Shadow, p.15
Shadow, page 15
part #6 of Linear Tactical Series
They’d only had one night together. And maybe Heath’s relationship with Gavin meant more to him than whatever was going on between him and her.
He looked at her for a long moment before reaching down and sliding up his shirt, pointing to his waist. “Do you see that?”
“Your abs?” Hell yes, she saw them.
“There’s going to be a huge bruise there in a few hours. Do you know why?”
She couldn’t see anything but perfect skin and defined muscle. “Because you and my idiot brother were fighting?”
Heath chuckled. “Well, this particular bruise is going to be there because Gavin asked me if I would’ve stayed away from you if I had known you were his sister.”
“And what did you say?”
He let his shirt drop down and turned fully toward her. “I didn’t answer. Which was answer enough. Gavin took it about the way I’d expected.” He touched his side with a wince.
“You still would’ve wanted me?”
“Getting to know you these past few weeks has definitely been the highlight of the job. If I had known who you were, I might’ve forced myself to stay away, because dragging you into danger was never my intention.”
He slid under the rope and down from the ring, moving until he was standing right in front of her. “But that night in my apartment? It wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference. I would’ve wanted you even if you’d had your brother’s name tattooed across your ass.”
She couldn’t help her chuckle. “That would’ve been weird.”
“Okay, yeah. That would’ve been weird. But it’s still true.” He smiled, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “We’ve gone about this whole thing wrong from the beginning. I’d like to take you out on a date, Jackie Lyn Norris-Zimmerman. Lots of dates. I don’t mind having to drive to Reddington City to do it.”
“Actually, after what happened, WCU gave me a teaching sabbatical for the rest of the semester. I think they were a little afraid I would sue or worse, once the university administration found out who my dad really is. I’m going to use that time to work on my dissertation.”
“Oh yeah?”
She gave him a one-shouldered shrug and a little smile. “Thought I might do that here in Oak Creek. Maybe a new location will give me new inspiration.”
Heath leaned forward. “I like the sound of that.”
“Peyton said I could stay with her as long as I want. I’m going to help her a little, watching Jess while she works. So yeah, maybe we can go out on a date.”
He reached over and kissed her. Softly. Gently. Probably because his face had to hurt. But it was what they both needed.
“That news is worth fighting your brother any day.”
Chapter Nineteen
Heath was whistling. He wasn’t even sure what the song was, some tune he’d heard on the radio, but damned if he could stop himself. It had been the best three weeks of his life.
He was teaching a bunch of different classes at Linear and had found, a little bit to his surprise, that he was good at it. Even more surprising, he enjoyed it. He never would’ve pictured himself as a teacher, never would’ve thought he’d want to come in from the field.
Nor would he have been able to see himself living so happily in such a small town. Admittedly, sometimes he missed the anonymity of the big cities he’d lived in over the years. There was a sort of safety in the knowledge that you could walk around London or Singapore or New York and quickly and easily disappear within the crowds. Nobody paid attention to individuals.
Not in Oak Creek. Everyone knew him here. Went out of their way to say hello. To call him out by name and talk to him. Disconcerting, but also . . . nice.
And then there was Lyn. Seriously, just thinking about her made his lips curl into such a big smile, he could hardly continue his tune.
He had it bad. He’d laughed as so many of his Linear friends had fallen hard for women over the past couple of years.
He wasn’t laughing now. But he was definitely smiling when it came to Lyn.
She was ridiculously smart and kind and funny. And almost always had her nose stuck in her research books. Watching her face scrunch up in thought when something struck her about her dissertation—and grabbing the nearest object for jotting the idea down . . . paper, napkin, even her own arm once.
It was endearing. A sort of awkward charm that made Lyn, Lyn. His Almost.
And she was beautiful to the point that sometimes he actually ached when he looked at her.
The past three weeks had consisted of dates, Netflix with each other on the couch, and a whole bunch of sex that had only gotten better from the first night.
The sexy little librarian was quite adventurous in bed—holding on to the headboard had led to tying up and tying down and some things on his back porch swing he was quite certain were illegal.
Of course, Acting Sheriff Zimmerman would’ve killed Heath outright if he’d caught them, bypassing arrest altogether.
Lyn was still technically living over at Peyton’s house, but he’d been able to talk her into sleeping in his arms most nights.
Now if he could only get this gibberish out of his head, his life would be damn near perfect. Or hell, he didn’t even have to get it out of his head, just make some sense of it.
“Listen to you whistle. I swear, this town is some sort of love factory,” Kendrick said from in front of his computer. “Freaking Jiminy Cricket.”
Heath merely grinned as he sat down with the cup of coffee he’d just gotten from Kendrick’s kitchen and pushed a second mug in the man’s direction. “Your time will come when some girl gets you whistling, Blaze.”
“Blaze.” Kendrick rolled his eyes. “With that nickname, a woman would be expecting me to show up in a pair of tights, à la The Greatest American Hero.”
The team had given Kendrick the nickname Blaze since he often explained his ethnicity—half black, half Asian—as Blasian. He’d protested, but the name had stuck.
“Hey, women dig tights. They’re sexy.”
Kendrick’s lips twisted. “Right. I’ll take your word for it and stick to my computer.”
And nobody could doubt that Blaze was a wiz when it came to all things electronic. Actually, the man was a wiz in general—he’d attended Harvard, majoring in both computer science and East Asian studies, a perfect mix of right and left brain.
“Anything from the hard drive?”
“The damn thing was banged up pretty bad when Dorian and Ray nabbed it. A lot of that info is probably lost forever.”
Not the news Heath had been hoping for. Grace “Ray” Brandt and Dorian Lindstrom had acquired the hard drive—the last remaining info about Project Crypt—about four months ago. They’d also both been agents for Project Crypt and, like Heath, had had no idea they were working for the enemy.
“I was able to access some info, but it’s mostly what we already know,” Kendrick continued. “Stuff about the brainwashing techniques and sleeper missions Crypt used. It definitely would’ve helped Dorian and Ray if they’d been able to access this info before.”
Before.
Before their whole lives had collapsed around them and they’d been forced to leave Oak Creek, at least for the time being.
“I’ll make sure they get the info. Rumor is they’re coming to the Linear cookout this week.”
“You’ve been in touch with them? How are they doing?”
Heath shrugged. “Ray . . . she still struggles. But she’s strong.”
“That’s for damn sure.” Kendrick clicked and brought another page up on his computer. “I found other stuff too. Not helpful in terms of what’s inside your head, but I did find Crypt’s criteria for the twelve active agents.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Criteria included not having any close living relatives, then some other stuff you’d expect: you all scored high on intelligence tests, you each had a particular skill set that would help with missions, you all had way above average physical prowess and endurance.”
“Yeah, none of that is surprising. Was there anything about me specifically for my missions that you found?”
“Actually, you’re pretty conspicuously missing from a lot of the data.”
“Because of the damage to the hard drive?”
Kendrick shook his head. “As best I can tell, no. You just weren’t on there. No data about using you for sleeper missions. The only record I could find of you was when Holloman actually pulled you off of a couple missions because he deemed them too dangerous.”
Heath slid back in his chair. “Why? I mean, I get that I was never one of their best fighting agents. Dorian is much better at almost all types of combat, and Ray is downright wicked with her crossbow, so sending me in for that sort of stuff wouldn’t have been the best way to use me.”
“What sort of missions did you do?”
“I was used for a lot of talking stuff. Diplomacy, missions that utilized my knowledge of languages and my ability to talk my way in and out of situations. Speaking a lot of languages made me good with people.”
Kendrick snickered. “Yeah, I’m sure the fact that you look like Justin Timberlake and Robert Redford’s illicit love child has nothing to do with people’s natural tendency to gravitate toward you.”
Heath rolled his eyes. His looks had always been a part of who he was. A tool he could use. He could play them up or down, the same way he could act like he didn’t understand the language in order to better navigate within a mission. “I don’t know why Holloman would have protected me from danger.”
“He called you his insurance policy.” Kendrick clicked on his keyboard, bringing up another file. “That’s the most useful thing that I can offer you in what I found.”
“Insurance against what? The man was killed two feet in front of me, so evidently I wasn’t a very good insurance policy.”
“I wish I had more information to give you,” Kendrick said. “Have you had any nosebleeds or headaches like Ray?”
“No.” Heath rubbed his hand over his eyes. Talking about this wasn’t easy. “Only the voices in my head, but they’re not saying anything that has any meaning. It’s all gibberish. Believe me, I’ve tried every language I know, and all the ones I don’t, and still haven’t been able to make any sense of this stuff rumbling around in my head all the time. It has to mean something—some sort of code I can’t figure out.”
“I’ll look again with that in mind, but I’ve got to be honest with you, man . . . I’m not sure there’s anything else viable on this drive.”
Heath scrubbed a hand across his face. “Then I’m officially at a dead end.”
Kendrick leaned back in his chair. “I want to tell you not to give up hope, but I have tried damn near everything with this hard drive. I don’t think we can expect much more from it.”
“Great.”
“What does Lyn say?”
“Not much.” Mostly because he hadn’t mentioned it to her. Because he’d been hoping to figure it out without having to involve her in the Project Crypt’s craziness.
The craziness of what was inside his head.
She’d been through enough already. Had enough on her mind with her dissertation and family pressure and her heart problems. She didn’t need to carry his burdens too.
“I’m sorry I don’t have better news.”
“That’s okay. Thanks for spending so much time getting what you could.”
Heath wasn’t whistling when he left.
Chapter Twenty
“Heath, are you positive you don’t mind if I work here? I’m sure Peyton and I can make Jess understand about not ‘helping’ with my dissertation.”
“That kid is amazing, but she can be a little terror.”
“I love her. But every time her juice box gets anywhere near my Egyptian dialect texts or my computer, I have a slight heart attack.”
Heath flinched at her words before smoothing his features back into their charming mask almost immediately. Damn it, she didn’t mean she literally had a heart attack, obviously. She’d made jokes of a similar nature since she’d gotten to Oak Creek—people joked about their hearts more often than most realized—and he’d never had that reaction.
They’d talked about her heart condition. She’d explained about the shortness of breath and lightheadedness that could come from adrenaline-induced episodes: stress, panic, or too much physical exertion too quickly. She’d explained about the medication that helped with episodes.
Her heart condition was always going to be a factor in her life, but it wasn’t the controlling factor. She’d thought he’d understood that. It had seemed that he had, like everything was going forward in that exciting way that new relationships did.
Until almost three days ago. She hadn’t seen him in two and a half days, the longest amount of time they’d gone without being together since she’d arrived in Oak Creek.
That wasn’t necessarily bad, nor did she expect him to spend all his time with her—she didn’t. Just . . . she’d always felt like he’d wanted to be with her until a couple days ago. The day he’d called and canceled their dinner plans for that night.
It wasn’t a big deal. The Linear Tactical guys and their significant others gathered at the Eagle’s Nest for dinner on Tuesday, and she and Heath joined them the past two weeks.
But that didn’t mean they had to do it every week.
She hadn’t really thought anything of it. But then when Heath had called yesterday and they’d chatted for a while, she’d expected him to suggest they do something that evening.
But he hadn’t.
Still okay. Right?
She refused to go down the rabbit hole her mind wanted to send her. That Heath was growing tired of her curves. That he’d decided she wasn’t what he wanted at all.
It’s what she would’ve done a few years ago. Hell, it was probably what she would’ve done right up until a few weeks ago, when she was sure she was going to die multiple days in a row.
It was what she’d done with the men in her family ever since Mom died, taking on way too much responsibility for their emotional wellbeing when it came to her.
But she wasn’t doing that anymore. Her heart—literally and figuratively—was her responsibility. Not theirs. Not Heath’s. How she chose to live was just that, her choice.
She was done being cosseted. Even by someone as sexy and amazing as Heath.
“Heart attack is only a figure of speech, you know. I’m not going to actually keel over.”
He forced a smile before walking into the open kitchen. “Yeah, of course I know. And really, it’s fine for you to set up here. I never actually use the dining room table for dining. There’s plenty of room.”
He was renting Dr. Annie Griffin’s house since she’d moved in with Zac Mackay when they’d gotten engaged. It was a little too big for one person, so he was right—there was plenty of room.
But that wasn’t the issue, was it?
Lyn stared at his back, while he put away some dishes from the dishwasher, his Don’t go bacon my heart tea towel thrown over his shoulder.
Three days ago, she would’ve walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist and trailed her fingernails up and down his chest—just a little hard, the way he liked it.
It wouldn’t have been long until Don’t go bacon my heart ended up on the floor—maybe with the two of them on top of it.
But now she didn’t know where she stood. He was distant. That was the only word for it.
She began placing her textbooks back in the box she’d just taken them out of. “You know what? I think I’m going to set all this up at Gavin’s place. He’s been making a legitimate attempt to understand my dissertation and the linguistics field in general. Him seeing this might be a good idea.”
Now Heath turned to her. “No. Lyn—”
She held out a hand in front of her. “Look, I think it’s clear you need your space. Our relationship skyrocketed into intense territory pretty quickly.”
He grabbed the tea towel off his shoulder and dried his hands, taking a step toward her. “I like where our relationship is. I’ve liked where it’s been ever since you showed up in Oak Creek.”
She ignored the excited clench in her heart at his words and the urge to walk over to him. Because there was something going on that she didn’t know about. “I wouldn’t have doubted that last week, but the past couple of days . . .”
He flinched again. He knew exactly what she was talking about.
“Heath, it’s okay if we need to slow down or pause or whatever. I think me getting more into your space right now is a bad idea. I don’t think you’re ready.”
He tossed the towel at the counter. “That’s not it. I just have some stuff going on, and I . . . didn’t want to involve you in it.”
“Is it something I can help with?”
“No.” He flung the word in her direction before she’d even finished her question.
“Okay then.” She resumed boxing things up once more, blinking back tears.
“Lyn, wait. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to go.”
She looked over at him. He hovered between the kitchen and the dining room like he couldn’t figure out in which room he belonged. “But you don’t want me to stay either, Heath.”
“Skít.”
She raised an eyebrow. Shit, in . . . “Icelandic?”
He gave a brief nod. “I don’t want you to leave. I really don’t.” His voice was gritty. Heavy.
She’d never seen him look so torn. She’d seen him with all sorts of people over the past few weeks—big groups, little ones. Elderly people and children. The guys from Linear Tactical and their significant others. Unlike her, he always seemed to know what to say to put someone at ease or defuse a difficult situation. He was a master at small talk, at finding the right words, at getting people to smile and relax.
But not now. And she almost couldn’t bear to see him this way. She put down the manuscripts and walked over to where he seemed rooted. “Why don’t you handle whatever it is, and then we can talk.” She reached up and cupped his cheek.
