Cover Me (The Donovan Family Book 5) by Watson Margaret

Author:Watson, Margaret [Watson, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Dragonfly Press
Published: 2015-04-28T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

The chatter in his head woke him at three AM. Cilla was tucked in beside him, her head on his chest and her arm curled around him. He lay beside her, his eyes open, listening to her breathe, feeling the slow rise and fall of her chest. He wanted to snuggle into her, to fall back asleep with her in his arms. But he knew sleep wouldn't return until he quieted the noise.

He eased her head onto a pillow, missing her weight immediately. Untangled her arm. She murmured in her sleep, but didn't wake up. He brushed aside her heavy, silky hair, kissed her cheek, then slid out of bed.

Silently throwing on sweats and a hoodie, he hurried into the living room and booted up his computer. Franny raised her head from her bed, watched him for a long moment, then lowered it again. She'd seen him get up in the middle of the night and sit down at his desk the last time he watched her. She knew it didn't mean a walk was coming.

His fingers flew across the keys, the pictures from the hostage scene unspooling in his head. Everything else faded from his consciousness – the light in the courtyard, the dog close by, the woman in his bedroom.

All he saw was the tense, nervous officers. The SWAT team surrounding the house. The black van, hiding the hostage negotiator trying to make a happy ending.

He typed about the delicate dance hostage negotiators performed. Getting the HT to release his hostages. Getting him out of the house safely. Getting him help.

He wrote about the bond that negotiators forged with the HT, no matter how despicable they were. How their only goal was to get everyone out of the house without any violence. How they put everything they had into resolving the crisis without any casualties.

As he wrote, he thought about Cilla. About the exhaustion on her face as she'd walked toward him. The stiff, careful way she moved, as if she'd been sitting, tense and still, for far too long. Her clothes, rumpled and soaked with sweat. The scent from the inside of the van that had clung to her – old sweat, cold coffee, the yeasty, sour smell of a stale donut.

The toll her job had taken on her.

He changed some of the details. Made other things fuzzy. Put nothing in the story that could identify the neighborhood or anyone who'd been at the scene.

His hands moved faster as he wrapped up the blog entry. Finished with his usual line, paraphrased from some television series his parents watched when he was a kid. 'Stay safe out there.'

When he stretched, he bumped into someone. Cilla. He closed his eyes. In his writing fog, he'd forgotten all about her.

Forgotten everything except the words spilling out through his fingers.

As he looked over his shoulder at her, ready to apologize for abandoning her in his bed, she wrapped her arms around him. "Brendan." She pressed her mouth to his cheek.

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