Page 59 of Ace
The little guy squeaked. It buzzed and stretched its wings, using them to balance on the double-folded cuff of his pocket. Junior was stronger now. He was capable. He wanted out.
Yet Keller couldn’t—wouldn’t—let Junior go, even though the little guy’s stiletto beak poked out betweenhis thumb and index finger. Just being protective,he told himself. Maybe it was time to let this tiny jewel do what it was made to do—fly away. Live. Maybe it was time he let Savannah go, too. But the second Junior zipped away, he’d be in unfamiliar territory. He’d get lost. The little thing didn’t belong in America. Junior needed to be returned home, where hummingbirds like him sparkled in the breeze as they zipped by. He wouldn’t last long in America, and Keller couldn’t let anything happen to his new buddy.
Carefully, he tucked Junior into the deepest part of his pocket, then buttoned it so the bird would be quiet and safe. Somehow that simple action assured him that Savannah was where she belonged too. She was safe. Away from him, but safe. Keller settled against the humming wall. Which struck him as ironic.Humming wall. Humming bird. Har dee, har, har.
Man, he was tapped, so tired he was getting rummy. He didn’t want to fall asleep again, yet the contraption RJ had rigged up would soon switch on and douse everything in this container with another batch of sleepy-time mist. Keller couldn’t let that happen.
The risk was real. Stay here on his butt—which his body ached to do—and be unprepared when that rolling door opened. Or get off his lazy ass, break the door open, breathe in a gut full of fresh air, then locate whatever gizmo activated RJ’s special recipe. Dismantle or activate it, Keller still wasn’t sure. On the one hand, the living things in this container with him deserved to breathe. On the other hand, waking them before he could set them free would conclude in mass death. Theycouldn’t breathe if they were awake while still wrapped in stifling paper, could they? They might panic and hurt themselves trying to get free. He couldn’t have that. Keller opted to err on the side of caution. There was no way he could open all these crates to free everything anyway, and there wasn’t sufficient room inside the container if he did. It would be kinder to keep the birds and animals, if there were any, drugged.
Keller’s head throbbed with a monstrous migraine, but he shook it off. He had work to do and soldiering on was what Rangers did. They didn’t whine and cry like a bunch of pansy-assed snowflakes. Hell, no. They fought back and they won. Every. Time.
Okay then. Keller squared his shoulders, ready for a fight. Knowing RJ, the activation switch that released the gas wouldn’t be complex. Probably just a simple toggle switch attached to a receiver, running off a double A battery. Whatever. Keller knew he could easily jury rig something to activate from ground level. That way he could keep the birds and other creatures safely anesthetized until help arrived to transport them to safety. But first…
He needed a breath of fresh air.
Chapter Thirty-One
‘I wish you’d waited until I got back to you,’Isaiah told Savannah mentally as she sped along the interstate across Lake Pontchartrain. Her inner sense of Keller had turned back on in her head. He’d gone to speak with RJ this morning, but he wasn’t at RJ’s clinic now. He was somewhere ahead of her. East of her. That much she knew, so she’d packed up her dogs, and she’d gone after him. Waiting was not an option.
‘I couldn’t. I can sense him now. He’s moving farther away from me.’
‘But he’s in the air, Savannah. Keller was trapped in a convoy of four trucks the last time we spoke, but those trucks stopped at an airfield in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, hours ago. The containers are now on a cargo jet. He’s been in the air over an hour.’
Well, darn. Savannah ran a hand over her face, flustered that she’d wasted time going nowhere, just asflustered she’d wasted time waiting for Keller to come back when he was so far gone.‘When your boss said convoy, I thought I could just… Never mind. You’re right. My fault. I should’ve waited.’
Still in his Georgetown hospital bed with Roxy by his side nursing their son, Isaiah was acting as Savannah’s go-between with his boss, Special Agent Tucker Chase and another FBI agent, Eden Winchester. But it was no wonder Keller disliked working with them. They were all mind-reading psychics, all capable of mentally contacting and communicating with each other, while he didn’t have a telepathic bone in his body. Apparently, neither did Savannah. Chagrined, she aimed for the nearest exit to turn around.
‘I’m sorry. My fault. I should’ve talked with you before now. Keller’s heart rate is still quite low,’Isaiah said.‘That must be why you weren’t able to hone in on him before.’
‘I can only see things through his mind.’Darn it. ‘Wherever he is, it’s dark, but he’s not in pain, and he’s not uncomfortable. I get the feeling he’s not alone, either. Someone or something is with him, only I keep losing the connection. It’s like he’s drifting in and out of consciousness.’
‘Which he probably is. Sorry, Savannah. Keller was in touch with my boss when he became trapped in the container. Fortunately, he was transmitting video when he blacked out. Tuck saw it. Mr. John used some kind of sleeping gas on those crates.’
‘Dr. John,’Savannah corrected.‘Rudy John. He’s a general practitioner. He was Gran Mere’s doctor.’Buthe was most definitely not her friend.‘What’s in the crates?’
Isaiah took a measured breath before he told her,‘According to Keller, exotic hummingbirds, possibly other smuggled animals, too. There are nearly a thousand crates in that one container, and there were four trucks in the convoy. This is a huge illegal shipment. Tuck checked out the photo Keller sent. The bird is called a Marvelous Spatuletail, it’s one of the rarest hummingbird species in the world. It only lives in the Rio Utcubamba Valley, high in the Andes of northern Peru. Apparently, there’s a huge conservation effort to save these birds. Because of Keller’s good detective work, the Bureau’s now working with the Division of Fish and Wildlife to seize the shipment. We’ve been after Fontenette for years on other charges, but Keller might just have found the way to finally bring him down.’
‘He is dedicated,’Savannah said. That much she knew for certain. Keller lived to serve.
‘That he is. Let me know what else is going on with him.’
‘I will.’
But Savannah felt worse now that she’d connected with Keller. After the way he’d held her last night, she’d been so sure he loved her, that he just didn’t know how to say it. Guess not. Because now she also sensed she was fighting a losing battle by loving a man who wanted her, yet was convinced he wasn’t good enough. Even as groggy as Keller was, he still transmitted strong undercurrents of honorable doubt that included himleaving her. Foolish man, thinking he knew better than she did.
Yet he’d been so deeply hurt when Carol Marie passed away that something inside him was broken. Savannah got that, but for the first time since she’d fallen for him, she wasn’t certain she could save this damaged beast.You can’t make someone love you.
She’d never been in a relationship with a man like him before, and teenage romances didn’t count. This was a fiercely different thing, loving an adult male who’d survived a nightmare childhood, then created an entirely new nightmare by joining the Army and running headlong into war. Burying himself in protective, macho layers of military armor, pride, and male ego that distanced himself from everyone not in that raw, wild brotherhood who’d sworn to die for each other. What civilian—what woman—could compete with a bond built on lives freely given? On blood spilled for love of the warrior at your side?
She honestly didn’t know. Maybe Keller was right. Maybe it was time to admit they really were worlds apart. It made sense. War was all he’d ever known. He’d developed a keen sense of survival since he was a baby. How could he not? He knew how to fight with his entire soul—just not how to love.
It was that sense of internal anguish she’d zeroed on the moment she’d opened Gran Mere’s door. Just as his empathy had reached out to comfort her, Savannah’s aptitude for comforting those around her snagged him at first sight. Likedidattract like. That muchwastrue. That much she knew.
Okay then.Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?She just had to persuade Keller to let down his defenses and try a little harder, to let her love him a little longer. A little better. That was what this badassed, scarred, banged-up warrior needed. That was who could rescue him from himself, someone strong enough to always be there for him at the end of the day. And that someone was her.
He’d never quit fighting the good fight, and Savannah didn’t want him to change, not for her. They were strong empaths. They could be good together. But every warrior needed a safe place to hide when his daily battle was over. Some place safe and dark where he could lick his wounds and know for certain that someone would be waiting there just for him. To feed him and wash away the grime and blood from his handsome body. To listen. To hold him when he cried. To love him with all her heart.
‘I’m worried,’she confided to Isaiah.‘I’m not sure Keller knows how to let down his defenses long enough for anyone to speak psychically with him. He’s blocking me even though he’s passed out.’
