by Lora Leigh
Chaya moved from the jeep and watched warily as he waited for her at the front of the vehicle.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked, placing his hand at the small of her back and giving her a firm push to the steps.
“Sheriff Mayes and I ate after the last interview,” she told him, feeling his hand tense at her back.
She swung her head around to try to see him in the dim light. She could have sworn he growled something not quite complimentary where the sheriff was concerned.
“Keep going, Chay.” He crowded her, pushing her up the stairs, his larger, broader body making her feel too feminine, too weak.
She was a trained agent, or she was supposed to be, but every time she was around Natches the agent became overwhelmed by the woman.
He was her weakness; she had figured that out at a time when she hadn’t needed to know it. And the certainty of it had only grown.
She stepped onto the landing and stood aside as he unlocked the door, stepped in, and looked around before turning back to her.
“Come on in.”
Her heart nearly strangled her as it raced in her chest and jumped to her throat. She stepped inside, staring around the starkly masculine area as she felt her palms dampen.
Here, she was in his territory, completely surrounded by Natches. She stepped farther into the room, then paused at the mantel over the gas fireplace. A smile tipped her lips. There was a picture of Faisal, the young goatherd who had managed to contact Natches on a shortwave radio channel to inform him that a female agent was being held and tortured in the desert.
He was her savior as well that day. Faisal had covered Natches while he pulled her out of that dark, hellish cell. She knew the extraction team that had picked them up had made certain Faisal made it back to his goats.
“I talked to him a few months ago,” he told her. “He said you were still sending messages and money.”
She nodded slowly. She couldn’t protect him; all she could do was try to make things easier.
“He makes a monthly trip past one of the bases in the area. I make certain he has something waiting for him there.”
She could feel him behind her as he asked, “Do you ever talk to him?”
Chaya lowered her head and shook it. “No. I don’t contact him personally.”
She couldn’t. She’d tried several times, had actually gone so far as to purchase the phone cards and send him her number. She knew he had his own cell phone now. One he was very proud of.
She turned back to him. “Do you talk to him often?”
He nodded, the movement sharp. “His family was killed just before your rescue. I’ve been trying to make arrangements to get him over here. I haven’t had much success yet.”
Yes, she knew that, just as Cranston did. It was one of the promises versus threats he had made to force her into this operation. Cranston would make certain Faisal would be given his entrance into America, if this operation completed to his satisfaction.
She felt a chill race over her head at the thought, then down her spine. Then it sort of went over her body as she forced herself to move away from Natches. Once Natches knew who DHS had targeted, he was liable to kill her and Cranston.
“What do you want from me, Natches? You know I can’t give you this mission or Timothy’s suspects; so what’s left?” She stared around the large living room with its heavily cushioned furniture and male accoutrements.
There were pictures of Natches and his cousins Dawg and Rowdy. A few that were taken while he was in the Marines with buddies. There was a picture of Natches with Faisal.
A table had been set up at the side of the room with a jigsaw puzzle. Hell, she didn’t know people still did those.
There were some oil lamps on a table and a heavy lamp on the end table next to the couch. The kitchen and living room were separated by a bar. There was no dining room, but the kitchen was large enough for the heavy oak table that was set to the side of the room.
She assumed the doorway off the living room went to a bedroom, but she wasn’t checking that one out.
And as she stared around, she realized Natches hadn’t answered her.
She turned back to him, watching nervously as he strode past her and moved into the kitchen, his expression stark, furious. This was it and she knew it. Natches wasn’t going to let her avoid the past any longer.
“I’d have followed any other agent,” he finally growled, pulling out a beer from the fridge and unscrewing the top with a quick jerk of his hand.
Broad, long fingered. Those hands could make a woman think of heaven even as hell moved in around them. And she knew they could make a woman fly, steal her senses and her thoughts with their touch.
Would he ever want to touch her with those hands after Timothy’s operation finished here in Somerset?
“I didn’t think I’d see you back here,” he said, staring back at her with a hint of sensuality, a hint of anger.
“Cranston has a way of convincing agents to do his dirty work for him.” She shrugged with a mocking smile. “Come on, Natches, you know how it works. The follow-up was important. He wants that money and he wants to make certain no one else is involved here. That’s all.”
“Are you investigating my family?” Short and to the point. And here was where things were about to get sticky. Because she couldn’t lie to Natches. He had saved her, not just once but twice, and then he had held her and let her fly while she found her sanity once again.
“As far as Cranston is concerned, everyone is suspect,” she reminded him dryly. “You’re all on my list to question.”
“Why did he send you?” He lifted the bottle to his lips and drank, his gaze never leaving hers, the dark green depths dragging her in and leaving her breathless.
She was an agent, fully trained to ignore sexual need or even fear during a mission. But she couldn’t ignore Natches. He made her weak, made her need, and he made her fear herself.
“Because it amused him?” She lifted her shoulders as though she didn’t know and didn’t care. “He was pissed over my attempted resignation and decided to play with me. Cranston’s good for games like that.”
“Cranston’s good at games, period.” Natches finished his beer, then tossed the bottle in the trash as Chaya watched him closely now.
He ran a hand over his face before staring back at her.
“Do you have any idea how much I missed you?” he said, his voice soft. “How much I ached for you last year?”
Chaya backed up a step, her movement jerky as she tried to look everywhere but at Natches. She didn’t want to talk about last year; she didn’t want to talk about five years ago. She wanted this over with. She wanted to run and hide, to bury her head in the sand and pretend this mission and this man could be ignored.
“That wouldn’t have been very wise then, and it wouldn’t be now,” she answered, her throat tightening as she watched him, as she watched his expression flicker with primitive lust.
He wasn’t going to just let her go this time, and she knew it. He was going to force her to face everything she didn’t want to face, and she didn’t know if she could do it.
Chaya shook her head at the look. “Don’t, Natches.”
She couldn’t handle his touch, not now, when this entire mission hinged on betraying him. She wasn’t cold-blooded enough; she wasn’t the agent Timothy thought she could be.
“Don’t.” He shook his head wearily before running his fingers through his thick hair and staring back at her with an expression of torment. “How long is it going to lie between us like a double-edged sword, Chaya? When are you going to forgive me?”
No. Oh God, she couldn’t deal with this. Her throat tightened and closed with pain and fear as she saw the determination in his eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about that.” She gave her head a hard jerk. “We can argue over this operation or Cranston or anything else. But not that.” She had to fight her tears, her sobs. She had to fight the memories that wanted
to return in a rush of agony.
“Damn you.” He was across the room before she could avoid him. His hands gripped her arms as he jerked her against him, and she felt the heat of him, felt the weakness that threatened to flood her as she dragged in a hard, gasping breath.
“Five years.” He moved, forcing her to back up as she stared up at him in shock. “Five fucking years, Chay. How much longer do we have to suffer for something that neither of us caused?”
“No.” Her cry sounded too close to hysteria. “Stop, Natches. I can’t discuss this. I won’t.”
“She was a beautiful little girl. I saw her pictures later.” His voice was agonized, tormented.
Chaya heard the pain-filled moan that left her throat. Even when she was being tortured, she hadn’t made a sound like that.
“He stole her.” He groaned the accusation as she felt his forehead press against hers. “She was safe with your sister, wasn’t she, Chay? If he had just left her there.”
“Don’t do this.”
“She looked like you. She had your smile and your hair. Your innocence.”
“Stop it!” She screamed the words at him, tearing from his embrace as she pressed her fist against her stomach and swallowed back the sickness rising in her throat. “You didn’t know her. You didn’t raise her, and you didn’t love her. And it’s none of your damned business.”
Beth. Sweet Beth.
“She was three years old, and your husband had her flown to Iraq. While you were being tortured, she was landing at the airport in a military transport believing she would see her mommy again.”
Her heart felt as though it were shattering in her chest now, and she didn’t want to collapse from the pain of it. She had lost everything in that damned desert. She didn’t want to remember it, and she didn’t want to think about it or talk about it. Especially not with the man who had been there to witness it, who had held her back, who had covered her with his own body to protect her while her child died.
“Why?” She turned on him, tears she swore she wouldn’t shed escaping now. “Why are you doing this to me? Do you think I don’t know what happened?”
Her voice was rasping. She sounded nothing like herself. She sounded like the demented creature she had been the day she lost Beth.
“Army Intelligence didn’t know he had your child.” His expression looked as agonized as hers felt. “They didn’t give the orders to bomb that hotel, did they, Chay? Someone else did. Something fucked up like it always fucks up, and your baby was killed.”
She shook her head. Her body shook. Tremors raced through her as she stared at the ceiling. But she didn’t see the ceiling; she saw the missiles, ribbons of steam flowing behind them, the hiss of flight, the fiery destruction with impact.
“I know who killed her,” she whispered. She had always known.
Her husband. Beth’s father. He had killed their child just as surely as he had ordered his wife’s torture and death. But she knew even more than that. She knew there had been others, those who knew what her husband had done, and they had struck out. They had killed her child when there had been a chance of saving her.
She lowered her eyes back to Natches and saw the pain, his eyes so dark with so many emotions. Grief and sorrow and need.
“You hold her between us as though it were my fault,” he said then, his voice graveled, accusing. “As though I ordered the attack or I arranged her death, Chay.”
Chaya swallowed tightly and turned away from him again. She didn’t know which way to turn, which way to run. She wanted to run. She wanted to escape the shared memories, and she wanted to escape her own loss.
Natches had been with her when they had learned where Beth and Chaya’s husband, Craig, were staying. The suspected headquarters of a terrorist cell. He had raced after her when she went to rescue her child. He had thrown her to the street, held her down, and tried to shield her eyes as missiles slammed into the building.
“I held you when you identified her. I held you then, and I held you through the night. Did you think I wouldn’t hold you longer, Chay, if you had given me the chance?”
FIVE
Craig Cornwell had been a major in Army Intelligence and a traitor. He had been selling secrets to Iraqi terrorists, and when he’d known he would be identified for it, he had arranged for his daughter to be brought to Iraq, believing he could hold her for Chaya’s cooperation in helping him escape.
He couldn’t have known the cell he was tied to had already been targeted and that their headquarters would be taken out so violently.
Natches stared into her face now, paper white, her golden hazel and brown eyes dark with the memories that tore at him as well. And he wanted to howl out in rage, in agony. Because he felt the need to wipe the horror from her. To tear aside that wall she had placed between them.
“I don’t blame you.” She tried to tear herself from his hold again. “I never blamed you for her death.”
“You blamed me for saving you instead,” he snapped, fury rising inside him at the thought of losing her like that. “Is that what you wanted for me, Chaya? For us? To have it all end that way?”
And despite his anger, he could only touch her with tenderness. He lifted his free hand, brushed back the hair that fell over her forehead, and he ached.
“There was no us.”
She only infuriated him with that statement, because he knew better. He’d always known better. From the moment he’d torn into that fucking cell and seen her struggling to drag that dead guard’s clothes on, her eyes swollen shut, lips bloodied, and courage shining in her face, he’d known there was going to be an “us.” It was just a matter of time.
And later, buried in that hole, waiting on extraction, he shouldn’t have been attracted to her. She had been in shock. She had been hurt and fighting so valiantly to stay conscious. And in such a short time, she had dug her way inside him. Into a place he hadn’t realized existed within the killer he had been shaping himself into.
He’d breathed in her pain when she’d realized her husband had betrayed her to the enemy, that he had betrayed his country and their marriage. And he had soaked in her pain the night she’d lost her child. He’d stroked her trembling body as she’d begged him to hold back the horror of what she had seen. He had taken her, amid both their tears, and the next morning, when he’d awoken, she had been gone.
He released her now, grimacing, feeling his flesh tighten over his muscles, as though something within him stretched dangerously, confined by his own skin and growing impatient.
“I guess there wasn’t, because you were gone the next morning,” he bit out.
“And you were gone that night when I returned,” she snapped back, anger trembling in her voice, anger and something else. A finely threaded emotion that had his gaze sharpening on her pale face. “You didn’t come back.”
Natches stared back at her, his eyes narrowing. Had she come looking for him when he had believed she was gone?
“I was called in that afternoon for a mission. It was a quick strike; I was flown directly to my drop-off. I returned three days later, and you had left Baghdad,” he told her.
He remembered his rage. He had torn apart his quarters with it, and then he had torn apart the hotel room they had shared. The MPs sent after him hadn’t fared very well either.
As he stared at her now, he remembered all the reasons why he had gone insane over losing her. The lush lips, the stubborn angle of her chin. The way she knew how to smile, the feel of her coming alive against him. He had known all that before the day she had lost little Beth. He’d known it because he had spent two weeks haunting that damned hospital, teasing a kiss out of her, a laugh. Knowing she was married, knowing she was bound to a traitor.
And she had known. She had known, and like a flower opening to the sun, she had slowly begun opening for him.
She shook her head now, her eyes, that deep golden gaze locked with his, the color shifting, shadowed with so much pain. “Timothy said he ch
ecked. He was there that morning I went in to finalize custody of Beth’s remains.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts as though she were huggingthe pain inside herself when all he wanted to do was wipe it from her. “He wanted me to leave immediately to take Beth home, then join DHS. I wanted to talk to you first.” She shrugged stiffly. “You were gone. He said he checked to see if you were on a mission and you weren’t.”
Lying bastard. Natches grunted at that. “DHS ordered the mission. They had a line on Nassar Mallah. I went out after him. When I finished and returned, you were gone.”
Chaya bit her lip as she moved across the room and lifted herself heavily onto one of the stools that sat at the counter. She looked tired; she looked hopeless. And that look tore at his heart.
“Sounds like Timothy.” Her voice was nearly toneless. “But it didn’t matter, not really. I couldn’t function then, Natches. Not for either of us.”
God he wanted to hold her now. What the hell was it about this woman? She was inside him, and five years of fighting it hadn’t managed to push her out of his soul.
Was it love? Hell if it felt like anything he had seen out of Dawg and Rowdy. He didn’t feel gentle. He felt like he wanted to devour her from head to toe. He wanted to roll around in oil with her. He wanted to lift her to that counter and spend hours eating the tastiest flesh he’d ever found between a woman’s thighs.
She was hurting, enmeshed in memories that he knew had to be ripping her guts to shreds. The sight of it made him crazy. He would do anything, say anything, to ease her pain, but by God she wasn’t hiding from him anymore.
She held that past between them like a spiked shield, and he’d had enough of it. Five years. He’d let her torment him through endless, aching nights. He’d suffered every nightmare he knew she suffered, and his pain for her sliced through his soul with each memory.
“You’ve had long enough to begin functioning then.” He had to force himself to stand back from her, to not touch her.
She looked lost, lost and lonely, almost as broken as she had looked the day they told her her husband was the traitor who revealed her to the terrorists who had kidnapped her.