Shadow Borne (5 page)

So I settled for using my hands to shove him
away. And I started to, only to find that when I exerted light
pressure against him, nothing happened. He didn't take the hint and
move away from me, as expected. And why the hell should he, I
scowled, it would have been the polite thing to do and when the
hell had Mike Roberts ever been polite?

My head snapped up then and my eyes flashed
up at him. He must have misunderstood my intention because he was
gazing down at me, and very pointedly at the space where my palms
rested on the space just below his shoulders, his expression filled
with such longing that for a split second I froze. Worse, in that
instant I forgot I needed to put distance between us, that it was
safer not to touch him. My wide-eyed stare mingled with his and I
memorized the tiny flecks of gold in his green eyes.

The fabric of his T-shirt warmed beneath my
fingertips and absently I noticed that it was soft and white and
stretchy. My hands seemed to develop a mind of their own and flexed
against his body, at the solid warmth hidden beneath the cloth. He
hugged me even closer.

Every stupid youthful hope-filled dream I'd
ever had was wrapped up in that hooded gaze. His lips curved into a
smile and, as if in slow motion, he shifted so that he was holding
me with one arm around my shoulders and the other around my waist.
I gripped handfuls of his shirt as he lowered his lips to mine.
Blood pulsed through my veins at warp speed and I heard a rushing
sound in my ears and then he was kissing me like we had never been
apart. No, my mind dimly registered, not like there had been no
absence, this was more like homecoming. His mouth was hard and
urgent, his tongue darted against my closed lips and it truly was
like a dream come true–a nightmare. Because every girlish fantasy
that I'd entertained as a child, and later every dream I'd shared
with him, had turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong.

I went absolutely stiff and still in his
embrace. What did it matter if he was warm and smelled good? He'd
left me over a year and a half ago. He hadn't cared enough to stay
then and he didn't care now, I harshly reminded myself. Even now,
nothing had changed. He wasn't here out of any sense of loyalty to
me, not because he'd promised to come back for me.

He was here out of necessity, to save his
own skin. He'd been forced to make the journey back to Terlain
because hit men were trying to pick off him and his family and he
had finally run out of places to hide. Mike Roberts looked out for
his own interests and to hell with anyone who got trampled along
the way.

Besides, I admitted with a grim sense of
finality, it was much too late for us. If he knew that I was
damaged now, he wouldn't bother to hold on to me and kiss me and
otherwise act like he gave a damn. He wouldn't look at me like
that. The truth was sharp edged and painful.

I twisted my head away from his mouth and
shoved him as hard as I could manage with my hands practically
wedged between our midsections. He pulled back with a puzzled
frown. Behind us, a man stepped out the front door and onto the
porch and the next thing I knew, several things seemed to happen at
once.

Chapter Three

Never Again

Claire whirled toward the tall blonde
stranger who stood only a few inches shorter than Mike. His eyes
were brown, I noticed. It should have been difficult to pick out
such a minute detail so quickly; the fact that the man was
wide-eyed in the face of what we all around here typically referred
to as 'the wrath of Claire', helped a great deal.

Yes a nice deep, dark chocolate brown, I
reflected with mild curiosity. Beside me, Claire was now rigid and
reaching for her knife, but I was calm–other than surprise and
concern for whatever it was that had her freaking out. I wasn't
afraid of the stranger. No hint of danger swirled in the air around
us and neither Mark nor Mike seemed to be the least bit fazed by
the blonde man's presence.

No, clearly he had been invited into the
home and as such, posed little to no threat. Besides, I smirked
when the man held both hands up, palm out, in a wordless plea to
Claire, this guy was scared enough on his own.

I watched her eyes narrow and her grip
tighten around the pearl handle of her unsheathed knife and then I
glanced back to the blonde's pale face. Beside me, Claire
practically radiated tension and looked like she was ready to
spring. Mike sidestepped neatly then, easily placing himself
between his livid sister and the man.

"What is he doing here?" Claire hissed
without releasing her grip on the weapon.

"Please calm down and listen," Mike soothed
while Mark stepped up behind Claire and placed his hands lightly on
her shoulders. He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear
that I couldn't quite make out, but in the next instant her tense
stance relaxed. She didn't release the knife but let the tip drop a
little lower; it was almost facing the floor of the porch now. I
let my gaze drift back to Mike and the stranger, intensely curious
now.

"He's with us." Mike began, and boy wasn't
that the wrong choice of words to lead with.

"He's what?" Claire growled. "Get out of my
way, Mike. Where are my children? If you've done anything to my
family–"

"Claire, baby," Mark wrapped his arms around
her waist and lifted her off the floor by an inch or two while she
struggled and kicked out. Her face was twisted in rage and beneath
that...fear. A deep, churning fear.

"Who is he?" I asked.

Claire's struggles ceased just long enough
for her to lock eyes with me. "I don't know his name, but he's one
of John's hired goons from back home. Before I came here the first
time, I found this one lurking in my house with some other
criminals. In the dark. He'd been sent there to kill me and he
would have if I hadn't shot him." She took a deep breath and hot
color infused her cheeks. "I'm only sorry I didn't kill him that
night." Her struggles resumed anew and I rounded on Mike with a
sense of disbelief.

"Have you lost your mind?" I demanded.

"No." He was firm. "Claire, I know how this
looks. I know this looks bad, but hear me out."

"No." she snapped. Mark remained silent but
continued to hold her firmly in his grip.

"Aw, hell." Mike sighed. "He saved
Megan."

This news actually succeeded in stopping
Claire's struggles and even rendered her speechless for a second.
The moment didn't last. "What do you mean he saved Megan? Didn't
you just hear what I said? He tried to kill me. How could you bring
him here?"

"If you would just take a minute and calm
down, I'm trying to explain it to you." Mike said, clearly
exasperated.

"Fine." Claire forced the word through
gritted teeth and glared at the man beyond her brother.

"Earl Atkins came after us." Mike exhaled
and his eyes became almost glacial. "And by 'us' I mean he came
after Megan. He cornered her in her garage when she'd returned home
from a doctor's appointment in Seattle."

The blood seemed to drain from Claire's face
but she remained silent and went as still as a statue.

"Carl–the man standing beside me–"

"The hit man." Claire interrupted.

Mike looked pained and opened his mouth only
to have the man, Carl, speak up in a quiet, reserved tone.

"It's alright Mike."

"You're damn right it's alright." Claire
snapped. "First of all, you're in my house. Oh wait, you were in my
house the last time too, weren't you? The night you tried to murder
me for money."

"Lady, if I'd wanted to murder you, you
would be dead right now." The words were spoken in a very matter of
fact way, without malice.

Mark and Claire didn't
seem to see it that way. Mark's hands tightened reflexively against
the honeyed skin of Claire's arms and he leaned forward to speak
over her shoulder with a low snarl. "Watch how you talk to my wife.
I agreed to let you step into my home, I agreed to let you
live
, but don't push
me."

"I meant no disrespect." Carl eyed the
larger man with a guarded expression. "I only meant I've never
missed a shot in my life. I don't know why I took that job, the hit
on your wife...but I had no intention of killing her. The thought
of it made me sick and that's the truth."

"If you did anything to my sister–"

"He didn't do anything to Megan." Mike
interjected, looking warily from Mark to Carl. "That's what I've
been trying to tell you, Claire. John tried to recruit him for
another hit on our family. There's a price on all our heads...but
there's fifty grand hanging over Megan."

"Sweet Lord." Claire gasped.

"Yeah." Mike's lips thinned. "Carl refused
the job but felt guilty over taking the job on you year before last
so he did some snooping around on his own."

"Uh huh." Claire folded her arms across her
chest and began to lightly tap the flat edge of her knife against
her forearm. "Go on, I'm listening."

"I made contact with Earl," Carl skirted
around Mike in order to face Claire and Mark and me. He addressed
himself to Claire. "I knew when he was planning to do the job on
your sister."

"You mean when he was going to murder my
sister. My pregnant sister." The look she gave him and the emphasis
she placed on the word told him exactly what she thought of him and
his profession.

"Yes." Carl nodded and kept his tone
even.

"So, Earl not only admitted to you that he
was about to commit a murder but he told you when he was going to
do it?" Claire's brows snapped together.

"Earl wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed."
Carl shrugged. "Anyway, I knew when he was planning to kill your
sister. I got to her house before he did; I was already waiting
inside when he tried to ambush her in the garage. I stopped
him."

"You mean you killed him."

"Yes." Carl sighed.

The silence that followed was thick,
tense.

Beside me, Claire drew in a breath. "Was
Megan...hurt? At all?"

"No." Mike hastily reassured his sister.
"She's fine."

"Yeah." Claire huffed out a breath. "She's
fine. Sure she is. She's only about to have a baby and survived an
attempt on her life–when? When did this happen?"

"Two days before we left for Africa and
crossed the portal." Mike answered. "Carl stayed with her, and us,
the entire way. In fact, he never let Megan out of his sight."

"Is that so?" Claire sized up the man again
and glanced at me with a raised brow and a thousand questions
lurking in the faint shadows beneath her eyes. I shrugged and
finally nodded. She sighed and leaned down to sheath her knife.
Straightening, she took a step forward, stuck out her hand and said
a very grudging “Thank you" to Carl.

I thought he looked pretty shocked at
Claire's acceptance, or at least her willingness to hold off on
stabbing him. Under the circumstances, I thought it was best to
reserve judgment on Carl. The fact that he was a hit man didn't sit
well with me. Still, I didn't get the same ice creeping down my
spine feeling when I looked at Carl that I did whenever I'd been
face to face with Kahn's army of guards. Hell, whenever I so much
as thought of Kahn's guards. To be fair, the fact that Carl had
never been actively out to kill me probably had something to do
with it.

"So," Claire rocked on her heels and reached
back to cover one of Mark's hands with her own. "You haven't left
my sister's side in four days? How's Juan taking that?" When no one
answered right away, she narrowed her eyes on her brother. "Mike.
What have you done with Juan?"

"I didn't do anything to Juan."

"Hey, don't look at me. He was already gone
by the time I got there." Carl insisted when Claire's eyes cut
immediately to him.

"He left her." Mike said softly.

"He what? What do you mean he left her?"
Claire sucked in a breath and shook her head. I shifted closer to
the left, until our arms were almost touching; she looked like she
wanted to draw her dagger again. "He can't leave her, she's having
his baby, for God's sake. She's due any day now. What was he
thinking?" she demanded. Her eyes were stricken as she stared up at
her brother.

Mike looked pained as well. "He said it was
all too much for him."

"The baby?" Claire's brow furrowed.

"Not exactly. I believe he was referring to
crossing the portal and coming here. Although, you'll have to get
the full story from Megan when she wakes up in the morning. Juan
was pretty agitated when he took off and half of his muttering was
in Spanish. I heard the words 'loca' and 'vamanos' several times,
if that's any indication."

Claire winced. "Poor Megan." she finally
sighed. "She's lost her home and survived an attempt on her life
and now she's lost her husband too. Is she really okay, Mike?"

"She's holding her own. But she's pretty
shook up. She cries a lot."

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. Maybe later on, when things
calm down, we can go back and try to find Juan, convince him to
come back with us and at least talk to Megan."

I cocked my head to the side and glanced at
Carl to gauge his reaction to Mike's plan to try and reason with
Megan's husband.

Carl gave little outward
indication that he had even heard the exchange between Claire and
Mike, but he gazed off into the distance for several long moments
before he caught me staring at him. I raised a brow and something
flashed in the depths of his brown eyes before he hastily looked
away again.
I thought
so
. Oh yeah, there was definitely going to
be trouble there.

"Well, damn." Claire swore and moved to
stand next to her brother. "I don't like it but I suppose that's as
good a plan as any." She zeroed in on Carl. "Don't think for one
damn minute that you are sleeping under the same roof with my
family. The road's about a mile that way. Thank you for saving my
sister's life. It almost makes up for you trying to take mine.
Goodnight."