[B.S. #2] Bound to Cyn (8 page)

Dropping to his knees in front of her, after he pushed the coffee table out of the way, he took one of his hands and put it on the back of her head and tried to give her some comfort. After a few minutes of him petting her hair, she finally took her hands from her face and looked up at him with eyes that seemed too big for her face. Holding the glass of water up to her mouth, Angel urged her to take a sip. Finally she grasped Angel’s hand holding the glass and took a sip. Taking another, she pushed the glass away and dislodged his hand from her hair when she went to brush it back from her face.

“I’m OK, Angel. I just needed to get my bearing. Thank you for seeing me home. You can leave now. I’m perfectly OK to look after myself. Oh wait, you have no way to leave. I wasn’t thinking in allowing you to drive my car here. Take my car. I’ll get Lance to pick me up in the morning. Just bring the car to the club in the morning and I’ll get it there.”

Angel looked down at her with a thunderstruck expression on his face. “You can’t think too much of me if you think I would leave you alone after the scare that you just had. And you’re also not thinking straight. What if the man knows where you live? You’re in no shape to defend yourself tonight. There is no way I’m leaving.”

Putting the glass down on the coffee table, he rose from his knees and looked down at her sitting on the couch. Cinnamon looked at the angry warrior staring down at her. She could picture him watch over his tribe of old. No one was going to hurt her tonight or even get close to her with him on watch. While it made her feel safe in a way, she also was becoming aware of the large presence he made in her living room. Standing there with his hand holding his hips, he made a fine specimen of a man. Why did this man turn her thoughts to things she shouldn’t be thinking about after having such a scare and still feeling the grips of the panic attack?

When Cinnamon looked like she would start protesting again, Angel spoke up with a no-nonsense voice. “I’m not leaving. You’re in no condition to dictate what you want. You’re white as a ghost and we should have taken you to the hospital. Do you have anything stronger than water? I think you need something to warm you up.”

“If you look in the fridge, there’s a half bottle of wine. Anything stronger you would have to go out for. I don’t believe in hard liquor. I don’t like anything that would fog my thinking. I really don’t need a drink, I just need to get some rest. I’m sure the guy didn’t follow us home, so please feel free to leave.” Cinnamon wanted Angel to leave before her hormones started acting up and she would beg him to stay. He was everything she thought she wanted in a man but knew that she could never have. If it got out what had happened to her, nobody would want her.

A frustrated Angel just walked back into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of wine from the fridge. He wished it was James’s Scotch. He knew she needed to get some sleep and her mind off the scare tonight. Pulling the cork from the bottle, he took a glass out of the cupboards and filled it with the wine.

When he approached Cinnamon, still sitting on the couch, he could tell that her color was better and she wasn’t trembling as much. Sitting beside her he handed her the glass. “Drink this and then we’ll see about getting you to bed. And don’t argue. I’m staying tonight. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Cinnamon glanced up at Angel sitting beside her. She wondered if he would judge her if he knew her secret. He seemed like a man that would make up his own mind. Taking the glass from him, she took a drink and felt the warmth spread over her body. She didn’t know if it was the wine or because Angel was sitting so close to her.

Handing the glass back to him, still three quarters full of wine, she knew she had to get away from him and think. She told Angel there were sheets in the closet and she was going to bed. She knew she was being rude, but right now she had to escape and find space to be allowed to think. Every time the man’s voice from the parking lot came to mind, she had the feeling that she had heard that voice before. She just needed time to relive the moment in the parking lot and maybe she would remember. It might mean nothing but until she had time to go over it, she couldn’t disregard her feelings. Angel’s closeness to her made her want to forget the man back at the club, and she just wanted to snuggle up with him and absorb the warmth radiating off his large body.

Had she not learnt her lesson, she told herself. Men could not be trusted. Getting angry at herself, she pushed off the couch and away from Angel, making her way down the hall to her small bedroom. There were larger bedrooms in her house, but her time spent at the compound had gotten her used to sleeping in a small contained room. It somehow made her feel safe. Large spaces bothered her now. Tossing her clothes on the floor, she made her way to her bed and climbed in and pulled the covers over her head. She just needed to think without the distraction of Angel. Maybe he would take her rudeness as not interested and leave. After all she hadn’t even said goodnight to him. But she really didn’t think so. She could tell that it would take a lot more than rudeness from her to get rid of a man like Angel. Part of her hoped he would just leave and the other part hoped that he wouldn’t. She didn’t want to acknowledge to herself that she wanted him in bed beside her.

Chapter Nine

Angel pulled his cell phone out of his pants as he watched Cinnamon walk down the hall and into her bedroom. She looked a little better, but not enough for Angel to leave her alone, no matter how rude she was being. He couldn’t be sure if the man from the club parking lot had followed them home. He didn’t think so, but between worrying about Cinnamon and trying to drive her tin can of a car, his attention had been distracted and he hadn’t put much effort into watching the cars behind him. He knew he could protect her and keep her safe, if the need arose.

Clay answered on the first ring. “Clay here. Angel, is everything all right? Is Cinnamon OK?”

“Cinnamon is OK. We’re at her house now and she just left to go to bed. Did you find out anything from the camera feed tonight?”

“Well, he did come closer to the club than he usually does, so we have a partial facial picture, but really not much else. Grant is going to try and put it through the Feds’ data base and see if anything pops up. I don’t hold up too much hope, as the picture is dark, and like I said, only part of his face is showing.” Angel could hear the frustration in Clay’s voice.

“Well, that’s more than we had before. Hopefully Grant can clean it up and maybe we’ll get lucky. Can you ask Brad to go to my house and bring my truck over and a change of clothes? These leathers are sticking to me like glue. I don’t want to leave Cinnamon alone for the time it would take me to run to my house. Her house is not that far from mine but I don’t want to take the chance that maybe the guy knows where she lives.”

Angel could hear the guys talking in the background. He knew they would still be in Lance’s office going over every inch of the camera feed. “It can wait until you are done looking over the pictures. I’m not going anywhere.”

Suddenly he heard Chase’s voice over the phone, not Clay’s. “I’ll grab Brad and be right over. Lance and Clay are mulling over the pictures of the guy. See you in twenty.”

The phone call was dropped and Angel stared at it. The last person he wanted to have to go over things tonight with was Chase. He hoped that James hurried back and took his brother under control. Dropping down to the couch, he grabbed up the remote on the coffee table as he righted it in-front of the couch and turned on the TV.

There was nothing he could do until Chase got here with his truck and clothes. He resisted the urge to look in on Cinnamon. Not enough time had passed for her to fall asleep yet and he didn’t know if he saw her in bed if he could resist the temptation she would make. Keeping the volume low, he watched a police show already in progress and picked up the rest of the wine that Cinnamon had left in her glass and swallowed it down.

* * * *

Angel looked out the window of the front door. He had just about given up of ever seeing his truck or Chase this night. Finally, he spotted his truck turning into the driveway. Over two hours had passed since he had spoken to Chase. Opening the door, he watched as a limo also pulled up to the curb behind his now parked truck as he walked down the driveway. Chase jumped out of the truck and met him halfway up the driveway.

“Sorry to be so long, but Clay was called to the hospital, something about Laura. Brad was watching her at the time and all I know is that Clay left the office like the devil was on his tail. With all the guys busy, it took me some time to contact my driver, who I had given the night off to come and pick me up. I also don’t have your break and enter skills, so I had to go to the Braden office downtown and get your keys after Grant told me where you kept them. I like your house by the way,” Chase rattled off to him as he walked past him and into Cinnamon’s house. Angel just shook his head as he was left to retrieve his suitcase on the front seat of his truck and follow behind him.

Chase was already in the kitchen by the time Angel had gotten his suitcase out of the truck and entered the house. “What happened to Laura?” Angel asked as he watched Chase look through Cinnamon’s cupboards.

Finally finding glasses, Chase turned and walked to the small kitchen table. “Don’t know. I thought we would call as soon as I got here. While I was in the offices I found some of James’s Scotch and brought it over. I thought we could use a drink.” Chase opened the bottle and poured Scotch into each glass to its brim.

Angel took out his cell phone and called Clay as he pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Chase put a glass in front of him as he also took a seat, and Angel picked the glass up and took a long swig of the liquor.

“Clay here. What do you need? I don’t have time to deal with anything right now.”

“Angel here. Chase just told me about Laura. Is she OK? Is there anything we can do?”

“Thanks, but I’m just waiting for the doctor to come out and tell me. Some ass-wipe delivered a package to Laura’s place today. When she shook it, something exploded and her hands were burned with whatever was in the package. Brad took her to the hospital and that’s all I know right now. God, I’m glad now I didn’t listen to you when you said I couldn’t have Brad watch Laura’s house. Will keep you updated. Have to go.” The call was abruptly dropped with Clay’s voice sounding rushed and under stress.

Picking up his glass of Scotch, Angel took a long swallow and updated Chase on what he knew about Laura.

“Hope it all turns out OK. I’d hate for the big guy to finally find a lady and lose her.” Chase’s hands fiddled with his glass of Scotch in front of him on the table.

“How’s your lady? Before Clay left he said that Cinnamon was really shaken up after being grabbed by the guy in the parking lot.”

“I was just going to check on her when you arrived. She was pale and still in shock when we got here. I persuaded her to have some wine and she went to bed. I don’t like that the guy came so close to the club this time. I know it allowed us to get a partial face picture, but he usually stays farther in the back of the lot. He seemed to be upping his game and getting bolder. We have to find this guy soon.” Angel looked at Chase and finally clued in the something else that was bothering him besides the incident tonight. Chase was staring into his Scotch and being unusually quiet for Chase.

Angel got up from the table. “Let me check on my lady and then you can tell me what’s on your mind.”

Angel walked down the hallway and softly opened Cinnamon’s bedroom door. He found her curled up in a ball but sleeping soundly.

Returning to the kitchen, he watched a somber Chase for a minute. Taking his chair across from him again, Angel told him to spit it out.

“I know you have a lot on your plate right now, and I would bring it to James if he was here, but I’ve been getting strange phone calls over the last couple of weeks. I thought they were just wrong numbers but they are too frequent now to be that. I was just wondering if this has something to do with the drug lord that was after Avery. We did pull a fast one on him.”

“Why did you keep quiet? You should have told us as soon as they started.” Angel grabbed his cell and dialed Grant.

Grant answered in a sleep-filled voice. “I didn’t find anything else from the camera feed. Can’t a guy sleep for more than an hour? I promise I will look over the feed again as soon as it’s light out. Now let me sleep.”

“Grant, this is Angel. I’m sorry to disturb your beauty sleep, but can you check something out? I think we should jump on this right away and not wait until morning. By the way, did you hear about Laura being in the hospital? Clay is with her right now.”

Angel could hear Grant climbing out of his bed. “Do you know what happened? I know Clay rushed to the hospital, but thought he’d call if it was serious. Should I go to the hospital and make sure the big guy is all right?”

“No, Brad’s with him. I need you to hack in on Chase’s phone records. He’s sitting with me at Cinnamon’s right now and just told me that he has been receiving strange hang-up calls. He suspects it might be the drug lord again. We have to make sure. Carlos might have connected the dots and is after Chase for his involvement. After all, Chase’s firm snatched up the property after the Feds were done with it.”

“Why didn’t he tell me this earlier when I was talking to him? Just let me grab my pants and I’ll boot up the computer and see what I can find. Call you back shortly.”

Angel looked at Chase. “You are going to have some very pissed off people after your ass for not saying anything. And I don’t want to think what James will say when he comes back.”

Chase sat up from his slouch in his chair and wrapped both of his hands around his half-empty Scotch glass. “I really didn’t think too much of it at first. But when the calls kept coming, I tried to think of what you guys would do. I tried to keep him on the phone even though there really was no clue to who was on the other end. I even had my tech guys look into it and they couldn’t trace anything. I really didn’t want to bother you or any of the guys with James being gone. I know you guys are carrying his load as well as your own. That’s why I weaseled more from Grant about the club.”