Jillian walked around the cottage, looking at things as if seeing them for the first time. If she remained here with him for the week, then things could evolve, and possibly end up with her living her permanently. She liked the place, and wasn’t even surprised at the décor. She had long ago discovered that Kyle Suene was a man who knew the value of something, and had fairly good taste in things.
Through all the times she had been here, she had never actually taken the time to explore. She knew the grounds outside, since the two of them liked to walk along the cove and through the small track of forest nearby. She had also spent hours just lazing in his back yard either with him, or while he worked out. Before he had left that morning, he told her to take a look around, most likely trying to put her at ease with his request. She looked through a few closets, not very surprised to find that they weren’t as neat at the rest of the house. She saw the usual articles, and a few boxes, but didn’t look through them. She didn’t want to invade his privacy in that way. If she wanted to know, then she would ask.
The only thing she couldn't understand was the one locked door she had encountered. She assumed it led to the cellar, but after entering from an outside door, and coming out of a different one in the house, she had to admit that it didn't. She shrugged, and reminded herself to ask him about it later.
~~~~~~~
"Okay, you know what…we’re not getting any work done here." Kyle stood and grabbed his jacket.
Celia smiled briefly. "Another walk through the city?"
"Nope." He glanced at the other two. "Grab everything you need, and everything you don’t think you’ll need. We’re going to go to the beach." He turned and walked away on their surprised faces, and pulled out his cellular phone to make a call.
"Jill?" he asked when she answered. "Still at my place?…………Dressed?………okay, okay…kidding…listen, we’re not getting any work done here today, so I’m taking the kiddies on a field trip to my back yard………….no, please…stay…it’s okay." He stopped walking and stared at the floor in front of him. "I’m still here..……..…. …I don’t know…..…" He sighed. "Okay. I want you to meet the people I currently work with." He sighed again. "I’m not getting upset. I’m…I don’t know what I am, but it’s not upset….…..…. …yes, confused is a good term...lets go with that." He smiled into the phone. "Yeah…see you in about half an hour."
He turned to see the other three coming down the hall. "Got everything?"
~~~~~~~
He kissed her then pulled back. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing as in you’re pissed at me, or nothing as in I should just shut the hell up and pretend that you actually mean that there’s not a thing you’re upset about?"
Jillian glared at him, then smiled. "The second one."
"Okay then," Kyle said with a nod. He took her hand in his. "I’m sorry to spring this on you, and you can leave if you want, it’s okay."
"But…."
"But…you’re going to kick my ass when I tell you."
"Let’s leave foreplay out of this."
Kyle burst out laughing, prompting the others to look. He took Jillian’s hand and led her a little off to the side. "I’m going to ask something of you that I’ve never asked before."
She raised an eyebrow, not sue that she even wanted to ask. "And that would be."
He bit his lip and pulled out his best bedroom eyes. "I need you to be a psychiatrist." He smiled slightly when she only continued to stare. "I know that I’ve asked that you only be Jillian with me, but…" he closed his eyes briefly. "I need your help understanding someone."
~~~~~~~~~
"I don’t really care," Kyle whispered harshly. "Jillian is one of the top psychiatrists in the city. This is my call."
Celia’s face set in determined lines. "I am co-lead on this, which, amazingly enough, means that I get to call the shots, too."
"Keren Pelgrew is a fucking psychopathic bitch," Kyle replied. "I’m not going to let her get away again just because you want to try your hand at calling the shots."
"I can’t believe this!" Celia’s voice raised slightly. "You get yanked out of wasting your life sitting on your ass on the beach, and suddenly you think you can tell me what to do."
Kyle could feel all other eyes on him, and gave up trying to have a quiet argument with Celia. "Get a few things, straight, Sub-Agent. In case you haven’t notice, CAA doesn’t give a damn whether we stop this woman or not. Hell, they’d be happy to have Senator Plow out of the way, since she’d be their boss when she wins the election, and then there would be cuts all over with her stand. They’re paying lip service to her, sticking together a team to find the assassin."
He leaned back so he could see everyone there. "Logically speaking, do the members on this team make the best strategic decision?"
"You’re..."
He cut her off. "I caught Keren Pelgrew once, so that adds a little to make it seem believable that the CAA is trying. I also lost seven out of twelve team members by her own hands. She is too fucking dangerous to believe and the CAA doesn’t fucking care."
"I think I know what I’m doing."
"Really." Kyle regarded her coolly.
Jillian watched them both from her seat a little away on the veranda. She was watching with her professional eyes, and could tell that although Kyle seemed to be in basic control of his emotions, there seemed to be a simmering explosion waiting to happen. She made a mental note to talk with him about it later.
"Yeah," Celia said, finally having enough of his disruption to her structured work-life.
"Tell me what you know about Keren Pelgrew." He hopped up to sit on the railing.
Celia looked slightly confused, wondering why he would be asking her. "Keren Pelgrew, reportedly born in Old Europe, exact location unknown. Approximately 35 years of age, and a chameleon when it comes to disguises. Directly linked to thirty-eight assassinations, indirectly linked to fifteen more. Her weapon of choice seems to change, though she favors a high powered laser sight."
Kyle nodded. "That’s the text book version." He took a drink from his coffee. "Now tell me what you know about her."
"I don’t understand."
"What are your instincts telling you."
Celia blinked a few times, and glanced at those with her. She looked at Jillian, and noticed that she was discretely studying her. "Keren Pelgrew is deadly, and has high governmental contacts."
"Good," Kyle nodded and ran his fingers through his hair. "Little over five years ago," he paused to take a sip of coffee, more for time than need, "we caught up with her outside of Prague. It was more luck than anything else. I lost two of the team before we even got her." He paused again, acutely aware that they were hanging on every word. Even Jillian was interested. "No idea how, but in the back of the truck, she managed to knock out eight more…some sort of nerve gas…official guess is through a dental implant. A Lieutenant and I were up front….just luck of it being our shift to drive…one of the team managed to hit their panic button before passing out, and in the about ten seconds it took us to pull over, get to the back, she had slit the throats of five."
Jillian noticed that his voice had gotten hallow and he was staring at nothing. She knew there were things about his past that he never liked to talk about, and a time period that he shut down around. She had assumed that the five years in the past period had to do with his family’s death, but wondered if it went further than that.
Kyle started to talk again. "I had my hand on the truck door to open, and the lieutenant was ready to fire, when the door slammed open, and two shots caught him in the Kevlar, knocking him to the ground. She jumped out, hitting the ground at a run, and disappeared over a bluff. Don’t think any of the shots fired got her." He flexed his fingers and looked at those around him. "Keren Pelgrew doesn’t kill because she gets paid well. She kills because she likes it…the money is just as added bonus."
Celia opened her mouth to speak, but Kyle held a finger up to stop her. ‘How many times have you had a weapon pulled on you, or been shot, since you’ve been an agent?"
Celia looked confused at his question and switch of topic. "None."
"How many times have you had the shit kicked out of you since you‘ve been an agent?"
"What are you getting at?"
Kyle ran his hands over his face. "You’ve never been shot, beaten up, threatened -- nothing, since you’ve been an agent. Your time has been too safe, and that means you’re playing it safe." He put up a hand to stop her complaint. "You might not even know that you’re doing it, but you are."
"And you’re not?" she asked sarcastically.
His voice changed to one of perfect clarity and reason. "As much as it disgusts me, I can think like Keren Pelgrew. Its how we caught her the first time." He glanced at Jillian and then back to his teammates. "Look, this is…" he paused, " I’m not trying to take over, and I’m not interested in returning full time." He looked at the deck below his feet. "I just need for her to be put away forever."
"Kyle."
He turned to the voice, forcing himself to be calm. "Yes, Jillian?"
She gave him a small smile, and in it he read her message, stop being a prick.
He turned back to Celia and spoke in a calm voice. "I’m sorry if you feel you’re being left out in the decision making process, and I’m sorry if you still think that I’m some psycho has-been, but…you have to think outside of what your superiors have been telling you this past week."
"Commander?" One of the ‘kids’ spoke up.
"Yes?" He seemed surprised, since he’d hardly heard him speak before now.
"How many people live on this cove?"
"Full time or part year?" Kyle asked, wondering why he wanted to know such a stupid question.
"Full time." He was looking out over the water, but not at anything in particular.
Kyle thought for a few moments. "Five. Myself, the neighbors on either side, the second cottage in from the rocks over there," he pointed to his left, " and the one at the very end on the opposite side."
"So, the gray one with the white trim over there," he motioned briefly, but didn’t look, "should be empty?"
Kyle resisted the urge to spin around and look. He slowly turned, pointed at some obscure point in the distance, and took a look at the cottage that he could barely see from where he was standing. He turned back and looked thoughtful. "The owners live in Sydney, and only use it in the summer. It should be boarded up by now."1 ~~~~~~~~~2 Keren automatically ducked, although she knew that no one could see her where she stood. She had been interested when a few cars ended up at the cottage of her foe, and wished she had some way of listening in on them. Having to settle with just watching, she pulled out her binoculars, found a hidden spot, and watched.3 She recognized the others as the rest of the team that had been created to stop the assassination, and was still amazed at how green they seemed. She remembered the files that she had been given on them, and decided to look through them more thoroughly to see if there was anything she could use against them. People always had at least one little secret they didn't want the world to know, and she planned on exploiting that.
~~~~~~~~~
"Kyle?"
"Hmmm?"
"How are you?"
Kyle hugged Jillian closer as she sat in his arms on a lounge chair seated on the veranda. He took his time to answer as he took a sip of his beer and then placed it back on the small table beside them. Wrapping the blanket tighter around them, he kissed the back of her neck and ran a hand along her front.
"I don’t know," he whispered.
"Would you like to talk about it?" she asked as his hand continued to massage her waistline. His hand faltered slightly at the question and she noticed that he took a long time to answer. The fact that he didn’t say ‘no’ right away held promise for her. She realized that it hurt her to see him reliving the pain of years past, and suddenly realized that a lot of his eccentricities seemed to make a lot more sense.
He sighed. "I don’t know. I want to talk, and I don’t want to talk. It’s over and done with, but it still seems like yesterday. I still second-guess myself for that day, wondering what would have happened had it not been my shift up front. I mean, would I have been one of the ones she killed, or one of the other three that she didn’t get to. When the back door slammed into me, it broke my wrist, elbow and nose. If I had been a couple seconds earlier reaching for the door, would I have been able to shoot better as she made her escape?" He buried his face into her long black hair. "What if I had gone after her instead of tending to those in the back of the truck. What if I couldn’t get my mind in to thinking like her…" he trailed off.
"You don’t like that feeling, do you."
He laughed shortly. "It’s the worst sensation in the world." He took another drink from his beer. "All I have to do is imagine myself as a cold blooded killer, and suddenly I can guess her movements." He hugged her closer to him. "Can…can we change the subject?"
She hugged his arms as the lay across her front. "Are you sure you want me to stay here this week?"
"You’re just full of the loaded questions tonight, aren’t you."
She looked over her shoulder at into his eyes. "I realized tonight that seeing you hurting breaks my heart. I don’t ever want to cause you any sort of pain."
He smiled at the revelation. "For a Doctor, you’ve got a lot to learn about relationships. If there’s not a little pain involved somewhere, then they’re not worth having." He kissed her gently and lowered his hand as he continued to massage. "I don’t mean the pain that would hurt. I mean the pain that happens when someone you love is emotionally hurt."
Her eyes closed briefly in contentment as his hand lowered between her legs. She shifted slightly to give him better access and looked at him. "What’s happening with us?" she whispered, suddenly unsure, despite her years of training, and her two years of being a ‘friend with benefits’ of his.
"I don’t know," he whispered in reply as his other hand came up to cup her breast. "I think I was right this morning when I told you that I loved you." He brought his lips to her neck and began to kiss her soft skin. "I want to be with you." He pulled back to stare into her eyes. "Only you."
She couldn’t help but smile after hearing the thing she had wanted for the past year. She had been content with being with him whenever she was in the city, but held a little annoyance whenever she remembered that she was just one of many that had spent time in his bed. She had had to constantly remind herself that he had been upfront with his decisions. He didn’t want a serious relationship; he only wanted casual sex, without a permanent partner
Kyle noticed the confusion in her eyes, and instead of withdrawing like he wanted to, decide to press her on it. "What?"
"What?"
"There’s some confusion." His hands went back to embracing her.
"It’s just…"
"It’s just that I’ve always said I didn’t want a permanent partner?" he guessed. She nodded, and he smiled tightly. "Up until yesterday, I didn’t. I don’t know what changed my mind, or why, but…." He sighed. "Jillian…I want to be with you. Only you…for as long as you want."
"Why?" she had to know.
Kyle stared at her for a few minutes, alternating between telling her to forget it, and telling her the truth. He opted for the second one. "Because I’m tired of waking up alone. Because when I do wake up alone, I find myself thinking about you, and I wonder what you’re doing. Because, until you spent the entire night, I didn’t realize that I loved you."
~~~~~~
Keren put the binoculars down in annoyance as the two she had been watching went back in to the cottage. She had half expected that they would have sex right there on the lounge chair, and was unsure why she was upset that they hadn't. She finished her glass of wine, and went in to her own cottage. It wasn't a penthouse, but it was highly suited to her needs. She undressed for bed, checked her messages on her portable computer, and then slipped under the covers.
Her messages had included the itinerary of the Senator, and knowing it was time to push the limits a bit, she quickly thought up a plan for the next day. Her eyes slid shut as she finalized the plans in her mind.
~~~~~~~
Jillian walked by the locked door, then remembered earlier in the day. "What's in there?"
Kyle pulled of his shirt and tossed it in the general direction of his laundry room. "Nothing," he said, a little too vaguely.
"It's locked."
"Yes, it is." He didn't look as he took his socks off and tossed them to land near the shirt.
Jillian waited for him to finish his avoidance techniques or undressing. He glance at her briefly, and she could swear that he was giving her a cool appraisal. "Kyle Matthew Suene," she said, not wanting to smile as he cringed at his full name.
"Yes, mom," he said semi-sarcastically. He sighed and faced her. "Do you really want to know what's in there?"
Suddenly, she didn’t' care. "No."
He nodded once, then turned and walked in to the bedroom before she could see the relief on his face.4
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