Hide and Seek (13 page)

The same way she’d never known about his gift of precognition.

And then there was the fact that he’d been acting so strangely the last time she’d seen him. Anxious. Paranoid.

Guilty.

The word whispered in the back of her mind as she idly rotated her bracelet from him around her wrist. She never would have let the idea of Kyle’s possible duplicity form in the least, if not for her conversation with John today. Her argument with him. The one that had left a wedge between them that she wasn’t sure how to mend.

He’d hidden the truth from her. He and Alec had suspected Kyle of a terrible betrayal—they had all but condemned him—and yet John had chosen to hide that information from her.

It was as bad as a lie. And it had left her angry and hurt, feeling like a fool.

She was still nursing that emotional sting when she heard the firm rap on her guest room door.

“Lisa.” John’s deep voice sounded weary from where he stood in the hallway outside. “You planning to avoid me forever? Open up. We need to talk.”

She knew he was right, but it was difficult making her feet move when her heart was still a heavy weight in her breast. Slowly, she went to the door and pulled it open.

As always, the sight of John Duarte stole her breath.

Tonight, aside from looking broody and sexy as usual, he appeared tired, hesitant. His shaggy mane of dark hair was tousled, as though he’d been repeatedly raking his big hands through it. His beard-covered jaw was rigid, ready for a battle. But his eyes... God help her, his chocolate eyes were intense with a bleak, private torment.

All of it focused on her.

He glanced pointedly at the fact that she was blocking the doorway with her body, not moving aside to let him in. “There are things I need to say to you, Lisa. Things that can’t wait anymore.” His full lips quirked into an uncertain smile. “You gonna make me do that standing out here in the hallway?”

She exhaled sharply, refusing to be charmed. “I think we both know what’s liable to happen if I let you in.”

The way he looked at her said he knew damn well and didn’t think it was a bad idea. His dark eyes seared her, penetrated her. And as his faint smile faded into a sensual line, her own mouth began to water a bit. She crossed her arms in front of her as if she could physically ward off the primal effect he had on her.

It wasn’t working. Even her heart was beginning to warm to the sight of him.

“What do you want, John?”

“To check on you, make sure you’re okay.”

She frowned. “You’re not my bodyguard or my keeper, so there’s no need for you to feel responsible for me. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can. Not what I meant.” He paused for a moment, an unreadable emotion flickering across his handsome, troubled face. “Are you okay? I don’t like how we left things today.”

Neither did she. But that didn’t mean they could change any of it. “I’m confused right now... about everything.”

He nodded once. “I’ve had better days, too. I know you said you didn’t want to talk to me. Hell, I get it. But not talking to you is driving me fucking mad, Lisa. Knowing you’re in here upset, disgusted with me. Hating me...”

“I don’t hate you.” She could never do that, especially not after these past two days. Not even five years ago when he’d broken her heart the first time.

No, it would never be hate where he was concerned. What hurt so badly right now was that she loved him. She always had.

“I owe you an apology for today,” he murmured. “For not being totally honest with you about what Alec told me about Kyle. I should’ve told you right away. I should’ve trusted you to handle it. I owed you that much.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I said the reason I didn’t tell you was because I didn’t want to hurt you.” He shook his head, his gaze solemn, contrite. “I said that, but it wasn’t really true. Not the complete truth. The complete truth is that I didn’t want to tell you what I knew about Kyle and see you looking at me the way you did this morning. The way you’re looking at me right now.”

She stared at him for a long while, her emotions tangling with her confused thoughts. “I can’t do this with you again, John.”

“Do what?”

“Let you into my heart when I know you won’t stay. I did that five years ago. I started making that same stupid mistake three nights ago when I came looking for your help.” She swallowed past the regret that was caught in her throat. “I may not have the gift of precognition, but I can see the heartache coming, and I can’t do it again with you. Not now.”

John said nothing, not for a prolonged moment. She thought he might turn around and leave as she’d pretended she wanted him to do. But he didn’t go.

His eyes stayed tender on her, and his deep voice was as soft as velvet. “I told Kyle
no
twice, you know. When he called and asked me to stand in for your date that weekend. I didn’t want to do it.”

Lisa swallowed. She didn’t know that. Hearing it now made her feel awkward... as embarrassed as she’d felt when she had first heard John was going to rescue her from attending her friend’s wedding alone.

John didn’t show her any mercy now, holding her in his penetrating gaze as he spoke. “I knew if I went on a date with you, even a pretend one, I was playing with fire. And then when I got to your place to pick you up... Christ, you looked so beautiful.”

Beautiful? She felt heat creep into her face at his praise. Her throat wasn’t working anymore. She went utterly still, watching his handsome face as he spoke.

“You were wearing a peach strapless dress and matching sandals. Your hair was done up all pretty. Swear to God, Lisa, you looked like an angel that night.”

She couldn’t bite back her nervous laugh. “That dress was awful. Maybe guys don’t know this, but it’s an unwritten law that bridesmaids’ dresses have to be hideous.”

“It wasn’t the dress that stopped my breath,” John said. “It was the girl wearing it. You stop my breath every time I look at you, Lisa Becker.”

Without warning or asking permission, he stepped in close and kissed her. He kissed her like he couldn’t go another second without it. As though he couldn’t get enough.

His hands came up to cradle her head as his mouth claimed hers possessively, reverently. She felt him guiding her backward and she didn’t resist. When they were both inside the room, John reached back and closed the door behind them.

His hands left searing trails everywhere he touched her, and his mouth was quickly burning up all her defenses. As wounded and scared and angry as she was with him today, she couldn’t deny—at least to herself—that she felt better in his arms than away from him.

When John drew back, his eyes hadn’t lost a bit of their solemnity. When he spoke, his voice was thick and raw. “I suck at relationships, Lisa. As a rule, I don’t do them. Never seen them end up in a good place, so I never wanted to try. You changed all that.” He stroked her cheek. Ran the pad of his thumb over her kiss-swollen lower lip. “The first day he introduced you around the base, Kyle made sure everyone knew his little sister was off limits. I tried to respect that. No man wants to violate that code. Truth is...” John exhaled an airless chuckle. “Truth is, I was already half in love with you when he insisted I take you to that wedding.”

Was he serious? She couldn’t find her breath to speak now. Joy and disbelief and confusion crashed together inside her. And as much as his admission astonished her, it also infuriated her.

“No,” she said, her scowl deepening. “No, you can’t do this, John. You can’t say that to me. I wanted to hear those words five years ago, not now. Not when we don’t know where my brother is. When we don’t know who’s been tracking me or what they want. You can’t stand here and be the man I needed you to be back then, when right now we don’t even know if either of us will survive past tomorrow or next week or next year.”

Unless he knew that answer already...

Was he baring his soul to her now because he knew something more that she didn’t?

She drew out of his arms. “Back on the mountain, you and Alec said you both had a premonition that someone was holding a gun against my head. But the man who tracked me there didn’t do that. There was no gun to my head. It didn’t happen...”

And then she knew.

A coldness crept into her, an ache started blooming in her chest. “What you and Alec saw didn’t happen then... It hasn’t happened
yet
.”

“No,” he said, somber with the admission. “Not yet.”

“Oh, my God.” She closed her eyes as the understanding settled on her.

“The visions don’t lie, Lisa. But they can be altered. That’s the power of precognition. And I’m not saying any of this because of what I saw. I’m telling you how I feel because I should’ve done it that first night we spent together. Or three nights ago, when you showed up on my mountain again.” He stepped closer, his hands moving gently on her face, over her hair. “I don’t want to let another night pass without letting you know what you mean to me. What you always have meant to me, if I’d been willing to admit it, even to myself.”

He framed her face with his large, careful hands, holding her with a fierce reverence. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Not ever.” He growled a low curse. “I’ve had five years to think about what I let go of—what could’ve been, if I’d been honest with myself... and with you. I didn’t want to betray my friend’s trust in me, so instead I betrayed yours by letting you leave my place thinking you didn’t matter to me. You deserve white picket fences and fairy tales, Lisa. I can’t give you any of those things. At this point, I’m not even sure I would know how.”

“I never asked you for any of that,” she murmured.

“But you deserve someone who can give it to you.” He caressed her cheek, his dark eyes searching, tender. “Five years ago, I was scared shitless to even try to be that man. And now...
damn it
. Now I want to try, but I’m afraid I’m losing you before I even get the chance.”

She wanted to hold on to her anger from earlier today. She wanted to hold on to her anger from five years ago, too. More than anything, she wanted to deny that she could trust this man,
love him
, after just a few days and nights together and a handful of pretty words.

But this was John Duarte. And if he’d been half in love with her at one time, she’d been all in for just as long.

She had no fight left in her when he drew her into his arms. His mouth came down on hers in a tender, yet claiming kiss, leaving no room for anything but the two of them. She kissed him back, melting into his embrace, losing herself to the moment, and to him.

It took her a few seconds to feel the tension—the alarm—seep into the strong muscles that held her. John broke their kiss and pulled back, his eyes stark... distant.

He blinked, and when he glanced down at her a shiver of dread snaked through her.

“They’re coming now.” His voice was quiet, so grim it shook her to the bone. “I just saw them—a flash of precognition. The men who’re after you... ah, fuck. They’re close. They’re heading here now.”

15

Duarte took Lisa by the hand and ran with her out to the main house. Alec was in the kitchen finishing a sandwich and drinking a beer. A pistol lay on the table in front of him. A long-range rifle outfitted with a silencer rested against the wall in easy arm’s reach.

“Look alive, Stingray. Things are about to get interesting.”

“You had a vision?”

“Only a flash of one. Just now,” Duarte told him. “I saw a pair of bogeys in wetsuits swimming over from Marathon. Three more paddling behind them in a dark Zodiac powerboat. I can’t be sure, but everything about them says military, black ops. They’re on the approach as we speak. I’m sure of it.”

Alec’s face immediately took on a familiar battle-primed intensity. He stood up, stuffed the pistol down the back of his jeans. “How far out?”

“Not far.” Duarte shook his head. “Could be right on top of us any minute.”

No sooner had he said it than the first gunshot rang out.

Fuck. Ready or not, showtime.
Duarte reached for the nine-millimeter at his back while Alec grabbed the rifle. Both men locked and loaded, ready to unleash hell, just like old times.

Duarte glanced at Lisa. She’d gone pale and silent with the first sound of gunfire. As urgent as the situation suddenly was, he stole a moment to brush his fingers along her stricken face. “We’ve got this. That’s a promise, yeah? No one touches you without going through both of us.” At her nod, Duarte turned to Alec. “We need to secure her while we—”

“Tackle box. She’ll be safest in there. And armed if needed.”

Without missing a beat, Alec hit a switch on the wall, instantly killing the house lights. And just like that, the former sniper was gone, absorbed into the night as he slipped outside.

“Come on.” Plunged into darkness, Duarte raced with her for the bookcase hideaway.

He glimpsed a flash of shadow at the window in the great room. Had less than a second of time to push Lisa down before the glass exploded with the gunman’s shot from outside.

She screamed. Searing pain tore into his left shoulder.

The hit staggered him, but as he started going down, Duarte steadied his aim and squeezed off two rounds at the assailant outside. The guy dropped like a stone. Chest shot would have killed the son of a bitch, but the head shot made sure.

“John!” Lisa scrambled back to him in the darkness. She ran her hands over him in a panic, freezing when she reached the sticky wetness on his chest. “You’re bleeding! Oh my God, you’ve been hit!”

The metallic stench of spent bullets and spilled blood hung in the air around them. Outside the house, the sounds of combat continued in a chaotic blur. More gunfire. Pounding boots. In the distance, a curse went up in English, followed by abrupt silence. Wasn’t Alec. Which meant one more bad guy down. Someone shouted in urgent Spanish near the house. Rapid shots ripped in a sudden burst as a body came tumbling off the roof into the bushes.