He returned someone different when he blinked back up at her. His features were cold, unforgiving, and utterly bleak. She saw in him the thing he most feared. The same demon she’d sensed lurking in Liam Mackenzie.
The one they’d inherited from their father.
That demon regarded her from a masculine face more beautiful than that of an angel’s. A face that, in spite of herself, she’d come to worship and covet as so many women had before her.
She hadn’t fallen for him, she realized. Not like she had for Bennett, with the desperate need to escape a life of drudgery and oppression thrusting her into the arms of the first exciting man who’d offered her something more.
She’d stolen into love with Gavin St. James in small, imperceptible shifts of the cosmos.
Demons and all.
He was everything, she realized. He’d become everything to her. Her reason for waking so early, for working so hard, for upholding a lie. Somehow, she’d gone from doing whatever it took to keep Erradale from him, to doing whatever she could to give him what he wanted.
And the happiness he deserved.
From the moment he’d reached for her in the woods, when he’d kissed her against that tree. When he’d watched in boyish wonder with her as a new life entered the world. She’d seen in him not the man he was, but the one he tried his utmost to become.
Now, her deception had turned him into someone else. Someone ultimately and utterly dangerous.
“Deny it.” His words were more dare than command. They both knew it.
“I can explain,” she whispered.
“Are ye Samantha Masters?” His lips barely moved. The low register of his voice scarcely reached her over everyone’s heavy, expectant breaths.
“No one was supposed to get hurt, and then the shooting started and I couldn’t let—”
“Are. Ye. Samantha Masters?”
Whatever fire had thus far fueled her inner strength flickered, sputtered, and died. Extinguished by the pure frost in his voice.
The smoke tasted acrid as she exhaled. “Yes.”
All the wildness drained from his eyes. Even the fury deserted him. Leaving nothing but a churning, empty darkness.
Samantha knew she wasn’t the only one to sense it.
“Gavin…” Eleanor’s voice broke on a tremble. “Gavin, don’t.”
“Quiet, Mother,” he said without inflection.
Sam had to reach him. To bring him back. But in order to do that, she needed to get the family—her family—out of harm’s way. She hadn’t been able to look at them. Couldn’t bring herself to face the confusion in Calybrid’s rheumy eyes. The terror that seized poor Eleanor. Eammon’s hurt and disbelief.
She faced it now. Though she did her utmost to disregard her shame. There would be time for that. Right now, her mind took in every detail it possibly could in that same, dispassionate way in which Gavin regarded her.
They made a macabre triangle. Gavin in the doorway, straight ahead of her, his gun trained at Boyd. At her. A dirk in his right hand poised to fly at Bradley, who stood to Gavin’s extreme right against the wall. Bradley’s pistol never wavered from the unarmed foursome in the middle of the room.
There had to be a way to fix this without someone getting hurt.
It was Bennett who gave her the idea. Rather, it was something he’d said to her before their first train heist. Don’t you be afraid. We’re the wolves, darlin’, we’ll handle the wolves. You be the sheep and herd the rest of the sheep together. Unless they’re hungry, wolves don’t pay sheep no mind.
Sheep. Huddled together. Eammon, Eleanor, Alice, and Calybrid. Were they not there, she’d be able to knock Boyd’s arm aside, providing Gavin a clear shot. But one wild bullet could hit any of them, and even if it didn’t, Bradley would pull his trigger.
At this distance, even Bradley wouldn’t likely miss should he pull the trigger.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Boyd said, his drawl intensifying with the taste of impending victory.
“Ye doona dictate to me in my keep.” The colder Gavin’s voice became the more fear Samantha had to fight to keep her head.
“He does if you want your folks to live,” Bradley hissed.
“Try something and I swear both of ye will die before I do.”
Good, the wolves were snarling. Samantha stared hard at Calybrid, catching his eye. Today she would be a wolf, and he a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She glanced down at the tall, delicate side table that had accompanied her chaise before she’d moved it into the sun. Upon the table rested an empty glass cobalt vase, a newspaper, spectacles, some of Alice’s correspondence, and a letter opener.
Calybrid saw it, too, and inched in that direction without drawing Bradley’s full attention, as the villain awaited his brother’s signal and kept a wary eye on Gavin.
Excellent.
Next, she turned her focus back to Gavin, hoping he could fight his rage long enough to look at her.
“All right, that’s fair,” Boyd said, much friendlier now. “Look, I’m just here to get what’s my due. My revenge and, apparently, my kin.”
Samantha did her best not to flinch when he gestured his gun toward her belly again. She tried not to let the momentary slip of bleak grief on Gavin’s hard features break her resolve.
He’d just lost what he thought was his child.
Finally he looked up at her, and she was glad she didn’t have to meet the accusation in his eyes for long. It could have killed her right then and there. Meaningfully, she slid her gaze to Calybrid.
He didn’t follow.
Dammit.
“I don’t wish you or your people any harm, you know.” Boyd was now gesturing with his pistol arm instead of aiming it at Gavin. The winch that had taken hold on Samantha’s lungs loosened one degree. “It’s obvious you didn’t know you were harborin’ a murderer. You look like you have a real nice family here, one who’s been taken in by a fork-tongued she-devil, same as us.”
At the mention of family, Gavin did spare a look in his mother’s direction, and Samantha’s heart released a little more when she saw that he noted Calybrid had already palmed the letter opener.
Calybrid tilted his head toward Bradley, and dipped his chin at Gavin in silent communiqué. Calybrid would act first, throwing the letter opener at Bradley. That would create enough distraction for Gavin to deal with Boyd.
“Tell you what,” Boyd continued. “You all let us walk out with this here woman what done you wrong, and no one gets hurt. I swear it. You’ll see hide nor hair from us again. I’m not a monster, you know.”
Samantha’s heart stalled as everyone stilled and looked to Gavin for his decision. Would he do it? If he gave her over, they wouldn’t have to risk a coordinated maneuver. Gavin’s mother, his family, would be safe.
“Can I trust you?” Though it appeared Gavin asked the question of Boyd, his eyes flicked to hers.
“Hand to God.” Boyd actually lifted his pistol toward the ceiling in a show of good faith.
Samantha nodded back. You can trust me.
“Well, I believe ye doona consider yerself a monster, Boyd Masters.” Gavin made a show of taking his pistol off Boyd and switching hands, pointing it at the floor. “But I am.”
Calybrid acted first, hurling the letter opener with the ease of an expert. It sank into the crook of Bradley’s shoulder.
Samantha had hoped it would fling Bradley’s shot wide, but it did one better. Bradley dropped his pistol, unable to maintain a grip with the letter opener protruding from his muscle.
For her part, Samantha lifted her boots and kicked out, using the chaise as leverage to throw Boyd off balance, buying Gavin time to put Bradley down by filling his chest with bullets.
Boyd did pull his trigger, but the shattering of glass and crystal demonstrated that his shot landed in the chandelier.
Her weight wasn’t enough to knock Boyd over, and if she didn’t think of something quickly, he’d recover. She wildly threw her
elbows back into his body, but he barely seemed to notice them.
No. This had to work. She couldn’t be responsible for another tragedy. Not to this family who’d already been visited by multitudes of misfortune.
Boyd tightened his hold on her neck, and a dangerous pressure gathered in her head as she fought for oxygen. Her feet scraped against the floor, struggling to find purchase as, through vision becoming more blurred by the moment, she saw the hammer of Boyd’s pistol pulled back and his arm stretched out. This shot would find its mark, of that she was certain.
An angel appeared in front of her just as shadows crept into her periphery. No. Not an angel. A demon. One with cold, green eyes.
Only a few details pierced her dimming consciousness now. The glint of a blade. The sickening plunge of steel against flesh. The harsh gurgle of a throat filling with blood.
The pressure around her neck released. She was falling.
And then she wasn’t.
Air screamed into her with a sound she’d never thought herself capable of making, struggling through a throat bruised and raw, and filling desperate lungs with precious life.
Gavin held her aloft by the shoulders, as Boyd crumpled to the stones behind her.
It was over. Just like that.
Everyone was alive.
The splatters of Bradley’s blood painted the feminine damask wallpaper of the solarium above where his sightless eyes stared at her from where he’d fallen.
Well, everyone that mattered was alive.
She dared not look back at Boyd. She knew she’d find Gavin’s dirk buried deep in his neck.
Every event leading to this moment crushed in upon her then, and she collapsed against Gavin in a heap of quivering bones and broken breath.
“You saved us,” she marveled. “You saved me.” It dawned on her just how terrified she’d been that he wouldn’t have done after learning the truth. That he’d let her go to whatever hellish future Boyd could devise, and be finished with her. She clutched at his work vest with desperate, numb fingers, burying her face into his unyielding chest. He smelled of winter and horses and Highland male dominance. He felt hard and solid when even the earth beneath her rolled and pitched, threatening to give way.
He felt like home.
“I’d not see yer child in the hands of such a man.”
Your child.
He peeled her away from him like one would handle soiled, sticky refuse. “I told him he wouldna leave this keep with his life. That had nothing to do with ye.”
Every word. Every explanation that leaped to her lips now seemed trite and terrible. He’d lost what he thought was his heir, and in turn, she’d lost him.
There was no excusing what she’d done, but God how she yearned to. She wanted to make him understand, that desperation made monsters of everyone.
Even her.
“I ought to have ye arrested. Deported,” he stated drolly, “Ye’re wanted for murder.” He reached for her.
“Wait.” She scurried back, placing Boyd’s corpse between them. “Let me explain.”
“Ye had my letter to Alison. All the correct papers. What did ye do, steal them from the real Alison Ross?” His eyes glinted with cruelty and suspicion. “Was she the one ye kidnapped? Did ye hurt her to take them? Did ye murder her?”
“No! I would never hurt anyone. Not unless I had to. Bennett forced my hand!” She held up that ineffectual hand against him. Against his suspicion and the violence gathering in his eyes.
“Who forced yer hand against me? Against us?”
His question landed like a cannonball in her gut. “Just listen,” she begged.
“I’ve heard enough of yer lies. Ye’ll be having that baby in a prison cell if I have anything to say about it.” When he made it clear he would advance on her, she acted out of sheer desperation. Scooping down, Samantha snatched Boyd’s pistol and levered it at the man she loved.
Again.
“I said listen,” she cried. She knew he acted more out of hurt than hatred, and she prayed her words would reach him. Reach all of them.
“Sam,” Calybrid wheezed. “Doona do this, lass. Put the gun down.”
If Gavin had seemed furious before, there wasn’t a word in Samantha’s repertoire to describe the way he was looking at her now. Murderous, maybe.
But worse.
“I was a nobody. An orphan. Raised to do nothing but work on a desert ranch until my foster family informed me that they were forcing me to become the second wife of an old pervert.” When Gavin’s features didn’t so much as flicker, she swallowed a growing sense of doom and forged ahead. “Bennett was my way out of that predicament. I was young, and desperate. I didn’t know what I’d married into. What evil the Masters brothers were capable of until it was too late for me. You know something about that, don’t you, Eleanor?”
“Aye,” the lady whispered, as Eammon wiped tears from beneath her sightless eyes.
“Ye leave her out of this,” Gavin warned.
“Alison and I made friends in a railcar that day. She was coming to see you, to stop you from stealing Erradale from under her.”
“Don’t ye fucking dare make me the villain here.”
“I’m not. You aren’t. They are.” She gestured to the remains of the Masters brothers. “They were just after government payroll on that train. No one was supposed to get hurt in the robbery. No one had before … but then something happened, gunshots everywhere, and then Bennett…” She forced herself to sniff back tears and swallow bile, lest she humiliate herself further. “I told you the truth before. He burst into the car, shot a man, and put a gun to Alison’s head. He was going to kill her. He said she’d seen too much. There was no talking him out of it so I—I—shot him.” Here a ragged sob escaped her, and she forced herself to pull together once she noted that Gavin had inched closer. If he disarmed her, all hope was lost.
“Sending me to Erradale was all Alison’s idea,” she continued.
When he snorted his disbelief, Samantha truly fought hysterics.
“She gave me the papers. Your letter. She gave me her name and her blessing. She even wrote and told me that I could work Erradale indefinitely. That I could buy it from her if I wanted. All I had to do in return was to make certain that no kin of Laird Mackenzie ever took the land your father coveted.”
“Horseshit!” Gavin snarled.
“She said she owed me her life. Because I’d saved her. She called it … She called it…” Samantha bit out a harsh sound of frustration as she desperately searched for the word, gasping it out when it finally came to her. “Comraich. She called it comraich. Sanctuary.”
At this Eammon took a deep breath. “She knows the sacred word, lad. Not many do. Perhaps there’s something to her story.”
“She could have heard it somewhere. She’s a liar, a con artist. Why the fuck would I believe you?”
“The letter,” Calybrid suggested. “Ye could show us the letter from Alison.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “It’s gone. It burned when Erradale did.”
“We could hold the lass here,” Eammon recommended. “Could summon Alison Ross to give her account.”
“You could try,” she said hopefully. “Though I don’t know if you’d find her. Last I heard, she’d left on her honeymoon. And … I don’t know where.”
“Fucking convenient, wouldna ye say?” Gavin’s vitriolic growl shivered over every hair on her body, lifting them painfully with pure, desperate anguish. “And here I am again, staring down the barrel of yer pistol, wondering if ye’re worth the trouble.”
“It’s not like I planned this! I tried to stay away from you. To keep to myself.”
“It’s true,” Calybrid sagely validated her. “She did her best to hate ye.”
“When we married, we didn’t even like each other. I thought—”
“Ye thought ye could pass off yer dead husband’s child as mine.”
There it was. Her greatest sin in all of this.
The biggest lie she’d ever told. The reason he was entitled to never forgive her.
She couldn’t stop the tears now as she looked from face to beloved face, knowing that her eyes pleaded for understanding. Even seeing that they wanted to give it to her …
But her offense was just too vast.
“I wanted to tell you. I was going to when—”
“Ye had every chance!” he roared. “Last night, for example.”
A spear of guilt lanced her quickly shriveling heart.
“Ye deceived me. Ye deceived us all. Ye put my mother, my entire household, nay, every man in my employ in danger. Why? Why do that if your intentions were good? If ye were naught but a desperate, honest woman?”
As queries went, it was a valid one. And in that moment, Samantha promised she’d never again lie to this man. “I wanted my child … to have you for a father, instead of the terrible one I chose. You were offering to protect me, and I didn’t think you would if I was already with child. I meant to tell you a million times. I really did. But I was a coward, because I wasn’t sure you would keep me and … and … I was in love with you. With your family. And I wanted them to be mine, too. I didn’t want my past anymore. I just wanted a future. With you. With all of you.”
Eleanor made a soft, dare she hope, sympathetic sound, and Eammon let out a low curse. But Samantha didn’t take her eyes from Gavin, lest he disappear.
Lest he strike.
What was he thinking behind that perfect façade? Was he forgiving her? Condemning her? Did he even believe her?
“As family melodrama goes, this is scintillating.” A masculine, cultured, serpentine voice slithered into their midst and Samantha’s pistol found a new target in the doorway.
The man filling the solarium archway could have been the villain of any novel. Swathed in black from head to toe to match his midnight hair, he seemed unaffected by the sight of a gun and two very dead bodies. A strange web of scars reached from beneath the high collar of his coat, tangled down a sharp jaw and up the side of his face.
“Who the hell are you?” Samantha demanded.
“I wish I knew.” His devilish smile would have been handsome, had it reached his fathomless, dead eyes. “But people have taken to calling me the Rook.”
The Scot Beds His Wife Page 31