He upped the ante with another step, trying his damnedest to make it look like he meant business, his mind set on escape.
They stood less than five feet apart, staring each other down and sizing each other up. Man, she was gorgeous. Every damned male nerve in his body zeroed in on the fire in her eyes. The I-dare-you tilt of her chin. The way she’d spread her feet, blocking his exit like she thought she could take him. Just the sight of all that audacious courage brought a new dimension to the game.
She tossed her head, sending a ripple through her shiny hair, and he was falling. Too fast. Too hard. Too damned soon.
“Get back into bed, Taylor,” she ordered like she had a right to boss him.
Her command did him in. Blood flooded his nether regions at the thrill of the hunt. He curled his fingers into fists, fighting the urge crush her against the door behind her, to twist those ebony tangles into a knot and force her head back. Pin her. She needed a good hard kiss, and GAH! The idea was just plain—tempting. But crazy. So not going to happen. Women like her wanted everything he hated. Home. The appearance of a happy family for appearance’s sake. They assumed he aspired to be a general, too. Wrong.
She took another step, that no-nonsense gleam back in her eyes. A smile tweaked the corners of her mouth. She honestly believed that she, a cunning female predator, could take him down? Never. Not if she bulked up on steroids and gained another hundred. Or two.
She pointed a dainty finger at the bed like he might’ve forgotten where it was. “You’re not leaving until I’ve told you what you need to know. You’re not well enough to travel, so sit.”
Was she nuts? A black belt? He could take her—she understood that, right?
He looked her over just in case he’d missed something. No weapon. No Taser. No billy club hidden behind her back. How did she think she was going to get a big guy like him back to bed, much less make him behave?
He wasn’t some kid she could pick up and tuck under the covers. Okay, so maybe she could knock him over. The ankle cuffs were her only advantage, but he could take her if she tried anything funny. She needed to back off and she needed to do it now.
He squared his shoulders, pulled himself up into all of his badass glory and took one last threatening step. Gracie needed to back off.
Shit. The floorboards rolled under his feet. Damned if she wasn’t right. He staggered, reaching for the bedrail. Something. Anything but the floor that was coming up fast.
Gracie flew to his side, her palm flat to his chest, holding him up instead of knocking him down.
Okay, so she’s damned attractive AND strong. Not a bad combination when a guy’s going down for the count.
He clutched his chest. Bleeding to death jumped to mind. She might be right again.
“Back off. I’m falling. Get out of my way.”
“No. I’ve got you. You can make it. Hang on tight. We can do this together. I know we can.”
She wrapped his arm over her shoulder, and he forgot he was supposed to be the one scaring the hell out of her. His heart pounded at the distance between himself and the bed. No way could he stay on his feet long enough to make it there. Crawling might be easier. “Let me go, Gracie. Don’t want you to get hur—”
“No way, Taylor. I let you go once. I won’t do it again.”
Her words made no sense. Want to or not, he sank against her, thankful for the support. She hunkered into the crook of his left armpit, one hand circling his waist, the other gripping his left bicep, now draped over her neck.
Just in time.
His knees buckled. He dropped to the edge of the bed, clamping the sheet to his middle while she pushed him to his back. How embarrassing. She could’ve used her pinkie finger, but damn, even the ceiling danced overhead. He squeezed his eyes shut to make it stop, but he also noticed she kept him covered. The wrist restraints were back on. Escape seemed a long ways off.
Fine. Whatever. Tie me up again. Just don’t take my sheet.
She went to the foot of the bed and undid the ankle cuffs. Gracie left the room and quickly returned with a cool compress for the back of his neck, another to wipe his face. She’d won.
He closed his eyes and let her do her thing.
“You’re not ready for walking. Or fighting,” she whispered as she tugged the blanket over his chest. Just as gently, she positioned a fresh ice pack beneath his head. “Here. This will help.”
“I don’t understand,” he mumbled. “What’s so important you won’t let me leave? What do you need to tell me?”
She didn’t answer. Soft cool fingers smoothed over his cheek, but he was too tired to resist. Walking to the head, a whopping twenty-foot round trip, had taken everything. So did almost falling. Being rescued. By—a woman.
She hummed that same familiar tune while she checked his bandages and pulled the blanket up to his chin.
“I’m listening. Please, just tell me. What do you want from me?” His eyes blinked heavy. The room faded to gray, but not before he felt her warm whisper against his ear.
“Remember me.”
“What do you mean, my son’s missing?” General Armstrong’s voice on the phone turned from crisply professional to nasty in quick order.
“He hasn’t shown for work yet today, sir,” Alex explained, still shocked that the woman who answered Taylor’s emergency contact number announced he’d reached Two Star USMC General Michael Armstrong’s personal residence. “Has he had an unexpected family emergency? Anything that might have interrupted his work schedule?”
The General answered with another rapid-fire question. “Have you notified the police?”
“Yes, sir. They have a preliminary missing person’s report, but—”
“Then why are you calling me?”
And that was the last straw. This sonofabitch put his pants on the same way every other man on the planet did. Enough was enough. “I’m calling because your son is missing, General. Do you give a shit about that kid of yours, or not?”
“Don’t you dare—”
“Dare what? Care enough to call my agent’s father when he goes missing?”
“You’re walking thin ice—”
“I’ve walked it before. We found blood at the scene of his last sighting. Taylor’s is in trouble. Do you know where he is or not?”
“Why should I? He works for you.”
Alex stifled his nasty temper before it got the best of him and his mouth really took over. “This is purely a courtesy call. If you see Taylor before—”
“I won’t. Keep me informed. And Stewart. You’d better find him. He’s the only kid I’ve got.” He hung up.
Alex slapped the phone into its cradle, angry as hell at General Armstrong’s handling of the crisis. Not once had he sounded like he cared. The ass.
Worry ruled the day. Taylor needed help in more ways than one.
Where are you, son?
There was something about having Taylor in her home that set Gracie’s domestic nature free. She pulled the canister of bread flour from the pantry shelf. He needed good nutrition in order to heal, and she needed something to do with her hands before she got herself into more trouble. After mixing the ingredients for two loaves in her largest mixing bowl, she turned the dough onto her counter and set to kneading.
Of all things, he’d thought Luke was the Chronicle Killer? She shivered the ugly spirit of Taylor’s nearly accurate assessment away. He’d some close to understanding who’d taken him down, only the truth was much worse. Luke. Ryder. Peter. All White Hawks and all suffering from demons they could not escape. Even Taylor.
Slap, slap. Pound, pound. Over and under the dough went while thoughts of her very handsome friend lying sound asleep in the next room filled her head. Despite their less than agreeable encounter, her spirit soared. Or maybe it was because she’d touched him again.
Another sprinkle of flour hit the countertop as she tackled two sticky subjects: bread dough and Taylor. Yes, she’d cleaned and washed him the night befor
e, but she’d been so discreet she’d barely seen anything. Plus, she’d been scared to death she’d seriously hurt him when she’d hit him.
He’d been unconscious most of the night. Treating a patient in a nice clean facility with a doctor on call and a nurse on staff was one thing, but a man with something so horrific as a puncture wound clear through his chest? And a possible concussion? And in her home? Thank God for Dr. Kearney.
She swallowed her guilt and folded the dough into itself, pounding it into submission. Taylor’s wounds could’ve been so much worse. One inch lower and Ryder would’ve hit a lung. Shards of fractured clavicle might’ve struck a carotid artery. Maybe his heart.
Luke was right to protect his stepson. She couldn’t blame him. Poor little Ryder was as lost as Taylor. His drunken, sperm-donor father had not only failed him, but used him as a punching bag when the jerk wasn’t pounding on Ryder’s mother, Trina. The day she ran away, Ryder began a new life. Meeting and marrying Luke brought the confused boy a second chance. Until now.
Gracie shivered again, sure her feelings for this passionate White Hawk family would be the death of her yet. Smoothing the dough in her hands, it was easy to imagine that she caressed Taylor’s cheek instead of the makings of bread.
When she’d first seen him standing in the moonlight at the edge of the woods near Fred’s Bar and Grill, it was difficult to reconcile the fierce Indian warrior he’d resembled with the little boy she’d known. He had the noble stance of a great chief, whether he knew it or not.
His broad, bare shoulders had drawn her eyes to the corded muscles at his neck and upward to his cropped hair, shiny with sweat. With his fists clenched tight and his chin thrust forward, he’d looked magnificent. Ready to fight the world. Or die trying.
“What have I done?” she whispered to the yeast dough beneath her hands.
Despite the painful path that brought him here, he was finally inside the White Hawk circle where he belonged. He needed to know what his father had failed to teach him. Her instincts told her true. Taylor had been fighting since the day General Armstrong took him away. The time had come to stop. To come home. To remember.
Oh, that tough man’s body. A smile tweaked one corner of her mouth. Gosh, he’d changed. His high cheekbones and bronze skin declared his Indian ancestry, but his muscular build and height? Definitely his father’s. Taylor’s thighs were as thick as a few of the tree trunks on her parcel of land, his biceps too. His chest was bare, but scruff shadowed his jaw and chin.
And that face?
Her heart skipped a few beats.
A woman could get lost in that face. His lips were soft and full, not thin and mean like he’d probably intended. Kissable. His brows arched delicately. Not thick and bushy. More like Martha’s. Did he have a clue how handsome he looked? How magnificent?
Those eyes. No longer wide with innocence, but deep and dark with the harsh realities of his world. Troubled. So angry looking that they took her breath. He’d probably meant to frighten her when he furrowed his brows and pursed his lips like he had, but the spark in those brown windows to his soul only melted her into a puddle at his feet. All that pent up anger did was make her want to hold him, to rock him in her arms until he knew something besides fighting and war.
Taylor didn’t pull off wicked or stern very well, which proved the gentle heart of the man. Or maybe it was just that she could see through him. A tender spirit lingered beneath the defiant warrior. The rude mask he led with only belied how he’d survived, not that he’d succumbed to the bitter reality he’d been forced to endure. There was still hope.
She wanted to be the one who reached into the sweet depths of the man and made him smile again. Somehow. Some day. He would. He just needed to remember who he was—Michael Armstrong’s son, yes, but also Martha’s perfect baby boy. Peter’s adored grandson. Gracie Fox’s best friend.
Friend, nothing. A surge of heat roared up the inside of her legs to settle restlessly in her lower belly. Just the thought of the magnificent warrior lying sound asleep in her spare bedroom turned her knees to breakfast mush. Her heart, too. Remembering the feel of his solid biceps under her fingers, the smell of him in her nose kicked her internal thermostat up a few hundred degrees. Sweat. Soap. Taylor. Yeah. Possibly the best men’s fragrance on earth.
She drew in a long breath to steady her racing heart. It was a darned good thing he’d gotten dizzy when he did or she’d have had a hard time getting him back into bed.
Hard time? Back into bed?
Her smile won, filling her face while her dirty little mind pinged over scenarios she never meant to consider. Well, kind of, maybe she did, but not intentionally. Until now. Whether he knew it or not, Taylor Armstrong had a definite effect on her libido.
But his chest. His pecs hung like granite slabs over an athletically trim waist. She would know. She’d just seen him in action, trying to intimidate her when he had nothing on but a sheet. He’d flexed those pecs and biceps like he meant to scare her? Ha. How could a handsome man in a bed sheet intimidate her? It only turned her on. The guy was smoking hot, making her downright combustible.
She’d seen the flush of color creeping up his neck the moment she’d opened the door. Standing there half-dressed, caught by a woman—by her—had turned him on, too. For one brief second, it was difficult remembering who challenged who and why. The inclination to run to him, to smother him in welcome-home kisses almost won.
Wouldn’t he have been surprised to find himself in the middle of a loving embrace instead of a confrontation? In the middle of kisses and hugs? If he’d been in any way inclined, she might even have given herself to him, right then and there.
“Oh Gracie, Gracie, Gracie,” she scolded herself with her mother’s words of long ago. “Stop dreaming, Little Bird.”
She gave the smooth globe of dough one final slap. Her lips crinkled into a full-blown grin. It looked the same. Just like a certain guy’s butt.
Oh, if only.
Chapter Nine
It took a second to get his bearings.
Crap. Still here. Crazy Gracie’s.
From where he lay, he could see right out his open door and into the kitchen. The house was quite small. Had to have at least one more bedroom. Hers. Maybe a living room. Another bathroom. He guessed the front door lined the same wall as the window at his right. Good to know.
His earlier panic at being caught in the Chronicle Killer’s snare had dissipated. Gracie didn’t have the makings of a killer, not unless she was one hundred percent psycho. A little odd maybe, but not a murderer.
He watched his warden at her kitchen sink and counter. Not a bad view. Western boots with stacked heels. Long-legged woman in denims. Shiny black hair tumbling down her back like a waterfall.
If circumstances were different, he might want to get to know her better, maybe take her out for a drink. She had more depth to her than most women. They always seemed to want something from him, something he wasn’t ready to give. If not dinner and sex for dessert, a lifetime of commitments and marriage.
Not going to happen, not after he’d seen how it worked between the General and Mum. That eye-opening experience was lesson enough. Only grief, disappointment, and belittlement were permanent. Suck it up. Get used to it. Move on.
He cocked his head to listen better to the gentle humming coming from the kitchen. The tune was achingly familiar like so many other things in this bizarre but humble prison. He couldn’t place it, yet he seemed able to anticipate the next notes, even the inflection of her voice.
His brain delved automatically into his internal Rolodex of iTunes, but nothing there included this simple melody of—royalty. Undying love. He closed his eyes and let an aching wisp of a long lost memory steal over him, wishing it would materialize enough to really remember, but no. It lingered on the edge of clarity, like an elusive word on the tip of his tongue.
Whispers of tenderness invaded his once clear directive, the need to escape. This enemy required further
study, and he needed to be able to stand without falling. Yeah, that.
The gentle, feminine melody combined with the smell of baking bread induced a wave of nostalgia he couldn’t place, either. Mum never made bread, Christmas cookies, or toast for that matter. She had staff. Not once did she bother with the inconsequential details of housekeeping.
Still, the homey feelings in Gracie’s house filled him with a sense of peace. Of belonging. At least of wanting to belong. Somewhere.
Used to be the Corps. Not anymore. Watching his friends die while trying to bring freedom and a better way of life to the stiff-necked tribal people of Afghanistan who just plain didn’t want it, cured him of foolish ideals. Losing Darrell Carson and nearly losing Gabe Cartwright on the same op cinched the deal. Taylor opted out of his father’s lifelong dream, disappointing the General yet again. He should be used to that. Hell, his one and only son excelled at disappointment.
Suck it up. Get used to it. Move on, General.
The melody persisted. Taylor looked to his hostess, wishing she’d turn around and see him. He could care less about what she’d said, except for those info bites on his biological mother. As a kid, he’d wondered why he looked different than his father or stepmother. And yet, that very difference in appearance had always offered a single ray of hope even while it crushed him.
Because he was different. He didn’t aspire to grinding men beneath his boot. Women or children, either. Even as a child, he’d vowed to himself that he’d never to be mean-mouthed or quick to strike back. Never hurt others to get his way. Never become the General.
The irony of joining the Corps, a veritable war machine, to escape the ongoing battles in his personal life, didn’t escape Taylor. He’d traded one way of life for another and found both wanting.
The General told him once he looked like her, like Martha. Of course, he’d followed what could’ve been a tender moment with his pompous opinion and far from politically correct label. Half-breed. And worse. That was the end of the discussion, which was more like a sermon than a two-way conversation anyway. Taylor didn’t asked again. Why would he?
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