by Lora Leigh
Noah felt his lip twitch as fury began to burn inside him. He shot the big Russian a hard look and only got a cold smile in return.
Yeah. He’d promised. It had been his fucking hand that signed the papers, giving his soul to the Elite Ops rather than returning to his wife. He’d been warned then, he could never return to his old life. There was no resignation, there was no opting out unless he was dead.
And there was no revealing who and what he was, but there was no clause that hadn’t said Noah Blake couldn’t marry or fall in love. But could he keep his Bella and remain here, in his hometown, and maintain the illusion of who he was forever?
The Elite Ops wasn’t a prison, but the consequences of breaking contract weren’t pretty. Gitmo wasn’t a place Noah wanted to be. If he revealed who he was, what he was, and it was learned, he could be shipped out as an enemy combatant and never be seen again.
The question was, could he remain with Sabella and never tell her he was the husband she had lost? Could he live with hating one part of himself because his wife still longed for something she thought could never return?
The jealousy was like an acrid burn in his soul, and despite his determination to keep her, Noah wondered how long he could actually stay and have that life with her while maintaining his secrets.
The wife who wasn’t a damn thing like the pretty little thing he’d left six years ago. The Sabella who had stared back at him, dry-eyed and furious, two nights before was nothing like the tender, softhearted young woman he had left when he went on that last, fateful mission.
The woman he remembered shedding tears when she saw new wounds on his body after a mission. He’d seen the horror in her eyes over a shallow knife cut. He’d seen the nightmares in her eyes when he returned, exhausted, from six to eight weeks, sometimes longer, deployed into areas he could barely pronounce the name of.
The Sabella he had known would have broken at the sight of his face, destroyed from so many beatings. His back, chest, and thighs lashed to ribbons from a whip. Starved down and so desperate to fuck he was like an animal.
He’d been like an animal for three years. Jacking off until his dick felt raw, and on the retraining missions, he’d been the demon of death. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t pull punches. He didn’t give anyone the chance to strike at him, capture him.
He’d thought his life with Sabella was over. The woman he had thought he had known couldn’t accept the man he had become.
And he’d learned he’d never known the woman he had loved. Not all the way to the bone. He’d only known what he’d wanted to see. The helpless little blonde Southern baby. Sexy and vulnerable. And so young.
It was what he had wanted to see, because seeing the strength in the core of her would have given him a clue into the future, into a woman who would have stood by him no matter how broken he had been. And his damned pride, that was it, his pride, hadn’t been able to consider the thought of Sabella ever seeing him as less than what he wanted to be in her eyes.
Invincible. But he hadn’t been invincible. It had taken Fuentes almost two years, but before his rescue, Noah had known it wouldn’t be long before he lost the will to live or to fight. And Sabella had been there with him. In the darkest nights, the bleakest days, she had been there through it all, holding on to his soul.
That damned woman had a spine like steel and a look that could flay a man’s flesh at a hundred paces. If she deigned to look at him. She was the woman who had held him through hell, through her dreams. And he had thought she wasn’t strong enough to hold him broken and in pain.
He’d been a fool. And now, walking away from her just might kill him. But staying, what if staying could kill her?
“What time do we need to leave?” he finally asked Nik, forcing his gaze away from Sabella.
“Just after the garage shuts down.” At dark.
They would enter the bunker under the cover of night, lights off and on stealth mode.
He nodded slowly.
“I’ll let my friend know we’ll be there,” Nik murmured as Noah rubbed the back of his neck and moved from the garage to the convenience store where Rory was taking his turn manning the counter.
The convenience store was empty. One of those lulls that came every few hours.
Rory watched him approach, his blue eyes flat, his expression set. Rory had been watching him like that for a week now.
“What do you need?” His brother crossed his arms over his chest as he glanced at the closed door between the store and the office.
“I have to go out this evening.” Noah stared back at Rory curiously.
Someone else had changed in the past years. Maybe Rory had grown up. Noah felt his chest clench at the knowledge that he had missed it. His baby brother. Their father had cast him and his mother off, refused to acknowledge the black-haired, red-faced infant he’d created with the dark-haired shop clerk from Odessa.
Grandpop had taken him instead. The squalling little scrap of flesh that no one wanted but an old man and a ten-year-old boy.
Noah had helped raise Rory, and he’d missed whatever moment Rory had faced that turned him from a lazy, reckless young man to the man facing him now.
“Fine. You go out, I’ll watch her. It’s what I’ve been doing all along anyway.” Rory shrugged, that thread of anger warning Noah exactly what the problem was. The same problem Sabella was having.
He breathed out roughly and glanced at the door.
“She doesn’t need to know,” he finally said, his voice hard as he turned back to Rory. “She still has her memories of what was. She doesn’t need to know what it became.”
“I said I’d watch her.” Rory grunted. “I didn’t ask for your excuses.”
“What the hell do you want to ask me for then, kid?” Noah bit out. “Spit it out before it eats you alive.”
“Before it eats you alive.” Rory smiled mockingly. “Don’t worry, man. I got nothin’ to bitch at you about. You’re free and easy, right? Go be free and easy. I have work to do.”
Noah glanced at the door again. In the past two days, he could have sworn he felt her tears. Her pain.
“Get off that attitude, Rory,” he told his brother warningly. “This thing is getting too close. I have to be able to trust you to handle the fallout.”
When things went to hell, Rory had to get Sabella out of town. He wanted her out of it, away from it.
“I know my responsibilities,” Rory assured him, a snap in his voice. “Damn good thing one of us remembers.”
Before Noah could stop the reaction, his hand snapped out, his fingers gripping Rory’s neck. His brother’s eyes widened as Noah gritted his teeth and pulled back. Slowly.
“Don’t forget them.” He was aware of Sabella standing in the doorway, the doorknob gripped in her hand, as she stared between Noah and Rory.
She was pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes. His cock jerked, already erect, he swore it only hardened impossibly further at the sight of her.
“Do you two have a problem I need to know about?”
Rory’s jaw clenched. “No problem, Belle,” he answered for both of them. “He just grates on the nerves sometimes, I guess.”
“Do tell?” She arched her brow as she stepped from the office. “I’m going out for a while. Toby has the office and I’m getting on his nerves.”
“There are cars in the bay,” Noah gritted out.
“And you’re so handy with them,” she stated coolly as she moved from the office and closed the door behind her. “I’ll see the two of you in the morning.”
“Where the hell are you going?” The words were out of his mouth before he could hold them back.
Noah could feel the tension brewing in him, between them. She wanted promises. She should have learned how easily promises could be broken. He knew. He knew and it ravaged his soul, tore at his guts minute by minute, knowing, at any moment, any promise he made to her could be like dust. Like death. Simply gone.
“I
t’s none of your business where I’m going, Mr. Blake,” she told him. “But if you must know, I thought I’d go clean house.” Her eyes met his and he felt something constrict in his soul. “See ya’ll tomorrow.”
She moved to the cooler, grabbed a cold water, and left the store. Noah watched her walk across the asphalt of the station lot and take the walkway up to the house.
She moved slow and easy, her hips shifting, ass bunching. His hands clenched at the remembered feel of those curves under his hands. Two days without her and it felt like another six years.
“You’re killing her,” Rory said then. “You fly back in here, make her live again, and then suddenly, she’s hollow eyed and quiet. I hate you for that, Noah.”
And Noah nodded slowly. Yeah, he understood that. Related. Felt it. He hated himself. He shook his head and moved from the store, back to the garage. He had vehicles to fix, a mission to finish. Things were better this way. She wasn’t hiding in the house, burrowed in the bed, grieving for a man who no longer existed.
She was pissed. Probably hurt. But this one she could survive, he told himself.
He picked up the wrench and braced his hands on the frame of the SUV and wondered if he would survive it. Because he could feel the pain fracturing inside him, spreading through him until the ache was like an open wound.
Until the need for her touch, her laughter, her smile, sliced at his soul.
Sabella walked into the house and slammed the door closed. She was met by pictures. Dozens and dozens of pictures that filled the living room. Pictures of Nathan, of her and Nathan, Nathan and Grandpop, and Rory and Nathan.
They stared at her, mocking her.
She moved to the fireplace, to the mantel, and lifted the trifold frame. And she smiled. Their wedding picture. How young she had been. How stupid. She let her finger trace over Nathan’s strong jaw. It wasn’t as blunt now, it was sharper, leaner.
She’d been on the computer that morning, researching what kind of damage could have caused that. Shattered bones had been the most likely cause. Or broken bones that had rehealed improperly.
She closed her eyes and swallowed tight. Repairing it would have been almost as painful as the cause. His lower lip wasn’t as full as it had been, and there was a fine web of barely detectable scarring at one side.
She leaned her head against the picture of the man she had been married to.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, Noah.” Because he was Noah now, and she knew it. Nathan still lived inside him, but she had a feeling Noah was the man Nathan had never given her.
She replaced the picture before she trudged up the stairs and moved to the shower. She’d promised Sienna and Kira she would meet them at one of the bars in town later. One of the few Rick didn’t fight Sienna over going to.
Rick was as protective of his wife as Nathan had been over her, long ago and far away. She shook her head at that thought.
She had several hours before she needed to get ready for that little girls’ night out.
She walked into the bedroom, stared at the bed. She started by stripping off the comforter then the sheets. The pillowcases that still held his scent.
She changed the bed, packed the sheets downstairs to the washer, and poured the detergent and bleach to them.
She walked to the basement, pulled free one of the most expensive bottles of his wine and brought it upstairs. Hell, it wasn’t as though he needed it. He wasn’t sticking around and she damned sure wasn’t packing it up for him.
She cleaned house and drank the wine. She dusted and scrubbed. She cleaned the scent of him out of her home. She changed her comforter, pulled the pillows from the guest room and placed those on her bed. They definitely didn’t smell like Noah.
She turned the music up loud. Godsmack, Nine Inch Nails. All the those pesky hard rock bands Noah had always hated. And she hadn’t played them when he was home. She finished the wine and let the glow suffuse her.
She filed and painted her finger-and toenails. She showered, lotioned her body, fixed her hair, and put on the makeup she hadn’t worn in three years.
The dainty little ankle bracelet he had bought her while they were dating graced her ankle. She smiled with a mocking little twist of her lips as she clasped a silver necklace around her neck, and attached the silver armband to her upper arm that he had bought her just before the son of a bitch “died.”
“Bastard,” she muttered. “Has to leave to sort some things out, does he? Screw it.”
It wasn’t like she had asked him for the truth. She’d asked if he was staying. That wasn’t uncalled-for. It wasn’t wrong and it sure as hell wasn’t pressure. He was her husband.
She stared at the gold wedding band she had taken off only months before. She had to blink back her tears as she picked it up, stared at it. Inside, go síoraí had been engraved. Celtic for “forever.” She had finally looked it up. It meant “forever.” His vow to her.
“Forever didn’t last long enough.” But she slid the ring on the ring finger of her right hand.
She was a widow, right? That’s where widows wore their rings. Her husband was indeed dead. Because her husband would have never told her he had to leave, to “sort some things out.”
She inhaled roughly, trying to ignore the sense of comfort the ring brought her, even on the wrong finger.
Pulling on snug jean shorts and a sleeveless blouse, she clenched her teeth, forcing herself to go through with this little girls’ night out Sienna was so determined to have. She tucked the shirt into her shorts and threaded the leather belt through the loops.
She slid a toe ring on. Something else he had bought her. She wiggled her toes, eyeing the cherry-red polish critically before sliding her feet into stylish leather sandals.
She spritzed herself with the softly scented cologne she had always favored then headed back downstairs. Striding into the kitchen, she heard the Harley and went to the window to watch as its headlight cut through the darkness and sped away from the garage.
Where was he going? Another fight?
He was here for a mission, she reminded herself. She knew he was, she just hadn’t figured out what it was. And she hadn’t asked. That was dumb of her. Because she hadn’t wanted the inevitable question to come up. What happened when the mission or assignment was over? What happened when he no longer had a reason to be in Alpine?
And now she knew. He’d have to leave. To sort some things out.
She shook her head, picked up the phone, and called a cab. She didn’t want to drive tonight. She intended to enjoy this little outing Sienna had guilted her into. She intended to dull her senses just enough to laugh with her friends, to be a girl again.
It had been a damned long time since she had been a woman, just for the sake of being a woman. Too many years since she had felt a sense of—freedom. And that freedom hurt. It hurt like hell.
She shoved a credit card and her house keys in the back pocket of her jeans and went out to the front porch to await her ride.
Sabella knew she was too damned pissed to be leaving the house. Too hurt. She should face Noah with what she knew, scream and demand the truth, but pride held her back. Who wanted a man who stayed simply because a woman reminded him that he was married?
As the cab drew into the driveway, she watched Rory step out of the convenience store, staring up at the drive.
“Pull down to the garage first,” she told Art Strickman, the young man driving the cab that night. His daddy owned three cabs, and they all kept up a steady business. Especially on a Friday night.
“Yes, Ms. Malone.” He flashed her a smile before turning and driving to the front of the convenience store.
Rory was waiting on her. “Where the hell are you going?”
Rory took one look at her and barely managed to keep his mouth from dropping open. Holy hell. Noah was going to explode.
This was the Sabella he knew. This woman standing in front him of looking like a damned goddess. Her hair all fluff
ed around her face, her eyes smoky in the dim light, legs a mile long, and nails painted cherry red.
“Girls’ night out.” She wagged her brows. “I’ll be back late, so make sure you lock up tight and take the bank bag with you. I’ll get it in the morning.”
“Hell, umm, Belle.” He swallowed tightly. “Hang around a bit. I’ll go with you. I close up in an hour.”
“Girls’ night out, Rory.” She patted his cheek with a mocking little laugh. “Sienna and Kira Richards are waiting on me. I’ve just put away a bottle of Nathan’s eighteen hundred and something French wine, and I’m heading out to have a little fun. You can survive without me.”
Shit. Shit. He pushed his fingers through his hair and stared around the lot as he heard the door open behind him.
“Ms. Malone. Wow. You’re hot,” Toby almost cackled. “You’re going out tonight?”
“Ain’t he sweet?” Belle wrinkled her nose back at him. “Girls’ night out, Toby. Make sure you get a ride home, no walking. Promise?”
“You betcha.” Toby laughed. “Tell me where you’re going. Maybe we’ll join you.”
Sabella shot him a sharp look. “Do I look like I need a babysitter?” She waved her hand down her body as she cocked her hip with feminine arrogance. Rory and Toby both nearly swallowed their tongues at the look. Rory swore Noah was going to detonate like a nuclear bomb when he caught sight of this. And oh boy, Rory did intend to make damned certain his brother knew his wife was out on the town looking like a sex goddess visiting for a little down-and-dirty pleasure.
Not that Belle looked sluttish. She looked damned good. Too damned good. Too damned hot dressed like the female she was, and too innocent to know what the hell she was letting all those Friday-night cowboys get a glimpse of.
One pissed-off, hurting woman.
“No, ma’am.” Toby was the first to speak. “I just want to see the fireworks later.”
Rory shot Toby a silencing look. One the boy ignored.
“What fireworks?”
“The ones that are going to hit Alpine when Mr. Blake finds you,” Toby said, laughing. “Talk about a Friday night free-for-all.”