COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) (7 page)

I closed my eyes and sank under the surface of the water, lying there as long as I could, until I simply couldn’t stand the pain in my lungs.

I might not be able to do anything about Luke. But I could find out why Kurt Sanchez was at Peter’s funeral, why Amber lied about knowing that Peter had died, and what really happened the night of Peter’s car accident.

Amber

Cole balanced the baby’s car seat on his hip as he struggled to unlock his apartment door.

“I can do it.”

“I got it.”

The door popped open a second later, revealing a large, open space that would probably hold three of my trailer. He gestured for me to go in, snatching the small duffle off the floor that contained the clothes his mother had brought to the hospital for the baby and me. I was wearing a brand new pair of jeans and a soft pink blouse that were both so new that they rustled a little when I moved. I’d never had new clothes before. My mom always got my clothes from Goodwill and I followed suit, trying to save a dime or two. But this hadn’t come anywhere close to Goodwill. If it wasn’t from some fancy boutique in the mall, I’d be very surprised.

Cole carried the baby into the living room and set him gently in front of the couch. He was sleeping—finally!—so he sort of tiptoed around him.

“You want something to eat? Or a drink?”

“Some water?”

“Bottled? Tap? I think there might be some sparkling something in there, too.”

“Why do you make it so complicated?”

He shrugged. “I never know what I might want at any one time.”

I shook my head, but I was distracted by the huge space in which he lived. I walked around the room, slowly taking everything in. He didn’t have much by the way of furniture. A big sectional couch. A coffee table and a couple of end tables. That was about it. But he had pictures scattered here and there, some stacked on tables, some already hanging on the walls. Happy family pictures of him with his parents, Megan, and Peter. I found myself staring at one picture in particular that must have been taken at Peter’s college graduation. Megan was standing by Peter in uniform, Cole beside her in jeans and a rock band concert tee, a cocky grin on his face. They were all so young, but…I couldn’t take my eyes off of Peter.

“How about sparkling?” Cole asked, moving up behind me and slipping his arm around me, dangling a dark blue bottle from his fingers. I felt a blush come up over my face, my thoughts dark and confused.

“You guys look so much alike.”

“Peter and I take after Dad. Megan looks more like Mom.”

“You think?”

“You should see pictures of Mom when she was younger. She and Megan could be twins.”

I took the bottle and moved away from him, confused by the heat that burned through my body whenever he stood that close to me. I could feel him watching me as I continued moving around the room, touching things that didn’t belong to me, that would never belong to me.

“Mom and Dad said they set up the nursery. Do you want to go up and take a look?”

“Sure.”

I followed him slowly up the stairs, glancing back to where the baby was sleeping on the floor.

“He’ll be fine,” Cole said, catching my hand and tugging me the rest of the way up the stairs. There was a small hallway that was divided by three closed doors. He opened the first and I gasped. It was absolutely beautiful. They’d bought everything a baby could possibly need. A beautiful, white crib that was decorated with a sheet and comforter with big baseball appliques sewn onto it. There was a matching dresser, a dressing table, and a beautiful mobile hanging from the ceiling. They’d even thought to buy one of those fancy things that people put dirty diapers into.

“Look at this.”

Cole opened the closet door and there were dozens of clothes hanging from these precious, tiny hangers. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I turned away, afraid Cole would think my tears were ungrateful.

“They went a little overboard. But that’s how Mom and Dad do things. They can’t just do a little something. They have to go all the way.”

“It’s too much. They shouldn’t have done so much.”

“They did it for the baby, Amber.”

“I know. But…it’s so much. I can never pay them back.”

“They don’t expect you to. That’s why it’s called a gift.”

I turned to the crib and ran my hand over the silky, painted wood. I never would have been able to afford this, not in a hundred years working at that diner. Yet, they just walked into a store and pointed—and here it was. It was crazy the difference between the haves and the have-nots.

Cole moved up behind me and rested his hand on my shoulder.

“This is my parents’ way of saying they want to be a part of yours and the baby’s lives.”

“But I can’t expect them to buy everything for him. He’s mine.”

“I know. And I’m sure they know that, too.”

I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m a terrible person that I look at all this and see what I can’t do and what they can.”

“No. I think you’re human.” He turned me around, his fingers brushing lightly against my jaw. “I know all this is a little overwhelming. But you need time to rest, to recuperate from the baby’s birth. And you need time to decide what you’re going to do next. I want you to have that time.”

“When I am recuperated?”

“We’ll take things one step at a time, okay?”

I nodded. He studied my face, and I felt this heat burning through me again. I didn’t understand it. My body hurt so badly from everything I’d been through with the baby’s birth, and my breasts were heavy with a need to feed him. But there was something about the way Cole looked at me that made my body ache in a new, different way from anything I’d known before. It scared me a little because I didn’t understand it.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to take care of me.”

“I don’t. I feel obligated to provide safety and security to my nephew.”

That sliced right through me. I moved around him and headed back downstairs.

“Amber…”

Cole followed, grabbing my arm just as I reached the top of the stairs. I pulled away, moving back against the wall.

“Please don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry. I just…that didn’t come out right. I only meant that I want to help you because that’s what Peter would have wanted me to do.”

“Because of his son.”

“Because Peter was a good man and he was always helping people.”

He was right. I once saw Peter pay for this family’s meal because the father forgot his wallet at home and his wife was horribly embarrassed. He even left a generous tip for the waitress, Cindy, even though she wasn’t one of the better waitresses we had at the diner.

It made me wonder what Peter would have done if he hadn’t died in that car accident. Would he have taken the baby and me in just because it was the right thing to do? Or would he have done it because he really cared about us?

I brushed past Cole and went downstairs just as the baby began to fuss. I carefully slipped him out of his car seat and settled back on the couch.

“We’ll be out of your way as soon as we can be.”

Cole started to argue. But then he stopped.

It was that easy.

Cole

“It’s not that big of a deal. I don’t mind spending the money.”

“You don’t get it, Cole.” Amber glanced at me over her shoulder even as she was moving the clothes on the rack. “I don’t want to have this long tab that I owe you when things go sour.”

“What makes you think things will go sour?”

“Things always go sour when more than one person lives in a house. It’s just human nature.”

“I don’t know who you’ve lived with, but I managed to share a bedroom with Peter for sixteen years and we didn’t have any problems.”

She rolled her eyes. “Somehow I doubt the two of you shared a bedroom.”

“We did.” I held up my hand in a boy scout-style swear. “My parents believed that it was a rite of passage for two boys to survive sharing everything.”

“But it was a huge room, right?”

“Well, it wasn’t as small as the room Megan had. But it wasn’t huge.”

“Sure. You probably had so much space that there was never any danger of Peter’s stuff wandering onto your side of the room and vice versa.”

The truth was, the room Peter and I shared was actually two rooms when my parents bought the house, but they had a wall torn down. So she was right, we had plenty of room to spread out without encroaching on each other. We also each had our own bathroom. But I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“We’re wandering from the point. You need clothes. I want to buy you clothes.”

“And I’d rather you didn’t.”

“So what are you going to do? Keep wearing the two same outfits day in and day out?”

She studied the rack of skirts she was standing in front of, running her fingers over the fine, expensive material.

“We could go back to my place and get my things.”

“We can and we will. But you need a couple of nice outfits. My mom is the social queen of Houston, and she’ll expect you to attend at least one or two of her parties.”

Amber turned to face me, the stroller where PJ—short for Peter Junior—was nestled in his little car seat between us.

“I accept the fact that your family wants to buy things for PJ. And I get that you want me to stay with you until I’m fully recovered and your sister is satisfied that that guy who was following me won’t be following me anymore. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel responsible for buying every little thing I need.”

“Okay. But there is a party coming up…”

She groaned, turning back to the skirts. I watched her pick through them, not sure if I should admire her for being so stubborn or annoyed that she had to argue with everything I said. She’d been at my place for just over a month and she barely let me help with anything. She didn’t even want me getting up in the middle of the night with the baby, even though I could see she was clearly exhausted. It was damned frustrating.

Megan didn’t trust her. She’d called me and told me about the photograph that showed Amber at Peter’s funeral. She thought that proved that Amber was lying to us. The thing was, I was already aware of that. I knew the moment she told me she didn’t know that she was lying. But I also suspected that Amber had a reason for lying. She was too stubborn, too determined not to look like she was using us for money, to be playing out some sort of scam. There had to be more to it than that.

I moved around the stroller, reaching down to move the thin blanket out of PJ’s face, then lifted a simple black skirt off the rack.

“This one would look perfect on you.”

Amber glanced at me. “You think so?”

“Yeah. Go try it on.” When she hesitated, I forced it into her hand and then pushed her toward the dressing rooms. “When’s the last time you had something brand new?”

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Trying it on isn’t agreeing to buy it.”

“No, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

She stuck out her tongue, and I laughed.

I moved around the store, pushing PJ ahead of me, picking out blouses and skirts and dresses that I thought would look good on Amber. A couple of women gave me admiring glances, but none of them said anything. They must have thought Amber was my wife, just like the staff at the hospital had assumed. I found I didn’t dislike the idea. I’d never really thought about getting married and settling down with one woman. I liked women. Many women. But playing house with Amber sort of opened up new possibilities that I hadn’t thought I’d enjoy.

I liked PJ. He was soft and smelled really good, and when he smiled—despite the fact that Megan insisted it was just gas—it made me feel a new sort of joy that was indescribable. I told myself I was just doing a job with Amber, that I was just being a good uncle to PJ, but the truth was, I was enjoying myself.

I walked into the nursery last night and watched from the shadows as Amber lay the baby on her narrow twin bed with her and lifted her nightgown to offer him a breast. The sight was…I would be lying if I said a burning heat didn’t rush through me. Amber was a beautiful woman, and now that her body was returning to its pre-pregnancy state, I could see more of what Peter saw in her. She was graceful and limber and her breasts were impossibly perky. I was only human. The sight of her lying there, her stomach and breast exposed, I did think of things that I probably shouldn’t have.

But that wasn’t all. There was more to the feelings that rushed through me, more to the pleasure in seeing such a beautiful sight. I wanted to just stand there and watch her all night; I wanted to file it away and hold onto it.

I…I don’t know how to describe how it made me feel, really. But looking at Amber…it wasn’t just about getting into her pants. I mean, I wanted…but it wasn’t just that.

And that confused me. I’d never felt this way when I looked at a woman. The problem was, I was pretty sure she didn’t like me much. When we were alone at the apartment, she tried to stay out of my way as much as possible. I’d sit in the kitchen and she’d sit in the living room. If I moved to the living room, she’d find an excuse to go up to the nursery or to go to the kitchen. And all this arguing over the money I spent on her. It wasn’t like I had much else to spend my money on and I had plenty of it. What was a couple of outfits?

I was going to buy her some clothes today—whether she liked it or not.

I had three dresses and a couple of blouses hanging from the handlebars of the stroller when I spotted her headed toward the front of the store.

“Amber!”

She kept walking, her back stiff, her eyes staring straight ahead. That’s when I saw the man behind her, standing too close to be just another customer who happened to be walking in the same direction. I couldn’t see a gun, but I knew there must be one.

I swiped the clothes off the stroller and followed, careful to stay a few feet behind them. It wasn’t the bald guy. I’d never seen this guy before. But he was clearly determined to get Amber out of the mall. I moved off to one side, pretending to be window-shopping. They guy never looked in my direction, so I thought it was safe to assume he didn’t realize I was with Amber. He had one hand on her upper arm, the other pressed against the small of her back, wrapped in a dark shirt that was likely wrapped around a small caliber pistol. I wished I hadn’t left my gun back in the car, but the mall had a no concealed weapons policy and, stupid me, I respected the posted ordinance. This guy clearly didn’t.

Amber suddenly turned left, moving closer to the stores on that side of the open corridor. I moved up behind them, pushing the baby ahead of me. The mall was crowded, people moving in and out, weaving around us. I looked around, trying to figure out how I could stop them before they got to an exit. Once they were outside, Amber would be gone—and I couldn’t allow that to happen. That’s when I saw the swinging doors that were supposed to keep customers from wandering down hallways containing nothing more than janitors’ closets and executive offices.

I moved faster, navigating the stroller up and around them. Just as we came even with the swinging doors, I slammed the side of my hand into the man’s Adam’s apple, instantly knocking the air from his throat. Then I followed with a quick blow to the top of his wrist, grabbing the gun as I pushed him back through the swinging doors. At the same instant, Amber grabbed the stroller I’d let go of and followed.

The man lay sprawled on the ground as I held the gun level with a spot right between his eyes.

“Who are you?”

The guy was holding his throat, clearly struggling to catch his breath. I didn’t fucking care. I kicked him in the thigh.

“Who are you? What were you doing with Amber?”

The guy shook his head, touching his mouth to show he couldn’t speak.

“Where were you taking her?”

He still couldn’t speak.

I glanced at Amber. She’d taken the baby from his stroller and was cradling him against her chest, her face drained of color. I held the gun with one hand and gestured for her to come to me with the other. I touched her face, grasped her jaw and made her turn slightly so that I could see that she was okay. Then I studied the length of her body, searching for any sign of injury.

“I’m okay.”

She didn’t sound okay. Her voice was weak and shaky.

“What happened?”

She glanced at the guy, but looking at him made her shudder a little as she tugged the baby closer to her chest.

“I was coming out of the dressing room, and he shoved the gun into my back. He said I should be quiet, or he’d put a bullet in my spine before anyone could do anything about it.”

“Where was he taking you?”

Amber shook her head. “That’s all he said.”

I kicked the guy and leaned close to him, pressing the gun to the center of his forehead. “Where were you taking her?”

He spit, narrowly missing the sleeve of my shirt. I hit him, slamming the barrel of the gun against the side of his head. He was out cold before I was done with the follow through.

“What are we going to do?” Amber demanded.

I tugged my phone out of the back of my pocket and pressed the speed dial that would connect me with Megan’s company.

“Phoenix,” I said the moment the call was picked up. Seconds later, Sam’s voice filled my ear. “What’s up?”

“Some guy just tried to drag Amber out of the mall at gunpoint.”

Sam was quiet for a second. Then she was all-professional.

“What’s his condition?”

“He’s unconscious.”

“And Amber?”

“Safe.”

“Okay. I’m sending help. Hang tight.”

I tucked the gun into the back of my jeans and pulled Amber into my arms. For a moment, she rested her head against my chest and let me run my hands down the length of her back. But then the baby fussed and she pulled away, her eyes turned from me.

What did I have to do to prove to her that I meant her no harm?