Maya Banks - Hidden Away

“Sarah, goddamn it, listen to me!”

She closed the phone and turned it off so he couldn’t call back. She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

She had no idea where she was going or what she’d do when she got there, but she couldn’t stay here. She could never come back.

“I’m so sorry, Marcus. It should have been me who killed him,” she whispered.

GARRETT Kelly came awake with a start, his muscles tense, sweat beading his brow. His breaths came in rapid, harsh huffs. For a moment he lay there, his unfocused gaze sliding across the window to the darkness beyond.

Explosions echoed in his ears. The staccato of gunfire made him flinch, and the smell of blood and burning flesh assaulted his nostrils, making them flare as his breaths tore from his lungs.

God.

He shook his head and raised his hand to scrub the sleep from his eyes. His shoulder protested, and he snarled with impatience at the ache, which still nagged. He rolled and sat up in bed, planting his feet on the floor. He stayed there, head hanging toward his knees, sucking in air like some pantywaist in basic training about to puke his guts up after a twomile run.

It pissed him off when past memories ambushed him. He’d gone a long time without the images that interrupted his sleep. For some reason, after taking a bullet for his sister-in-law, he’d had a harder time sleeping. His consciousness seemed more vulnerable to things he’d shut out.

He cast a sideways glance at the clock. He wouldn’t be going back to sleep and everyone would be up in an hour anyway. Maybe a run would clear his head and get his blood flowing again.

With a sigh, he hit the shower and turned it cold to shake the cobwebs and the lingering smell of blood. After he was dried off and dressed, he walked quietly down the hall and out the front door.

It was still dark when he started off down the winding road that paralleled the lake. He ran farther this morning, pushing himself beyond his normal routine. He could still hear the explosions and still hear his teammates. He closed his eyes and increased his pace until his lungs screamed and his side ached.

It was over. A lifetime ago. He needed to get over it. He had gotten over it. All this R and R was for the birds. It had only served to make him lazy and idle. Fuck it. He wanted back in. A mission. Something besides all this goddamn free time.

By the time he returned to the house, he was sucking serious wind. The sky had lightened to shades of lavender and a diamond-sized star hung stubbornly over the lake, blanketed in the soft hues of dawn. He stood on the dock staring over the water—smooth, not a single ripple disturbing the surface—and breathed the clean, unspoiled air.

He let the peace of home and the lake he loved envelop him until all the noises of the past dulled and receded.

SWEAT beaded Garrett’s brow as he completed his last pull-up. He held himself, chin hovering above the bar, until his muscles rolled and contorted and his shoulder burned. His lips thinned and nostrils flared. When his arms began shaking, he dropped to the floor and palmed the scar on his shoulder.

Impatient with the twinge of discomfort that still plagued him, he dropped down and began a series of push-ups. He forced everything from his mind but the goal of complete recovery—a process that had already taken too long for his liking.

After yesterday morning’s run and a full day of PT, he’d slept marginally better last night than he had the night before. But he still couldn’t rid himself of the lingering images of his dreams. Dreams that hadn’t haunted him in some time but now seemed determined to shove themselves back to the forefront of his consciousness.

“Hey, man.”

Garrett extended his arms to hold his position and turned to see his brother Donovan standing in the doorway to the basement.

“Why the hell are you interrupting my workout?”

“Resnick’s paying us a visit. Should be here in the next few.”

Garrett sighed and hopped to his feet. He rose and picked up the towel he’d tossed on the couch and wiped the sweat from his face. “What the hell does he want?”

“He didn’t say. But you know he wouldn’t come out here unless he wanted something.”

“Doesn’t anyone use the goddamn phone anymore?”

Donovan chuckled. “I’ll be over in the war room. A word of warning. Sophie’s on a tear in the kitchen.”

Garrett groaned. His very pregnant sister-in-law had been nesting furiously in the last week. She’d already cleaned the house top to bottom, and her next project was cooking enough food to outlast Armageddon.

Since marrying Sam, she’d bullied everyone into family time. They were her family now—as she liked to constantly remind them—and they would eat as a family, which meant everyone at the table, all accounted for, on time. The only excuse for missing a meal was hospitalization.

Garrett and his brothers indulged her because family was the one thing she’d always lacked. At first she’d been overwhelmed and cautious with the very large Kelly family, but then she embraced them all and took to her new life like a duck to water.

As he climbed the stairs from the basement, he rolled his shoulder, testing the wound. It had been months since he left the hospital, and it still wasn’t healed to his satisfaction. He had residual soreness when he worked out, but if he went more than a day without pushing the exercises, it got stiff.

He was still rotating his arm when he got into the living room. Sophie looked up from the stove and frowned. “Is your shoulder still bothering you?”

Not waiting for his answer, she hurried around the corner—as fast as a woman in her condition could—and stood in front of him. Her belly protruded, nearly bumping into his hip. She looked about thirteen months’ pregnant—not that he’d tell her that.

“I’m fine, Soph,” he said good-naturedly.

“You’ve been working out again. Should you be pushing yourself so hard?”

He rolled his eyes and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “I’m fine. It’s never going to get to one hundred percent unless I strengthen it.”

Her blue eyes clouded and she briefly looked away. He sighed. She was the reason he’d taken the bullet, and she was also the only one determined not to forget that fact. He tugged at her hair just to annoy her, and when she looked back at him, he scowled.

Her sadness lasted all of two seconds. Her shoulders started shaking and her lips split into a wide smile. “Okay, okay,” she said, putting her hands up as she backed away. “I’ll stop the guilt and the mother hen act.”

“Yeah, save it for the kiddo.”

She walked back into the kitchen and he followed, sniffing the air.

“What are you cooking? It smells good.”

“I think the question is, what am I not cooking.” She gestured at the table, which had food scattered over the entire surface. It looked like a mad chef had butchered a cow and an entire garden. “I’m making lasagna to freeze, chicken and dumplings, a few casseroles and a gumbo. You hungry?”

He rubbed his stomach. “I could eat.”

She checked her watch. “Lunch will be on the table in an hour.”

“You’re going to make me wait an hour?” he asked in horror.

She raised an eyebrow. “If I let you eat then Donovan and Sam would want to eat and then there’d be no one to have lunch with when it’s time.”

“You’re a cruel, cruel woman,” Garrett complained. “I don’t know why Sam puts up with you.”

Her look said she wasn’t impressed with his whining.

“Speaking of Sam, where is he?”

Sophie peered over the pot and sniffed. “He went over to the office with Donovan. They had some calls to make. Sam said the contractors were supposed to break ground on the helipad at the compound today.”

Garrett shook his head at her insistence on calling it the “office.” “I’m headed over to the war room now. What are we having for lunch? Do I get to pick since I’m injured?”

“Oh now you want to be all pitiful,” she muttered. “I suppose. What would you like?”

He grinned. “I’ll take chicken and dumplings. Good comfort food for someone in my condition.”

He turned to go but swiped a bite of the chicken she’d deboned and left in a flurry of threats to kick his ass.

Chuckling, he crossed the driveway to the building on the lot adjacent to the house. It had a stark look, completely in contrast to the homey log cabin that he and his brothers lived in, nestled on the banks of Kentucky Lake. It was square and imposing looking with grey cement-steel reinforced walls, no windows and a security system—thanks to Donovan’s technical expertise—the CIA couldn’t get into. Which was funny, considering the CIA would be arriving any moment now.

He punched in the access code and entered when the door slid open. Donovan was sitting in front of Hoss, the computer—the love of his life—and Sam was standing behind Donovan, reading off the screen.

He’d actually miss this place when construction was complete on the KGI compound he and his brothers had designed. They all liked to give Sam shit about his paranoia, but the truth was Garrett thought it was a damn good idea. He wanted his family protected. Especially after all that had happened in the months before, when his mom had been abducted.

If moving KGI to a secure, state-of-the-art facility would ensure that all the Kellys would be better protected, then Garrett was ready to make the move yesterday. The problem was, such a massive undertaking was going to take time. It would be months before everything would be complete.

“So what’s up Resnick’s ass?” he asked as he ambled over to his brothers.

Sam turned. “Dunno. He called, said he was about twenty minutes out. He sounded agitated.”

“When doesn’t he sound agitated? He’s an uptight son of a bitch.”

Donovan turned in his chair, looked at Sam and then both burst into laughter.

“What?” Garrett demanded.

Sam shook his head. “Hello, pot. Calling kettle uptight?”

Garrett flipped up his middle finger as he turned away and plopped onto the couch. Whatever Resnick wanted, it couldn’t be good. The last time they’d seen him in person was when all the shit went down with Sophie. He’d been quiet since. Just the way Garrett liked him. Trouble always followed in Resnick’s wake.

Sam followed and slouched on the other end of the couch. “Mom is having a party for Rusty, and she’s made it clear the entire family is to attend.”

Garrett sighed. “What’s the party for? Her staying out of trouble for a month?”

Donovan snorted and resumed typing on his keyboard.

“It’s to celebrate the start of her senior year in school. And you have to hand it to the twerp, she’s done well since Mom took her in hand and made her sit her ass in class.”

Garrett grunted. Okay, yeah, the girl their mom had taken in—another of the strays Marlene Kelly was so famous for—had shaped up despite having a piss-poor attitude and a mouth to match. But Garrett wasn’t into being all congratulatory for doing what she should be doing anyway, which was take responsibility and act like an adult.

“Jesus, they’ll probably be buying her a car next,” he muttered.

“Already did,” Donovan called out.

At that Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “They did? When did this happen?”

“I talked to Mom earlier and she said Dad was out car shopping. It’s supposed to be a surprise for this party they’re throwing,” Donovan said.

Sam closed his eyes and Garrett shook his head. “Christ. That’s just what we need. A crazy-ass teenager with her own car. I hope to hell they insure her out the yin yang. She’ll get into a wreck and Mom and Dad will be sued and living on the streets in a month’s time.”

“We can always count on you to find the bright side in everything,” Sam said dryly.

Silence fell and Garrett leaned his head back, closing his eyes. Between the haphazard sleep and two days of extended workouts, he was wiped.

“You sleeping okay?” Sam asked.

Garrett opened his eyes and turned his head to see his brother watching him with a thoughtful expression. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Sophie said you’ve been up a lot.”

Garrett scowled. Definite drawback to living in a damn commune. “If she wasn’t up going to the bathroom fourteen times a night, she wouldn’t know I wasn’t sleeping.”

Sam chuckled but then he sobered. “Stuff bothering you, man?”