Page 24 of 72 Hours

I looked straight at him then, and God knows what emotion showed in my eyes. But you don’t, anymore. You don’t know me at all. I startled even myself with the depth of bitterness in my heart. I wondered just how long I’d been carrying it so deep—and for how much longer it might stay embedded there.

THE SLAMMING OF MY door against the side of the trailer as Niall thrust it open wrenched me back from my thoughts. It was a shock, but I was quick enough on his heels. I dropped to a crouch, gun held with both hands, forced out in a full stretch like I’d been trained. My eyes peered into the sharp morning light, a little hazy over the rooftops of the other trailers. I took in most of the scene within seconds. Opposite my trailer was Zac’s, which he shared with a wide range of pets, always adding to them every time he went into town. I’d seen everything from raucous, green-plumed parakeets to somnolent snakes that I suspected had never had an official visa out of their own country. Next to that was a smaller, neater trailer owned by Ruthie, a grandmother of twelve, with kids who were equally divided between loving and loathing the menagerie next door. On the other side of Ruthie’s was a smaller, currently unoccupied trailer, one of a couple she owned and occasionally rented out. The trailer the other side of Zac was owned by Phil. The hood was braced open on the vehicle in front of it. Phil ran his “rare parts” business from there.

Beside mine was Junk’s trailer, big and black and aggressively pimped-up. There was an empty dog bowl, lying on its rim on the ground outside the door. The space underneath that trailer was dark and hidden; there were the old tracks of dusty footprints all over the place. Junk didn’t work at anything regular—or not as I’d seen—but he was usually off the park during the day. Even so, he didn’t always take Dylan with him, but there was no sign of the dog.

It seemed like business as usual—but with no caretakers.

On the other side of the doorway, Niall was also evaluating the scene. “Nothing. It’s gone, whatever or whoever it was.” He tilted his head slightly, as if he were trying to tune in to potential danger.

My eyes smarted as I stared around the park. Felt a bit damned stupid with the gun out in the open, so I let my hand drop down to my side. But I didn’t put the gun away. “Maybe it’s nothing, like you say. I’ll go check.”

I started carefully down the shaky steps. I’d never taken time to fix them properly to the trailer itself, but then, I usually jumped them in one stride. Niall looked at me, startled. “We’ll go together.”

“No we won’t! You’re not even here, remember? You’re invisible. You’re in hiding.”

He snorted. “What the hell does that matter?”

“No,” I said again, firmly. Something in my tone made him stop his descent down the steps after me. “This is my place. I’ll do it.”

He stared for a while longer and then he nodded acceptance. He turned to go back into the trailer, annoyed maybe, and his foot slipped on the cracked rim at the top. He fell awkwardly to one side, just for a second, and he leaned back against me. Hell, it was far from deliberate! But as his body bumped mine, his hand reached out instinctively to right himself against my shoulder, and he held onto me.

First time for three months.

I should have fixed those steps....

I heard my gasp as if it came from someone else. A someone else who lifted his hand and pressed it quickly over Niall’s, holding it tight to stop it being snatched away. A someone else who felt his eyelids droop with desire and his fingers tingle with the need to slide their way down the smooth skin of Niall’s upper arm and slide a possessive hold around the taut, muscular waist.

It was so much more shocking than the earlier touch of hands. The desperate reaction of my body was astonishing. It must have been like reliving your hidden traumas under therapy—not that I’d ever had the time or inclination to try that out for myself. Doorways opening, memories flooding back, the sensory overload of things that had once been familiar and fascinating. Except that these memories hit low and hard and cruel, and the flame of remembrance seared through every nerve end that connected with him.

Memories. They suck, don’t they? And they don’t let you go easy.

WE’D HELD IT ALL TOGETHER right until the end of Mission Dove.

Damned thing had taken nearly three months more, while Niall was working his way gradually out of his convalescence. Judith let him back on duty when most of the main peace talks were being drawn to a close and many of the delegates had already returned to their political day jobs. He complained that he didn’t have a lot to do, but he knew he wasn’t as fit as before, though he’d healed a damned sight faster than anyone had expected.

Maybe he was more pissed off at missing out than I’d realised.

I caught him doing push-ups late on a Sunday night. I’d been out for the weekend and came back to his apartment to freshen up for my own shift on duty. He must have heard me come in, but he didn’t acknowledge me. I stood in the shadows of the bedroom doorway and watched him work, stretched out on the wooden floor. The muscles tensed across his bare torso, again and again, as he carefully lifted his body. The scar was much paler than before, though still obvious against his dark skin. He was dressed only in his shorts, the light of the bedside lamp glinting in the trail of sweat down between his shoulder blades. He gave the slightest grunt as he moved, maybe with the effort, maybe counting the presses.

I found I was holding my breath. I hadn’t called him for the last three days. Hadn’t been in touch in any way. As he straightened his body and climbed back to his feet, I looked at the graceful way he moved, and I ached all over for him. Not only for the easy, vibrant sexuality of him. Not only for the lust that had always been our constant companion. The maelstrom of emotions was deep and uncomfortable and confusing to me. I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing all weekend, and wondered what the hell I was trying to prove to myself.

He stood in front of me, regaining his breath. He pushed sweaty locks of hair off his forehead, and his dark eyes challenged me. “Tanner. Are you staying?”

Hell of a question. Maybe he wanted to know if I’d make a late supper, or if I wanted the bathroom before him. Something mildly domestic like that. Or maybe it was something far more significant. Scared of the latter option, I took the first. “Sure,” I said. I couldn’t stop my eyes from raking his body; my nostrils flared gently from the smell of his sweat. “Need an early night. I’ve got a five a.m. start tomorrow. A surveillance job on the warehouse near the conference centre where they’re clearing out the final equipment—”

“Me too,” he interrupted. “We’re covering it together. Judith’s instructions.”

I was startled. I admit it. We’d not worked directly together since the knife attack. I saw a shiver of shock in his eyes that must have mirrored my own expression. “Good,” I said, amazed how steady my voice sounded. I took a step towards him. I think I moistened my lips.

“Early night, you said.” His voice was very brusque. “Must have been a hard weekend for you.” His gaze never wavered, though I couldn’t mistake the shadow of arousal under his loose shorts. “I’ve set the alarm for four a.m.” Then he walked past me as calmly as if I were nothing but part of the furniture. When my hand reached out to him, he bent away from me, so slightly that I might have thought I imagined it. But I didn’t. He had never refused me before, never turned so deliberately away from what we both wanted. Never denied it.

When he came out of the shower fifteen minutes later, he walked straight into the bedroom and turned out the light. I was still standing in the hallway, shocked. He never said another word to me.

FUCK IT. MEMORIES—GLANCES backwards, whatever—almost always suck.

The surveillance job that following morning was a minor task, but we were both there on time. It had been a long night, and I’d been damned uncomfortable on the couch. We grunted at each other over coffee, and sat as far apart in the hired transport as possible. No one else was on the job—the other guys were on duty elsewhere on the site—but neither of us needed our hand held.

We’d always worked well together in the past. Hell, we’d enjoyed it. A job like this might have been a bit of fun, too. No real danger any longer, therefore no prospect of distraction for a few hours. I often wondered later on whether things would’ve been different if we’d chosen to spend some of the time making out instead of messing up. In the early days of our relationship, we wouldn’t even have needed to think about making a choice.