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by Maya Banks
Her hand automatically went to her nose just to see if she was bleeding again. Beau, damn the man, never missed anything, and his gaze was sharp as he too looked to see if there was any sign of blood.
To her relief, her hand came away with only remnants of already dried blood from earlier and nothing fresh. Too bad the pain hadn’t ebbed like the blood had. She put her palm to her forehead, pressing inward as if to someway ease the overwhelming pressure. The top of her head literally felt like someone was trying to pop it like a pimple and that at any moment it would simply give way and explode from the top.
“Tell me about your mother,” Beau said softly. “Is she as beautiful as you are?”
She stared back at Beau in bewilderment for a moment before she realized what he was doing. He was distracting her from the chaos swirling in her mind and trying to center her thoughts on something good. And then his choice of words sank in, and something in her chest softened, warmth spreading soothingly through her veins.
Her smile was automatic, as it always was when she thought of her mom. For a brief second, an image of her mother, smiling and beautiful, flashed in her mind, temporarily giving her a respite from the pain and darkness that had seemed to permanently settle in the deepest recesses of her soul.
“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world,” Ari whispered. “Warm. Loving. Always smiling and happy. And the way my father looks at her. Like she lights up his entire world. And the way she smiles at him when he looks at her that way. Theirs is a love I thought only existed in romance novels, but I’ve lived with the reality of two people who love each other with all their heart and soul, who both love me. Unconditionally.”
“Who do you get your eyes from? They’re such an unusual color. Or rather colors plural,” he amended. “I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like yours.”
She stared at him, momentarily without words. Then she frowned, drawing on the image of her mother and her father. She sent Beau a puzzled look because she’d never considered where her eyes had come from or who she’d inherited the unusual kaleidoscope of colors from.
“Neither,” she said honestly. “I assume perhaps one of my grandparents, but I don’t know. They died—both sets—before my parents were even married. And they were both only children. No family. Kindred spirits, my father always said. Two halves of a whole, alone in the world until finally finding one another.”
She ducked her head self-consciously because spoken aloud by her and not said in the reverent tone with which her father spoke of his wife, it seemed contrived. Something she’d made up or some lame attempt at poetry.
Beau surprised her. “That’s a beautiful sentiment. It’s too bad more people don’t feel that way about the person they choose to spend their life with. Or at least a portion of it.”
She frowned at the last part. “You don’t believe in forever?”
He shrugged. “I guess I’ve just never met someone who made me want forever.”
His matter-of-factness didn’t surprise her. He was a man after all. They often didn’t think in the same ways women thought. She shouldn’t have even wasted a frown over his brisk, no-nonsense view of relationships. She had quickly learned that her father was . . . well, he was one of a kind and not because he was her father and she put him on a pedestal as some daddy’s girls did.
She saw the adoration in his eyes every time he looked at his wife. Saw how openly affectionate he was with her when he was grim and cold to the rest of the world. She’d never realized how other people viewed her father until she was older and was more cognizant of the differences between her father, when he was home with his “girls,” as he termed them affectionately, and when he was outside their sanctuary.
But he also didn’t give one damn who knew that he was, in effect, at his wife’s feet. While it might seem that he was the dominating force in their relationship, Ari knew for a fact that her mother held all the power and that everything her father did was for her mother. And for Ari.
“Feeling better?”
Her frown of concentration disappeared at Beau’s question and her lips softened into a smile, one of thanks for even the brief memory of all the good things in her life. And in fact, the pain and pressure in her head had lessened. It was still there. Still quite painful, but it no longer felt like it would explode at any second or that she was a ticking time bomb primed to go off.
“Yes, thank you,” she said in a husky voice, laced with emotion. “I needed that moment of happiness. It gave me a much-needed boost of hope. Because without hope, I have nothing.”
To her surprise, the vehicle came to a stop. She hadn’t even registered them slowing and turning into the parking lot of a one-story building that sported the name of a medical clinic.
Beau didn’t move immediately, however. He focused his gaze on Ari, his entire being radiating seriousness and . . . sincerity.
“You do have something, Ari. And I don’t want you to ever forget it. You have me now. And you have the full power and resources available to DSS.”
Ari held her breath, his last words fading, unheard, because all she’d registered was the fact that he’d told her she had him. And she wondered if he really knew and comprehended what a statement like that meant to someone like her.
Someone who believed in miracles and happily ever afters, even in the face of seemingly hopeless obstacles.
Ever the optimist. She could literally hear her father’s teasing voice and her mother scolding him for even suggesting such a trait wasn’t a good one.
And then Beau was opening the door, and this time, she didn’t utter a single protest when he protectively cradled her in his arms and swiftly took her into one of the side entrances marked “Employees Only.”
Apparently the rules didn’t apply to men like Beau. Her smile was rueful even as she shivered at the chill present in the medical clinic. She hated the smell. The sterile antiseptic odor and even the subtle smell of sickness and illness, death and desolation. This was a place of complete opposing factors. People who came here either got good news, or they received life-changing bad news. She couldn’t help but feel sorrow for those who fell in the realm of the bad.
Beau carried her into a room where a CT scanner was centered in the middle, and she looked at it in panic, because it was for all practical purposes a tube, an enclosed tube into which they slid you in and where walls closed tightly around you.
Her respiration ratcheted up and she held her hand to her nose just in case her sudden bout of stress initiated another bleed. Beau was already freaked out enough over her. There was no reason to give him even more reason to be unreasonable.
The doctor directed Beau to lay Ari down on the table and position her just so. Then he kindly patted her on the arm.
“Would you prefer for Beau to stay with you? Some of my patients fear enclosed spaces and avoid claustrophobic situations. I can put a protective garment over him that will prevent any harm coming to him. Our first priority is ensuring your comfort and more importantly we need you to relax and obey our directives as we give them. Can you handle that?”
“No. Yes. I mean I’ll be fine,” Ari said quickly although she wanted nothing more than for Beau to remain. But she refused to put Beau at further risk because of her. He’d already been shot at—twice. Wrecked and forced off the freeway in an overturned vehicle. Enough was enough and it was time to put her big-girl panties on and act like the independent woman she’d worked so hard to become since graduating college and going out on her own in the workforce, not that her father was at all happy with her choices. But it had been her mother’s gentle but steady hand that had caused her father to back down and allow Ari freedoms she hadn’t been granted until the last few years.
“I can handle this. I’m okay. Really. I don’t want to put Beau at any further risk. He’s risked enough for me to day.”
“And you’re terrified of enclosed spaces,” Beau said tersely. “I’m staying.”
She looked at him astonis
hment. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Honey, you didn’t see your absolute look of terror and utter discomfort the minute you laid eyes on the scanner. I’m not leaving you alone to endure it when it will be hell for you. So don’t even try to argue. Because this is one argument you will not win.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “But if you get radiation poisoning or whatever it is you get from these X-ray machines, it’s your own damn fault and I refuse to feel guilty if you get cancer and die.”
Beau’s lips quirked into a smile. “Why, Ari, you’re beginning to make me think you care,” he teased.
Her expression went utterly solemn. “I do care, Beau. I care too much. I wish I could be selfish and do whatever it took to get my parents back no matter the cost to others’ lives or the injuries they could sustain, but that’s not who I am. It’s not the kind of person I’ve ever been and it’s not who I want to become.”
It was becoming an increasing habit for him to press his lips anywhere but her mouth, almost as if he were guarding against the possibility of creating too much intimacy between him and a client, but in Ari’s mind, those tender moments meant far more to her than if he had kissed her on the mouth.
She closed her eyes as he briefly feathered a kiss over her furrowed forehead.
“Now, we’ve wasted too much time on senseless arguing and we need to get you suited up and me as well, because as I said, I’m going to be here every step of the way. If you get scared just say my name. I’ll be right here.”
“Thank you, Beau. You know and I know you’ve gone above and beyond what you’d normally do for a client. So thank you. It means a lot to have your support, your promise to find my parents and your promise to protect me from the people who are after me.”
“You’ve already thanked me and it was more than enough,” he said softly. “Now let’s get you checked out so Doctor Carey can ease my concerns over your condition.”
FIFTEEN
BEAU shouldered his way into the house, carrying Ari’s limp body firmly against his chest. As requested, Caleb and Ramie were still there, lounging in the living room, though Ramie looked to be asleep, nestled in the crook of Caleb’s shoulder, her hair partially obscuring her face.
Beau cocked one inquisitive eyebrow in Caleb’s direction. The brothers had always been masters at silent communication. It was if they were so in tune with one another that a simple look could convey a wealth of information. Or questions.
Which is likely why Caleb had seemed confused and even angry that Beau hadn’t consulted him about Ari, not that Beau had been given the opportunity, given the speed in which Ari’s situation—and the danger to her—had escalated.
“She’s fine,” Caleb murmured. “Late night last night. Tori had a bad dream. Ramie stayed up with her.”
“Anything I should know about?” Beau inquired.
Caleb was silent a moment. “At the time, I wouldn’t have thought so. But now? Yeah, I think you probably need to hear this.” His gaze drifted over Ari’s unconscious form. “How is she?”
“I’d say she has zero tolerance for painkillers,” Beau said wryly. “Either that or she’s just exhausted, which is likely given the events of the last twenty-four hours. Doctor Carey gave her the all clear on the CT scan, but gave her an injection because she was out of her mind with pain. She was out like a light in less than five minutes. I had to carry her out of the clinic and into the car I called for while waiting for the results of her scan.”
“Put her to bed then,” Caleb said quietly. “We have a hell of a lot to discuss. Zack’s been doing a lot of digging. Despite you not wanting to involve Dane and Eliza, I did call upon Eliza’s expertise in accessing data not readily available to the public. Zack’s in the security room making some calls, but he’ll know you’re back, so I’d expect him here by the time you return from putting Ari down.”
Something about Caleb’s tone immediately raised Beau’s hackles and his internal radar started beeping like hell. His brother’s expression was grim and he radiated seriousness.
Cursing softly under his breath, he turned and carried Ari down the hall, but instead of putting her in the extra bedroom where she’d been before, he veered to the right, where the restructured master bedroom was located.
The original home had been two stories, but after having to escape from the second-floor window and climbing off the roof after a bomb had taken out most of the main floor, Beau had decided against rebuilding the home as a multilevel residence. He liked his escape options a hell of a lot better when he didn’t have multiple stories to contend with.
He settled Ari onto his bed, telling himself that he didn’t want her to wake alone and frightened, and that was his only reason for putting her in his room. Even as the defensive thought crept through his mind, he knew he was a damn liar.
Yes, he would sleep in the recliner in the corner of the room that faced the big flat-screen television mounted to the wall at the foot of the bed, but the simple fact was he wanted her in his space. He’d made her a promise, and perhaps he was using that solemn vow he’d made as an excuse to have her in his bed, but he was not going to leave her alone and unprotected, even for a second. That included when she slept.
He even tucked her in, for God’s sake, carefully arranging the covers so nothing lay directly over the now stitched and bandaged wound. The doctor had unwittingly made it far easier to stitch Ari by giving her the injection as soon as the CT came back within normal limits.
It had indicated what the physician had called a slight “bruise” to an area of the brain that Beau couldn’t recall the scientific name for. He’d been too concerned over the word “bruise” until the doctor had informed him that it was nothing to be concerned about. Unless she underwent further trauma.
Beau’s relief had lasted only about three seconds before he began to worry about “further trauma.” Did that mean if she incurred another bleed, the bruise could worsen? There were a thousand questions that in retrospect he should have asked, but he’d been too focused on Ari, and soothing the anxiety in her eyes.
And well, once she’d been administered the injection and had quietly slipped into unconsciousness, Beau had been relieved then. Because her eyes were closed, which meant he couldn’t see pain reflected in the mesmerizing depths. And he knew that she’d at least momentarily found respite from the physical and emotional hurts she’d endured.
The doctor had ruefully announced that he’d never had a patient fall so hard under the effects of the pain medication he’d administered, but he also acknowledged that it would make the task of numbing the area and stitching the wound much quicker and more efficient. And in fact, it had taken him little time at all to finish, write scripts in Beau’s name and give him instructions on her care for the next several days.
Beau hadn’t needed those instructions. Because he fully intended to make damn sure Ari encountered no stress, no pain, and if he could help it, no incessant worries. Which meant he had to work fast to try to unravel the mystery surrounding her parents’ disappearance.
Something in his brother’s expression had told him that what he discovered might not be good. If that was the case, he had to prepare for the worst and handle Ari with extreme care or risk her incurring a potentially fatal psychic bleed.
He fiddled with the covers a moment longer and then realized he was merely delaying the inevitable and that he was loath to leave Ari, even for the space of time it took for him and his brother and Zack to discuss their findings.
With a sigh of disgust for his lack of perspective when he was usually all business when it came to clients, he turned and stalked out the door, though he was careful to leave it slightly ajar so he could hear her if she displayed any sounds of distress. And he also flipped the switch for the video feed that would display the interior of his bedroom on monitors in the security room.
Caleb could damn well have his say in the security room with Beau and Zack so Beau could keep vigil over Ari vi
a the video feed.
He returned to the living room to find that Ramie had awakened and Zack was leaning casually against the far wall, hands shoved into his pockets. It was a misleading stance, however, because Zack was always prepared, even when he appeared relaxed and at ease. There was a constant wariness about him that had always made Beau curious about the man’s personal past and whether events in his past had led to his quiet, but lethal, manner in the present.
“We’ll talk in the security room, where I can monitor Ari,” Beau said shortly, not waiting for their responses.
He turned and walked back down the hall, in the opposite direction of his bedroom, leaving his brother and Zack to follow.
After punching in the security code to gain access to the room, Beau entered and took position in the chair from which, if turned, he could see and talk to the others and also view the monitor displaying his bedroom. The screen was just to the left of where Caleb and Zack would either sit or stand.
Zack ambled in, seemingly unhurried, though his expression was stony and somber. Caleb entered with Ramie, his fingers laced through his wife’s. It was rare for Caleb to be near Ramie and not be touching her in some way. After the nightmarish events that had nearly torn them apart forever, Caleb still grappled with his demons and touching Ramie seemed to give him a measure of reassurance that she was well, whole and alive. The fact that Caleb had been the one who nearly killed her was never far from his mind. Beau knew that with certainty.
“So who’s going to start and how much do we know?” Beau asked bluntly.
Caleb raked a hand through his hair. “Before we go any further, there’s something you need to know regarding Ari Rochester’s father, Gavin Rochester.”
Beau lifted an eyebrow and simply waited as he watched the myriad of emotions play out on his brother’s typically schooled and nonexpressive features.
“Gavin was unmarried at the time, but apparently he knew our parents.”