Wild Card (Elite Ops)

by Leigh, Lora

  There wasn’t a man or a woman in the room that would ever mistake him for her husband. He was safe from that, if that safety was what he needed.

  Sally led them to the open glass doors onto a wood patio. The lighting was low here. Umbrella tables with candle lanterns hanging beneath the umbrellas. It set a romantic, charming mood.

  There were fewer guests outside. The music was lower, the sense of intimacy thicker, while inside, there was a feeling of togetherness.

  “Here’s your menus, and I’ll send Katy out to get your drinks and your order. You two enjoy.” Sally leaned to Sabella. “And dinner is on the house, sugar. A welcome back present, how’s that?”

  Sabella blinked at the offer. “I haven’t been gone, Sally,” she teased, though moisture filled her eyes.

  “Yeah, sugar, you left us the same time our boy Nathan did, no matter how many times you were seen with that Sykes boy.” Sally hugged her, hard. “At least you’re still with us. And bringin’ in some damned fine eye candy.” She winked at Noah.

  She moved away then and Sabella stared down at the tablecloth and swallowed tightly. She hadn’t realized she had been missed. She had been here, in Alpine, but she hadn’t been. She had been immersed in the past, in her loss, in rebuilding the business her husband had been so proud of. It was as though she hadn’t lived at all while he had been gone and that had been frightening.

  “Sorry about that,” she whispered, opening her menu as she glanced at the patio doors. “Sally and her husband Tom were good friends of my husband’s.”

  “Not a problem.” Noah leaned back in his chair and stared around the patio as she glanced back at him.

  “Sabella Malone. I thought that was you.” The rough, masculine voice had Sabella tensing as she looked up.

  Gaylen Patrick, one of the larger ranch owners in Alpine was waddling from the doorway. At forty-five, Gaylen was still a powerful-looking man, though much of the power was the paunch of his stomach, and wide thighs. He waddled, almost like a duck. But she had seen him wrestling steers, she knew there was power in those heavy arms despite the decadence beginning to show in his lined face.

  He was bald, with hazel eyes and bushy dark brows. He talked too loud and laughed too hard. And for some reason he had thought Sabella should be willing to sleep with him no more than weeks after Nathan’s death.

  “Yes, it appears it’s me,” she answered as he stopped at the table and stared hard at Noah.

  “And who’s your friend? Stranger in town, ain’t he?” He shoved his hand out to Noah. “Gaylen Patrick. I hear you’re saving Malone’s garage. That’s right good of you, son.”

  “Noah Blake.” Noah took his handshake, but his gaze was cool, his expression closed. “And there was no saving needed. Sabella had it all under control.”

  “That Rory, he was helpin’ her some.” Gaylen nodded. “Poor little thing. Bein’ a widow and all, we’ve worried about her.”

  Sabella bit her tongue. Worried so much that the son of a bitch had pulled his gas account from the station the minute she had thrown him out of her house after his ridiculous proposal. He’d wanted the business, and as he had stated, he wouldn’t mind marrying the widow to get it. And for some reason, he’d thought she should be willing to consider it. That nothing but the money should matter.

  “She was doing fine,” Noah said. “She just needed a few more mechanics willing to do their job.”

  Sabella almost winced. Timmy, the mechanic Rory had fired, was a distant cousin to Gaylen’s ranch foreman.

  “Of course she did,” Gaylen boomed, gazing down at Sabella with barely veiled malice. “Too bad about her husband dyin’ on her. Nathan was a hell of a boy. Everyone loved him. Why, Belle almost up and died on us when he did.”

  Sabella’s lips tightened. Gaylen was striking where he thought it would hurt the most.

  “She looks very much alive to me, Mr. Patrick,” Noah drawled in that gravelly voice of his. “It’s been six years since her husband’s death. I don’t think you need to worry any longer.”

  “How long did you say you were stayin’ in these parts?” Gaylen hitched the band of his jeans over his girth and glared down at Noah in a pale mimicry of friendliness.

  “I didn’t.” Noah smiled. “I haven’t decided yet.” He glanced at Sabella. “Leaving isn’t exactly on my mind right now.”

  “Of course not.” Gaylen laughed again, the sound strained. “Well.” He wiped his hand over his jowls. “Guess I’ll get back to my table.” He looked at Sabella. “Your father-in-law is having dinner with us tonight, Belle. You should stop by and say hi.”

  Sabella clenched her fists in her lap. She stared up at Gaylen, the strike going deep.

  “I think Grant Malone can do without my greetings tonight,” she told him firmly.

  “Family, Belle.” Gaylen shook his head. “Making amends wouldn’t be that hard.”

  “In this case, no amends are needed.” Her smile was tight. “It was good talking to you again, Gaylen. Thank you for stopping by.” But please get the hell away from me.

  “Come out and see us sometime, girl,” he boomed, his laughter so false it grated on her senses. “Take care of her, boy.” The look he shot Noah was filled with dislike.

  “Of course I will.” Noah smiled. All teeth. “It’s uppermost in my mind.”

  Gaylen nodded then and waddled back to the door.

  “Grant Malone?” Noah’s voice was perfectly bland. “Your husband’s father?”

  She nodded.

  “So you’re estranged from your in-laws?”

  “They’re in-laws,” she whispered. “Rory stayed around, but you know how it is. We didn’t have children. In-laws don’t stay close in those cases.”

  “Rory’s grandfather comes to the garage,” he reminded her.

  Sabella smiled at the thought. “Grandpop Rory. He’s a sweetie. Rory and I don’t stress him out over things. I still visit sometimes. Sometimes he stops by the house or garage. He still calls me his ‘girl’ whenever he sees me.”

  She loved Grandpop. She wondered if Noah had been to see him since Grandpop had shown up at the garage, if he had told the old man he was alive. He had told Rory, why wouldn’t he tell Grandpop?

  She was saved from answering any more questions when Sally’s daughter Katy stepped out to take their order. Conversation was slower after that. Sabella sipped her wine and fought against the need to ask him, to beg him for answers.

  She watched everyone that came onto the patio. A few stopped to chat, to say hello. Most were just curious, others, like Gaylen, sliced where they could.

  It made dinner a nerve-racking experience and she wished she had directed him to Odessa instead. That was where she and Nathan had normally gone to eat. They didn’t have to socialize in Odessa. Here, in his hometown, Nathan had been popular. Dinner out meant too many other couples gathering around their table when they just wanted to eat, enjoy an evening out.

  “Are you ready?” Noah asked as she played with her wine after dinner and frowned down at her glass.

  “Whenever you are.” She slid the glass back as he rose from his chair and tossed a tip on the table. A rather large one, she noticed. She liked that he was generous with the tip, considering Sally had given them their meals on the house.

  He guided her out of the restaurant, and she noticed that not even once had he glanced at Gaylen’s table where his father was staring after them.

  Sometimes, she actually felt sorry for Grant Malone. There were times during the two years she’d had with Nathan that she had sensed more feelings from the other man than he showed his son. Things he held back. Nathan had been convinced his father felt nothing for him, that nothing mattered to Grant but his ranch. And after Nathan had “died,” he’d been determined to acquire what Nathan owned as well, though Sabella had never understood why. He’d been as determined to acquire it as Gaylen Patrick and Mike Conrad had been. As though it were a symbol of something. She’d never understood it, had wo
ndered if she even wanted to understand it.

  There had been so many times over the past years that she had wondered why the hell she had stayed here. Why she had fought, why she had tried to continue on without Nathan.

  Now she knew why, and the knowledge had the power to shake her to her core. She’d stayed because she knew he would be back.

  The truck was parked close to the entrance to the restaurant. They were quiet as he helped her in then moved around to the driver’s side.

  Getting in, he started the motor then stared at the restaurant for long, silent moments. It took her a second, but Sabella finally saw what he was looking at.

  Grant Malone had followed them out. He stood on the porch of the restaurant, arms at his sides, his blue eyes narrowed and staring at the truck.

  “Your father-in-law?” he asked carefully.

  Sabella nodded, her gaze connecting with Grant’s for long moments. What she saw in his eyes was confusing. She could have sworn she saw grief.

  Noah backed the truck out of its parking space before shifting into drive and easing out of the parking area. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t look back. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of regret in his expression or his attitude. But she felt the regret. She felt it filling him, eating at him.

  That was his father and she knew Nathan had always hoped that the day would come that he and his parent could find common ground.

  “Why did you stay here after your husband died?” he finally asked her as he turned onto the main road and headed back toward the house. “You could have moved. Gone anywhere.”

  She shrugged. “My husband was here.”

  “Your husband was dead,” he bit out. “You hold on to him like a talisman, Sabella. As though he still exists, and he doesn’t.”

  She shook her head. “He did. And as long as I was here, with the things he loved, then I still held a part of him.” She stared back at him, feeling the pain that welled between them now.

  “Do you think this is what he would have wanted for you?” he argued furiously. “To stay here grieving for him? To put up with the petty damned bullshit I’ve seen you put up with from these damned people? Did he love you that little?”

  “How he loved me is beside the point,” she told him. “I loved him that much. And why do you care, Noah?”

  His hands clenched on the steering wheel. “Then you were a fool,” he finally snarled. “Or too damned young to know any better. How old were you when he died? Twenty? He married a fucking baby.”

  She was quiet for long seconds. She watched the night go by and grew angrier by the second.

  “I spent nineteen months living the nightmare of every way my husband could have died,” she finally stated coldly. “I was twenty when he left on that last mission. Almost six years ago. I would wake up in so much pain I swore I’d been beaten. I woke up screaming, praying, I watched him die so many ways I could barely function.” She had seen his hell, and she knew that now. “Don’t tell me what a fool I was, Noah. I loved him. That isn’t up for debate, and it’s most certainly not up for discussion. You might sleep in his bed sometimes, or drive his truck and fuck his wife, but you don’t carry the papers that could give you the right to attempt to have an opinion on it.”

  She was goading him and she knew it.

  He shot her a glare from the corner of his eyes. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “No marriage license, Noah. You’re not my husband, my father, or my brother. You have no right to that opinion.”

  “I’m your lover,” he growled furiously. “That gives me the right. And I’m sick of hearing about Nathan. Sick to my back teeth of having him shoved down my throat.”

  “In my eyes, you don’t have that right,” she informed him. “And my eyes are the ones that count. And by the way, you just passed the house.”

  “I know I just passed the damned house.” His fingers were wrapped tight around the steering wheel. “I meant to pass the house.”

  She shot him a wary look. “That’s good to know.”

  He turned his head, glared at her, then turned back to the road. “You have a habit of being mildly sarcastic, Sabella.”

  And she hadn’t before, she knew that. Sabella managed to restrain her smile.

  “Just mildly? Damn, and here I was trying for completely sarcastic. I must need to practice.”

  His expression was set in tight, furious lines as he stared broodingly at the road stretching out before them.

  “Bastards,” he finally cursed. “They treat you like a simpleton and it pisses me off.”

  She laughed at that. “My husband thought I was a sweet little thing. The classic dumb blonde. He was tall and muscular, and he loved it when I was helpless.”

  It was the truth and he didn’t like it. He hated it. It showed him a side of the man he had been that he simply didn’t like. He’d wanted Sabella dependent on him. He’d never realized how much it was the opposite. He’d been dependent on her. Depended on her to bring the laughter and the warmth back to him when he returned from a mission. Depended on her laughter and her love to keep him human.

  “And you tolerated that?” he asked her.

  “I loved being helpless for him. Then. I’ve grown up, Noah. I’m not a doll. I’m not dumb. And I can survive without a big strong man to lean on. I’ve proved it. To myself and to anyone else who thought I was no more than the dumb blonde I let them see. Hell, I was eighteen when I married Nathan. Twenty when he was lost on that last mission. I loved him with all my soul, but I’m a woman now and games aren’t a part of who or what I am. And you may as well get used to it, because I won’t play the simpleton for you.”

  “Your husband didn’t deserve you.” His jaw was so tight it looked ready to crack.

  “He deserved all of me,” she said softly. “The fact that he didn’t have it was my own fault. That and my youth. But we would have grown into each other, I believe. We would have learned all those things neither of us had shown the other at that point.”

  She watched curiously as he made a turn onto a dirt road rather than continuing to Odessa as she thought he was doing. The truck lights speared into the darkness, picking up the pine and piñon, lighting their way as he cut into a small canyon, turned the truck around, and cut the lights.

  “We’re here why?” She looked around in the darkness.

  “For this.” He turned, unclipped her seat belt, and a second later, the back of her seat met the back seat of the dual cab, creating a bed, of sorts.

  “I didn’t know it did that,” she exclaimed nervously as he lifted her, pushing her until her head rested on that back seat and his hands gripped her waist.

  His breathing was hard. Deep. She could see the wild glitter of his eyes, the hunger in his face.

  “You had no business staying here,” he bit out again. “No business putting up with the bastards that stare at you as though you should be in their beds while they sweat over you. As though you’re a toy for their amusement.”

  Jealousy, it poured from him. It glittered in his eyes and struck an independent nerve she didn’t know she had.

  “Am I more than that to you?” Her hands lay by her head. She didn’t push him away. She didn’t fight against the arousal building inside her. “You’re bitching over something you want yourself, Noah. Possession.”

  He parted his lips as though to speak. To answer her. A second later his head lowered and he caught her lips in a kiss instead.

  Like a match to gasoline, the hunger and the need exploded inside them just that fast.

  Noah could explain, but not fully, the need to fuck her in that pickup truck. The fact she had let him drive it, thinking he was another man. That she had sat next to him, that the irrational jealousy was eating him alive. He wanted to imprint himself on the truck and on the woman. He wanted to make damned sure no other man ever drove this truck, ever fucked this woman.

  His.

  Possessiveness bit into his guts like a demon. The unfairne
ss of it was uppermost in his mind, but the need overpowered the thought and left him helpless to fight it. He had known, before he left her, during his capture and after, that there were plenty of men willing to fill Sabella’s bed. He’d assumed that after three years, she would have had a lover. At times he had wished she had so he could have walked away and never had to look back.

  But as her kiss filled him, as he took it with a desperation, a hunger, that only continued to build inside him, he knew it wouldn’t have mattered. They would have still ended up here, one way or the other. The clock had been ticking, each second drawing him back; his hunger for her would have eventually proved to be too much.

  Tonight, though, he might have gone too far. Only Rory knew that Nathan had readjusted the lever on the seats in the truck that would allow it to create a small bed within the dual cab. To make the front seats lower all the way back to meet the edge of the back seats and hold their position there.

  The head rests folded back once the seat was lowered automatically, creating a wedge between the seat and the floor to keep it sturdy.

  It had been done with every intention of eventually doing this. Taking Sabella parking. He’d never gotten around to it. But now, that obsession he had always fought with his wife rose inside him, ripping at his mind.

  She thought her husband dead. Gone. And she had allowed another man to touch her, hold her, to drive his damned truck.

  After tonight, no matter what the future brought, no other man would have what was his.

  His hands tightened on her hips as he growled against her lips. His tongue stroked inside her mouth, licked over hers, and the pulsing awareness of need flowed around them like bands of flames, tightening on them.

  He didn’t feel the stretch and pull at the tender healing flesh of his wounds. He didn’t give a damn. All he felt was Sabella, her hands gripping the leather of the back seat as he kissed her, craved her.