Chapter Fifteen

Prue had never heard Owen mention anyone named Claymore. She had no idea who he was, or what he could do to help them. The sudden uncertainty played tricks on her mind, causing her to do battle with the shadows, both real and imagined.

Whatever Leo wanted Claymore to do, would it involve digging into the past? Her past? What if Claymore found out about her and Aron King? Would he share that information with Leo? How would Leo react? Would he think less of her? Would he be mad or disappointed, like she was? Would he be angry that she’d lied to him?

With a steadying breath, she pushed aside her troubling thoughts. What did any of that matter? She and Leo weren’t a couple. They didn’t have a future she needed to protect, and which might be jeopardized by her deception. And if exposing her secrets meant Aron was stopped from hurting more people, she’d suffer the consequences without complaint.

Outdoors, the sun hovered a few fingers above the horizon, and this time she didn’t want to miss its dramatic plunge into the sea. Hurriedly, she finished carving up a hunk of cheese and added the slices to the paper plate already loaded down with crackers and grapes.

On the patio, Leo lounged in a beach chair, his long legs stretched out in the sand and her computer balanced on his lap.

She set the plate on the table between their chairs, and when he reached for a cracker, a smile pierced her heart. He hardly ate, and never seemed to think of food, except when he wanted to make sure she had enough. But she had a theory that if she placed food in front of him he’d eat it. Twice now, her theory had proven correct.

The cracker disappeared into his mouth, and then his gaze snagged hers. The warm glow of the sunset cast him in a soft light that picked out the green in his eyes and a shadow of a smile touched his lips. With his smile, an unexpected sensation swelled inside her, a mix of joy and certainty. She’d never experienced anything like it.

The disquiet she’d felt only moments before suddenly seemed like a distant memory. She could stay here forever—even without the Wi-Fi. With him.

“Do you mind if I send Claymore some of your files?”

A sliver of unease returned to her. “Which ones would you send him?”

“Everything you have on King. As a US citizen, he’s the one we have the best chance of nailing.”

“You think we can?”

“Yeah, I think we can.” His eyes shone with a conspiratorial light. “With as much as you and Paul already pieced together from publicly available sources alone, imagine what the NSA and CIA must have on him.”

“Do you think they know about his, uh, freelancing?”

“By law, he has to tell them.” He reached for a wedge of cheese. “And if he hasn’t told them by now, that in and of itself might be a crime.”

She nibbled on a cracker while she chewed over that information. After a moment, she realized he watched her, his expression thoughtful.

“If you don’t want me to share your work with him, that’s okay, too,” he said softly.

That he cared, once again, to protect her wishes soothed her worries.

With a smile, she gave her head a small shake. “If you trust him, then so will I.”

An odd look touched his features, but he turned away as the last slice of fiery orange disappeared beyond the horizon.

“Does Claymore work for the NSA or the CIA?”

In the fading light, white teeth flashed in his dark face. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

A laugh startled from her. She couldn’t believe she was there with Leo, and that he was making jokes.

He pushed slowly to his feet. “I’m going to grab a water. You want anything?”

“I’ll take a water.”

But at the patio door, he froze. His turned his head and gazed down at the pitiful plant she’d stuck in the ground the day before.

“It was dying.”

His head snapped around. “What?”

At the desperate edge in his voice, she sat forward in her chair.

“The rose bush.” She pointed at the scraggy shrub. “I’m going to try to save it.”

His lips parted and an odd sound eased from him, as though she’d struck him and he couldn’t catch his breath.

But he didn’t say anything before he slipped silently inside the house.

Four years earlier

She’d told him early on that she didn’t want kids. Her career was taking off, and the frequent travel to the world’s most dangerous hotspots didn’t allow room for children.

For his part, Leo hadn’t given much thought to parenthood. It’d always been a far-off concept, and without anything concrete to hold on to, not one worth investing too much energy in.

Still, when she told him, he felt a pang of loss in the center of his chest. For in that moment, the idea of having children with her appealed. Very much. She was concrete. That something, someone, he wanted to hold on to, to belong to, finally. Forever.

But he hadn’t argued with her, because he wanted to be with her more than he wanted kids.

After Jim refused his request for more men, Leo made the decision to pull out. Beyond their hotel gates, the violence raged on and without the extra men, they were unable to flee through the fighting to reach the airport safely. So they waited while chaos unfolded around them.

In the end, hundreds lay dead in the city streets.

Raw emotion choked him. Helplessness and anger lashed at his control. The Fear took hold.

Sitting on the floor in their hotel room, between the beds, they passed a bottle of the local moonshine back and forth between them. Lauren’s TV makeup ran down her cheeks in dark streams forged by her tears, like the hollow blackness of despair tunneling through them both.

She took a nip from the bottle. A sharp hiss escaped her and she handed the decanter back to him.

He drank deeply, relishing the lick of fire burning down his throat to spread through his roiling stomach. Regretfully, he eyed the container. There wasn’t nearly enough alcohol remaining in the bottle to offer anything close to oblivion.

“After this is over and we’re back home, I want to have a baby.”

Her softly spoken words hit him like a punch to the gut. A sharp longing stole his voice.

“I know it’s not what we talked about. It’s just—” She ducked her chin and her light hair shimmied with her head shake. “I don’t know.”

He swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in his throat. “I know why.”

Her head came up. “You do?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then tell me, please, because I don’t understand any of this.”

He paused, searching for the words. “After so much death, you want to create life.”

Silent tears flowed down her cheeks. Curling her legs under her, she crawled to him and collapsed into his side.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck. “I want to go home, Leo.”

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ll need to buy a house.”

She drew back enough to look up at him. For the first time in days, her eyes shone with something other than her devastation. “Where should we live?”

“Anywhere you want.”

“I don’t care as long as you’re there, and the baby.”

“We’ll need a big yard, for the kids.”

Her head on his shoulder moved with her nod of agreement.

“Is there anything else you want, Lauren? Name it and I’ll get it for you.”

“Someplace quiet. Not in the city. Maybe with a view, if we can afford it.”

He knew the perfect place.

Leo jerked from sleep. Sweat clung to him, and his heart thumped inside his chest cavity.

In the dark room, he reached for the bottle of liquor that’d been a mainstay on his nightstand for years. But there was no bottle, and he managed only to knock his cell phone off the table.

He dropped back on the pillows. Flopping an arm across his forehead, he stared at the ceiling.

The last couple of years hadn’t been pretty, but at the very least, he’d managed to grow some scar tissue. But since being back in this house, the old wounds ached, like an embedded sliver finally working its way to the surface and breaking through the healed over skin.

He couldn’t go back to those days when all he did was bleed. He wasn’t strong enough.

A noise brought his head instantly up off the pillow. With a soft creak, his bedroom door cracked open. His muscles bunched. The gap grew several inches wide, then halted.

He waited, and then Arlo launched himself onto the bed, landing in the blankets with a soft trill.

Leo collapsed back on the pillows. But before his heart rate had returned to normal, the door budged again. It slid open and Prue tiptoed into the room.

He didn’t speak or move, or even dare to breathe, as she crawled beneath the sheets and snuggled as close as to him as was possible without actually touching.

What the hell was she doing in his bed?

Again?

He should send her back to her own bed. Tell her that while fucking her wasn’t a problem, sleeping together went too far. It was too personal. Too intimate. That’s what he should’ve done.

But he didn’t.

He rolled to his side, turning his back to her. Hadn’t he made it clear to her that there were boundaries? Did he need to draw a big red line around his bed? He frowned at the wall.

He never should have agreed to her outrageous proposal. But it was too late for that now. Now, he had to summon the resolve to guard against her.

Behind him, she cuddled closer.

All the pent-up angst inside him escaped like the air in a leaky car tire. There was no way he was getting out of this nonrelationship without hurting her. Likely, it was already too late.

The only right decision he could make was the one that involved sending her back to her bed. Alone.

Of course, sending her away would hurt her, but not sending her away would hurt a thousand times worse. It’d hurt him.

As good as it’d felt getting lost in her sweet little body for the last twenty-four hours, somehow, inexplicably, it’d torn him apart. The pleasure stung like the cutting gash of a betrayal. A betrayal of his friend’s trust. A betrayal of their memory.

A betrayal of Prue’s non-trust.

Even if he didn’t care to protect himself from her, he owed it to all of them to shield her from him.

So why was she still in his bed?

And why did he let her stay?

Twisting toward her, he wrapped his arm around her waist and held on tightly.