Solid Muscle (Unseen Enemy Book 5) (9 page)

Sully had gone to the office and shut the door, got on the phone to Dallas. His boss had been equally surprised at how the meeting had gone and the two men had discussed next steps. Of course, nothing much could be planned: not until they got the call in a few days. Until then? Garrett and Millie were rich people in town for Garrett’s business and they’d act appropriately.

“Come in, Hunter,” she said now.

He opened the door a bit, poked his head in. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair pulled back, her face scrubbed of all makeup. She was amazingly fresh and beautiful right now, and his heart squeezed to see her.

“You doing OK?” he said.

“Yes.” She nodded at her laptop. “I was just finishing my report about the meeting.”

Intrigued, he leaned against the wall. Here he’d assumed that she was hiding out in this room feeling upset, maybe even crying, but in reality, she was working. Yet again, the woman kicked ass. Not that he should be even the slightest bit surprised about that at this point.

“To send to Dallas?” he asked.

“And Jack.”

“Oh, yeah… right.”

She stretched a bit and his eyes zeroed in on the few inches of stomach that appeared when the t-shirt rode up. “So. What did Dallas say?”

“That we act like a married couple until we get the call.”

She nodded. “Foxburg Falls all over again, huh?”

He grinned, loving that idea. “Yep. Coffee mornings and dinners and window shopping.”
All while holding your hand, putting my arm around you, kissing you. I fucking love my job sometimes. When I’m not hating things about it, of course. Things like kidnapping rings.

“Uh-huh.” She stood up, set the laptop on the bedside table. “So. What do we do today?”

“Well, it’s almost dinner time. How about I go out and grab some groceries and then I cook for you?”

She stared at him. “You can cook?”

“Hell, yeah. I’m a great cook.”

“You are?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” he teased her.

“I have no idea.” She blinked. “I guess I just assumed you were a takeaway kinda guy.”

“Not conducive to this body, sweetheart. I need to stay in shape and pizza and Chinese food don’t help with that very much.”

As if he’d given her permission to openly ogle his body, her eyes wandered over him as he casually lounged in her bedroom. Hunter Sullivan was unapologetically pure, sexy man, masculine and untamed. Yeah, he clearly worked at it and as a woman, she appreciated that effort; it was blatantly obvious in his hard muscles, his powerful frame. She remembered how it had felt when he’d held her in the SUV: his chest had been like solid rock, but his lips had been soft fire. The man was contrast after contradiction and she loved that about him.

“OK, then,” she said. “Show me what you’ve got, Sullivan. Dazzle me with your culinary prowess. Just remember, though… I have an online culinary blog so I
know
good food. I’ll be a harsh critic, I promise you.”

“Yeah, my wife the foodie.” He pushed himself off the wall in one strong movement. “So, game on, baby. Challenge accepted.”

**

An hour later, Cordelia was perched on a stool in the kitchen, drinking a glass of white wine and watching Hunter stir-fry some shrimp. It smelled incredible.

“So,” he said as he chopped up some leeks. “Is everything OK at home? With Sean?”

“Yes. Mom has everything under control.”

“She helps a lot, huh?”

“Oh, God, that’s an understatement. I’d never manage without her.”

Sully nodded, started chopping some celery. “She lives with you?”

“No. No, she wanted to but I put my foot down.” Cordelia hesitated. “She’s quite a – a forceful personality and if she lived with us, it’d be hard for us to get along.”

“Let me guess. She’d want to mother you and you’d revert back to childhood squabbles and sulking.”

“You got it.” She took a sip of wine. “You know something about this?”

“A bit. My Dad lived with me for a while after Mom died and he was all about trying to just pick up the parenting gig where it’d left off when I was nineteen and left home.”

“And now?”

“Oh, when his Alzheimer’s started to advance, he voluntarily entered an assisted living facility.”

“He did?” Her own mother had sworn to resist
that
step until she drew her last breath. “He
chose
that?”

“Yep. He knew what was going on with the illness and he knew that I worked weird hours and traveled a lot and so I couldn’t be there to make sure that he turned off the stove, you know? He made the decision while he was still able to, and he’s actually really happy there. Lots of people to talk to and lots to do. I think he may even have a girlfriend.”

“Really?” Cordelia found that ludicrously sweet and touching, for some reason.

“Yeah. He’s cagey about her, but he slips up once in a while.”

“So you left home at nineteen?” she said, curious about Hunter’s life before Solid Security; it was the one topic that he’d been deliberately vague about while they were in Foxburg Falls. “To join the military?”

“Uh-huh.” He tossed the veggies in to the second wok. “No college for me. I went straight from high school to a dead-end job to enlisting.”

“The Marines, right?”

“Eventually. I was in active service for twelve years and ten of them were as a Marine.”

Cordelia saw the tension in his shoulders now, noticed that his answers were getting shorter, more clipped and she wondered what it was about this time in his life that he avoided talking about. Maybe he even avoided thinking about it.

“Do you miss it?” she asked, changing the subject slightly. “The Marines?”

“Sometimes. But I like working for Dallas and I like the team. They’re damn good people and even though I find the work incredibly stressful sometimes, it’s all worth it when we actually help someone. When we protect them.”

He was speaking fluently again and he was relaxed. So the Marines wasn’t the sore point – it was something that had happened around the same time, but it wasn’t the military. Something more personal?

He turned now, saw her face. It was watchful, speculative. Fuck, he had to watch himself around her: she’d see way more than he wanted to give away if he wasn’t careful. Better to be evasive and have her know that’s what he was doing than to hand her his entire fucked up failure on a platter.

“Dinner’s in five minutes,” he said. “You want to set the table?”

To her eternal credit, she didn’t push him. She knew damn good and well that he was ducking something big and he knew that she knew. But she just nodded, slid off the stool, headed out to the dining room. Left him alone with his secret and self-hatred.

What would she think about me if she knew? And why do I think that she’d understand?

Chapter Ten

A few hours later, Sully jolted awake and automatically reached for the gun on the bedside table. He was on his feet and running for the door before he was fully aware of what had woken him up. When he realized that it was Cordelia and she was screaming, he damn near ripped her bedroom door off its hinges getting to her.

“Cordelia!”

She was in bed, fast asleep. Twisting and turning, her arms flailing as she fought someone in her dreams. Sully set the gun on the dresser and then hurried over to the bed. He sat down next to her and carefully reached for her shoulder.

“Cordelia?”

She moaned and slapped at his hand, panicked. “No!”

“Baby, wake up… Cordelia.”

“Don’t! Don’t take him!”

Sully grasped her wrists in one large hand and with the other, he touched her face. “Wake up. Please, sweetheart.”

She screamed again, a helpless, hopeless sound. No words, just terror and pain. Her eyes flew open now and she struggled harder, starting to breathe too quickly.

“Let go!”

Right away, he released her hands. She shot to a sitting position and started to pound his chest.

“You can’t have him!” she cried. “Please… please don’t!”

“Cordelia.” He ignored her punches and cupped her face in both hands, forced her to look at him. “Come back to me… come on, now.”

She froze and stared up at him. “Hunter?”

A wave of relief crashed through him, hard. “Yeah. Yeah, baby, it’s me. You’re OK.”

Her fingers curled in to his t-shirt. “Oh, God…”

“Shhhhh.” He pulled her to his chest gently, wondering if she was going to resist. She didn’t, though, she just let herself get wrapped up in those strong arms and tucked her face in to his neck. “I’ve got you, Cordelia. You’re OK now… I’ve got you.”

She was shaking badly, still breathing way too fast. He tightened his grip around her, held on. He found himself whispering in her ear, sweet and soothing words, telling her over and over that he had her. And he
did
have her: she’d have to physically leave his embrace because he wasn’t letting go.

Slowly, her breathing slowed and steadied. Her rigid body softened and curved against his, her hands unclenched on his chest. Her face was still hidden against his throat and he cradled the back of her head, holding her closer to his warmth. He didn’t want her to stir, to shift. He wanted her to just stay. Stay forever.

Cordelia sighed, shattered and small against his powerful body. God, the sheer, blunt
strength
of him was unbelievable and even more so when she considered that he was holding her gently. He was holding back and she knew he was being so, so careful. She felt safe and cherished with Hunter – and she was surprised that such a hard man could make her feel so cared for.

Finally, hating to do it but needing to, she pulled back. Just a bit. He knew he was being an asshole, but he barely loosened his grip. Fuck, he was going to make her
work
to leave his arms, if that’s what she wanted. She didn’t leave, though, not all the way. She sat bracketed in the circle of his massive arms, her hands still on his broad chest. She looked up, her dark eyes haunted.

“Thanks,” she said, her voice hoarse from screaming. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

He ran his hand over her face in a rough caress, almost angry that she was apologizing. “It’s fine. Are you alright?”

“Yes.” She tried to smile, failed miserably. “You can go back to bed, Hunter.”

He didn’t respond to that asinine suggestion. Instead, he leaned back, pulled her with him. She followed his body down to the bed, no resistance or protesting at all, and that more than anything told him how bad it was. Cordelia would rather die than let anyone – especially him – see her weak or hurt. And damned if she wasn’t letting him do exactly that: she was curled up against him, her head on his shoulder, her arm around his waist, still trembling. Whatever it was, she needed him here now.

He pulled the sheet over them and stroked her hair, over and over, the movement rhythmic and calming. When she finally relaxed and sank on to his body, he spoke.

“Talk to me. Tell me what that was.”

She closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It
does
matter. You woke up screaming.”

She shook her head. It wasn’t a gesture of denial so much as one of confusion. “I haven’t dreamt about it in years… I thought I was finally past it.”

“Past what?” He waited. “Cordelia?
Tell
me.”

She sighed, snuggled deeper in to his body. “My ex-husband kidnapped Sean.”

“He – what?”

“Yeah. About eight years ago, right at the beginning of the whole divorce, Gus flipped out. He – he started to follow me home from the grocery store and the park. He stood under the apartment window and shouted at me. He called me a thousand times a day.”

“He stalked you.”

“Yeah, basically. The police said that they couldn’t do anything until he actually did me harm – this was before the anti-stalker laws had any real teeth, you know.”

Sully tensed up. Yeah, he remembered those fucking days all too well, back when stalkers were considered jokes and being stalked was even thought of as a form of flattery. Jessica and his baby had died because the police had underestimated the threat against them.

And so did I.

Wrenching his mind away from his wife and unborn child, he listened to Cordelia.

“Anyway, Gus broke in to the apartment at about two o’clock in the morning and took Sean out of his crib. I heard him and tried to stop him, but…” She stopped talking and looked away.

He held her closer. “But what?”

“He hit me hard enough to knock me to the floor. I didn’t pass out, but I couldn’t seem to get up, either. All I could do was lie there paralyzed and watch him walk right out the door with Sean.” She swallowed hard. “He was screaming for me, just screaming like I’d never heard him before. I thought that would be my last memory of my son.”

“How long did Gus have him?”

“Four days.” Cordelia glanced up at Hunter. “Oh, I know… it’s not long at all. I mean, so many kids have been missing for months, for years. Look at the fifty-three kids the cops found in that bust, right? Most of them had been missing for six months, at least.” She was running her fingers over his chest now, just absent-mindedly tracing the curve of the muscle. “But I can tell you, Hunter, I didn’t
breathe
for those four days that I didn’t know where my baby was.”

He nodded, his whole body tight with anger for her. “I know, sweetheart.”

“They tracked Gus down, obviously, and they got Sean back. I’ll never forget that moment when they told me that he was OK. I’d been so sure that Gus was going to kill him and then kill himself, to punish me for the divorce. The relief, Hunter, you just – you wouldn’t
believe
it. My legs gave out under me and I started to cry like a crazy woman.”

“Yeah.” He’d seen that same reaction in clients that he was protecting when they were told that their stalker had finally been caught. Relief and hysteria and disbelief.

She was quiet now, her head on his broad chest, just touching him. He let her, not seeing any need to push. She’d talk more when she was ready.

“That was when I got the gun,” she said suddenly. “Gus was out on bail and waiting trial and I just couldn’t fucking
believe
it, you know? Like, what did he have to
do
to get the cops to take our safety seriously? So I decided to protect myself, to protect my child. I promised myself that if he ever came near me or Sean again, I’d shoot him in the dick and take my time calling the cops.”

Sully actually laughed out loud. “Did he ever come back?”

“No. No, he stood trial and was sent away for twenty-five years.”

Sully was stunned. “For kidnapping?”

Cordelia gave a bitter laugh. “Oh. No. The whole reason that I divorced Gus in the first place was because I'd discovered that he was involved in drugs. Turns out, he’d also killed a competitor. So that’s what he went to jail for, in the end… drug dealing and murder.”

“Shit, Cordelia. When you said he wasn’t a great guy, you weren’t kidding.”

“Yeah. He’s eligible for parole in nine years, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave one second before he’s served his full sentence.”

“Good girl.”

She smiled at that; she hadn’t thought of herself as a ‘girl’ in ages. It was endearingly cute when Hunter said it, though.

“So I guess I’m more affected by this whole thing than I realized,” she said. “I’ve been so focused on the kids that we’re going to see in a few days and I’ve been trying so hard to not think about the parents. What they’ve been through, what they’re still going through.”

He nodded, understanding her need to avoid that whole train of thought and emotion.

“They have no idea where their babies are and I
know
what that’s doing to them,” she said. “I went through it for no time at all, but God help me, Hunter…those four days damn near
killed
me. And in my dreams sometimes? I can
still
hear Sean screaming for me.” She looked up at him, so strong and beautiful in her vulnerability. “I heard him again tonight.”

“I’m so sorry.” He ran his hand down her spine, loving the curve of her lower back. “I’d do anything to make it stop for you, I swear.”

“You know, when Sean was diagnosed with the brain tumor?” Cordelia said slowly. “All those nightmares about losing him just came rushing back… but they were for a different reason. Now Gus isn’t the one taking him away from me – cancer is.”

Sully hesitated. “Cordelia?”

“Hmmm?”

“Can I ask about Sean being sick?”

“You mean his prognosis?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s impossible to say, really.” She rested her chin on her hand and gazed up at him. “It’s a slow-growing tumor anyway, thank God, and the medication and radiation slow it down even more. It’s – controllable, to a certain extent. They say that he may live two years, he may live twenty years if they can keep holding it off. And the doctors are talking about surgery now, which would help even more with stunting the growth.”

“Can it be removed completely?”

“No. Not with traditional surgery. They can remove parts of it and kind of… paralyze its growth. But the only way to fully eliminate it is with lasers.”

“So why can’t they do that?”

“Money.”

“You’d have to pay for it? Privately?”

“Yes.”

“How much is it?”

“About a quarter of a million dollars.” She smiled at his shock. “Honestly? I was kinda tempted to take that suitcase of cash today and make a run for it.”

He laughed again. “I can see how the thought would cross your mind.”

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “I guess I could always win the lottery.”

“You play?”

“Nope. Don’t like the odds.”

Sully gave her a grin but he was actually studying her, really taking her in. She was looking totally drained now – the day was wearing her down.

“You gonna be able to sleep again?” he said softly.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was a bit shaky. “Maybe I’ll just get up for a while. Maybe make some tea.”

“Or I could stay.”

Cordelia’s whole body froze up. “Stay – here? With me?”

“Yeah.” He shifted his huge body to get a bit more comfortable. “I’ll stay until you’re asleep again.”

“Oh, no. You don’t have to do that.”

“Maybe I want to,” he said, his voice husky. “Maybe I want to make you feel safe.”

“You – you do?”

“Sure I do. It’s
all
I want to do right now.”

“It is?” she whispered.

“Yes.” His hard face was so soft in the moonlight. “Will you let me?”

Cordelia stared up at Hunter, wondering if he’d ever looked more gorgeous. God, the man was so…
good
. He was a good man, a caring man and all he wanted to do was protect her.

As she had that thought, she felt a small piece of her heart give itself over to him. Completely and totally and forever, that part of herself was going to be Hunter’s, whether he wanted to claim it or not. And as she recognized that, she knew there was only one answer to his question.

“Yes.” She smiled, finally accepting that she loved this man and to hell with the inevitable pain of not being loved in return. He was worth having these feelings for, no debate and no discussion. “Yes, I’ll let you do that.”

**

The next morning, Cordelia woke up at just past seven o’clock; she was alone in her bed.

She stretched, her body still humming from having been held by Hunter all night long. She vaguely recalled waking up once more during the night, startled and confused by the large, warm body next to her. He’d pulled her closer, whispered that she was safe, tenderly stroked her back. She’d relaxed and settled again, just fallen on back in to sleep. Her last memory was of Hunter kissing her forehead.

Yep. A good man, for sure.

She got up, padded in to the bathroom, slipped off her long t-shirt and put on her yoga clothes. She figured that Hunter was out having his run and she wanted to do some yoga on the side patio and watch the sunrise.

She wandered through the house, listening for him but all was silent. She glanced at the mat near the front door and sure enough, his running shoes were gone. She smiled, imagining that toned, taut body pushing itself mile after mile, his breathing getting deeper and faster, every muscle glistening with sweat. She swallowed and forced her mind away from the mouthwatering image.

She grabbed her yoga mat and slid open the patio door. She unrolled the mat and then stood with her feet together, her arms loose at her sides. Cordelia stared at the blue sky ahead of her and right away, all thoughts of the kidnapped children, their shattered parents, Sean, and Hunter left her mind. All she focused on was her breath, her body. She closed her eyes and counted her blessings, giving thanks for all the things in her life that she loved.

She needed strength and unwavering determination today, so she decided to focus on standing positions that demanded perfect balance: The Triangle, The Half-Moon, The Tree, The Eagle, The Prayer. And of course, The Warrior I and Warrior II, those beautiful, elegant positions that are like poetry written with the body.