by Lora Leigh
John shook his head. “Later, Dad.”
Disconnecting the call, he carefully maneuvered the huge houseboat around and back toward the marina. If he knew his father, it would only be a matter of hours before he called back, before he had the details worked out and Sierra prepared to leave.
If Candace was leaving early, as she normally did when she and her husband flew to California to spend time with his family, then he would be at the Hickley Dairy Farm before the sun rose, hours before his day normally began.
This was exactly what he didn’t need. Peace had been a long time coming, the serenity he’d found here was hard won, and now, that last niggling barrier to complete contentment was rearing its innocent, gorgeous head. And it had the potential of destroying his peace, just as the potential of completing it existed.
Sierra.
TWO
Sierra was silent as the jet landed, her heart racing, a sense of panic nearly overwhelming her at the realization that a year of running was over.
“I want to go home,” she whispered.
She’d made a mistake. It was the worst mistake she could have made.
Lifting her head, she stared back at Candace. She saw John’s eyes in the other woman’s gaze. That beautiful violet-blue, though the features were softer, feminine, and gentle with compassion.
“Do you want to die, Sierra?” It wasn’t the first time Candace had asked her that question.
It wasn’t the first time Sierra had mentioned going home.
“The pilot is preparing to land,” Thomas, Candace’s husband, said softly.
He’d opened his home to her, just as Candace’s father had. They had taken her in, watched over her, and provided the medical care she had needed.
Thomas was one of the senior attorneys at Walker, Delmar, and Farley Legal Associates. He was quiet, calm, a bastion of strength.
“Hickley radioed,” the pilot announced. “We have five minutes on the ground. Contact is waiting to accept delivery.”
She was the delivery.
Sierra wanted to cover her face and hide. She wanted to find a way to simply disappear and forget that any of this was happening. To convince herself that the last year was nothing more than a nightmare.
How had she let her life come to this?
By running from John. By being a coward. That was how it had come to this. There was a part of her that wondered if she hadn’t run, if she had faced John, if she would have even been in her apartment at the time? She’d moved from the more secure building the Walkers owned interest in months before to the apartment closer to her office.
She’d taken the apartment she had because it was in the same building as John’s penthouse suite. To be closer to him. What a mistake that had been.
She felt the jet dip, a smooth stroke of metal through air as it began to descend.
“He’s angry at me,” she whispered as she stared back at Candace. “He hates me, Candace. After what I did, I don’t blame him.”
She’d destroyed his engagement. He’d been furious over that, despite the circumstances. Only in hindsight had she realized how she must have humiliated him. In public. She should have found another way. She shouldn’t have allowed her anger to rule her.
“Sweetie, John doesn’t hate you,” the other woman promised. “He could never hate you. He may be angry, but he gets over the anger if you face him. You should have faced him rather than running.”
She didn’t need anyone to tell her that now. She had actually known it at the time, but she had been too hurt, too raw, to do anything else.
He’d passed out on her even as he took her virginity. In all the messages he’d left on her cell phone not once, not even once had he mentioned what they had shared. As though he didn’t remember it, hadn’t seen the handkerchief she had used to clean them both.
No, each message had contained references to Marlena, Gerard, and the fact that Sierra wasn’t answering her calls. Not a single message had been tender. Not once had he implied that he wanted to speak to her over anything other than the breakup of his engagement.
And nothing had changed. The thought of facing John now terrified her, just as it had the year before.
“We’re landing, Sierra.” Thomas’s broad hand covered hers where it lay on the armrest of the leather seat. “Remember. Don’t back down. Stare him in the eye and stand strong.”
“He’s not an animal, Thomas.” Candace’s amused chiding brought a smile to her husband’s face.
“Sweetheart, all men are animals. Feed us, pet us, and use a firm hand, and we’ll worship at your feet.”
Thomas worshipped at his wife’s feet, but it was clear Candace cherished him just as deeply.
“Don’t put up with his temper, Sierra,” Candace advised her softly. “And remember, at the very heart of it all, John would never harm you. You are truly important to him, or he wouldn’t have spent so many months chasing after you.” A twinkle in her eye indicated that perhaps he had chased after her for reasons other than the ones he had.
They simply didn’t know the truth.
But it didn’t matter. John Walker Sr. had made it clear that the only way to protect her was to send her here, where no one would suspect he would send her.
His hatred of Kentucky was well known. His hatred of its people went even deeper.
The wheels of the plane touched down, the slight jolt doing nothing to cover the little whimper that fell from her lips.
She wanted to cry, but did she have any tears left? She’d shed them all when John had left Boston. When she had realized that what she had done had forced him from his home, and took him from her forever.
As the plane rolled to a stop, Thomas rose and unclipped her seat belt and helped her from her seat.
The copilot opened the door and lowered the steps while Candace and Thomas flanked her.
Lights blazed up at her from a vehicle as a dark, shadowed shape materialized. There was no mistaking that form. Strong, bold, and broad. He was the living personification of every dream and fantasy she had ever harbored.
“Come on, brat.” Thomas lifted her in his arms rather than allowing her to walk down the steps.
He’d done that two other times. He’d carried her from the hospital, and he’d carried her into John Sr.’s home hours afterward.
Like her father had always carried her.
And then he was moving down the steps, growing steadily closer to the silent form standing below.
Sierra thought he would set her on her feet once he reached the bottom. She hoped he would. She was certain he would. But men were conspiring against her in this lifetime.
Instead, he handed her to the tall, coldly silent male waiting for them.
“Take care of our girl, John,” Thomas ordered lightly. “And remember, she bruises damned easy.”
Sierra winced, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t stare up at the man that fate had conspired to throw her back with. She stared straight ahead, all too aware of the bruises that still covered parts of her body, and the knowledge that she rather doubted John Walker Jr. would really give a damn.
She’d had a chance to think about it. He wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t been stupid a year ago. He had known what Marlena was and he had asked her to marry him anyway. She should have thought of that before she had furiously decided to reveal their duplicity.
She had struck at his pride by throwing it in both of their faces. He had wanted that marriage of convenience or he wouldn’t have put that ring on the other woman’s finger.
Still refusing to speak to him, Sierra remained stiff in his arms as he turned to the vehicle and moved to the passenger side. Thomas opened the door and a few seconds later John was setting her carefully on the luxurious leather seat of the SUV.
Stepping back, he closed the door and turned to his brother-in-law. And God, she wished she could hear that conversation.
“I just have a few minutes,” Thomas told him. “She’s still showing a lot of bruising.
Her throat, breasts, and thighs. Candace says it still looks like hell. She had pain pills in her luggage but she won’t take them until she goes to bed, and she wakes up often screaming with nightmares. She screams for you, you know?”
John only barely managed to control his flinch. He hadn’t been there for her, when he should have been. The regret of that would likely haunt the rest of his life.
“Did he send the doctor’s report?” John asked, knowing how thorough his father normally was.
“Everything is in the leather briefcase. The pilot is unloading her luggage now.” He nodded to the plane. “X-rays, everything is there. Your father wants you to take her to Dr. Landry in Somerset and tell him the situation. He can be convinced not to contact the doctors in Boston and he’ll take care of her.”
John nodded. “I know him.”
Landry was old, but he was a damned good doctor. He was also part of a very small network of undercover Homeland agents positioned in the area and under the guidance of a special undercover agent who was supposed to be retired from the Office of Homeland Security.
“Good. Time for me to go.” Thomas nodded to the pilot waving him back. “Take good care of her. She’s fragile, John, no matter how tough she acts.” He clapped John on the shoulder before loping back to the plane and disappearing inside.
John, joined by the owner of the airstrip, ran to the bags and hauled them back to the Denali quickly as the Learjet began to taxi to its takeoff point.
The lights flared back on, and within less than a minute the small jet was airborne once again.
“Let’s load ’em up,” John called to the owner of the Dairy Farm whose private strip was often used for covert landings.
Raymond Hickley was one of those former friends John Walker Sr. rarely spoke of. Men who had helped him when he was younger, and were still there for him now that his children were in the county.
At fifty-five, still fit, and as redneck as they came, Raymond was proud to say he’d served his country without ever stepping off his farm.
John pulled open the back of the Denali and stored the luggage. He loaded the leather briefcase last, setting it to the side to ensure the x-rays it contained didn’t become bent.
“Dawg called while you were talking to your friend,” Raymond told him quietly after they loaded the luggage and the door was firmly closed. “He and his cousins and uncle will be at the houseboat this afternoon. He said don’t make them come looking for you. You should have known Dawg would glimpse that Lear landing and know whose it was. He’s smart like that.” The other man grinned at the warning he was relaying.
John grimaced. Just what he needed, a plague of Mackays descending on them.
At least they were waiting until afternoon. Enough time for him to get Sierra settled in and hopefully to catch a few hours’ sleep.
Opening the driver’s side door, he stepped into the vehicle, started it, then turned and stared at the too quiet young woman beside him.
“Well, lollipop.” He grinned at the nickname that suddenly snapped into his mind. The perverted reasoning behind it had his dick becoming instantly hard. “Looks like your running days are over, doesn’t it?”
He glanced at her, relaxing now, a sense of sudden balance invading that. That last measure of restlessness was easing now. He had Sierra back. Come what may, for the moment, she was his.
Her lips thinned. “It’s nice to see you again, too, John.”
She stared straight ahead, like the perfect little mannequin despite the edge of nerves in her voice. She better be nervous, because he was damned upset that she had run as she had. If she had stayed, if she had faced him, she would have been here with him rather than in an apartment without protection when a rapist came looking for her.
She likely wouldn’t admit it. Yet.
“I bet it is.” He grinned.
This might end up being fun. Hell, yes, he was going to make damned certain it was going to be fun. She had a whole lot of time to make up to him, he decided. A whole lot of pleasure to fit into a very short amount of time if he knew his father. And if there was one person he knew well, it was John Sr.
Maneuvering the Denali to the now empty airstrip, he hit the gas and raced down the clearing to the farm road at the end of the strip.
“Don’t worry, you’re going to have lots of fun,” he promised her. “I intend to make certain of it.”
He could have sworn resignation pulled at her expression before it cleared once again.
She was quiet again. Too damned quiet. This wasn’t the Sierra he knew. She wasn’t quiet. She was either laughing or she was raging. There was rarely an in-between. Happy or angry, that was his Sierra. But this Sierra was a stranger. A woman who wasn’t even bothering to pretend to be the little troublemaker he had known all her life.
That was okay, though. Give him just another hour or so, and he was confident that the Sierra he knew would once again appear. He was going to make sure of it. If knew how to do anything, then he knew how to piss his Sierra off.
John’s father had told her that John was now living on a houseboat, but Sierra hadn’t exactly known what to expect when they pulled into the small Mackay Marina.
The houseboats there ranged in sizes, colors, and names, spreading out to the larger, almost home-sized crafts at the end of the docks.
“I can walk,” she informed him as he opened the passenger side and reached in for her. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs or my ability to move.”
It hurt though. Walking for more than short distances could leave her breathless with the pain that shot through her bruised ribs.
“Nothing but the bruises that went bone deep, you mean?” he grunted as he lifted her in his arms anyway. “Don’t argue with me, lollipop. The walk to the Nauti Dreams is a long one and you’re not used to the shifting of the floating docks yet.”
He picked her up out of the seat, turned, bumped his shoulder into the door to close it, then hit the remote lock.
He did it all so seamlessly, with such male grace and effortless ease that Sierra nearly sighed in envy. No man should be able to move so smoothly. She was already at such a disadvantage with him, he didn’t have to make things worse.
“The bruises are getting better,” she muttered defensively, even though she knew they were still extreme.
“I’m sure they are.” The comment didn’t do much to stem the rising nervousness building inside her.
There were times over the years that she had sworn she knew John better than she should, and she knew he was angry right now. She could see it in the hard set of his jaw when she glanced up at his face, the glitter in his violet-blue eyes.
Those eyes should give him a feminine appearance, but they did more to maximize his masculinity instead.
God, he’d changed so much. He wasn’t just darker, his hair lighter. His muscles were harder, his chest broader. She was beginning to wonder if he was even the same man she had known in Boston.
“Here we are.” He stepped confidently from the floating walkway to the deck of a two-story houseboat whose side was emblazoned with the words NAUTI WET DREAMS. The play on words would have had her eyes rolling if she weren’t so damned tired.
The sliding glass door swung open easily and John stepped inside to the dim, cool recess of the craft. Moving several steps to a large sectional couch, he set her down easily before staring down at her for long moments.
“Stay put,” he told her, his voice rougher than she remembered. “I’ll bring your luggage in then we’ll see about getting you some breakfast.”
“I don’t need breakfast.” She needed to sleep. Between preparing to leave, the stress, and the early morning flight, she was exhausted.
“You’ll eat it anyway,” he informed her, arrogance fairly oozing from his pores. “I’ll be right back.”
He would be right back, which meant she had very little time to shore up her defenses, and to hopefully find a way to keep her heart from being broken. Again.
THREE
John didn’t walk back to the Denali, he stomped. His heavy work boots pounded against the floating docks as he made his way back to dry land and the marina parking lot.
Her throat was still bruised. He could see the marks against her pale flesh.
His fists clenched at his side as he fought to breathe through the agonizing fury. It tore at his insides with a force that made him want to howl. Son of a bitch. He’d kill the bastard responsible if he ever had the chance.
She was tiny, so fucking petite. He could span her waist with his hands and likely have room left over. Large, marbled gray eyes stared back at the world with an innocence that made him wonder, considering the crowd she used to run with when she was younger and the rumors he heard, if his fantasy dreams of that night with her might be more reality than wishful dreaming. That long swath of blue-black ringlets that fell from her head only made her look more endearing, more fragile. So fragile he couldn’t believe the bastard that bruised her hadn’t managed to break her.
Sierra wasn’t a woman who could be handled with anything less than gentleness. A hard wind bruised her tender white skin, everyone who knew her, knew that. She often joked that she couldn’t walk through a room without marring her skin.
And it always hurt. She would pout if she bumped against something, rub the offended flesh, and glare at it as though the weakness irritated her.
She was strong-willed as hell though, so he’d always thought it evened out. She would stand up to anyone, nose to nose, and had on occasion, out argued even John’s father. That wasn’t easy to do.
John couldn’t handle the emotions rising inside him at the moment, the thought of the attempt that had been made to hurt her. To destroy her. The pure anger. The need to go to his knees before her and kiss every inch of bruised flesh, to beg for her forgiveness for not being there to protect her. The need to demand explanations, to beg that she stay, to simply hold her, was tearing him apart.
He’d never had so many emotions surging through him. For a man that prided himself on his control, he was growing close to losing it. Because despite the bruises, he wanted her. He wanted to touch her, kiss her from head to toe, show her all the gentleness he could find within himself, and he wanted to fuck her until they were both screaming from the pleasure.
