Now she was making her husband breakfast. Once again, Elizabeth beat him out of bed and enjoyed taking care of him. It was her secret pleasure. Lately, they had been so busy that eating had taken a back seat to pretty much everything. This wife gig was all a new thing for her. They were still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, setting routines and boundaries. Since they didn’t have a yearlong courtship or a manual on how to be a couple, they were trying to figure it out. It only took four days and they were married.
Everyone who knew them said they were crazy, but it just worked for them. So far, it had been incredibly smooth sailing, and she was grateful. They had stressful enough jobs and the last thing they needed was a rocky relationship. Marrying Ethan Blackhawk was the best thing she ever did in her life. Second to that was returning back to the FBI, so she could partner up with the Cowboy. Now they were making their mark across the country in the new FBI West headquarters. It was one big adventure, and she loved every second of it.
Their days had become so hectic, as they tried to staff the agency and keep up with all the agents already out on assignments. With all the day to day monotony, it was sometimes too difficult to get in a meal together. The morning ritual had become her priority, and she worked damn hard at giving them this little slice of normalcy. Standing there making him breakfast, it reminded her of the first time he showed up on her porch, and she cooked for him. It was the start of something neither one of them had the power or inclination to stop. From day one, she knew that the Cowboy was going to change her life, and boy had he ever.
Speaking of the very sexy devil, as he entered the room he was whistling and towel drying his hair. Just the sight of him in just dress pants and shirtless made her heart skip a beat. Ethan Blackhawk was a fine specimen of masculinity. He was Native American with inky black hair to his shoulders and eyes so dark and deep blue. They simply drew you in, making you feel completely lost. Then there were the tattoos. Oh yeah, the warrior art, as she called it. His misspent youth getting inked was her greatest joy. She couldn’t help but feel all hot and bothered by his heritage and the tribal art plastered across his flesh. She had her favorite tattoo, and it had to be the black raven adorning his chest. Although, come to think of it, she was an equal opportunity kind of gal. The other tattoos covering his shoulders and back got her just as warmed up. When dressed for the FBI you couldn’t see a single one, and just the knowledge of what he had hidden away turned her right on every time she thought about it. He was two sides to the same coin. One side was a reserved FBI Director and on the other side there was a sexy Indian warrior. There were days she couldn’t keep her eyes or hands off him, and she was pretty sure that wasn’t ever going to change. Ethan Blackhawk made her hot!
“You're staring, baby,” he laughed, entering the kitchen, pulling her into his arms, and kissing his wife. “Seriously, are you thinking about sex again?” Now he was laughing. It was hard to miss the look and the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. Okay, it was his fault. He didn’t wander around shirtless for absolutely no reason. Blackhawk was trying to bait her into climbing all over him. It had become his favorite pastime.
“I have a paper and ring that states that I get to stare until my heart’s content, Cowboy.” Elizabeth returned the kiss, running her fingers through his hair and breathing in the scent of her husband.
Yeah, marriage to this man just worked for her.
Ethan Blackhawk adored his wife. Truly loved her like nothing else in the world. When he first was sent to Salem, he’d been plagued with dreams of a bewitching beauty, and then he crashed into her in real life. The first time he heard her voice during his waking hours, he knew it was a done deal. Elizabeth LaRue Blackhawk saved his life. Not only when the serial killer went after them in Salem, but on the day that she agreed to marry him. Before finding Elizabeth, he was all FBI and didn’t believe he could have a relationship that would work. He was damaged goods. His heart had been beat around by other women and life. When he found Elizabeth, she patched him up and made him whole again. Fixing him only for her and that was the best thing ever.
“I see you made me breakfast, baby.” Blackhawk kissed her slow and deep again, because he damn well could. That same paper gave him equal opportunity rights. One day he would actually be the first to wake up. Then he would enjoy keeping her in bed with him, until he had his fill of his sexy wife. When he broke the kiss, she was smiling up at him, and the love he felt grabbed his heart and squeezed. There would never be enough of this woman.
That was just a fact in his life.
“I missed you on my run, Cowboy,” she whispered in his ear. “We could have conserved water and showered together.”
Blackhawk felt his body clench at the words. Something in him was very disappointed that he didn’t catch her back from her run all sweaty and warm. “You should have woke me up,” he answered back, as she ran her hands down his back.
“I tried but you were out cold. Must have had a rough night,” she snickered, pulling away. Oh he’d had a really rough night, and she laughed recalling the previous evening’s festivities.
Blackhawk grinned wickedly. Yeah, he’d run headlong into a hurricane named Elizabeth. Just thinking about the preceding night made him more than sorry that he missed the run and a repeat performance that morning.
There was nothing like waking every morning to a wife and finding her in their kitchen waiting for him. Before her, he never wanted to get married or have a commitment. The minute he saw her in his dreams, and then in Salem, there wasn’t a minute he didn’t want one with her. Something in him just clicked and he in love. He was a very lucky man. Elizabeth had stolen his heart from the first time he had a dream about her, even as he struggled to find her. Then fate slammed them together hard and fast. After less than a week he knew she was the one and proposed. Miraculously, she said yes and married him an hour later, and his life had never been the same again. She was wild and dangerously out of control, and he was organized and a control freak. It was a match made in heaven in his mind. Everything in life was about balance, and they had perfected it. Without her he’d be incomplete.
There was something innately sexy about his wife. Yeah, she was built and had an amazing body, but it was more than outer beauty. Deep down, she had an amazing heart. There had never been a better woman to own his life.
Blackhawk couldn’t help but smile at how she was dressed, and how they were complete opposites. His wife didn’t like formality, and he firmly believed in it. Today she had decided on jeans that rode low on her hips and a plain white fitted shirt. On her hip was her badge and gun, and it drove him wild. On the inside she may be tender and sweet, but the stark contrast on the outside was a complete turn on for him. His wife was bad ass and sexy as hell. Besides that, there were two other things that Elizabeth Blackhawk had that made him completely insane. One was the long black hair and the other the icy blue eyes.
When she walked around their home, he found himself watching her proprietarily and much like a caveman on the prowl. His wife got him all fired up, and he could see himself chasing her around when they were both old and gray.
No matter how hard he tried to focus. All it took was seeing her barefoot in their kitchen, and he had other ideas on what he’d rather be doing at that moment.
“I did make you breakfast, Director Blackhawk. I must be wildly in love with you.” She crossed to him, carrying his coffee, and placed it in front of him. Unable to resist, she went back into his arms and gave him little openmouthed kisses across the raven on his chest in pure ownership. He and the raven were all hers.
“I swear that one day I’ll catch you in bed when we wake and then…”
Elizabeth laughed, and patted him on the ass on her way back to the coffeepot. “One day, huh? I won’t hold my breath if you don’t mind.” She poured herself a second mug of coffee and carried it to the table, so they could have breakfast together. “You don’t wake up fast enough to catch me.”
Blackhawk sat
across from her, and smiled. “I try but my wife is demanding, and this job is wearing me out fast.”
“You didn’t just complain about sex did you, Cowboy? Because we can rectify that fairly easy,” she retorted, winking at him wickedly.
“No complaints here, Director Blackhawk. I swear.” Just the idea of no sex was disturbing and then he remembered the night before and the smug look returned. He was pretty sure she couldn’t live without it either. There was nothing for him to worry about. If anything, she had just as voracious an appetite. Thank God for that little miracle.
Elizabeth tried to not laugh at the purely masculine smirk on his face. She knew exactly what he was thinking about, and decided they needed to move on or end up late for work, again. “What’s on our schedule today?” she changed the subject fast. “And I mean work related.”
“The normal fun filled day of administrative hell. We’ve two teams checking in, and we’ve one team on its way out. There are eighty more personnel files to sort through, and we still have to make sure the lab is staffed. We’re running on just one shift of techs now, and they’re ready for a mutiny. Between us both we have to do about three years’ worth of paperwork, and it’s all due by noon.”
“Oh good and I thought we’d be bored today,” she took a bite of her toast. “I do hate boring days in the office,” she drawled and winked.
Blackhawk grinned. “Okay partner, which parts do you want?”
“I’ll take the lab and the personnel unless you want to flip for it, Cowboy?” she answered, amicably.
“No need to flip. You can have first pick. I’ll take the paperwork and the tech staff. Besides you tend to intimidate the tech crew. I swear Christina hasn’t been the same since Salem. She looks at you like you're going to bite.”
Elizabeth nearly snorted. “She’s intimidated because she can’t help but check out my husband’s ass, and I keep catching her mid leer,” she stated nonchalantly as she continued eating.
Blackhawk choked on his coffee, and Elizabeth reached over and patted him on the back and then nipped him on the ear. Before she could torment him further her phone rang. “Oh, crap. The boss man calleth.” This early in the morning couldn’t be a good thing. She was scheduled to have a conference call with him later in the day. If he was calling now, that meant something was up.
“Great, he probably wants us to have one hundred people hired and ready to go by ten,” he muttered absently, still trying to recover from hearing his head lab tech was always checking him out. It disturbed him that his wife knew it, and what she planned on doing about it.
“Good morning, Gabriel Rothschild,” she answered sweetly. “To what do I owe the absolute pleasure?”
“Good morning, Elizabeth Blackhawk. How is the second most gorgeous woman on the planet today?” he asked, laughing because he suspected she was going to bust his ass.
“I do declare Gabriel, kissing ass at eight in the morning. What’s wrong and how dangerous is it going to be?”
Gabe went silent. Maybe he should have called the other Blackhawk.
“Gabe? Are you still there?”
“I am. Elizabeth, I have bad news.”
“Bad news?” she looked up at her husband and shrugged when he mouthed the word ‘what’.
“I know you guys are still trying to get FBI West staffed and set up. I believe it’s first priority, but we had another call today in need of coverage.”
Elizabeth knew what that meant. They were the last two agents unassigned in house. The report had just been sent to him last night right before she had crawled all over her husband in celebration. “I’m going out in the field, aren’t I? That’s why you’re calling me, kissing ass, and not calling Ethan.”
Blackhawk felt fear grip his heart. The idea of his wife out in the field without him scared the shit out of him. He couldn’t help but visualize the fight between her and her brother in Salem. She had the crap kicked out of her, and kept fighting hand to hand to save all of them. Just that visual sent ice cold chills down his body. “Hell, no she isn’t, and that’s the end of the discussion,” he stated, loud enough that his boss could hear the seriousness in his voice.
Elizabeth was startled by husband’s outburst. Normally, he was calm and level headed when it came to decision making. Since Salem, he had become more possessive and hovered over her like a body guard.
“Tell the Cowboy that I said calm down. I need you both to go out into the field. The reservation not far from FBI West is having a little problem.”
“Gabe, if the reservation is having a problem how is this our jurisdiction?” she asked, watching her husband closely. There was one other thing that could and would put Ethan Blackhawk on edge, and it was the word ‘reservation’.
Ethan Blackhawk was listening with his complete attention and something in him went ice cold. Not only was she going out in the field, but to the local reservation. The one he grew up on, the one that he raised hell on, and the one he ran from never to return. The ghosts of Ethan’s past ran rampant on the Rez, and that was one thing he wanted to keep his wife away from completely. The man he was before the FBI wasn’t what he wanted his wife to ever see. This day was going downhill fast at the mere thought that she’d see his past, and know what his life had been like. Yeah, they discussed some of it, but he kept it generic. Giving as little details as possible, so as to not hide the truth, but not lay it all out either.
“The chief of police of the reservation found bones this morning. Your contact for this assignment is Callen Whitefox. Not ten minutes ago he contacted me needing our help immediately.”
“Are we sure they’re human bones? Not animals? I believe in many tribes Native Americans use animal bones in their rituals. How is this FBI related?”
“Whitefox had the medical doctor on the reservation take a look. Not only are they human, but they’re little bones.”
Elizabeth felt a wave of disgust at the mere idea that someone was using the bones of children. “Let me put you on speaker phone, Gabe. Ethan needs to hear this too.”
“Ethan, you there?” asked Gabe, knowing his other agent wasn’t going to be happy. He knew about some of his past, and he vaguely recalled an issue where he couldn’t work with someone out there once before. Rarely in all the years of working with Ethan Blackhawk had he ever asked for reassignment, or refused one. It was the one and only time. Cowboy liked a challenge, but that one time he threw in the towel on day one without so much an explanation.
“Gabe, you aren’t sending her out in the field alone.” It was the end of the discussion as far as he was concerned. “I’ll go out, but she isn’t. The reservation isn’t a place for someone outside the heritage. They’ll be very unreceptive to her and make her life hell the entire time.”
“Hey Cowboy, who died and left you boss personally and professionally?” she interjected, crossing her arms. She understood he was still protective after the Salem assignment, but she wasn’t going to stay locked up because he was worried about her welfare.
“Elizabeth,” he paused, emotion swamping him. Blackhawk was still raw inside over having to watch her fight for her life in Salem. Taking her hand in his, he hoped that she would understand. “Please,” he mouthed beseechingly to his wife. Right now he needed her to not fight him on this.
“Okay,” she mouthed back, seeing the pain clearly etched into his face.
Gabe knew it was time to step in before they had a battle. “Both of you are going out in the field as a team. Remember you're not only joint directors of FBI West, you’re both still special agents tied together as partners when need be. Right now we have need for that part of the job description.”
Blackhawk’s cheek twitched. At least it was a little better, and he could keep her safe, handcuffed to him if that’s what it was going to take.
“Ethan’s role is going to be liaison to the reservation. Because of his heritage they’ll accept him, but unfortunately Elizabeth they aren’t going to play ball with you.”
Blackhawk just held onto his wife. One of the amazing things about her was she just knew him so well and she understood. He was ashamed of his past and the life he came from on the Rez. No matter how he tried to keep her from it, he knew eventually it would come back and bite him in the ass. His wife had accepted him completely. She was the only woman that ever did, but it still simmered just below his skin as a reminder of where he came from growing up. That was one of the things that he didn’t like when they were contemplating taking this job. It was a little too close to his past for him, but it meant they’d work together and could be partners. Working with her in Salem, he longed to be her partner doing what they did best. Their expertise lies in solving assignments. He got exactly what he wanted. Now he had to take the good with the bad. He was willing to risk it just to be near her and keep her safe every day.
“Are we heading there?” asked Elizabeth, tucking another hair from her husband’s cheek behind his ear and kissing him in reassurance.
“No, the chief of reservation police is coming in to see you at the office. In about forty minutes from now,” he paused before continuing, “Ethan, Elizabeth, I’m sorry about this.” His voice was filled with true remorse.
“For what, Gabe?” asked Blackhawk, waiting to see if he was going to tell them more bad news.
“I promised you both no field work, and if I could avoid it you know I wouldn’t send either one of you out again. We just have to do what we have to do. If we don’t help and give it one hundred percent, it looks bad. The FBI is tainted in the Native American community as it is. We aren’t exactly heroes since the Pine Ridge shootout incident. The Natives have long memories and hold a wicked grudge.”
Sacred Burial Grounds (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 2)) Page 4