A Soldier's Redemption (10 page)

“You're very gifted,” Wade told Esther. “Very gifted.”

Esther laughed. “Keep stroking my ego. More is always better.” She began to pack up her materials. “Listen, why don't you come out to the ranch for dinner some night? I'd like a chance to get to know you better, and maybe someday you can tell me what this is all about.”

“I'd love that,” Cory said immediately, realizing she would. The urge to put down roots here had become almost compulsive since just a few days ago. It was as if warning flags had started to pop up in her psyche, telling her that if she continued on her current course she might as well die.

And along with all those warning flags, a desire to start making connections again, a real life again, pushed her.

Possibly into a very dangerous place, the dangerous place she'd spent more than a year hiding from.

Cory said goodbye to Esther at the door, then stepped back away from the opening as Wade ushered the woman to her car.

“Lock up and set the alarm after me,” he murmured as he passed. “I'm going to scout a bit before I come back.”

She did as told, then went to sit in the living room and wait. How had she survived the past year living this way? Waiting for a doom that never came, too afraid to lead any real kind of life, trying to be invisible even at her job.

With absolute certainty, she knew she couldn't return to that way of life. She'd been dying by inches for too long. She couldn't do it anymore. No way.

And if that meant possibly sticking her head into a noose, then that was what she would do.

Wade returned about twenty minutes later, quieting then resetting the alarm before he joined her.

“You're going to go crazy,” she said when he sat beside her.

“I am? Why?”

“Because I just looked in the mirror.”

“Meaning?”

She gave a little shake of her head. “Inside this house is limbo. I sit here doing next to nothing, worrying, grieving, afraid. You're going to go nuts locked in here with me.”

“I see.” He drummed his fingers briefly on the arm of the couch. “I won't go crazy. I've been known to sit in hides for days on end waiting for the right moment, or the target, to appear. I can do it.”

“Well, I'm tired of it. I was just sitting here wondering how I'd managed to do nothing for so long.”

“Aww, Cory,” he said quietly. “Give yourself a break. You went through a terrible trauma, and then you got dumped on a foreign shore where almost nothing was familiar anymore. You needed time. You took it.”

“You're very generous.”

“Just calling it the way I see it. If you'd lost your husband but been allowed to remain with your friends and family, to keep your job, you could have coped with your grief better. If you hadn't lost your husband but had simply been obliged to move, you would have coped with that, too.”

“So sure?”

“I've watched your transformation over the last two days. I'm sure. What's more, I think you need to cut yourself some slack because you experienced two major traumas, both of them stressful to the extreme. And then you had
a killer to fear. Most people would have dug a hole and pulled it in after themselves.”

“That's basically what I did.”

“But look at you now. For whatever reason, you've reached the point where you're ready to take action. But that doesn't mean the time you took to hide and lick your wounds was wrong.”

She would never have imagined this man could be so kind. Or that he would be willing to put himself out there the way he had today. He'd seemed so self-contained, so impervious, so…rocklike. Yet while she still felt the almost insurmountable strength in him, she had found a kindness and understanding that seemed like a gift.

It was likely that if she'd ever put herself out there over the past year, she might have found that kind of kindness and understanding from other sources, but she'd been terrified into silence not only by the fact that a killer might be hunting her, but also by all the strictures the Marshals had placed on her. All the warnings. They had meant well, she was sure, but how do you pick up a life that had been so completely and totally interrupted?

“It was like they wanted me to erase myself and start out like a baby all over again.”

He nodded. “From their point of view, that seems like the best way to handle it. But it also leaves you without much of a starting point for anything.”

“Others are probably more resilient.”

“Most of those others didn't see their husbands murdered and lose their baby at the same time.”

The stark truth of that bowed her head. She drew a shaky breath, hoping she wouldn't dissolve into tears again.

He slipped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Just grant that you've been doing the best you can.”

“I want to do better.”

“You've made that clear.” He paused for a moment, then said, “The way you need to think about the last year or so is that you were wounded. And it takes time to heal. So while you're recovering, there are lots of things your body won't let you do. Or in your case, your mind and emotions. Things that need to rest will rest.”

“I hardly think being totally terrified was much of a rest.”

“How can you know?”

“What do you mean?” She turned her head to look at him.

“Maybe the fear was a rest from things that were even harder for you to bear.”

That drew her up short. She hadn't thought of it that way before, not at all. “Maybe,” she said finally. “I know how it's been feeling, though.”

“How's that?”

“Like I've been stuck in a quagmire of awful feelings with no way out.”

“And now?”

“I see a door. I don't like what might be on the other side. It scares me. But, like I said, I've got to crawl out of this swamp or I'm going to die anyway.”

“We'll get you out.”

He sounded so confident. She wished she could be as sure. But life offered absolutely no guarantees, and if she had just accepted that months ago, she might have already started to construct a new life.

Of course, if she had done that, she'd still be sitting here worried that the killer might have found her. Would it have made it any easier for her if she'd allowed herself
to put down all those roots she was thinking of now? Not one bit.

In fact, it might have become even scarier. And this was already going to be scary enough.

S
he tried to pass the time reading a book, but that didn't work at all. Wade prowled the house from time to time only to return to the living room and sit for a while. She had no idea if he was peering out windows or what. Maybe he just couldn't hold still.

She could barely stand it herself. Finally she closed the book and looked at him. “Are we supposed to just sit here indefinitely like bumps on a log?”

One corner of Wade's mouth lifted and he came to sit beside her on the sofa. “What would you ordinarily do?”

“Exactly this,” she admitted. “Only now I'm too antsy.”

“Well, I don't think we should do anything until Gage tells us he has his ducks in a row. Waiting is always the hardest part.”

She pursed her lips, trying to find some way to anticipate what might come next. “This guy, this killer, he wasn't
afraid to come to our house in the dead of night, knock on the door and shoot everything that moved.”

“Apparently not.”

“So what's to keep him from doing the same thing here?”

“Nothing, except that I'm an unknown in the equation. That won't hold him back indefinitely, but I'm sure it's giving him pause.”

“What kind of pause?”

“He's probably wondering just what kind of protection I can provide. Whether there's a way he can separate us. All of which is based on the assumption that he's really found you.”

She sighed. “I wish I knew for certain.”

“There are times when you can act, and times when you simply have to
re
act. This is one of those times that we have to wait to react. Because we don't know anything for certain.”

She felt a crooked smile twist her lips. “Listen to me. I spent more than a year just letting myself be pushed one way or another and now all of a sudden I want to do something. Anything.”

“I know that feeling.”

“You probably do.” She looked down at the book she was still holding. “I still can't understand what they thought they'd accomplish by killing Jim. It's not like they could erase the grand-jury testimony, or prevent indictments from being handed down.”

“I don't know. Maybe they thought that if they removed one prosecutor, the government would have a hard time finding someone else to take over. Intimidation is the only reason I can see.”

“I doubt it worked.”

“But you don't know?”

She shook her head. “Jim didn't talk about his cases with me. He couldn't. So even if I tried to check newspaper stories or court records, I couldn't tell which case was his.”

“But you knew he was after a drug gang.”

“That was all I knew. And I'm sure he wasn't the only prosecutor working on a case like that. In a way it's hard not knowing if all his work put those guys in jail. But at the same time…” She shrugged. “What difference does it really make? It won't change anything. Not for me, or Jim, or our baby.”

He turned her a little, cupping her chin with his hand, and kissed her gently. “I'm so sorry.”

If he meant the kiss to be comforting, it went beyond that. Way beyond that. She wished she knew how his kiss could drive everything else from her mind in a flash. And this one hadn't even attempted to be sexy.

She searched his dark eyes and caught her breath as she saw the heat there. She wasn't alone in her sudden desire, not alone at all. Yet he didn't press her, didn't even try to tip her in that direction.

His hunger for her went straight to her head, lifting her out of herself so that she forgot everything except this man and the heaviness growing between her thighs, a heaviness that demanded an answer.

There was something incredible in arousing a man so powerful and self-contained so easily and quickly. Maybe it was the only way he felt he could truly connect anymore. Maybe he would have responded that way to any woman.

She didn't care. She knew what she wanted, and it was right in front of her. In his eyes she could see that he wanted it, too.

Her fingers moved before she realized it, reaching for
the buttons of his shirt. He waited, letting her unfasten them, watching her face intently the whole time. When the last button was undone, she looked down at this chest and sighed.

“You're beautiful,” she said, meaning it. Pressing her palms to that wonderful, warm skin, she ran her hands over him, feeling the rocks and rills of honed muscle, glorying in the sensations and in the way he indulged her exploration.

A slightly ragged breath escaped him. “Are you sure?” he murmured. “Very sure?”

“Yes.” The word came out on the last puff of air in her lungs, and hardly had it escaped her, than he scooped her up in his powerful arms and carried her back toward her bedroom.

“I won't stop this time,” he warned her. “No half measures.”

“I don't want half measures.” The truest words she had spoken in a long, long time.

“No quarter,” he said.

She wasn't sure what he meant by that, but she was eager to take this ride all the way to the end. Not only did she want this, she needed this. All of it.

He laid her on the bed in her half-darkened room and stood over her like a hero of myth, so big, so hard, almost unreal in his strength and power.

He shrugged off his shirt, then made it clear what was coming when he reached for his belt and the snap of his jeans.

Was she sure? Oh, yes. She watched with hungry fascination, hearing each tooth in the zipper as he drew it slowly down. It was the sexiest sound she had ever heard.

“Stop me now,” he said, pausing. “Now.”

“No.” His own word flung back at him.

She dragged her gaze up from where his hands rested against his fly and saw a lazy smile start to curve his mouth. His eyelids drooped a little with passion, but the rest of his face hardened with hunger.

He kicked off his shoes, then in one smooth movement shoved his pants down and discarded his socks. When he straightened, he was naked to her gaze, and what a breathtaking sight he was.

Michelangelo had never carved a more perfect male body. Nor had anyone to her knowledge ever carved a statue with an erection like that. He was big, he was hard and he was ready.

And the sight of his readiness made her damp, so damp she might have been embarrassed if she weren't already in thrall to her needs. And his. For his need excited her even more than her own.

He bent over her, his fingers pausing just briefly as he once again warned her. “Last chance.”

She had begun to pant with the hunger he had already stoked in her, and it was hard to say one word, just one word: “Yesss…”

He stripped her clothes away impatiently, tossing each piece across the room until she lay naked. He paused a moment, drinking her with his eyes, leaving her feeling at once utterly vulnerable and utterly beautiful. No one had ever looked at her like that before, not even Jim, as if she were the most desirable woman he had ever seen. Just that look was enough to make her nipples harden and her center throb so hard it almost hurt.

In that instant, she became woman primal. Everything else vanished entirely. Nothing mattered except this man and this moment. She hardly noticed that he used the few
seconds to don protection, because she watched his eyes as they traveled over her like a caress.

Lying over her, his leg pinning hers, his arms holding her tight, he plundered her mouth with a kiss so hungry and needful it echoed all the pain inside her. His hands began to knead her flesh with a heat and longing that just missed being painful. She didn't care. Each touch made her feel so wanted, and oh, heavens, how much she needed to feel wanted.

His mouth closed on her nipple, sending spears of longing straight to her womb. His hand stroked the smooth skin of her hip, and then dived impatiently between her thighs, seeking her heat, her moisture, her life-giving core. She was caught in a storm, with no desire to escape. Whatever he took seemed rightfully his.

Raising his head, he muttered guttural words of encouragement as his touch lifted her higher and higher. Too fast, she thought dizzily, but even that objection drifted away as he took her closer and closer to the brink she dimly sensed was waiting.

“So sweet,” he muttered in her ear, and yet another river of excitement poured through her. “Come on, Cory, that's the way.”

When her hands clawed at him and the sheets, needing something to hang on to, he grabbed them and moved them upward, wrapping her fingers around the spindles of her headboard. “Hang on,” he muttered roughly. “Don't let go.” Then he settled between her legs.

Gasping for air, clinging so tightly to the headboard that she dimly felt her hands aching, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. He loomed over her in the dim room, huge and powerful, so strong. She had never imagined, never dreamed, that anything could be as overwhelming as these moments. Every cell in her body was begging
for him, begging for completion, for the answer to the screaming ache he had awakened in her body.

He touched her, gently. He found that delicate knot of nerves, then rubbed so carefully, lifting her higher and higher until she hung suspended in exquisite agony and nearly screamed his name.

“Now,” he demanded. Slipping an arm beneath her hips, he lifted her to him and took her in one swift, deep thrust, filling an emptiness she had forgotten could exist.

The precipice was close, so close, and his every movement drove her nearer the edge. Letting go of the headboard, she grabbed his shoulders, digging her fingers into smooth, muscled flesh, drawing him down, needing his weight on her as she had seldom needed anything. Needing him.

“Let it happen,” he growled in her ear. “Damn it, let it happen!”

Then, with a single, long, deep thrust of his hips, he pushed her over the edge. Moments later his face contorted and he followed her over.

Cory thought the explosion inside her would never end.

 

They lay tangled together, sweaty and exhausted. Too weary and sated, Cory thought, to work up even a smidgen of fear. The best medicine in the world.

When Wade tried to lever himself off her, she grabbed his shoulders, afraid he might leave.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he murmured. He slid off her, to lie beside her on his back, still breathing heavily.

The air felt cool against her hot, damp skin, another delicious contrast. Yes, they needed to cool down, but she hated not feeling the touch of his skin. When she blindly reached out with her hand, his was there to grip hers and
hold it. When she gave his fingers a little squeeze, he squeezed back.

“Why can't life always be like this?” she asked softly. As soon as the question emerged, she knew reality was returning, and there was no way to hold it off.

“If life were always like this, we'd never do anything else.” He surprised her with a note of humor in his voice.

She turned on her side and smiled at him, a smile that felt easier than any she'd tried to frame in fifteen months. “Would that be so bad?”

A small chuckle escaped him. “No way.”

Reaching out, she trailed a finger over his still-damp chest and downward to his hip bone. His manhood responded with a small leap. “Mmm, I could get used to this.”

“Used to what?” he asked.

“Having you at my mercy.”

“Ah!” In one swift movement, so fast it caught her utterly by surprise, he pushed her on her back and leaned over her, his leg imprisoning hers, his dark eyes holding her. “Who is at whose mercy?”

A truly silly smile rose to her lips. “I like it either way.”

“Good.” Now he ran a fingertip over her, tracing circles around her breasts and down to her belly, causing her to shiver. “We'll take turns.”

“Soon?” she asked hopefully.

“Soon,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting. “But maybe not right now.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

He lowered his head and brushed a light kiss on her lips. “I'd like nothing better, Cory. But Gage will probably call soon.”

She couldn't argue with that, though she wanted to push
back the dark shadows that edged into the corners of her mind. Yes, there were things they had to face, maybe had to face soon, but she felt a huge tide of resentment, something she'd never felt before. Before it had always been the fear and grief, leaving room for little else.

“I resent this,” she announced, then instantly regretted her words as she saw him pull back a little. Of course he would misunderstand. “Not you,” she hastily said. “I just hate that I'm feeling good for the first time in forever and now I have to think of…of…”

“I understand.” His infinitesimal withdrawal vanished as he moved closer, and dropped another light kiss on her mouth.

“How bad was it?” she asked, stroking his short hair as he laid his cheek on her breast.

“What?”

“Your childhood.”

He stiffened a bit, and said nothing. Time seemed to drag as she held her breath, wondering if she had pushed too far into tender territory. It really was none of her business, and she suspected this was a man who didn't like admitting his vulnerability, despite what he had tried to share with her over coffee in the wee hours.

“It was bad,” he said finally. “I spent a lot of time locked in closets. My dad was fond of whipping me with the buckle end of his belt.”

“My God!”

“I survived.”

“But…”

He reached up and laid a finger over her mouth. “I survived,” he said firmly. “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps, she thought. Perhaps. But surviving didn't necessarily mean the scars were gone, either emotionally or physically. She had sensed the emotional ones quickly, in some of his almost apologetic statements. As if he felt a need to erase himself. Another thought occurred to her.

“Do you feel like a fish out of water now, away from the SEALs I mean?”