Darkness Bound (19 page)

“Leigh Kelly,” Leigh said. She hadn’t known there was a used book store in the area, or a consignment shop—or a Gulliver Lane. “I work for Gabriel.”

“I think I know someone who would be good with books,” Sally said. “Give me a few hours to get in touch with him.”

Leigh left them to it, decided to let Jazzy enjoy the fire, and went to her office.

Niles sat tipped back in her chair, his feet on her desk. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

He wasn’t smiling a welcome.

W
HY?” SHE SAID
. “And why hole up in here until you could jump out at me?”

“That’s not what I meant to do,” Niles said. “But I want you to take this seriously. I didn’t want an audience when I gave you this.” He put the Sig Sauer P238 on the desk in front of him.

He had more to talk about this morning than guns, but he might as well start with the easy stuff.

“Have you ever used a gun?”

Leigh leaned against the door and crossed her arms. She stared at the weapon but didn’t seem to recoil from it, not that he’d thought she would. “I’ve fired a gun. Chris wanted me to learn.”

He got up and went around to stand on the same side of the desk with her. “This model is called ‘Lady.’ ” He reached behind him and brought the gun to hold in front of her. “A Sig Sauer. Except I knew where to get one that didn’t have a red frame, like they usually do, and it doesn’t
have the cute little gold flowers on it. It’s light enough for you to handle—especially since you already know how—but it’s not a water pistol.”

“I’ll pay you for it.”

“No, you won’t. It’s a gift, because I care about what happens to you. I care a lot. Do you understand?”

“I… I think you do, but you’re angry. I can feel it.”

Niles took a breath and softened his voice. “I’m not angry. I’m serious. Weapons are serious.” Since he left her, early that morning, he had been busy lining up just the right weapon. He hadn’t wanted to do it—guns killed more innocent people than guilty ones—but he understood her need to have some control over what happened to her.

He had also dealt with setting up twenty-four-hour surveillance of Leigh—and made himself face his own feelings. This was personal and doing nothing about it wasn’t an option. The desperation he felt wasn’t for the future of the team anymore, it was for himself and being with her for good. Anything more that came of it, unless she rejected him completely, would be a bonus.

Leigh didn’t take her eyes from his face.

He offered her the gun. Leigh hesitated an instant too long before she held out her hand, palm up, as if he was giving her an apple. When the gun lay there, that’s where it stayed.

She was trying to look tough and in many ways he thought she was, but she didn’t like feeling a gun in her hand.

He wished she would say something.

“Leigh… Oh, hell.” Niles jammed his hands deep in his pockets and looked at the floor. “I’m an idiot. This is the wrong way to do this.”

“Do what? Test me to see if you can scare me? Try to make me show I’m unsure of myself? You’re wrong; you’ve done that really well.”

He couldn’t stop looking at her stiff palm with the gun balanced on top. “You’re frightened of me? You’re not sure I’m on your side. Wonderful. Hours of thinking this through and I still make a mess of it.”

“Is there something wrong, Niles? Should I be worried about you, or just about me?”

“I admitted this to you last night. You just… I’m not good at this because I haven’t had much practice lately.”

He heard her long sigh. “Are you going to explain what you aren’t good at?”

“Talking to women. The only woman I really want to talk to. Leigh, this hasn’t happened to me before, not like this.” Now he sounded wet behind the ears. “I mean I haven’t wanted to ask anyone what I want to ask you.”

The room was too small. He felt as if the walls almost touched his shoulders.

“I’ve already told you I trust you,” Leigh said. “That hasn’t changed. Tell me what you came to say.”

“Let me take that from you,” he said, indicating the gun. “We’ll get back to it.”

She made no move to stop him from taking the gun and setting it on the desk.

“You told me you liked me. Did you mean that?”

“Yes.”

He crossed his arms and vaguely noticed Leigh did the same. “Do you think you could love me—really love me?”

Her freckles got more pronounced as her face grew paler.

“Leigh?” He moved closer to her but not too close.

Her hands went to her face. She pressed her cheeks. “What does love mean to you?” she asked, her eyes very wide open and very dark. She breathed rapidly through her mouth.

“It’s a feeling.” He put a fist against his chest. “A longing to have one person belong to you. Not like a thing, a car or something. Attached at the head and heart, I guess. Not wanting anyone else the same way. There’s something that happens in your throat—tightness that hurts in a good way. It’s needing to take care of someone, just one person, to protect them. I have to know you’re safe, Leigh. I think about you all the time. I don’t know what else to say.”

She kept staring at him.

“I’ll try again. It’s all the stuff I’ve already said, but there’s a feeling when I see you, or think about you even. I tighten up with needing to touch you. I turn into a verbal idiot and nothing I say sounds right.”

“We haven’t known each other long,” she whispered.

“Who says you have to? Will you think about this? Will you think about being with me all the time? My partner—be my partner, Leigh.”

“Your partner?”

This wasn’t the place to explain everything she would need to know. “You have to think about it. Maybe I’m crazy to come out with this and think you’ll even consider me.” But she hadn’t dismissed him out of hand, or run shrieking from the room. “Take some time. I’ll be watching out for you no matter what your answer is. I’ll always do that. But if you think you can, or you want to, would you come to my place this evening so we can try to get at what this means?”

She shook her head and his heart dropped.

“I don’t know,” she told him. “I can’t give you an answer till I’ve thought about it.”

Hope was a dangerous thing, but he hoped. “Look. Just come if you want to. Spur of the moment is fine. I’ll be there.”

“I don’t like to think of you waiting for me if I decide not to come.”

“Forget it. I won’t expect you to come but… I’m a big boy. If you don’t want to, I’ll suck it up and forget it.”

They looked at each other.

“I know last night I said I wanted it, but would you hold on to the gun for me?” she said. “For a little while?”

He waited a couple of minutes after she left the room and made his way out of the building through the back door—with the gun in his pocket.

S
O MUCH FOR FLASHY SIGNS,”
Gabriel said, glaring around at the mostly empty bar.

Leigh wrinkled her nose at him. “So we’re having a slow day.” She threw out her arms. “Look at the weather—folks are staying off the roads if they can. But when we get the other sign out by the highway even heavy snow won’t keep business away.”

She held her breath.

Gabriel didn’t notice what she’d said. His mind had wandered. He watched Molly get up from a stool at the bar and shrug into a furry parka. The hood was huge and looked good framing her face.

It didn’t take second sight to figure out Molly was deliberately ignoring Gabriel. She smoothed her tight jeans over her thighs and turned the fur cuffs at the tops of her boots over her knees.

Out she walked, twinkling her fingernails in the
air—Leigh presumed that was her good-bye to Gabriel, since she obviously knew he was looking at her.

“I’d better get back to it,” Leigh said and slipped away to her office.

Jazzy sat up in his bed, a depressed expression turning his mouth down. She picked him up and sat down, settling the dog on her lap.

Get back to it?
Gabriel would assume that’s what she was doing but Leigh couldn’t concentrate. The day was clicking by and she would have to make a decision about Niles. She wanted him, but it was so soon to make the kind of commitment he asked for.

She couldn’t stay at Gabriel’s, not right now, not when she needed to be alone somewhere to think.

On her way out of the office again she bumped into Sally.

“I was going to make a suggestion,” Sally said. “I was going to call someone else, but didn’t you say your sister had too much time on her hands?”

Jan did. “I guess.” But Leigh didn’t recall mentioning Jan to Sally at all.

“The drive around from Camano isn’t so long and the road is never that busy. Maybe she could do a couple of days for Phoebe during the week. At the bookstore. That’s when Jan’s husband goes in to Seattle, isn’t it—during the week?”

Niles must have told Sally about Jan and Gib. Sally had a sympathetic ear and trying to work out a solution was just her style. “I don’t know if Jan would want to do it,” Leigh said.

“You look as if you could use some time away from here,” Sally said. “Why not head out early? Stop in at
Gulliver Lane and take a look at the shop. See what you think. If you like it, Jan’s bound to, isn’t she?”

“We like a lot of the same things.” Jazzy strained in her arms, trying to fly free. “You’re staying with me now, boy” she told him. “I need your company.”

Jazzy rolled his eyes and Sally laughed, unnerving Leigh. No one ever noticed Jazzy did that.

“Take the second turn to the right after the gas station,” Sally said. I’ll call Phoebe and tell her you’re coming.”

“Well—”

“What have you got to lose? She serves great hot chocolate and the bookshop’s a blast. Look for Read It Again next to Wear It Again. It’s a bit run down but the stained-glass windows are great—Phoebe made them herself.”

“Well, I guess—”

“Bless my socks, I forgot to give you this.” Sally produced a much-folded piece of paper. “A man called John Valley left it for you. Wouldn’t wait. He said for you to get in touch with him and all the information’s there. He’s got a shiner of a black eye. I didn’t figure he liked showing it off.”

Sally walked away and Leigh unfolded the paper. Valley’s name and number were on the top. The brief note underneath said, “You are never going to get another offer like this. The guy wants your place so bad we could maybe push him even higher. Call me.” His number was under his name.

The sum of money written there crossed Leigh’s eyes. No one would pay that much for a little cottage, even on a really big piece of land—not in a down market. Although she supposed a developer might see big potential. Leigh shook her head—her property wasn’t for sale.

She crumpled the paper into a ball and scrunched it into the bottom of her pocket.

Defeated by a puzzling day and tied in knots over Niles, Leigh let Gabriel know she was setting off early and eventually managed to get her car door open while Jazzy leaped around whining about his cold feet.

She swept enough snow off the windshield, front and back, to let her see and crawled inside the car where she sat while trying to let it warm up. Not that it did much good. The heater seemed to be running on cool.

Jazzy kept jumping on her lap and Leigh repeatedly pushed him to the backseat where he at least had a blanket to curl up in.

The little Honda handled surprisingly well in snow. At least, it did with chains on the tires. She made it steadily out of the road in front of Gabriel’s to the secondary highway. Snow piled high on either side.

“Damn,” she muttered. Fat flakes hit the windshield again, all but obliterating the view ahead. She turned on the wipers and leaned forward, looking for the gas station.

When she saw it, she was relieved. Any sign of civilization was welcome in this weather. And lights inside showed they were available for what business came their way. Snow didn’t stop people around here. Remembering that made her feel brave all over again.

The first turn she came to was little more than a lane but she supposed it counted. Another two miles and she reached an unmarked road. Unmarked and unplowed.

She steered carefully around the corner then slowed to a stop. This visit to Phoebe should wait for another day.

The sooner she got home, the sooner she would be
alone to think about the shock Niles had given her that morning.

What did partnership mean to him?

He’d talked about really caring for her—more than caring. Her skin prickled and she felt too jumpy to think straight.

What did she feel for him?

She felt something, a lot. But was she thinking straight or simply reacting to a very attractive man who made her feel wanted and important? What was it about him that acted like a magnet? Maybe it was his having the chutzpah to come right out and say he wanted her. The expression on his face hadn’t suggested chutzpah, rather that laying it all out to her was costing everything he had in emotional reserve.