Chapter Eight #2
I got up and found the medical kit where Gunner kept it in the hallway closet.
When I returned, she was lying with one arm behind her pillow and the sheet drawn to her waist, and she was watching me with an expression I hadn’t seen from her before.
It wasn’t desire or anger or the professional distance she maintained at work.
It was open. She’d stopped guarding herself and was letting me see what was actually there.
I sat on the edge of the bed and gently checked the bruising on her ribs.
“You missed your calling,” she said. “You have a surprisingly gentle touch for someone who put a dent in Gunner’s wall.”
“I’ll spackle it tomorrow.”
“He’ll appreciate that.”
I set the kit on the nightstand and stretched out beside her. She rolled onto her right side, and I fitted myself behind her. My arm went around her waist, and she covered it with hers and laced our fingers together.
Every other night on this island, I’d been managing how much of myself I let her have. A hand on her waist and my chest to her back—enough contact to feel close without giving her everything.
Tonight, there was nothing left to manage. She had all of it. My body was spent, and my defenses were gone, and the woman in my arms had earned all I’d been withholding. The terrifying part was that I didn’t want to reclaim any of it.
I pressed my lips to her shoulder, and she squeezed my hand.
“Still shaking,” she said.
“Getting better.”
“Liar.”
She was right. My hand trembled in hers, and I couldn’t steady it. She didn’t mention it again. She held on and let me be unsteady and didn’t try to fix it or fill the silence with words that would’ve made it worse.
I pulled her closer, rested my forehead against her hair, and let my breathing match hers.
Her grip softened after a while, and her body grew heavy against mine. She was asleep. I wasn’t. I was awake and wrung out, and I had no idea what to do with what she’d given me tonight or what I’d given her in return.
I closed my eyes and was asleep before I figured any of it out.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand before dawn. I grabbed it and groaned when Tex’s name flashed on the screen.
Emma was asleep with her cheek pressed into my chest and her leg thrown over mine. I eased out from under her and answered in the kitchen.
“Sorry for the early call, but there’s commercial spyware on Emma’s phone,” he began. “It mirrors texts, call logs, and location data.”
Fuck. “How long has it been active?”
“A couple of weeks. Whoever planted it has been reading every message she’s sent since.”
“Can you trace the licensing?”
“Alice and I are working on it, but don’t expect anything soon. It’s disabled now, but I’d still encourage her to get a burner.”
“Roger that,” I muttered.
I leaned against the counter. The person who’d planted the spyware had been close enough to pick up Emma’s phone and install it. That meant her office, her desk, a moment when she’d left the room and someone she trusted was alone with her device.
“How much longer are you on the island?” Tex asked.
“She’s pressing to leave.”
“Not a bad idea as long as she recovered enough.”
He was right. I ended the call and paced as the same questions raced through my head. Who’d tampered with her brakes? Who broke in and wrecked her house? Now, we had a new one—who was monitoring her phone?
I was on my feet before I registered that I’d stood up. My phone was in my hand, with a half-composed message to Atticus on the screen, and my brain was building a threat matrix of the staff in the Treasury building.
The shift had happened the way it always did. One second, I was the man who’d fallen asleep with Emma’s hand on my chest. The next, I was the guy who needed answers and couldn’t afford to feel anything until he had them.
Emma padded into the kitchen twenty minutes later. The operative in me needed to brief her. The rest of me ached to pull her close and not say a word. I kissed her forehead first, then told her about Tex’s call.
She was quiet, but I had no doubt her mind was racing as fast as mine.
“Jesus. Anyone on that floor could have walked in when I stepped out to go to the fucking bathroom. I can’t even go to the fucking bathroom without worrying whether someone put a fucking tracker on my phone?” She scanned the room for a chair, but I grabbed it first and drew her down on my lap.
“That’s the most I’ve heard you say ‘fuck’ since last night.”
Emma wrapped her arms around my neck. “Ha, ha. But I’m serious.”
“I know you are.”
“How long have they been listening to every word I say or reading everything I’ve written?”
“Two weeks. It’s disabled now.”
She leaned away until she could look at me. “They know I have outside help. That’s why the threats escalated. It wasn’t because I was getting closer to the money. It was because I wasn’t alone anymore.”
She’d reached the same conclusion I had in thirty seconds. I’d needed twenty minutes and a pot of water I forgot to boil.
“We need to go back,” she said.
The island wasn’t adding protection anymore. Staying here was defensive. Returning put us on the offense—inside the building, close to the people we needed to catch.
“I can have the helicopter here by noon, if that’s what you prefer.”
“I do.”
She stood and went into the bedroom. The shower started a minute later.
The first thing I did was text Gunner to ask for yet another favor, and this one needed to be quick.
If anyone could get what I was asking for done, he could.
Next, I called Atticus, who picked up on the first ring.
I was ready to give him the short version of Tex’s call when I realized he probably already knew.
“Emma’s ready to leave the island. How soon can you arrange transport?”
“Tell me when you want it, and it’ll be there.”
“One hour.”
“Roger that. There’ll be an SUV waiting. The pilot will have the keys.”
“Thanks.”
“How is she?” he asked.
“Angry. Focused.”
“And you?”
I didn’t respond.
“Where are you headed?”
“My place.”
“Copy. Anything else?”
“I’ll let you know.”
We packed in twenty minutes. There wasn’t much. We both traveled light.
I stripped the bed and wiped down the counter. When my hand passed over the spot where I’d pinned her against the granite, I froze. Being on the island was almost like living in a bubble. Would it burst once we were on the helicopter, headed to the mainland?
Emma was on the porch when I carried the bags out. She was sitting on the top step, with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. Her eyes were on the water, the same way they had been the morning she told me about her father.
“I liked this place,” she said.
“Gunner’s got good taste.”
“I’m not talking about the house.”
I set the bags down and sat next to her. The Chesapeake was flat and gray under overcast skies. We’d crossed this same water four days ago in the dark, with her drugged up on painkillers and her shoulder pressed into mine.
“What happens when we go back?” she asked.
“I was just thinking the same thing. What do you want to happen?”
“I don’t need it to change.”
“So, if you pick a fight with me, I’m supposed to argue, and then we’ll end up in bed, having crazy-good angry sex?”
She half smiled. “We could skip the fight.”
“Hmm. But then, will the sex be as good?”
“Fishing for a compliment, Don Juan?”
I laughed out loud. “You did say I gave you the best orgasms of your life.”
The smile left her face, and she studied me. “This, Coleman. This is what I want. You know what I mean?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“Don’t turn into Mr. Grumpy again. I don’t like him as much.”
I didn’t like him, either. If only it were as easy to avoid as it was to say. It was my MO. Get too close, too serious—clam up.
“Coleman?”
“I promise to try.”
She nodded once, but didn’t push or fill the silence with reassurance. Instead, she stood, picked up her bag before I could grab it, and walked toward the helicopter pad.
I let her carry it. She didn’t need me to, and we both knew it.
Atticus had arranged for the same pilot.
The man offered a mock salute when we approached and helped Emma into the jump seat while I loaded the bags.
She buckled her own harness this time and didn’t wince when the straps pulled across her ribs.
She’d healed enough that the island had accomplished its original purpose—keeping her safe while she recovered.
When I took the seat next to her, the rotors spooled up, and we lifted off. Gunner’s house got smaller and shrank until it was a shape on the gray water. I missed it already.
When we made the crossing the first time, she slept. Now, she was awake and sitting upright, and the six inches between our shoulders was a gap that neither of us had closed yet.
Emma did first. She laced her fingers through mine, squeezed once, and held on.
I squeezed back.