The Marked Star
Page 21
“Let’s eat,” Sam said.
The guys grabbed plates and filled them buffet-style at the breakfast bar. Avoiding the table, they all went to the sofa and parked before the ballgame.
Nick went through the motions of eating, hoping he could swallow.
“Wow, Sam,” Tim said. “This is actually good.”
He nodded. “Elle—“ he stopped himself, then finished “—told me how to make it.”
Silence fell.
She’d touched them all, in one way or another. Nick lifted his chin toward the TV and asked about the game. “Who are we for?”
Joe responded. “Cards.”
“They winning?” Nick asked.
“Um, yeah,” Joe finally said, proving he’d been distracted, too.
They watched the game with only the sounds of forks scraping plates competing with the announcer’s calls.
The game ended.
Joe and Sam gathered plates and hit the kitchen to load the dishwasher. When Joe had put the leftovers in the fridge, he and Sam returned to the sofa. No one was talking.
Before long, Sam signaled Joe, who signaled Tim. He frowned his irritation that the task had fallen to him, but took it on. “So, Nick, you wallowed in it long enough yet to come to your senses?”
Whatever Nick had been expecting, that wasn’t it. “Excuse me?”
“Come on, Nick,” Sam cut in. “You know what he’s asking.”
“I don’t.” He really didn’t. “Wallowed in what?”
Joe chimed in, lifting an impatient hand. “The elephant in the room nobody’s talking about, bro.”
Sam grunted. “Not that Elle looks or acts like an elephant.”
“He knows what I mean, Sam.”
“I know, Joe. I’m just saying.”
Nick started to shut down. To back away and shut down. But the guys weren’t expressing idle curiosity, they were concerned. It showed in their body language. If Sam’s cap got pulled any lower, its brim would rest on his nose. “I can’t get her off my mind,” Nick admitted.
“Well, all right.” Sam slapped his thigh.
Joe glared Sam silent, then prodded Nick. “Because…?”
Nick shrugged, shook himself, then dragged an annoyed hand through his hair. “I don’t know.” He hesitated, let it grow to a pause, hoping someone would fill the silence. No one did. He took in a deep breath and admitted aloud something he’d sworn all his life never to feel. “Because I love her.” He spat, glared at Joe. “Satisfied? You got what you wanted. I love her.”
Joe gentled his voice. “Admitting it is a start.”
“Slow start,” Sam amended. “But I get why, okay? In your case, slow is good. Probably just a shade shy of a miracle.”
Miracle? More like, crazy. But knowing his history gave Sam, all of them, perspective and, because of it, they were giving him a pass. He didn’t need a pass from them, but he kind of liked having one. Nick nodded. “It doesn’t change anything. It’s just, now I know.”
“Know you love her?”
Nick looked at Joe. “Know what I am missing.”
“I get what you’re saying, but I don’t get what you mean.” Joe turned halfway toward Nick. “If you love her and she loves you, why don’t you just go get her, bro?”
“Now, we’re talking.” Sam shoved his ball cap back on his head, spun it around until the brim rested on his neck.
“It’s not that easy. Oh, we could grab her. That’d be easy enough. But then what?” Nick laced his hands, his elbows parked on his knees. “Love. What is it, anyway? Maybe she doesn’t love me, she just thinks she does. Put it to the test, and…”
“She’ll leave like everyone else?”
Nick’s gaze locked with Joe’s. He nodded. “I don’t know if I can take her leaving me twice. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’ll recover from this time.”
“She would have stayed,” Joe said. “I saw, okay?”
“Joe’s right. You didn’t ask her to stay.” Sam reminded him. “I got ten says she’d have parked it right here.”
“And I’d have made her miserable.” Nick worried his lower lip. “You guys know me. I’m too broken. It’d fall apart and—“
“You’re not,” Tim said. “Look at Mandy and me. You can’t get any more broken than we were, but we glued ourselves together, and it all worked out.”
“The women in your life don’t leave and not come back.”
“You don’t know that Elle wouldn’t come back. It’s worth the risk, Nick. For this woman, for you, it’s worth the risk.” Tim leaned forward. “I’ve seen a lot of women in love in my life, and—”
“Not as many as Joe.”
“True, Sam. But I have seen enough of them to know what I’m looking at.” Tim swung his gaze back to Nick. “Elle Bostwick loves you, Nick. It’s that simple.”
“I need to think.” Nick stood up, headed for the door, and grabbed the knob.
“Nick?”
He paused, looked back over his shoulder at Joe, and lifted his chin. “Yeah?”
“Courage isn’t out there. It’s inside you. That’s all this is about, bro—in case you aren’t knowing.”
He was right. Nick risked his life routinely. He knew how to do that. How to handle the ups and downs and the emotions. He knew how to be intense and to decompress. But this—he had no idea how to deal with this. “I don’t know if I have that kind of courage.” He opened the door then stepped outside.
On the edge of the porch, he nearly tripped over a bunch of flowers. Bending down, he lifted it. Sage.
Opening the door, he called out to the guys. “Phoenix has been here.”
They joined him on the porch. Sam asked, “Why are you sure Phoenix and not Johnson left the sage?”
Nick glanced Sam’s way. “Who else has been sending us messages using flowers? Technically, it’s an herb and not a flower, but…”
“Good point.” Tim added, “But Johnson left a poppy with Lizzie.”
“Framing Phoenix for snatching Jaycee.” Nick lifted a hand. “Warning us… that’s Phoenix.”
“So what does sage mean?” Joe asked. “Someone wise?”
“Doubtful.”
“I think she’s worried,” Nick said. To come back to the Lodge, she had to be deeply worried. “She helped us with Jaycee and the Howells. That could put her in jeopardy.”
“Yeah, NINA won’t be happy with her.”
“If they know it, they’ll kill her,” Tim said. “Unless they sanctioned it.”
That obviously worried him, but it should. His mother-in-law being eliminated. Mandy would be devastated at losing her mother. “Phoenix could bury it, if Johnson doesn’t out her.” Nick frowned. “What’s his status?”
“Gone aground,” Sam said. “One’s got alerts out worldwide. Nothing yet.”
“It’s getting old, him giving us the slip—or being cut loose by our side. I wish we could get and keep him out of commission.” Joe voiced what Nick had been thinking.
“Be glad he didn’t take out Olivia and the Howells and Jaycee.” Nick reminded them. “The man’s a psychopath.”
“I’m grateful,” Tim said. “He’ll bury himself underground for at least a year. He always does.”
“So you think Olivia’s safe?” Nick asked.
“I think Jackal will do all he can to help her be safe, and that means the two of them will handle Hawk.”
Her NINA boss could be problematic. “We better let Omega One know about this visit.”
“I agree, Nick,” Tim said.
“Why would Jackal cover for Olivia with Hawk?” Sam frowned. “I know he’s Mandy’s father, but—”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Tim cut in. “He and Phoenix have been together over thirty years.”
“Jackal and Liv are married?” Sam asked. “How did I not know this?”
“We didn’t exactly announce it,” Nick reminded Tim.
“Does anyone else know it? Our side or NINA’s?” Sam asked.
“Well, that explains that,” Sam said. “So if Hawk’s her boss, then who is Sage?”
“Has to be Hawk’s boss,” Tim said. “Aren’t you paying attention, Sam?”
“I am, it’s just—“ Sam suddenly stilled. His expression hardened and he looked at Nick. “Incoming.”
Seconds later, Nick made out the faint familiar sounds of chopper props slicing through the night sky. “Friend or foe?” he asked no one in particular.
The men drew their weapons. Unsure, they collectively prepared for either.
The chopper landed on the helipad. The door parted and someone’s silhouette appeared in the opening.
“Stand down,” Sam said. “It’s Elle.”
Elle. Nick’s heart skipped a full beat, then thud against his chest wall. Nick couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Elle.
She spotted Nick, and seemingly oblivious to the weapons drawn and aimed at her, she ran across the wide expanse of lawn to him, hurling herself into his arms.
They closed around her, and he breathed his first easy breath since she’d left. “Elle, what are you doing here?”
She reared back and smiled up at him, her fingers clutching him at his waist. “I found the daisies.” She smiled. “You put them in the bag with my things. I didn’t know what they meant, so I did what I thought you—never mind. I know what they mean now.”
The woman was happy. A half-glance at Joe told Nick not to ask the question burning his tongue. What daisies? Instead, he asked another. “What do they mean?”
“Keeping secrets.”
She looked awfully pleased by that. He hesitated, then told her the truth. “I didn’t put the daisies in your—“
Joe elbowed him in the ribs. “Not now, bro. Think tactical.”
“I found three of them.” She looked deliberately to Joe, then Sam, and finally to Tim. “Three.”
“Obviously you interpreted them to mean…” Nick let his voice fade, then quickly added, “Never mind.” The chopper hadn’t yet departed. One wrong word and she could get right back on it and fly out of his life again as fast as she’d flown into it.
He had been miserable.
She returns, and he’s got a life as bright as the sun.
Take a chance, Nick. Just once, take a chance.
His mouth went dry. “So you found the daisies and looked them up and found out someone is keeping secrets. That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
She faltered, but held on to him. “I decided to care enough for both of us up close.” She borrowed the words he’d told Lizzie. “Not from thousands of miles away.” She glanced at the guys, clearly guessing that they and not Nick had stashed the daisies in her bags.
Sam went poker-faced.
Tim looked away.
Joe winked.
“Just tell him, Elle,” Sam suggested, tapping his temple. “He ain’t as swift on the uptake as usual today.”
Tim nodded. “Go for it.”
“Go for what?” Nick asked.
“She knows,” Joe said softly.
Elle swallowed hard, looked up into Nick’s downturned face. “The thing is, I love you, Nick. I thought I could leave you because that’s what you wanted, but in my heart, I don’t believe that is what you really want. Even if it is, I can’t do it because it doesn’t matter where I am or where you are, I’m still going to love you. My pride was hurt that you wouldn’t ask me to stay, so I left.”
“But you came back.”
“Yeah, I did.” She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “I had to because my heart said even if I went to Mars, it would still be here with you. Then I found the daisies, and I figure if these three—she motioned to the guys—are warning me you’re keeping secrets, then I need to know them or they wouldn’t bother telling me you had them. So I want the truth, Nick. I want to know…” her voice cracked. She shook herself and pushed on. “I want to know the truth. Do you love me?”
Tension crackled between them, rippled through the group. No one moved. Spoke. Breathed.
Nick stared at the helicopter, squeezed his eyes shut. Please, don’t let this be a mistake. Please, not a mistake. He lifted his arm, signaled the chopper pilot to depart, then looked at Elle. “I want you to stay.”
She searched his face. “Why?”
She wanted and needed the words. “Because I love you, Elle.”
“I left because I love you,” she said, her expression solemn. “You feared me leaving, and I didn’t want you fearing it every day for the rest of our lives. So I left. It’s done and behind us.” She let that sink in, then went on. “But I came back. Remember that, Nick. I came back because I love you.” She tilted her head. “I’ll always love you, and I’m never leaving you again.”
Her words were a warning.
And a promise.
He pulled her closer, tightened his hold, and kissed her.
He had rescued her from NINA’s clutches. But she had rescued him from far more. Why his parents had done all they’d done no longer mattered. It wasn’t due to something in him that made him impossible to love. Elle had left him, and she’d returned to rescue him again.
To love him.
To forever be the marked star of his life and his heart.
About the Author
Vicki Hinze is a USA Today bestselling author who has written nearly forty books, fiction and nonfiction, and hundreds of articles, published in as many as 63 countries. She’s won a wide array of awards, including novels of the year in multiple genres. All of her novels include suspense, mystery and romance. The focus determines genre. Her works have been classified in nearly every genre except horror, with the majority being suspense, thriller, mystery and romance.
A Vice President for International Thriller Writers, Vicki also served as a consultant to the Board of Directors for Romance Writers of America and multiple other notable organizations. She is the former radio talk show host of Everyday Woman, and a columnist for Social In Global Network. Vicki was the first RWA PRO Mentor of the Year, and the recipient of RWA’s National Service Award. She’s recognized as an author and an educator by Who’s Who in the World.
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