The Protected

EIGHT

THE absolute last thing he needed after the day he’d had was to see some big bastard bent over Vaughnne as she sat in her car. Alex had been sick all damn day and he had gotten worse as the day progressed. He’d hoped it would improve once he got him home, but halfway there, he’d remembered they were out of Tylenol, so he’d had to backtrack and go get the medicine.

Gus knew how to handle a sick boy. He’d been taking care of Alex for years now and had nursed him through strep throat and the flu several times. But this seemed worse. He was so hot and he had that look—that sick look. It gave Gus a terrible feeling, but he couldn’t let himself panic.

This was one of his fears, that the boy would take ill and he’d need medical care and they’d have to expose themselves at the hospital.

Shit.

Gus didn’t fear much. He had no room for it in his life. But for Alex, he felt fear, and it was crowding through him now, churning in his gut. He slowed at the stop sign and glanced over at the boy for a minute and then looked back up, eyeing the big bastard hovering over Vaughnne.

Idly, he thought about ripping the man’s balls off. Strangling him with them, for daring to even be near her.

The man was big. Red hair, a deep, dark red, the kind of color that would be remembered. And as he straightened and smacked a fist on the roof, Gus caught the sight of black ink twining around his arms.

The man’s eyes cut his way.

Alex groaned.

“Tío . . . I’m going to be sick . . .”

“It’s Gus, Alex, remember.” He reached over and touched the boy’s brow, and the fever-hot feel of it had him biting back another curse. The Tylenol wasn’t helping. “We’re almost home, okay?”

No time to worry about the man over there at Vaughnne’s.

Man. With Vaughnne.

No time to worry about how much that infuriated him. Or why . . .

His truck sputtered just a block down from his house, and this time, he wasn’t able to keep the stream of curses inside as the car came to a stop right in the dead middle of the road.

“¿Qué carajo clase de mierda jodida es ésta?” He glared at the engine, as though it might answer him back.

“FIGURED it would be better if you had him a little stuck,” Tucker said as Vaughnne stared at the unmoving truck. “Away from the house and all.”

“This isn’t going to help his frame of mind any,” she said sourly as she threw the car into drive. “Deal with the others. Hold them. As long as you can.”

He canted his head to the side. “Well, that might be problematic. If I’m here, I can hold them forever and that won’t happen. I’ll give you a head start, though.”

As she gunned the engine, Tucker eased back into the shadows. For a big, red-haired bastard, he actually did a better job at avoiding notice than she would have expected.

She slammed on the brakes just as Gus had managed to shove up the hood of his truck, glaring at it like that would magically fix it.

She pulled out her ID and slammed it down next to him. “Now if I had to pick a movie to go with this moment, I’d go with The Terminator,” she said as his gaze flicked to the ID and then up to her face. She saw him bracing, preparing to move. “The line would be . . . Come with me if you want to live.”

He backed away and she saw the gun in his hands. Double-handed grip, braced and ready, like he could stand there forever. So fast. He was so damn fast. Yet again, she had to wonder, just who in the hell was he . . . and what in the hell had he done before he gave up that life to go on the run with that kid? A kid he’d die to protect. Always so ready to fight, she thought. To defend.

“I don’t care who you are,” he said quietly. “Get away. Give me your keys, or I’m going to shoot.”

“You can shoot me.” She held his gaze. “But it won’t stop the ones who are chasing you. You know that. And if you shoot me, instead of just running from them, you’re running from the FBI, too.”

“Unless I kill you, they won’t be too worried about me,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t need to kill you, just slow you down.”

She smiled at him. “Gus, unless you kill me, you won’t stop me. I’ll track you down again.”

Somebody shouted, and she slid a look past him, watched as the two men who’d broken into his house came boiling out on the porch. Gus swung around, shifting his attention between her and the house, his grip on that weapon all too competent, all too ready.

“They broke into your house ten minutes ago. I don’t think they are here to talk about baseball or discuss Alex’s homeschooling life.”

Tension slammed into the air as one of the men lifted a gun. It all but sucked the life out of her, although it didn’t look like it hit Gus very hard. His lashes flickered but that was it.

The men went down, though.

Hard. Wow. Tucker really packed a punch.

As soon as they did, Gus shifted the gun back to her. Oh, lovely. She just loved being the center of attention. He thought she had done that?

“What in the fuck did you do to them?” he demanded.

Yep. That was exactly what he thought.

She lifted her hands. “I’m just here to make sure your kid stays okay,” she said quietly. “And I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.”

Okay, so a little lie thrown in there . . . she accepted it and let it settle into place. Wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but if it helped get the job done, then she’d do it. And it wouldn’t hurt her cause for him to think she was capable of that, she figured.

He plowed his left fist down against his truck, still holding the weapon with his right. It was a Sig Sauer P250 and it remained pointed at her, steady and level. She had no doubt he could put a hole through her. Maybe he’d regret it, maybe he wouldn’t. But he could still do it and that wouldn’t help any of them.

“Get out of my way, Vaughnne,” he growled.

“I can’t,” she said quietly.

“I’ll shoot,” he warned.

Time to get him to focus on the one thing she knew he cared about. Glancing toward the car, she said softly, “And if you do, you condemn that boy to running even more.”

“He’s going to be doing that anyway,” Gus whispered.

“Is that what you want?”

His lashes flickered over his eyes. “No.”

“Then get in the car.”

Off in the distance, sirens wailed and she gestured to the car. “The cops are coming . . . you can’t get away from them without endangering him now. I can get you away. Trust me, Gus. I’m not going to let anybody hurt him. I promise you that.”

PLEASE . . . YOU must promise . . .

Trust was painful, he realized. For so many years, he’d trusted no one. Trusted nothing but his instincts. The problem was that now those instincts screamed that he trust something else. Someone else. Staring into Vaughnne’s whiskey gold eyes, with the ghostly voice of a dead woman dancing through his mind, he made a decision.

“If you fuck me over, I’ll hunt you down. I’ll hurt you. I’ll make you pay so badly, you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

“Understood.”

Without wasting another second, he moved around and jerked open the passenger-side door. There were only three things he needed. His weapon, the bag he never went without, and Alex. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he kept the weapon ready and then headed around the truck and jerked open the door. Alex moaned as he lifted him out. “Tío—”

“Shhhh,” Gus murmured. “It’s time to move on, Alex. We have to go now.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Alex whispered, his eyes glazed, like he didn’t even hear what Gus had said.

The kid’s weight pulled at him. They’d found a few months of peace and quiet here, something that almost resembled safety. In those months, Alex had shot up several inches and gained some weight.

Shifting the boy in his arms, he turned to face Vaughnne, not bothering to shut the door to the truck or grab anything else. There were things back at the house that might have been useful—more money, their clothes, weapons. But he had everything that was vital with him. Alex, and the bag.

He was always ready for this—ready to run at a moment’s notice. Vaughnne had the back door open and was eyeing Alex narrowly. “He’s sick,” he said sourly.

She just nodded.

In just seconds, they were heading down the street. A nice, sedate speed and he was burning inside with the need to tear out of there. They found him. They found him . . . I failed. “Can’t you go any faster?”

“Sure. The best way to avoid the notice of the police,” she said drolly.

“You’re the FBI.” Warning flickered inside him.

She sighed and tossed her ID into his lap. “Yes, I am. But unless I want to get into a jurisdictional pissing contest, it’s better to avoid them noticing us. I don’t exactly know what you’re running from, so I figure it’s best to play this nice and quiet like.”

Picking up her ID, he rubbed his thumb over it, studying it for signs that it was a fake. He knew what to look for. But then again, he’d carried one of these himself, and had convinced more than one or two agents that he was a federal agent. They’d believed him, too. If he could get fake credentials that looked real, others could as well.

“Tío . . .”

He closed his eyes, both at the pitiful sound of Alex’s voice, and at the connection he’d tried to hide for the past few years. “Close your eyes, Alex,” he said, his voice gentle. “Try to rest.”

“I’m going to be sick,” he said again, and this time, the conviction in his voice was even stronger.

A collapsible blue bag was shoved into Gus’s hands, and he shot Vaughnne a look. She shrugged. “I believe in being prepared.”

He turned around in the seat and pushed the bag into Alex’s hands just as the boy lost control.

As the sour stench of vomit filled the air, Gus hooked a hand over the boy’s neck and rubbed. “I’m sorry,” Alex whispered. “I . . .”

Another spasm ripped through him.

“It’s okay, kid,” he said. “You’re sick. Nothing to be sorry for.”

A few seconds passed and then Alex slumped back against the back of the seat. Gus caught the bag and fisted his hand around it to close it. “Any better?”

Alex nodded, his head rolling over as he huddled against the seat cushions.

“There are plastic bags beneath the seat,” Vaughnne said softly. “Just tie it up in that. We’ll dump it when we stop. You can put the windows down.”

A few moments of strained silence passed while he did that, and not only did he discover bags, but he found a small pack of hand wipes and hand sanitizer. “You often expect people to vomit in your car?” he asked tightly.

“It’s happened a time or two.” Then she shot him a look and shrugged. “Sometimes with me. I used to get carsick a lot when I was younger. It’s better now, but for a while, even up until my twenties, I got sick almost every time I climbed into a car.”

He narrowed his eyes, not quite believing that, but even as he decided he’d call her on it, her phone rang.

Her nose wrinkled and the look caught him off guard. It was a look of disgust, but it was so damn . . . cute. That was it. It was cute, that look of aggravation on her face.

“Not now,” she grumbled. She didn’t ignore the call, though.

“YOU pick the worst times to call,” she said without waiting for Jones to say anything.

“Are there police there looking for the kid?”

“No.” Vaughnne checked the mirror, eyeing the kid in the backseat. He was almost asleep, his dusky cheeks flushed with fever, his eyes closed.

“Agent MacMeans, do not bullshit me.”

She heard a snap of temper cut through his voice and she let herself smile a little. She so rarely had the pleasure of being one of the ones to irritate him. He rarely got irritated, so this made it a double pleasure. “I wouldn’t do that, boss. The cops aren’t here. Now they might be back at the house, but I’m currently headed up International, on my way out of Orlando. And the kid is with me.”

Five seconds passed.

“You had to blow your cover.”

“Afraid so.” She flicked a look at Gus, brutally aware of the fact that he was watching, and listening. Her skin prickled from the intensity of that look, and she prepared herself for whatever may be coming. “Listen, the kid is sick. I get the feeling we shouldn’t take him to the doctor . . .”

“No,” Gus barked out.

At the same time, Jones said, “I don’t know if that’s advisable.”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “Well, that’s sort of what I was just saying.” She raised her voice and shot a dark look at Gus before focusing her attention back on the road. It was a tricky situation driving, as it was, watching her tail, talking to her boss, dealing with the hotness that was Gus, even if he was glaring at her. Oh, and not wrecking.

“Look, the kid is sick. He just puked in the car and his . . . guardian would appear to be worried, although I don’t think he’d worry over a cold. He looks like he’s running a fever, although I can’t check while I’m driving.” She cut into the right lane and turned off International. This road wasn’t going to be much better but at least it wasn’t one of the busiest in town. Taking five minutes to breathe and get her bearings wouldn’t hurt, either. Pulling into the parking lot of a gas station, she put the car into park and swiveled around, eyeballing the kid. “He’s also half out of it, if I’m not mistaken. What does it matter if I’m keeping them safe if he ends up dog-sick with pneumonia or something?”

“We’re not taking him to the hospital,” Gus growled.

She ignored him. The hospital wasn’t her destination. Jones would have an alternative, she knew it.

“Jones?”

Five more seconds passed and then he asked, “Where do you plan on going?”

“I plan on getting the hell out of Orlando for starters, and then I need to get somebody to look at the boy. Preferably soon.” In the backseat, Alex groaned, a pitiful little sound that twisted her heart. “No. Not preferably soon. It has to be soon.”

“Just drive. When you get an idea where you’re heading, let me know. I’ll get a doctor to you.”

She hung up and tossed the phone down.

She hadn’t even managed to put the car into drive before she saw the gun leveled at her, digging into her rib cage, out of sight of anybody who might just happen by the car, unless they were outright looking. Please . . . don’t let anybody look, she thought tiredly. That was the last thing she needed.

Turning her head, she met Gus’s eyes.

“If you try to take us to the hospital, you’ll be needing one yourself,” he warned. “Although they won’t be able to fix the damage I’ll do to you. You’ll just end up in the morgue anyway.”

“I’m not taking him to a hospital,” she said. “My boss will get a doctor to us.”

A nerve pulsed and ticked in Gus’s cheek. She had the insane urge to reach up and stroke, try to soothe away the tension, the fear she knew was raging inside him. Tell me why you’re so afraid for him, she thought. I can help, I swear . . .

But she knew he wouldn’t believe her. She’d just have to show him.

“That doesn’t sound like standard FBI procedure.”

Lifting a brow at him, she said, “You know a lot about standard FBI procedure? What, you watch a lot of TV or something?” Then she took a chance and looked away from him, putting the car into drive. “It’s not standard FBI procedure, but I don’t work with a standard unit.”

As she pulled out into the flow of traffic, she felt the impact of his stare.

“What in the hell does that mean?”

Sighing, she shot him a look and then focused on the road. What in the hell did she tell him, she wondered. She needed him to trust her. She needed to know what in the hell he was running from and what—or who—he was protecting that boy from. But she couldn’t get his trust without giving a little first.

“I do work for the FBI,” she said slowly. “But it’s a special task force, and if anybody knew I was telling you this, I could lose my job. I’m telling you because I need you to trust me, at least a little.”

She flicked him another look as she wove in and out of traffic, taking the most direct route out of town. Get out, get away, move fast . . . it was a scream inside her brain, an instinct to get a hell of a lot of distance between her and that quiet little street where Alex and Gus had managed to live undisturbed for some time.

“I don’t trust anybody,” Gus whispered.

“You’re going to have to learn.” She wished she could make him understand just how vulnerable that kid was. How exposed. “You’re doing your best to take care of him, Gus, I get that. But that boy is like an exposed nerve bed. He’s got no training and too much raw power. Anybody who knows how to look for psychic skill would be able to find him in a heartbeat.”

Tense silence stretched out, before a low curse shattered it.

“Mierda,” Gus snarled, his voice furious and hot.

Vaughnne’s grasp of Spanish was pretty limited, but she understood that one. Lifting a brow, she said, “Shit doesn’t even cover it.”

“How did you know?”

“I just told you. He’s exposed. He has no idea how to hide himself. Hell, he’s like a neon sign in the dark. Anybody who knew how to look could find him,” she said. “And if the wrong people come looking? He’s got problems. Today, the wrong people came looking.”

Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw him shake his head. “The boy reads people. He can see danger. He’d know—”

“He never saw me.”

Silence, once more, fell between them and she had to fight not to cringe under the weight of that deadly stare. Her instincts were screaming again. Danger, danger, danger, a terrible litany that had her wanting to run, and hide. Far and fast. Hide from Gus.

Finally, he broke the silence, his voice almost terribly gentle as he asked, “What does that mean?”

“He never saw me. I’m not a threat to you, but he had no idea that I’m psychic, that I was there to watch him. He has no idea that people out there, like us, can sense him. He doesn’t know how to hide what he is. He may be a force to be reckoned with, but he didn’t realize there was another psychic right in front of him. And Gus? I’m not all that. If I can hide what I am, there are plenty of others who can do the same. Others who can hide what they are, what they think. He’s powerful, but he’s just a kid . . . a scared, untrained one.”

“And how do I know you do not lie to me?” he demanded, his voice edgy and harsh. The gun was jamming into her ribs now, hard enough that it was going to leave a bruise. “You could be lying now. You say you’re—”

The first time I saw you walking up my sidewalk, I thought to myself . . . the view was fine, Vaughnne whispered into his mind. Her gift was telepathy and it worked best in words, but if she had to, she could project images. It took more thought, and it worked best if the emotion was strong.

Fortunately, she had plenty of strong emotion when it came to Gus. Lust definitely counted, right?

She projected the image of how it felt, that first look, the sight of him, how it had sent heat and appreciation flooding through her.

Then as she heard his harsh intake of breath, she shifted the focus of her thought. Then I looked at the boy and I was caught between nerves and pain. He’s too young for the burden he’s bearing, Gus . . . and you know it. I don’t even understand what his burden is, and I know it. I can see it on him.

She pushed the image that she carried of Alex into Gus’s mind. That first image, Alex, all long, skinny limbs and big, scared eyes, and a fear he tried so hard to hide.

“Enough,” Gus said, his voice flat. “Enough.”

She cut off the flow of her thoughts and focused on the area around them, checking the rearview mirror, the cars. Nobody was following them, but she still had that burning, pressing urge to get the hell away from there. Now.

She could breathe easier, though. Gus was no longer trying to drill the nose of that Sig Sauer into her ribs. That helped a little.

HE’S too young for the burden he’s bearing . . .

Did she think he didn’t know that already?

He shoved a hand through his hair, knocking his ball cap off in the process. He hurled it to the floorboard and turned his head, staring outside as the landscape zipped by.

The view is nice . . .

Innocuous words.

But what she’d pushed inside his mind . . .

He did not need that inside him just then. The knowledge that she felt the same heat he’d felt. No. He didn’t need that at all, yet at the same time, part of him . . .

Part of him wanted to grab her, haul her into his lap, and just . . . feel. Give in to what he had inside him, what she obviously had inside her. Skim his hands up that long, slender back and tangle them in her hair as he feasted on her mouth.

That greedy, selfish part wanted to strip her naked and ride her until they were too drained to even move. That part of him knew just how long it had been since he’d had a woman, touched a woman, kissed a woman . . . wanted a woman. How long it had been since his life revolved around anything beyond watching over Alex, nights spent pacing the house as he worried. Worried about whether they’d get through another night without having to run. Worried about whether they’d both survive when the time came, would they be caught . . .

That part that wasn’t focused on the fear and everything else, that part of him wanted to touch her. That part of him wanted to glide his hand through her hair and draw her mouth to his, see if she’d taste as wild as he’d imagined. She wouldn’t be a sweet and gentle woman in bed, he didn’t think. He’d had sweet and gentle lovers. She’d be heat and power and passion, and he’d lose himself inside her.

If he could have given in to it.

But it wouldn’t happen.

Alex . . . his focus was, and would always be, Alex.

“How long have you been running?” she asked quietly.

He slanted a look her way and then looked back out the window. “Too long.”

Four years. Six months. Twelve days. He flicked a glance at the clock, calculated the time change. Thirteen hours and nine minutes.

Since Alex was eight . . . the day the boy’s youth and innocence and life were shattered, right in front of him.

The night his mother . . .

He closed his eyes and tried to stem the flow of those memories.

Please . . . you must promise . . .

He was trying. Carajo, he was trying. But he was so useless at this. Caring for somebody, protecting somebody. A direct opposite of the life he’d been living. And what a life that had been. Pointed in a direction and told to fight, he fought. Told to kill?

He did that, too.

Told to fuck this woman and learn more about her drug lord lover? Absolutely. And more than once, the women he’d been with had probably suffered for it once it was all said and done. But he’d kept it up, because that was what he did.

Now he was expected to care for another. Protect another. When life had never been anything but a race, a gamble, a challenge before this.

It was still a gamble, he supposed. One he’d lost. One his sister had lost.

His job now was to make sure his nephew didn’t lose as well.

“Who is after him?”

Gus closed his eyes.

Vaughnne sighed. “Gus, I can’t help unless you talk to me.”

“You can’t help.” He rested his head against the back of the seat. FBI. He didn’t know how they’d caught the attention of the FBI. He’d been careful. He’d broken laws, he knew, but he’d done his damnedest to fly under their radar, and that was one thing he knew how to do . . . very well.

Nobody had reported the boy as missing, because they couldn’t afford the attention.

So it wasn’t that.

How, though?

Not that it mattered.

As soon as Alex was well, they would run. They’d disappeared before. Gus was becoming remarkably good at . . . disappearing. Perhaps his nephew could do tricks that would make David Copperfield look like an amateur and maybe he could do things that might turn a person’s mind to mush if he wasn’t careful, but Gus knew how to disappear and get lost in the world.

They’d done it several times over.

They’d just keep doing it.

And keep doing it . . .

Unconsciously, his hand clenched into a fist.

“You’ll never stop running if you don’t make a stand,” Vaughnne said quietly.

“Do not read my mind,” he bit off. He swung his head around to glare at her, but she was focused on the road, like nothing mattered except the stretch of pavement. “Ever. Do you understand me?”

“Oh, completely.” A smirk twitched her lips and damn if that wasn’t appealing, he thought. Appealing as hell. “I couldn’t, Gus, even if I tried. I can talk inside your head as much as I want. As loud as I want. And I can do it from pretty damn far off, once I have your . . . channel, so to speak. But I couldn’t read your mind to save my life. That’s not my gift.”

“Do not lie to me,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not.”

“Then how do you . . .” He stopped.

Vaughnne shook her head. “I know what somebody looks like when they are running, Gus. And people don’t usually run like you do just because it’s fun. They don’t drag around a kid they love just for kicks and giggles. You only live like you’ve been living because you feel like you have no choice.”

“There isn’t one.”

“Because you haven’t looked at all the options,” she said, a sad smile curving her lips. “Or maybe the other options hadn’t been there until now. But I’m giving you another option now . . . trust me.”

“I don’t know you.” Gus couldn’t see Alex, but he didn’t need to see the boy to remind himself of the fact that the child had been the driving force in his life for so long now. Everything revolved around him. Everything would continue to revolve around him.

“No.” Vaughnne nodded in agreement. “You don’t. But you’re going to. I’ll help you take care of him, Gus.”

“I don’t need help.” He couldn’t need it.

“If you’ve got the kind of trouble coming that I think you’ve got, you need all the help you can get.”