by Lora Leigh
Later, much later, Sabella stared into the darkness. Noah slept beside her, one arm under her, one thrown over her. His head rested next to hers, the soft rhythm of his breathing flowed over her.
There were things, Sabella thought, that men just did not always consider when it came to women. Because women were smart enough not to tell them.
Women took the time to know the men they loved. The little things. Women were curious like that, where men weren’t always as perceptive, even big tough SEALs and superagents.
For instance, the way a man touched a woman’s body, the woman he loved. Not just the feel of his fingers, but how he did it. The strength could change, it could be gentle and firm, or it could be desperate and hungry, but still there were things that remained the same. Certain sensations, certain ways of doing it.
The way a man took a woman, hard and fast or slow and easy or anything in between, there was always a single constant. And that was the man.
Scars marred Noah’s hands and his body. There were calluses her husband hadn’t had and there were calluses her husband had had that were missing from Noah’s hands. But the way his cock pressed into her, the nerve endings it stroked, the way he filled her, the way he stretched her, it was all too similar.
Too many things were too similar.
“Sabella. You hit my truck. It was right there, in plain view.”
The memory slashed over her, around her. It seared in her memory. Nathan yelling at her. Nathan never yelled at her. He always controlled himself. But she had shocked him that day. He had gripped her shoulders to move her out of the way, but she had felt it. Felt the way his fingertips pressed, not ungently, in a distinct way. The way his fingers flared out, gripped, moved her.
She remembered his eyes. So wild, the way they went feverish with anger, arousal, and pure lust as he dragged her into the house.
It was distinctive. She remembered the exact spots his fingers had pressed into her shoulders, how it made them feel, how his eyes had changed.
She remembered where he hid his guns. How he hid his guns.
He had known where the coffee cups were in her kitchen that first morning when she had informed him he wouldn’t be sharing her bed. She had distracted him, made him angry right off, and he had stalked straight to the coffee cups and pulled one free, and not once had she shown him where they were.
He slept against her as her husband once had. He held her as her husband had held her.
And that first night, between sleep and waking, she was certain, now she was certain to the soles of her feet, that she had heard him whisper “go síoraí.” The words only her husband had known to whisper to her.
She turned her head to stare at him, watched how his hair fell over his brow now. Nathan had always kept his hair cut short, but the profile hadn’t changed that much. Small differences, enough to fool her at first.
He was her soul. No other man could have walked into her life and taken her over as he had. Only her husband could have done that.
And he had been lying to her all along.
He said he’d been captured. Pumped full of that horrifying drug that had been in the news a few years back. And she remembered her own nightmares. The crawling certainty that he was in danger, not dead. Hearing him scream out for her, begging her to save him, to help him. Her horror, her uncertainty. Waking in the middle of the night screaming from an agony that had no beginning and no end.
He said her husband had died. His eyes had held bleak, raging pain. And he hadn’t lied to her. He truly thought the man he was had died. And perhaps in ways he had. But this was still her husband, her lover, her soul. Only his name had changed. He was still hers.
And he was still lying to her. He was, and Rory was. Her eyes narrowed. The son of a bitch. Rory knew. He had told Rory, but he hadn’t told his own wife.
She fought back the panic, the pain at the thought that Noah hadn’t told her the truth, perhaps even hadn’t returned home for her. Rory was stronger. He was a man. And he knew the truth, she was certain of it. Whatever Noah was doing, did he think he would need help?
He had had to get into the garage, but why? To get to her? To do whatever he had come here to do?
She inhaled slowly. Whatever the reason, it was time her husband, as much as she loved him, adored him, as much as having him back in her arms meant to her, it was time he learned. Lying to Sabella was a very, very bad thing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next morning Toby was still shaken, but he was at work on time and determined to stay. He wasn’t going to let anyone run him off, he claimed.
Sabella worked in the garage for several hours, tuning up one of the vehicles that had come in the evening before and finishing it before she looked at the clock and smiled.
She lowered the hood, her gaze going to Noah.
He was watching the computer readout on a new SUV, twirling a wrench lazily through his fingers and chewing gum. Damn, she was glad none of the old mechanics he had employed worked here anymore. They would have seen that and suspected instantly. If they had ever paid attention to it. It was something Sabella had found completely sexy the few times she had seen him do it, so many years ago.
Irish. Her heart swelled, tears threatened to rush to her eyes, and she had to turn away quickly to keep from sobbing out in joy.
Her Irish. He was back, he was here. She trembled at the knowledge and shook with the anger. Whatever had kept him away, it was obvious he had spent quite a lot of time recovering from it. She would have been there for him. She could have been there. She would have given up her life to have made a single day, a single hour, easier for him.
And he had refused to allow it. He hadn’t let her come to him, hadn’t let her comfort him, and even now, he tried to hide from her.
From the corner of her eye she watched as Rory came over to him, caught the wrench, and gave his brother a warning glare.
Oh yeah, Rory knew. He knew well enough to know to watch for the little things that would give Noah away. She turned away before narrowing her eyes as a sense of betrayal filled her. He could tell his brother, but he couldn’t tell her?
She turned and jerked the mechanic’s rag from the counter and cleaned her hands.
“Rory, I have an appointment,” she called out. “I’ll be back around five.”
Both Rory and Noah turned to her, their expressions wiping, becoming bland. Bastards.
“We have a lot of work piled up here, Belle.” Rory cleared his throat as Noah crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a brooding stare.
“It can’t be helped.” She shrugged. “I’m running up to the house to shower then I have to meet Sienna and Kira.”
She tossed the rag back to the counter and dug her car keys from her back pocket. She flashed them both a tight, hard smile.
“I’m sure you can survive without me.”
Kira had been surprised when Sabella had called her that morning and asked if she wanted to meet her and Sienna at the spa. The other woman was wary, cautious, but game. Sabella liked that about her. Kira was no one’s fool, but she was also curious as hell.
Sabella moved from the garage to her car aware of Noah following her. He caught her as she reached the little red BMW Z8 Nathan had rebuilt for her just before he had left on that last mission.
The fender was still crumpled from slamming it into the back of Nathan’s truck. The truck that still sat in the garage. Unused. His pride and joy. She wondered if he had even checked on his truck. He could have done it easily without her knowing about it.
She had just reached the car when she felt his fingers curl around her upper arm, drawing her to a stop.
Sabella felt her breath catch. Her eyes closed and emotion swamped her. Joy, anger, sorrow, and so much hope. So much hope it nearly brought her to her knees. And fear. Did she want this so badly that she was seeing no more than an illusion?
No. It wasn’t an illusion. It was her Irish.
“What’s going on?” His
voice was rough, grating. Somehow, something had happened to the voice that had sung Irish ballads to her, that whispered her name with such a lyrical quality.
But it wasn’t the voice that held her soul, it was the man.
She cleared her throat and turned to him, staring at his chin.
“I told you, I have an appointment at the spa.” She tugged her arm out of his grip before glancing up at his eyes, fighting to hold back the sheer awe she felt that she could hold him again. That she could love him again.
Her Irish. She wanted to throw her arms around him and cry out his name, and she couldn’t.
She didn’t know how dangerous it could be, to him, to all of them. But mostly to him. If he had come back to her as another man, he would have had to have a reason that risked all their lives. And her husband was incredibly protective, no matter what name he went by. He would fight to save those he loved, no matter the risk.
“Why today?” His voice hardened. He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her to stay, where he could watch her.
“Does it matter? Is there a reason why I shouldn’t go?”
“Well, nothing other than the fact that one of your employees was nearly killed yesterday.” His lips tightened and his eyes glowed back at her with an edge of worry and anger.
“They were striking at you, not at me.” She wasn’t ignoring the truth. “Whatever happened the night before is what targeted Toby, Noah. Not me. I know how to be careful. And my husband taught me how to watch my back,” she reminded him. “I’m not an unwary teenager.”
She saw him flinch.
“No, you’re a stubborn little hellion determined to do things her own way,” he growled.
She opened the door to her car before turning back to him.
“I’m meeting Sienna for lunch, then we have an appointment at the spa. Now that you’re here and the garage is doing so well, I thought I’d take an afternoon off and be a girl rather than a grease rag for a change. Do you have a problem with that?”
Those eyes. Arousal sparked, then flamed within them.
“Manicure?” He lifted his lips in a little snarl.
“A manicure would be wasted on this place.” She waved her hand to the garage. “And I’d much prefer playing with guys’ motors than babying a set of nails. But a nice massage. A cut and style.” She shook her hair at him. “Maybe a facial.” Maybe a wax.
She could feel the thought hovering between them. Maybe having the curls removed from between her thighs again, feeling his beard against sensitive bare skin, feeling his tongue love the bare folds. She had her husband back, but she wasn’t willing to give up her independence again. There had been a few things she enjoyed from the girly zone she and Sienna called the spa.
As he watched her, she could see what was coming. His lashes blinked over his eyes slowly, his expression became set, determined, dominant. The dominance was a new facet, or perhaps one that had been hidden in the past.
“I’d prefer you wait,” he finally said. “Or let me drive you in.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Noah.” She shook her head. She needed away from him, just for a little while. “Stay out of knife fights at night, and maybe you won’t have to worry so much.”
She had checked the wounds this morning when they awoke, rebandaged them, and she was amazed he hadn’t bled to death while he was taking her.
“I have to go.” She slid into the car. “Don’t forget Becca Jean’s car this afternoon. She has a heavy class load over the next few months and I want to make sure there’s nothing more wrong with it than resetting the computer chip.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he bit out. “Dammit, Sabella. At least be careful.”
“I’m always careful.” She gripped the steering wheel and stared back at him, infuriated. “You’re the one that doesn’t know how to stay out of trouble.”
She gripped the door handle, pulled it from him, aware that she only did it because he allowed it, and started the car.
A second later she was pulling out of the parking lot and glancing in the rearview mirror to see him putting his cell phone to his ear.
She wondered who her babysitter would be.
Noah watched as the little BMW pulled into the parking lot beside the two-story brick house and Sabella went inside.
Micah Sloane and John Vincent were taking turns keeping an eye on her when she wasn’t with Noah. Noah hadn’t intended that she be out of his sight for long. And he didn’t like her running around town without him. There were too many unknowns in this case and not enough information yet.
Shaking his head, he punched in the speed dial for Micah, let him know to watch her, because there was no doubt she would catch him tailing her, and went back to the pickup he had been working on.
Delbert Ransome was Mike Conrad’s cousin. He’d brought the truck in when the other two garages in town couldn’t fix the revisions he’d made to the motor to add to its power and to the traction control.
Delbert liked to take the spiffy little four-by-four into the mountains and act like a damned fool. He worked for a neighboring rancher, Gaylen Patrick, and liked to brag about how close he was to the bank president, his cousin and one of the most powerful ranchers in town.
Biting off a curse, he threw an irritated look toward the house again and grabbed a mechanic’s creeper before lying back on it and rolling beneath the engine to see what the hell Delbert had done to the new motor.
It was clean. Delbert like to keep the motor power-washed and looking nice and pretty. He hadn’t been beneath the motor for long when he found it. The flashlight he was using skimmed over the odd shadow, then came back. There, lit by the powerful little light, was something he knew Ransome couldn’t have imagined he’d missed in washing the motor. A small clump of mud, mixed with something darker, and lodged in its underside, a clump of black hair and dried flesh.
He slid out from under the truck, checked to see if the other mechanics were watching, then levered himself up and pulled two small vials and a penknife from the toolbox along with several tools he wouldn’t be needing.
He moved back under the vehicle, scraped the samples from the motor into the little plastic vials, capped them, then pushed them into his jeans pocket until he could get the vials to one of the other men to take to the bunker.
Gaylen Patrick was on their list of suspects as being involved with, or heading, the Black Collar Militia. He had the contacts and the cash. And now, one of his main ranch hands would be implicated in the deaths.
If the DNA matched any of the bodies that had been found, then they had a main player, and hopefully more information.
And the danger would rise.
Noah checked the underside of the truck again, looking for more samples and finding several lodged in various areas of the motor, tucked into places Delbert’s power washer hadn’t been able to reach.
Stupid bastard.
He stored the samples and let the motor go. Checking into it more deeply for the problem with the traction or power could lead to complications. If Delbert thought the garage had done no more than an overall test, then when he was arrested for those samples he wouldn’t pin the blame on Sabella’s head. Or Noah’s.
Hiding a smug grin, he called over to the mechanic he suspected was a plant, and put him on the truck instead.
Noah knew for a fact he’d found everything incriminating in there, and what was left, the sallow-skinned little mechanic working on the truck wouldn’t find. It was tucked in too deep. Just enough left to incriminate Delbert when the truck was taken apart.
Noah went upstairs to the apartment, and recorded the positioning of the remaining evidence, the areas from which he had scraped the hair and skin samples, folded the paper around the vials, and wrapped it all together with heavy rubber bands before pushing it into the pocket of his jeans again and returning to the garage.
It would be a few hours before Nik could safely leave, without being noticed, and head to the bunker. Going over t
o Sabella’s friend’s car, he looked it over carefully, while keeping the mechanic working on the truck in close view.
If he found anything, Delbert would be there fast to pick up the truck. If he didn’t, the mechanic would keep doing what he was doing now, scratching his head and checking the fuel injection. Those samples weren’t anywhere close to the fuel injection.
Noah saw Sabella pulling out of the driveway to the house, and a few seconds later Micah’s car pulled out of a nearby street and followed behind her. She was covered, but it bit his ass that he wasn’t the one covering her, protecting her.
Shaking his head, he moved back into the garage and grinned back at the mechanic watching him from Delbert’s pickup. In a gesture of friendliness, the man was shaking his head and grinning.
“She’s a fine one.” The mechanic, Chuck Leon, grinned and pulled at the dirty blond goatee he wore. “You could do worse in these parts.”
“Yeah, I could,” Noah grunted. “And I could get more mechanics too if you don’t want to work.”
Something flickered in the other man’s brown eyes. But he nodded slowly before bending to the motor and going back to work.
Noah wasn’t there to make friends with militia members, he was there to identify them and get their asses behind bars. But he had to admit, Leon was a hell of a mechanic when he wanted to be.
Noah’s eyes met Nik’s. The Russian was bent over the hood of the third car in the bay, while the fourth man was working the counter in the convenience section. Nik wasn’t the sociable type. The big Russian with his white-blond hair and icy blue eyes was more killer material than checkout.
Glancing back toward the road, Noah clenched his teeth and went back to work. There were more cars waiting in the parking lot outside. Nik seemed to be pulling in the college girls. They liked his rough looks evidently. More of Toby’s friends were dropping their cars off when they had to, and more of their parents were coming, stopping by, checking to see how things were going.
There was a rhythm developing, and Noah was letting it seep into him more and more. Just as Sabella was taking a firmer hold on his very spirit than she had ever had.