“You’re a man of hidden talents,” Hailey drawled into the mouthpiece of the headset she’d exchanged the crash helmet for shortly after the two of them boarded the helicopter. Haydn was sitting in the pilot’s seat preparing to take off.
He glanced at her. “As Logan said, the quiet ones are the ones to watch out for.”
Hailey now grinned across at him. “I thought he was talking about me!”
He returned her smile. “Maybe he was talking about both of us.” His smile faded. “Could I take a look at your cell phone, please?”
She blinked at the sudden change of subject as she slowly took the slender phone from the pocket of her jacket and handed it to him.
“Have you talked to anyone since we decided to go to Scotland?”
“No one—Haydn!” she cried out her alarm as, once he had removed and snapped the SIM card from her phone in half, he pushed open the window beside him and threw the cell phone and the broken SIM card out onto the tarmac. The casing and glass of the phone instantly separated, and the screen shattered.
“You won’t need that where we’re going,” he assured her as he maneuvered the controls necessary to lift the helicopter into the clear blue sky.
“What about your own cell phone?” She grimaced as he gave her a pointed glance. “I’m guessing your cell has so many protective shields on it, anyone attempting to trace your calls would find themselves thinking you lived in the wilds of Alaska.”
“You guess correctly.”
“You could have just told me to get rid of my cell phone.”
“I could, yes.”
But he’d obviously chosen not to. “Surely you don’t think I’m the one feeding Ernesto information about my own movements?”
“No, I don’t think that,” he assured grimly.
Nor, Hailey realized, was he about to discuss the subject any further. “Am I allowed to ask where in Scotland we’re going?”
“You can ask,” he drawled, but offered no more information.
They had traveled only ten miles or so out of London on the motorbike, stopping once to pick up a few food supplies from a gas station. Haydn then drove the motorbike several more miles before turning onto a private airfield, where several small planes and a couple of helicopters were parked on the tarmac. Haydn had parked his bike in one of the hangars and collected all their bags before the two of them walked over to where he could do the flight check on the two-seater helicopter. Neither of them had so much as mentioned that encounter with Ernesto Silva since they left London.
Hailey gave an appreciative glance at the interior of the helicopter. “I didn’t know Steele Protectors owned one of these.”
“They don’t.”
Her brows rose. “It belongs to you personally?”
“It does.”
Hailey nodded, knowing that all the Steele brothers were millionaires several times over. Obviously, that wealth hadn’t all been invested in owning exclusive apartment buildings.
She chewed on her bottom lip. “You’re sure the house Lucan is taking Becca to is completely safe?”
He reached into his pocket and took out his—very protected!—cell phone. “I’m with Logan on this—give Lucan a call and ask him those questions yourself.”
“No.” She shuddered, well aware of how icy Lucan could be if anyone questioned him or his method of doing things. “How does he intend explaining to Becca why he’s effectively kidnapping her and putting her in a safe house?”
Haydn thrust the cell phone in her direction. “These really are questions you should ask Lucan.”
She rested her hands palms down on the seat, beneath her thighs. “It’s just that she really has no idea I’m still alive, and I don’t want her to know either,” she attempted to reason.
A reasoning Haydn didn’t accept at all. He wasn’t sure Rebecca Snow would either if—when the truth came out. Because Hailey might not have realized it yet, but the truth was going to come out.
Eight years ago, the two Snow sisters had been abruptly orphaned when, whether Becca knew the real reasons, both their parents were shot and killed, and this was after Cassie had been kidnapped and held for ransom for six weeks. From all accounts, Becca had been removed from Washington as quickly as possible and given a new identity in England. Immediately after her sister was rescued and while the lengthy trial and sentencing of the two remaining kidnappers had been taking place. Three months after the trial ended, Becca would have been informed, or seen in the media, news of her sister’s death in a car accident.
And all this time, Cassie had still been alive, and for the past seven years not only living in England, but also in the same city as her sister.
If one of Haydn’s brothers had practiced such a deception on him, no matter what the circumstances, Haydn knew he would be majorly pissed.
If Becca was anything like her sister, and he had a feeling she might be considering how she’d managed to rebuild her life following family tragedy after family tragedy, then Becca was also going to be seriously upset if or when she ever learned Cassie was still alive.
But that was something to be dealt with another day. Right here and now, it was Haydn’s priority to keep Hailey safe.
“That’s for you and your sister to sort out some time in the future. Or not,” he added when he saw the way her eyes widened in alarm at the suggestion. “Why don’t you put your head back, close your eyes, and try to get some rest?” he encouraged. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”
She nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Good enough.”
Hailey had been convinced that, with the worry over their situation, along with the noise of the helicopter engine, she would never be able to sleep. But somehow she did—possibly because she was emotionally exhausted—and when she next opened her eyes, it was to look out over a range of beautiful and lightly snow-covered mountains.
“We’ll be going down soon,” Haydn informed her when he saw she was awake.
“Where are we?” She was fascinated by the scenery below as she felt Haydn begin the helicopter’s descent. High mountains surrounded a lengthy lake—or, as their destination was Scotland, perhaps it was called a loch?
“That’s Loch Ness down there, with the Urquhart Castle ruins alongside,” Haydn provided distractedly as he maneuvered the helicopter between two of the mountains.
He swooped the machine up and down through several more valleys before dropping it down even lower as they headed toward a single, low, and secluded gray-stone thatched cottage almost indistinguishable from the side of a mountain behind it, with a lake glittering farther into the valley. There didn’t appear to be any roads leading to or from the cottage in any direction.
Could this possibly be where the Steele family were staying one Christmas when Rourke had fallen into the lake and been rescued by Haydn?
The cottage didn’t look anywhere near big enough to have housed Joanne and Simon Steele and their six irrepressible sons.
Once they were inside, Hailey learned the reason the cottage could accommodate an army of Steele brothers!
Chapter Eleven
Haydn unlocked the door of the cottage and carried their bags and the supplies inside before going back outside. He checked and then turned on the generator before draping the gray camouflage netting over the helicopter to keep it hidden from prying eyes. “Feel free to take a look around what’s going to be your new home for a couple of days, at least,” he invited when he joined Hailey inside.
For the next few minutes, Hailey wandered around what initially appeared to be a normal country cottage. There were three rooms downstairs: a kitchen, sitting room, and a small bathroom. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a slightly bigger bathroom. All were furnished for comfort rather than show.
By the time she came downstairs again, she was even less convinced that the Steele family could ever have—still did?—all stayed here at the same time.
She narrowed her gaze on Haydn as he stood nonchalantly
in the kitchen leaning against one of the units. He was waiting for the coffee to finish percolating after lighting the range. It was already starting to warm the interior of the cottage. “Okay, where’s the rest of it?”
He gave a surprised laugh. “I told Lucan you were our best agent.” He continued to chuckle as he walked farther down the narrow kitchen.
Hailey watched as he stopped in front of the range to pull on part of the metal shelving above. One side of the range began to swing outward, so smoothly that the movement wasn’t discernable to the ear.
Haydn gave a grin as he beckoned Hailey over so she could see a narrow set of stairs leading downward in the area that had opened up behind the range. He switched on a light at the bottom of that darkness. “As you can see, the range still works and will slot neatly back into place once I’ve pulled another lever halfway down the stairs. I think it was originally built as somewhere for the male members of the family to hide after coming home from the defeat at Culloden.” He shrugged. “My parents decided to have the underground space made big enough for the whole family to use, if it ever became necessary. There is also a huge store of dry and tinned goods.”
“Made big enough” hardly described the four generous and comfortably furnished bedrooms below, two bathrooms, another kitchen, and a huge sitting room and adjoining playroom, the latter furnished with a snooker table, dartboard, and lots of board games on the shelves beside numerous books. The walls seemed to have been lined so that there was no sign or smell of dampness. Nor was it as dark as Hailey had imagined it would be.
“There’s a shaft in the mountain that leads directly up to the surface and allows in some natural air and daylight.” Haydn answered that question without being asked. “The water for down here is piped directly underground from the freshwater lake. The cottage has its own generator, which is big enough to also supply down here with electricity, just as the heat down here is also supplied by the range above.”
She nodded. “Which was why starting the generator and lighting the range were the first things you did when we arrived.”
He nodded. “You probably also noticed there’s only a roughly hewn track in the adjoining valley and no roads whatsoever leading in or out of this valley? That’s because my father flies a much larger helicopter than I do in order to transport us all here. There are also a number of dirt bikes stored in a room carved into the mountain next to the cottage,” he explained when Hailey nodded.
This underground extension was all so elaborate, so deliberate, and yet also hidden. Too much so for there not to be a serious reason for it. “Has it ever been ‘necessary’ for you all to decamp down here?” She quoted his words of earlier.
Haydn gave a smile of appreciation for her intuition. “A time or two, yes.”
She raised mocking brows. “Is there something else about your father that I should know?”
Haydn grinned. “Not anymore, because, as you know, he retired and moved to the South of France earlier this year.”
Simon Steele was a stickler in regard to the law, to the extent he very often left the room if one of his sons started talking about something they’d had to do that skirted around the edges of that law. Because of that, she could only guess all this secrecy at the cottage had to mean Simon had worked for one of England’s national security agencies, such as MI5 or 6, before he and Joanne moved to the South of France after his retirement.
She didn’t pursue the subject. “It really is incredible down here.” She looked around them with appreciative eyes. “You must have had the most amazing family holidays.”
“Really amazing,” he confirmed with obvious affection.
Hailey nodded, having decided not to mention her earlier conversation with Logan, knowing it would only embarrass Haydn if she did.
Haydn’s tension had lessened the closer he got to Scotland, and now the two of them had arrived safely at the family cottage, the last of that tension drained away.
“We still all come here together on occasion. The fishing is good. In the summer, the lake is warm enough to swim in. There are also some amazing hikes through the mountains,” he murmured appreciatively.
“Your parents were lucky none of you were claustrophobic.”
Haydn’s expression darkened at the thought of the first time Lucan had come here after leaving the army. Claustrophobic was a mild term to describe his reaction when he stepped into the closed space beneath the cottage. Lucan’s reaction had been so extreme, he had disappeared for months afterward.
Haydn turned and led the way back upstairs, not talking again until they were back in the kitchen and the range had been slid back into place. “I’ll let you decide whether or not you want to sleep upstairs or downstairs.”
“Is there any reason to think we can’t live up here for now?”
Haydn shook his head. “Not unless Silva hired himself a helicopter the moment he saw us and somehow managed to locate and follow us. Which is highly unlikely.”
She released a shuddering breath. “I still can’t believe he came so close to finding me, he was actually standing outside your apartment building.” She gripped her hands together, obviously in an effort to stop them from shaking.
Haydn had an idea as to how Silva had learned of Hailey’s location. But for the moment, it was more important he deal with Hailey’s delayed reaction to having seen Silva again in the flesh for the first time in seven years.
“You’re safe here.” Haydn gathered her into his arms, one of his hands resting against the back of her head as he held her cradled to his chest. “Silva will have to go through me first if he wants to get to you.”
If anything, her trembling increased. “I couldn’t bear it if you were hurt because of me.”
“No?”
She shot him an irritated glare. “If any of you were hurt because of me.”
“Selfishly, I’m completely uninterested in how you feel about the rest of the family.” Haydn held her at arm’s length. “Circumstances were such we’ve been ignoring this all day, Hailey, but I think now is the time to discuss what happened between the two of us last night.”
Hailey pulled out of his grasp before stepping away and putting some distance between them. “I hardly think now is the time for this conversation.”
“It’s the perfect time,” he disagreed. “When we now have days rather than hours in which to discuss it.”
Her gaze avoided meeting his as she moved through to the sitting room. “I’ve never said or attempted to deny last night happened,” she snapped when she realized he’d followed her. “But I suggest that we—”
“I have no bloody intention of forgetting it or moving on,” he growled in his frustration. “If that’s what you’re about to suggest.”
Hailey studied him from beneath lowered lashes for several seconds. His eyes were a stormy gray. His jaw was tightly clenched. Hands fisted at his sides. “You know, Haydn.” She held that tempestuous gaze as she slowly moved toward him. “I really think you need to bleed off some of the tension you’re obviously under.” She stood in front of him, gaze almost level with his as her hands rested on his shoulders and she arched a teasing brow. “Now, it’s your turn to choose. Upstairs or downstairs?”
He eyed her warily. “Hailey—”
“Downstairs is fine with me.” Her fingers loosened on his shoulders as she gave him a hard enough nudge that he stumbled backward.
She watched with satisfaction as he was completely unbalanced when his knees hit the arm of the couch. He landed on his back, sprawled on the worn cushions.
Hailey wasted no time in placing her knees either side of him to straddle his thighs, her hands once again on his shoulders, but pressing him down this time. “Whatever delusion you’ve been under all day, let me set the record straight. I’m twenty-five years old, and my complete lack of physical experience is because for the past seven years, I’ve been trying to remain distant from emotional entanglements in order to protect anyone else from becoming inv
olved in the mess that is my life.” She smiled down at him. “As you were fully aware of every bit of that mess when you made love with me last night, that caution obviously no longer needs to apply to you.”
His eyes were wide. “You have no physical experience at all?”
Trust him to latch on to that part of her statement! “Only what we’ve shared together.”
“You’re a virgin?”
“Hopefully not for much longer.” She took her weight on her wrists as she lowered her head to claim his slightly parted lips in a long and passionate kiss before lifting long enough to add huskily, “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Being your first lover? Absolutely not,” Haydn assured huskily. “I would be honored, in fact.”
“First, can I give you the same pleasure that you gave me last night?”
His pupils were blown, only a sliver of that stormy gray now edging the black pupil. “No man in his right mind would be stupid enough to refuse an offer like that.”
“Are you in your right mind?”
“Not right now.”
Hailey chuckled. “That’s what I thought.” She lifted her hand to run a slender figure over where his lips were slightly swollen from their kisses. She drew in a sharp breath as those lips parted and Haydn’s tongue flicked over the tip of her finger. His gaze continued to hold hers as he sucked the length of that finger into the wet heat of his mouth.
Hailey allowed him to suckle on her finger, licking, sucking for several long second before she pulled free to scoot down his body and unfasten his jeans. She silently encouraged him to lift up so she could pull them and his boxers down to mid-thigh.
She stilled, licking her lips as she stared down from between narrowed lids at the thick and silky length of his cock surrounded at the base by those silky golden curls. The bulbous top was a deep red and slicked with the juices that bubbled up from the slit at the top before sliding down the dips and curves of the engorged and throbbing veins along that delicious length. “You’re beautiful,” she murmured in awe, her breath hot against that throbbing length as she took it fully to the back of the velvety softness of her throat.
Haydn (Steele Protectors 5) Page 9
