The Bravo Billionaire Part 22

A good, strong heartbeat. Thank G.o.d.

She got down there with him, all the way down. She lay on her side, her nose a few inches from his and she felt his warm breath against her face.

Breathing normally. Better all the time.

She waited. And in a few minutes, she was rewarded. His eyes opened. They looked glazed. He spoke, his voice a rough rasp. "My red truck..." He blinked. She watched as his vision cleared. "Emma?" He frowned at her. "What...?" "Shh." She smoothed the hair at his temple. It was soaked with sweat like the rest of him. "You had the dream."

He winced, swallowed, winced again. "d.a.m.n. The dream..."

They lay there, on the pale, soft carpet. Emma stroked his face, his neck, his shoulder, down his arm. Eventually, she asked, "Shower?"

"Yeah."

She got up and went to turn on the water for him.

* * * She waited until they were back in bed and cuddled close under the sheet before she asked him if, just maybe, he remembered something this time.

He answered flatly, "No."

"You said somethin', when you first came out of it. You said, 'My red truck.' Does that mean anything to you?"

He closed his eyes, sighed, and then opened them again. "Not a d.a.m.n thing."

"Jonas..."

"Um?"

She hesitated. She had a feeling he'd resist the suggestion she was about to make.

"Just say it," he whispered gruffly, and rubbed his forehead against her shoulder.

"Well, have you ever considered maybe talkin' to a doctor about this? I mean, someone who is trained to deal with things like this?"

"A psychiatrist, you mean?"

She couldn't tell if he sounded amused or irritated. "Well, yes. Some kind of therapist.

Someone who would know how to help you."

"Help me, how, exactly?"

"Well, to get to the root of the dream. And then to get past it, so you can stop havin' it."

He pulled free of her embrace and canted up on an elbow. They looked at each other through the darkness. His eyes, she thought, looked very deep. There were shadows of fatigue, like dark bruises, beneath them.

"Jonas, are you ... okay?"

"Fine," he said. "And as to seeing a therapist, I thought I explained that. I have seen a therapist. An endless series of them, as a matter of fact. None of them got anywhere with this little problem of mine."

"But that was years ago.""So?""Things might be different now. I'm sure therapy is like anything else. They learn new things all the time, they improve their ... techniques."

"Emma."

"What?"

"Been there, done that. Not again."

"Oh, Jonas..."

"Not again. Clear?"

"But-"

"Clear?"

She made a face at him. "Oh, all right." She reached for him. "Come back here."

He settled in close once more, his head on her shoulder. They lay there, wrapped around each other, the silence punctuated by the faint snoring of one of the Yorkies at the foot of the bed. Emma smiled and closed her eyes.

And then he was rubbing his forehead against her shoulder again.

"Jonas, what is it?"

"Nothing. Headache."

"Since when?"

"Had it all night. Thought it would pa.s.s, but it seems to be getting worse..."

"I'll get you somethin' for it." She started to rise. He lifted his head and kissed her chin. "No. You stay here. I'll get it myself."

"I don't mind."

He put a finger to her lips. "Shh. Stay here. I'll take care of it."

He was back in no time. She held the sheet out to welcome him. He came down to her, wrapped his arms around her.

"Jonas?"

"What?"

"I have this feeling. It's really strong."

"And what is your feeling?"

"We're going to find your brother. I just know we are."

"And will we find him alive?" Again, she couldn't read his tone. Was he irritated? Disbelieving? Before she could say anything, he sighed. "Never mind. Don't tell me. Let it be a surprise."

"You mean you believe me? You think we'll find him, too?"

He didn't reply, only pulled her closer.

Tenderly, she combed her fingers through his thick hair and considered the question he hadn't let her answer.

And will we find him alive?

About that, she had no hunch at all. "Jonas?"

Again, he gave no reply. And she didn't press him. After a time, his breathing evened out.

Emma lay in the darkness, staring up at the shadowed crystal teardrops that dangled from the chandelier, holding her sleeping husband close and trying to imagine what kind of man Russell Bravo would have become. Trying to picture someone who might be a brother to Jonas someone big and strong, someone a little overbearing who liked to give the orders, someone with midnight eyes and a cleft in his chin.

Trying not to think of a small bare skull, a bit of baby blanket, a few sad little white bones...

Chapter 18.

T hey arrived at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City at just a little after noon the next day. Tory, Marsh's wife, was waiting for them. She was a tall, slender woman with a mane of curly red hair and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose.

The drive to the nearby university town of Norman took less than half an hour. They caravanned, Marsh and Tory in the lead, Emma and Jonas following them in a rented Chrysler 300M and a pair of Jonas's bodyguards taking up the rear.

"I've been wondering what Marsh's wife would be like," Emma told Jonas as they sped down the interstate. "Tory's got ... dignity, don't you think? Dignity and a warm heart. I liked her the minute I set eyes on her."

"Emma. You like everyone the minute you set eyes on them."

"No, Jonas. I do not. I never did like you until recently."

He sent her a look. "You're saying you do like me now?"

"Yes, indeed I do."

Marsh and Tory Bravo lived in a handsome brick house on the corner of a wide tree-lined street. They had a comfortable guest bedroom and they insisted that Jonas and Emma make use of it.

"You'll have to share the hall bathroom with Kimberly," Tory said. "I hope that's all right."

Emma waited for Jonas to insist that they couldn't stay there. Security was clearly nonexistent. And where would the bodyguards sleep?

But either his paranoia was slipping a little, or, since Mandy wasn't with them, he felt willing to take a chance on spending a whole night or maybe even two in an unguarded house.

He smiled at Tory. "Sounds fine to me."

Tory smiled back. "And this is a quiet neighborhood. Nothing bad is going to happen here. Maybe you could just send those bodyguards to a hotel?"

The bodyguards in question were waiting in their rental car in front of the house.

"Maybe I could," Jonas agreed.

And he did it. He went out and told the men to make themselves scarce. They were to find lodging for themselves and remain available at all times by cell phone, in case he needed them. But they didn't have to shadow their employer's every move.

"Way to go, Jonas," Emma said over her shoulder when he came back into the house and found her in the guest room unpacking their things.

He came up behind her, took her by the waist and nibbled on her ear. "Proud of me, are you?"

"You'd better believe it."

He nuzzled her hair. "Prove it."

"I will later."

"You'll have to do it quietly," he whispered. "There'll be a nine-year-old sleeping just down the hall." They'd be meeting Marsh's daughter later in the afternoon, when she came home from school.

Emma turned in his embrace and twined her arms around his neck. "You think I can't do it quietly?"

"I'm willing to watch you try." He was grinning but he still had those dark circles under his eyes.

She brushed her fingers between his brows, where the skin looked drawn with tension. "Still got that headache?"

"It comes and goes. It's not too bad right now."

"Maybe you ought to take a-"

"Emma. I'm fine. Let it be and I think Tory is holding lunch for us. Come on." He snared her hand and pulled her out into the hall.

Tory did have a light meal waiting for them. They sat down to sandwiches, fruit salad and iced tea.

After lunch, Tory left them to return to her florist shop and Marsh said he'd drive them out to his father's house.

Ten minutes after getting into Marsh's roomy sedan, they had left the town of Norman behind. Woods of oak and hickory, turning gold now with the colors of fall, surrounded them, interspersed with fields where rough brown gra.s.ses grew and cattle and horses grazed. The October sun shone down and the day was mild, the air fresh and clear.

The houses were far apart, some old and run-down, some big and brand-new. The new ones, Marsh told them, were mostly the dream homes of folks who worked in the city and didn't mind an hour's drive to and from work if they could live out in the country.

"When I was kid," he said, "this was all ranch and forest land. But in the past ten years or so, as you can see, that has changed. They've broken a lot of it up into five-acre parcels. And people with money are building out here."

Marsh turned onto a slightly narrower road where the trees grew closer in, branches meeting overhead, forming a lacy canopy of green and gold. Driveways wound off into the trees, most of them marked by mailboxes.

"Here it is." Marsh turned the wheel again, into a driveway with no mailbox beside it, one so overgrown, someone who didn't know it was there would probably never have spotted it.

The driveway was rutted and unpaved. They b.u.mped along it slowly. Branches sc.r.a.ped the car's roof and a couple of bushy-tailed squirrels darted across the road in front of them, easily making cover on the other side before the car got close enough to be a threat to them. Soon enough, they came to the end of the driveway. Marsh parked behind an old pickup, which sat under a carport built off the side of a tumbledown shed.

Beyond the carport lay a cleared s.p.a.ce. And beyond the cleared s.p.a.ce stood the house. It was a plain wood-sided structure with an asphalt-shingle roof. At one time it might have been white. But most of the paint had long ago peeled off, leaving the wood to weather down to an ugly gray. There was a lot of junk stacked against the side of the shed and near the house old tires and broken tools, empty plastic containers and bins full of aluminum cans.