“What about that list of undercover agents you say she stole? I suppose she just handed it over before she took off.”
“Of course! She knew she had no choice, if she wanted me to hush things up.”
Matthew’s thumbs pressed deeper. Hamilton gurgled. This couldn’t be the truth. Not about Mia…
And yet. And yet…
She’d left him without protest that night. Yes, she’d reversed the bit about the tattoos, but so what? It wasn’t as if she’d gotten the theory of evolution wrong. Which tattoo he and his brothers had argued over wasn’t exactly world-shaking.
“Matt?”
But that other thing she’d said. About the end justifying the means…
“Matt!”
He looked up. Alex and Cam were standing on either side of him.
“The Agency can get a lot out of him,” Cam said softly. “Finish him off, what he knows about the cartel dies with him.”
Training. Discipline. The code of honor Matthew lived by took over. He lifted his hands from Hamilton’s throat and stepped back.
“I’m going to find her,” he said, as much to his brothers as to their purple-faced prisoner.
“Fine. Just wait until the Agency cleanup crew arrives and we’ll go with you.”
Matthew shook his head. “I’m going alone.”
“Matt. Wait for us. You don’t even know where to start looking.”
“I’m going alone,” he said softly. “That’s how it has to be.”
The Knights waited for the cleanup crew.
They’d take care of everything, the way they always did.
An hour later, Matthew stood outside the colonel’s house with his brothers. Cam rubbed his hands over his face and yawned. “What I need is a steak, a pot of coffee—and a plane home.”
Alex nodded. “The same here.”
They looked at Matthew.
“What I need,” he said tonelessly, “are some answers.”
“Matt,” Cam said, “look, man, sometimes a thing just doesn’t work out the way you hope, you know?”
“I have to know the truth.”
“You mean—you mean, if she’s—if she’s dead…”
“She isn’t.” Matthew frowned, knowing how crazy he’d sound. “I’d know it, if she were.”
“Yeah.” Alex nodded. “Well, then, what Hamilton said. About her going with him willingly—”
“I know what he said.”
“But you don’t believe it.”
Matthew hesitated. “I don’t want to believe it.”
Cam sighed. “Yeah. But that’s not the same thing.”
“No. It’s not.”
The brothers were silent. Then Alex spoke.
“Does she know your cell number? I mean, if she does and she hasn’t contacted you…”
“She doesn’t know the number.” His jaw knotted. “But she knows my name. That I’m from Dallas.”
The implications were clear. If Mia had wanted to reach him, she could have.
“In that case, man, come on home with us. Give this up. Write it off as—as just one of those things.”
Matthew smiled at his brothers. “Is that what you’d do?” Their silence was all the answer he needed. “Come on,” he said, wrapping his arms around their shoulders. “I’ll buy you those steaks, put you on a plane—”
“Listen to him,” Alex said. “Big talk, from a man who spent his last dollar buying toys from a thug named amigo.”
“He’s not a thug. And I’ve got a credit card.”
“Yeah, yeah. Promises, promises…”
The brothers joked and laughed and spent the next couple of hours together, carefully avoiding any discussion of Mia Palmieri until the last possible minute.
At the airport, their smiles faded.
“Be careful, okay?” Alex said.
Cam nodded in agreement. “Things get hairy, call us.”
Matthew said he would. He smiled, gave them a thumbs-up, watched them board the Learjet for the flight home.
Then he got into his SUV and started driving the same route he’d taken in what felt like a different lifetime.
The route through the mountains, that would once again lead him to Mia.
He was sure of it.
If Hamilton had told him the truth, if Mia had gone, she’d want to go someplace safe. Someplace where she could plan her next steps without having to worry about the cartel or Hamilton or the authorities.
She’d be afraid to try to get back to the States. For all she knew, Hamilton or even the government would have her stopped.
There had to be a safe haven, a place Hamilton wouldn’t think she’d go, a place the authorities didn’t know existed.
Matthew could think of only one place like that.
I feel so safe here, Mia had said, of his house in the Cachalú.
And it would be safe. She was smart. She had to figure Hamilton would chalk it up as the last spot to look for her, assuming he was looking. Why would he expect her to return to the place where he’d found her the first time?
She had to figure, too, that Matthew had returned to the States. He’d done his job by finding her. Anyway, she could check easily enough. All it would take was a couple of phone calls. To the house, to his Dallas office.
He knew where she was. In the mountains. He could feel it in his bones. His Comanche bones, the ones that were still tied to the Old Ways.
Mia was in the Land of the Sky.
Soon, he would be there, too. He’d drive straight through. If his brothers were here, they’d say he was exhausted but hell, he was long past that.
Who needed sleep, when you were racing on adrenaline?
He’d find Mia. Ask questions. And if she didn’t have the right answers…
If she didn’t…
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
He wasn’t going to think about that now.
It was completely dark when he pulled off the main road and headed down the dirt track toward the house.
No lights shone in its windows.
The first bit of doubt crept into his mind. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t here…
No. She was. She had to be. He knew it.
Matthew shut off his headlights. He drove a little farther, then pulled the SUV over and got out. He’d do the last half mile on foot. He was dressed for it, still wearing the black clothing he’d worn on the raid at Hamilton’s place in Cartagena.
Something flew by his face; he felt the brush of its wings against his hair. Only the creatures of the night were out now; it was a time when hungry predators stalked unsuspecting prey.
His heart was beating fast. His breathing was shallow. This was how he’d always felt on night raids, excitement pumping through him, every sense alert.
He went up the steps quietly. Inserted his key in the front door. Slipped inside and quickly punched in the security code.
There was a flashlight in the desk in the library. He switched it on, kept the beam low, but there was no sign of her.
Wait. There was. Her scent was here. The aroma that always reminded him of a field of white flowers.
But she wasn’t in the house. He checked all the rooms.
And then, he understood.
It wasn’t the house where she’d felt safe. It was the forest clearing. The place where they’d made love so many times, where he’d realized he loved her…
Where he’d imagined he loved her.
A coldness crept into his bones. He turned off the flashlight, went out the sliding door to the deck and down the steps to the path that led through the trees.
Soon, he’d see Mia.
He’d ask her for the truth.
And then—God, and then, if he had to, he’d end this.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE FOREST was dark.
The only sound was the roar of the waterfall.
The moon had risen, a fat, ivory globe that seemed suspended in the leafy branches of the tr
ees. Its light illuminated the clearing and the jewel-like pool.
Illuminated Mia, standing naked under the frothy liquid veil of the waterfall.
He stood on the edge of the clearing, watching her and searching deep within himself for the discipline by which he’d lived his life, but that was the trouble.
He had no discipline when it came to her.
He’d searched for her, found her, then lost her.
Now, he had her trapped. She was his… Except, she wasn’t. She’d made that clear. She had left him for another man. A man who wanted her back even though he said she had betrayed him.
Then, why would you want her? Matthew had asked, at the beginning.
It was an honest question. He’d understood that the woman would be beautiful—the man had shown him her photograph—but the world was filled with beautiful women. What made this one so special?
The man had looked embarrassed. He’d given a little laugh and said he wanted her back because she was more than beautiful.
She was, he’d said, everything a man could ever hope for.
Matthew felt his body quicken.
It wasn’t true. She wasn’t everything a man could hope for.
She was more.
He knew that now because, for a little while, she had belonged to him. She was Eve, she was Jezebel, she was Lilith reborn. She could be as wild as the summer lightning that streaked the hot sky or as sweetly gentle as spring rain.
Just looking at her was enough to stir a man’s soul.
Her face was oval, her eyes wide-set and dark above an aristocratic nose and a mouth made for sin.
Her hair was long and dark as coffee. It tumbled down her back in a mass of curls that begged for his touch.
She was tall and slender, but her breasts were full and round. His breathing grew uneven at the thought of how they’d filled his hands.
And her legs…her legs were meant to clasp a man’s waist. He could still remember the feel of them as he parted her thighs and sank deep, God, so deep into her heat.
Matthew shuddered.
God, was he losing his mind?
Who was Mia Palmieri? What was she? Was she his woman or Hamilton’s? Had everything been a game?
All he knew right now was that she was a temptress.
But he was a warrior.
She swung toward him.
Matthew held his ground. She couldn’t possibly see him. He was still dressed in black, the kind of stuff he’d worn on night maneuvers in Special Forces and then in the Agency. He knew that he blended in against the tangle of night-shadowed forest behind him.
Did she somehow sense his presence?
Was that why she was tilting her head back, lifting her face to the curtain of water? Why she was raising her hands, cupping her breasts as if she were offering herself to the gods?
Offering herself to him?
He was hard as stone. So hard that it hurt.
Once, he had promised to return her to the man who’d sent him to find her.
Tonight, his only promise was to himself.
Slowly he stepped forward into the patch of moonlight that swathed the little clearing. He waited, muscles tensed, willing her to look toward him again. Why? Why not just call out and let her know he was here?
The answer was a cold whisper inside his head.
Because he wanted to see what she did when she saw him. Would she run to him? Throw herself into his arms? If she did—God, if she did…
But she didn’t.
Her reaction was like a kick in the gut.
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted on a little exclamation of surprise. She flung one arm across her breasts, the other over her feminine delta in an age-old gesture of modesty.
He knew damned well it was reflex action and nothing more, knew he had all the answers he needed…the answers he hadn’t wanted.
“No,” she said.
He couldn’t hear the word but he could see her mouth form it. “No,” she said again, and Matthew felt the swift rush of adrenaline as it coursed through his body.
His lips drew back in a predator’s smile. He toed off his running shoes, pulled his shirt over his head, unzipped his trousers and stepped free of them.
Stood still, letting her see the full measure of his arousal.
Then he dove cleanly into the dark jungle pool and went for her.
Mia had come down the path to the pool with her senses on alert for the animals that hunted these woods at night.
But she was alone. Alone for the rest of her life, she’d thought…and then, suddenly, she’d felt a human presence.
Matthew, she’d thought, her heart soaring, even though she knew it was impossible.
Matthew was gone.
She’d come to his house because it was the only place she knew where she’d feel safe. Douglas would never think to look for her in the same place he’d already found her.
She’d prayed Matthew would still be here even though she knew better. Of course, he hadn’t been. The house was empty. And yet, there were traces of him. A coffee cup, in the sink. His scent on the pillow in his bedroom.
She slept there, in his bed, holding the pillow in her arms.
A night passed. A day. And then, this evening, she’d felt—she’d felt something. A rift in time and space. Whatever it was, it had drawn her here, to the moonlit pool, the place where she and Matthew had made love.
Now, she sensed that she was being watched.
Had Douglas found her? Fear almost turned her legs to jelly…and then a figure materialized from the shadows.
Matthew.
Joy flooded her heart. He was here. The man she loved—but when she saw his face, so cold, so fierce, she knew that he still believed all Douglas’s lies.
“No,” she murmured.
He couldn’t believe them. He had to give her the chance to explain.
“No,” she said again, and as if he’d heard her, his lips turned up in a chilling smile.
It was a smile that suited what Douglas had told her about him, in excruciating detail.
“You lover is a killer,” he’d whispered, holding her chin in his hand, angling her head up high enough to make breathing difficult. “He has blood on his hands.”
He wasn’t. Matthew wasn’t a killer. He was gentle and loving and—
Oh God!
Transfixed, she watched as he stripped off his clothes. Stood straight and tall under her gaze. That chiseled face. The powerful body. The enormous, proud erection.
She began to tremble. There was nothing subtle in his message.
He wanted her to see him in all his primitive male savagery before he wreaked his vengeance on her.
Matthew dove into the pool.
Mia turned, scrambled up the water-slicked rocks, and began to run.
She was running. Running for her life.
Matthew stepped from the water. Good. He wanted her afraid. Terrified. Wanted her to know what it felt like to fear his retribution.
He waited until the trees swallowed her. He knew what lay ahead when the forest thickened. Brambles. A thicket of wild rose.
Nothing would slow him.
He’d been trained for running his quarry to ground.
Now he set off after her. He moved quickly, silently, avoiding the branches that reached out to snare him, dodging the brambles.
There. She was just ahead of him. He quickened his pace, closed the gap between them, caught her in his arms and spun her around. She was panting for breath; her hair was wild, and he told himself the swift surge of joy he felt was only what a hunter felt when he brought down his prey.
“Hello, Mia.”
“Matthew.” Her hands rose between them. She pushed at his shoulders. “Whatever you think—”
“Whatever I think, it’s wrong. Is that what you were going to say?”
“Yes. Yes! I know how it seems. I know what Douglas said. But—”
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