Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three

by Lawless, Alexi

  Disoriented, trapped somewhere between the past and the present, Sam stood, stumbling as she tried to get away from her own painful recollections.

  Wes stepped forward, catching her and sliding his arms around her without a word. They stood like that for a while as Samantha gripped him, holding onto his broad back as her fingers clenched around the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

  She didn’t want to need him, but she did just then.

  “Let me in, Sammy,” he whispered against her hair, and it seemed as that was the quiet push off the cliff she needed after months of fighting everything down, fighting him back, and doing damn near anything she could to control the grief that threatened to overwhelm her.

  A choking sound came out of her in a sudden, strangled burst.

  “Let me take care of you, darlin’. Just let go. I’ve got you—”

  Wes held her even tighter, his hand warm on her back. His nose brushed her cheek as he nuzzled her, his breath a gentle puff over her ear. He cupped her head in one hand, put his lips against the frantic heartbeat in her neck, a gentle but possessive reassurance that he was there. That he was going nowhere.

  But she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. Now wasn’t the time, and this wasn’t the place.

  Like the violence of a spring storm, the moment didn’t last long.

  “I didn’t come here to lose my shit,” Sam told him, pulling back.

  “Sammy, darlin’, if you’re going to lose your shit, I’d rather it be in my arms than in anyone else’s,” Wes told her, his thumbs brushing across her cheeks.

  Sam stepped back, putting a couple of feet of distance between them, trying to elude the tractor beam of their attraction. It was scrambling her wires. She’d come in guns blazing for a reason. Sam gripped the back of the chair she’d been sitting in.

  “You know I look around sometimes, and I can’t help but wonder what the fuck am I still doing here?” She shook her head. “I’ve survived gun shots, stab wounds, and bombings in a dozen countries, and my father and brother didn’t make it back on a goddamn empty highway an hour from the ranch in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he told her quietly, watching her.

  “I know that,” she snapped, meeting his eyes. “You think I don’t know that? But that doesn’t change the injustice of it all, does it?”

  Wes moved toward a credenza where he had a small bar. He poured her a glass of water and returned to her, handing it over silently, watching as she sipped.

  She was grateful for the space and the gesture, but that didn’t change the fact that she was still deeply unhappy that he was digging into the graveyard of her memories like he had a right to be there.

  “I don’t want you involved in my mess, Wes,” she told him frankly. “I’ve only just started looking into it, and it’s a rat hole I’m not even sure I want to know about.”

  Wes shook his head at her. “Nice try, Sammy, but the day you walk away from the undisguised truth of what really happened to your family will be a cold day in hell, and there isn’t a single thing you can do or say to stop me from figuring it out now. I’m in—all the way in. Whether you like it or not,” he added pointedly.

  Sam narrowed her eyes, but she knew Wes’s modus operandi well enough to know that if she pushed back now, he’d just defy her. Wesley Elliott didn’t take kindly to being bossed around. In fact, he’d see her refusal as an opportunity to up the ante, because he was built that way.

  She changed tactics. “So what else have you found?”

  He leaned over his desk and picked up a handful of photographs. “So I got to thinking: Why would a drunk townie cop to a crime he couldn’t have committed? Why would Childress feel remorse for Ryland’s death but not Rob’s? And who could orchestrate an elaborate assassination to begin with?”

  He handed her the photos.

  She held them loosely, not sure what she was looking at.

  It was a grainy black-and-white that looked like a scan from an old newspaper. Past a throng of Middle Eastern men in official dress, Sam saw a much younger version of her father shaking hands with a caliph.

  “Did you know that your father was in Iran just before Iraq invaded in 1980?” Wes asked her.

  “Iran has massive oil reserves,” she pointed out quietly. “My father was in the Middle East doing business all the time. You know that.”

  “I do,” Wes replied with a nod. “But I followed up anyway and tracked down a journalist who fled Iran during the war. He said your father met with Ayatollah Khomeini several times to negotiate on behalf of Western interests in the region.”

  “Khomeini died in 1989.” Sam shook her head. “Where are you going with this?”

  “Look at the next photo.”

  Her father’s profile was barely discernible in this one. He wore sunglasses and canvas jacket, and he held his arm out, shepherding a group of disheveled-looking people across the tarmac toward an airplane.

  “Rob was in Damascus during the embassy bombing in ’84. He flew a dozen survivors out on his jet that day.”

  She flipped to the next photo, her mind racing. Her father stood next to dignitaries and foreign officials at a meeting, most of whom were in military dress.

  “That one was taken in Lebanon in 1990 during the tail end of their civil war.”

  Sam shuffled to the next photo.

  “Rob was in Yemen in ’94 meeting with President Saleh. Sources say he was instrumental in negotiating the release of sixteen foreign nationals.”

  Another photo. She noticed belatedly that her hands were shaking.

  “He was also in and out of Saudi Arabia after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the ’90s. The reporter who took that photo said your father was thought to be involved with Operation Southern Watch. The only reason I can think of why Rob would be in the Middle East at so many major turning points was because the U.S. government wanted him to be. What better way to negotiate quietly than with an American businessman with active oil interests in the region?” Wes met her eyes. “And the only reason the CIA would have looked into his death was if he was an asset somehow. It makes sense, Sammy.”

  If Wes’s theory was true—that her father was some kind of operative—that would explain so much. Didn’t change the fact that Sam didn’t want him digging up more dirt and dredging up the past. She didn’t want him anywhere near this, because nothing good could come from it. Wes would either put himself in harm’s way or convince himself he could use this to wheedle his way back into her heart, and that couldn’t happen. She knew now that they couldn’t go back, just as they couldn’t go forward. He had to stop.

  “What’s the point of all this, Wes?” Sam pressed the photos against his chest. “So you have pictures of my father with major Middle Eastern officials. So what? He has pictures with officials and ministers and leaders from all over the world. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Wes held her hand to his chest, his eyes imploring. “Sammy, I don’t have all the answers right now, but I do know your dad wasn’t the man you thought he was. Don’t you want to know who did this to you—to your family?”

  “Stop it, Wes. Just stop—” Samantha snapped, yanking her hand back.

  Wes met her head on. “Don’t you want to know why Sandro Roman had all this information about your father that Jack wasn’t supposed to share?” Wes was no idiot. He’d seen the loaded gun, and he was smart enough to know where to point it.

  “That’s between me and Jack, Wes.”

  “No, Sam,” he countered stubbornly. “It was between me and you long before Jack ever made it into the picture.”

  Samantha stepped back, needing the distance. She had to get away from this. Too much had happened today—too much unearthed. She needed time and space to think.

  Wes was in front of her before she made it to the door. “Don’t walk away from me, Sam,” he warned.

  “You mean like you walked away from me when the shit hit the fan during the worst time of my life?”r />
  He blanched like she’d slapped him, a muscle in his jaw throbbing. They stared at each other hard in the tense silence.

  Wes was the first to break the gaze. “I was there.”

  Sam sucked in a tight breath. She hadn’t heard him right. She couldn’t have.

  “I was there,” Wes repeated, gravel in his voice, like the secret was being pulled from so deep in him.

  All the years of resentment and anger and hurt churned in her gut. She’d been upset when she’d arrived, sure—but then he’d tormented her with the realization that her brother had just been an innocent bystander, and he’d distressed her by uncovering her father’s dealings in the Middle East.

  But this? This last confession was too much—one ordeal too many in the anguish she’d already suffered. The death of her family had broken her spirit that awful day. And Wes had broken what was left of her heart by leaving her alone to cope with it all on her own when he’d promised her forever.

  Wes reached for her, but Sam jerked away from him like she’d been scalded.

  “I sent the letter. But as soon as I did it, I realized I’d made a mistake.” He looked pained. “I caught the first plane I could, but by the time I got to Houston, the service was already going.”

  Sam shook her head, unbelieving. “Don’t tell me this. I don’t want to hear this—”

  But he went on, eyes haunted: “I sat in the rental car thinking, ‘What the hell could I do for you now when the worst possible thing had happened?’ How could I comfort you and tell you everything was going to be okay when I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing?”

  He was there. Sam tried and failed to imagine it. All she could see was the letter in her hands, ink smeared from her tears, paper crumbled from rereading it again and again.

  “I’ve been haunted by that decision ever since,” he confessed, his face pained. “I’ve been haunted by you, Sammy. And even though I can’t take any of that back, I’m trying to make some small amends by helping you now. I should have done this years ago. I should have stood by your side.”

  It was too much to process, too much anguish to lament over, and too much anger for her to control. The profound unfairness of it all rose up like a tidal wave, threatening to drown her. She couldn’t be in front of him when it overwhelmed her.

  And he’d just given her all the ammunition she needed to cut him out of her life—once and for all. He’d abandoned her willfully and willingly—twice. God, that hurt. It hurt so much.

  Sam jerked toward the door, and Wes stopped her with a hand on her wrist. She swung around, slapping him so hard, the sharp crack of the hit reverberated through his office like a gunshot. Her hand print stood out on his cheek in harsh, red relief as he slowly turned back toward her, amber eyes burning.

  “You should have stayed away from me, Wes,” she gritted out. “You made that decision years ago, and you don’t get to renege on it now because you don’t know how to live with remorse.”

  “I’ve lived with remorse for over a dozen years, Sammy. I’d say I know exactly how to live with it,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Then hear me on this, Wes: I am not letting you back in, and if you keep digging around in my family’s business, I will take everything away from you. And I mean everything,” she promised, her voice deadly. “I will hurt you, Wes. I will make you bleed.”

  “Well, if you’re gonna dole out punishments, Sammy—” he leaned in. “I’d prefer you near me when you do it.”

  “Go to hell, Wes.” She managed to side-step him the moment he reached for her again. “And stay the fuck away from me.”

  Chapter 12

  June 2000

  Houston, Texas

  W E S L E Y

  “What the hell am I doing?” Wes murmured to himself as he stood outside the massive cathedral where the funeral service was being held in honor of Rob Wyatt and his son. It was late morning, but already Houston’s infamous humidity was making his brand-new dress shirt cling to him as he pulled at the tie around his neck, heat and anxiety making his skin feel itchy. Wes watched as a number of the country’s richest and most powerful joined the procession into the church to pay their respects. Businessmen, lobbyists, heads of state with their security teams—there had to be nearly a thousand people gathered around the cathedral.

  He’d flown all night to get here, bought a scratchy, cheap suit from an outlet advertised on a billboard he’d seen off the highway during his drive over, only to stand outside indecisively, wondering if Sam would even want to see him after the letter he’d sent her in a fit of self-pity and recrimination.

  “What the fuck am I doing?” he muttered again, looking at the thick envelope sitting in the front seat of his shitty rental car. Rob Wyatt’s attorneys had sent the non-disclosure agreement Wes had signed when he’d just started dating Sam. It was a silent reminder that Wes was not to oppose Rob’s wishes for Samantha, and that he could still inflict maximum damage on Wes’s career, even from the grave.

  But Wes wasn’t kidding himself. The only reason he’d landed his assignments to-date was because of Rob’s considerable influence. And it behooved Rob to have Wes busy working in Europe while Sam finished college. Wes had taken every opportunity that had come his way and run with each and every one of them, intoxicated with his early successes, the headlines a junior journalist should never have been able to land, high off the thrill of chasing stories that he knew would make international headlines.

  And it’d all come back to bite him in the ass the moment he’d opened up the heavy envelope, seen Rob’s dark scrawl on Wyatt Petroleum letterhead, speaking to him—even in death.

  “A deal’s a deal,” was all it said – all it needed to say. A reminder of his deal with the devil. An agreement he’d signed under duress and the only secret he’d ever kept from Samantha.

  Long before Wes had even realized he was in love with her, Rob had seen the writing on the wall. He’d also understood the extent of Wes’s ambition—maybe even better than Wes himself. So Rob had guaranteed his assistance, had connected Wes with all the right people to get him going upon graduation, in exchange for one promise: that Wes would never publish any photos or articles about Samantha and their family. A promise he’d kept secret from Sam, even as he leveraged her father’s connection to get exactly what he wanted.

  “I’ll make sure the editors of all the major newspapers are aware of who you are. Money can’t buy that kind of leading edge,” Rob had told him when he graduated. “You just have to produce the stories and the photographs that make it worth their while.”

  Wes had been completely focused, totally driven to do just that. He hadn’t come home to the U.S. since he began taking assignments, allowing his relationship with Samantha to slowly die on the vine, withered by distance and time. He’d gotten almost everything he wanted—dreamed of since he was a boy, everything except Sammy.

  Now Wes pulled the ring out of his pocket. Not an engagement ring—he couldn’t afford that, not yet—but a gold Claddagh ring he’d meant to give her when he finally saw her in London.

  But when he’d heard from Rita about what had happened to Sam’s family, his heart had torn in half for her. He knew what it meant, how it would crush her. Samantha’s destiny had arrived faster than either of them had ever imagined. She would be forced to helm the Wyatt empire long before she’d ever planned to be, because she was the rightful heir.

  And Wes would always just be the boy who loved her.

  In that awful moment, Wes saw the truth that he hadn’t been willing to face until that point. He could make all the promises he wanted to her, but when it was all said and done, he was less sure about those promises than he was in himself. He was standing at a precipice, his career just beginning to take off. They’d spent a year apart already, and with Rob’s death, they’d likely be apart for longer, if she decided to take the tour of duty after all.

  And then what?

  Samantha would return to Houston to take ove
r Wyatt Petroleum. And he’d be… her lover at best? Her project at worst?

  Would she marry him one day?

  Did he want her to?

  Did he want to be the man who adored the one person he could never really be a true partner to? A woman so out of his league they barely breathed the same air?

  They’d intersected for a powerful, but fleeting span of time at A&M, two comets on divergent paths, colliding for a few ultraviolet moments before traveling their separate ways. Was that all it had been meant to be?

  Wes’s eyes fell on the envelope again. Her father had foreseen this happening one day—had even warned him, though Wes wouldn’t listen.

  “I raised Samantha to be a commander, Wes. She will rule one day. She will eclipse everything I have created for her. She’s smarter, braver, and tougher than you and I will ever be,” Rob had told him the night he’d graduated. “But a deal’s a deal. I promised you I would help you get your career off the ground. But if you want what I have to offer, then you need to leave…”

  As Wes stood outside the cathedral, listening to the choir sing Plorate, Filii Israel, he realized that as much as he loved Samantha, he couldn’t hold onto her. He gripped the promise ring, watching it glint in the mid-morning sunlight. He had nothing to promise her. Not now. Not yet.

  His Dear John letter would hurt her. But not as bad as would making a commitment that he wasn’t ready for. Not as bad as breaking his word.

  “Forgive me, Sammy,” he whispered, his heart breaking. “Forgive me.”

  *

  April—Present Day

  Wyatt Ranch, Texas

  S A M A N T H A

  Dawn slowly lit up the sky, transforming the atmosphere from a hazy, pale pink calla to a stunning citrine, as the sun gilded the dewy grass with its warm yellow rays. Sam sat alone on the porch swing, wrapped in a quilt her Aunt Hannah had sewn for her when she was still a girl.

  She’d been up all night, unable to sleep, thinking about what Wes had told her—about himself and about her father—and what it meant to her now, years later.

  Did she really want to know the truth about her father? Would it even help?