Wild Card

by Lora Leigh

  “I think I need coffee rather more than more wine.” Sabella set the glass aside and she let it go. She’d found out what she needed to know. She wouldn’t push this friendship further. She and Kira knew the truth, they couldn’t speak it, neither of them could acknowledge it. But they knew. “How long are you and Ian going to be in town this time?”

  “I’m not certain.” Kira put her glass on the counter as Sabella moved to the coffee maker. “Ian hasn’t set a time limit, and we’re still rather enjoying our time together.”

  Sabella nodded. In other words, however long the mission here took, she guessed.

  She wondered what Noah would do when the mission here was over. Would he tell his wife, then, who he was and what had happened to him?

  “Are you having problems stepping into a relationship with Noah?” Kira asked her suddenly. “I would imagine it’s hard. Sienna mentioned you’ve not been involved with anyone since your husband died.”

  “Just as she suggested it was a rebound relationship?” Sabella snorted. “No. I’m not having any problems at all.”

  She tucked her hands into the back pocket of her short jeans skirt and moved to the wide kitchen window.

  She could see the back of the garage. Noah’s Harley sat close to the cement building, gleaming black in the waning summer sunlight.

  “You and Sienna have been friends for a long time,” Kira stated. “Still, I’d have hesitated to say that to a friend of mine.”

  Sabella shrugged. “Sienna can be blunt sometimes, especially when she and Rick are going head to head over something.”

  “They don’t get along well then?”

  Sabella turned back to her. “They get along fine. She just hates his schedule. And Rick is pretty intense about his job.”

  “Most men that work in a protective capacity are rather intense.” Kira nodded. “Ian mentioned that Admiral Holloran said you had called Rissa Clay a few days ago. That was very kind of you.”

  Sabella frowned and pushed her fingers through her hair worriedly.

  Her husband’s last mission had been the rescue of Rissa Clay and two other young girls. She hadn’t called to ask Rissa anything, she remembered very little of that night, Sabella had been told. But she called occasionally, because she knew Rissa. Cared for her. Thankfully the other girl seemed to be doing well.

  “I knew Rissa before she was kidnapped,” she said softly. “Nathan and I sometimes flew into Washington to visit with his uncle Jordan. Rissa was around a lot. She lived close by with her father so we were invited to several of the parties. She was a sweet girl.”

  She hadn’t deserved what had happened to her.

  “Rissa is a very sweet young woman.” Kira nodded. “I saw her a few weeks ago. She’s recovered well from the horror of the kidnapping. Six years has given her some distance, some resolution I believe.”

  Sabella was silent, the thought of what Rissa had gone through weighing heavily on her. Nathan had supposedly died during the mission to rescue Rissa Clay and two other senator’s daughters. One of the young women had died, the other, Emily Stanton, had married another of Nathan’s friends and a fellow SEAL, Kell Krieger.

  Before she could say anything more, Sabella swung around at the sound of Noah’s Harley purring to life behind the garage.

  God. He was dressed in snug jeans and riding chaps. A snug dark T-shirt covered his upper body, conformed to it. And he was riding her way.

  “Is there anything sexier than a man in riding chaps riding a Harley?” Kira asked behind her. “It makes a woman simply want to melt.”

  And Sabella was melting. She watched as he pulled around the side of the garage then took the gravel road that led to the back of the house. The sound of the Harley purred closer, throbbing, building the excitement inside her.

  “I think it’s time for me to leave,” Kira said with a light laugh. “Don’t bother to see me out.”

  Sabella didn’t. She listened as the Harley drew into the graveled lot behind the house and moved to the back door. She opened it, stepping out on the back deck as he swung his leg over the cycle and strode toward her.

  That long-legged lean walk. It made her mouth water. Made her heart throb in her throat as hunger began to race through her.

  “The spa treated you well,” he announced as he paused at the bottom of the steps and stared back at her. “Feel like messing your hair up and going out this evening? We could have dinner in town. Ride around a little bit.”

  She hadn’t ridden on a motorcycle since she was a teenager. She glanced at the cycle, then back to Noah.

  “I’d need to change clothes.”

  His gaze flickered over her short jeans skirt, her T-shirt.

  “That would be a damned shame too,” he stated. “I have to say, Ms. Malone, you have some beautiful legs there.”

  No one had ever been as charming as Nathan. She remembered when they were dating, how he would just show up, out of the blue, driving that monster pickup of his and grinning like a rogue when he picked her up. He’d been the epitome of a bad boy, and he had been all hers. He was still all hers.

  “Bare legs and motorcycles don’t exactly go together,” she pointed out.

  He nodded soberly, though his eyes had a wicked glint to them. “This is a fact, beautiful. And pretty legs like that, we wouldn’t want to risk.”

  She leaned against the porch post and stared back at him. “I have a pickup, you know.” She propped one hand on her hip and stared back at him.

  “Really?” Was that avarice she saw glinting in his eyes, or for just the slightest second, pure, unadulterated joy at the mention of that damned pickup?

  He looked around. “I haven’t seen a pickup.”

  “It’s in the garage,” she told him carelessly. “A big black monster with bench seats. Four-by-four gas-guzzling alphamale steel and chrome.”

  He grinned. He was so proud of that damned pickup.

  “Where did something so little come up with a truck that big?” he teased her then.

  She shrugged. “It belonged to my husband. Now, it belongs to me.” That last statement had his gaze sharpening.

  “You drive it?”

  “All the time,” she lied, tormenting him. “I don’t have to worry about pinging it now that my husband is gone. He didn’t like pings.”

  Did he swallow tighter?

  “It’s pinged then?”

  She snorted. “Not hardly. Do you want to drive the monster or question me about it? Or I could change into jeans and we could ride your cycle. Which is it?”

  Which was it? Noah stared back at her, barely able to contain his shock that she had kept the pickup. He knew for a fact there were times the payments on the house and garage had gone unpaid—his “death” benefits hadn’t been nearly enough—almost risking her loss of both during those first months of his “death.” Knowing she had held on to that damned truck filled him with more pleasure than he could express. Knowing she was going to let someone who wasn’t her husband drive it filled him with horror.

  The contradictory feelings clashed inside him, and he promised himself he was going to spank her for this.

  “You’re being awful generous with your late husband’s possessions,” he told her.

  She grinned back at him. “You’ve loosened me up maybe? Besides, you’ve already slept with his wife, why not drive his truck? Kira drank his 1925 Chateau Feytit Clinet red wine today.”

  Did he look pale? Noah swore he could feel himself blanch. His 1925 Chateau Feytit Clinet? No. She hadn’t shared that with Kira Richards. The one person in the world besides Sabella who knew exactly how horrified he’d be to hear that Sabella had dipped into his treasure trove of wines?

  “He had a 1925 Feytit Clinet?” He almost wheezed. How he kept his voice calm and level he didn’t know. Hell, his training had just been shot to hell. “And you shared it with Ian Richards’s wife?”

  “He had lots of wine.” She turned and shot him a look over her shoulder. “Ma
ybe one of these nights I’ll share the other one with you. Do you want me to meet you at the garage with the pickup? It won’t take me long.”

  Let her drive his pickup? Had she lost her damned mind?

  “I can leave the cycle here.” He nodded to the back drive as he stepped to the porch. “I’ll just help you lock up.”

  “Okay.” There was a swing to her hips that almost had his tongue hanging out of his mouth. And he almost—only almost—forgot about the wine and the truck.

  She drank his wine? Drove his truck? And Rory hadn’t warned him ahead of time?

  He locked the back door, checked the house, as she gathered her purse and grabbed a light denim jacket from her bedroom. They met at the bottom of the stairs where she held up the keys to the truck. He almost sighed with pleasure as he took them and followed Sabella into the garage.

  He knew the minute he looked at the black and chrome Ford four-by-four that she hadn’t driven it since the day she brought it back from the garage. After she had slammed her little BMW into it and claimed it was all his fault.

  Because he was cutting the grass without a shirt and she had been looking at him instead of the truck.

  That had been the day he had realized just how much he did love his spritely little wife. Because instead of raging, instead of babying his truck, he had picked his wife up, carried her into the house, and fucked her on the stairs because he couldn’t make it to the bedroom.

  “Nice.” He patted the side of the hood, ran his hand along the curved frame.

  “Yeah. It was Nathan’s baby.” There was an edge of amused indulgence in her voice.

  “You weren’t?” He looked up at her, staring at her across the hood of the truck. Because he knew she had been his life. She was still his life.

  Hadn’t he loved her well enough that she knew she was the most important thing to him?

  “I was his wife.” She moved to the door and opened it before climbing onto the running board and stepping into the passenger side.

  Noah pulled the driver’s side door open and moved in beneath the steering wheel aware that her answer wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Yes, she had been his wife, but she had been so much more as well. His heart. His soul. And for nineteen months, she had been his sanity.

  “How long since you started it?”

  She stared out the windshield. “A while.”

  The odd note in her voice had him pausing as he pushed the key into the ignition.

  “I start it every few weeks.” She shrugged.

  She lowered her head to where her fingers were twining together in her lap and shook her head. She pulled the seat belt across her, buckled in, and propped her elbow on the window before turning to look at him.

  “I used to sleep in the truck when I couldn’t sleep in the bed.”

  “You missed him.” He was glad for the darkness in the garage, the shadows between them.

  “I missed him,” she agreed, before reaching out her hand and pressing a button in the dash. “Garage door opener. I had it installed while he was on that last mission. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  The garage doors eased open, sliding up, revealing the lengthening shadows outside.

  “Come over here.” He unlocked her seat belt, caught her wrist and pulled her to his side. He latched the middle belt before locking his own and sliding the truck in reverse.

  He pulled out of the garage, hit the button for the garage door, and watched it close and lock as easily as it had unlocked and opened. He’d wanted the damned thing so badly he could taste the need before that last mission. But he’d been saving for something else. Something for Sabella.

  She’d done it for him, and he found his chest expanding, his heart breaking. Every minute he spent with her, he saw more and more things he hadn’t taken the time to notice when he had been “alive.” Things he wished he had taken the time to discover.

  “Sure you want me to drive your husband’s truck?” he asked. He was pushing her, and he didn’t know why.

  Six years she had grieved for him, and in the space of a few short weeks, she’d become his lover, she was letting him drive her husband’s truck, had let him fuck her husband’s wife, had let him sleep in his bed.

  The fact that he was her husband was beside the point. Sort of.

  “Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I think it’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  She turned her head and stared back at him, her expression composed, calm. Almost cool.

  “I think it’s time to let my husband go. Don’t you, Noah?”

  And what the hell was he supposed to say to that? He clenched his jaw, slid the truck into drive, and pulled away from the house.

  Let her husband go, his ass. She had a hold on him so damned tight he didn’t know if he was coming or going, and the chance to tell her the damned truth was long gone.

  There was no way she would understand now, so many years after his rescue, why he hadn’t sent for her. Why he hadn’t wanted her with him. She would never know the demons that ravaged his mind then, and he thanked God for that. She would never know the nights he spent thinking of her, aching for her. She would never know how hard it had been not to come to her, to take her, to love her as he was doing now.

  And still he was holding back parts of the sexual needs that raged at him, that filled his mind, that filled him with dark fantasies. Needs he was afraid Sabella wouldn’t be able to understand if she had any idea who he was, or who he had been to her.

  As the silence lengthened in the truck and they drove closer to town, he realized mistakes, too long past, that he had made. Both in his marriage, and later, after his rescue.

  She had held on to every aspect of their lives together. And though she didn’t know who he was, still she had moved back into his arms, his dreams, his life, as though she had been born to be there.

  “Your husband was a fool,” he finally told her.

  She didn’t say anything for long moments before she glanced up at him, her eyes somber, sad. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because only a fool would have risked losing his life, and losing you, as he did.” That mission. He had been so certain it would be a piece of cake, though a part of him had known better. A part of him that he no longer ignored. But he had ignored it that time.

  She turned her head and stared through the windshield. She didn’t answer him. She studied her fingers in a gesture that he knew was both sad, and lonely. Whatever emotions were twisting inside her, she kept them to herself. And perhaps it was better that way. This was better for her, letting him go, getting on with her life, choosing a lover, letting go of the past.

  When the time came that he had . . . That this mission was over. He couldn’t even let himself think of losing her again.

  Noah Blake didn’t have to die. Noah Blake could claim Sabella Malone. He could hold her, keep her, he could marry her and move into that house on the hill.

  He stopped himself. Noah Blake didn’t even belong to himself anymore. He belonged to the Elite Ops. He had signed the papers. He had given them what he should have given his wife.

  His future. And as he had been warned, once he signed those papers he was the property of whatever shadowy organization had paid for his rebirth. The advanced surgeries, the repairs to bone and muscle that no amount of money could have paid for otherwise.

  Had he returned to Sabella then, he would have been partially disabled, he wouldn’t have been a SEAL, he would have been a husk of the man he had been.

  He had signed away his life as Nathan Malone and resignation wasn’t an option. The only question was, could Noah Blake have a life instead?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The restaurant Noah chose was a new one. The Steak House and Grill was owned by another resident Nathan had known from school. Sally Bruckmeyer and her husband Tom.

  Their kids, five in all, worked with them. Sally, two of her girls, and the oldest boy worked the dining room, while Tom and the next oldes
t boy and girl worked the kitchen along with a cousin or two Sabella remembered.

  As they walked into the restaurant, it seemed all eyes watched them. Sabella had maintained a very low profile for the six years she had been without her husband; now she was running around town with a bad boy who wore motorcycle chaps and drove Nathan Malone’s pickup. She could hear the gossip now and she didn’t give a damn. She had never cared about the gossip, and being with Noah made it feel right.

  A secret they shared, but didn’t. It made the night seem more intimate.

  “Sabella Malone, if it ain’t good to see you out and about.” Sally Bruckmeyer was tall, wide, and wreathed with smiles as she came around the checkout and enveloped her in a hug. “And who’s this handsome devil running around with you?”

  She was sharply aware of Noah’s hand on her back, his fingers splayed wide.

  “Sally, this is a friend of Rory’s and mine, Noah Blake. Noah, this a friend of mine, Sally Bruckmeyer. Her and her husband own the restaurant.” As though Sally didn’t know his name. She bet everyone in town knew who he was and all the drivel Rory had spilled about meeting him in a bar in Odessa.

  Her ass!

  “Ms. Bruckmeyer.” He extended his hand for a handshake, causing Sally’s eyes to twinkle as she accepted the gesture and looked back at Sabella teasingly.

  “A bad boy, Belle.” Sally wagged her finger good-naturedly, her brown eyes twinkling in her dark face. “You better watch out for this one. He’s a heartbreaker.”

  “I figured that one out for myself, Sally.” Sabella laughed as she looked around the nearly full dining room. “Do you have room for us tonight?”

  “If you’re willing to sit out on the patio, we have tables out there. Nice candlelight.” She leaned forward and whispered, “A few less eyes bugging out at you.”

  Sabella’s grin widened. “That sounds perfect.”

  “Come on then.” Sally grabbed two menus and silverware and led them across the room. “I have the perfect table for you.”

  Sabella could feel the stares. Noah, with his long, shaggy black hair falling to his shoulders and framing his savage, bearded face. His hard, corded body, snug jeans, T-shirt and chaps. He was dangerous, exuded danger. Screamed it and owned it. And she loved every minute of it.