by Nancy Bush
“Natasha has free will. Just like all of us.”
“You choose to be here? You could leave at any time?”
They were at the gate and Isadora was twisting the key in the lock. She threw a cautious eye at Lang, who had climbed from his cab and was waiting in the dying light for Claire to join him. He looked tense, Claire saw, glancing his way, but her attention was on Isadora.
“This is not a prison.” She pulled the gate open and Claire walked through. The scrape of the key in the lock signaled that their interview was over.
“Claire?” Lang said.
Something in his tone, some element of concern, reached inside her. There was no reason for it, she told herself staunchly. Nothing had happened to her. It was just reaction to the series of events that had brought her to this place.
“Tasha is one of the Colony,” Claire said as Lang took her arm, helping her through the slippery mud. “Catherine admitted it.”
“I could tell by the resemblance.” He gazed past her to Isadora’s retreating form. “Why was it such a secret?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do they know where she is?”
Claire shook her head and turned toward her car. “Her full first name’s Natasha. She did talk to Gibby. He knew.”
“Maybe she’s on her way back here.”
“Catherine claims it’s the last place she would come.” Lang held open her door a moment while Claire climbed into the driver’s seat. “Come back to my place and I’ll give the complete report,” she said lightly.
“Let me take you to dinner,” he said.
“Thanks, but I’d rather eat in. If you’re up for a tuna fish sandwich, I can make us some.”
He inclined his head and closed her door.
Ten minutes later he was hauling his bottles of wine from his truck and following Claire inside her bungalow. It was starting to feel familiar, and though he knew he should proceed with caution, he didn’t want to, and knew he wasn’t going to.
“I’m on call,” Claire said when she saw the bottle of wine. “But the corkscrew’s in the drawer,” she said, pointing. “Please help yourself.”
He did as she directed and poured himself a glass of white as she made the sandwiches. She seemed dead on her feet and he sensed it was more emotional than physical. He felt a lot the same way. Weary. Soul deep.
They ate in companionable silence, and when Claire tried to clear their plates, Lang took the task from her. “Sit down,” he ordered. “You want tea or something?”
“Thanks, I’m fine with this.” She lifted a glass of water, then said, “I was so sure Tasha’s disappearance was related to the Colony. She was scared and needed help, and I thought they’d come for her, I guess. Save her. Take her back. I thought maybe Catherine was hiding the fact that she was back inside Siren Song already.”
“But Catherine said differently and you believed her.”
“I did. I do.”
Lang nodded, not as convinced as Claire, but willing to explore the possibility. “Go back to Gibby. What did he say about Tasha?”
“He knew her name. She talked to him. She said she needed help. He got her a set of clothes and then she was gone.”
“Catherine and company didn’t help spring her,” he mused aloud. “They don’t have spies everywhere. They’re pretty much insulated in their lodge.”
Claire shook her head. “She’s either hiding in the hospital somewhere we can’t find her—”
“—or someone’s hiding her.”
“Or someone’s hiding her…” she repeated slowly, thinking that over. “Or she left, either on her own power or with someone’s help.”
“With someone’s help makes the most sense,” Lang pointed out. “It just wasn’t anyone associated with Siren Song.”
“Who, then?”
“Whoever killed Rafe,” he said seriously. “Look, I know you thought the knife wounds on her abdomen seemed like someone just hacking away. Maybe that’s what they were, but maybe it was just someone who didn’t really know what they were doing.”
“Then it’s someone who knew Tasha was pregnant, and that means they knew her before, and how can that be? She was behind the gates of Siren Song. She never left.”
“That Catherine knows of,” Lang proposed.
“I don’t think there’s any way she snuck out of there without Catherine knowing.”
“She got out of the hospital,” he pointed out. “We’re assuming Rafe’s killer and the person who tried to take Tasha’s baby are one and the same. Agreed?”
Claire nodded. “Agreed.”
“Would you say that’s a man or a woman?”
“A woman,” Claire answered readily, and then her conscience twigged her again. She stopped, hesitated, then said, “A friend of mine from Laurelton General said there was a woman—a nurse—who said she thought she knew Jane Doe. Leesha, my friend, gave the woman my name. Leesha called later and asked me if the woman ever contacted me, but I told her she never had.”
“A nurse?” Lang repeated.
Claire nodded, then thought of the recently hired nurse at the hospital who never quite met her eyes. She’d put it down to something else. Newness. Shyness. Whatever. But suddenly it seemed more sinister.
“What?” Lang asked, sharp-eyed as ever.
“We have a recent hire at Halo Valley. A nurse. Talking about this reminded me of her.”
“How recent?”
“Last couple weeks. Since Tasha arrived at Halo Valley.”
“You think she’s after Tasha?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something.”
“Go with your instincts,” he said. “Might be a good idea to check with Gibby, too.”
“Oh, I’m on that. First thing tomorrow.” She tried to stifle a yawn and failed.
Lang took his cue to leave. He set his empty wineglass down on the kitchen counter. Realizing she’d sent him an unconscious message, Claire got up abruptly and said, “Thanks. I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve been concentrating on all the wrong things. Dinah’s father. History of the Colony. Other things.”
“Catherine wouldn’t talk to us, so it was research. No harm done. I checked the book old man Smythe wrote about them while you were inside the gates. Pretty much genealogy with a few side notes. Nothing really since Catherine and Mary.”
“I wonder what happened to Mary,” Claire mused.
“And all her men,” Lang said with a slight smile.
Claire looked at Lang’s empty glass and the hand he had wrapped around the edge of her counter. His hips were balanced against the counter’s edge. There was something completely male about him that she hadn’t noticed in a man in a long, long time. “If Mary was as promiscuous as Herman Smythe would lead us to believe, it might explain Catherine’s austerity now. A kind of knee-jerk reaction.”
“Unbridled sex in the nineteen seventies and eighties. Repression in the nineteen nineties and two thousands.”
“It would make sense. I wonder when all that long-dress wearing began. Could have always been there and Mary just spat in the eye of convention.”
“You think she’s dead?” Lang asked.
“I guess so.” They thought about that a moment, then Claire said, “I hate thinking of Tasha, so pregnant, out God knows where. She needs to be found. I keep hoping that if someone helped her escape, that it’s because they care about her.”
“Not because they want to steal her baby.”
“Yeah.” Claire reached for the empty glass, intending to put it in the dishwasher, but her hand swept against it, sending it crashing into the sink, glass splintering. A piece shot up and grazed Lang’s cheek, though he ducked down instantly.
“Oh, my God! I’m so sorry.” Claire was mortified, coming close to examine the cut.
“No big deal.” He shifted away.
“No, please. Let me look. I can’t believe I did that.”
“You’re distracted. Tired. Really, it’s okay.”
> “Stop shifting.” She spread her fingers around his jaw and twisted his face to the right so she could see the jagged slit. It was bleeding like a son of a gun. “I’m sorry,” she said, heartfelt. “No, don’t move. Just wait.”
“I’ll just tell people I cut myself shaving,” he called after her as she disappeared into the hallway and the bathroom. “Really, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Her voice was muffled.
She returned a few moments later with a first aid kit and a box of tissues. Blood was running from the cut on his upper cheek down the side of his head and sending small drips down to the collar of his shirt. “Head wounds,” she murmured.
“Bleed like they’ll never stop.”
“The head is so vascular.”
She dabbed at the cut and then put some rubbing alcohol on a piece of tissue, dabbing some more. Lang squinted against the sting and Claire apologized again. “I am going to live,” he assured her wryly.
She lifted the tissue and her fingers gently probed the skin surrounding the injury. “You could use a couple of stitches,” she said, though the bleeding had stopped.
“No, thanks.”
“I have some butterfly bandages. I can close it, but seriously, I think stitches would ensure it doesn’t reopen.”
“You’re making more of this than I need.”
In truth, he didn’t need any of it. She was too damn close. An attractive, verboten woman who nevertheless was the only one he could think of in his bed. Jesus. And if she didn’t stop tenderly exploring with those fingers, he was going to simply lose it!
His hand shot out to stop her just as she was saying, “I’ll go get the bandages and—”
Her breath swept in at the way he held her wrist, tight and tense.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t,” she said simultaneously, resisting his grip, her hand clenched.
They stood frozen for a moment in that position, staring at each other.
For Lang, it was a watershed moment. A release of every brick of resentment and blame that he’d built in a wall against her since Melody’s death. It wasn’t her fault. It had never been her fault, and he’d known it all along. He’d just been too arrogant and blind to admit it.
Now he let go of her wrist to lift his hand to her face, laying it gently against her cheek. Claire’s eyes were wide, her expression faintly anxious, but she didn’t move. Her breathing was short and erratic.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a stranger’s voice.
He didn’t answer. Instead he bent his head to hers, capturing her mouth in a hard, pent-up kiss. She shivered. She was quaking all over, but…she was kissing him back.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his lips curving against hers.
“I don’t know. Nothing I should.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
And then he was kissing her harder and her hands, clenched and frozen, unfurled and slid up his chest and to his shoulders, clinging. Lang pulled her to him until her breasts were pressed against his chest and he could feel the edge of the counter digging into his hips and lower back. Claire made a protesting sound in her throat that only urged him on. He yanked her blouse from her slacks and slid his hands beneath the fabric, her skin quivering at his touch.
Claire, for her part, had not engaged in anything remotely resembling sex since early in her marriage, and her ex had lost interest in any kind of foreplay, even kissing, shortly after he and Claire had entered into wedded “bliss.” She’d forgotten what it was like to want to die for the feel of a man’s lips, forgotten the unbearable pleasure of having her skin caressed and loved, forgotten the thrill of hearing a man’s moan of desire.
It came flooding back with every moment of this fevered embrace. Her head rushed. She felt like she was back to her teenaged years and the blazing excitement of discovery. The hint of fear at being caught was there, too. The knowing that this was destined to be wrong. A mistake.
But she didn’t care. She’d led too careful a life.
She pressed her hips to his and felt the evidence of his arousal. A delicious power slid through her veins, utterly intoxicating. She spent her days advising against dangerous behavior, just this kind of thing! She allowed herself this moment because she believed she was insulated against it. She knew it wouldn’t be good for her. She also knew it wouldn’t ruin her life. She wouldn’t let it.
But he was doing things with his hands that were playing havoc with rational thought. He’d unbuckled her thin silver belt, unbuttoned the top button of her pants, thrust his hands inside.
“God,” he murmured.
She should protest, she thought. She should make some attempt to stop this madness.
She knew she wouldn’t.
And she wanted him to hurry. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Because if either of them had time to think, it would be over as quickly as it had begun, and she couldn’t bear the thought.
They were crazy. Squirming against each other. Half-slipping to the floor. Losing their strength along with their common sense. Laughing softly.
“Come on,” she whispered, grabbing one of his marauding hands and leading him toward the bedroom.
And then there were no more intelligible words, just mews and whispers and groans of pleasure. He divested her of her blouse, pants, and undergarments and she lay still and let him. And then he yanked off his own clothes and she had a glimpse of hard muscles and taut skin and an overwhelming sense of maleness before his body covered hers on the comforter of her bed.
“Touch me,” he groaned and her hands slid down and grabbed his shaft, stroking him, loving the feel of his hardness. She could feel her own body respond and when his fingers invaded her insides, her wetness caused him to moan with pleasure.
She wanted him. Hard inside her. Pushing. Thrusting. She wanted it now!
Her hands eagerly guided him toward her, her hips undulating against the continued stroking of his fingers.
And then he swept her hands away and his shaft was teasing against her wetness. Claire heard the little mewling sounds and realized they were from her own lips. She felt weak, liquid, melting. Her consciousness slipped into a place where there was no thought, just feeling. Her hands found his buttocks, grabbed the hard muscles. She pulled gently at first, then urgently, desperately wanting him fully inside her.
He moaned something, maybe her name, and then thrust hard against her. She lifted her hips in glorious response and cried out, her whole body tense, writhing, eager.
And then they were in rhythmic unison. He pulled back to look at her and she met his gaze, loving the familiar features that had once been her enemy, the man who blamed her above all else. Her fingers lightly touched the cut on his face.
Then those thoughts splintered. Spiraled away. Were dust.
All she wanted was to love him. Keep loving him.
“Lang,” she whispered urgently.
He drove into her harder. The right answer to the question. Faster and faster. Until Claire exploded in desire, her body arching, her cry loud enough to cause her embarrassment later.
“God…Claire!” he burst out and then followed her into a shuddering climax that left them both gasping for breath. When he collapsed against her she couldn’t find her voice. Couldn’t think.
And when he finally lifted his head and swept back her sweat-dampened bangs and smiled at her, she felt awe and wonderment that they’d found each other.
“Wow,” he said.
“Wow,” she said back.
And they both burst into laughter.
Chapter 21
Claire’s cell phone buzzed, lighting up on the dresser and bringing her out of a languid state of bliss. The real world was something she didn’t want to rejoin just yet, and Lang’s groan of protest echoed her own feelings.
“I’m on call,” she reminded him when he reached a hand out to stop her.
He made a garbled sound of rejection, which brought a smile to her li
ps.
“Claire,” she answered.
“Dr. Norris, it’s Alison.” The aide’s voice quavered. “Thomas hasn’t been taking his meds for a while, apparently, and he’s angry and threatening. He threw a book at Gibby.”
Claire was already searching for her clothes. God, where were they? Her underwear was tossed by the door. Almost in the hall. Her bra the same. “Is Greg there?”
“Alphonse is on. He’s getting him under control. But that’s not all. It’s the patient from Side B. Heyward Marsdon? He won’t go back in his room. He was on a supervised walk, but he refuses to leave the morning room. He keeps asking for you.”
Claire’s chest felt like there was a weight on it, forcing out her breath. She struggled for air. “I’ll be right there. Any other doctors still around on Side A?”
“I think Avanti’s here.”
“Have him talk to…the patient,” she said, unwilling to say Heyward’s name aloud with Lang in the room.
“Okay, but he’s asking for you.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She clicked off.
“What’s wrong?” Lang asked, leaning up on one elbow. He’d thrown the comforter over them and now, as she gathered up her undergarments and pants and blouse, she could see his chest and upper arms and the line of his hips in the dim light sneaking around the door from the hall.
“One of the patients is off his meds, apparently. He’s combative.”
Lang checked the time on his watch. Just after six thirty and black as pitch already. “I don’t want you to go,” he admitted.
Claire smiled, tucking in her blouse. “I don’t want to go.”
“When will you be back?” he asked suggestively.
“As soon as I can?” She left it as a question, and for an answer he came off the bed like a lion and backed her against the wall. Claire was laughing madly and Lang’s growls of amusement matched hers.
Finally, breathless, she pushed him away from her, but kept him at arm’s length, admiring his naked form in the half light. She touched his chin and turned his head, examining the cut. “I could still get the butterfly bandage.”
“I’m fine.”