Thea Harrison - True Colors

His body moved in a big sigh. She could feel his pulse, strong and slow, against her breastbone. There was another time of formless drifting. Then he said, his voice gravelly with sleep, “Soon as the weather clears, I’m moving in.”

He didn’t ask, he stated. She probably should have a problem with that. Nah, she was too tired. But she did notice he held very still, as he listened for her response.

She thought she might have rug burn, and her nose itched. She slipped one of her wrists out of his lax hold so she could scratch it as she yawned. “You’d better. But we’re going to have to have a talk about how chatty you get after sex.”

Torso to torso as they were, she felt his stomach muscles clench as he burst out laughing. The husky, low sound was as gorgeous as the rest of him. He lifted his head off her hair enough so she could turn to nuzzle at him, and he covered her mouth with his in a quick, physical response. She adored how affectionate he was with her. She adored everything about him. They were going to fight and discover each other’s less attractive traits, and the thought of him moving in was frankly rather scary, but there was simply no other alternative. There hadn’t been from the moment they both acknowledged the mating shift, so she thought she might as well just go ahead and accept the changes and enjoy the ride, because it was going to be wonderful to wake up in the mornings with him in her bed, to go to sleep at night with him in her body.

Something buzzed nearby.

What was that? She didn’t have anything in the living room that buzzed. It buzzed again and Gideon lifted himself away from her body. His expression was still heavy lidded with sensuality but his gaze had turned sharp and alert. He twisted to reach for his cell phone.

He clicked it on. “Yeah.”

She watched his face grow cold and still as he listened to the deep, growly voice on the other end. Her sleepy, wondering pleasure vanished in a clench of dread.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I can bring Alice in. She would be safe at HQ and I could help with the search.”

She concentrated on the voice on the other end. A male said, “No point in doing that, son. I got plenty of people on the hunt. Just wanted to give you an update. If he’s got ’em, all he needs is one more now.”

“What about protection on the others?” Gideon asked.

The voice said, “I dispatched the first detail soon after we last talked and told them to keep a low profile so they didn’t freak anybody out any more than they already were. We’re working as goddamn fast as we can.”

She felt sickened. Oh no. No.

She had turned cold without his body heat and she felt vulnerable without her glasses on. She put them on and reached for the tangled pile of blanket to pull it around her as Gideon set the phone aside. He turned to her, the expression in his eyes grave.

“What’s happened?”

“Bayne got confirmation from the airlines,” Gideon told her. He reached out and picked her up, blanket and all, and cradled her against his chest. “The three chameleons scheduled to fly to L.A. never made it to check-in. Their seats were given last minute to three people waiting to fly standby. I know you know them, sweetheart. They’re—”

“Stewart Rogers. His mom, Leigh. Her fiancé, Jim Welch,” she whispered. She thought of the delicately boned boy, his sweet little earnest face, those serious eyes behind Coke-bottle-thick spectacles and his shy, rare smile. He took after his mother, a gentle, kind woman. Something roared in her ears. “Stewie’s in my class, Gideon. Not Stewie. Please don’t tell me that.”

He held her with his entire big body. He threw off heat like a furnace but it still wasn’t enough to drive away the killing cold.

“Sweetheart, I would give anything in the world,” Gideon said, “to be able to not tell you that.”

Somewhere outside, she could have sworn she heard the wicked wind laugh.

Love

She got to her feet, anxious to do something, anything, to push the news away. Gideon rose to stand beside her. He rubbed her back as he asked, “Can you think of anything Stewart or his mother might have said in the last few days that might have seemed different or out of place?”

He sounded so calm she wanted to scream at him. Stewart and Leigh might have been murdered in the most horrible way even as she and Gideon had been making love. She put both hands over her mouth, shaking with the effort to find some kind of control.

“Remember, Alice, we don’t know what happened to them,” he said. Rogers and Welch were pretty far down on the alphabet. If the killer had taken them, he might hold on to them until he had his seventh sacrifice. “The only thing we know is that they’re missing. They may not be dead.”

She looked up to find Gideon watching her closely. There was pain in his eyes. Even though he didn’t know any of the people, he was hurting too, hurting for her. The sight clicked her back into balance. “Give me a minute,” she said, “I need to calm down so I can concentrate.”

He nodded. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

He walked into the kitchen, and some other time she was going to remember with relish the sight of his nude figure moving around her apartment with total confidence. For now she simply scooped up the blanket and her shredded nightgown and took them to her bedroom to dump on the bed. Even though it was still full dark outside, the illuminated clock on her bedside table read 7:08 am. She felt she was marking the time’s passing with each dark event and she would never forget the numbers. Nightmare, 3:23. Missing friends, 7:08.

She took a quick two-minute shower to sluice off the evidence of their mating, ran her toothbrush over her teeth, then she dressed in the soft, comfortable clothes she had worn the night before. By the time she had finished, she was able to think again.

She walked into the kitchen. Gideon had slipped on his jeans but remained barefoot and bare-chested. The coffee had finished brewing, and he had already poured two cups. He handed one to her with a quick kiss, the short stubble from his unshaven face scraping her chin. “I make it strong,” he warned.

“That’s okay, I need strong right now,” she said. She brought the cup to her lips and sipped. The black, pungent brew was like a kick in the teeth. That was a good thing. She cleared her throat. “I’m just going to talk, like I did last night. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. He leaned back against the counter, drank coffee and watched her.

“Stewie was so excited to be going to see his grandma and grandpa. They can’t afford to make the trip very often, so this visit was a big deal. He had his backpack packed by Wednesday. His mom lets him carry whatever toys and books he wants in his carry-on so he has things to keep him busy on the flight. Leigh and Jim had just gotten engaged. They were going to break the news to Leigh’s parents once they got to California.”

“They’re on a tight budget?” Gideon asked. She nodded. “How does Leigh afford private schooling for Stewart? Or is that why their budget is so tight?”

“I think Leigh said once that her parents help with the tuition,” she said. She drank more of the bitter brew and kept going. Now that she had started talking, she didn’t seem able to stop. “And I’m sure they qualify for a hardship scholarship, which would reduce the fees. In the group we all help each other out as we can, you know, according to the situation and what the other person will accept. Free babysitting or whatever. Sometimes we barter. Leigh was pretty thrilled to get a ride to JFK airport instead of having to pay for a shuttle…”