He looked taken aback at her vehemence. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Except by omission. Several times.” Her jaw tightened. “Now tell me what’s wrong with your leg?”
“I was shot—”
Callie drew in a sharp gasp of air. “When?”
He shrugged. “About thirty-six hours after I sat in the cockpit of the plane and watched you leave after we arrived back from Washington.”
Callie’s hand dropped away from his arm as if she had been burned. Lijah had been shot and she hadn’t even known about it!
But how could she have known?
Why would anyone think to tell her?
Even the Graysons, who had stayed with her for that week, wouldn’t have known how much she would want to know if Lijah had been shot. Mainly because Callie hadn’t said a single word about him the whole time they stayed with her.
There had been no one else to tell her.
Except Lijah himself.
Her eyes narrowed. “Is this the reason you weren’t at my father’s funeral?”
The blood was visibly pounding at his temple. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?” She frowned. “Why, Lijah?”
“What was the point? You had enough to deal with already, the funeral and paperwork involved, without my adding to it.”
She sighed her impatience. “I could have come and visited you, at least.”
He gave a grimace. “I was shot in the knee and confined to bed for a couple of weeks, then I had to undergo even more weeks of intensive physio.”
“Which means you had plenty of time to pick up the phone and call me.” Callie wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “So why didn’t you? Would it have hurt you to make just one phone call?”
A nerve pulsed in his jaw. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because at the time, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to walk again!”
Callie stepped back at his vehemence to look up at him searchingly. Lijah stared straight back at her, not attempting to hide anything from her. The weeks of pain he had suffered after being shot. The struggle he’d had to get back up onto his feet again. A struggle he’d been determined to win. A fight he had won, even if it had left him with a temporary limp. Callie had no doubt that this man’s will was so strong he would only accept that limp as ever being temporary.
She saw something else in those dark indigo eyes, something elusive, something she was almost afraid to put a name to, just in case she was wrong. In case it was wishful thinking on her part.
She drew in a calming breath. “You’re right, we need that coffee and somewhere quiet to talk. If you could give me a minute to collect my bag and lock up?”
Lijah hadn’t even known he was holding his breath until his lungs suddenly reinflated, at the same time as some of the tension also eased from his shoulders. The two of them talking might not change anything, but at least he would get to spend a bit more time with Callie. He might even be able to persuade her into not actually hating him.
“Go ahead.” He nodded. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She quirked a teasing brow. “No mission you have to run off to— Sorry.” She winced. “That was in really bad taste.”
“It is what it is.” He shrugged. “I’m confined to a desk for a few more months yet. After that, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
“That sounds—intriguing?”
“Not really. I’m thirty-five years old and—how does the saying go? I’m getting too old for this shit.” Lijah gave a heartfelt grimace. He hadn’t spent all his time in Venice just visiting with Dair and Kat and admiring their baby daughter. He’d also had some serious conversations with Dair about the future.
Callie gave a husky laugh. “My father used to say once a warrior always a warrior.”
“He was probably right.” Lijah really had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life if he left Grayson Security.
He couldn’t exactly see himself selling the warehouse and buying a little house in suburbia somewhere, growing tomatoes. Any more than he could see himself continuing to work for Grayson Security indefinitely either. He almost hadn’t made it out this last time, was lucky to have gotten away with just a bullet in the knee. Dair had suggested he think about writing a book based on some of the missions he’d been on the last seventeen years—with the names changed to protect the guilty as well as the innocent—and the idea did have a certain merit.
“You could always write a book— What?” Callie questioned ruefully as Lijah gave her a quizzical look.
“Nothing,” he assured her dryly. “Lock up and let’s get out of here.” The drive down here had taken its toll on his knee, and standing for any length of time was just adding to the problem.
Callie kept glancing in her rearview mirror on the drive back to her house, to reassure herself that she wasn’t imagining things. That Lijah really was following in the car behind.
Each time she looked, there he was, driving his black SUV and looking so dark and vital, it made her heart leap.
Letting her know she had been fooling herself all these weeks. Lying to herself. Because she was as much in love with Lijah now as she had been two months ago.
Just seeing him again, talking to him, she felt more alive than she had since they’d parted.
Which meant her heart was going to be broken again when he said good-bye.
Except he hadn’t said good-bye last time, she reminded herself. He just hadn’t been around for all this time. Because he had been shot.
Every time she thought about that, she felt sick.
Her father had been injured several times during his army career, invariably by a bullet wound, and each time she had been grateful it hadn’t been worse. A bullet in the knee could have resulted in Lijah being crippled for life.
Callie’s hands tightly gripped the steering wheel as she realized she could have lost him completely and not even known about it.
Not true. She would have known if Lijah was dead, because a part of her would have died with him.
“It’s a work in progress,” she told him ruefully once she had let the two of them into the house and they had to step round pots of paint and a stepladder in the hallway to reach the kitchen. “Dad owned this house for years but spent very little time here until this past year,” she explained as she prepared the coffee machine. “I decided it was time to give everywhere a coat of paint.” It also ensured her evenings and weekends were kept too busy for her to think too much.
Lijah had followed her into the kitchen and now sat at the scarred wooden table in the middle of the room, an obvious look of relief on his face as he took the weight off his injured knee.
“Are you sure you should be driving yet?” Callie eyed him frowningly.
“I was going stir-crazy sitting at home all day. Besides, it was time,” he added enigmatically.
Callie turned away from the intensity of his gaze to busy herself taking mugs out of the cupboard. The last thing she wanted to do was make a fool of herself by reading things into Lijah’s comment that just weren’t there.
She eyed him warily once she had poured their coffee and sat opposite him at the table.
Lijah stood restlessly to limp over to the window. “This house has great views of the coastline.”
Yes, it did, and that rugged wildness was the reason her father had bought the house so many years ago in readiness for his retirement. A retirement he hadn’t had time to enjoy.
Callie took the opportunity to drink in her fill of Lijah while he had his back toward her. He had removed his Stetson and left it in the hallway on their way through. His hair was longer but just as dark and silky. His shoulders were wide, waist tapered, and those jeans did an amazing job of outlining the muscled curve of his ass.
He still took her breath away.
“You’re staring at my ass, Callie.”
Her first instinct was to deny it. Her second was, why t
he hell should she? Lijah had invited himself to Cornwall, and if she took advantage of that by ogling him, then that was just too bad. “It’s a very fine ass,” she said dryly.
He turned to lean back against the kitchen sink, a wry smile curving his sculpted mouth. “Shouldn’t that be my line?”
“Should it?” Callie came back guardedly.
Lijah sighed deeply. “I’m sorry. For the way I behaved when we came back from Washington.”
“Never apologize, it’s a sign—”
“Are you going to keep reminding me of that comment for the rest of my life?” he groaned self-disgustedly.
Callie very much doubted she would know him for the rest of his life. “No doubt you had your reasons for behaving that way.” She shrugged.
He looked at her searchingly before speaking. “I thought I did at the time.”
“And now?”
He pushed away from leaning against the sink. “I’ve been questioning myself for the last two months as to what the hell I was doing!”
“You said you had a job to do,” Callie reminded.
He nodded. “The morning you came to Grayson Security, I had just returned from rescuing a six-year-old boy from the men who had kidnapped him and were holding him for ransom. One of those men escaped. Alejandro—the boy—was terrified that man would come back and take him again. I needed to find the last kidnapper and reassure Alejandro that would never happen.”
“And did you?” She had absolutely no illusions as to how Lijah had ensured that, and that the other man had deserved what he had gotten. Or that the case had become so personal to Lijah because of his own childhood.
“Not before he got a round off into my knee.” He grimaced.
“And Alejandro?”
“Now sleeps without nightmares.”
Unlike Lijah. Because no one had slain his demon for him. “Then you did what needed to be done,” Callie assured huskily.
“Yes.” He ran a hand through the thickness of his hair.
“Have you seen anyone from your family since you got back?”
How did she do that? How did she just know? “My Aunt Katherine did exactly what I thought she would do and let them know she’d seen me.” Lijah shrugged. “I had…a conversation with my father. He now knows the title dies when he does.”
“You don’t want it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want any part of it or him.”
Callie nodded. “I’m glad.”
“You are?” Lijah frowned.
“Lijah, I know—guessed, from the things you said in your nightmare that night, that your father beat you when you were a child, and no one did anything to stop it. That’s unforgiveable.”
It was something Lijah could put behind him but never forgive or forget. It had shaped the man he had become, the man he was, to the extent he had let Callie walk away from him. “Callie, is it too late for us to start again?” He looked at her anxiously.
Her heart leapt at the same time as she warned herself to be cautious and not see something in Lijah’s words that just wasn’t there. “Start what again?”
“Whatever the hell you want us to start again! Sorry.” He gave a pained frown at his vehemence. “Friends. Lovers.” He hesitated before adding, “Whatever.”
Caution, Callie, she warned again. “You said we weren’t friends and never could be,” she reminded him.
“I speak a lot of bullshit, remember?”
She smiled ruefully. “I think any of the things you mentioned are going to be difficult for us to be when you live in London and I live here.”
“But you aren’t opposed to it on principle?”
She gave him a quizzical glance. “What is this, Lijah, a business proposition?”
“No, I—” He sighed, running his hand through his hair again. “I’m no fucking good at this!” he muttered self-disgustedly. “I don’t want to be your friend. Or your lover. Well, I do. I want to be both those things. But I also want—” Infuriatingly, he broke off again.
“Lijah, if you don’t soon spit out whatever it is you want to say, I may just have to kick you in the other kneecap!”
Lijah had no idea how Callie did it, but she managed to make him laugh at the most inappropriate of times. “That’s going to make things a little difficult,” he drawled once he’d sobered, “when I only have the one good knee to get down on.”
A look of shock came over Callie’s face. “Why— What— I don’t—” That shock deepened when Lijah crossed the room and went down on that one good knee before taking her hand in his.
“Caroline Morgan—Callie, will you do me the honor of considering one day becoming my wife?” Lijah spoke the words before he lost his nerve. “I know I have a screwed-up background, and that I’m a result of that screw-up,” he continued in a rush. “I was expelled from Eton for drinking whisky and having a girl in my room—”
“Aged?”
“Sixteen,” he admitted with a wince. “I’m bad tempered. I have zero tolerance for idiots. I have no idea what I’m going to do for work for the rest of my life. But in my favor, I do have enough money not to have to worry about that,” he added hastily. “I can learn to control the temper. The tolerance maybe not so much,” he acknowledged with a grimace. “But I could try.”
“And?”
“And?” he repeated uncertainly.
“Didn’t you miss something out of this charming list of your possibly-considering-marrying-you-one-day attributes?” Callie’s heart was beating so hard, she felt as if it was going to explode through her skin.
Lijah had asked her to marry him. Correction, to considering marrying him “one day.”
“You don’t intend taking any more of my bullshit? We’re physically so compatible, I’m hard now just thinking about touching you again? Wanting you day and night is driving me insane? I’ve missed you every minute of every day since I last saw you? I don’t want to live without you for another minute, let alone another day?” Each successive statement was becoming huskier and more intense.
“And?” All Callie wanted to do was throw herself into his arms and tell him she felt all those things for him too. She wanted to do that, but she needed something more from him first.
The frown cleared from his brow. “And I love you with every breath I take, every beat of my heart, every thought I have, everything that I am or will ever be.”
“At last!” Callie choked emotionally as she slid down from the chair to kneel before him on the kitchen floor, her hands gently cupping his face as she looked up at him. “I love you too, Lijah. With every single breath I take, every beat of my heart, every thought I have or will ever have, everything that I am or will ever be. I love you! So very, very much, my darling Lijah.”
His arms moved about her as he hugged her into him fiercely, his face buried against her throat and his shoulders shaking with emotion. “You claimed my heart in just a few days, Callie, and I’ve missed you so much. Missed holding you, kissing you, making love to you. My life has been so empty these past two months without you in it. So fucking empty!” He raised his head to look at her, dark lashes wet with emotion. “I never want to be apart from you ever again. Not even for a day. Want you to be my family. To have children with you. To grow old with you. Do you think you’ll be able to cope with my loving you that much?”
Lijah had so much love to give, so much love he had never been allowed to give.
Callie wanted it all.
She wanted to be his family. To give him children. To grow old with him.
She smiled up at him tearfully. “As long as you promise to never ever stay away from me again out of a sense of honor and chivalry. That is what you were doing after you were shot, isn’t it? Staying away in case you couldn’t walk again?”
“You deserve better than a crippled mess—”
“I deserve you, Lijah. All of you. No matter what happens in the future. In sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer.”
Humor lighte
ned his eyes. “Are you going to agree to leave the ‘obey’ in the marriage service too?”
“Absolutely—not!” she added dryly as he began to smile. “Now kiss me and make love to me before I die from wanting you!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And he did.
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About The Author
Carole Mortimer is a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the 2015 RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award, a Pioneer for Romance Romantic Times Award in 2014. She was recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her ‘outstanding service to literature’. Shadow Alpha is Carole’s 200th novel.
She is happily married to Peter. They have 6 sons, and live on the beautiful Isle of Man. She also loves to hear from Readers!
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Carole has written 173 romance novels in the Presents/Modern series from Harlequin Mills and Boon.
She has also written 24 Regency romance novels in the Harlequin Mills and Boon’s Historical series.
ALPHA series:
Christmas Alpha: Novella, published November 8th, 2014
Dark Alpha: Full-length novel, published January 18th, 2015
Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5) Page 20