Gabriel West Still the One Read online

  The last time she'd run away from anything, she'd been a child escaping an abusive father, but she felt like running now.

  Eight years ago, they'd both been young and the attraction that had flared between them had burned out of control from the beginning. They'd married quickly, and the marriage had fallen apart just as fast. West had been gone more often than not, and she'd never known where he was, when he'd be back or even if he'd be back. He'd been like a big hunting cat: remote and a little scary. His occupation as a sniper-team commander had defined him. He'd been almost frighteningly controlled and observant and meticulous about detail—but one detail had escaped him: their marriage.

  Even when they'd made love she'd had no sense of holding him beyond the tangible evidence of his physical presence at that moment—and their marriage certificate. When he was called away on an assignment, each time he'd shut her out as easily as he'd closed the door behind him when he left.

  She unclipped her seat belt, found the strap of her bag, hooked it over her shoulder and girded herself for the ordeal of getting herself out of the car. Apparently, according to her body, it was an intricate process involving the use of every muscle and nerve she owned.

  She pushed her door open, but before she could make a move, West was there, his hand extended.

  Without thinking she accepted his grip. His hand was warm, his hold firm, and she was instantly reminded of the way he'd steadied her last night; the sheer, shuddering relief when he'd magically appeared at the exact moment that she'd needed help.

  She'd tried to make light of the attack to Richard and Harrison by labeling it a mugging, not wanting to alarm them any further when they already had so much to worry about, but the swiftness and brutality of the attack had, quite frankly, terrified her.

  There had been a coldness—a level of calculation—that took it beyond a simple mugging, although maybe that was simply the shock talking. Maybe every mugging victim felt that the attack was personal. But whether she had been a specific target or a random one, she still felt cold inside at the possibilities if West hadn't intervened.

  He'd rescued her twice within the space of a few hours. Relationship issues aside, as a guardian angel his timing was perfect.

  Tyler unlocked her door and stepped into her apartment. West followed close behind. The air felt overly warm, and the apartment itself smelled slightly stuffy because it had been closed up for almost two days.

  There was mail on her kitchen counter, and she saw with relief that her kitten's bowl was full of cat biscuits and that there was a clean dish of water. Harrison must have rung Maia, a friend of Tyler's who lived in one of the other ground-floor apartments, and got her to feed Tiger and collect the mail.

  West carried her overnight bag into the lounge, then walked through to the kitchen, making the cosy room seem suddenly tiny. "Sit down and I'll get you a drink. You're out on your feet."

  Tyler debated refusing, but she was in no condition to refuse help, especially when lately she had done nothing but accept help from West.

  Her mind still skittered past the mystifying fact that after five years he wanted her at all—that he was committed to the point that he had actually moved into her building. It had all happened too quickly, but West's agenda, difficult to accept as it was, didn't frighten her. He might want her back, but wild as he'd been when she first met him, as lethal as she knew he must have been as a special forces soldier, she knew that she was intrinsically safe with him. He would never push the issue.

  She sank into an armchair in the lounge, listening to West in the kitchen, feeling boneless and slightly dozy. The codeine and the Voltaren she'd taken were finally kicking in, so that all she wanted to do was sink farther and farther into the chair.

  West brought her a cup of tea, which she sipped slowly while he opened the doors to her terrace and let fresh air in. He also must have opened the kitchen windows, because a delicious breeze flowed through the room. She watched through half-closed lids as he walked out onto the terrace, which was bathed in sunlight, the absence of shadows indicating that the day had slipped by, and it must be close to lunchtime. When he strode back inside, he paused beside a selection of bags that sat to one side of the room.

  She yawned and set the tea down. ‘‘I have an addiction. It's called shopping. Last week I was on a hair trigger."

  "What did you buy?"

  She looked at the bright assortment of bags. They'd been gathering dust for a week. Normally she loved sorting through her purchases, but in this case she'd gone late-night shopping the evening before the jade had been stolen. When she'd gotten home she'd simply dumped the packages, meaning to deal with them when she got in from work the next evening, but the next day they'd discovered the jade was missing and all hell had broken loose. Since then, she'd only been back to the apartment to sleep and had barely noticed the bags, let alone paid them any attention. She was barely able to remember what she'd bought.

  He pulled out a box, lifted the lid.

  She had bought shoes. Lots of them.

  She vaguely remembered that the reason she'd gone shopping was that the summer sales were on. It had only been last week, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

  His mouth kicked up at one corner. "What happened? You had a blackout experience, found yourself out on the street with the bags—your card seriously damaged? Or did the aliens abduct you?"

  The hint of amusement in his voice, his gaze, riveted her, and for a moment she wondered if she was imagining this conversation. "The aliens?" "The ones that make you go shopping." A smile tugged at her mouth, and she gingerly touched her fingers to her lips to stop her smile from getting too wide. Smiling hurt. "You know about shopping."

  He went down on his haunches next to the bags, began extracting boxes and opening them. "I like to shop."

  Next to killing people.

  She watched, dazed, as he dangled a strappy, candy-pink pair of high-heeled shoes from one lean brown finger. They had something in common.

  How come she hadn't remembered that? A man who not only liked to shop but who understood the blackout syndrome.

  If the news got out he'd be mobbed.

  West pulled out a pair of boxing gloves. "You box?"

  He met Tyler's gaze. In the afternoon sunlight her eyes were a cool, clear green. She looked pale, tousled, but very calm.

  An inner shift, fierce and possessive, made his spine tighten and his belly clench. He'd always loved her face, loved the delicate slant to her cheekbones, the strength in her jaw, but now he felt as if he were seeing her for the first time. He knew the pressures and strains that had hammered and reshaped him over the last five years. Covert work was an uneasy crucible—if the bad guys didn't get you, the stress did—but he had no idea what had shaped Tyler.

  The change was subtle, but powerful. He'd missed it before, because ever since he'd moved into the building, Tyler had avoided looking directly at him.

  She'd avoided him, period. And over the last few hours she'd been too hurt and too woozy to do anything more than survive the hospital process and the police interviews.

  He'd glimpsed the new inner toughness when she'd come to on the car-park floor after being hit last night. Now he could see it in her steady gaze, feel it in the calm strength that radiated from her. Tyler was female, but he was suddenly aware that that was only a detail. Gender aside, she was as fierce and extreme as any warrior.

  She picked up her cup of tea and cradled it between both hands. "I took up boxing a couple of years ago after a friend got attacked outside a nightclub. Billie can walk now, but she spent months in traction and even longer in rehab. At the time, the punch bag was therapeutic."

  West set the gloves down and rose to his feet; the reason she'd chosen boxing over more fashionable gym sports was clear. It was physical and immediate, a pure channel for aggression.

  He knew guys who did martial arts and guys who boxed. Without exception he would always want the boxer at his back in a fight because he knew the g
uy would have an edge over the purist martial arts expert. He would have the killer instinct. In Special Forces they were taught to integrate martial arts with boxing and street fighting. The rule was that any one technique wasn't the key; you just used what you had to to get the job done. If you could complete the mission without making any noise or harming anyone, so much the better, but if a bad guy fronted up doing judo and you had a gun, you pulled the gun and shot him.

  His gaze shifted to her scraped knuckles. "No wonder you broke the guy's jaw."

  She knew how to move, how to swing to give her punch maximum power. Respect for the way Tyler had defended herself settled in his stomach. The reason she'd bruised her hand so badly was because she'd punched as if she was gloved.

  He wondered which A&E the hurt guy had ended up in. Cornell would follow it up, but West would be right on his tail. "Do many people know you box?"

  "Harrison and Richard. I don't know that anyone else does. It's not something that comes up in conversations. Why?"

  West shrugged. "In an investigation, sometimes the most unlikely piece of information can help eliminate suspects and solve the crime. Those guys who attacked you last night got taken by surprise."

  "Maybe. Or maybe they discounted the fact that I could box. In any case, it still leaves a cast of thousands who could have mugged me. And the mugging investigation is turning out to be about as conclusive as the jade one."

  "Cornell's good, so is Farrell. Between the two of them they'll slice and dice the information until there's nothing left to learn, then they'll start making patterns. If anyone can find the thief, they can."

  There was a brief silence. "You don't believe I'm the thief?"

  West caught the hurt in the question, and his chest tightened. He'd known she was having a bad time. He also knew just what it was like to stand accused by people who were secure in their belief that even if he hadn't done the crime, he should do the time. "Cornell doesn't either. He's a good judge of character."

  She went very still, her face pale, and he swore beneath his breath. Cornell was good—there was no getting past it—but he was also ruthless. He'd left Tyler dangling because he was more likely to get details that she might otherwise overlook, or forget, if she was secure in the knowledge that Cornell believed her to be innocent.

  Tyler's doorbell chimed, the small sound breaking the tension.

  West straightened. "Stay there," he said grimly. "I'll get it."

  Tyler heard the low register of West's voice, then a lighter female voice.

  Maia breezed cheerfully into the lounge, rolling her eyes at West—who had followed on behind her—and clutching at her heart. She was dressed in workout gear, her holdall slung over her shoulder, boxing gloves just visible tucked in next to a towel.

  Maia was olive-skinned, gorgeous and happily single. She worked long hours as a chef at a Newmarket cafe" and kept cats instead of men. She said that, shedding fur aside, cats were clean and cuddly and low maintenance, as opposed to her ex. She'd made the naive mistake of marrying without a prenuptial agreement, and it had cost her her business. Two years AD, which stood for two years After Darren, she was finally approaching the point where she could invest in her own cafe again.

  She bent and hugged Tyler, exclaimed over the mugging and her stitches, and deposited another bundle of mail and a paper on the coffee table beside Tyler's chair.

  She examined Tyler's bruised knuckles. "Ouch!" You're supposed to work out, girl, not get worked over."

  Maia jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen, where West was drinking a glass of water at the counter, and whispered, "Who's that?"

  "Remember when we had that discussion about marriage?"

  She grinned. "Been there, done that. Can't remember most of it. Thank God.''

  "Well, that's my ex."

  Maia darted another look at West. She fanned herself. "Oh—my—God. No wonder you don't date."

  She stayed for a few more minutes, catching Tyler up to date on the latest goings-on in the building. How the Morgans, a middle-aged couple in 4A who had given up hope of ever having a child, were now expecting a baby, and how Mirna in 5D had decided at age sixty that she'd somehow missed out on the joy of a midlife crisis, and had promptly found herself a boyfriend who was ten years younger, and who drove a 'Vette.

  Maia glanced at her watch and halted in mid-flow, exclaiming that she was going to be late. She gave Tyler a final hug, then left for her gym appointment with a last eye-rolling glance at West.

  Tyler continued to sit in the chair. She felt utterly relaxed, bordering on floaty. She reached for her tea, and misjudged, her fingers brushing the pile of mail and sending it cascading onto the floor. The paper flopped half off the coffee table. Tyler caught it before it could slide onto the floor, glanced at the front page, and went cold inside.

  The small black-and-white was grainy, but there was no mistaking Sonny Mullane, her natural father. He was thinner, older, his hair sparser—gray instead of chestnut-brown—but still swept back from his forehead in a widow's peak. His nose looked larger and coarser, a consequence of the booze, but his dark eyes were just as sharp.

  She pulled the paper onto her lap. The article was situated at the bottom of the page, and was billed as a candid interview about his life with her. According to Sonny the welfare state had let them down, and they'd had to steal or starve. Now Tyler was living in the lap of luxury and poor old Sonny was a sickness beneficiary struggling to make ends meet.

  Tyler's jaw tightened. Odds were that he was using false identities and pulling in more than one welfare benefit. And with Sonny, food had always been secondary to the bottle; she was the only one who had ever gone hungry. Everything they'd owned had been converted into cheap sherry, until finally they'd been out on the streets, and Sonny had decided that he had one more commodity to sell—his eight-year-old daughter. Even at that young age, she'd known what would happen to her if she'd stayed with Sonny, and she'd frozen inside; she'd seen the prostitutes working in cars and back alleys.

  For as long as she could remember, she'd taken beating after beating from Sonny, but had clung to him, because in a hostile world, he was her only living relative. She'd spent time in hospital and in foster homes, but Sonny had always managed to get her back. This time she'd made sure he couldn't do that. When he'd come to get her, he'd been arrested, and on her testimony, he'd served a prison term. Shortly after that, Tyler had gone to live with the Laine family.

  She wondered how much the newspapers had paid him for the story. She stared at the bold headline, and her stomach knotted.

  Apparently, he'd taught her to steal.

  Chapter 7

  West skimmed the article, his gaze cold. ''How did they manage to track down your old man?"

  "Knowing Sonny, he would have knocked on their door." She rose to her feet, steadying herself against the arm of the chair. In the brief time that she had been sitting, all of her sore muscles had tightened, so that moving at all was painful. "If you don't mind, I'm going to lie down."

  He folded the paper. "I'm not leaving." "I'm perfectly okay now, I don't need—" His gaze glittered over her. "You're head-injured. Last night you were attacked in the car park. The press is hounding you, you've been followed, and someone's been phoning you—" "You heard."

  "Yeah, I caught that bit, and I'm glad I did. But even if I hadn't, I still wouldn't leave you on your own right now. Call it gut instinct, call it what you like, but I'm not leaving until I know you're safe. I've done a quick check of some of your window and door locks. They're adequate, but for a ground-floor apartment, they're not foolproof."

  Tyler's stomach tightened at West's certainty that she needed protection. His perceptions had always been uncannily sharp, and sometimes he had just known things—like who was phoning, or who was at the door. Once, he'd packed his gear to go away when he hadn't been due to go for several days. He'd gotten the call to leave in the middle of the night, and had been gone within minutes.

&nbs
p; Her jaw squared. Uneasy or not, she still didn't want him in her apartment overnight. "I can make you leave."

  West met her gaze flatly. "You and whose army? Call the cops if you like, but I'm staying the rest of the day—and the night. I'll sleep on the couch."

  Tyler closed the door of her room behind her and sagged against it. The thought that her own apartment wasn't secure, that she wasn't safe, shouldn't have shocked her. Richard had tried to make the same point earlier, but she'd cut him off, choosing instead to cling to the illusion of safety that her home represented.

  Like it or not, she was in trouble.

  Just how much trouble, she didn't know, but the list of things that had gone wrong for her lately was growing at a frightening pace, just when she'd finally reached a point in her life when everything should have been perfect.

  In her own mind she'd categorized all the events that had happened to her as separate misfortunes. Her suspicion that she had been followed and the coincidence of the phone calls happening at the same time had been eerie, but none of the instances had tied into any solid evidence that she was being stalked, certainly not enough to warrant a complaint to the police.

  The idea that someone could actually be stalking her was abruptly unreal, as unreal as her father stepping out of the past to take one more shot at selling his daughter.

  The grainy photo of her father rose up in her mind, making her stomach clench—an old reaction to an old fear. As attacks went, the media was the least of her problems, but the story had dug deep into her personal life, once more pushing home just how vulnerable and exposed she was to the press. The article had consisted of malicious gossip, outright lies and a small foundation of truth, but regardless of the content, it had done its damage.

  She had become a liability to Laine's.

  She had already decided that if the mystery of the jade theft wasn't solved and her credibility restored, she would resign.

  Harrison would argue. He was a gentleman to his bones and had encouraged her every step of the way with her studies and her career. When she'd gained her doctorate, he'd been fiercely proud of her. But losing the few years she'd dedicated to her career didn't come close to what was at stake for her family's business. Laine's dealt in artifacts and antiquities, but diamonds were where the real money was made. The business arena of the diamond trade was small, hugely wealthy, and utterly merciless. Any hint that Harrison Laine had lost his grip to the extent that he was continuing to employ a family member who was suspected of theft, and his lines of supply would dry up.