Wild Card

by Lora Leigh

  “You’re strange,” he muttered before closing his eyes and dragging her closer to rest his head against her neck.

  She stroked the arm over her waist. Caressed his shoulder. She smiled at the drowsy little groan he gave before opening his eyes again and peeking over at the clock.

  Noah had put off waking up as long as he could. It was six, two more hours and the warrant against Delbert Ransome would be served. He needed to be ready.

  He rose from the bed and stared down at her. “I need to get to the apartment.”

  She looked away from him, her lips thinning, staring at the window. And he could tell he was hurting her again. It struck against his heart, hurting her like this, making her feel she wasn’t wanted. Wasn’t loved. When it was anything but.

  “Fine. Go.” She waved toward the door. “I’ll take a shower by myself.”

  He came back down on her, keeping the sheet between them, clasping her head in his hands. He stared at her face, at the eyes, the gray so soft, so filled with vulnerability. As if with each word out of his mouth she was praying for something more. Praying for a dream that wasn’t going to happen. And he couldn’t give her that dream, but damned if he had to hurt her any further. He couldn’t do it. Hurting her was ripping apart pieces of him that he thought had died in that cell Fuentes kept him in.

  “Wildcat.” He nipped at her lips. Kissed them. Let himself love them, for just a moment. “If I stay, I’ll never be ready on time. And your safety is more important, baby. More than you know.”

  She stared up at him, softer now, a strange little smile on her lips, her arms curling around his shoulders.

  “Would you miss me if something happened to me, Noah?”

  He felt his guts clench at the thought of anything happening to her. At so much as scratch marring her flesh.

  “I’d rain hell on someone if anything happened to you, Sabella,” he whispered, staring down at her, feeling a surge of emotion escaping that tight hold he’d tried to keep on it before. It was building inside him, threatening to tear free, and he couldn’t let it. Couldn’t allow it. “I’d lose the final shreds of sanity I’ve managed to hold on to, sweetheart. And neither of us wants that.”

  Her fingers tangled in his hair as she softened beneath him, and he couldn’t help but taste her lips. Lips so sweet and swollen from his kisses throughout the night. Lips that melted beneath his and burned him with passion. Lips that nearly drove every thought from his mind but the erection pulsing between his legs.

  “God, you burn my brains.” He moved back from her, plowing his fingers through his hair as he jerked his boxers and jeans from the floor.

  He dragged them over his legs as she sat up and watched him with hot, slumberous gray eyes. He tucked the unruly flesh beneath the cotton and denim and eased the zipper up slowly as she grinned.

  “Seems a shame to waste it,” she said as she slipped from the bed, proudly naked.

  Noah swore he lost all the spit in his mouth as she strode from the bed. The curve of her ass tempted him. The bare pink flesh between her thighs, those high, proud breasts and tight, flushed nipples. Damn. He needed to fuck her just as bad as he had the first time he took her.

  “I’m going to shower,” she stated.

  He groaned. “I’m getting my ass down to the apartment. Call me before you come down, so I can watch for you.”

  “I’ll call.” She closed the door behind him as he forced himself to finish dressing.

  Grabbing the cell phone, he hit Nik’s number and waited.

  “Yeah.” Nik sounded wide awake.

  “Where are you?”

  “The apartment. Waited on your ass all night and you never showed up.”

  Noah grunted at the amused statement. “I’m heading that way. I need you to stand watch on the house while I shower. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Gotcha.” Nik disconnected, as did Noah.

  He dragged his boots on, then slung his chaps over his shoulder with a grin as he remembered the look on her face when she had sucked him, his cock spearing out from his jeans, his legs in those chaps. She’d damned near melted for him.

  He gave his head a hard shake as he moved down the stairs and grabbed his shirt from the floor, pulling it on. He found his jacket, his vest, and laid them with the chaps on the chair by the door.

  He checked the house out just to be on the safe side. Moved back upstairs, checked the spare room and bathroom then returned to the front door.

  He grabbed his leathers and stepped out, locking the door carefully behind him before moving to the Harley. He checked it out, then checked out Sabella’s little BMW, to be sure.

  Everything was clean.

  He stared around the area and breathed out roughly. Delbert Ransome was a rat, he’d squeal high and hard once the feds put the screws to his ass, and they’d have the members of the Black Collar Militia, and the wild card. The man providing them information on the investigations that had come through.

  They had suspected Rick Grayson for a while, but the information Noah had glimpsed in that file said otherwise. What he knew about Rick told Noah otherwise. The man had dreamed of being the local sheriff when he was a teenager. He wouldn’t have turned on his badge.

  That left someone in the local police department. Someone had revealed the three federal agents, especially the young woman posing as a local college student. No one should have known about her. No one.

  As he pulled the Harley behind the garage Nik was coming down the stairs. He positioned himself in a hidden corner at the side of the building where he’d have a clear view of the house, but the cottonwood tree and the tall yucca plants almost hid him from view.

  Damned Russian Viking. He was too fucking big to try to hide much of anywhere.

  Shaking his head Noah strode quickly up the stairs and headed for the shower. Delbert’s truck wasn’t at the garage, but the second word hit on the arrest, the gossip would start. It would build like a damned bonfire. It was the fallout Noah had to watch for. The fallout that could possibly ricochet back to Sabella. And that he couldn’t allow.

  That afternoon, Sabella walked down to the garage. Dressed in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, another of Nathan’s old work shirts as an overshirt, she strode into the garage and pulled the roster from the mechanics’ table.

  Her gaze found Noah where he was bent beneath the hood of a late-model sedan. He wasn’t as interested in the motor though as he was in the vehicles pulling into the gas pumps and the citizens moving into the convenience center.

  Rory was manning pumps, laughing and chatting as he pumped gas. Toby was in the convenience center, and by all appearances keeping steady business.

  News had hit of the arrest of Delbert Ransome in the gruesome deaths of a young Mexican couple. DNA taken from his truck was reputed to be suspected as matching that of the husband of the couple. According to the news report droning on the television, Ransome would have had to have run over the body several times for the physical evidence to have lodged where it was reported to have been found.

  The arrest had come from an anonymous tip, a hiker that had been in the area and recognized Ransome’s truck and Ransome running a man down.

  The sheriff, Rick Grayson, had served the warrant, federal agents had been waiting at the impound yard, and within hours had managed to find the physical evidence.

  Noah turned back to look at her, eyes narrowed as she listened to the report, and she knew damned good and well who had found that evidence, and where. He had found it while Ransome’s truck had been in her garage.

  She inhaled slowly before letting her gaze wander over the garage and noticing one of her mechanics missing. Chuck Leon wasn’t much of a talker, but he’d never missed a day either.

  “Where’s Chuck?” She moved over to Noah and asked the question quietly.

  “Don’t know yet,” he answered softly.

  Sabella leaned closer. “He worked on Ransome’s truck while it was here. Didn’t he?”

 
“Uh-huh.” Noah nodded before reaching in to test one of the connections on the wiring harness of the sedan. “He did.”

  “Did you call him?” She lowered her voice further.

  “Toby called. No answer.” Noah’s voice carried no further than her. “Go work on the car, Sabella. Stay low and don’t worry.”

  His gaze lifted at the sound of another vehicle pulling into the lot outside.

  Sabella looked around the car and grimaced at the growing crowd. Nathan’s garage had always been a focal point for gossip. It was on the edge of town, but the front lot was large enough that customers didn’t have to worry about being blocked or how long they stayed. Old men stood outside the door with coffee in hand muttering to one another. Customers met in various areas, stopped, chatted, lingered to add to the gossip.

  “Stay where I can see you,” he muttered to Sabella, slicing a hard glance her way. “Every minute.”

  She looked outside then nodded shortly before returning to the sports car.

  Noah watched the crowd ebb and flow outside, catching bits of the conversation and adding it to the mental notes he was taking.

  Ransome liked to run with several other men, names that hadn’t come up during the investigation, but names the unit would be running now.

  There were reports coming in from the impound yard, via Jordan and Tehya, as well. The fact that a federal marshal had poked his nose into the investigation. A man known as an associate of Gaylen Patrick’s. Jordan was running his background now.

  And Delbert Ransome wasn’t talking.

  Added to that, Chuck Leon, the plant Noah suspected in the garage, was missing. When Micah had checked out his small apartment in town, there had been signs of a struggle, and his cell phone had been left lying beneath the couch, open, the last call to an unknown number. Coded.

  He was starting to suspect Chuck was in a shitload of trouble and that perhaps one of the abc agencies in Washington hadn’t been up front with the Elite Ops contact about any agents in place.

  Something was going to hell in a handbasket, Noah could feel it.

  Shaking his head, he moved from the car he was working on into the convenience center. He walked to the back of the small store as the bell jangled again over the entrance door and he caught a glimpse of the man stalking into the garage during a lull in customers.

  Grant Malone.

  Noah stared through the glass over the cooler, watching as Grant zeroed in on Rory as he grabbed a soda from another cooler.

  “What the hell is going on, Rory?” Grant seized his son’s arm and jerked him around before Rory could pull his arm out of his grasp.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Rory muttered. “Slumming?”

  “Talking to an idiot,” Grant hissed. “When are you going to get the hell out of this place? How many times do I have to warn you you’re going to end up getting yourself in trouble?”

  “Piss off,” Rory snapped, and Noah could see the anger beginning to spew from both men. “Just jack right out of town, huh? Forget the promises we gave Nathan before he went on that mission, and just turn our backs on his wife?”

  Noah clenched his hand around the water bottle as he stared at Grant Malone’s back. At fifty-five, he was still in peak condition. His hair was nearly fully gray, but his skin was swarthy, his shoulders broad. Malone men didn’t go down easy, and Grant was proving it.

  “She won’t listen to reason any more than you will,” Grant snapped. “And you’re endangering yourself here. Everyone’s talking about that Ransome boy, and everyone knows that truck was here, in this garage. What the hell did you find?”

  Rory’s expression was suitably shocked. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” He pushed his father back. “If I’d found anything I’d taken Delbert apart myself. Damn you, is this how you’re going to destroy Sabella? Start this trashy little story so someone slips in and slices her fucking throat?”

  Enough was enough.

  “Rory.” Noah turned, snapped out his brother’s name.

  Both men turned to him. Grant’s eyes narrowed, his fists clenched, as Noah walked toward them slowly.

  “You should be on the pumps.” Noah nodded outside. “Toby can’t handle those alone.”

  Rory wiped his hand over his face in irritation. “Hell. Just what the hell I need. You poking your nose in this.”

  “What?” Grant looked over at Noah, his gaze hooded, brooding. “He’s just sleeping with her. What the hell does he care if she dies?” A second later, he was choking.

  Noah ignored the nails digging at his wrists as he snapped his fingers around Grant’s throat and put him against the cooler, holding him in place with the sheer force of the rage transferring to his hand.

  “One of these days, someone’s gonna cut that hand off,” Rory muttered before stalking off angrily.

  Noah stared into his father’s eyes. Flecks of green glittered in the Irish blue that stood out against suddenly pale cheeks.

  “You want to leave,” Noah told him carefully. “You want to leave, and you don’t want to come back here.”

  Grant stared back at him, there was no fear in his eyes, but there was a hint of knowledge that Noah didn’t want to see.

  “That’s enough.” It was Sabella’s voice that drew his attention.

  He turned his head slowly, staring back at her.

  “Let him go,” she ordered between pale lips. “Now.”

  “Sabella, go finish that car,” Noah suggested easily. “Mr. Malone and I are just having a friendly little conversation.”

  Sabella looked outside the store. “You’re about to have an audience. Let him go. Now.”

  Noah released him, slowly, watching as Grant stared back at him in something akin to horror. He lifted his hand, rubbed at his neck. He started to speak, then clamped his lips closed.

  “That’s right,” Noah said softly. “You don’t want to say anything else. You want to walk right out of here. You want to drive away. Because we don’t want your business here. You got me?”

  Grant blinked back at him.

  “You didn’t answer me.” Noah smiled slowly. “Do we want to discuss this later? Maybe around midnight.” His voice went lower. “When you’re in your bed, tucked in nice and tight. I could be there. I could slip right inside your nightmares, and we could chat about it then.”

  “You don’t have it in you,” Grant said softly. “Do you?”

  Noah grinned. “Watch for me. If you have the nerve.”

  “Let him go, Noah. Now.” Sabella’s voice was inflexible. That tone that warned she could get mad without much more provocation.

  He let him go, watching as Grant slipped past him, and unhurriedly left the building.

  He turned and stared at Sabella. Glared at her.

  “Don’t interfere again,” he warned her.

  He turned and strode past her, moving back to the garage as rage pumped fast and furious inside him.

  His father. That son of a bitch was his father, and he could barely keep from hating him, wanting to kill him as he heard him encouraging Rory to desert Sabella. To take away the last link to family that she could have. It didn’t matter that he knew Rory would never do it. What pissed him off was that Grant was still pushing for it. And he didn’t know why. He couldn’t figure out why. He jerked the cap of the water off, tilted it up, and tried to drink enough to still the rage burning in him. It didn’t work, and before he could control the impulse the half bottle of liquid was slamming into the wall of the garage. A torpedo that smacked and burst against the cement wall before falling to the floor.

  Nik lifted his head from the truck he was working on, stared at the bottle, then Noah, before his gaze moved to the office doorway.

  Noah jerked around and she stood there, staring at him, her gray eyes bleak and filled with pain.

  This was one of the reasons why he couldn’t stay. This. This burning need to rip apart anyone who had hurt her. The rage that blazed inside him, that tore away logic
and control, that left him either tasting blood or tasting lust. Sometimes, he swore he could taste the need for both. At the same time.

  She licked her lips slowly and moved from the doorway, coming toward him. Her face was pale, her eyes dark gray diamonds at they glittered with tears.

  She stopped in front of him and simply leaned her head against his chest. That quickly the rage burned out. His arms came around her, and behind the hood of the car sheltering them, he jerked her to him, holding her. Holding her, and screaming inside. Because honest to God, he didn’t know if he could let her go.

  “Back to work.” He stepped back.

  Noah pushed his fingers through his hair and fought to get a hold on the feeling of betrayal he felt at hearing Grant’s opinion of Sabella.

  He’d asked only one thing of his father. In more than a decade, only one thing. If anything happened to him, protect Sabella. Take care of her. And Grant had sworn he would. He had lied. He had let Sabella suffer. He’d done everything he could to run her out of her home and out of the business Nathan had left to her.

  He shook his head and went back to his job. He pushed thoughts of Grant Malone to the back of his mind, to deal with later. And he would be dealing with his father later, there was no doubt.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Two hours later Noah stood in the closed office, his jaw clenching in rage as he held the secured cell phone to his ear and listened to Jordan’s report.

  “Delbert Ransome was released on order of Federal Judge Carl Clifford, Houston, Texas,” Jordan reported. “Federal Marshal Kevin Lyle arrived at the airport an hour ago on a private flight, carrying the orders. He’s taken over the investigation on the feds’ end.”

  “And what do the feds think of this?” Noah asked carefully.

  “My contacts are screaming,” Jordan bit out. “Judge Clifford released Ransome on the fly-by-night excuse that Ransome’s truck had been stolen and missing for several days around the time of the death. Good ole Delbert just didn’t report it because he was drunk at the time, and by the time he sobered up, they found the truck parked in one of the pastures. He thought maybe he’d just parked it in the wrong place.”