by Lexi Blake
“You can’t forbid anything,” she replied with a sigh.
He chose to ignore her. “How fast can we be in Vegas, Cam?”
Laura turned, her face marred by a nasty frown. “We’re not going to Vegas.”
“If I break speed limits, I can get us there in ten hours.” Cam paused at the street as though trying to make the decision.
Laura stared at Cam. “If you want me to run again, this is the way to do it.”
Cam turned toward her cabin. Pussy. As if he could hear Rafe’s thoughts, his eyes pleaded through the rearview mirror. “What am I supposed to do? We can’t make her marry us.”
Rafe didn’t see why not. “I can think of several ways.”
“It’s not happening,” Laura said, a stubborn set to her chin. “You’re going to drop me off at my place, and then you can leave. Both of you.”
Cam turned to her. “I’m not going anywhere. I told you that. I told you that you couldn’t get rid of me. For god’s sake, Laura, we made love not an hour ago.”
“We had sex,” she shot back.
“You told me you loved me,” Cam replied, his voice thick with emotion.
Rafe sat, wishing he’d had the chance to pull her in back with him. He could see plainly what she was doing. He wished he’d done more than ruined Brad Conrad’s face. By showing her those photos and playing on her guilt, Brad had undone all the progress he and Cam had made with her. Brad had shoved her back into that place where she was alone and helpless.
He wasn’t about to let her stay there. “Can I finish this conversation for you, bella? I know precisely how it is going to go. Now you’re going to tell Cam that you didn’t mean it. You’re going to tell him that making love in the sheriff’s office meant nothing. You were telling him what he wanted to hear because he was being unreasonable. Cam is going to get hurt and sit there in sullen silence while you turn to me and tell me the same thing. You’re going to lay down the law. You’re going to push us both out by telling us you never loved us and you like your life here without us. You’re going to tell us to go home and forget about you. Am I close?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I was going to curse more.”
Yes, she probably would have. He shook his head. “You’re being a self-sacrificing idiot.”
“Is this about the case?” Cam asked, clearly confused.
“No,” he replied. “It’s far more than the case.” He couldn’t forget the haunted look on Laura’s face as she’d told him they didn’t need to use a condom. “She’s feeling guilty about a lot of things. She’s feeling the weight of those women’s deaths. She’s also feeling unworthy. She loves us, but she doesn’t know how to be with us.”
“That is such bullshit,” Laura shot back. “I think I know how to be with you, Rafe. I just have to let you pin me to the nearest flat surface. That’s all you require.”
She wasn’t going to get to him that easily. “I don’t require a surface at all, bella. When I want you, I’ll simply lift that skirt, pick you up, and impale you on my cock.”
Cam shook his head. “Yeah, baby, I can totally do it standing up.”
He couldn’t miss the way her fists clenched in her lap as Laura replied. “There’s more to a relationship than sex.”
He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to touch her, but he held off. “Yes, there’s far more. There’s also more to a marriage than giving birth to children.”
She flushed, her delicate skin turning pink in a heartbeat.
Cam stopped the car in the middle of the road. “She thinks we don’t want her because she can’t have kids?”
He’d known they would have to deal with this sometime. “I believe Laura is seeing herself as the noose that’s going to take us both down.”
Cam turned back to the road and started driving again. “You’re right—she’s being a martyr.”
“You’ve both quit your jobs for me,” she said, though a bit of the fire had left her voice.
“I never liked it much anyway,” Cam said flippantly. “I was only there for the nookie, and when you walked away, that dried up.”
She slapped a hand on the dashboard. “This is serious, damn it.”
Cam shrugged as he sped up. “I am serious. I would have quit that job a long time ago if it hadn’t been for you and Rafe. I’m not like some of these guys. I don’t want to be knee-deep in bodies. It drags on me. I like programming. I liked building the program that found you. I’m going to stay here in Bliss and work my job and come home, and after I fuck you into submission, I’ll work on my facial recognition program.”
“You are not staying with me.”
“So, throw me out,” Cam challenged. “When you can pick me up and toss me out, I’ll sit in your doorway until you let me back in.”
“I won’t,” Rafe vowed. “I’ll slip back in again and again.”
“Damn it, Rafe,” she hissed under her breath. “Be reasonable. Go back to Joe and get your job back. You know he’ll take you back in a heartbeat. Cam might not have loved the Bureau, but you’re a lifer, and you know it. You relish that job. It’s everything you worked for.”
He had loved the job, but he loved Laura more. The job he’d spent his whole life preparing for had threatened to chew up and spit out the only woman he’d ever loved. In the end, there wasn’t a choice to be made. He wouldn’t love the Bureau with his whole heart. He wouldn’t cuddle the fucking Bureau at night. The Bureau wouldn’t grow old with him. “I’m not going back. I don’t know what I’ll do from here, but I can’t go back.”
“That is insane,” Laura said.
“Why? Didn’t you walk away from a life that you thought didn’t work for you anymore? That’s what I’m doing. I’m walking away. The world is a big place. When one thing stops working, you walk out and find something else. As long as I have you, I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head. “No. You don’t have me. I won’t do this. I won’t be the reason you lose your job and your family. What would your mother say? Or are you asking me to choose between you and Cam again?”
He knew she was making a certain amount of sense, but his sense had been tossed out a long time ago. There were a hundred things wrong about this relationship, but only one thing mattered. He loved her. “My mother can choose to accept me as I am, or she can stop talking to me. I’ll still love her. I’ll still try to take care of her. I can’t force her to respond the way I want. I can only be responsible for my own actions. I can’t fix the outside world, bella. I can only promise to make our personal world as perfect as I can.”
“You won’t be happy.” She turned and stared out the window.
“Don’t tell me how I’ll feel,” he shot back. “I know how I have felt for the last five years. Broken and useless.”
He’d been missing a piece of his soul since the day she’d walked away. His badge, his job, his family meant nothing if he couldn’t get her back. He loved his mother, but Laura was his soul. If there was a choice to be made, he’d made it the minute he quit the Bureau. Frustration welled up inside him. A few hours ago, he’d been deep inside her. Now he could feel her pulling away.
She turned from him, her eyes shifting to the road ahead. “You get over it, you know. That broken, useless feeling won’t last forever. You find something else to love, and you move on. You make a better life.”
Every word from her mouth made his heart ache. “And you found a better life.”
“I found this place. I love my friends. Do you know how long it took me to let one of them in? It was years. Nell was such a little flake. She was one of the first people I met here. She made me zucchini bread. I took one look at her and decided that she was safe. She wasn’t smart enough to hurt me.” Rafe could hear the tears in Laura’s voice. “I love her. God, I love her. I wouldn’t have given her the time of day when I was in DC. She would have been an amusing airhead, but I have learned more about truly loving the people around me from Nell than I could have imagined. She
believes in so much more than I can. And Holly. Holly will do anything for a friend, but I rebuffed her for years because I wasn’t going to let another Jana get her hooks in me. I broke my foot one winter. Holly ran out of her cabin, and she got me to the hospital in Del Norte, and she brought me home and fed me. She worked my shift for a week so I didn’t lose my job. I hadn’t done anything for her. I had been nothing but cold.”
“She saw the real you,” Cam said quietly.
She took a steadying breath. “I don’t know that I knew the real me until I came here. I don’t know that I would be this me if I went someplace else. Maybe part of figuring out who we are is finding a place to call home. What I’m trying to say is that it was hard, but I got over it. I’m happy here. You’ll be happy one day, Rafe. One day you’ll wake up, and your kids will jump all over you, and you’ll go to work as the special agent in charge, and your mom will be so proud. You’ll look back, and I’ll be nothing more than a memory. You’ll thank me.”
His hands were shaking. He had the sudden realization that this wasn’t going to go the way he had planned. She wasn’t going to give in because he kissed her senseless. “I won’t. If you won’t take me, I won’t thank you, bella. I could handle it if I thought I wasn’t the best man for you. Hell, I’m willing to share you because I know you need Cam, too. If you won’t accept me, my life won’t be filled with kids and this great career. It’ll be filled with regret because I know why you’re really rejecting me. You can’t forgive me. You can’t put what happened behind you.”
Her blonde hair shook, but she didn’t bother to turn around. “This isn’t about what happened to me. This is about you and Cam. Neither one of you can be happy here. It isn’t in you.”
“Really?” Cam asked, his bitterness dripping. “I’m such a city boy. I’ve never lived in the country.”
“You hated it,” Laura pointed out.
“No, I hated the small-minded attitudes that put my mother at the bottom of the social feeding order,” Cam argued. “I love the country. I love the peace and quiet, and if you think you can force me to leave, you’re wrong. You might not want me, but by god, you’ll see me. I’m not leaving. If I find this magical, mystical woman who can complete me by spitting out my kids and proving her womb works, then you’ll have to watch. You’ll have to watch me make a life for myself here and know that it could have been yours. Baby, I can’t tell you how much I wish I could change what happened. If I could give my fucking life to have spared you that, I would. I made a horrible mistake and you paid for it, but I’m here now. I’ve gotten on my knees and begged forgiveness. I can’t do any more than tell you that I love you, and I’ll try my damnedest to never fail you again. If you can’t forgive me, then you’ll watch me. You’ll watch me live my life here, without you.”
Cam pulled in front of Laura’s small cabin. It was tiny and far from Rafe’s traditional level of comfort, yet he’d been happy here briefly. He’d woken up this morning knowing where he belonged—beside her. Now she was pulling away, and he had the distinct impression that his caveman act wasn’t going to work this time. He could force her to Vegas, but he couldn’t make her marry him. He couldn’t make her accept him. Fuck, he couldn’t force her to forgive him.
Maybe he didn’t deserve forgiveness.
Laura slammed out of the car the instant it stopped. She walked to her door and disappeared behind it. Rafe felt like someone had shredded his insides. He threw open the car door and got out, utterly unsure of what to do next. He couldn’t leave. He thought briefly about walking in after her, throwing her down, and fucking her until she admitted that she loved them, but that wouldn’t work in the long run. She would just go back to her self-martyrdom as soon as the flush of orgasm faded.
She hadn’t forgiven him. Not even close.
He walked, unsure of where he was going. The early evening air was crisp though it was technically still summer. The grass at his feet was a lush green and sprinkled with wild flowers. Reds and whites and blues and purples dotted the carpet of grass as he walked closer to the river. He stared down at the Rio Grande. It looked deep and cold. It flowed on endlessly.
How the fuck was he supposed to deal with this? Her pain was his fault. He’d served her up on a silver platter because his career had meant more to him than her pride.
God, he wanted to take it all back.
“Don’t.” Cam was suddenly beside him. “Don’t give in to it.”
“What are you talking about?” Rafe asked, but he thought he knew.
“The guilt. It doesn’t solve anything, brother. I feel the weight of it. I feel it every time I look at that scar on her belly. We fucked up. We can’t let it affect the rest of our lives.”
“I don’t see why not. It affects the rest of hers.”
“Only because she’s letting it,” Cam replied. “I meant what I said. I love her. I won’t leave her again. If that means I’m a deputy in a small town, then that’s what I’ll be. If my penance for failing her is never touching her again, then I’ll stand back and protect her from afar, but I don’t think she’ll resist for long. When I was in the office with her, there wasn’t some horrible guilt between us.”
Rafe hadn’t felt it. All he’d felt was his connection to her. But then she’d rejected him.
Cam put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think you should leave, either.”
He was surprised at that. “Why? If I left, you could have her all to yourself.”
“And be alone? I don’t think so. She’s a hell of a woman. I think it takes two to handle her.”
Emotion choked him, and he finally fucking understood. This was why it could work. This pain he felt was halved because Cam took some of it. If Cam was here with him, then he was never alone. Cam would be beside him. A strange sense of love and gratitude flooded Rafe’s system. Love? Damn. He shouldn’t think that way about his best friend, but then again—why the fuck not? He didn’t want to jump Cam. He had zero desire to have anything physical with the man. But maybe love was a lot of different things. Maybe love was a word that defied simple explanation.
Family. That was another one of those words that he wasn’t sure of anymore. His family, it seemed, was outside the norm.
“Stay with me,” Cam said. “We can get her back. I know we can.”
Rafe nodded, far too emotional to speak. He wasn’t leaving. Not when he’d found his home.
Chapter Fourteen
“I think we should consider hiring a bodyguard for Laura and perhaps some security for the town,” Nate was saying into the microphone. “Special Agent Kincaid gave us the name of a company that might be good to work with.”
Laura felt like a freak. She’d tried to take a seat in the back, but Holly had shown up and pulled her to the front, explaining that the only reason she wasn’t onstage was that Nate had told everyone he didn’t want to put her on display.
Nice to know Nate Wright was on the job.
“I have a call in,” the sheriff continued, looking down at his notepad. “I’m going to talk to a man named Ian Taggart tomorrow about the potential of sending a couple of his men into town.”
She groaned inwardly at herself. She was in a terrible mood. She’d been sitting in this chair for an hour while Nate went over what was happening with the rest of the town. At some point, she’d noticed that Joe, Brad, and Edward had filed in, but they had kept to themselves.
The fact that everyone knew about her past rankled. She wouldn’t be proud, strong, competent Laura Niles anymore. She would be that victim, Laura Rosen.
Henry stood up.
Nate shook his head. “I’m sorry. By men, I meant men or women. Although I’m pretty sure the bodyguards are all men. I wasn’t trying to be sexist.”
Henry shook his head. “No, I wasn’t…are you talking about McKay-Taggart? The security firm in Dallas?”
She wasn’t about to let the town pay for bodyguards. She had no idea what Nate was thinking. He’d gone over the facts of the case a
nd what to look for. Everyone was supposed to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior. Everyone was supposed to stick together. There was a lot of talk about how Bliss had come through time and time again. She’d felt a bit numb through it all. The only thing that had warmed her was the way Cam and Rafe encircled her. Even though she wasn’t talking to them, she appreciated their presence. What the hell was she going to do if she couldn’t get them to leave?
She wanted them. God, it welled up inside her until she almost couldn’t breathe.
Rafe raised a hand. “It’s former Special Agent Kincaid and yes, that’s the firm I recommend. I used to work with Alex McKay and Eve St. James. They’re former FBI as well, and from what I understand his partner Ian Taggart has actually worked with Stefan Talbot before.”
“He’s super hot.” Jen piped up from the back. “He came and helped get me out of prison. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who gave Stef the handcuffs.”
“I had my own, love,” Stef replied. “But I agree that Taggart could be helpful in this situation.”
Henry shook his head. “No. We absolutely can’t hire that firm.”
Laura sat up a little straighter. She’d met Alex McKay once, but didn’t know a lot about the man. Still, Henry was helping her case, so she wasn’t about to argue with him.
“And why not?” Rafe didn’t have the same problem. “They’re excellent. They have a great reputation. If the county won’t pay for it, I’ll pay myself.”
She hated the fact that they were fighting. “I don’t need a bunch of bodyguards.”
But everyone was looking at Henry. The men were all eyeing him like he was crazy. Henry had flushed a nice shade of red. Nell was staring up at him like she didn’t quite understand.
“They don’t recycle,” Henry said primly. “And I recently read an article linking private security firms to civil wars in the third world.”
Nell gasped and the bullhorn came up.
Nate held up a hand. “We’ll table this until tomorrow after I have my talk with Taggart.” Nell opened her mouth, but Nate was quicker. “I’ll ask him about his recycling practices and how he feels about civil wars.”