by Lexi Blake
“Yes, I think it’s time we untangled Desiree’s web. I know you loved her, but she wasn’t good for you.”
Somehow it was getting easier and easier to think about Des. In the beginning, the thought of her had been a deep hole in his soul, but now he was starting to be able to smile at some of her hijinks. And roll his eyes at the worst of it. He was balancing again, seeing her for who she was. The good and the bad. There was relief in that. “Sometimes she was very good for me, but yes, this I know. She was never going to marry me and I would always want to settle down in the end. Des was addicted to adrenaline. She wasn’t going to give this up. Hell, this job wasn’t enough for her. I don’t think she did it entirely for the money. She did it for the thrill, for the power. I don’t know what I would have done if you had arrested her.”
A faint smile creased Damon’s lips. “Of course you do.”
He knew. He would have owed it to her. “I would have broken her out. I would have taken her away. She saved me, Damon.”
“And you paid her back a thousand times. You have to let that go. You have to let so much of that go. I wasn’t planning on firing you, but I was going to ask you to go on a sabbatical. I think you’re going to turn down that request, aren’t you? You know Big Tag and I can protect Hayley. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends since the day Des died and you’ve been mired in guilt over what happened to Owen. Don’t you see you need a break?”
“I should have seen something was happening. Des was my lover and Owen was my partner. I don’t think taking a break is going to make me a better operative.”
“Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever felt the way you do? We all have, but somehow we move on. Des was brilliant at deflection and Owen didn’t want you to know. He could have asked for help from any of us and he chose not to. I understand that his mother and sister were at stake, but you know as well as I do they would have stood a better chance if we’d been involved.”
They even had protocols in place if an operative thought they were being watched. Why hadn’t Owen used them? Why hadn’t Nick seen that Owen was going through hell? “It doesn’t matter now, and yes, I know you could protect Hayley, but I owe her. I’m not leaving.”
“I could make this a requirement of your continued employment.”
Nick stood. The meeting was obviously over. He wouldn’t, couldn’t let anyone else watch over her. “Then you’ll have my resignation on your desk in an hour and I’ll take her with me when I go. We’ll disappear and no one will find us again.”
He wouldn’t go into the reasons why they were trying to kill her. Investigating would open a door and he would care about nothing but protecting Hayley. If he had a team around him, he could investigate, but if they were on their own, his only goal would be keeping her alive.
His mind went down a list. They would need new identities, several. They would need a place to live, off the grid if possible.
Damon stood up as well, shaking his head. “Or I could have some faith, as my wife would say. Perhaps this is what you need, a job you can actually care about. You’ll have anything you require. You’re in charge. Let me know how we can help. And I will expect more information in the morning. Conference room at ten a.m. And dear god, no more bodies.”
He felt a piece of his soul settle. Damon wasn’t kicking him out. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to depend on Damon and this team. They’d become his family, The Garden his home.
He didn’t have to leave. He held out a hand and shook Damon’s. “Sorry, boss. No promises. Besides, you know you were getting bored around here.”
Damon smiled. “I will never admit that. See you in the morning. Take care of that girl. She’s yours for now.”
He turned to walk out, his boss’s words sinking in. Hayley was his for the length of this op.
He prayed he could be good enough to keep her alive.
* * * *
Hayley stepped out of the kitchen after thanking Teresa for the food and saying goodnight to Charlotte, who was making a snack for her twins. Moments before, the big guy had stalked in carrying a tiny bundle and herding two toddlers who looked an awful lot like their mother. She’d stared for a moment, not quite putting together the dangerous man she’d met earlier with the harried father who begged his wife to find some grape jelly because their girls were rebelling.
“They’re an interesting family,” Ariel said as she walked beside Hayley. “I’m always fascinated by how tender the hardest of men can be when dealing with their children. I confess, I wasn’t close to Ian or Damon before they married and had children, but from the stories I’ve heard they weren’t the type of men a lot of people would think of as father material. Of course, that’s because most would simply look at their jobs and not the underpinnings of why they choose to do their jobs. If they understood a man like Taggart or Knight, or even someone like Nikolai, they would see that fatherhood would come quite naturally to them.”
They walked down the short hall that led back to the lush indoor garden. She knew she shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t quite stop the question from coming out of her mouth. “What do you mean about Nick? I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk about wanting a family. I thought he did when I was younger, but I think that was me turning him into my dream man. He seemed to prefer that it stay just him and Des.”
“Seemed I think is the proper wording here. What do you know about Nick’s background? Do you know anything about his family before he left Russia?”
“I know they’re all gone now. He never talked about how he lost them, but he spoke of them often. He loved his family. One of the only times Nick was ever rough with me was because he found out I’d been asking Des how his sister died. He wasn’t rough physically, but he got a little nasty. He told me to mind my own business and didn’t talk to me the rest of the weekend.” She hadn’t seen him again for another five months and when she had, he’d acted like nothing had happened between them and she’d been happy enough to let it go.
“That’s his story to tell, but he was close to them. He wasn’t the typical operative with no ties to the world. He was recruited out of the Army. He went into SVR for the same reason he went into the Army. Not because he needed the money or for the sake of the adrenaline. He went in because he loved his country and wanted to protect it and those he cared about. The recruiters fed on that protective part of Nick. I’ve known some men who get into the business because they love the thrill of the chase and the kill. There’s a predator inside those men that won’t be held down, and this is the perfect business to let loose. You might look at a man like Taggart and think he’s the predator, but when you scratch his surface, you find the protector. Like Nick. And I think Nick would be an excellent husband and father if he could find the right woman. Well, and forgive himself, but again, his story to tell.”
She pressed through the double doors and Hayley found herself in the darkened garden. What had been lovely in the daylight transformed to something truly spectacular at night. The lights had been left low, the path illuminated by soft walkway lamps. Night-blooming jasmine accentuated the vines and trees.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Ariel ran her hand over a tree trunk. “I love it here at night. I love it even more when it’s quiet and peaceful. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the club, but there’s something perfect about this place when the lights are low and the world seems peaceful. When I look up and see the moon through the rooftop, it seems like all things are possible.”
“It is lovely,” Hayley admitted. “But I worry I won’t fit in here.”
“Do you need to? One would hope you won’t be here long. I suspect you’ll want to return to your life in the States once the danger to you has passed. You have a job there, correct? A life?”
She’d begun to think it wasn’t much of a life. “I have a job. I think. I might not anymore. I’ve missed several days’ worth of classes and I don’t have tenure yet. I teach history at a university in Seattle. No one ca
res about history anymore. I teach a bunch of freshmen world history and they mostly snore through my lectures. They’re trying to get through the required basics so they can move on to their majors. I guess I don’t have to fit in. It’s not like I fit in a lot of places. I went to eight different schools growing up. My mom was a wonderful woman, but she would get into trouble and we would move. She was constantly trying to start a new life. I still don’t know how Dad managed to find me sometimes. He would show up and he and Mom would fight and then I would spend a couple of months on the road with him before he got bored and dropped me back off at my mom’s. I was always the new kid. I suppose I have a pathological need to fit in because I never felt comfortable anywhere.”
“Not even in Seattle?”
She’d only ever felt that soul-deep recognition of peace once in her life. She’d felt it when his arms had been around her, when they’d been skin to skin, and she’d known she was where she was meant to be. “No. I keep thinking if I stay there, put in my time, one day I’ll wake up and my house will feel like home and I’ll belong there.”
Ariel smiled, but it seemed a sad expression. “Oh, darling girl, what you have to figure out is that home isn’t a place. It can feel like it should be, but that’s nothing but a veneer, a story we tell ourselves so when the real foundation of our lives is gone, we can still feel connected. Home isn’t a place. It’s people. It’s who we love and who loves us. You want to believe if you simply plant some roots, buy a home, stay in one place, the world is going to change, but it can’t if you don’t open yourself up. I suspect you’re quite hard on yourself, and probably harder on others than you think you are.”
She didn’t like that description of herself at all. “Wow, you seem to know a lot about me in a whole twenty minutes.”
If the good doc was bothered, she didn’t show it. She merely leaned over, touching the flowers gently. The stark white of the jasmine made a gorgeous contrast to the deep, rich color of Ariel’s skin. The moonlight flashed and brought out the glimmers of gold and brown and black that made up her skin. She was beautiful and Hayley felt so gauche compared to her.
Nick was surrounded by lovely, accomplished women.
“It’s my job to assess people fairly quickly. You told me you moved around a lot and that you feel as if you never fit in. No one likes to hear this but most of our issues come back to us. If you don’t fit in, it’s usually because you’re not looking for the right things. Perhaps when you were younger, you wanted to fit in with the popular crowd when you should have been seeking friends in other places. Did you want that? Did you want to be the popular girl?”
“I wanted to be liked, that’s all.” She’d tried in a million ways. She’d tried to be a cheerleader for a while. Tried to join in on a volleyball team. All that had gotten her was a broken arm and the realization that she wasn’t an athlete. She’d liked the newspaper and the people there, but that had been one of her shorter school stays.
“But that’s the funny thing about the world,” Ariel continued. “There’s something for everyone if we look in the right place. If we open ourselves to new experiences, we find out things about ourselves we didn’t know. Do you blame your parents for how hard it was growing up?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Children need stability and I never had that.”
“Ah, so your mother was difficult.”
Hayley shook her head. How did she make her understand? “Not at all. My mother was wonderful. She just moved around a lot. She would get into trouble with the rent or fight with a neighbor and we would move. When she would break up with a boyfriend, she would need a fresh start. Sometimes we drove until we found an apartment we could afford. Sometimes we’d live at friends’ houses until Dad came through with some cash.”
“I can see where that would be difficult. Never knowing where your next meal is coming from or if you’ll have a place to live has to be terrifying for a child.”
“I never missed a meal.” Funny how years later, she could see through different eyes. “Not once. She would tell me we were going on an adventure and we would be off, but she always found somewhere for us to go to. She always made sure someone was around to pick me up from school. Sometimes they were kind of weird people, but they were always nice to me.”
“Love is stability,” Ariel said solemnly. “We don’t get everything in life. Sometimes we have to look at what we have been given and be grateful for it. There are people who have money and every privilege the world can afford them, and without loving parents, they feel lost. I know you’re going through something terrible, but you’ve been given an opportunity to change your life. If you don’t like it, that is. Sometimes great things can come from pain and horror, if we let them.”
“I hope so.” Somehow she wasn’t sure she saw that happening here. She went back to that moment when she’d been told her house exploded and realized what she’d really felt was numb. Shouldn’t she have been hysterical? Shouldn’t she have called a friend to hold her hand? She’d sat alone and calmly gone over everything with the police. She hadn’t cried at all until she’d seen Nick. “I’m supposed to wait for Nick. Can I do that down here? I could use some peace and quiet.”
“I’m not sure I should leave you alone.” Ariel looked over to the front of the building. “Though we do have guards on the doors.”
“Ariel?” A man stepped onto the stone path. He was tall and well built, wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, sneakers on his feet, as though he’d walked straight out of a gym and into the forest. “I’m sorry to bother you, but you didn’t answer your cell.”
“I’m so sorry, Robert. I left it upstairs charging. What’s wrong?” Ariel moved toward the man as though drawn to him, stopping only once there was barely more than an arm’s length between them.
“It’s Dante. Something set him off,” the man named Robert explained. “We’ve got him restrained, but I’m worried he’s going to hurt someone.”
Ariel looked back at Hayley. “Please excuse me. I have to deal with this. Robert, could you run up to my office and get my kit? I don’t want to have to sedate him, but I might have to. Hayley, please don’t leave The Garden. If you need to go anywhere…”
“I’ll go back to the kitchen,” Hayley promised. “I’m not planning on running. I swear. My infantile rebellion died the minute I almost got Nicky killed. I’m staying put until he comes to get me. Go. Do what you need to.”
Ariel and Robert disappeared down the path.
And Hayley was left alone. Oh, she’d been alone for the last few days, but she hadn’t been safe. This was the first time since the incident that she’d been alone and unafraid that someone was going to murder her. If Nick said this place was safe, then it was safe.
He’d only lied to her the once. When he’d told her how much he wanted her, how happy he’d been to hold her in his arms.
Hayley took a deep breath and tried to let go of it. Sometimes it felt like that night had haunted her forever. How long would she compare every single man to Nick Markovic and find them all wanting? How long would she be angry with him for choosing Des?
Her hand went up to the glass heart she’d given Des all those years before. Had she loved Nick or had she wanted to be Des?
She glanced around the quiet garden, taking it in in a way she hadn’t appreciated anything in forever. Something had sparked inside when she’d talked about her mother…her bohemian, silly, somehow stalwart mother. She would stop when she saw a beautiful spot and force Hayley out of the car. Sometimes it was a historic site and she would read the words on the monument. All of them. Sometimes it was a mountain in the distance. Sometimes it was nothing more than a beautiful field of never-ending Midwest land.
Take it in, baby. You might not see it again. Remember it because it could all be gone tomorrow and only you’ll be able to tell the tale of what it means to be standing right here. Right now.
How long had it been since she’d lived in the now? She’d rejected it becaus
e her parents never seemed to believe in a future or a past, so Hayley had put her roots firmly in both, always believing something better would happen and never enjoying the now.
When she’d had her first paper published, had she celebrated? Nope. She’d gotten a nervous pit in her stomach that it would be the only paper she ever published if she didn’t immediately get to work on another one. Her days had become an endless round of what ifs and should bes.
She breathed, this time not to expel anxiety but to experience the moment. She closed her eyes and let the cool air creep along her skin, making the hair rise, but not in a bad way. It was like a tickle over her flesh that reminded her she could feel. The scent of jasmine played through the space along with the loamy smell of the earth and trees. Hayley opened her eyes and looked up. Sure enough, the moon was there, a full presence in the sky above. It filtered through the glass-top roof and lit up the garden like a spotlight.
This was where Nick lived. She’d made light of it before, but there was something magical about it. Did he stand here in the glow of the moon and think about Des? Did he ever think about that night they’d spent together?
Possibilities. Ariel had told her when it was quiet and the moon shone down, the world seemed ripe with possibilities.
What possibilities were out there for her? She’d lost everything she’d worked so hard for. Her house was gone. Her job would likely be gone, or at least the majority of her momentum would be derailed. She was the youngest of the junior professors there. Someone would quickly fill her place.
She would be one more missing girl who would have to put her life back together.
Hayley sat down on one of the stone benches that dotted the space. She let the feel of cool concrete touch her hands as she listened to the quiet hum all around her. What would she be doing right now if tragedy hadn’t happened? It was a Wednesday night. Afternoon back in the States. She would be closing up her last class of the day, cramming something in her face because she’d forgotten to pack her lunch. It would be some piece of junk she found in the vending machine. She wouldn’t take the time to go to the cafeteria because she would have research to do. She would wave at some of the faculty but turn them down when they asked her to go out and have a drink.