Three days later
Once again Turk stood at the windows of Cooper’s office staring out into the night.
He was tired.
He’d realized in the past few days, he’d been tired for a very long time until Erin had arrived at the bar. When his eyes had met hers, he’d begun looking forward to each day again rather than just existing within each night.
He’d looked forward to getting up each evening, had looked forward to leaving each morning. Because Erin had been there.
She wasn’t there any longer.
Leaning his shoulder against the wall, his gaze narrowed into the darkness outside, he could feel that steel hard core of determined fury he’d once possessed, absent. The man who had joined the Covert Information Network didn’t exist anymore. Not just in name, but in spirit as well.
The fury had been gone for a while, he realized. The dark, bitter anger that the evil in the world had destroyed the last innocence he’d believed in, had eased to regret, to that feeling of aching loss that came with time.
He could now remember his youth with a bittersweetness that he hadn’t been able to remember it with before. The memories didn’t shred his guts with helpless guilt any longer. Instead, he realized, the memories of the laughter, the good times, had returned.
He hadn’t realized those memories were back until he’d lain down the night after the attack at the apartment and realized how he ached for Erin.
Her smile, filled with such innocence.
The warmth that had begun to fill her gaze, the softness of her expression that he knew, knew to the bottom of his soul, had been her love for him.
And he hurt now. His chest ached, his heart protesting the loss with such virulence that he knew, somehow, she’d made him love as well.
He had to find her.
God knew J.D. would try to hide her. That was what Turk would do under the same circumstances. Hide her someplace that no one would ever find her again. But he couldn’t imagine never holding her again. Never feeling her warmth. Never seeing her smile.
Wiping a hand over his face as he breathed out wearily, he knew he’d never really rest again until he was with her.
The office door opened, causing him to turn slowly and watch as Cooper, J.D., and John D. entered the dimly lit office.
Flipping the desk lights on to fill the room with soft light, Cooper glanced at him silently, his gaze just as assessing, as considering, as it had been for the past three days that he’d helped debrief Turk.
“Turk.” J.D. moved to him, his hand reaching out to shake Turk’s. “Thank you for taking care of Erin. We had no idea this situation had developed as it had.”
As he released the handshake, J.D. gave him a small, sharp little nod. “You’re an asset to the network. I’m damned thankful you were here.”
“Where’s she at?” The question refused to be held back.
J.D.’s gaze sharpened for a moment.
“She’s in protective custody at the moment, Turk.” John D. answered as he took a seat at the far corner of the room, his expression hard as Turk’s gaze lifted to his. “I’m sure you of all people realize our determination to ensure her safety.”
He of all people.
Did they believe that reminding him of Cara, the sister he’d lost with such sudden violence, would cause him to back off? They were wrong if that was the case.
“The assailant you incapacitated and threw in the back of your pickup was a fount of information,” J.D. spoke before Turk could protest John D.’s announcement. “The agent they were searching for was a contact for the U.S. and Italian authorities nine years before. He helped destroy a criminal organization that had held Italy in its grip for generations. His work alone identified assassins, drug lords, and individuals involved in local as well as national government that ensured the continued hold that organization retained. His identity has remained hidden, just as his location has. Unfortunately, he was tracked much further than we’d believed. The network itself is secure, but my and John D.’s association with him was revealed.”
“Where’s Erin?”
He really didn’t give a fuck about the agent and where he was tracked. If he was part of the CIN, then no doubt once leaving J.D.’s residence he disappeared forever to those who had known him before. Turk really couldn’t care less about the details at the moment.
He wanted Erin.
J.D. sighed deeply. “Turk, the risk to her…”
“Where is Erin?” Iron hard, the relentless need to see her, to claim her, hardened inside him until it ran soul deep.
J.D. grimaced as he turned back to meet his son’s gaze.
“Erin will be relocated for a while…” John D. began.
“Then you’ll relocate me with her.” He wasn’t giving up.
Cooper sat back in his chair, watching everything thoughtfully, but Turk knew the other man. His friendship with the agents that worked with him was a bond forged in the hottest fires. If push came to shove, he’d back Turk. It wasn’t a position Turk wanted to put the other man in, but he would if he had to.
“The risk to her is too great.…” J.D. tried again.
“J.D., don’t turn this into a battle,” Turk warned him, his fingers clenching at his sides, fisting to hold back the rage gathering inside him. “You may keep her away from me, but I promise you, I’ll cause you more trouble searching for her than it’s going to be worth to you and your family.”
The other man crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at him.
“You’re an agent for the network, Turk. A network I run. You don’t give me orders here. It’s the other way around.”
“Don’t make me go rogue on you.” There was no other option. Existing without her wasn’t going to happen.
“J.D.,” Cooper began as the door to the office was pushed open.
Turk didn’t hear a word his friend said after that. He didn’t give a damn.
Erin stepped into the office, closing the door softly. Jeans hugged her slender hips and legs, a soft cream-colored blouse whispered over her breasts before tucking into the band of her jeans. Canvas sneakers covered her feet.
She looked like a damned teenager.
The effect she had on him was anything but immature though. His entire body hardened, tensed. Every cell, every particle of being came to full, vibrant life.
Pushing past J.D., Turk moved to her slowly.
Heavy, red-gold waves fell about her shoulders and surrounded the vulnerable features of her face while mysterious sea-green eyes watched him with a hint of vulnerability, and more emotion than he’d ever seen in another woman’s eyes.
He stopped in front of her, aching to touch her, his palms itching with the need, his entire body going hot with the urge to feel her against him.
“I missed you,” he whispered, aching, trying to find the words, trying to find a way to tell her things that he was still fighting to understand.
She licked her lips, her gaze holding his, the promises and feminine needs reaching out to him, sinking inside him.
“I missed you,” she answered, her voice soft, vibrating with so much more to say. Words she would hold locked inside her, he realized, until he gave her what she needed.
Before he realized the intent, before he was aware he was moving, he had her in his arms. Cradling her head in one hand he tipped it back, his lips touching hers. Just touching as he stared down at her, as he held her close to his body and relished the feel of her against him.
“I love you, Erin Masters,” he whispered against her lips, watching her eyes dilate, the flush that suddenly mounted her pretty face. “Don’t walk away from me. Give us a chance.…”
“I love you.”
Her soft voice, the feel of her hands gripping his waist, her body bending to his, the essence of who she was, of everything they could be, sank inside him before taking root with a suddenness that stole his breath.
She loved him.
God, she loved him.
In that second Turk found what he’d been searching the night for in the long, lost years he’d watched the darkness. He’d been searching for himself. For that part of him that would complete the lonely parts of his soul.
And he’d found it the night he’d met her eyes. He’d claimed it the night he claimed her kiss.
Erin’s kiss.
She completed him.
* * *
Nothing mattered.
No one mattered.
Erin felt her world suddenly come to a full stop, leveling, then filling with a bold, heated stroke of color as Turk whispered “I love you.”
In the dark-chocolate gaze she suddenly saw inside him, felt herself inside him, felt him wrapping himself around her, his heat and strength holding her in one place. Right there in his arms.
“I love you.” She loved him as she’d never loved anyone in her life.
J.D. didn’t matter. John D.’s support had always been assured. But right here, in this moment, in this man’s arms, she found the search she’d been on for so very long come to an end.
She’d been searching for herself, never realizing, never knowing, that the completion of who and what she was would end in the knowledge that she truly wasn’t alone. She never had been.
Turk had been right there, waiting for her, watching the night until their eyes met across a crowded bar and fate entwined them as it had always meant to do.
They found each other in that first kiss.
And now, they would complete each other in the first of what she knew would be a lifetime of kisses.
Erin had found her way home. Years of restlessness, of searching, of never understanding why she couldn’t bear the thought of putting down roots until she came here, to the place where her heart was awaiting her.
Where Turk was waiting for her.