Tempest - Kris Michaels Page 0,25

What were they talking about? Oh right, the substation. "Then how do you know it blew up?"

He chuckled as he worked behind the bar. "Let's call it a trade secret." He opened several cabinets under the bar. "That will work."

What? What will work? She pushed up with her good hand, trying to see over the lip of the bar. "What are you doing? And what kind a trade blows things up?"

"I'm making an ice pack for your foot." He waved a bag as he leaned back to look under the bar. "Several trades utilize demolitions. Do you ever stop asking questions?" He disappeared behind the bar.

"No, I'm a lawyer. It's what I do. I can't think of even one occupation which uses explosives."

"You're sheltered, then. Woodford Reserve or Maker's Mark?"

"I am not sheltered. Maker's Mark, and name three."

"Only three? The military, oil well riggers, and civil engineers." He rounded the bar with two glasses and the ice bag in his hand. He put the bag and one glass on the table and handed her the other glass. "Be right back."

She watched him walk away and shook her head. The health and vibrancy of the man in her rooms now was nothing like the skeletal ghost she remembered. He came back with a hand towel and wrapped the ice bag in the towel before gently positioning the ice around her abused little toe. "Please, tell me why you're here."

He sat down on the coffee table and grabbed his bourbon. "Three years ago, you saved my life."

"I wish I could have done more." She shifted her eyes from him to the drink in her hand.

He reached forward and tipped up her chin. The warmth of his fingers sent a shiver through her cold, stressed body. He took her bourbon and set it on the table.

"You saved me. Not the email you sent, although, yes, it initiated my rescue, but you gave me the will to keep going. I'd given up."

"Why did she do that to you? What is your name? Why did you come here?" She gripped his wrist with her good hand and stared into his eyes. "Who are you?"

Tempest let his hand fall from her beautiful face but intertwined his fingers with hers. The way her small hand fit inside his was imprinted on his mind. The softness of her skin compared to his rougher work-hardened hands provided a demarcation between her life and his. A difference he couldn't deny. Not any longer. He stared at her ivory colored skin against his tanned darker complexion. "All very good questions, and I will answer them, but first I need information."

She extended her injured hand and carefully touched his cheek. "Tell me your name first."

His gaze traveled to those blue eyes. She stared up at him, and he was powerless to do anything but smile. Just as he remembered her. Wide-eyed curiosity melded with innocence, but he could sense the inner iron of her indomitable will. The beauty he remembered and yet she'd changed, too. There was a resolve, a hardness which hadn't been there three years ago. "My name is Luke. Luke Wagner."

She smiled and dropped her hand slowly. "Nice to meet you. Now tell me why you lost your mind and came back into chum-riddled, shark infested waters?"

He smiled at her. "I can see why you're a good lawyer."

She raised her eyebrows. "Faulty logic. Being tenacious does not make me a good lawyer."

He shook his head. "No, but being tenacious, smart and a survivor does."

"Survivor?" The question drifted between them. "The term doesn't fit me or my situation."

"I disagree. Your mother is putting you in an impossible position. Your note indicated things had gotten worse?"

She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. "I can't discuss it."

"Because of your ethics, not hers."

"I gave my oath." She gave a humorless laugh. "I'm not as good as you'd like to believe. If I could find a way to get the information I know about her to an agency that could act on it without implicating me as a source, I'd dump everything on them and watch as she landed in jail. Unfortunately, if she goes down, I will too. I know too much. I've been told too much, seen too much, to be considered innocent, and that's as she wants it."

He leaned forward. "What if I told you I'm part of an agency that could help?"

She snorted a laugh. "Right. The FBI, NSA, CIA or even Homeland couldn't make such a guarantee,