Kylie Brant - The Last Warrior

Which was too damn bad. She punched a command into the keyboard with a little more force than was necessary. No man had ever been allowed to dictate her actions and if this was all about tiptoeing around his ego, well, then he had some hard lessons to learn about her.

By the time she heard the knock on her door her temper had gone from simmer to a boil. It was late and she really hadn’t expected to hear from Joe, so she took the precaution of checking the judas hole. Recognizing him she pulled open the door and unlatched the screen, spoiling for a fight.

“Can I assume from your visit that you’ve come to thank me for my help?” she said with mock sweetness. “Oh, wait, I forgot. Joe Youngblood doesn’t need anyone’s assistance. He’s the Navajo’s answer to Superman. Tell me.” She cocked her head challengingly. “Did you bust that operation you were investigating all by yourself, or did you let your partner help?”

His lips tightened at her sarcasm, but his voice was even when he answered. “There was an entire task force deployed to make the arrests.” He walked by her into the room, leaving her to follow.

“A whole task force?” She widened her eyes in mock surprise. “Well, don’t feel too bad. Even superheroes occasionally let their sidekicks in on the action.”

The muscle in his jaw was clenched tightly. “They were all law enforcement. Professionals trained to handle dangerous situations.”

“Is that what this is about? That I’m not a cop?” She gave a short laugh. “Be honest. It’s because I’m a woman.” She ignored the dangerous glint in his eyes, to continue. “I’ve got a news flash for you-I’ve been making my own decisions for a few years, now. I even manage to dress myself daily without help.”

“You deliberately put yourself into a high-risk situation,” he said, anger lacing his words.

“Well, your captain disagreed with you about the risk.”

“You got lucky. No one was at the site, but you didn’t know that. And neither did he. You could have been shot at. Maybe hit this time, killed. Did you weigh in those factors at all when you dreamed up this idea?”

Her voice raised. “Or I can get hit by a bus crossing the street. If people sit home and assess risks all day, they never accomplish anything.”

“I don’t care about ‘people’,” he bit out, shoving his face to hers. “I care about you! More than I should. Do you know what I went through, waiting to hear from you?”

“I didn’t ask for that,” she whispered. Her throat dried out abruptly, her temper squelched like quenched flame. She took a step away from him, and then another. “I don’t want that.”

She couldn’t be responsible for his feelings. She wouldn’t be. It was bad enough recognizing that she’d gotten involved with him deeper, faster, than she’d ever thought possible. Whatever emotions he dragged to the surface inside her, however, she’d handle them. But she couldn’t handle his. Couldn’t manage the guilt and recriminations that would invariably follow her failure to be what he wanted. Who he wanted. The thought of having to try scared her to death.

“You think I want this?” His face was a mask of frustration. “That I was looking for it? My personal life is a shambles and the last thing I need right now is to fall in love with a woman I just met.”

“This isn’t love,” she interrupted, a little wildly. Denying it loudly enough, often enough, could make the words true.

“The hell it isn’t.” He strode over and caught her arm. “It’s love when I’m sick with fear until you show up safe and sound at the station. And when I think about you even though my mind should be occupied with the case. Maybe neither of us planned on it, but we’re in deeper than we ever intended to go.” She tried to turn away, but his hand on her arm stopped her. “Yes, we are. You can’t deny it and neither can I. Now the question is, what are we going to do about it?”

It must be due to some genetic flaw in her makeup that she preferred his temper to his emotion-roughened voice. His tone had turned low, his touch caressing. As if he understood that his angry declaration had her wanting to flee from his feelings. From her own.

“You can’t run away from it, Delaney. I know you better than that. You don’t run away from much in this life, do you?”

He was crediting her with a bravery she didn’t deserve. The flashbacks of the bombing of the Iraqi hotel weren’t the only memories that had left scars. There were the still-fresh recollections of what it meant to love a man who could only give her leftovers of himself. And what was left of Reid after he’d poured most of his energy and emotion into his work had never satisfied. She wasn’t sure what had scared her more-the thought that someday she would have walked away from him, or that she would have settled. And lost a little of herself in the process.

“Look at you.” Was that amusement in his voice? Her gaze flew to meet his. “You’ll walk into the middle of a war-torn country for a story, but right now you look terrified. Is it that bad, admitting you…feel something for me?”

She didn’t miss that hesitation in his words. And she certainly didn’t mirror his amusement over this scene. “I don’t know how to do this,” she said rawly. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

A measure of tension seeped out of him. His thumb skated over the sensitive skin above her palm. “I don’t want anything you don’t give freely. Nothing has changed.”

But she knew that wasn’t true. Everything had changed with this conversation, not the least being that she was nearly paralyzed with panic. “I need to think.”

“No. You need to quit thinking. So do I.” He drew her closer, his arms looped around her loosely, seeming not to notice the stiffness in her limbs. Or determined to ignore it. “I handled this badly. We don’t have to have this conversation now. We’ll just see where things lead. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”

But he was wrong and they both knew it. Sex was uncomplicated, relationships weren’t. Invariably emotions ruined everything, changed everything. It was only a matter of time before they had to deal with that. The thought pierced her with a sliver of the pain that surely was to come.

But not tonight. She could read the exhaustion on his face. There was no way to solve this now, and really, what was the point? She already knew how it would end. Best to back away from the declaration he’d made and pretend, at least for a time, that it didn’t alter everything.

She strove for a steady voice. “Does this mean I don’t get to see you in your tights and cape?”

“Keep it up, Carson.” He nuzzled her neck. “I may be tempted to show you some of my superpowers.”

“I’d be interested in seeing those myself.” They both jerked, as the screen door opened and a figure stepped inside, pointing a gun in their direction. “Barring that, I’ll settle for a little information.”

“What the…Bruce?” Joe released Delaney and turned toward his ex-father-in-law, automatically placing his body between her and the gun. His mind responded sluggishly as he struggled to reconcile the unfamiliar sight of the mild-mannered schoolteacher with an automatic pistol, complete with silencer.

“You kept me waiting, Joe.” Bruce Glenn moved into the room, his gaze going from him to Delaney and back again. “We could have handled this just between the two of us if you’d shown up at home. As it was, I had no choice but to follow you out here.”

“Whatever this is about, we can still handle it between the two of us.” Carefully, Joe took a step toward the other man, halted when the pistol was raised and pointed toward his chest.