The thought of returning to Kansas City sent a rigid, screaming resistance through her. She knew too much to go back. She’d seen another kind of life, and she wanted it.
Settling her book of poetry on top of the rest, she tugged the drawstring closed. She still had some gum and crackers to tide her over. Of the two hundred and thirty-three dollars she had taken with her from Kismet, more than two hundred remained. Enough to get her out of Kansas City once her business there was finished.
Zeke had left the door open upon his departure, and a soft wind blew over the threshold, calling to her. It carried a warm scent of drying pine needles and the song of birds. Seduced, Mattie wandered out to the bright summer morning and gazed around her in wonder. From the front of the cabin, the wide vistas of the valley were no longer visible and Mattie let her gaze wander up the mountainside, to the trees and stony outcroppings. The wind that had seduced her outside now caressed her face. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin, letting it blow away the tightness in her shoulders, the achy feeling in her chest.
Even now, knowing the brief, exciting, enthralling days she’d stolen with Zeke were over, she felt a promise in that wind. A sense of expectation, a sense of deliverance.
That was what she’d felt with Zeke. Deliverance. It was the unfulfilled promise of it that hurt so much this morning.
Last night, she had believed she’d broken through to the real Zeke, to the man who hid inside the shell. Even after he said there was no future for them, even when he warned her to take off her rose-colored glasses and insisted he’d ruin whatever came up between them, Mattie had only half believed him.
That washer own foolishness, though. It had nothing to do with Zeke. He played by his rules and Mattie had known what they were.
Thinking back to that morning in the Kismet diner when she had first seen him, it seemed impossible it had only been two weeks. He had changed her life.
If only she’d been able to do the same for him.
A glimmer of light on the side of the mountain caught her eye, and with a grin, she shaded her eyes with one hand. It was the hot spring! She hadn’t realized it was visible from here, and she supposed it wasn’t, unless you knew it was there.
Suddenly, she dashed back inside and dumped the contents of her tote bag on the bed. She tossed off her clothes, and quickly slipped into a pair of shorts and a loose T-shirt. Zeke said he’d be gone an hour or so. She’d just go take a dip in that pool while she waited for his return. It certainly beat brooding.
Unfortunately, walking proved conducive to thinking, too. As she followed the slim path up the hill, she remembered the hike with Zeke and his great pleasure in showing her the pool he’d dug. She thought of the way he felt in front of her on the bike, and the way his eyes could lighten to that brilliant pale emerald when he was teasing.
When she reached the pool, she remembered the way he had kissed her here, so desperately hungry, with such wild need.
God, she would miss him!
Was it possible to fall in love in so short a time—or was she just dazzled by the presence and size and sheer charisma of him? She had, after all, thought herself in love with Brian. Now she barely thought of him at all.
Would the same thing happen a few months from now when she thought back on Zeke? She didn’t know. She didn’t see how it was possible that she’d ever stop thinking about him. It felt incomplete, for one thing. She had learned only a tiny part of him, and wanted to know everything. All the things it would take a lifetime to learn.
Annoyed with her brooding, she waded into the pool.
How did a person ever answer these questions? She tipped back and floated in the warm, buoyant water, staring at the blazing Colorado sky above her. At last she found respite from the whirl of her thoughts. Floating in the mineral water that reminded her of Zeke, and smelled of earth and musk and the elements, she emptied her mind and simply floated between the bowl of the sky and ground below.
Until the wind carried the sound of Zeke’s motorcycle to her. She scrambled up and swam to the far side of the pool, finding a toehold in a rock below the water so she could see the driveway in front of the cabin. When he parked the bike and cut the engine, Mattie cupped her hands around her mouth and called his name. He paused, looking around perplexed for a moment.
“Up here!” Mattie yelled. When he glanced up, she waved. He lifted a hand and moved toward the path that led to the pool.
Mattie watched him cross the clearing with long-limbed ease, his movements loose and calm. His hair shone in the sunlight. Her heart caught. Strider.
Yes, she loved him. It wasn’t logical or sensible or anything of those other things. He was not the kind of man she’d daydreamed about all of her life, safe and stolid and dependable, but he was the one. The One.
When he emerged from the bend around a boulder a few minutes later, the pinching in her chest trebled, expanded, stole her breath.
Safe and solid and dependable were not the words most women would use to describe Zeke Shephard. They’d see his tattoo and wild hair and his big mean motorcycle and words like sexy and exciting and dangerous would come to mind. Mattie knew, because they’d been in her mind.
He was sexy. And exciting and vivid. But it was the dizzying combination of exciting and safe that made him dangerous, not anything inherent in him, just that simple fact that he would always protect and care for the small and defenseless, the babies and children and beleaguered women of the world.
As he stood on the edge of the pool, Mattie saw something else. In his beautiful, deep eyes, she saw how much the loss of her company would cost him. He looked like a man whose dog had just been hit by a truck.
It nearly broke her heart. He needed her, wanted her as much as he ever had, but last night they’d grown too close. To protect himself, to survive, he thought he had to push her away.
He needed her, and she knew nothing on earth would make him admit it.
She stared at him without speaking, letting that painful knowledge reverberate in her chest, and finally said, “Is it done?”
“Yeah.” He kicked a rock on the edge of the pool. “They’ll be coming for you shortly.”
Mattie nodded. “I guess I’d better get out and get ready, the.”
“Probably be a good idea.”
She tipped back in the water, wishing… “I’d like to stay just a few more minutes, if you don’t mind.”
“No. I don’t mind.”
“All right.” Mattie paddled around the pool a little, feeling a little awkward that he wasn’t joining her. He sat on a flat piece of pink granite at the edge of the pool and tossed pine needles at her.
After a little while, he asked, “Are you still mad at me?”
“No. You were right. I need to get this settled before I can move on.” She swam a few strokes, reveling in the soft feeling of the water on her body. “I’ll miss this place, though. It’s like heaven.”
He tossed a pine cone and it splashed in the water next to her. “You’re welcome to come visit anytime.” Mattie looked at him.
His eyes were sober. “I mean it, Mattie. If I’m not here, you just go on in and make yourself at home.” She smiled ruefully, knowing she’d never take him up on the offer. “Thanks.”
“You sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
“I’m sure, Zeke. It’s time I stood on my own two feet.” To change the subject, she splashed water toward him. “Why don’t you come in for a swim with me? Last chance.”
He inclined his head. “I think I’d better wait out here.”
Mattie shrugged, and kicked backward into a float. “Your loss.”
She felt his gaze on her, hot and sharp, touching the curves exposed by the water—and she was glad. She hoped it was desperately hard for him to let her go.
“Mattie,” he said. “About last night—”
She pulled herself upright. “Zeke, you said it best. It was great but it won’t last, so let’s just let it go. I can’t stand
to go through some mournful parting scene, okay?”
She could see that wounded him. His face went dark and he stood up. “Fine.” He paced the side of the pool and glanced through the break in the trees. “I just thought it would be—”
He broke off, shoved his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what I thought.”
Mattie knew. “Let it go, Zeke,” she said, suddenly weary. Wiping water from her face, she waded to shore. Picking up her towel, she echoed his words from the night before, “It was nice while it lasted, right?”
He didn’t look at her, just stood at the break in the trees that looked down to the cabin, his jaw stern. “Yeah.”
She looped the towel around her neck. “I’m going down.”
“Mattie—”
The anguished sound had reached his voice now, thick and not entirely steady. Mattie closed her eyes, wondering what she should do, how she should handle this. Her heart ached for him, but if she offered herself, he would never really know what was in his heart. Nor would she.
But she waited, watching his face carefully. The pale green eyes were nearly emerald with boiling emotions and his face had never seemed harsher. He seemed about to speak.
But he just shook his head mutely.
Mattie headed down the hill.
*
IT WASN’T AS easy to locate the turnoff as Brian had hoped. They stopped in three little towns, asking the same questions, over and over, with no success. Nobody knew Zeke Shephard.
By midmorning, the burn of frustration built again in Brian’s chest, and Vince didn’t make it any better, creeping along the mountain roads like a little old lady, his fingers white on the steering wheel. “Can’t you go the speed limit?” Brian growled in frustration.
“Some of these cliffs have drops that are thousands of feet,” Vince retorted. “You think you can do better, you drive.”
Brian slumped impatiently.
Just before noon, they came to a small clearing on the road, featuring a fishing tackle shop and a gas station. Not even a café at this one, but they stopped all the same.
Brian shoved his fingers through his hair and got out. “Get some gas. I’ll see if I can find anything out.”
The old man behind the counter nodded as Brian came through the door. Brian picked out some candy bars—these old geezers always talked better if you were buying their merchandise—and sighed as he put them on the counter. How many times had he asked these questions? “I’m wondering if you can help me out here. My cousin has some land right around here somewhere. I’m supposed to be meeting him there to do some fishing, but I can’t find the place. You know Zeke Shephard by any chance? He drives a blue motorcycle. Kinda big guy.”
“Sure I know him!” The old man rang up the candy bars. “The horse breeder. You missed him by maybe forty-five minutes. He was just in here this morning, making a phone call.”
Brian forced a friendly grin. “It figures. At least I’m close now. Can you tell me how to get there?”
The old man licked a thumb and counted out Brian’s change. “Go on back the way you came, about five miles. There’s a big split tree on one side, next to a pink boulder. Can’t miss it. The road up to Zeke’s place is about a hundred yards down the road on the other side.”
It wasn’t exactly an address, but it was a hell of a lot closer than Brian had come yet. “Thanks.”
*
ZEKE PACED THE cabin restlessly, walking outside to the porch and back inside, listening. Mattie made some soup and he ate it mechanically, trying not to think about how he was going to feel when she climbed into that police car and rode out of his life. He didn’t even know where she lived, how to reach her. The police would likely put her in a safe house, anyway. Out of reach of the crooks and bad guys, but out of Zeke’s reach, as well. It made him feel a little panicky.
He finished the soup and went back to the porch to light a cigarette, staring out at the brightly lit view of the mountains. Inside, Mattie hummed as she cleared their dishes.
He walked to the end of the porch and stared down the road. A hollowness echoed in his chest and—
Damn.
“Mattie!” he called urgently, finally recognizing the warning signs. He’d been so preoccupied over her departure that he hadn’t realized his instincts had been screaming for more than an hour. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled now and he called again. “Mattie!”
She came out to the porch, drying her hands on a small dish towel, her expression perplexed. “You don’t have to yell. I’m right here.”
Through the trees, Zeke caught sight of a flash of color, a yellow utterly at odds with the grays and blues of this landscape. He grabbed Mattie’s arm roughly. “I think we’ve got company.” With a little shove, he directed her to the steps. “Go to the sauna and stay there no matter what you hear.”
“Zeke, no! You can’t—”
“Go.” This time his shove was a little more insistent. “I can’t be worrying about where you are right now. Get!”
She glared at him, but a snatch of a voice reached them through the trees and she jumped down the stairs.
Too late. Just as she landed in the small clearing, the two men Zeke had seen in the café broke through the trees. Both carried guns.
In that split second, standing too far from Mattie to do anything to help her, knowing she stood there because he’d called her outside, Zeke knew a splintering sense of despair.
Once again, the brutal forces of the world would triumph. Once again, he would prove himself unequal to them. Once again—
A vision of his father, smelling of sour beer, holding a cigarette to Zeke’s thirteen-year-old side, sizzled through his mind, overlaying the scene with painful emotion. Rage, buried for twenty years, surfaced in a torrent. Rage deeper than the canyons, wider than the sky.
Zeke turned.
Reacting from the gut, from years and years of fighting a force bigger, stronger, meaner than himself, he let go of a rebel yell and launched himself, running at full speed toward the end of the porch. He vaulted over the railing and into the air. His legs, like the rest of him, were strong, and the leap hurtled him very close to Brian Murphy and his henchman. Their attention had been on Mattie, frozen there in the clearing like a statue. Zeke landed and rolled, ducking his head in a classic football tackle, keeping low. His body caught Brian’s at mid-thigh, and the man tumbled backward, gun flying. They went down together, rolling in a clinch down the hill.
Though not as big as Zeke, Brian was no small man, and he had muscle. The two of them came up fighting, and the struggle was mortal. Zeke held on to the wiry body, hurtling him backward into a tree, and felt the jarring through his own body, but Brian swung and caught Zeke clean on the mouth. A tooth gave way.
Zeke used his fists, his legs, every ounce of strength he’d gained in twenty years, fighting like it was his father and he had one more chance to put the past right. It lent him an unholy strength and gradually he gained the upper hand.
Mattie’s scream brought him out of his furious trance. He let Brian go and bolted for the clearing, keeping his eyes open for the gun that had gone flying when he tackled Brian.
It gleamed dully in the grass and Zeke headed for it. He couldn’t see Mattie anywhere, but heard her screams. Not fearful screams, but the kind to call attention. He could hear the slimy partner utter an epithet, clear in the mountain stillness, and Zeke knew Mattie was fighting, too.
Brian caught Zeke from behind, tackling him before he reached the gun, and the struggle began anew. Zeke landed a right to the jaw; Brian staggered and Zeke gained his feet.
Into the day broke the urgent sound of sirens. The sound distracted Brian long enough to allow Zeke to grab the gun and train it on his opponent’s head. “Don’t move.”
He grabbed the back of the khaki Land’s End jacket and hauled Brian to his feet, holding the gun at his head. Brian lifted his hands in classic surrender. “All right, man. All right. You win.”
&nb
sp; The sirens rang closer, and Zeke heard the sheriff’s engine coming up the rutted track to the cabin, but he couldn’t see Mattie. Couldn’t see her or Vince. “Mattie!” he roared.
She emerged from the front door of the cabin, carrying her purse and tote. Vince held her by the collar, his gun held firmly at her back, and she stumbled a little. She looked scuffed, as if there had been a struggle.
Zeke scanned her face for signs of damage. Gone was the wide-eyed innocent, the fearful good girl. A smear of dust covered her chin and her hair was tousled, but it was her expression that changed her. Murderous.
“She’s coming with me,” Vince called out.
“Don’t be stupid,” Zeke returned. “How are you gonna get by the cops?” The sirens were nearly upon them.
“Big woods out there. We’ll do it.”
Brian jerked suddenly, as if to break free. Zeke grabbed a fistful of jacket and cocked the hammer of the gun. “I’d rather not shoot you, because it’s too fast, but I will if I have to.”
Vince pushed Mattie again, toward the trees on the side of the barn. She stumbled again, and Zeke wondered if he could get a clear shot at Vince if she ducked. The police wouldn’t open fire on them. If he didn’t do something, Vince would get away.
Simultaneously, he moved the gun, taking aim. The sheriff’s white Jeep pulled into the clearing, siren screaming. Mattie fell to the ground and curled into a ball. Zeke had a clear shot, but abruptly, Vince dropped to the ground, too. Mattie had attacked his ankles and yanked his feet from beneath him. She was up and moving, but not fast enough. Vince scrambled to his feet.
Mattie turned, and he could hear the high, keening sound of her rage as she lifted that sturdy leather purse filled with rolls of quarters and smashed it into Vince’s head. He went down.
Cold.
Zeke whooped and Mattie glanced over, breathing hard. Her mouth was split and she wiped at it, smearing blood into the mud on her chin. Calmly, she plucked the gun from Vince’s hand and picked up her tote.
Bad Boy Heroes Boxed Set Page 118