a half smile touching his lips, a look of
transcendent pleasure that didn’t make her think of the martial arts…
“Perv,” she muttered to herself. She had better things to do than stand here lusting
over a beautiful man who was probably too airbrushed to be true. She adjusted her grip on
her attaché case and almost walked into another young man, this one short and covered with
black-and-red tattoos.
“You here for class?” he demanded. “Come back in an hour.” His street accent made
the word ‘hour’ a match for ‘sour’.
Di gulped and stopped herself from taking a step back. The stranger had an
aggressive energy that she could feel like a force field.
“No,” she said. “I’m strictly a yoga person.”
The man stared at her, unblinking, and Di felt as if she’d told a proud Doberman
owner that she was the golden retriever type.
“We don’t do yoga here,” he said, crossing his arms.
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www.total-e-bound.com
“No, I know that…” She was flustered and it was stupid. But the studio so wasn’t her
thing. “I’m the landlady of this strip mall. I’m here with some paperwork for the owner.”
“Huh.” He didn’t look impressed.
“Nath, behave!” a mellow voice interrupted.
There was a thread of laughter in it that stroked down Di’s spine.
“Hello, landlady. I’ve been waiting to meet you.”
A tanned hand was held out and when she automatically took it, callouses brushed
her palm. The grip was strong, confident, and didn’t crush her fingers; this was a man with
no need to prove anything.
“Uh…”
He was also the man from the poster. Except he was stripped down to black shorts
and his dark hair was sweaty against his forehead. He regarded her with almond-shaped,
amber-brown eyes, hinting at a slight Asian heritage while his unshaven jaw and shaggy
brown hair were sexy mongrel.
“I’m Diana Moore,” she said.
“My landlady is a Roman goddess, Diana the Huntress,” he said.
Although those dark eyes didn’t move down to her full breasts, Diana felt as if they
had. Her nipples peaked through her thin, blue silk tunic.
“Sloan Kent—owner and operator of Soul Kickin’.”
“Soul Kickin’,” she repeated, seeing with relief that the other man, Nath, had
disappeared into the studio. He’d been a bit intense for her to handle before she’d had her
morning espresso. “So you decided on a name.”
A smile tilted his perfect lips. If he’d caught her attention in two dimensions, it was
nothing to the real man. The real young man, she reminded herself. He looked to be in his
early twenties, and she definitely was not at thirty-five.
“Yeah, I know I kept you waiting. But waiting can be good.” He raised his brows as an
expression that was part teasing and part earnest lit his eyes. “You gotta live in the present
moment. Grab every second.”
“Ah…right.” Now she wasn’t imagining he was looking at her. She ducked her head,
knowing with her curves she didn’t look as good as he did in shorts. More earth goddess
than sports queen. “I brought the paperwork over.”
www.total-e-bound.com
Sloan nodded. “Come on in,” he invited, opening the glass door of his studio for her.
She walked into what had previously been just bare brick walls, scarred from an
incarnation as a sports retailer. The floors were halfway through a polish job, stripped down
to sawdust and bleached maple so the scent of wood was strong and tangy.
“Nath has been doing the floors,” Sloan said, as if he’d noticed her interest.
“They were a mess,” she admitted.
In fact, she hadn’t been able to lease the space for months. She was glad she had
finally managed it, despite her mild discomfort with the type of business that had taken the
storefront.
When her father had given her the strip mall, she’d known he’d expected her to fail,
but Diana had put a lot of extra time into it, determined to make it the basis for a stable
income for herself and Jeff.
“Nath’s gone for lunch,” Sloan said, picking up a towel and wiping his face.
Diana studied the metal rails hanging across the ceiling and the heavy black bags
suspended from them.
“I can’t imagine hitting something for fun,” she said.
“It’s liberating,” Sloan said. “It can give you confidence that spills into the rest of your
life.”
She grazed a hand down one bag. “I’m not comfortable with aggression.”
Sloan’s expression was serene. He shrugged, and she got the feeling that while he
didn’t agree with her, he was comfortable enough with himself that he didn’t need to argue
about it.
His confidence was beginning to get to her. He was so young…he shouldn’t be so self-
assured. She cleared her throat and opened her attaché case, sitting it on a bit of finished
flooring since the room was bare of anything else.
Suddenly a pillow was thrust at her face and she froze before looking into
intimidating dark eyes under straight, heavy brows. She took the lotus-shaped pillow,
familiar to her from her yoga practice.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’ll need help sitting down in those sky-scraper shoes,” Sloan said, cocking his
head as his gaze ran down Diana’s long legs.
www.total-e-bound.com
He shocked her by kneeling at her feet and placing one warm, calloused hand around
her left ankle, running a finger under the rim of her ankle bracelet.
His touch bypassed politeness and zapped straight to her sex, making Diana gasp.
“Hey, I just want to take your shoes off,” Sloan said, stroking the slope of her foot.
“Oh, yeah, but I can—”
“Allow me.”
Flustered, Diana watched Sloan as he slowly unbuckled each of the three black straps
on her sandal. When he gently pulled her foot free, he massaged the sole, and Diana gave a
heartfelt groan, but damn, that felt good.
“Probably these shoes aren’t the best thing for your feet but they look very hot on
you,” Sloan said.
He put down the liberated foot and reached for the other and, dazed, Diana allowed
it, her hands on his bare shoulders for balance now, making direct contact with hot, sweaty
skin.
Sloan took his time with the second sandal, caressing the underside of her foot and
eliciting another moan. Her feet seemed to be directly wired into her pussy, so he might as
well have been touching her intimately.
When he looked up at her, she realised he knew exactly what he was doing, the effect
it was having on her.
“Sit down, Diana,” he ordered gruffly.
Bemused, Diana sat down, smoothing her short blue skirt so she didn’t flash him.
Sloan was within kissing distance as she passed him the paperwork she’d brought
over. She scolded herself for noticing, but her feet—and other parts—were still tingling from
the unexpected foot massage.
He reached into a pocket in his shorts and pulled out a pair of glasses, slipping them
on. They were a dramatic contrast to his tangled hair and hard, glistening body. He looked
up through the lenses, his eyes sober now, back to business.
“I want to put the lobby there, by the door, along with a console for handling
payments from clients,” he said, gesturing towards the front of the empty studio.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Diana said. “You’ve done a lot of amazing renovations
already.”
www.total-e-bound.com
“Motivation is not a problem for me when I see what I want.” He looked up at Diana.
“Are you the same, Diana?”
She’d been chewing on her pen, something she’d broken the habit of doing as a
college student. “I am definitely motivated to see this strip mall do the best it can,” she said.
“I think everything here is in order, but I’ll want some time to look it over before I
send it back to you.” Sloan put the paperwork aside and removed his glasses.
“Of course,” Diana agreed. She looked at her bare feet and her shoes, feeling
awkward. The charged interlude was over and she had to put her shoes back on and retreat.
“Now that that’s done with…” Sloan’s voice was gravely. “You liked it when I
touched you.”
Shocked again by Sloan’s confidence, Diana could only stare at him.
“It wasn’t an accident, where I touched you,” Sloan went on. “I used to give
reflexology massage. I knew how to arouse you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. Take a moment, just breathe…”
Now he reached out and stroked her arm as if he felt the sudden spike of her anxiety.
But this couldn’t be happening. She’d seen him, she’d wanted him, but he was a fantasy. This
couldn’t be happening…
“Breathe…”
He was closer, sharing her breath. She couldn’t stop studying his face, those slightly
exotic, earnest eyes, holding her captive.
He cupped her cheek. “You made quite an impression on me.”
She laughed when she remembered seeing his poster and the look of bliss on his
face—she’d pictured him making love. Oh, yeah, he’d also made an impression on her.
“I should go.”
“Don’t.”
“This isn’t me.”
“I think it’s very much you. Ground zero.”
He lifted her onto his lap, both her legs on either side of him, her body flush against
his so she could feel the blunt shape of his erection through his tissue-thin shorts. Panting,
she began to tremble. His hand felt hot on the silk of her skirt as he placed it on her ass.
www.total-e-bound.com
“Easy,” he said, still with that assured manner. This was crazy. Why was she allowing
him to do these things? She was always so guarded with men, peeking at them from behind
her walls. “I can get you off, get you off like you’ve never had it before.”
“Uh.”
He moved his hands from her ass and up to her breasts. When he cupped her, her eyes
fell closed and she sagged against him. She could count her heartbeat in the lips of her sex.
“But you have to do something first, Diana,” Sloan went on in that same hoarse, silky
voice.
She blinked and then frowned. “What?”
“Ask me to please you,” he said.
“I…”
How could she? She’d just met the man. Now she was sitting on him and he was
touching her.
He moved one hand down her body and under her skirt, lifting it as he held her gaze.
He brushed his fingers against her underwear, found her damp, hot for him, a stranger.
“Sloan, I never do this—”
She caught his wrist, though the feel of that broad palm cupping her had her on edge.
“I know,” he said. “You mentioned you aren’t into aggression.” He cocked a brow.
“Are you going to let me touch you?”
She swallowed, beyond saying yes. Giving him verbal permission would make this all
too real, but when he began to drag his hand away from her, she caught it again, held it to
her.
She licked her lips, wishing, and a second later she got her wish.
He kissed her, his lips covering hers, male, strong, taking deeply, so she moaned as he
stroked her tongue delicately. He was so very controlled, like no one she’d ever met before,
completely commanding her. When he squeezed her sex gently, she gasped again, shaking in
his arms.
“You need to come, don’t you?” he asked in a mild tone.
Diana’s fingernails dug into Sloan’s arms and he laughed, pulling away to stare into
her eyes. “I told you I can get you off, beautiful Diana, but only on my terms.”
“You’re too young for me. This isn’t real.”
www.total-e-bound.com
“Isn’t it?” His hair fell over one brow as he leaned close, nuzzling her.
She shivered hotly. Her body ground on his teasing hand.
“What…what are your terms?” Diana asked.
“Good girl,” he praised her. “I’m going to give you what you need. You’ll scream
when you come for me.”
About the Author
Jan Irving has worked in all kinds of creative fields, from painting silk to making
porcelain ceramics, to interior design, but writing was always her passion.
She feels you can’t fully understand characters until you follow their journey through
a story world. Many kinds of worlds interest her, fantasy, historical, science fiction
and suspense—but all have one thing in common, people finding a way to live
together—in the most emotional and erotic fashion possible, of course!
Jan loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and
author biography at
.
Also by Jan Irving
Uncommon Cowboys: Shifter Cowboy
Uncommon Cowboys: Straight Cowboy
Uncommon Cowboys: Wounded Cowboy
Uncommon Cowboys: A Plain, Ordinary Cowboy
Uncommon Cowboys: Cowboy in Ravenna
Men of Station 57: Forbidden Fire
Total-E-Bound Publishing
www.total-e-bound.com
Take a look at our exciting range of literagasmic™
erotic romance titles and discover pure quality
at Total-E-Bound.
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