Taken Page 42

  Memories of working with her mother to plant the fragrant blooms. Memories of gathering the ones her father had used to create the arrangement atop her mother’s casket.

  And with those memories was the one created last night. The one where she had slipped along that stone path, a feeling of trepidation breathing at her neck as panic had tightened her chest.

  Someone had been in her house.

  Crossing her arms over her breasts, Sheila closed her eyes and fought to control the fear.

  Who would have dared to break into her home? And even if they had dared, how had they managed to break the locks her father had had installed on both the front and back doors?

  She couldn’t think of anyone but Casey who could do such a thing; he was simply extraordinarily well-trained in such things.

  “Sheila, dammit, I can’t find my glasses.”

  Sheila nearly jumped out of her own skin.

  A squeak slipped past her lips as she jerked and turned around, facing her father breathlessly, her heart nearly choking her as it pounded out of control.

  Her father paused, a scowl tightening his expression. “Are you okay, dear?”

  For a moment, Sheila considered telling him about her suspicion of a break-in.

  He would lose his mind, though. Protective, overly so, and filled with fatherly concern, Douglas Rutledge would put one of his guards on her twenty-four/seven and she’d never have a moment’s peace.

  Which wouldn’t be so bad if someone had definitely broken into the house. The problem was, she just couldn’t be sure. She hated worrying her father without some sort of proof, or at least her own certainty that it had happened.

  Had she really walked away from her house and left the doors unlocked? Had she been so deep into her anger and need for Casey that she could have done such a thing?

  “Sheila, girl, you’re not answering me.” There was a hint of true concern beginning to edge into his tone.

  “I’m fine, Dad, just distracted.”

  She had just lied to her father. Sheila almost winced at the thought. Of course, it wasn’t the first time. There had been the time she had slipped out to go to that party with a college boy during her senior year. She’d told her father she was staying all night with her friend Cara Cartwright. And there had been the night a few weeks ago when her father had called and asked her at the last minute to accompany him to a dinner in Corpus Christi with the city’s mayor.

  Sheila had told him she wasn’t feeling well. At that exact moment, Casey had been undressing.

  “And what has you so distracted?” He moved into the office, obviously thoughtful as he began searching the room.

  Sheila walked over to him, tapped his shoulder with a smile, and then, as he turned to her, lifted the glasses from his graying hair and handed them to him.

  “Hmm.” He held the glasses and glared at them accusingly before looking up and giving her a sheepish smile. “I should remember to look here, huh? Your mother was always doing the same thing. She’d find them and hand them right to me.”

  Sheila nodded wistfully. “I remember, Dad.”

  “You look just like her,” he sighed. “Some days, I can almost swear she’s home again as I watch you move around those gardens.”

  She could hear the loss in his voice. For all his full and busy life, she knew her father desperately missed the woman he had called his wife. Just as she knew that he had felt no woman would ever compare to her.

  He patted her on her shoulder, a gesture of affection, before dropping a kiss to the top of her head and going to his desk.

  “I had a call from Cooper earlier,” he told her as he slipped his glasses back on his face, sat down, and looked up at her.

  “What does he need?” Sitting on the side of the desk as she had even as a young girl, she pulled her jean-clad legs up to the top of the side of the desk, crossed them, and watched her father expectantly.

  “The network is doing very well.” Her father sat back in his chair as his face creased thoughtfully. “Cooper’s group is one of our best, and the information he’s been pulling in has been damned important.”

  Sheila nodded. The Broken Bar wasn’t the only operational location set up to gather intel on criminal and terrorist activities, and it wasn’t the only location under her father’s command, but as he said, it was one of the best.

  “So why did he call?” she asked.

  “According to Cooper, you’ve been slipping in, getting the intel, and slipping back out. You’re not coming in at your usual time, and you’re acting nervous.”

  Sheila looked beyond his shoulder to the gardens outside. Rather than facing the question in her father’s gaze, she avoided it.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Yeah, that heavy social life you have,” he grunted with what she called his loving sarcasm. He had a way of saying things to her that let her know he was clearly disapproving and/or disappointed. Sometimes just plain disbelieving.

  In this case, perhaps it was all three.

  “Yeah, my social life is just all that,” she agreed with the same tone.

  “Yep, it’s matching Casey’s if my suspicions are correct.”

  And there it was. Sheila had wondered how long it would take her father to say something if he was aware of the relationship. Or the non-relationship. Whatever the hell it was. Or had been.

  A wave of pain swept through her as she fought to keep from dragging in a ragged breath.

  God, she missed him. She missed his touch, the sound of his voice, the amusement in his gaze, and that crooked smile he often carried.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she finally said faintly.

  “Yeah, avoiding him will do that.” She watched him nod from the corner of her eye as he continued to watch her. “Is it working?”

  She shook her head, not bothering to lie any longer.

  It wasn’t working.

  “How did you know?” she finally asked without meeting his gaze.

  “Ah yes, how did your father find out you were sleeping with one of his agents when you were so very careful to hide it?” That disappointment was there. “I’ve known since the first night you didn’t come home because you were at his apartment,” he revealed. “I swore to your mother I’d watch out for you, Sheila. I almost messed up with Ross Mason, but I haven’t messed up since.”

  “You didn’t mess up, Daddy,” she sighed as she lifted her hands and began to pick at her nails rather than letting her gaze meet her father’s.

  If her father saw how much it hurt, he might blame himself. She didn’t want that.

  “I almost messed up,” he reiterated. “I almost didn’t introduce Mason to the general out of pride. I knew what he wanted, what he was, but seeing how it hurt you would have broken your mother’s heart. I couldn’t have that, you know.”

  A sad smile pulled at her lips as she nodded again. That was her father’s way of saying it had hurt him to see her hurt.

  “I got over it, Dad,” she promised him.

  “Not all the way,” he guessed softly. “You weren’t in love with him, so you got over the man, but you didn’t get over the lesson, did you, baby girl?”

  “Dad—” she began to protest.

  He lifted his hand, silencing her immediately. As always, she clenched her teeth, irritated with herself because that one moment could immediately remind her that if she didn’t quieten, then her father could refuse to speak to her for days.

  It had happened once, and only once, when she had been no more than five.

  “Now, look at me.”

  She lifted her gaze slowly, emotion clogging her throat as she met the concern and affection in her father’s eyes.

  He’d been a stern disciplinarian when she had been a child, but he had been a friend after she’d passed that unruly teenage stage. He was her boss and, sometimes, her sounding board, but he was always her father.

  “Daddy, I don’t want to talk about Casey,” she stated, her tone respectful but det
ermined. “This is my fight, not yours.”

  “And why is it a fight?” he asked softly. “What is it, Sheila, that has you watching the road expecting him, and yet refusing to make that first move?”

  “Because I don’t know what he wants from me.” Frustration filled her voice now. “He wants me to guess, or to beg, I don’t know,” she bit out furiously. “And I can’t stand not knowing.”

  “Maybe he just wants you,” her father suggested gently.

  Sheila turned her gaze back to the flowers as she shook her head. “He wants more. He has to.”

  “What do you want from him?”

  Her gaze swung back to him in surprise. “I just want him, Dad,” she whispered. “That was all I ever wanted.”

  “His love?”

  She nodded slowly. “Just his love.”

  “Maybe, Sheila, you’re wrong. Maybe that really is all Casey wants from you.”

  Her lips parted to argue the suggestion. There had to be more. Casey had to want more. No one had ever wanted just her love, and she couldn’t imagine Casey did either.

  “Cooper has intel ready to come in,” he told her before she could argue his opinion of Casey. “He’ll be waiting on you in the office tonight at nine sharp. Don’t be early, Sheila, and don’t be late.”

  She wanted to roll her eyes at the order. Her father was a stickler for punctuality.

  “And what time should I be home, Daddy?” Unfolding herself from the top of the desk, she slid from the seat until she was standing beside his chair, looking down at where he pushed his glasses back atop his head.

  “Getting back isn’t the problem,” he told her. “Cooper and his wife Sarah are leaving town tonight and want to get on the road early. Cooper knows how I am about chain of evidence.”

  Anyone who worked with her father knew that. Cooper was always present if he wasn’t the one to turn over the flash drive.

  “I’ll be there at nine sharp,” she promised as she turned to leave the office.

  “By the way, Annie said you were at the house looking for me last night?”

  Sheila composed her expression quickly before turning back to her father with a quick smile. “I was just bored.”

  Or scared. One or the other.

  Scared, she decided. “I’m heading home, Dad. If I’m going to be there at nine sharp, then I have some things to do before I leave.”

  “Of course, dear. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He waved her away as he turned his attention to the files on his desk. “Afternoon if you don’t mind. I’ll be leaving in a few hours myself for Corpus Christi. A meeting with the other network commanders.”

  “In the morning then,” she agreed, lifting her hand in a farewell wave as she left the office and headed for the front door.

  If she was going to chance seeing Casey, then she was going to do what she did every night before picking up the flash drive. Shower. Choose just the right outfit. The right perfume. The right shoes.

  Just in case she saw Casey.

  chapter 10

  was it good luck or bad luck? Fate or karma? Whichever it was, when Sheila slipped into Ethan Cooper’s office, Casey was there as well, waiting.

  His arms were crossed over his broad chest, his expression stoic, his gaze swirling with dark emotion. It seemed as though his emotions reached out to her, wrapped around her. Her chest tightened and the tears she had shed only in the darkest part of the night for the past week threatened to fill her eyes as their gazes met.

  “Hey, Cooper, Sarah.” Shoving her hands into the pockets of the light blazer she wore over the sleeveless top, she glanced toward Casey again. Clearing her throat she said, “Hello, Casey.”

  “Sheila.” His expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes did.

  Dropping her gaze for a second, she turned back to Cooper and Sarah as they watched both her and Casey silently. She could see confusion in their expressions. And she understood why they felt it. After all, the last time she and Casey had been in the same room together, it was all they could do to keep their hands off each other.

  They weren’t having that problem now, though.

  Sheila couldn’t tear her eyes off his broad chest, covered by the short-sleeved denim shirt, or the powerful cut of his thighs encased in jeans and framing the hard, heavy length of his erection.

  He was aroused, and the proof of it had her womb clenching, her pussy tightening, and her juices spilling to the silk of her panties.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have worn the skirt. It was short, gauzy, frilly, and intensely feminine. The camisole tank and light silk blazer she wore emphasized her feeling of femininity.

  The four-inch heels only topped it off.

  Sitting down in the chair next to her, Sheila slid the left shoe off, pressed the small indention at the side of the heel, and watched as the tiny spring-loaded opening slid to the side to reveal the compartment just big enough to hold the tiny flash drive.

  Taking the black stick that held the information gathered the night before, she tucked it into the small recess before activating the mechanism once again, closing the small hollow.

  Her gaze lifted to Casey once again. He had been the one who had come up with the idea for the hiding place. It had been a hell of a decision for her to make, to allow him to cut into several pairs of her favorite shoes.

  His excuse for using more than one pair of old boots was that it would throw suspicion further away from her if she altered her dress often. Any electronics created to scan her purse or clothing would miss the tiny drive nestled just beneath her heel.

  He was staring at her feet, his gaze narrowing as he lifted his eyes back to her.

  She felt lost in his look.

  Sarah was talking, and though Sheila heard her and answered her, nothing really existed for her except Casey. Except the pure hunger and latent anger that burned in his eyes.

  “Okay, that’s it then,” Cooper announced as Sheila signed off on the acceptance of the small card.

  She used the code name her father had assigned her, just as Cooper used his.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” she repeated, her gaze sliding to Casey once more as she rose to her feet. “Good night, Cooper. Sarah.” Her lips trembled as she glanced back at Casey again. “Good night, Casey.”

  He inclined his head slowly and Sheila felt as though her heart had been ripped in two.

  Dragging in a hard breath, she turned and strode quickly to the door, desperate to get away from him now, to find the privacy she needed to release the tears building in her eyes.

  She hadn’t known it would hurt this bad. She hadn’t known that being without him would slice through her soul like a jagged knife, ripping past her defenses and leaving her so very vulnerable.

  Holding back the tears was impossible.

  By time she reached the dimly lit shadows of the building’s side parking lot, the first one had escaped. Cupping her hand over her mouth, she fought to hold back the cry that would have spilled free with it. Allowing it to escape would only lead to more tears, to the pain erupting inside her like a tightly capped volcano spewing free.

  She was unaware she had been followed. Unaware that the man who caused the tears was no more than a step behind her.

  Casey heard the hitch of her voice, and as though the knowledge of her tears was borne in the air following a storm, he knew the pain suddenly raging inside her.

  He’d never felt another person’s tears or another person’s emotions as he felt hers now. As though they reached out to him and pierced his chest like an arrow, shooting straight to his soul.

  “Sheila.” He reached for her as the door slammed behind them, the shadows of the night wrapping around them.

  He gripped her shoulders, turning her, overcoming the instinctive struggle, the pride that had her stiffening against him as he pressed her body between his and the side of the building.

  “God, baby, you’re killing me.” The words, whispered at her ear, seemed to break something inside he
r.

  Her body slumped, her shoulders trembling as he felt the silent sobs that suddenly escaped and the tears that spilled to the thin white dress shirt he wore.

  She cried silently, which was all the more heartbreaking as her fingers tightened and fisted in the shirt over his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, Casey held her as closely, as tightly to him as he could, and still, it didn’t seem to be enough. He wanted her under his skin, to be a part of him, locked so tight to him that neither of them could escape.

  Bending his head to her shoulder, the soft flesh bared by the thin straps of her camisole top, he let his lips press to her flesh, his tongue ease out to taste the soft, feminine taste of her.

  As though that small hint of her essence only intensified the need, he allowed his lips to part further, his tongue to take more of her taste as he kissed the fragrant flesh.

  “Fuck. Roses,” he growled as that hint of a taste penetrated his senses.

  God, he loved the taste of roses against her flesh.

  His hand smoothed up her arm, lifting until he was cupping her neck, his thumb pressing beneath her chin to lift her face to where the moonlight gleamed on the damp trails of her tears.

  Her eyes glittered in the darkness, filled with pain. And God knew he understood how she hurt. How the hunger and the need beat inside her soul, because it beat inside his own.

  As her lips parted on a ragged breath, he couldn’t resist the taste, the soft, crushed-silk feel of them.

  His head lowered and he took instant advantage of the parted curves, the damp, tear-drenched saltiness, and the heat and pleasure he’d found only with his Sheila.

  Her breathing hitched, but this time in response to his kiss rather than in response to the pain.

  Lifting her closer as his knees bent, one hard thigh pressing in between hers, Casey pulled her to the furiously hard flesh pounding beneath his jeans.

  Her skirt slid back, revealing tempting, creamy thighs in the dim light as her legs lifted, her knees bending to grip his hips and ride the cloth-covered erection raging beneath the denim.