I sat back in my chair, rested my elbow on its arm, and placed my chin in my hand. She may not remember much about her life, but her personality was still intact.
4
Siren
I hated the way Smoke was smirking at me. On the other hand, he was so fecking fine that, if I could, I’d crawl out of this bed and onto his lap.
He was older than me. Maybe by years, given the way his hair was graying and his skin weathered. My guess was the lines edging his eyes were more from frowning than smiling.
Physically, he was huge both in height and breadth, but it was all muscle. His powerful arms, covered in tattoos, strained against the short sleeves of his shirt. His trousers were no different in the way they stretched over the bulk of his thighs.
I closed my eyes and shuddered, remembering the way he’d eased inside me. “More,” I could hear myself begging. He’d growled in response, I recalled.
“Siren?”
I opened my eyes. “What?”
“Are you listening?”
“Of course I am.”
He smirked—again. “What did I just say?”
There was no reason to respond; he knew I had no idea.
He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. “What were you thinking about?” he asked in a thick voice.
I looked into his eyes and shook my head.
“Gnéas?”
My cheeks flushed, but I raised my chin. “Yes.”
Smoke moved the sheet covering me and wrapped his hand around my ankle. He stroked the top of my foot with his thumb. With the opposite hand, he folded the sheet so it rested near the top of my thigh and then moved the hospital gown. I closed my eyes and pushed against the bed, willing his hand to move closer to my slit. As though he could read my mind, his thumb parted my folds and rested on my clit. My eyes shot open when he removed both hands and pulled the sheet back over me.
“Why did you stop?” I groaned.
“Now that I have your attention, I need you to listen to me.”
“You’re a feckin’ eejit.”
“Not the worst thing you’ve called me.”
“I’m not surprised.”
He squeezed my knee through the bedclothes. “Pay attention, Siren.”
I opened my mouth to hurl another insult at him, but shut it. The bastard laughed. “Get on with it, then.”
“The team we worked the op for has made arrangements for a private plane to take us from London to the States. Once there, we’ll plan for your continued care.”
“In hospital?”
“As necessary.”
“Why would I agree to this?”
He raised and lowered his eyebrows and then moved the hand resting on my knee up my leg. “Many reasons. We’ll make sure you get the medical treatment you need while, at the same time, keeping IMI from knowing the details of your condition.”
“Wouldn’t they have the means to find out?”
Smoke shook his head. “Not up against the Invincibles. IMI doesn’t stand a chance.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You won’t.”
* * *
Less than twenty-four hours later, under the cover of night, Smoke carried me out of the hospital, accompanied down a back stairwell by a nurse I hadn’t met previously but was told would be traveling with us.
When we arrived at the tarmac of a private airfield, he carried me up the stairs and to the back of the plane, where he gently rested my body on a bed in a stateroom filled with the same equipment as the hospital room.
He watched as the nurse hooked me up to monitors and reconnected the IV.
“This is highly unacceptable,” I heard a familiar voice say, but I couldn’t place it until I saw the man ushered into the room by two men about the same size as Smoke.
“As I’ve repeatedly informed you, you’ll be generously compensated for your time,” Smoke said to the man I recognized as my surgeon.
“I’m not licensed to practice medicine in the States.”
“Irrelevant.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I already have.” Smoke stepped aside, motioned for the doctor to take a seat, and then leaned down and got in the man’s face. “You make sure not a single hair on her head is further hurt, and you’ll make more money than you do in a year. You don’t protect her life with yours; you won’t enjoy the consequences.”
“I’ll have you arrested for kidnapping.”
“Good luck with that.” Smoke laughed, as did the two men still standing guard outside the door.
5
Smoke
“Who are you?” I heard Siren ask the two men who I knew she’d worked ops with previously. I’d forewarned them when they arrived at the hospital of the possibility she wouldn’t remember them.
“I’m Jagger,” said Mick Reynolds, stepping forward. “This is Vex,” he added, pointing to Bronson Dunning. I watched for any sign of recognition, but saw none.
“Nice to meet you,” she murmured, looking from them to me. I winked and then motioned the two men out of the stateroom.
“What does she remember?” asked Vex.
“Obviously not much about you, since she hasn’t thrown anything in your direction,” muttered Jagger. “Sorry, man,” he added when I shot him a glare.
“Here’s the deal. Are you listening?”
Both men nodded.
“I didn’t have time to brief you on this before we had to leave the hospital, but Siren believes that she and I are in a…relationship.”
Vex opened his mouth and then wisely closed it.
“As far as you’re concerned, we’re a happy couple. Why, is none of your fucking business.”
“Copy that,” they each responded, although I didn’t miss Jagger’s raised brow.
“Right now, your job is to keep an eye on Siren and the doc. That’s it.”
When they returned to the back of the plane, I reached out to Hammer.
“I was just getting ready to call you,” he said.
“What’ve you got?”
“How far is your place from Asheville?”
“Depends on where.” My place, as Hammer put it, consisted of a little over a thousand acres that sat between Gatlinburg and Clingmans Dome on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
“Biltmore area.”
“Two hours tops,” I told him.
“There’s a fancy new medical complex with a world-renowned stroke-rehab center. Want me to set something up?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll get your final flight leg rerouted too.”
“Thanks, Hammer.”
“I’d say you’re welcome, but I’m doing this for Siren.”
“Copy that.” I ended the call, knowing he wasn’t.
* * *
Once in the air, it took nine hours to fly from London to Chicago. From there, it would take another two hours to get to the airport in Asheville. After consulting with the nurse, I agreed to let the doctor fly back directly from Chicago since, so far, all he’d done was tell her to do things she already did without his prompting. I sent Jagger and Vex along with him to ensure he got his money and understood what would happen if he spoke a word about his trip to the States and back.
Every time I checked, Siren was asleep, which was the best thing for her. “You can take a break,” I told the nurse, who looked up from the book she was reading. “There are seats in the main cabin or the other stateroom. Whichever you prefer.”
She stood, checked the monitors, and walked out, closing the door behind her. I sat in the chair previously occupied by the doctor, whose presence did nothing more than assuage my fear that if something happened to Siren while we were in flight, I would be to blame.
I studied her frail form, wishing I could go back and put myself between her and the bullet I’d been sure killed her.
Had I done so, had it struck me instead, and had I lived, I never would’ve heard the end of it from her. She w
ould’ve lambasted me for thinking she needed my protection rather than going after Konstantine von Habsburg.
She didn’t remember, and maybe never would, but I had let him go to save her, without knowing if it would be possible, just that I had to try.
“Smoke?” Her eyes opened, and she looked around the stateroom.
“We’re in Chicago, still on the plane. The second leg of our flight should be underway soon.”
“Where are we going?”
I told her about the stroke-rehab center in Asheville and how I hoped we’d be able to work it out to stay at my ranch.
“Have I been there before?” she asked.
I shook my head. “The mission kept us in Europe for the last few months.”
“Tell me about it.”
“The ranch or the mission?”
She shrugged. “Both?”
Given I would avoid talking to her about the op during which she was shot, I started with the ranch.
“It sits a mile high on Walter Mountain and has one of the best views there is of the Smoky Mountains.”
“What’s there?”
“It’s a fully operational ranch, so along with the main house, there are other smaller dwellings, barns, and outbuildings.”
“What is ‘fully operational’?”
“I raise livestock.”
“Meaning?”
“Cattle, sheep, goats, horses along with poultry.”
“It sounds big.”
“About a thousand acres. Oh, and there’s a trout pond.”
“It sounds like a place I’d never want to leave if I were you.”
The older I got, the more I felt that way. These last few months were the longest I’d gone without spending at least a day or two there to get caught up. Home or not, I received regular reports from the ranch manager, but it wasn’t the same as riding the property myself.
“I can’t wait to see it.”
“I can’t wait to show it to you.” My words were thoughts escaped, and almost startled me. I’d never taken anyone to the ranch, not even Hammer, who had fished for an invitation more times than I could count.
* * *
Shortly after we landed at the small regional airport in Asheville, I received a message from Hammer saying he couldn’t get Siren an appointment at the stroke center until Monday. It made sense, given today was Saturday.
I carried her from the plane to an SUV that sat, waiting on the tarmac. It would take us to the other side of the airfield where, according to another text from Hammer, a medivac helicopter was waiting.
I had to hand it to him. He had no real idea of the state of Siren’s injuries, yet he was one step ahead of me in thinking of things to make travel exponentially easier for her.
One of my ranch hands got out of the vehicle and opened the back passenger door for me. “Hey, Smoke. Welcome home,” said Henry “Jack” Gray.
“Thanks. I’ll sit back here. You take the front passenger seat,” I said to the nurse.
Once inside, I helped Siren lower herself so she could lie with her head on my lap. She looked uncomfortable, but it was the best I could do for the five-minute drive.
Not that she’d ever been a big talker, unless she was bitching at me about something, but Siren’s silence unnerved me. “You okay?” I asked, resting my hand on her waist.
“I…uh…thank you for doing this for me, Smoke.”
“You’re welcome, but what were you going to say instead?”
“Nothing.”
* * *
We were in flight a few minutes when I looked over to where she lay on yet another gurney and saw Siren studying me.
“I wish I could see whatever it is you’re looking at,” she said.
“It’s nothing but mountains covered by trees.”
“I doubt that.”
I cocked my head. “Why?”
“Your expression. You look enraptured.”
My eyes opened wide when she lifted her left hand and held it out to me. “You have better movement.”
“I guess I do.” She looked down at her arm as though it wasn’t attached to her body.
A funny feeling settled in the middle of my chest. Did that mean her memory would soon improve too? And when it did, would she be angry with me for not telling her the truth about us, that we weren’t in a relationship? More that we barely tolerated each other?
“Describe it to me, Smoke.”
I turned my head, looking back out at the forests that never failed to take my breath away.
“They say that the Smokies are three million years old. I’m sure there’s scientific evidence to back that up, but looking down on them, it’s easy to believe. The range is part of both Blue Ridge and the Appalachian Mountains system. The Cherokees were the ones who first called the mountains Shaconage, meaning ‘place of the blue smoke.’”
She squeezed my hand. “Tell me what you see.”
I smiled. “I’ve never viewed the mountains from this vantage point. The rolling peaks look endless, like a vast, eternal sea shrouded in smoke.”
“Why shrouded in smoke?”
“I don’t understand the exact science, but over a hundred different species of hardwood trees grow in these mountains. The transpiration of their density, coupled with an average rainfall of eighty-five inches, produces a haze that looks like smoke.”
The awe-filled look of wonder on her face as I told her about the place that had been my home most of my life, was unexpected. There was so much I didn’t know about this woman. The reminder filled me with a sudden desire to learn everything I could.
Except, until Siren regained her memory, she would likely be unable to answer any questions I asked.
“Were you born here?”
“Near here, in a place called Pigeon Forge.”
“Why would that name sound familiar to me?”
I shrugged. “Not too much there when I was growing up. Now it’s one of Tennessee’s biggest tourist destinations.”
She nodded and turned her head away from me.
“Siren?”
“I can’t remember where I was born,” she whispered. “Where I grew up.”
“I can tell you if you’d like.”
Her head spun back in my direction. “I would.”
“You grew up in southeast Ireland, in a place called Waterford. It’s the country’s oldest city.”
“What else do you know about it?”
I reached over and stroked her cheek with my fingertip. “It’s beautiful. Just like the woman who was born there.” Her pale cheeks flushed, and she leaned into my hand.
“You’ve been?”
“My grandmother’s family was from Kinsale. It’s about two hours from Waterford, so yes, I visited the area.”
“But not with me?”
I shook my head. “There hasn’t been time.”
“How long have we known each other?”
“A few months.”
Her next question made the funny feeling settle back in my chest.
“How long have we been in love?”
“Not long,” I muttered, having no idea what else to say.
“That’s vague.”
In that moment of vulnerability, she looked more like a young girl than a woman. The truth was, Siren was a lot younger than me. “Do you remember how old you are?” I asked.
She thought it over for several seconds. “Not precisely.”
“You’re twenty-six.”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty-nine next month.” This time, I turned my head away from her.
“Does our age difference bother you?”
“Does it bother you?”
“I hate that,” she muttered.
“What?”
“When someone answers a question with a question.”
I smiled. “Yes, you do.”
“Then, answer.”
“I’m too old for you.”
“Is it that, or am I too young
for you?”
Rather than answer, I leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“The sex, though, is fantastic,” she whispered in my ear. “That, I remember.”
6
Siren
My body hurt like fecking hell, and my left arm only sporadically did what I wanted it to. My head was wrapped in bandages and, more often than not, throbbed. And yet, given all those things, whenever I closed my eyes, all I could picture was Smoke’s naked body covering mine, like it had the night on the beach.
When he went to sit back up and I tightened my grip on his hand, he looked as surprised as I was. “Come closer,” I murmured.
He leaned down so I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“Smoke,” I whispered. “How much longer until we can be alone?”
A groan emanated from somewhere deep in his chest, and he brought my hand to his lips. “Have you forgotten you were just released from the hospital?”
“Was I? It seemed more like I absconded.”
He laughed. A sound I loved. His voice was deep and rich, exactly the way one would think judging by his appearance. Its timbre shot a wave of desire through my body. I moved our clasped hands to my breast and saw the same desire I felt, flare in his eyes.
“Not too much farther,” said Smoke, pulling away and sitting up. “I can see the creek that runs alongside the road and starts up at the ranch.”
“The creek starts there?”
I closed my eyes, picturing what it would look like. An image of a stream flashed in my mind. There were no trees around it, just rolling meadows. When I tried to keep it in focus, it vanished.
“Everything okay?” Smoke asked.
I opened my eyes and looked into his. “A memory…”
“Of?”
“It wasn’t much. Just water.” Suddenly overcome by sadness, I closed my tear-filled eyes.
“We’re here,” Smoke said as I felt the helicopter descending. Once it landed, he gathered me in his arms and lifted me from the gurney.
“We’re on top of a mountain.” I gasped, looking out at the miles and miles of mountain views.
Smoked Page 3