a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure) (21 page)

"No. We haven’t had much time to talk." I was a terrible liar, and every word sounded rough with inconsistency. Why hadn’t she told me? It would have much better use of the time between Tripler and the airport than reaming me out for stuff I already knew had been stupid.
 

Annie must have seen the confused horror that had to be frozen on my face, because she immediately grabbed my hands. "Touch me. I just found out for sure a second ago. Sean texted me while you were busy kissing Mitch, and I didn’t want to tell you unless it was official."

I knew she was telling the truth because my fingertips didn’t lie. Still. "But you just told Sean that you’d already talked to a real estate agent."

"Earlier today. I set things up just in case, but I won’t put the townhouse up for sale until first thing tomorrow."

I wanted to be happy for her, really I did, but we’d been sisters in every sense of the word for almost seven years. Having her live next door, sharing meals, shopping, the bad stuff, the good stuff—it was suddenly all gone. I met her gaze. A damp sheen clouded her bright green eyes, eyes that shouldn’t be anything but happy right now. I found a moment of calm and smiled. "It just surprised me. And you know what—" a burst of inspiration shattered my selfish loneliness. I could fix this— "I can move here, too. There’s nothing keeping me in North Carolina."

Mitch cocked his head, and his arm dropped from my shoulders. "I live there, Sunshine."

I’d hurt him. A reciprocal pain slid into my heart and cut deep. "No. I didn’t mean…I’m sorry. There’s so much to tell you…my family…and because you travel all the time, we can build a life here, near Annie and Sean…and my grandfather. Can’t we?"

Annie touched Mitch’s arm. "My fault. I hit her with this at the end of a really bad day."

I wrapped my arms around Mitch’s waist, my hands splayed against his back. "I love you, Mitchell Hunt. Nothing will keep me away from you. Not ever."
 

His emotional pain blasted me, stabbing through my fingertips before it eased a bit. I needed to give him some words. "I have so much to tell you. Since I arrived here, my life has done one of those unexpected flip-flops that screws everything up. I miss all of us sitting around, eating take-out Chinese, chopsticks flying while we work out the details of a case. If we’re spread out all over the country, we can’t do that anymore. It hurts, Mitch. The loss of that hurts."

Annie and Sean had slipped away, giving us privacy, but she turned and waved just before they disappeared into the dark of the parking garage.

Mitch returned the wave, then kissed the top of my head. "Yeah, I miss that too. Looks like we’re gonna be making the airlines a lot richer than they already are. Let’s get to the hotel, order a pot of coffee, a bottle of brandy, and you can bring me up to speed."

I stepped back, looked into his eyes. "Are we okay?"

"We’re okay."

A breath of relief filtered through my lungs. "I thought you wanted a beer?"
 

"I've got a feeling this conversation is gonna require the hard stuff."

It had been a long night.
The five of us had gathered in my room and hashed out everything that had happened. The only thing missing was the Chinese food. And the only plan we came up with was to visit Kahuna Aukele in the morning and see if he could help.
 

Morning happened way too quickly. Sunlight filtered through the slider, and I couldn’t stop testing the sexy stubble on Mitch’s cheeks. It scratched against the palm of my hand with tender gentleness, and the contrast was intoxicating.

"You want to stop that, Sunshine, or you’ll have some explaining to do when you miss your client call."
 

Brody Williams. And I hadn’t spent a single minute preparing.
 

I hit the shower on the run, hoping for inspiration. But Mitch joined me, and my inspiration pooled, centered, and exploded—only not in my brain. The gray cells were a murky haze of happy, liquid pleasure that kept any rational thought from intruding and spoiling the moment.
 

And Mitch had barely touched me.

"Love your skin. You soften when I touch you. So sexy. So beautiful." His words caressed my nerve endings, but his hands, oh, they knew their way around my heart, and spoke with a depth of love that was my foundation. My home.
 

I followed a trail of bubbles, chasing them over his chest, smoothing the surface of his abdomen until it angled into the apex of his thighs. "You want me." My words faded into a breathless pant.

He pushed into my hands. "Always. In every way."
 

There was something about the trailing soap bubbles, the water, and my hands sliding over his skin that detonated every cell in my body. I surrendered to the need, to the beauty of showing him what he did to me, and reveling in the power of what I did to him.
 

We stayed in the shower until I’d explored every inch of his skin, made sure all of his parts were functioning properly, and that he knew, without a doubt, that I loved him beyond measure.

I didn’t bother to dry my hair, and barely managed to drag a sundress over my damp body before my cell rang. I palmed the phone, moving and talking to Mitch while I made my way to the door, finger poised to answer the call. "Heading to the beach. I’ll do this session outside so as not to crowd everyone. Pierce, Annie, and Sean will probably show up in a few minutes."

Mitch pointed to the connecting door. "Not okay with me. Not gonna fly with Pierce either. We’ll be right behind you."

There was a rap on the door and Pierce stepped into my room. "Let’s go, Belisama. I’ll be close enough to watch, not close enough to listen."
 

Leprechaun genes. The man always knew what was going on with me. Except on Sand Island when his team was in trouble. A shiver trailed along my skin.

The phone was on ring number six, my last chance to catch the call before it flipped to voicemail. No time to argue with the men in my life. I sucked in a breath and moved on. "Good morning, Brody. I’m on my way to a quiet spot where we can talk, but while I’m getting settled, why don’t you tell me how the free writing assignment worked for you?"

"Fine. I want my wife back. Period." He cleared his throat. "There were a couple other things, but nothing I want to talk about."

I’d reached the beach and stepped out of my slippahs, tucking them under my arm, while I juggled the phone. Why had I purchased a dress without pockets?

"All right. I think we’ve established that your
former
wife is key to your issues." I used the word former, because I wanted to stress they weren’t together anymore, and to begin to lay the groundwork for exploring his personal issues, rather than focusing on what he believed the final outcome should to be.
 

"Yeah. So, tell me what I should say when I confront her. Maybe I should just grab her and take her someplace where we can talk."

Something was very wrong with Brody Williams. It wasn’t so much his words, although they were about as subtle as flashing red lights, it was the anger under the words. And this session wasn’t working out as a phone consult. I needed to see him, touch him. The thought caught in my stomach and twisted into a rock-hard ball, my spidey sense on full alert, screaming
no touching
.

"That would be abduction, and not a good choice. Have you written to her?"

"Yeah. A few times. She answered the first letter, then returned the others unopened."

"Let me go out on a limb here—were the letters that you sent threatening?" This man was hitting my radar on so many levels that I actually looked around, needing to get a visual on Pierce and Mitch. I spotted them blending into the shadows, and my anxiety leveled off. Brody was an ocean away, hardly a threat.

Pierce gave me a thumbs-up.
 

Mitch cocked his head, then took a few steps in my direction. I held my hand up to stop him. There was no danger.

"Let me clarify what a personal coach does, Brody. I’m here to help you work through
your
issues, the things that keep you from moving on in
your
life. Communication with your ex-wife may be one of the things you chose to learn to do more effectively, but it isn’t the core issue. We can work more efficiently together if I help you find other things to fill the gaps in your life that were created by her absence. This is about
you
discovering what to change in
your
life, and how to make those changes."

A man was strolling toward me, cell to his ear. I veered to the side, trying to keep my conversation with Brody as private as possible. The stranger’s gaze bored into me, changing in the sunlight from dull green to muddy brown and back. Hatred flashed behind the dull surface of his eyes. I wanted him to pull the sunglasses down from the top of his head, to cover the emptiness.
 

I closed my eyes, shutting him out. I had enough problems with the lunatic on the other end of my phone.

Sly laughter sounded in my ear. "That’s exactly what I’ve been saying. I want to change my single status to married. She needs to come home where she belongs. Now how are we going to do that?"

I clearly heard the
bitch
at the end of his sentence even though he didn’t articulate it. "I’m not the right coach for you Mr. Williams. I suggest you find someone who is more capable of helping you with this issue."

"So you’re gonna quit on me, just like she did."

A burst of laughter exploded from a group of teenagers just down the beach from me.

The same laughter echoed through the phone line.

Panic shot through my veins. The man with the muddy eyes was Brody Williams. Here. Passing me on the beach. The man who’d just moved behind me.
 

I spun toward the shoreline, caught myself. I had to move slowly, and not catch Williams’s attention.
 

Words, Everly. Keep the man talking. Keep moving. Signal Pierce.
 

"I prefer to think of it as a transfer to someone more suitable rather than quitting. I want you to find the best possible therapist to work with, and I’m sure it isn’t me. We all have limitations, and I honestly don’t know how to help you."

I waved at Pierce, a huge, fake smile plastered on my face, just in case Brody turned around and caught me. Pierce started toward me, covering the ground between us quickly, scanning the area for the threat. My bodyguard in action.

Mitch passed him, running straight for me.

"I see it as quitting. I don’t much like quitters, Everly." His words were layered with menace.
 

I chanced a look at Brody Williams. He’d stopped walking, had turned to face the shore, his line of sight tracing Pierce’s movements. Then he flipped his sunglasses down and turned away, continuing down the beach.

"Goodbye. Ms. Gray."

Time slowed. I turned, fumbling with my phone, and watching as Brody Williams pocketed his phone—our movements almost identical, mirrored in the soft sunlight of a beautiful Hawaiian morning.
 

And then Mitch’s arms closed around me.
 

 
Compared to what else had
been going on in my life, it wasn’t a big deal. A client gone wrong. Stalking me. It had happened before, then blown over. No one had ever followed me across an ocean before, but still.

It wasn’t a big deal when I asked the team to keep an eye out for a sick bastard who was handsome in a craggy way with blond hair and muddy hazel eyes.
 

It wasn’t a big deal when all four of them reacted with their personal version of the super spy-firefighter-best friend-lover-overprotective response. It was in character for them. Normal.

It wasn’t a big deal until Pierce cornered Annie on his side of our connecting door, and I listened when I shouldn’t have. But my feet were glued to the floor.

"It was Williams, no question. Your ex, A.J., so your plan. What do you need?"

Nineteen

There was no point in
pretending I didn’t hear Pierce’s question, so I yanked the door open and waited, my stomach relocating to somewhere around my throat. Annie’s past had never been a topic of discussion between us because most of it had been categorized by the government as top secret. And I’d respected that. Never asked. Never tried to touch my way into her secrets. I moved my hands behind my back, a clear signal that it was her choice what to tell me.
 

She nodded, and the silent thank you was clear in her eyes. "I was married to Brody Williams. We met in the Army. I was in sniper school. He was in IT. He’s always had a way with computers, like his mind had been created from bits and bytes."

All those left out, scary feelings I’d been storing up zapped me. Moved front and center in my head and carved out a special place to call home, and then made their way through my body—throat, chest, stomach—not bothering to spare a single organ.
 

I searched for words. "But I asked if you knew him, and you said no."