“It’s strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man’s mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by … the sight of an old familiar face.”
—Wilson Rawls
Raine leaned against the door jam as she watched him, her hands trembling as she ran them down the legs of her new jeans. For the first time, it was like he was too distracted with whatever was on his mind to even realize that she’d walked into the room. Normally, he’d be on his feet acknowledging her or in the middle of a call and beckoning to her that he was aware of her presence but now, nothing. For a second, blinding fear washed through her at the thought that he was dead but then he suddenly shifted, running his hand through her hair in frustration. Sadness flowed through her thick and heavy causing her to want to reach out and comfort him but she knew that she couldn’t entertain that idea.
No matter which side Wyatt was on, he was still a temporary fixture in her life. She had seen that look in his eyes before, only it had been in his brother’s and towards her. This time that darkness had been fueled towards protecting her, not hurting her but she couldn’t chance it. She couldn’t risk that one day he wouldn’t turn to her or Gabriella with that same ease to destroy.
Her gaze washed over him and she had to shove down the lust that flared up in her forcefully. He leaned forward to press his face into his hands in defeat and her heart turned over in sorrow for this was hurting them both but she couldn’t chance it. Could she?
What do you have to lose? Reason questioned her briskly.
My daughter! She shot back.
He has been more of a father to Gabby in seventy-two hours than Stephano had been all her life! Her conscience snapped. All he has done is taking care of you both! The voice chastened.
It could all be an act! She retorted weakly.
Does that look like a man who is acting? The voice questioned and she ran mossy green eyes over him, realizing how tired he looked.
She had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning over rejecting him; she could just imagine how his night must’ve been after the adrenaline of the fight had worn off. In the end, he had taken another life and all for her.
The longer portion of his hair fell forward in disarray and he in frustration pushed it back with a heavy sigh. What was she to do? She wondered as fear caused her gut to clench tighter. Her heart had never been given a chance to lead her in the right direction and it would now be hard to trust her in such a delicate but serious matter.
He sighed again, emphasizing the broadness of his shoulders and his muscles flexed as his thick, long fingers drew perfect lines through his copious, black hair. Power rated off of his solid frame and she swallowed as her heart and her soul battled the never-ending conflict that he’d brought with him when he entered her life.
Stepping forward, she decided to drag him out of his world of misery.
∆∆∆
“Wyatt?”
He sprung to his feet at the sound of her voice, his heart thudding against his ribcage in strange anticipation. He knew that last night had been a major step forward that came with three small steps back but he couldn’t help the feeling of dread that kept on trying to seize up his bones.
Her green eyes assessed him sadly and he couldn’t help but draw closer to her; couldn’t help the urge to touch her. Her heart raced erratically as he brushed back her dark curls to tuck a few wild strands behind an inflamed ear. Fear flickered through her expressive eyes and his cold heart squeezed in response.
“Wyatt,” she breathed softly, her apology almost tangible.
“I know,” he started. “And I’m sorry,” he finished, knowing that what he’d done the night before had scared her witless but to him, it couldn’t have been helped.
Something akin to grief passed over his countenance and guilt rushed through her. “Don’t apologize for how we both feel,” she whispered. “I’m the one who’s plagued with this disease of fear,” she sighed.
“With good reason,” he chastened softly. “With good reason.” He leaned down to brush his lips over her temple, the freshness of her shampoo tangoing with his senses as her tress tickled his nose. He wanted to stay there forever, holding her firmly against him but with a deep breath, he stepped back and dropped his hands. “It’s time for us to leave out.”
∆∆∆
Raine looked out the gas station’s slightly frosted window as Wyatt stepped up into the four-wheel-drive Ford truck. Her nether lips quivered in response to the distinct aura of power and control that cloaked his masculine frame. She licked her lips and moved away as he stepped back down and threw a glance over his shoulder. It was as if he could feel her eyes eating him up from so far away. She sighed heavily, confused as she moved towards the fridge to grab some sodas before she moved onto the coffee machine.
He had her in such a knot that she failed to believe that she could ever be unraveled. He had that distant coldness in his eyes that even now caused a shiver to go up to her spine. It was as if one minute his eyes would burn a hole through her as if he was dying to take a sip of her nectar and then the next second, he would freeze over as if he’d thought better of it.
What do you expect when you give the man such contradicting signals? Lust demanded and she cringed in response.
But what could she do when that was how she felt? She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about him and what she did feel was so powerful and overwhelming that it forced her to retreat. At twenty, she was barely an adult. She had never gotten the chance to harness her feelings freely or grow emotionally towards the opposite sex. For three years she had been beaten into submission, told what to do, taken without permission, and dragged to the brink of death and back if she dared oppose. What was she to know about how to willingly care about someone who towered over her with brute strength but touched her as if she was carefully spun, delicate, blown glass?
She sighed again as she placed some sandwiches in her baskets for both of them, not knowing when again they’d stop for refreshments. He was trying to push through what was left of daylight so that she could make it back to Gabriella, who was missing her terribly. Moving closer to the coffee machines, she rested her basket in the counter and nodded to the cashier that she could start ringing her out. Grabbing two large cups, she filed them with hot chocolate, aware of the temperature outside.
“Beautiful weather isn’t it?” the old lady asked, drawing Raine’s eyes to the sprinkle of white flakes that were slowly but steadily trickling from the cloudy sky before her eyes landed back on the woman.
“Yes; I miss seeing the snow,” she responded softly and a smile deepened the creamy leather skin of the older woman.
“Ah, you are from around these parts; that’s why you looked so familiar,” she began, missing Raine’s shock as she reached down for another bag to pack away her purchases.
Raine bit the inside of her cheeks before replying, hoping that the woman was just mistaken. “I get that a lot,” she chuckled. “High cheeks and dark hair are really common.”
The woman’s salt and pepper brows drew together as if she was accessing Raine’s mixed features. “It’s the eyes,” she began. “They’re hard to forget but you might be right; after all, I’m heading up there in age,” she chuckled and Raine laughed nervously.
“It could be that we’ve crossed paths before,” Raine continued, trying to sound casual. “But it’s been a while since I’ve been on this side of the country, Mary.”
Her crinkled brown eyes glowed at her use of the name that was attached to the pale yellow of her work blouse. Her eyes flickered towards the window where Wyatt stood facing them as he filled the gas tank. “Relationship kept you away?” she inquired as a blush steal over her weathered cheeks when Wyatt raised his hand in a small wave.
“Something like that,” Raine answered as she raised her hand back to him.
“A fine fella you have there, Missy,” Mary started and a blush rose up Raine’s c
heek this time.
She hummed a response as she forked out the cash to pay for her purchases. She hooked the bags over her arm and Wyatt moved forward. She raised her hand to stall him before picking up the tray with their hot cocoa, knowing his intent.
Mary moaned softly and fanned her face and blushes colored both their cheeks. “You two just be careful on them roads,” she started. “It’s supposed to come down a bit harder by tonight.”
“Will do,” Raine replied with a nod as the woman pressed the wheelchair button so that she could exit without pushing the door. As soon as she cleared the door, he strode forward, not caring that she’d indicated that she was fine.
With little effort, he plucked the parcels from her grasp and deposited them into the vehicle. “What was that all about?” he questioned softly, small clouds of vapor forming between them as his warm breath hit the frigid air.
“She thought that she recognized me,” she responded and his thick brows drew together.
“It is a possibility—” he began but she cut him off as she saw that he was trying to calculate how much of a risk the cashier truly recognizing her would be.
“It’s okay; I threw her off a bit. She seemed more interested in you.”
His dark eyes assessed her face, overlooking the slight jealousy in her voice to grasp onto what was really constricting her chest. “I wasn’t planning on killing her,” he stated frankly and she bit her lip.
“I—” It made no sense to deny what they both knew that she been thinking so she shifted on her feet.
He sighed before moving towards the fuel pump as it clicked to indicate that the tank was at its capacity. “The bathrooms are on the side,” he murmured. “I don’t know when we’ll be stopping again.”
With a nod of acknowledgment, she moved towards the bathroom to relieve herself. Raine hissed out a breath as the hot water hit her frigid fingers while she washed her hands. It hadn’t taken two seconds after she’d pulled off her gloves for her fingers to toward mini-icicles in the chilly stall. Forgoing the paper towel, she moved towards the hand dryer, inching for more warmth.
Her brows drew together as the hot air blasted her hands and her eyes scanned the notice board above the machine. Time-froze, mossy green eyes met hers. Raine Bass missing since February 2015; last seen in the clothing pictured. Her mind didn’t bother to ingest the rest of the words as her eyes landed on a note scribbled at the bottom of the poster. Declared dead Christmas Day, 2015.
“It’s those eyes…” Instinctively, she reached out and tore the flyer off the board as Mary’s words rotated around her mind. Her stiff fingers dug into the weathered parchment but she didn’t even realize as she numbly walked back to the truck.
Something akin to panic passed over Wyatt’s face when his eyes fell on her before he concealed it. In a heartbeat, he was standing before her, his warm hands cupping her small shoulders. “What is it?” he asked roughly, his panic leaking through in his voice.
Jerkily, she handed him the paper and he swore softly as her gaze fluttered towards the store.
“It’ll be fine,” he reassured as he helped her into the passenger side. “I jammed all communication devices and her cameras when we pulled in. Even if she remembers where she knows you from, she won’t have any proof,” he finished as he came around to the driver’s seat and gunned the engine.
She trembled as the hot air blazed from the truck’s vents.
Instinctively, he reached over to squeeze her hand. “You’re okay; this will all be over soon,” he whispered as he secured her with the seatbelt, while she sat stoically.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Snow brings a special quality with it, the power to stop life as you know it dead in its tracks.”
—Nancy Hatch Woodward
Raine sucked in a breath as the four-wheeler slid on the black ice again and it took him a nanosecond longer to stabilize it than the last time. “Wyatt,” she breathed out nervously and his jaws flexed as he tried to see what was ahead of them.
“We’re fine,” he responded. “I checked the tire chains at the gas station.”
A fat load of help they were doing; at this point, it felt as if he had rubbed butter on the tires instead of heavy metal that should’ve made their journey smoother. The winds howled outside, shaking the three and a half ton vehicle like lightweight paper. Her knuckles tightened on the edge of her warmed seat until they became white as she tried to see through her window.
The wipers whipped speedily across the thick glass of the windshield but their speed was still not enough to keep the glass clear for more than a fraction of a second. The sky had quickly turned when they’d left the gas station and their two-hour drive from Santa Rosa to Santa Fe was now going into its sixth hour. The poor visibility had only made things harder and at some instances, he had left the highways all together because of backed up traffic from some accident or another.
“Dammit!” he hissed as they neared another sign that had been turned into a white popsicle. God had just left enough grace for them to make out the town at the top. Glorieta 2 miles, it read.
“What’s wrong?” she asked with wide eyes.
“Normally, the heart of Santa Fe would be twenty-five minutes from here but in this weather, it might end up being three,” he answered.
The wind whipped again and the vehicle slid to the opposite side of the road. Wyatt barely got it back on the right track before a sixteen wheeler rolled pass with a frustrated honk of his horn. Raine jumped in her seat at the loud sound and his jaws flexed again.
“We’ll have to stop,” he finally admitted as the distinction between what was a road and what was the shoulder or a ditch disappeared.
“We’ll be buried within a minute if we stay out here,” she whispered, fear lacing every word.
“My parents have a cabin on the lake not far from here,” he murmured and she looked at him as if he’d grown two horns.
“We have been risking our lives all this time and you have access to a house?” she shrieked.
“You wanted to see Gabriella,” he started.
“In one piece!” she snapped “What did you think I was going to do? Ring up Ignacio and tell him where your family cabin is?” she questioned and he flinched.
“I don’t mix business and my personal life; so it never occurred to me that it would’ve been fine with you.” He groaned internally when she flinched at his term for their relationship but it couldn’t be helped. Silence reigned in the cab of the truck as he turned off the highway and onto familiar terrane. In less than twenty minutes, they were facing one of his family vacation homes.
“Is someone already there?” she questioned as the outside lights became more visible.
“No, they’re solar lights,” he responded. “They probably didn’t get much juice today.”
She hummed a response before sucking in a breath as her eyes caught a small piece of the structure before he pressed something on his watched and the garage door slide open. “How big is your family?” she questioned as the lights flooded the eight-car garage.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because a cabin is normally a cozy little building, not a mansion.”
“This isn’t a mansion,” he grumbled as he hopped out and keyed in a code before coming around to open her door.
She squinted up at the vaulted ceiling as her eyes adjusted to the light. “You could’ve fooled me,” she muttered as she closed the heavy door and snow crashed to the ground.
“Hmmm,” he responded as he opened the back passenger door to grab two small suitcases. “This way,” he instructed after locking the vehicle’s doors. He paused to flick a few switches and what sounded like a large truck filled the garage. “The generator,” he informed her. “Just in case the power goes out.”
“I thought that you had to pull strings and add gas for those to work,” she commented with a frown.
“This one is a bit more complex than that,” he murmured and she scuffed. Choosin
g to ignore the sound, he led her into a large white kitchen.
“Wow,” she breathed as her eyes drew to the wall of glass that faced the deck and the frozen over lake. The purest of white blanketed everything for as far as the eyes could see.
“I’ll be warming only part of downstairs,” he started as he checked the cupboards, which looked freshly stocked. If she didn’t know any better, she’d have thought that he’d planned this. “The forecast claims that this will let up by midday tomorrow so we won’t be here for long. It doesn’t make sense to power up everything for less than fifteen hours.” He continued to speak but Raine was just focused on the beauty and fierceness beyond the glass. “I’ll start a fire in the small sitting room so that we can camp out there. The bathroom is to your right if you want to freshen up before supper.”
His words seemed to trigger something in her bladder and she muttered “sure” before trailing behind him. Claiming her case, she headed to the bathroom that he indicated. Her eyes ate up the soft blue and white themed guest bathroom and she ran her fingers over the seashell-shaped face basin before pulling herself together and stripping her clothing.
She turned what seemed to be crystal handles of the shower to allow the water to heat up while she relieved herself. But before she could even finish peeing, steam was rising from the shower stall and she marveled at the lack of expense spared.
Flushing the toilet, she grabbed her toiletries from the case even though the cabinets held still sealed, brand new ones. Hopping into the shower, she took a minute to get the chill out of her bones before quickly rubbing away the day's sweat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“If a mother asks you a question it’s better to tell her the truth because chances are she’s asking because she already knows the answer.”
—Unknown
Wyatt watched as fire ran up the cedar logs before he placed the grate before the furnace. With reluctance, he walked past the bathroom and into the kitchen. He entered just in time to see his personal cell light up.
A Hitman's Kryptonite Page 9