by Cynthia Eden
“Brodie and I can watch Ava.” Davis’s voice was flat. “You need to rest.”
Right. Like he’d be able to rest with the adrenaline rush still coursing through his veins. “I let him get away,” he said. “I should have—”
“Don’t.” Ava’s voice was brittle. “Don’t even say it, do you understand?” And she turned to glare at him. “Don’t say that you should have killed him. That’s not you. That’s not what you do! You don’t kill people! You help—you save people, just like you saved me!”
Not always, Ava.
“You know I can keep her safe,” Mark said. Davis was one of the few people who knew all about his past. “Don’t you want as much protection for her as possible?”
He saw Davis give a grim nod. Good, because if Davis had taken Mark back to the Montgomery ranch, he just would have forced his way back inside the McGuire place.
The rest of the ride passed in silence. The road was pitch black. Mark kept glancing around, hyperaware now that threats could come at any time. Until that guy was caught, he knew he’d be looking over his shoulder.
And trying to keep Ava as close as possible.
Davis took them through the big gates at the McGuire ranch. The vehicle eased up the drive until they got to the guest cottage. Ava hurriedly jumped out of the car, and Davis followed her.
Mark exited, but he stood back a minute, waiting to see what went down between Ava and her brother.
“You should stay up at the main house,” Davis told Ava. “Jennifer got a room ready for you—you know you’ll be safe there.”
“I’m starting to think no one is safe...anywhere.”
Mark had to strain in order to hear her words.
“Come to the main house,” Davis said again.
But Ava shook her head. “I’m staying here with Mark.”
Yes.
Davis turned toward him. “You see anything suspicious, you call me, got it? You sound an alarm, and you get me here.”
If he saw an attack coming, Mark would be striking back with all the power that he had.
Davis paced toward him. He leaned in close. His voice no more than a breath of sound, he warned Mark, “And you keep your hands off my sister, got it?”
No, he didn’t. Mark grabbed Davis’s arm, stopping him before he could leave. Keeping his voice just as low as Davis’s had been, Mark said, “Ava’s an adult. What happens between us...it’s just between us.” If Ava wanted him, the last thing he’d do would be to turn away from her.
Davis could get angry. The guy could try to take a swing at Mark, but there was no way Mark was staying away from Ava. Not now.
Davis’s expression was unreadable in the darkness. But when he said, “You hurt her, and I’ll break you,” Mark understood his threat.
Then Davis was heading back to the car.
Ava had opened the door to her cottage. Mark rushed forward, not wanting her to go in alone. He caught her hand. “Let me check it out.”
“The...the alarm’s still on. The place should be safe.”
It should be, but he still wanted to check in there. Mark hurried inside and did a sweep of the guest house. The den was clear. So was the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom and—
He opened another door. The room there was mostly empty except for about a dozen canvases that had been stacked near the walls.
“No one here but us,” Ava said, her voice still sounding brittle. Sharp. Not at all like Ava. “I told you the place was safe.”
He turned to look at her, but Ava’s eyes were on the canvases. “I store them here because I don’t want anyone else to see them.” She seemed to hesitate. Then she said, “Maybe I should just throw them out.”
He’d never seen Ava’s paintings before. He didn’t think anyone had. He took a step toward those canvases.
This time, she was the one to reach out to him.
“We all have...secrets, don’t we?”
Yes.
Her gaze rose to hold his. “Who are you?”
Mark shook his head, not understanding.
“Are you the man who kept me sane all those years ago? The white knight, riding to my rescue?” She swallowed. The faint click of sound was almost painful to hear. “Or are you the guy who talks about killing a man in a way...in a way that makes me think you’d really do it? That you wouldn’t hesitate at all?”
Her fingers were so soft against his skin. Like silk. “If your life was on the line, I wouldn’t hesitate.” He would do anything for her.
Who are you?
“I’m both men.” Good and bad tangled together.
Ava was so close to him. Her gaze searched his. “Should I be afraid of you?”
He shook his head. “I won’t hurt you.” It was a vow he’d made to himself long ago.
“Can I trust you?”
There were things she didn’t know, but when it came to her safety... “Yes.”
Ava glanced back toward the canvases. He couldn’t see what she’d painted on them, and he wanted to stride forward.
But he also wanted her to keep touching him.
“You told the police that the man who attacked you said I was his.”
His back teeth clenched. “Yes.”
“What do you think he’ll do...to me?”
If he had the chance... The image flashed in Mark’s mind, and rage burned inside him.
“That’s what I think, too,” Ava said, seeming to read Mark’s thoughts. “Why? Why does he want to hurt me? I don’t even know him.”
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her against him. “Because he’s sick, Ava. You didn’t do anything. It’s this guy. He’s just—”
“If he started making plans when I was sixteen, then do you think... Was he one of the men who killed my parents?”
Mark was afraid that he just might be.
“Why?” Her head titled back as she stared up at him. “Why is he doing this? Why is he focusing on me?”
“I don’t know.” He wished he had words to comfort her.
Her gaze slid over his face, then up to his forehead. The docs had put in a few stitches there, and they’d stitched up his shoulder. The wounds didn’t hurt him. He’d had much worse before, courtesy of Gregory and the life he’d led after leaving the ranch.
“I’m sorry he hurt you.” She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. “The people I care about always seem to get hurt because of me.”
Her scent teased him. Strawberries. Ava.
He closed his eyes as he just drank her in for a moment.
“I’ll...get some covers for you. You can sleep on the couch. Or, I mean, if you want, you can take the bed.”
He opened his eyes.
“You’re the one who was hurt,” she whispered. “I can easily bunk on the couch while you take the bed.”
He’d rather be in that bed with her.
“I heard the doctors...” She exhaled softly. “They said you might have a concussion. Is it even safe for you to sleep—”
“I’m not planning to sleep.” Too much adrenaline pumped through him. He wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. “And you...you take the bed, Ava. I’ll be fine on the couch.”
She nodded and slipped from the room. Her soft footsteps padded away.
He stared at the stack of canvases. Ava had made those, and because they were hers...part of Ava...he found himself striding across that room. He wondered what she would paint. When she’d been in her early teens, she’d always taken a sketchbook around the ranch with her. He’d found the sketchbook once. It had been filled with drawings of her horse, her brothers. Even... Me.
He’d been blown away by her work. It was so beautiful and detailed for someone so young. What would her
work be like now?
He picked up the first canvas.
Mark sucked in a sharp breath.
Her work...it was still beautiful. But it was dark. She wasn’t sketching anything anymore. Not painting horses or people. The art was abstract. Angry reds and turbulent grays. He picked up more canvases, going through them, seeing the same emotions jumping out at him again and again.
Rage.
Pain.
They were twisted together in her paintings, so strong he could feel the emotions battering at him as he gazed at her work. So strong that—
The last canvas was a painting of a man. Ava’s father. He was staring back from that canvas, his eyes filled with fear even as his face was twisted with rage.
The floor creaked. Mark’s head snapped up. Ava stood in the doorway. She had a pillow and a blanket in her arms. She gazed at him, her eyes wide. Hurt.
“Ava—”
“Not so beautiful anymore, are they?”
He didn’t speak. The paintings were beautiful. In a dark and almost unearthly way.
“You told me once that my sketches were beautiful.”
He put down the last canvas and took a step toward her.
“When I pick up a brush now, it’s all so...rough.” She gave a hard shake of her head. “It was supposed to be therapeutic, doing that. At least, that’s what I read in one of those crazy self-help books. ‘Paint your emotions.’ But I guess I didn’t realize my emotions were so violent.”
Because there was violence in her work.
“I...want them to pay.”
He took another step toward her.
“I want the men who killed my parents to suffer. I want them to hurt, just like I hurt.” Her voice dropped. “My brothers want to shut me out and hunt these men on their own, but...it’s about me. Don’t they get that? I was there. My father’s last moments—he was staring right at me.”
With fear in his eyes and rage on his face.
“I won’t be shut out.” Her laughter held a desperate edge. “Especially since I know they died because of me.” She pushed the pillow and the blanket into his arms. Then she spun on her heel.
“It wasn’t because of you.” He wanted to be clear on that.
She looked back over her shoulder. “But that man tonight—”
“If he was involved, that has nothing to do with you. You didn’t ask him to kill your parents.”
Ava flinched. That had been one of the vicious rumors circulated about her. That she’d hired men to kill her parents. That they hadn’t approved of her secret lover and she’d had them killed. How else had she escaped that night? Ava must have been involved. At least, that was what the gossip said.
He’d hated those stories. Every time he’d heard those tales, he’d jumped to Ava’s defense. And when a few fools in a bar had been dumb enough to mouth off about Ava and her parents, Mark had started a bar fight that wound up costing him over five thousand dollars in repair fees. He’d torn that place down because those drunks had been raging about her.
They didn’t even know her. Ava would never do something like that.
Because Ava... She was one of the few good things left in the world. In his world, he sometimes thought she might be the only good thing left.
“You didn’t do this,” he said again, because he wanted Ava to believe that.
“I want to give them justice. Sometimes I think if I can just get them justice—” her smile was bittersweet “—maybe I’ll be able to sleep without them haunting me.”
Then Ava slipped away.
* * *
AVA LAY IN BED and stared up at the ceiling. Mark was just outside the bedroom. She’d heard him getting settled for the night. Moving quietly, but the creaking floor had given him away.
Now there was only silence from the den.
She’d been so afraid earlier. So terrified that she wouldn’t get to him in time.
Her fingers curled around the sheets. Mark could have died that night. And what would her life have been like then?
You have to keep going. Davis had told her that after they’d buried their parents. We can’t crawl into the ground with them. You think they’d want that? No, they’d want you to live and to be happy.
She pushed aside the covers. She’d changed into a pair of loose shorts and a T-shirt before she’d climbed into bed.
If Mark had been killed, everyone would have expected her to soldier on.
They wouldn’t have realized that her heart had been cut out of her chest.
What am I waiting for?
Ava crept toward her bedroom door. The sound of her breathing seemed far too loud to her. Her fingers touched the doorknob. She turned it and the door opened with a little squeak.
The den was dark, but her eyes quickly adjusted. She could see Mark on the sofa. Not lying down but sitting up. She inched forward.
“Did you have a bad dream, Ava?”
In a sense, yes.
“It’s all right,” he told her softly. “You know nightmares can’t hurt you.”
She stood in her doorway and tried to keep her backbone straight. “There’s...there’s plenty of room in the bed.” She sucked in a quick breath. “There’s enough space for us both. You don’t have to stay on that couch.”
Silence.
Her cheeks burned. As far as seduction routines went, hers was extremely lame. It was just that this moment mattered so much to her. No, he mattered.
“Ava...” he said her name like a caress, and she shivered in the dark. “Are you inviting me into your bed?”
“Yes.” That was exactly what she was doing.
She saw his shadowy form rise. He walked toward her, big and menacing in the darkness. She didn’t back away when he approached. This time, there was no hesitation. Life was too short to waste on doubts.
“Let’s be very clear.” His voice held an edge she couldn’t quite interpret. Desire was there. Demand, really, but...more. “Are you offering me a place to sleep...”
She waited.
“Or are you offering me more?”
Ava reached out, took his hand and laced her fingers with his. “I’m offering you everything.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “There won’t be any going back once we cross this line.”
“There’s no other place that I want to go.”
She turned and led him back into the bedroom. Her heart was racing in her chest, and she wondered if he could feel the nervous tremor in her fingers. She wanted to appear sophisticated and in control, but the truth was that her knees felt like jelly. This moment with him—it mattered so much to her.
“I was waiting for you,” he said.
She stopped at the bed and turned back toward him.
“Waited so long...for you...to come to me.” His left hand rose and sank into her hair. He tipped her head back, and his head lowered toward hers. “I thought I’d go insane from waiting.”
And she hadn’t even thought he really wanted her, not until that kiss at his ranch.
“Is it safe?” Ava asked, a fast worry pushing through her. “With your stitches?”
“What stitches?” Then he was kissing her. Softly at first, then harder, deeper. “I don’t feel a thing but you,” he said against her mouth.
And he was all she could feel as he surrounded her with his strength. His chest was bare, and when he pulled her closer, his muscles flexed against her.
Her mouth opened more for him. His tongue slipped past her lips, and her hands rose to grip his shoulders.
“No interruptions this time,” he said. “Just you and just me.”
She moved a bit to the side, and her knees hit the mattress.
“Just you,” she repeated. “Just me.”
&nb
sp; His hands curled around her hips, and he lifted her onto the bed.
Ava caught the hem of her shirt, hesitated only about half a second—because this was Mark!—and pulled the shirt over her head.
She thought that Mark was going to come closer to her then. That she’d feel his touch. Instead, the bedside lamp flashed on. She blinked against the light and saw Mark standing there, his hand still near the lamp but his eyes on her.
“You really thought...I’d take you in the dark?” He shook his head. “No, baby, I want to see everything, because I’m never forgetting you.”
His gaze slid over her body, down to her breasts. Her nipples were tight and aching for him. She wanted him to touch them. She wanted him to lick them.
Mark drew in a deep breath. “Take off the shorts.”
She eased back onto the bed until she was lying down. With her eyes still on him, Ava arched her hips and pushed the shorts over her hips and down her legs. When the shorts were near her knees, Mark caught them, easing the material the rest of the way off.
He dropped the shorts onto the floor. His gaze was on her underwear, a pair of black cotton panties. She wore nothing else.
“You are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He said the words as if he meant them. She knew Mark had probably been with plenty of lovers—he had money and power, and the guy was pure walking sex appeal—but when he stared at her, there was such stark desire in his eyes.
Like I’m the only woman for him.
That was perfect, since he was the only man for her.
His hand lifted, and he touched her shoulder. Lightly. Carefully.
That wouldn’t do.
Ava shook her head. “I want everything from you that you have to give.” Passion and need and a desire that burned right through any thought of control.
Their gazes held.
“Take off your jeans,” Ava ordered him.
Staring at her, he did.
Her breath came faster. If possible, the need within her built even more. Desire was raging within her blood, a heat that flooded her veins.
He slid into the bed with her and kissed her, not carefully, not softly—wildly. Hard and fierce and deep, and it was exactly what she wanted from him.