“Come on,” she hissed, and yanked at the unyielding bars again, knowing it was futile but unable to make herself stop trying. “Come on!”
Behind her, beyond the bathroom door, the fighting sounds abruptly cut off.
Gabby froze. She strained to hear what was happening out there, needing to know who’d won.
She heard only silence, followed by the sound of footsteps in the bedroom.
Ty would’ve called her name, right? He would’ve said something to let her know he was okay.
Unless he wasn’t okay.
No, Gabby thought as the footsteps paused and she heard the sound of her closet door opening and clothes hangers being slid aside on their metal bar. Oh, no. Her fingers fell away from the window grate and her throat clenched until only a trickle of oxygen got through.
The footsteps resumed, drawing nearer.
A weapon. She needed a weapon.
Nearly wheezing with fear, she groped near the wall until her fingers found a smooth plastic shaft, like a length of pipe. She closed her fingers and tested its weight, then decided it would have to do.
A click of metal on metal signaled the turn of the bathroom knob. Gabby braced herself and raised her weapon.
The door opened. She screamed as loud as she could, and attacked. She lunged toward the sound and swung, yelling, “Get out of my house, you bastard!”
Her first blow missed the intruder and slammed into the wall. The impact sang up her arms and numbed her fingertips, but she couldn’t stop now. When she heard a rustle of cloth and felt motion nearby, she yelled again and swung.
This time she connected with flesh. She felt the blow land, heard a man curse.
Then he grabbed her, banding one strong arm around her torso and clapping the other across her mouth. “Shh! Quiet. Knock it off!”
She swung and connected with the back of his head. He swore and shook her. “What is wrong with you? Can’t you see—” Then he broke off. “It’s Ty, Gabby. It’s Ty. You’re okay.”
He repeated the reassurance a few more times, but she’d already stopped struggling, letting herself go limp in his grasp as his words played through her mind. Can’t you see?
No, I can’t, damn it. Anger spurted—at him, at whoever had broken into her house, her sanctuary. But beneath the heat of rage was another warmth—the feeling of being held in a man’s arms. In Ty’s arms.
That last thought shouldn’t have mattered. He’d lied to her, damn it. He’d used her emotions to pursue a lead. It hadn’t been about romance for him. It’d been the job.
Trouble was, her body didn’t seem to care.
“Shh,” he whispered against her temple, his breath ruffling her hair. “I think he’s gone, but I’m not positive. I needed to make sure you were okay before I went after him.”
They were pressed back to front, with the solid wall of his chest braced against her shoulders, the strong columns of his thighs touching intimately against the backs of hers.
Seeming to realize it, he shifted away and loosened his grip on her body. “You done screaming?”
She nodded against the hand that still covered her mouth. When he released her, she said, “Sorry, I thought you were…whoever that was.”
“I know. Lock yourself in here while I search the house.”
“Wait.” She put out a hand and touched his forearm, which was warm and solid beneath a layer of cotton shirt. “Does this mean you believe that I’m not involved with the man you’re looking for?”
There was a long pause before he said, “I haven’t decided yet.” Then he exhaled. “The mess out there certainly strengthens your case, except for two things.”
“What things?”
He turned away from her, distance muffling his voice. “For one, I don’t get how he’d know to toss your place while we met, unless he knew about the meeting.”
“Maybe he was following you,” she said, but that wouldn’t have worked with the timing. “Even better, maybe he’s monitoring your e-mail.” She shrugged. “I could do it.” Right about now she was wishing she’d back-hacked his account and taken a look. It would’ve saved her a little bit of heartache and a whole lot of embarrassment.
It might’ve saved her computer, too. If she’d told him to take a hike when he first started e-mailing her…she would’ve missed some very good times, she admitted, and hated him for the truth of it.
Why couldn’t he have been the man he’d pretended to be?
“We can talk about it later,” he said, and for a moment she thought he meant they could talk about the so-called romance they’d conducted. Then she realized he was talking about whether she was involved in the vice president’s kidnapping, and reality returned with a vengeance.
Her house had been ransacked. She’d been chased into her own bathroom. Ty had been attacked in her bedroom. For all they knew, their attacker was still out there.
“Take this.” She pressed her bludgeon into his hand.
There was a short pause, then a snort. He returned the weapon, and there was a thread of laughter in his voice when he said, “I’ve got a gun. You keep the toilet plunger.”
TY’S AMUSEMENT was short-lived, though. Once he was back out in Gabby’s bedroom, sweeping the flashlight to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he was all business. He wasn’t thinking about the blazing fury that’d pounded in his chest as he’d struggled with the intruder, or the way Gabby’s curves had felt nestled against him.
Or if he was thinking those things, he shoved them deep inside, where the emotions couldn’t distract him from the most important things, couldn’t deflect him from the job.
“Where are you, Liam?” he said quietly as he worked his way out of the bedroom and back down the hall, retracing the path he’d taken only minutes earlier, though it felt like he’d aged a year in that brief space of time when he’d thought Gabby was gone.
Focus, Tyler, his father’s voice said in Ty’s head. Keep your mind in the game.
And though Colonel Jones had been speaking about high school sports, and the words had come long before Ty had followed family tradition by enlisting, the advice held true now.
It was past time for Ty to focus on his priorities—finding Liam, liberating Grant Davis and neutralizing the bomb threat. It wasn’t about the woman. It had, quite possibly, never been about her.
Ty searched the house, flashlight and gun both held at the ready, but there was no sign of the intruder, and the streets outside were dark and deserted.
Convinced the place was clear, he returned to the ransacked bedroom and knocked quietly on the bathroom door. “Gabby? It’s okay. You can come on out. I need to ask you a few questions.” Like what was missing. Who she thought had been in her house.
And why the break-in had coincided with their rendezvous in a courtyard down the street.
The door opened and Gabby stood at the threshold for a moment, lit by the warm yellow beam of his flashlight. Her chin was up and defiant, her pale eyes clear. That, coupled with her lovely hair, which gleamed even in the feeble light, combined to make her seem ethereal. Magical. More, somehow, than the woman he’d imagined during their late-night conversations, when the line between lies and reality had begun to blur.
Focus!
Ty scowled. “Look, I think we need to get something straight here. I never—”
The digital ring of his handheld interrupted,