Tony leaned forward to look at the woman. “Speaking of children, Chris, didn't you want to talk to Cyra about kids and parenting?”
If looks could kill, Tony would have been on his way to the morgue, in his own body bag, toe tag included.
“About what, Christopher?” she asked, staring at him with her peaceful blue eyes.
As he opened his mouth to try and come up with some sort of lie, his cell phone started beeping. Pulling it off his belt, he noticed that it was the code for a scene. “Shit, I have to go back to work.”
Tony started laughing.
“I just want a night where I can eat dinner and talk to my beautiful fiancée,” he mumbled, pushing his plate away. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask in the grand scheme of life.”
Before he could leave, Cyra was up and pulling some Tupperware from the cabinet. She quickly placed the food inside and popped on the lid.
“Don’t leave it in the morgue. It’ll become a specimen dish,” she warned. “And then, I don’t want it back. Who knows what you two are growing in there.”
He was touched by how wifely that act was. “I’ll call you later. I promise. We’ll talk about weddings and everything else on the schedule.”
Kissing him goodbye, she watched him leave.
“Can I stay or would you rather be alone?” Tony asked, eating more of his dinner.
Cyra didn't mind if he remained and kept her company. Being alone in the big old house was a little daunting. Plus, she never knew if Belladonna was going to pop in with Igor in tow. At least she could hide behind Tony if the spider showed up. “We can watch a game after or take Rex for a walk.”
“Sounds like fun.”
Yeah, Cyra never expected to be hanging out with her fiancé’s best buddy. How wrong was it that she was having a date with a man who she wasn’t marrying, while the one she was had to run out the door? What she wanted to do was be with Chris, alone and on the couch.
Oh well, this was the element of their jobs.
Yet, it still sucked.
“Dinner’s great, Cyra! This is amazing,” Tony declared.
Great. She impressed the wrong man…
Now that took skill.
* * *
It was a fairly easy flight and it went by relatively fast. Both Elizabeth and Ethan had spent it talking. From the minute they got out of his car, they were off duty. Their work phones were shut off and the personal ones that they used for family were the only way to reach them.
As far as they were concerned, they were off the grid when it came to work. This little romantic interlude was going to be about reconnecting to each other, and not the dead.
Grabbing their bags, they headed towards the rental car. Once inside, Ethan opted to let her drive. She was more familiar with the roads, especially now, after dark. He was pretty sure that it was like riding a bike. Besides, he liked watching his wife slipping back into her childhood environment.
“I called Doc and asked him to open the place up for us,” she stated. “I didn't think to ask him to grab us any supplies,” Elizabeth added. “He sounded a little distracted, so I didn't want to bother him.”
“We can stop,” he offered. “I do believe that before we hit Salem there are a few convenient stores. We really only need coffee and creamer. We can go out tomorrow morning. I won’t die if I don’t eat when I roll right out of bed.”
She nodded, willing to do whatever he needed. “Okay, Ethan. If that’s what you want.”
For some reason, her giving him that blasé response made him angry.
He couldn’t take it anymore. “Please stop being so nice. It’s making me feel like I’m beyond repair.”
She glanced over at him quickly. “What?”
“I hate how you and Callen tip toe around me like I’m a wounded animal. I’m still the same Ethan. I’m not dead. I’m just trying to find my way back to you.”
She didn't know how to respond to his annoyance. Apparently, he had heard them talking, since he was spot on with his assessment.
“Sorry,” she replied, a little caught off guard.
“Let’s just head to the house.”
Elizabeth refused to say anything. She was caught between wanting to weep and wanting to rage in anger.
“Say it,” he stated.
“No.”
He stared out the window. “Then we’re never going to be fixed. I’ll never get back to where I need to be if I can’t rely on you to be my compass. I used to trust you to lead me when I was weak, but now I’m stuck to fend for myself.”
“That’s not fair,” she retorted, angrily. If anything, Elizabeth had been trying to do just that for the last few weeks. In fact, she had devoted every ounce of her energy to fixing Ethan.
There was nothing left inside her.
“Tell me how you feel, Elizabeth. Help me find my way back to us. This is why I wanted to go away. I want us to find each other once more.”
“This is new for me too, okay?” she snapped. Elizabeth didn't want to let the anger out, but she had to do it. The fury that she had swallowed for so long was destroying her. “I nearly lost you. I had to live it too, Ethan. I had to trust that I was smart enough, and good enough, to find you. I almost wasn’t.”
It sat between them.
“But you came through.”
“Yeah, but what if I was a little slower? I would have done the same thing Ares LaFay ultimately did. I would have willingly died, and even Callen knew it. He took my damn magazine from my gun, because he could tell I was that far gone. What the hell kind of mother, or partner for Callen, does that make me? I would have eaten my gun, had I lost you.”
Her words shocked him.
It horrified him.
“Elizabeth,” he began.
“No, shut up, Ethan. You wanted the truth and my real feelings, well here they are. Now, I still feel like I’m losing you. You’re despondent and you just don’t care anymore. How do I put a band aid over that? How do I, the protective raven, fix this? I’m carrying that weight too, and it’s getting heavier each day. You’re not the only one that’s wounded, Ethan. I may be beyond repair too.”
“I need my Lyzee back. I need the woman who laughed and made me smile. I want the woman who was tough as nails and not afraid of anything.”
If he only knew what kind of pressure that put on her, he might not have said it.
“She didn't have to face nearly losing you. That Lyzee never had to face the what if’s, Ethan. She never had to watch you wake up, afraid and broken in that hospital room, and afraid of the dark. It’s hard to be so damn tough when your heart is in fucking pieces. Before you were taken, I was invincible, or I thought I was. Now, I know the truth. There is one hell of a big chink in my armor, and it’s you.”
“Why don’t you touch me anymore?” he asked, suddenly.
She stared at him like he was crazy. “I touch you all the time. In fact, I just hugged you a couple of hours ago and was holding your hand.”
Ethan pointed to the side of the road. “Please pull over.”
Elizabeth did what he asked, and turned towards him.
When Ethan hit the dome light in the Navigator, his face, and anguish, were clearly visible. The demons were chasing him, and he needed an escape route.
“When you run your fingers through my hair, you hesitate. I can feel it. It’s the same thing for my tattoo. You used to love the raven, and now when you look at it, you get a weird look in your eyes. Are you still in love with me, Elizabeth? I need to know so I can decide how to move on with my life. If you don’t want me anymore, just say it. If you’re going to discard me, let me know so I can brace for it.”
God, he hoped that wasn’t it. To hear those words would drive a stake through his already damaged heart. If he lost her, Ethan was a goner.
Elizabeth wanted to be physically sick. “Am I still in love with you? I’ve never loved you more, Ethan. You’re probably the one person on this entire planet that I cherish most
. Yeah, I love you and Callen the same, but I found you first. You were my first love, and you don’t forget that, ever. I hesitate before touching you because I’m afraid to put my hands on you.”
He stared at her, trying to understand her words.
When she didn't add more to the conversation, he went with the drastic. Ethan ripped open his shirt to show her the tattoo. “Look at it Elizabeth. It’s not the same. It never will be. Can you live with that?”
She stared at the magnificent bird that was inked onto his flesh. When they first met, she had fallen in love with it. Now, there were scars crisscrossing it, forming a pentagram. With her fingers, she gently ran them over the bird, not the ravaged markings made by a mad man.
“I still love it, Ethan. It’s still us. If anything, it’s more perfect now than before. I just don’t know how to make you see that. You’re too lost in the grief and mourning. I’m afraid to touch you and remind you of what happened. I always think that if I run my hands over your body, especially the tattoos, you’ll think about what he did to you. I hate bringing you pain. I hate that what was once us, is now a bad memory.”
He watched her with emotion filled eyes, as her fingertips lightly caressed the wings and even the scars he’d been forced to endure. It never occurred to him that even then, she was trying to protect him, sacrificing what was her instinct.
“When we met, it was unmarred, but like everyone else in life, we pick up blemishes with age. I’m not the same as I was almost four years ago. I’m older. I have scars in both shoulders, and I’ve changed too. To assume that I’ll always be the same size or shape, or have the same hair… it’s not going to be like that. We all change.”
“You’re still as beautiful as you were the day I met you,” he offered. Part of the block of ice keeping him from reaching her was thawing.
His heart was breaking free.
“When I first saw you, Ethan, I forgot how to breathe. There you were in your black FBI suit and shiny boots. Your hair was pulled back and you looked so serious, and yet I saw so much when I looked into your eyes. They’re the most beautiful blue I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re so dark, mysterious, and sexy. Your eyes are the epitome of the man you still are.”
“I fell in love with you the second I heard your voice,” he offered. “It haunted me then and still does today.”
Her hand slid up his chest to his hair. “I liked your hair long, but if you want the truth, you’re even sexier with it just like this.”
Her words made him want to weep.
“I don’t ever want it the way it used to be. I want it exactly like it is now. Right now, you’re perfect Ethan. At least I think you’re perfect for the woman I am, in this moment. I’m forty, and I have three kids. I’m different at this point in time. I don’t need the man you were. I need the man you’ve become. We evolved together on the journey. When we first met, we had no idea what was coming. Now we’re older, wiser, and battle scarred.”
“Lyzee my love,” he murmured. It was as if she just knew what his heart needed to get through it all. Somehow, he found an odd sense of peace in the knowledge that if he had died, she would have followed. In spoke volumes of the depth of her love. They would have traveled together and that touched him. This is what his heart needed to come back to life.
She was what he needed.
There would be no one else, because he already found the pinnacle of love.
“Do you love me enough to grow with me, Ethan? From here on out, are you willing to flourish in the now, and not live in the past? I don’t want the man that showed up in the diner that day. I want the man that’s sitting beside me here. He’s my husband and lover.”
He ran the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “Yes, baby. I think I am, and I miss us too.”
“I will always love you, Ethan. I just need you to find your way home, so we can move on and start our lives back up. Tell me what I need to do, and I will. Without hesitation, I’d die for you, so tell me how to live for you.”
Ethan stared at her. For the first time in a while, he noticed something. She looked tired. No, make that exhausted. The weeks that had passed weighed heavily on her. Her eyes weren’t sparkling, and there were worry lines at the corners of her eyes. In fact, she lost weight and looked incredibly pale.
He wasn’t the only one buried by the pain.
Only before, he was too focused on himself to notice that she was a casualty in this too. Ethan hated that the killer was hurting them from the grave. He was giving the man, who took him, so much power over them, and that needed to stop.
Here and now.
For them.
Blackhawk was done hurting the woman he loved.
“I’ll find my way back, I promise you.” Already, he was on the journey, and it was merely a matter of time. Ethan Blackhawk wasn’t going to be kept down.
Not ever!
She lifted his hand to her cheek and kissed the inside of his palm. “I trust that you will, Ethan. In my mind, there was never a doubt that you can beat this and save us all. I may have had moments of weakness, but I believe in you.”
No one spoke for a few minutes. Before long, he knew what he needed to do.
“Let’s go home, Lyzee.”
Lovingly, she ran her fingers through his hair.
“Absolutely, handsome.”
* * *
He followed him home and gave him time to relax. After all, he wanted his next meal to be content and happy. If he scared him or startled him, who knew what the endorphins would do to the meat.
What if it made it stringy and indigestible?
That would be nothing but a waste.
So, he waited.
That was always the hardest part for him. When it came down to it, he wasn’t very patient, especially when he was incredibly hungry. It was like holding a bone out to a dog and taunting him with it.
Right now, he was ravenous, and it was past his dinnertime.
Watching the man through his window, he tried to find a way to get him to come outside. Once he did, he would take him. Spotting his car, he picked up a rock and threw it through the back windshield.
Suddenly, the alarm went off and the front door opened.
Well, it achieved what he wanted.
The older man ran out the door, a look of surprise and astonishment on his face. When he saw the shattered window, he hit the button on his keychain to stop the wailing sound that was shocking the night.
“What the hell?” he muttered, staring at the broken glass.
When he turned to head back inside to call the police, he suddenly heard a sound from behind him. Spinning, he saw the flash and put his hand in front of his face to shield it from what was coming.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t matter.
The meat mallet smashed into his face, and everything began going black.
The final thing on his mind was that he hoped and prayed that he had left the town sheriff enough of a trail to find the killer.
Deep in his heart, with that blow, he knew the truth and what it meant.
It looked like he was going to be retiring after all.
Doc Trudeaux was going to die.
* * *
As they drove up the drive, the cheery house loomed in the distance. The old familiarity filled them both as they came to a stop. A part of her missed the place, and their time away was sad, since this was such a big part of her life growing up. This was in essence, who Elizabeth was inside. She was a country girl, who was raised on these back roads.
Here is where she learned to shoot, cuss, and be bad ass.
Coming home was going to heal her and the family she loved. This was her last ditch effort to take a man who was so strong and proud, and give him the same thing that the LaRue homestead had given her.
Healing.
Once before, she’d made this trek here, hoping to patch up her heart. Even before that, Elizabeth’s mother had died, and Charlie brought them here to regroup and become reborn.
They were doing the same for Ethan.
And their relationship…
As she turned off the ignition, she glanced around. The same white rockers were on the front porch. It’s where they sat when she returned from her run. Reaching over blindly, she found his hand.
“Welcome home, Ethan my love,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. If what they had was fixable, she knew it would be found here. This was such a happy place, and now Elizabeth was gambling it all on this trip.
Getting out, they both grabbed their suitcases. As they approached the porch, Elizabeth ran her fingers over the light post that stood welcoming them. As with all good, there was bad too. She found a dead friend here, and that still weighed on her soul. The lamp had been replaced, but the lost soul was gone forever.
Time couldn’t heal all things. Death still found a way to maintain the upper hand.
“It still looks the same,” Ethan admitted.
The flowers were now gone, but there was still greenery. Some of the Myrtle was still thriving.
“Yeah, it does.”
Ethan took the keys from her fingers and led her up the stairs. At the top, he opened the door and pushed it open. Reaching inside, he hit the light switch and the place came alive.
“Wait, I want to do something,” he said, turning to face Elizabeth.
She couldn’t help but see the hesitation. “Okay, what?” she asked, trying to offer him some reassurance.
Before she could speak, he swept her up into his arms and carried her over the threshold.
“I never got to do that,” he said, honestly. “When we bought our home, I didn't think to do it, and I’m sorry.”
Elizabeth was touched by the romance. It was sweet and endearing. It was definitely something that Ethan would do, before the ‘incident’.
Gently, he laid a kiss on her lips and placed her back on her feet. “Welcome home, baby,” he said.
Elizabeth took a moment to look around at their place. Here was their vacation home, and they never used it. It was a sad testament to how busy their lives had become, and how neglected they had become too.
Consumed by Wrath: An FBI/Romance Thriller (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 8) Page 6