Opposing Forces Read online

  Eleven more days.

  “But since we’re on the subject,” Vic said, “it wouldn’t kill you to be spontaneous every once in a while.”

  “I don’t like spontaneous.”

  “Really? Shocking.”

  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

  Lynx let go of the bar and popped to a standing position. At six foot five Vic had four inches on him, but Lynx knew how to get large with someone without needing bulk. He folded his arms.

  “I got an hour before my meeting. Let’s make it peaceful. Yes, I should get out and have fun. You know what I’m doing. Don’t fuck with my head. I have a plan. That plan requires me to stick to a routine. No slip-ups. No emotional upheavals. No aggravating friends breaking my balls because I like to keep a schedule. Now, are you gonna shut up and spot me?”

  Vic waved both hands at him. “I’m not the one running my mouth and wasting time.”

  Assuming his point had been made, Lynx dropped to the weight bench again.

  Behind the bench, Vic waited for him to start his set. “All I’m saying—”

  “I don’t care what you’re saying. And tell Gina to stop hinting at fix-ups.”

  “You’ll have to have that conversation with my wife. She’s on a mission to find you a woman and I’m not getting in the middle of it.”

  Lynx took a breath, held it a second and heaved the bar. His muscles groaned at the added weight, but he exhaled and fully extended his arms. He made it to eight reps before his arms quivered and he set the bar down.

  Unaided. Not bad.

  “I don’t want to insult her.”

  “Then stop coming to my house for dinner every Friday night. She thinks you’re lonely. Why else would a successful single guy be at our house every weekend rather than getting laid?”

  True dat. “You don’t think I want to get laid? This is no fucking picnic I’m putting myself through.”

  Without a doubt, there were nights he slept on his not so comfortable sofa to avoid climbing into his cold, barren bed. He was a man who enjoyed the feel of a woman next to him while he slept. In the time since he’d entered a thirty-day rehab for a prescription drug habit that turned borderline scary, he’d been following his program and, as the books advised, staying away from women. For three hundred and fifty-two-and-a-quarter days he’d been focusing on making himself well, on taking responsibility for his actions and more or less trying not to pummel himself for his mistakes. That meant attending regular support group meetings and concentrating on not relapsing. It had been some of the hardest work he’d ever done. He didn’t need his friends testing him.

  “Yeah. The big plan. The one-year mark you’ll hit in what? Ten days?”

  “Eleven. Asshole.”

  Vic laughed. “I get it. My wife isn’t convinced. She thinks you need a woman. Can’t say I disagree. Except, I don’t think you need a woman to marry. You, my friend, need a woman to get busy with. You’re like a goddamned monk.”

  “My life. My choice.” Lynx set his hands back on the bar. “Second set.”

  “I’ll talk to her. Tell her to lay off.”

  “Thank you. Tell her as soon as I’m ready, I’ll let her know.”

  Vic sighed. “Boy Scout, I know you. You’ll never let yourself be ready. You’re so determined to have a plan that you’ll make it a habit. Your life will become week after week of rigid schedules. Work every day. The gym every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Recovery meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Yoga every Sunday. Am I close?”

  Close? The fucker was dead-on. Lynx gave the bar a push and ripped off eight reps. Next time he’d shoot for ten at the higher weight. See how he did.

  He set the bar back into its cradles and sat up. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “You need to get a life.”

  And now the next phase of the lecture would begin. What Vic didn’t understand, and probably never would because he wasn’t an addict, was that the life Lynx led now was one that kept him in control. To keep his sobriety intact and prove he could be the responsible person he’d been prior to getting hooked on pills. “I have a life,” he said. “It’s just not the life you think I should have.”

  Chapter Two

  By 9:30 Saturday evening, Jillian and her battered feet crawled into bed. Along with her came her camera. Ten hours of walking through the city for the much-anticipated photography class and she was downright giddy. She scrolled through a few photos she’d snapped in Grant Park, but her heavy eyelids begged mercy and she set the camera next to her. Too tired tonight. She’d download the pictures to her laptop tomorrow and analyze them more closely.

  For now, she needed sleep. Blissful, much-earned sleep. She flipped the lamp off, curled under her covers and sighed. This had been a good day.

  Hours later, in the early-morning blackness, she threw the bedcovers off and cursed her bladder. 3:45 in the damned morning and the thing couldn’t make it another two hours? In her bladder’s defense, the green tea before bed hadn’t been a stellar idea.

  She dropped her still-sore feet to the wood floor. The groove in the seams reminded her that she hadn’t saved enough to buy the throw rug she’d been eyeing. Soon she’d have it and her tootsies would fall onto chenille rather than cheap wood.

  In the shadowed darkness, she moved toward the door and the refuge of the bathroom across the hall. A shaft of moonlight—her beacon in the I-need-to-whiz quest—shined through the tiny round window at the backend of her duplex and offered dim light. She stepped into the hall.

  Breathing.

  Not hers. To her left. By the stairs.

  Every classic nerve signal—the tingling, the whooshing in her ears—sparked and her limbs stiffened. She turned only her head in the direction of the offending sound. A man stood near the top of the stairs, his bulky form filling the space between the wall and the handrail.

  Run.

  The intruder blocked the stairs. She spun back to her room, slammed the door behind her. Bat. Under the bed. Years of paranoia about living alone had paid off.

  Sweat and fear and anger overtook her and left the taste of metal behind. She reached under the bed for her weapon, gripped it hard and shot to her feet. If the son of a bitch opened that door, she’d be ready.

  She shifted sideways to the nightstand, grabbed the phone with her free hand and dialed 9-1-1. Would the police even get there in time? If not, she’d be forced to deal with the intruder herself. One thing she wouldn’t do was be an easy victim. Not in her home. And if he had a gun, well, it would be over quick.

  She put the phone on speaker, threw it on the bed and gripped her trusty Louisville Slugger with shaking hands.

  “Operator 9-1-1. What is your emergency?” The female dispatcher’s voice filled the silent bedroom and Jillian prayed the intruder heard the call.

  “Send someone. Help me.” Jillian kept her gaze on the closed door six feet away. “I have the police on the phone!”

  At any second the prowler should be entering her bedroom. Coming for her. She might die trying to save herself. Simple as that. But no man would walk into her home, into her life, and think he could threaten her.

  Not without a fight.

  Please, don’t let him come in here.

  “Ma’am? What is your emergency?” the operator asked.

  “There’s a prowler in my house.”

  “Confirm your name and address please.”

  Jillian rattled off her personal info. Wait. A noise from the hallway. Doorknob turning? No. No, no, no. She held her breath, squeezed the bat. Sweat slicked the surface. This thing better not fly when I swing.

  The dispatcher’s voice pushed through the mental haze and Jillian closed her eyes. Only for a second. Just to calm the madness in her mind. “What
?”

  “Help is on the way, ma’am. We have a unit in your neighborhood. Where are you?”

  She gasped and that bit of relief focused her battered brain. “In my bedroom. Second floor.”

  Ready to crush this creep’s skull. She stepped toward the door, far enough to be there when it swung open, and waited.

  Nothing.

  Sirens blared and a red light flashed against the window shades. Her knuckles throbbed and she eased her grip on the bat

  “Ma’am?” the operator said. “Are you there?”

  “I’m...” She cleared her throat. “I’m here.”

  “Can you get out of the house?”

  “He has the stairs blocked. I could try the window.”

  “No. The officers are at your door. The sliding door is open. They’re coming in. Where is the intruder?”

  Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. Not now, dammit. Help was here and she was still alive.

  “Jillian, I need your help.”

  “He was on the steps near the front door. When I saw him he was at the top.”

  “Okay. The officers are coming in. Stay where you are. When they get upstairs, I’ll let you know it’s safe to come out. Do you understand?”

  What if the police trapped the prowler and sent him into a panic? Jillian secured her grip on the bat. “Yes. Please hurry.”

  Fifteen minutes later, she sat at her dining room table giving her statement to the responding officers. The blood rush from the last thirty minutes had long since crashed and her body ached with fatigue.

  According to the officers, the prowler must have run out the back door after she’d discovered him. She silently thanked her weak bladder for waking her. Otherwise... Well, she wouldn’t speculate.

  She glanced at the desk where her personal laptop used to be. She’d have to do a full inventory, but she already knew her laptop and camera case were missing. The lenses in the case alone were worth almost four thousand dollars.

  Now she was pissed.

  From the time she was sixteen and interning at the local podunk newspaper, she’d been saving money for her camera equipment.

  Where was her damned bat? If they found the SOB, she’d pummel him. Multiple times. Not only did she feel completely violated in her own home, she didn’t have the satisfaction of getting a decent description of the guy.

  “Okay, Ms. Murdoch,” Officer Jacobs said, “we’ll get someone in here to dust for prints. Maybe this guy is in the system. For now, you need to get a safety bolt for that sliding door. Slider locks are easy to bypass. It wouldn’t hurt to get a security system either.”

  Jillian glanced at the open sliding glass door. She folded her arms and rubbed her hands over her fuzzy cotton bathrobe. It would take a month to melt the ice in her bones. “You’re sure he came in through the slider?”

  The one she’d been contemplating replacing because she knew—knew—it was an easy target. Purchasing the foreclosed home had left her strapped and she’d been forced to pace the many improvements needed. Still, at twenty-seven, she considered the purchase an accomplishment, and the idea of someone entering without her permission absolutely scorched her.

  Where’s my bat?

  Officer Jacobs jerked his thumb toward the front of the house. “The door was still locked. No windows were broken or left open. No forced entry. Either the guy had a key and took the time to lock the front door on his way out or he ran out the back. Either way, he got in.”

  * * *

  “Namaste.”

  “Namaste,” the Sunday morning yoga class answered.

  Lynx unfolded his legs and shook them out. Around him, his packed-in yoga classmates assembled their belongings, rolled their mats and made a dash for the door. After an hour of settling their minds into a calm, submissive state, they were once again off to the bedlam of their lives.

  Lynx, however, would force himself to stay centered and live in the moment, as he’d done for the past three hundred and fifty-four days. Sundays were his day to chillax. Today he’d grab a preseason baseball game on television or wander the lakefront in his seemingly never-ending quest to acquaint himself with the city he now called home.

  But first, his stomach rumbled. In a rather large, ominous way. Twelve hours since he’d given his body nourishment. His psyche knew the best damn meat lovers’ omelet in the city awaited him not two doors down.

  In the mirror along the studio’s front wall, he spotted the reflection of Jillian gathering her things. Just the sight of her converted his omelet lusting state to a whole ’nother lustful state. With her, the rehab gods filled their quota of testing his recovery. Yeah, they really stuck it to him on this one. Bastards.

  She looked up and busted him staring. How many times had that occurred over the last few months? Probably too many, but that’s what happened when a man had been lacking female companionship for a year. Add horny as hell to the mix and he was screwed. Not in the way he wanted to be either.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Lynx held his breath. Ten days and she was all his. Ten. More. Days.

  “Hi, Jillian.” He rolled his yoga mat. Anything not to look at her short auburn hair and big doe eyes. Why did she have to be so damned attractive?

  Bastards.

  “Do you have a minute?” she asked.

  So much for quick escape. He’d have to suck it up.

  He groaned, dropped the mat and stared into the eyes of the woman he simultaneously feared and hungered for. Tortured, that’s what he was. Like a damned feral animal that had been caged.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  And then he saw it. The way her shoulders dipped. Relief. He took in the bit of luggage sagging under her eyes and his carotid throbbed. Something’s not right.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded then tugged on a few strands of her pixie-cut hair. Nervous. “My house was broken into last night.”

  Whoa. “Were you home?”

  “I woke up in the middle of it. Needed the bathroom. I walked out of my bedroom and there he was, on the stairs. I ran back to my room and called 9-1-1. The guy took off.”

  Jesus. She must have been terrified. Half-asleep and—bam—bad guy in the house. Any number of horrific things could have happened. Tiny pinpricks dotted the backs of his shoulders. As detached as he wanted to be from Jillian Murdoch, that didn’t sit right with him.

  This was the happy, carefree girl who marched into the studio every Sunday with a warm hello. Time and again, he found himself waiting for her and her infectious smile to give him hope that he’d find something good on the other side of recovery.

  Except she tempted him in ways he shouldn’t be tempted. Ways that would break his heart, wreck his mind and possibly send him running back to the numbing bliss of Vicodin. The last thing he needed was to get head over heels with a woman.

  An addict is an addict is an addict.

  Screw it. He stepped forward and risked three hundred and fifty-four days of sobriety by wrapping an arm around her shoulder. He’d probably regret it later, but right now, at this second, his body went berserk. Lightning zapped his limbs. He forced himself to stay loose and not panic. She pressed her forehead into his shoulder and he struggled to keep his hands still. The woman had been traumatized and didn’t need him groping her.

  Of course, given his lack of sexual activity, maybe he shouldn’t beat himself up. The responsible thing would be to offer help.

  He glanced around the now empty studio. At least they didn’t have an audience. “What did the cops say?”

  She stepped out of his grasp. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump on you.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll do what I can.”

  “The police told me I should get a security system. I remembered you told me you
worked for Taylor Security. I thought maybe you could put me in contact with someone.”

  He grabbed his jacket off the floor and retrieved his phone from the pocket. “I’ll make some calls. I don’t usually work that end of the business, but I’ll get in touch with someone. See if we can get you a system fast.”

  He’d start with Vic. Then Mike, CEO of Taylor Security. He handled running the company and the private security end of the business. Lynx was slowly transitioning into Vic’s old job of working with government contacts who hired them to guard diplomats or other high-ranking officials. Then there were the off-the-books jobs. If the government wanted plausible deniability in the sudden demise of a terrorist or two, they called Taylor Security. All of it fell under Vic’s—now Lynx’s—to-do list.

  “Did the thief get anything?” he asked Jillian.

  “My laptop and a few camera lenses. I had the camera in the bedroom with me. The police think they were headed upstairs for jewelry. All in all, I was lucky.”

  Understatement of the year. “Jesus. Jillian, I’m sorry. That had to be terrifying.”

  “It was a shock.”

  The studio door swung open and three people entered. The next class making its way in. He turned back to her. “We need to clear out. I was gonna grab breakfast at Sal’s. Why don’t we head over there and I’ll see if I can raise anyone at the office.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to interrupt your day. All I need is someone to call about the alarm.”

  A vision of his calendar and the three hundred fifty-three red X’s on it popped into his head. He should put her in touch with someone and walk away. Walking away would keep him on his regimented recovery schedule.

  Too bad he’d never been the guy who could walk away when someone needed help.

  “Let’s get something to eat. I’ll call the guys on the way.”

  * * *

  Lynx sat back in his chair when Vic stepped into the Taylor Security conference room with his ten-year-old stepdaughter in tow. He halted on the other side of the table and folded his arms. His typical fuck-with-me-and-die stance.

  “I’m guessing there’s a good reason you’re bugging us on a Sunday?”