Heaven in her Eyes

Heaven In Her Eyes is truely one of my favorite books.  Shanna has that vulnerbility which tones down the Hunter arrogance.  Brandon is a man who knows his own mind until he runs into golden eyed Shanna.  He's cautious of her feelings, knowing what her husband had put her through and he's careful with her because of her air of vulnerability.  Out of all my Hunter novels, this one has to be my favorite.  Enjoy!!!

Chapter One

Cats flew hissing off the bed.  His body jerked into a sitting position, his eyes searching the room even as he reached for the gun that sat in the drawer next to his bed.  Before he could retrieve it, he forced himself to calm, realizing that once more, it was just a dream.

The same damn crazy dream that had been plaguing him for months ever since he flew out to Wyoming to help Hunter and his new wife while they were on the run from their own personal demon.  That personal demon was now spending the rest of his life in a cement box far away from the riches and power he so adored.

Brandon Austin rubbed his hand across his chest, feeling the still healing scar of the bullet that had almost ended his life.  Shot in the line of duty, it was how he’d always planned on going to meet his maker, but this, well, this was something else.  She’d been little more than a kid, a psychotic, fucked up kid whose father had been beating her since she was little and had trained her to walk the streets.  He’d gotten her hooked on drugs, and had turned what could have been a promising young woman into a street smart tough.

With a gun.

Brandon could still feel it puncturing his flesh, the burst of icy pain, the shocking numbness, the heated agony that followed.  He’d lain in the street, yanking his gun from its holster, returning the fire.  The girl had lived, but now she would spend the rest of her life in a federal prison for shooting an FBI agent.

He sighed, remembering Angel’s face when they’d brought him into the emergency room.  She’d stood there, her pregnant stomach pushing against his arm.  The baby had kicked him, he remembered that too, even as she brushed his hair back from his face, staring him in the eyes and talking to him as the others worked on him.

She’d kept him alive.  Brandon knew it.  If he hadn’t had those warm green eyes looking into his and her soft hand in his own, he might have given up.  He owed her, though she scoffed at the thought.

He laid back down on his bed, his body tense, too many memories haunting him.  The ghosts of the past didn’t just come on Christmas Eve.  They attacked him whenever he let down his guard, letting him know that he’d seen too much, had done too much.  Now he didn’t know if he’d be able to go back to the bureau.  He didn’t know if he was still cut out to do the only job he’d ever wanted.  He didn’t know if he could trust his instincts.

A small form jumped on the bed, padded up over the bunched up covers and climbed onto his stomach, purring the entire time.  Brandon reached out his hand, fondling the kitten’s head even as she swatted at his hand with her paw.  He picked her up, settling her in his arms, stroking her fur while she purred contentedly.

The sigh that came from his lips spoke more of tiredness than anything else.  He dropped the kitten on the bed beside him, curled up under the thick covers and let his body relax, praying the dreams wouldn’t come again.

* * * *

A whiff of spice, a hint of musk and a strange sort of incense wafted to his nose, leading him forward, ever onward through a maze of tents.  He pushed through the fabric opening of the first tent, noting its striped canvas and the luxury of the interior.  Satins and silks, thick furs of all kinds were strewn everywhere.  Huge pillows meant to cushion the body were placed on the thickly carpeted floors.  A feast was set out before him, luscious meats, creamy cheeses, crusty breads, ripe fruits all meant to be eaten with the fingers, sat on plates, awaiting his appetite.

This was his place, he knew it.  He could sense it.  It felt good to be here, like coming home after a long work week and realizing that you could sleep in the next day kind of good.  Seemingly with a volition of their own, his feet carried him to one of the pillows and he dropped down upon it, clapping his hands like some royal pasha calling for his harem.

The music started.  It was a driving rhythm, meant to entice, meant to enflame.  It rose in tempo and sound and then changed, becoming more intimate as around him, candles were lit, scenting the air and changing the atmosphere.

She came into the room like a tiny tornado, twirling and spinning, the soft gold of her skirts flaring around her, showing off firm legs and a hint of dark pelt between her thighs.  Her face was veiled, her eyes heavily outlined with kohl, emphasizing their catlike shape and the amazing amber color.  Her hair swirled around her, long and thick, curls caressing the naked skin of her back, the softness of her arms as she moved.  She wore gold slave bands, circling the taut muscles of her upper arms, and a slim girdle of gold was adorned with bells, surrounding her slender waist.

With her dark hair and the promise that shone in those amber eyes, she was pure sensual magic.  She danced close to him, her fingers trailing across his chest, using her hair as a silken whip of pleasure, surrounding him in the sinfulness of her scent.  She teased him, leading him on only to push him away, her dancing feet a swift blur of movement.

“Do you want me?” she whispered, her hands stroking down his chest, sliding across his stomach.  “Do you want to make love to me?

“Yes.”  It was the only thing he could say.  She was erotic and sensual, flaming his passions with her every touch, her every move.

She backed away and he rose to follow, watching the enticing motions of her hands as they urged him onward.  Out of the room and through another flap she went, slowing only to scald him with a heated, needful look before she disappeared.

He pushed through the flap, finding the next room deserted, the change in the atmosphere of the place from sinfully erotic to creepy and dark confusing him for a moment.

“Shanna?” he called, knowing it was her he was seeking. 

Cobwebs hung from old wooden rafters, streaming down and tangling in his hair.  They brushed across his face, sticky and annoying.  He did his best to ignore them and their inhabitants, instead searching every room he came to, growing more angry with every second she hid from him.

“This isn’t funny anymore, Shanna.  Come on out.”  He growled the words but there was no sign of the tantalizing woman.

“Fine,” he called loudly.  “Stay here and rot then, Shanna.  I don’t need you.”  But he did and he knew it.  He compared every woman to her, hadn’t been able to go on a second date with anyone since she’d dropped into his life.  He was infatuated.

He heard her giggle, turning quickly to see a glimpse of gold shift.  “Shanna?” he shouted.  “Come on, baby.”

Her sudden scream made his blood run cold.  He ran in that direction, his feet feeling like lead, the floor like mud, sucking him down.  He could see her outline, shadowed in the light as she fought.  Then he saw the knife.

It was just a shadow, long and slightly curved, rising above her head before falling toward her.

He watched it strike, sinking deep into the shadow girl as she screamed and he roared with the pain of not being able to protect her once more.

Her screams echoed even as he woke, this time rolling to his back, his body covered in sweat, to stare at the ceiling.

* * * *

He waited until the next day to make the call, getting out of his apartment that was beginning to give him claustrophobia and going to the park that was just a couple blocks away.  “So how is everything, Hunt?  Angel is good?”

“You’d know if you’d ever come over here,” his friend’s voice came from the other ear piece of the cell phone.  “We’ve missed having you around, Bran.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.  It’s just with the injury and all, I’m having trouble dealing with the inactivity.”  He glanced around, finding an empty park bench and heading towards it.  “So Angel is good?” he asked again.

“Yeah, rounding nicely, as her doctor puts it.  She’s grumbling that she can’t see her feet, but I think she’s beautiful.” 

Brandon could hear the love in his friend’s voice for his wife and it made him happy, for them at least.  “What about your sister?” he asked, trying to keep it as nonchalant as possible. He dropped down into the bench, unconsciously rubbing a hand across his chest as if the wound still pained him.  “She having any problems with the divorce?”

“That fuck wad Clinton,” Hunter growled, his voice sounding threatening even over the reception of the cell phone.  “He’s trying to force her into going to marriage counseling.  But to do that, she’d have to fly back to Washington D.C.  That means giving up her job and her apartment here.  Hey,” he said after a second’s silence.  “Why’d you want to know about Shanna?  You hate her.”

“I don’t hate her, Hunt, she just…rubs me the wrong way.”  Brandon could have laughed, for in those dreams, before they turned dark and sinister, she sure rubbed him in all the right ways.  He glanced around at the people in the park, seeing all the young mothers with their children, the older guys that came down here to walk and one not so old that was standing by a waist high fence, leaning over and watching the kids play on the big toys.  “He isn’t threatening her, is he?” he asked, keeping one part of his mind on the conversation, the other part on the strange actions of the guy at the fence.

He seemed nervous, and he was sweating more than was necessary for the cool spring weather.  He kept eyeing the kids, his hands in his pants pockets.

“No threats that she’s told me, except that he’s promising to make the divorce last a very long time unless she comes back and does the counseling.  Listen, Angel wants me to ask you for dinner.  Tomorrow night, here at the apartment.  She’s cooking but I’ll make sure we have back up, just in case.”

Brandon couldn’t help but laugh at that, hearing Hunter yelp as Angel surely must have smacked him.  “I’ll be there,” he said.  “Look, I gotta run, I’ll catch you tomorrow night.”  He didn’t wait for Hunter to answer, flipping the phone closed and shoving it into his pocket.  With a grimace of pain, he stood, making his way slowly over to the man at the fence.

“Which one you looking at?” he said conversationally as he walked up next to him.

“The little bl…,” the man started to say than slammed him mouth shut.  “I…uh don’t know what you’re talking about, dude.”

“Yes,” Brandon said, slipping his identification out of his back pocket and showing it to the guy.  “You do.  Now I’m betting that if I were to run you, you’d have a jacket as a known pedophile, probably with part of your parole obligation stating you stay far, far away from any children.  That means I could take you in, right here, right now, no questions asked, and your ass would be back in prison before you could blink.”

“Hey man, no way, I didn’t do nuthin.  I was just walking.”  The man held his hands up. 

“Then keep walking.  I see you around here again and I’m taking you in, got me?”  Brandon felt a spurt of amusement as the guy didn’t even wait for him to finish before he took off.  It felt good, even doing that little bit to help clean up the world. 

His eyes cast down, he started walking, not paying attention to anything around him, just walking.  He could still see the girl and the intense hatred in her eyes as she’d pointed the gun at him.  He’d never even seen her before.  Then bam, and he was down, feeling as if an elephant had punched him in the chest.

“Brandon?”

He lifted his head, staring into the golden eyes that he saw every night in his dreams.  “Shanna?” he breathed, surprised.  “What are you doing here?”

“I work at the bank down the street.  I come down here on my lunch a lot.  It’s fun watching the kids.”  She blushed as if she knew she was babbling.  “How are you?”

“Good,” he said, recovering from his surprise.  “For a man who just got shot, I feel pretty good.”

“Aaron told me, he said if the bullet had been a half an inch to the left, you’d have died.  I…I wanted to come and see you in the hospital, but I didn’t want to fight with you,” she said softly, staring down at her hands where she was still holding a small brown paper bag.

“That’s okay, Shanna.”  He took her arm, steering her to another empty bench and sitting down on it.  “Do you mind?” he asked, rubbing his hand over his chest again.  It didn’t hurt and he would have been fine walking but he wanted to spend some more time with her.

“No, of course not.  You’re welcome to half of my sandwich if you’d like.”  She opened the bag and pulled out a baggie.  “Turkey salad?  I made it myself.”

“You do cook better than your sister-in-law, don’t you?” he joked, taking the offered food and taking a bite as Shanna laughed.  “Hey, this is good.”

“Thank you.  I’ve always liked to cook, I used to get to do a lot of it when mom and dad went on their weekend trips and left me with Aaron and Dillon.”  She took a dainty bite of her half of sandwich and Brandon found himself watching her mouth.  It was lush and full, and when her tongue licked out, picking up a tiny bit of bread, he thought he’d go up in flames. 

“Are you okay?  Maybe you shouldn’t be out yet?” she asked him, hearing his small moan.

“No, no I’m fine,” he said, cursing himself and feeling the blood rushing to his cheeks. 

“Oh yes, always the big he-man, I forgot.  I thought maybe getting shot would have made you a little more aware of your mortality,” she sighed, feeling the irritation that always plagued her around him settle deep inside of her.  Why did he have to be such a…a butthead?  She looked up at him, drawn as always by his sexy masculine features, the dark hair that turned gold in the sun, the crystalline green of his eyes that seemed to almost sparkle as they stared down at her. 

If he hadn’t been such an ass to her, they could have been friends.  Aaron seemed to find a lot in Brandon that he liked, Angel too. 

“I’m aware of it Shanna, probably more than you know,” he said softly, dropping his gaze to the sandwich he held in his hand.

Shanna sighed.  “I’m sorry, Brandon.  That was uncalled for.  I don’t know why we always fight when we’re together.  Can you forget I said that and we can start the conversation all over again?”

“Yeah,” he said, glancing up to see her smile.  “Besides, how can I stay mad at someone who can make such a killer sandwich.”  He took another bite.  “How’s things going with the divorce?”

He watched as her brows drew together and a sound came from her that was almost a growl.  “He’s trying to force me to move back to D.C.  He’s got some judge that wants to make us go through marital counseling before granting the divorce.”

“I hope you have a good attorney,” Brandon said, feeling his own anger rouse. 

“The best Aaron could get me,” she said.  “He’s kept Jackson from knowing my address and knowing where I work or finding anything else out about my life here.  He’s trying to put a stop to this last insanity of my husband’s.  I just wish that I’d had the courage to just once go to the cops…” 

She pulled a banana out of the bag, dropping the empty sandwich wrapper back inside and setting it on the bench between them.  Peeling the ripe fruit, she broke it in half and offered him half.

“That does make it a little difficult to prove the abuse, Shan.  You do know we won’t let him get his hands on you again, don’t you?”  He took the banana and ate it, almost laughing as she pulled a napkin out of her bag and handed it to him to wipe his fingers off on.

Shanna couldn’t help the flush his words brought to her cheeks.  If he only knew how much she actually did think about him, or how she’d freaked when she heard he’d been shot.  She called the hospital everyday and had even gone twice, but both times, she’d chickened out before she could actually go in to visit with him. 

Why would he want to see her?  She was just the younger sister of his best friend, a pain in the butt.  She was the one who was always in trouble and needed rescuing.

Besides, she’d seen the woman coming out of his room.  She’d stood there with her little bouquet of flowers she’d picked up for him and watched as a tall, leggy blonde with a body that should be walking a runway had bent over and kissed his cheek, tucking his blanket around him and laughing at something he’d said.

How could she compare with that?  She was too short and her boobs were to big for her body.  She did have nice hair and refused to get it cut more than a trim to keep the ends healthy.  She’d also been told that she had pretty eyes, but Shanna just thought they were strange looking.  What she wouldn’t give for about six more inches of height, preferably all leg, and baby blue eyes that she could bat.  She sighed again.

Looking down into her lap, she glanced at her watch.  “Oh shit, I’ve gotta go, Brandon.  I’m going to be late getting back.”  She got up and gathered up the bag and the banana peel, taking them to one of the trash containers.  “Thanks for eating lunch with me,” she said, smiling.

“Can I walk you back to the bank?”   Brandon heard the words come out of his mouth before he realized he was going to ask.

“Do you think you should?” she asked.  “I mean, you’ve just been shot.”

“Five weeks ago, Shanna.  I’m not going to die from a little bit of exercise.  If you don’t want me to walk with you, you just have to say so, you don’t have to make up excuses.”  He hated the tone of his voice but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“That’s not it, and you know it.  I was just concerned.  Fine, walk me back if it’ll make you feel better.”  She turned on her short heeled shoe and started to stomp off.

Brandon caught up with her, admiring the way her hips swayed in the knee length skirt she wore.  “Come on, Shan, can’t we just spend ten minutes together without ripping on each other?”

“It doesn’t seem that way, does it?”  She slowed her step, her eyes glancing over at him.  “I just was concerned that maybe you should still be taking it easy.”

“If I take it any easier, I’ll go stark raving looney tunes,” he grumbled, making her laugh.  “That’s right, find amusement from my pain.”

“Oh you poor baby.  Can’t they put you on a desk or something?”

“Yeah, I start desk duty next week if the doctor signs off on me.  Paper work,” he sighed.  “The bad thing is, I’m looking forward to it.  It has to be better than wanting to know if E.J. is going to take off with Sami or if he’s going to get caught.”

“Huh?”

“Soap operas, I’ve sunk that low,” he sighed miserably, making her laugh more.

She opened the door to the bank and he followed her inside, not ready to let her go yet.  “So how’s the checking accounts in this place?” he asked, looking around the lobby of the small bank branch.

“Are you really considering changing banks, Brandon?  I can get you the paperwork right now.”

“Sure…depending upon the rate of int….”

“Everybody down!”  There was a rattle of gun fire and Brandon reached out, grabbing Shanna and yanking her down behind a small island made of wood used for writing out deposit slips and such.  He held her close, bending his much larger body over her petite one.

“Fuck,” he hissed.  “Stay down,” he whispered to her, peeking around her to check out the situation.

“Okay, good people.  If you all behave yourselves, you should all come out of this with nothing more than an exciting story to tell.  You,” he said, pointing at one of the girls behind the counter.  “Fill up these bags and don’t try to slip any dye packs or tracers in the bags.  I’ll know if you do and you’ll be dead.  Got it?”  He was a big guy, dressed in a sweat shirt and jeans and carrying an automatic weapon that he fired across the ceiling when the girl didn’t move to take the bags.

Another man, dressed the same, with his hood up to hide his face and huge sunglasses covering his eyes, was spray painting the camera lenses with black paint.  When he finished, he tossed the can into one of the trash receptacles before heading over to his buddy and pushing people onto the floor.  “On your faces, all of you.  If you move, you die!”

“Do as they say, Shanna,” Brandon whispered, slowly easing down but keeping his eyes open for any chance to take charge of the situation.  He watched the robbers carefully, waiting until they weren’t paying any attention to him and slowly finagled his hands under the back of his lightweight jacket, reaching for his off duty pistol that he carried everywhere.

Inch by bare inch, he pulled it from under his jacket, quietly ratcheting the slide to put a bullet in the chamber before hiding it under his body.  Shanna watched him, her golden eyes wide with fear. 

“You aren’t going to do anything stupid, are you?” she hissed.  “They’ve got machine guns.”

“Depends on what you think is stupid,” he hissed back at her, his eyes on the two men.  He scoped the room, searching out the other exits and doorways, finding where all the people were and where the old guard was, his body flat on the ground, his hands covering his head.  He hadn’t done anything to stop them when they’d come in and he wasn’t making a sound now.

A woman and a little girl were sitting close to the robbers, their faces masks of terror as they stared up at them.  The little girl was crying, the mother trying to get as much of her body over the girl’s as she could.  They were the ones Brandon would have to be most careful of.  Within easy reach, they would make for fantastic hostages for two criminals trying to get away.

“Hurry up, bitch, get the damn bags filled!”  The leader seemed agitated, he kept glancing around, looking out the big windows that framed the bank, his body tensed.

“Want me to find her, Joe?” the other robber asked. 

“Don’t fucking use my name!  God, you dick wad, I knew I shouldn’t have brought you with me.  Yeah, find her.  Remember, she’s can’t be touched.  He’s a cold son of a bitch.”  He slapped the younger guy on the back of his head, and his sunglasses fell off of his nose, only to hit the floor and bounce close to Shanna.

The kid, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old, his face covered with acne and pot marked from old scars, bent over to get them.  He looked over at Shanna, his eyes passing over her face and then coming right back to it.  He stood, sliding the glasses back on his face.  “Black hair, right Joe?  Weird colored eyes, short with big boobs, ain’t that what he said?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what he said.  You find her?”

Oh fuck, Brandon thought.  He was about to get killed.

The kid reached down, grabbing Shanna’s arm.  “You’re Shanna Clinton?” he asked her, dragging her up to her feet.

“Who?” Shanna squeaked.

Joe walked up, the bags in his hands.  He reached over and back handed Shanna.  “Don’t give me that who shit.  Answer his question,” he growled.

Brandon, cursing his luck all the way, stood in one quick graceful movement, bringing his off duty weapon up.  “Freeze, FBI,” he shouted.