The Color of Courage (6 page)

“I’m an empath. I’m here to help you.” Before he could respond, I grabbed Gino’s wrist with my free hand and sent the conglomerate of emotions I’d built into him.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. I knew he wouldn’t react like the guy in the restaurant had, but I thought it would have some positive effect. Maybe enough to make him come inside. But it did the opposite. When my positive emotions touched his seething, negative ones, he seemed to explode in the conflict. He wrenched his arm away from me, grabbed a fistful of my jacket at the shoulder, and jumped.

Chapter 6

It went exactly as we’d planned. Trace called it Plan B, but it was more like C or D, or maybe L for Last Resort. I’d expected to have more time to work on the man, but didn’t even have time to pray that Trace was ready. Gino tilted over the edge, I followed . . .

And it all came to a jerking halt.

I screamed against my will, the pain almost unbearable. Adam had anchored himself inside and still held my leg. His grip hadn’t even shifted. But I was arched sideways over the stone ledge, my left hip feeling like it had been dislocated. Gino wasn’t exactly small, and his weight dragged at me.

But only for a moment. Trace hung out the window below and he caught the big man, who lost his grip on me right away. He hadn’t planned on holding me all the way down. The angle at which he’d fallen and the way Trace caught him meant he cracked his skull on the wall and hung limply, just the way we wanted him.

I watched the buildings around me swaying upside down while I caught my breath.

“You got him?” I finally managed to ask Trace.

“Yep.”

“Time?”

“Probably fifteen minutes. I can hold him longer, but he stinks.”

I laughed and craned myself around. The ladder truck that had been down the street was already being maneuvered into place.

“They’re on their way. You okay if I go in now?”

“Yep. You okay?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.” I lifted my head. “Coming up,” I told Adam.

“I’m not sure we thought this through well enough.” He sounded as calm as ever, but I could detect none of his emotions, which I interpreted as fear for me.

“It’s all right. I’ve been doing ab work.” Thank God I had. I took three deep breaths, then curled myself upward until I could grab the ledge with my left hand. Then I kind of rolled sideways onto it. Adam let go of my ankle and grabbed my suit at the hip, then my arm, then, without waiting to see if I had any injuries, he yanked me inside. I fell on top of him and flopped to the floor, feeling far less graceful than Gino had been on his dive.

“Thanks.” I tried to catch my breath, distracted by how hard and strong Adam had felt in that brief moment he’d been under me.

He rolled and loomed over me, and I didn’t need an aura to detect his fury. His dark-blue eyes roiled like the sea. “Fuck that. Don’t you dare thank me. You almost died.”

“Nah.” I waved a vague hand. “Went like clockwork. I do have this problem with my hip, though.”

Adam cursed again. It was out of character for him. I liked it, and didn’t let myself wonder what that made me.

Eventually, I managed to get to my feet. The pain in my hip subsided, but Adam insisted on taking me to the hospital to get checked out. I wouldn’t leave until we had Trace, but he was free a few minutes later and walked out of the building whistling and sweat-free.

“Show-off,” I muttered, and slowly straightened. My hip protested like a rusty hinge, and I vowed not to sit again and let it lock up. I’d limped halfway out to the van when Evan ran up to us, his expression wild with fear and his hair standing on end.

“You—” He stared at me, apparently unable to say any more. He was a blank screen to me until he turned to Trace. Then fear and exhilaration washed over me. His emotions, not mine, of course, and they came from watching the rescue.

He looked back at me and swallowed. “Are you okay?”

“She needs an x-ray.” Adam glowered at him and tightened his arm around my waist. I hissed at the sharper pain in my hip, and he eased off a little but still treated Evan as if it were all his fault I was hurt.

For the first time in longer than I could remember, my own feelings went out of control. I wanted to hit Adam for being so possessive and protective of me, yet keeping a distance I was beginning to think I didn’t want. A scream built in my chest, the kind of scream you release into a pillow when you’re so overwhelmed you can’t breathe. I’d just met Evan, barely started flirting with him, and I
liked
him. Except he had issues with one of my best friends.

And motherfucking
god
, was I in pain.

I ignored all the men and climbed into the van, closing my eyes and letting everything swirl around me as Trace drove to the nearest hospital.

“I’m proud of you.”

Adam sat next to me on the side bench, his mouth so close to my ear I could feel his breath.

“For what?” I murmured.

“I know this was a difficult job. I thought . . .” He trailed off, and I completed his sentence for him.

“You thought I’d flake out because of the last time.”

He didn’t say anything. I opened my eyes and smiled a little, feeling everything slide into place, like the squares of a Rubik’s cube. Except for that initial terror when I found out what was happening, I’d managed to forget my past failures. If I could handle that deep-seated neurosis, I could handle anything.

Even men.

I never got back to Summer’s party. With the x-ray negative and a honking-big painkiller down my throat for the bone bruise in my hip and my mildly wrenched ankle, I had the guys drop me off before they went back to report. I slept like a rock, deliberately not thinking about anything.

The next day, I was fully booked at a community bank. They were opening a new branch and had hired me to sit in on their employee interviews. I’d worked for them before, with amazing success. The higher the stress of a situation, the easier people’s emotions were to read. I was careful to offer impressions and vague assessments that would help them pinpoint the best positions for the people they hired, rather than give outright judgments. I didn’t want to be sued because someone didn’t get a job. Usually, they had no clue who I was, but I was concerned that would be different today, after the two high-profile cases we’d caught. The
Today’s News
article wouldn’t be out for another week, but the local media had covered both events.

Because I had a near-guaranteed paycheck coming, I indulged in a cab to the bank. I walked with a damn cane the hospital had provided to me, because after sleeping all night the hip had refused to loosen up. Every step grated, and I didn’t want to take anything stronger than over-the-counter ibuprofen and risk affecting my reads. So it took longer for me to get into the conference room than it should have, and the three-person interview team was already in place at the table. They watched me make my laborious way to my chair in the corner.

“Hi, Daley.”

“Morning, Dave. Sandra. Will.”

They nodded at me. Only Dave spoke, though.

“Watched you on the news this morning. They showed that tumble over and over. You okay?” He eyed my lower body skeptically.

“Fine. Sorry to hold things up.” I hung the cane over the arm of the chair and eased into it. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Want some coffee first?” Dave handed me a thick file folder. I flipped it open and declined the coffee, reaching for a pen as the first candidate walked into the room.

Reading people was like sitting in the sun all day in the summer. There was no physical exertion, yet it drained all my energy. By lunchtime, I longed for my bed. My left hip was killing me, a heavy, solid throbbing. And my right one felt electrified from all the times my cell phone had vibrated in my pocket.

I had neglected to call my mother.

Dave, Sandra, and Will stood after the last candidate, a nervous, shy young woman who’d probably never make it as a teller but had confidence in her solid résumé and references and might do well in a support position.

“Care to join us at Dee’s?” Sandra asked. I could tell she offered reluctantly. We only had a half hour before the next interview, and it would take me that long to get across the street and back.

“No, thank you.” I tried not to wince as I pushed to my feet. “I have some calls to return. If you could bring me back a sandwich, though?” I didn’t bother reaching for my wallet. It was in my contract that they bought me lunch.

“Of course!” They smiled and filed out, and I imagined we were all blue with relief.

I grabbed the cane and started walking around the table, trying to stretch out the tight hip muscles and lubricate the joint while I thumbed through my missed call records. My mother had, indeed, called three times. Adam called twice. I figured he was just checking on me, since I’d be little good on a job today and he knew I wasn’t available anyway. There was also a call from my oldest little sister and one from a number I didn’t recognize.

Only my mother had left a voicemail. “How dare you allow me to see you falling
off a ledge
on television without warning? For God’s sake, Daley Marie Charm, don’t you have more respect for your mother than that?” She went on for three turns around the conference table. I paused, my thumb hovering over the call button after I’d deleted the message. No, I decided. Easy first. I hit the speed dial for Adam.

Then wondered why I thought talking to
him
would be easier than talking to my mother.

“’Bout time you called back,” he greeted me.

“Bite me.” I wasn’t in the mood. “I’m fine, thanks for checking, talk to you later.”

“Hey, hang on. I’m just ribbing you.”

I sighed and forced myself to keep walking. “Sorry.”

“Your mother called.” It wasn’t a question. Adam had met my mother.

“She left a message. I have to call her back.”

“I won’t keep you, then. How’s the hip?”

“Sore.” I grimaced as I turned a corner and put more weight on the left leg. “I’m trying to work it out.”

“You need to rest it, too.”

“It locks up when I rest.”

“Use ice.”

I snorted. “Yeah, that would look professional. It’ll have to wait until I get home.”

“And everything else?”

“Fine.” I’d reached my limit. I held my breath as I lowered myself back into the chair. “The ankle is superficial. As long as I don’t bump it, it doesn’t hurt. I have a few other aches and pains. But mostly it’s the hip.”

“I’m sorry, Daley.” His voice went all husky and regretful, the soft-rough sound rippling into a shudder down my spine. It was a completely new sensation for me, and I realized something. In person, the sudden blankness of someone’s emotions was so jarring, I couldn’t read them at all. Over the phone, I could hear nuances in Adam’s voice and could almost picture the deep, deep purple of his aura.

I was more normal than I thought.

Except I’d just imagined Adam Tarantino in love with me.

Wiping
that
thought completely out of my mind, I said, almost too briskly, “It’s not your fault. It’s a hazard of the job.”

True to his nature, he didn’t pursue it. “Speaking of jobs, how’s today going?”

I glanced through the glass wall. Sandra, Dave, and Will, holding a paper sack, had just emerged from the elevator. “It’s boring,” I muttered. “But it keeps me from worrying about the rent. I’ll call you later.”

“Meeting tomorrow afternoon, if you can make it.”

“I’ll be there.” I closed the phone just as the interview team entered, and didn’t even feel guilty for not calling my mother.

The lack of guilt didn’t last. I had to call her eventually, but “eventually” meant seven that night, due to rush-hour traffic and a dead battery on the cell. Not that she gave me a chance to explain that.

“You know, Daley, the longer you wait to call me, the more emotional trauma I go through.” Tears, either false or real, thickened her voice.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” It didn’t seem worth it to have spared myself this ordeal earlier, when her fear and anger built exponentially for each hour I didn’t return her calls.

“Sorry doesn’t erase the past day.”

“You know if something had happened to me Adam would have called you immediately.”

But logic didn’t penetrate. “What if he’d been hurt, too? I’m totally out of the loop, and it’s not fair of you to do that to me.”

She went on for twenty more minutes before she’d vented it all. Finally, she took a deep breath and sounded back in control.

“I want you to come for dinner Friday night. I need to see for myself that you’re okay.”

I resented that. Friday was date night, and also prime emergency night. But since I had no date, and my hip meant Adam was unlikely to allow me to work, it hardly mattered. I agreed and managed to appease her enough that she let me go.

I called my sister next.

“’Bout time,” she said in a much milder tone than either Adam or my mother had used.

“I’m getting sick of that greeting,” I responded.

“I figured Mom was all over you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Yeah, no broken bones or anything like that.”

“Gotta hurt, though.”

“Some.”

We were skirting around the real reason for her call, and we both knew it was pointless.

“Look, Sarah, I’m not leaving HQ. I know Mom wants me to and won’t say so, and wants you to talk me into it. But I need it.” Not that she’d understand. As far as I could tell, none of my sisters or brothers had any special talents. They didn’t know how hard it was to fit in when you knew how everyone felt about everything but you. They had no idea the joy I got from most missions. From making a difference.

But my sister surprised me. “Okay, then. Mom will just have to deal. It’s no different than Spike’s job.”