Hell. He had to get out of Silver Valley as quickly as he could. Something about this place had wrapped around him, gotten under his skin.
And they’d never been properly introduced.
“Here you go, Mr. Turner.” Portia handed the neatly folded pile of bed linens and towels to the man, still bundled up in his worn puffer down coat that she’d bet was from circa 1995. But it still kept him warm, and that was all that mattered. Still, she was glad he was at the mission tonight.
“Thank you, Portia. You’re very kind.”
“Just doing my job.”
“They give you a raise yet?” He winked at her from behind his thick eyeglasses as he turned to head to his assigned bed. Mr. Turner, as well as most of the clients, she’d assume, knew who the volunteers were. The paid shelter workers included a social worker and counselor, as well as an accountant and grant writer, and were the ones who could get prescriptions filled as needed, medical care when warranted.
As much as Portia remained committed to her time here, she knew her vocation was in library science. Neither social work nor grant writing appealed to her. Her passion lay with seeing patrons find the book that they’d searched for, or a child figuring out that a novel was way better than the film version of their favorite story.
When she walked through the dining room, en route to the library, she couldn’t escape the feeling she was being watched. Plain silly, as of course there were several pairs of eyes on her. Several different groups of people gathered around the family-style tables, drinking coffee or tea or hot chocolate. Alcohol and illegal drugs were strictly prohibited at the shelter, but she wouldn’t be surprised if some of the hot drinks were spiked.
Portia ignored the urge to sit at one of the tables and find out more about the clients. Her shift was more than half over and she hadn’t even started on the library. Before she left the dining area, though, she decided to get a cup of tea. The hot water urn was too tempting to pass up on such a cold night. Even with the house heated, the modern heating units couldn’t keep up with the windchill. She pulled a bag of ginger tea from her pocket, ripped open the envelope and dunked the sachet into a thick paper cup. As she watched the boiling water turn golden, the creepy sense of being observed crawled up her back, her neck, and made her scalp tingle. This wasn’t her introverted self being aware of the night’s clients watching her. It was more.
Portia kept her back to the dining area, where at least twenty people sat around. The hum of their conversations hadn’t waned, so it wasn’t as if everyone had gone quiet and was staring at her, waiting for her to turn around and face them for an unknown reason. She heard the rush of liquid through the overhead piping, indicating that several overnight visitors were taking advantage of hot running water. Yet she couldn’t shake her awareness of being watched in an unfriendly way.
Keeping her movements as casual as possible, she squeezed the tea bag with the paper envelope and threw it out. Hot drink in both hands, she turned carefully toward the door. As she neared the library’s entrance, she risked a quick glance about the room. First she swept the dining room at large. No one paid her any attention. Same with the people chatting in various easy chairs and sofas around the perimeter of the room.
Except for one man, who was sitting in the club chair next to the library entrance. He wasn’t looking at her now; in fact, he’d looked away the second her gaze hit him. But not quickly enough. Not before she saw the flash of familiar gray eyes that gave away more than the fact they were watching her.
Her stomach flipped and her body froze. The man who’d rescued her was sitting Right. Here. Right. Now.
Impossible. This man in front of her had shaggy, dirty hair. He appeared filthy, from his worn clothing to the grime under his nails, lying casually atop the chair’s upholstered arms.
Yet he had the same cut to his chin, the cleft almost as mesmerizing as his unusual eyes. Portia tried to make her legs move, tried to think and get herself to where she needed to be. But the shelter library’s usual lure of a peaceful couple of volunteer hours was nothing compared to figuring out how the hell the man who’d rescued her this afternoon had managed to invade her every thought.
She shook her head and blinked. Forced her gaze elsewhere. Moved one foot in front of the other until she was in the safety of her beloved books. And away from the man who’d rattled her.
She set her tea down and noticed her hands were trembling. So not like her. Maybe she’d hit her head and didn’t remember it? But the EMTs, and then the ER staff, would have found a lump during their examination of her, wouldn’t they have? Unless she’d had no swelling but in fact had a concussion, or maybe even a hematoma. That was it—she had a hematoma and was about to have a brain bleed.
What else could explain the way her body had reacted to a complete stranger earlier today, a stranger who’d saved her freaking life? And how else to explain her reaction just now, to a homeless man who had nothing to do with what she’d been through? Self-recrimination slammed against her conscience. It was one thing to indulge in harmless fantasy at her own expense. But she’d just mistaken a homeless patron of the shelter, someone who came here out of extreme need, someone with a backstory that had to be pretty ugly to bring them to this point in circumstance, for a man she had an inexplicable draw to. A man she didn’t even know.
Portia began to sort and stack the piles of books that were laid out on the few tables scattered around the small room. Maybe keeping her focus on what she knew would bring her sanity back. Otherwise she was going to have to return to the ER. And what would she tell them? That an unexpected attraction to a complete stranger, at the most terrifying moment of her life, was messing with her normally organized, methodical thoughts?
Kyle thought once, twice, three times about giving up and walking into the shelter’s makeshift library and telling Portia DiNapoli who he was, what he was doing. Or at least offer a more broad-stroke explanation and tell her he was working with SVPD. ROC’s presence in Silver Valley wasn’t classified, and in fact only the details of his case were. But he stopped himself. Portia had been through enough. She was an innocent civilian in all of this, and any further contact with her invited trouble. He’d never forgive himself if her involvement with him in any way led to harm, or worse. This was an aspect of the case he’d not counted on: finding out that he cared for a woman he barely knew. And it wasn’t just a sexual attraction, though that was front and center. There was something potent between him and Portia, something he’d never experienced with anyone else.
She’d recognized him, he was certain. And worse, by the way she’d halted midstep and locked her attention on to him, he suspected she felt it, too. The most surprising and intense awareness that seemed to connect them in a way he sure couldn’t explain.
He grabbed another cup of coffee and headed to the middle of the dining room. He may as well use his time as he always did: listening for any indications of another heroin drop, or notice that another large commercial goods shipment was en route. As he pulled out a chair, he saw a dark shape flit across the frosted windows that lined the back wall of the room. Normally they overlooked a well-kept garden and yard, judging from the photos he’d found online. But in the current winter, it looked like a frozen tundra. The other night, he’d marveled at the way the moon reflected across the crystalline snowpack. But tonight the windows were foggy from the large amount of folks and need for increased heating in the shelter. The motion detector lights had lit up, allowing him to see the quick-moving shadow. His gut raised the alarm, clenching as it always had in Afghanistan, telling him that an attack or explosion was imminent. He’d never questioned his body’s third eye of sorts—it was something he’d had as a kid, growing up in a less than desirable neighborhood in San Jose until his father bought an almond farm, and had only grown sharper