CROSSFIRE (24 page)

As a little girl,
Elizabeth
had loved her mother's rose garden. As a young girl, she'd fantasized about being married among the riot of blooms. As a teenager, she'd brokenheartedly watched Kristina and Nicholas dancing in the white gazebo, watched her sister lift her face for a kiss. As a young woman, after Kris's death, she'd held Nicholas's hand while he sat on the white bench and cried.

When the years had gone by and he'd asked her to dinner one night, it was as though they were different people, not Kristina's kid sister and her shattered ex-fiancé, but a man and woman with common interests, shared friends, mutual goals. It had all seemed so right.

And then Wesley had walked into her life, and nothing had ever seemed right again.

She'd tried. She'd tried to stick to the plan. She'd tried to stay on the path she'd been traveling. When Nicholas returned from an assignment in
London
and asked her to marry him, it had been the culmination of what she'd always thought she wanted, a girlhood dream come true. She'd known she couldn't let a steamy one-night stand distract her. And that's all she and Hawk had ever shared, one night of hot sex. He'd been her bodyguard, she his assignment, and one night the game of truth or dare had gone too far, and they'd wound up in bed. That was all.

Or so she'd thought.

Now, though, now she had to wonder. If that had been all, she should have been able to forget him. She should be able to close her eyes at night without seeing those hot, blazing eyes. She should be able to run a bar of soap along her body without feeling his hands, so big and rough and capable, doing the same. And heaven help her, she should be able to see him walk into a room without feeling everything inside her leap to immediate and painful attention.

And most of all, if that were true, she should be able to accept that the final act had, once and for all, played itself out.

"
Elizabeth
?"

She blinked, ripped her gaze from the soft yellow and pink rose petals. "I'm sorry. Did you say something?"

Nicholas frowned. "I asked you a question. Where was Wesley Monroe when you were attacked?"

Her chest tightened. He hadn't been with her at the townhouse, that was true. But he'd been there a heartbeat later, charging into her darkened bedroom like an avenging warrior. The look on his face… God, the look on his face.

"He didn't expect Zhukov to strike," she said. "The authorities thought Z would lay low, regroup."

Nicholas swore softly. "Looks like they were wrong." He reached out to the small of her waist and drew her toward him. "I should have gone inside with you, damn it. None of this would have happened then."

She forced a smile. "I appreciate the sentiment, but there's nothing you could have done. The man was in my bedroom."

His blue eyes, so hard and crystalline moments before, softened. "That's where I would have been, too."

The husky words crawled over her, as though he'd touched her with his hands. She looked at him standing against a backdrop of roses and blue sky, a tall blond man in pressed khakis and a golf shirt the same azure as his eyes, and. felt … nothing.

"Nicholas—"

He skimmed a hand up to her face. "Come away with me, Elizabeth. Let me take you somewhere far from here,
Belize
maybe,
Grand Cayman
, a place where I can guarantee you'll be safe until Zhukov is back in custody."

Now she felt something, but it wasn't love or desire or any of the other emotions she knew he wanted her to feel, that
she
had once wanted to feel. She felt only sorrow, maybe pity.

She couldn't give this man what he wanted, and she could no longer pretend. Only a few days before, before she'd gone to Calgary and before Wesley had scooped her into his arms and run with her through the darkened ballroom and into the rain-soaked night, before he'd again looked at her through those hot blazing eyes and claimed her mouth in a kiss that still had the power to heat her blood, before all that, she'd thought maybe, just maybe, she could have a future with Nicholas.

Do you really want to spend your life with a man who doesn't know how to make you feel anything? Who can't reach you?

The answer landed hard on the cobblestone path at her feet.

Chapter 12

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N
o. She didn't. No matter what went down between her and Hawk, she could not spend her life with a man whose touch left her colder than the sleet falling that night two years before, when she'd stood in the frozen rain, watching two security guards drag Hawk from her parents' property.

The night she'd proven herself the coward he claimed her to be.

"Nicholas." Gently she twisted from his arms and stepped from his touch, welcomed the warming rays of the early-afternoon sun. "You've been such a good friend to me."

He went absolutely still, all but the wind rustling his golden hair. "I love you."

Her throat burned. All her life she'd been the family peace-keeper. She hated conflict. She hated to cause pain. Ethan had teased her relentlessly for escorting spiders out of the house, rather than squashing them with her shoe.

But now she had no choice. She couldn't continue the charade, not when the truth seared through her. In perpetuating a lie, she'd hurt them both. And Wesley. God help her, she was beginning to suspect she'd hurt him worst of all.

"I can't go away with you." Couldn't love him, couldn't marry him. "It's just … not right anymore."

He stepped toward her, stopped without touching. "You're confused right now, sweetheart. That's all. You've been through a horrible ordeal. Just give it some time. Give us some time."

She slid a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "It's not about time, Nicky. We've had time."

He lifted a hand, let it fall. "What are you saying?"

The question wavered between them, mingled with the soft scent of rose. She didn't love him, now realized she probably never had. She'd just
wanted
to love him, thought she
should
love him. But love didn't come on demand or when it was convenient. Nicholas had been little more than a fantasy leftover from her childhood. "I'm sorry."

She saw the hurt wash over his features, saw him work to hide the emotion. "Is there someone else?" he asked with a stoicism that nicked at her heart.

She glanced at the sea of roses, with their faces all open and reaching toward the sun, blazing against a backdrop of blue, blue sky. A few blooms had passed their peak, she noted absently. She would find her mother's shears, cut away that which had passed its prime.

"This isn't about anyone but you and me," she said gently, returning her gaze to Nicholas. Emotion, the truth, burned the backs of her eyes. Kristina wasn't the only Carrington daughter who died that snowy January day eleven years before. Part of
Elizabeth
had died with her. Part of
Elizabeth
had been buried.

Until Wesley.

"I've been living in a dream that isn't real," she said, realizing how right Wesley had been. It wasn't Zhukov or Wesley that she feared. It was the woman she'd seen in the mirror just that morning, dwarfed by his big gray Army T-shirt, with her hair hanging loose the way he preferred, the woman who'd been buried for so long, who'd lain dormant, who now begged to live again.

Softly she smiled. "It's time for me to find out what is."

* * *

"Wes, my man. Long time no see."

The voice blasted in from the past and jarred Hawk from the microbrew he'd been nursing. "
Logan
." With a slow smile he stood from the small table in the far corner of
Logan
's Ale House and exchanged backslaps with the compact man he hadn't seen in close to two years. "How the hell are you?"

His friend laughed. "A heck of a lot better than you, I'd have to say. You been staring at that beer for the last thirty minutes like you expect it to grow breasts or something."

A hard sound broke from Hawk's throat. "Or something."

Logan
spun a chair around and straddled it. "Thought you were still in
Europe
."

Hawk sat. "Haven't been back that long."

"I heard you were shot."

"Nothing serious."

A knowing smile curved his friend's mouth. "Right. Nothing serious. Kind of like the time Melanie's brother caught the two of you in the stables and tried to skewer you with a pitchfork."
Logan
shoved long hair out of his face. "Sweet Mary, I thought you were gonna bleed to death right on my front porch."

Instinctively, Hawk's hand found his upper leg, and rubbed. The memory came next, spewed from that place he'd shoved the years spent with Steven's family. That night, he'd barely escaped with his life.

Later, he'd barely escaped with a future.

But he'd learned. He'd learned to keep what he thought, what he felt, what he wanted, close to the chest. That way no one could ever trample it. Steal it. Destroy.

"Flesh wound." He picked up his beer and took a deep swig, found it bitter and warm. "Both times."

Logan
signaled for a drink. "Yeah, that's what Ellie told me, but it's good to hear it from the horse's mouth."

Hawk slammed the mug against the scarred wood table. "You talked to
Elizabeth
?"

"She came in a few months back, after you'd been shot." He absorbed the information, tried to process it, to imagine.
Elizabeth
. Here. At
Logan
's. Again. "Here?"

Logan
nodded. "It was just after lunch, I think. She came in wearing one of those fancy pantsuits with her hair all twisted back like you hate." He paused, grinned. "Damn, she smelled good."

The server came over and handed
Logan
a tumbler of Scotch. "On in about five?"

He glanced at his watch. "About."

"I'll let Abe and Mac know."

"You're sounding good," Hawk commented. He and Logan had first patched together a band over fifteen years before, when, as sons of single, working mothers, they'd been convinced The Junkyard Dogs would be their ticket to food on the table.
Logan
had served as guitarist, Hawk as vocals. Another kid had let loose on the drums.

The garage band hadn't changed their fortunes, not in a monetary sense, but it had provided an outlet for the hormone-inspired emotion of puberty.

"You should join us for a set,"
Logan
said. "Dust off the old pipes."

Hawk glanced at the small stage where the Dogs performed. He'd left the band officially when he joined the Army, but after returning, he'd continued to jam with them from time to time.

Like that night two years before.

He'd thrown down the gauntlet, told her where he was going and what he was doing, let it be very clear that he knew she was too locked in her tidy little world to go slumming with him.

She'd proved him wrong. God, how she'd proved him wrong.

Until the next morning, when she'd proved him right.

"It's been a long time." A lifetime in some regards, just yesterday in others. "Why did
Elizabeth
come here? What did she want?"

Logan
eyed him long and hard. "To tell me about you."

Hawk sat back in his chair. "She came to tell you about the shooting?"

"It had made the news, and she wanted me to know you were okay."

The burn stared low, spread fast. She'd not called him, sent him a get well card, nothing. But she'd gone to see his friend, to let him know Hawk was okay.

Frustration twisted through him, reinforcing his decision to remove himself from the assignment. He'd made a crucial mistake. He'd been wrong to try to rewrite history. He'd been foolish to think he could play with fire without getting burned.

I danced with you tonight, Wesley. I took your dare. I proved to us both I'm not the coward you want me to be.

Christ, that wasn't all she'd proved.

Frowning, he glanced at his watch, saw thirty minutes remained before Aaron checked in.

She was safe, he reminded himself. Intel had picked up Zhukov's scent south of the border, but Hawk had insisted on tightening the security at
Elizabeth
's town house, changing the locks, adding motion detectors and surveillance cameras. He knew better than to relax too soon.

The worst damage always, always came to those who didn't suspect.

Zhukov was behaving unpredictably. Two and two were not adding to four, and Hawk couldn't shake the feeling they were overlooking something fundamental. Something vital. The break-in at
Elizabeth
's home carried none of Zhukov's MO, prompting the FBI to suspect a copycat could be at work.

Deep in his bones, Hawk had to wonder.