In Search of Truth

by Sharon Wray

  She smiled and turned so he could start combing her hair. “My hair is thick. Don’t worry about yanking it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Zack?” Her head jerked back as he dragged the wide-toothed comb through the blond tangles. “How many of your men are in prison?”

  “Ten, including one of our commanders who wasn’t supposed to be on the ground the night of the ambush but…”

  “But what?”

  “One of my buddies, Nate Walker, was leading the operation. His plan included two teams, his and mine.”

  She turned sideways while he continued to undo the tangles. Her profile was outlined by the firelight. “What Vivienne said was true? You should’ve been leading that second team? You should’ve been ambushed and sent to a POW camp? You should be in prison right now?”

  And because regret and guilt tasted bitter, he almost gagged on his own spit. “Yes.”

  What must she think of him?

  It couldn’t be as terrible as what he thought of himself.

  He kept combing while she stared into the fireplace. She’d pulled up her knees and circled them with her arms. Her robe floated around her body, pooling on the floor next to her naked thighs, and she barely moved as he tugged her hair.

  And again, she stayed silent. Was it because she couldn’t form the words? Had no idea what to say? Was she embarrassed by his confession?

  “It wasn’t your fault, Zack.”

  “You sound like Nate.”

  She rested her chin on her knees. “Nate is right.”

  “Nate is wrong. Nate is also lucky. He should be in prison, but…things happened and he was released.” The comb’s teeth caught a knot and she winced. But she didn’t ask him to stop.

  “Why didn’t you go with Nate and your team that night?”

  “I asked to stay behind at the command post because I was waiting for a personal phone call. Another man offered to take my place, said he needed field time.” Zack’s laugh reeked of self-condemnation. “He said he was tired of sitting behind a desk. Since the men on my team trusted this officer with their lives—especially since he’d trained most of us—everyone was happy. He got to leave the tent; I got to wait for a call. The operation was only supposed to last twelve hours. Kells, our commander, signed off on the entire thing.”

  “Did you ever get the phone call?”

  “I did.” When he didn’t continue, she turned to look at him, one arm draping across his knees while her breasts pressed against his bare legs. “It was my fiancée.”

  Allison’s eyes widened and he heard her sharp intake of breath.

  “Yes, I had a fiancée. She’d been trying to reach me for weeks and I’d gotten a message she was going to call again that night.”

  “The night of the operation.”

  He nodded. “Like I said, the men were fine with my staying behind. In fact, I think they saw what I couldn’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She’d been trying to break up with me.”

  Allison wrinkled her nose. “Who’d ever break up with you?”

  He reached down to cup her face gently. “I can’t blame her. We hardly ever saw each other, and when we did, I was always distracted.”

  Thinking about you.

  Allison rested her cheek on his knee, and he ran his fingers through her damp strands. “I had no idea you had a fiancée.”

  Because I didn’t want you to know.

  “How did you meet her?”

  “She was a war correspondent. I met her when she was embedded with a unit we were supporting. Things between us got intense quickly, and we understood the life the other led. I was lonely. Getting engaged to someone who understood my job and its requirements seemed like the right thing. Yet all my buddies knew from the start that it was the wrong thing. They told me, and I ignored them.”

  “Do you think your buddy who led your team made up that story about wanting to be in the field so you could take that call?”

  “It’s possible.” And didn’t that just make the guilt so much worse.

  “Why did your friends think your engagement was the wrong thing?”

  “They knew…”

  She squeezed his knee. “Knew what?”

  “They knew she wasn’t you.”

  Allison turned until she was kneeling in front of him. Her blond hair hung over her shoulders in long damp curls. Her green eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Zack, I’m not the woman you believe me to be. That girl drowned when she was eleven.”

  He held her face again, this time less gently. “That’s not true. I’ve spent days with you, and do you know what I’ve seen? A woman who remembers her students’ names even though it’s been years since they’ve sat in her classroom. A woman whose dog is so beloved he has autograph days and his own calendar.

  “When I watch you walk through this city, I see a woman who is part of something larger, a woman who cares about the people—including mimes—she lives and works with, a woman who worries so much about the reputation of her ancestor who lived three hundred years earlier that she’s made it her life’s work to tell Mercy Chastain’s story. You’ve even turned down an amazing career opportunity to find Mercy. Hell, you even protect her ghost by telling us to ignore her.”

  A tear fell and traced the curve of Allison’s cheek. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make me feel loved and cherished when I can’t even…” Her voice broke and she looked away. “When I can’t give you what you want.”

  “Have I told you what I want?”

  “You’ve told me how you feel.”

  Yes, he had. “Did I ask you if you feel the same?”

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t ask you how you feel because I know. I know how deeply you love. And I know from that kiss seven years ago that you love me—even if you can’t say it.”

  “I may never be able to say it.”

  He lowered his hands until he held her breasts. “Then we’re going to have to figure out another way for you to show me.”

  She licked her lips. “Do you still keep in touch with her? Your ex-fiancée?”

  “No.” Zack opened his legs and pulled her body in closer. “I never wanted her, or any other woman, more than I wanted you.”

  She ran her fingers over his thighs, running her nails over the tops and using her fingertips on the more tender, inside skin. “I have no right to be jealous.”

  “Trust me, sweetheart”—Zack smiled wide as he dropped the robe off her shoulders—“your jealousy is a good thing.”

  As her fingers trailed along his thighs, up the outside, over the top, and down the insides, he relaxed into the chair and closed his eyes. For once it felt good not to have to control everything, not to have to make the decisions that left someone dead or in prison.

  When her fingers paused, he opened his eyes to see her watching him. Gently, she reached for his cock and held it between her palms. Slowly, oh so slowly, her fingers closed around his shaft and she began an up-and-down movement that sent heat from his balls to his heart. His toes clenched and his calf muscles tightened. He spread his legs, planted his feet on the floor, and gripped the armrests.

  Her eyelids lowered as if she were contemplating something. It wasn’t until her tongue traced the head of his cock that he realized what she was doing.

  Fuuuuuck. Her mouth closed over him, and he threw his head back. Between her hands pumping and her mouth sucking, he felt like his entire body was going to short-circuit and explode into an electrical firestorm. His arm muscles began to spasm, probably because he was about to rip the arms off the chair, and his hips moved involuntarily. Up and down, meeting the rhythm she set, he drove himself into her mouth, deeper and harder than he wanted to—but he was so beyond any kind of control, he co
uldn’t help himself.

  To save the chair, he grabbed her hair. He didn’t want to take control, but the contractions in his lower stomach took over and his balls tightened and rose. He pushed and pulled, driving in and out of her mouth, until he was almost at the point of no return—when he stopped himself. “Allison.”

  Was that his voice? The one that sounded like Darth Vader?

  He pulled her head up, releasing his cock, to look into her green eyes. He didn’t want her proving anything to him, didn’t want her to do this because of insecurities over a woman whose name he could barely remember. In fact, he didn’t want her to do this at all. If he was going to come inside her, he wanted her to come with him. Wanted to watch the joy on her face when they climaxed together.

  She touched her lips. “Is anything wrong?”

  Now it was time for a hoarse laugh. “Wrong? Oh, hell no. It’s just that I want…this.”

  A moment later, she was on her back next to the fireplace, and he was between her legs, his cock deep in her core. He was driving and bucking like a man out of control. Sucking her nipples, kissing her lips, holding her thighs open so he could fill her so completely he touched her womb.

  Her hair spread out on the white rug, her eyes closed, her lips red and bruised from his kisses. She wrapped her legs around his waist and raised her hips, meeting him thrust for thrust. When she arched her back and cried out his name, he let go of what little self-control he had left and released everything he had into her over and over again, until his toes curled and his arm muscles protested from holding his own weight.

  When he felt her last gasps, he collapsed and used his elbows so he wouldn’t crush her. He still lay between her spread legs, his half-erect cock buried inside her, his breath on her forehead. He’d never get enough of her. Not even if he spent every hour of every day, for the rest of his life, making love to her.

  “Zack.” She nibbled his ear and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I’ll never get enough of this. Never get enough of you.”

  “I feel the same way.” He withdrew and picked her up to carry her to the bed. After adding another log to the fire, lowering the AC temp to compensate, and setting the alarm clock, he crawled in next to her. Even though she was already asleep, he pulled her into his arms and dragged the blankets over them. Just as he was about to drift off, his phone buzzed.

  He almost threw it against the wall. Instead, he checked the text, then wished he hadn’t. It was a text from Nate to both Alex and Zack.

  Kells received a phone call. He knows you’re in Charleston and he’s furious. He wants you both home. Now.

  Chapter 31

  Zack parked in front of Saint Philip’s church, and Allison waited until he opened her door before getting out. She adjusted the skirt of her black linen dress and slipped on her black sweater. It was seven p.m. and the church bells rang on cue.

  Zack watched the area around him, always searching and surveying. She knew he wore his weapon in a leg holster and had a knife hidden on his body.

  She took his arm and let him lead her into the churchyard. Another surprise this afternoon? Zack was wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, and a blue silk tie, and even had on new leather dress shoes, courtesy of Vivienne. Allison would never tell Vivienne, but Zack had fussed like a three-year-old. Everything was too tight, too constricting, too itchy.

  She squeezed his arm. “You look wonderful.”

  “I’m hot.”

  She was going to respond with a flirtatious yes you are, but then she saw the somberly dressed people entering the church. What kind of woman had sex with an incredibly hot man—her wild man—and then went to her dead husband’s memorial? She felt like a character within a play. And not a Broadway musical. More like an epic tragedy where everyone suffered until they died at the end.

  Clouds covered the afternoon sky, casting shadows around the churchyard stuffed with old trees, new wildflowers, and hundreds of tombs.

  “Your mother’s here.” Zack pointed at Rue, in a long black skirt topped with a black lace camisole and matching sweater. “With your uncle Fenwick. Still in combat pants.”

  Allison squinted at the couple. From the way Rue’s hands and mouth were moving and how Fenwick’s eyebrows pulled together, they appeared to be arguing. “Let’s go inside before they—”

  Rue waved and headed over, dragging Fenwick. When she stopped a foot away, she nodded. “Lovely dress, Petal.”

  Allison gripped Zack’s arm. “Thank you.”

  After a moment of awkward silence, Rue took Fenwick’s arm and they turned toward the church. “Petal, I’ll save you a seat.”

  Heat flooded Allison’s body and Zack covered her hand.

  “Miss Allison!” Susan, in a sailor dress and white sandals, ran through the iron gates separating the churchyard from the street. Nicholas Trott followed with Maddie holding his leash. “Nicholas Trott slept with Mrs. Pickles on my bed for two hours!”

  Maddie handed the leash to Susan. “Why don’t you take him inside? Pastor Tom has a special place set up for Nicholas Trott to sit.”

  “Thank you for watching him, Maddie.” Allison walked between Maddie and Zack. “Would you mind taking Nicholas Trott tonight?”

  Maddie held Allison’s hand. “Of course not.”

  “Allison?” Zack touched her arm. “I’ll meet you and Maddie inside.”

  Allison looked behind her and saw Alex striding up the sidewalk. “Alright.”

  Zack kissed her cheek and left to meet Alex.

  “What do you know of Alex?” Maddie took Allison’s arm.

  “Not much. Alex went to Ranger School with Zack and now they work together in Savannah. Why?”

  “Just curious.” They stopped in the back of the church. Everyone was seated. Susan sat on the left side, near a blue pillow that’d been set up for Nicholas Trott.

  Lawrence stood in the front, pointing Allison toward the first row on the right, next to Rue and Fenwick. Maddie sat with Susan, leaving Allison to walk down the aisle alone. As she reached the front, she noticed one other person sitting in her row. Isabel.

  * * *

  Zack waited for Alex, and once he pulled the apotropaic tracings from his back pocket and handed them to Zack, they returned to the church. They’d both received Nate’s text ordering them back to Savannah and agreed to ignore it.

  “Nice suit,” Alex said.

  “Fuck you.” Zack adjusted his too-tight tie. “Any idea how Kells found out what we’re doing?”

  “Nope.”

  Zack stepped into the church and saw Allison in the front, sitting next to Rue, Fenwick, and…Isabel?

  Fuck.

  Alex moved a stack of red hymnals and planted himself in the last row. Zack followed. He and Allison hadn’t talked about where he’d sit. While he wanted to support her, he wasn’t sure it was appropriate for her lover to sit next to her at her dead husband’s memorial.

  As if reading his thoughts, Vivienne glanced back from her third-row seat and nodded, probably approving his clothing. Years ago, when Vivienne pushed the benefits of the corporate life over the soldier’s life, one of his reasons for choosing a rifle instead of a law book was the wardrobe. He hated suits.

  The clouds outside filtered the sun, filling the church with an eerie light. Distant thunder rumbled, heralding another summer storm. Since the church doors were still open, the scents of damp earth and ozone filled the room. Dusk was moving into night.

  A photo of Stuart had been placed on an easel at the front of the church, and Lawrence paced near it.

  Something was wrong.

  Finally, Lawrence went to the podium. “We’re waiting for Pastor Tom. In the meantime, I’d like to say some words about my brother.”

  After a few anecdotes extolling Stuart’s propensity for numbers, the choir in the loft sang a song. Zack pretended to s
ing, and Alex leaned forward, hands clasped.

  When the song ended, Lawrence spoke again. “I apologize for this unusual situation. We still can’t locate Pastor Tom. While we wait, I’d like to introduce Isabel Rutledge.”

  Alex looked at Zack and mouthed, What the fuck?

  Zack shrugged. He had no idea what was going on.

  Isabel stood behind the pulpit in a dark purple skirt and suit jacket that fit her curves perfectly. Even her ridiculously high-heeled shoes had been dyed to match. Her necklace sparkled in the candlelight: Allison’s engagement brooch.

  “Thank you, Lawrence, for letting me speak today.” Isabel took a letter out of an envelope. “I wanted to share something with you all, something that means a great deal to me and something I hope will ease your grief. Despite the fact that Stuart died so young, he died a happy, fulfilled man.”

  “Uh-oh,” Alex whispered. “This can’t be good.”

  Zack agreed but short of pulling a fire alarm—which he considered—he wasn’t sure what to do. He could see the back of Allison’s head. She’d twisted her blond hair into a braided bun and added crystal daisy hairpins to keep the stray hairs in place.

  “My dearest Isabel…” Isabel’s voice, both polished and sophisticated, wavered with emotion as she read a love letter Stuart had written her. Unfortunately, the letter veered off into private territory that made the congregation murmur.

  When she finished, she folded up the letter. The congregation and choir had, apparently, been shocked into silence. Zack sat in his seat, horrified, stunned, and heartbroken on Allison’s behalf. Stuart’s affair had just been made public in the most awful way.

  “Isabel is a monster,” Alex whispered.

  So true, brother. So. Fucking. True.

  Before Isabel left the podium, Detective Waring strode into the church and down the aisle. In jeans, white collared shirt, and blue blazer, he looked both hot and annoyed. Once in front of the congregation, he held up a hand and said, “I’m sorry to inform you that Pastor Tom has been taken to the hospital.”

  As people started talking, Detective Waring gave a sharp whistle. When they quieted, he continued, “If any of you saw Pastor Tom earlier today, please talk to me.”