Guarding Laura

by Susan Vaughan

  She might’ve tried to uproot a tree. He didn’t pull away from her. He simply didn’t budge. His hard-hewn jaw was set. “You don’t have to do this, Laura.” He spoke in a low voice serrated by bitterness.

  “No, but you do.” She laced her fingers with his long, callused ones. “You can’t undo injustices and fill in gaps, but you can move on by not denying yourself simple pleasures everyone should experience.”

  She bestowed on him her best come-hither smile and tugged at him again. The thickening fog formed a gray nimbus around the outdoor lights and left jewels of mist on her hair.

  He marveled at how she affected him, even in her paint-stained sweatshirt and jeans. Strands of her damp hair spiraled on her neck and around her animated face. Her giving spirit was cracking the hard shell that encased his heart, and he had no defenses against her. She didn’t want him, except as a protector. When this mission ended, she’d no longer need him. He had to remember that.

  “We ought to get to the cabin. I need—”

  She clutched his arm and whispered, her trembling lips close enough to kiss. Her eyes were owl wide. “There’s a strange man standing behind us. Look by the tree.”

  Cole didn’t need to look. Affable, average build, brown hair, closing in on forty, Kent Isaacs blended into any crowd and drew little attention. He was the perfect choice as invisible surveillance, unless somebody, like Laura, was suspicious to begin with.

  Cole could be a cruel bastard and take advantage. He wouldn’t, but he couldn’t resist nuzzling the delicate shell of her ear as he whispered back. “You can relax. He’s ATSA. Stan has hired two new groundskeepers. I thought you’d noticed him earlier in the theater. He’s assisting with lighting.”

  She inhaled slowly and deeply, exhaled with the same control. “Stan knows?”

  “Had to tell him. He wants to help you. Besides, the intrigue appealed to him like a three-act thriller.”

  Laura relaxed against him, secure and trusting, her hair burnished in the firelight, her scent smoky apple. Brushing hungry mosquitoes away, he nudged her away from the happy campfire scene and to her cabin.

  “Too bad. You would’ve enjoyed toasting marshmallows and listening to Jake’s stories,” Laura said as they entered her cabin. “It would’ve been one less thing to complain about never doing.”

  He hung his windbreaker, wet with mist, on the back of a kitchen chair. “You can make a list and check off every item if you want—bonfire, sailing, horseback riding, a damned cotillion. It’s not the same.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” She poured water into the kettle for tea. “Simple joys like roasting marshmallows as a child don’t make a man who he is.”

  He turned off the gas heater. “Dammit, I smell gas. This was loose again. The pilot light’s out.”

  “I don’t understand. Stan told me at the theater that Burt fixed it today.” At least the thing worked. In a few minutes they could relight it. A little heat would nip the evening chill brought on by the fog. And the sudden chill between them. “So you had a rough beginning. You turned yourself around.”

  “Bully for me,” he growled like an unfed wolf.

  “Don’t you get all defensive on me, Cole Stratton.” Hands on her hips, Laura glared at him.

  The man was all hard lines and uncompromising angles. A hard surface that one day would crack when the hidden fires beneath erupted.

  He threw up his hands. “I know you mean well.”

  “Whining about what you never did makes you a martyr to no one but yourself. Don’t tell me you didn’t get a kick out of sailing. We can even find horses to ride if you want. Maybe we can invite Janus to come along.” Horrified, she stopped.

  The kettle whistled, and she spun back to the stove to prepare her tea.

  He trailed after her as far as the refrigerator, where he’d stocked some root beer. “Speaking of Janus…”

  “Ah, I was wondering when you’d get around to finishing our conversation of this afternoon. My story may rival some of Jake’s more hair-raising tales. It’s not for children.” Describing the attack would be easier than walking this tightrope of desire and tension between them.

  She went to sit on a stool beside the heater, restored to giving warmth. “The weather was hot—one of those humid D.C. October nights—when the murder…when everything happened, but telling it gives me chills.”

  Cole worried about her emotional state for relating this violent incident. He’d witnessed the havoc wreaked on Afghan villagers as they’d detailed atrocities committed by radicals on both sides of the conflict.

  Fixing a somber gaze on her, he sat cross-legged on the floor beside Laura. In the villages, family members had held and soothed hysterical victims. Laura might not want his support, physical or otherwise, but he was ready. “Tell me about Kovar.”

  Clasping her tea mug with both hands, she began. “He’s not very tall, but wide as a house, with dark eyes like iron pellets. I think he enjoyed hurting me. Markos ordered him to kill me, to dispose of me where no one would find me. The beating and…creative knife work were Kovar’s idea.”

  She spoke with the toneless and disjointed remoteness of a computer-generated voice. Or as if she were reading a newspaper account of an unimportant event, not even a crime. Cole figured the impersonal approach prevented the horror of the tale from overwhelming her.

  “He took me to some dark place. I don’t know where. An alley or warehouse. First he used his fists. Then he pulled out a switchblade. I knew what was coming. I remember the blade clicking into place.”

  She stared into the small flame in the heater, as if it kept her warm and steady during the narration. A veneer of calm covered her, a fragile shield of courage. She continued stoically, but with increasing tension in her voice as unseen blows attacked her. Cole longed to wrap his arms around her, but feared his touch might snap her control.

  “The pain was unbearable. Blow after blow on my head, my neck, my ribs. His fists. The knife. I didn’t know which was which. I screamed and screamed…but no one came. I was dizzy and nauseous. And then I lost consciousness.” Her shoulders stiffened as if prepared for another strike.

  “Drink your tea, Laura,” Cole said, his words forced from a constricted throat. Fury seethed in his gut. He lifted the cup to her lips. His hands shook almost as much as hers. “Its warmth will help.”

  As she swallowed the fragrant liquid, her shoulders relaxed. “When I opened my eyes again, the darkness…like the inside of a tomb. I couldn’t tell where. I was so weak, but I could feel and smell. Humidity. Stale beer, blood, vomit—maybe mine—and the ammonia sting of animal droppings. I gagged at the stench.” Tears flowed, but she didn’t seem to know she was crying.

  Cole’s chest ached with the need to take her pain into himself. Unable to resist, he circled her hips with his arms, holding on as her anchor. Telling the story, getting it out, might stave off the nightmares that haunted her.

  “I felt like a hollow shell. So much blood lost. I lay there, bleeding away, drifting. Dying. Then I heard a noise beside me. A chittering sound, like a bird. But not a bird. Something plucked at my sleeve. It plucked again. I felt pricks on my arm…like needles in a cluster.”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed at that. A chill prickled his spine. He knew what she was about to say. His grip on her tightened.

  “I…reached out, and touched—a rat.” Laura’s voice was cold as a January moon. “It was standing on my arm, licking at the blood soaking my blouse sleeve.”

  She paused as a shudder wracked her slim body, then continued in that remote voice. Shivering like a hypothermia victim, she swayed, boneless, and nearly fell from the stool. But still the words came in that artificial monotone.

  Cole’s gut roiling with fury, he listened quietly as she related the shock of touching the sinuous, furry body. Of realizing what the creature was doing. What it wanted.

  “Oh God, oh God, I panicked. Fear and revulsion of that rat threw me to action. I flailed out with both
arms.”

  “What happened?”

  “The thing ran away. And then I scooted as far away from where it had been as I could. I came up against a curved wall. Nausea choked me, but I didn’t feel hollow. I lay there awhile to gather strength. I panicked again when I realized the foul creature might return. What if I were too weak to fight it off? What if more followed the smell of blood?”

  Her knuckles shone white from her death grip on the tea mug. Cole held her tightly, in a grip of support.

  After a deep breath, she continued. “I knew if I stayed put, no one would find me. Panic would do me no good, so I forced myself to tamp down all emotion. I would not let Markos win. I was weak. I’d lost a lot of blood, but I was alive. And I did not want to die in that box.

  “Gradually I figured out I was locked in a car trunk. An old car, without a trunk safety latch. If a rat could find an escape, I thought so could I. I remembered reading somewhere about the seat back being a weak spot.”

  She described how she rolled to it and found where the rats had gnawed a hole. Moving doubled, trebled the pain, as if her attacker was thrashing and slashing at her again.

  Cole ached to protect her from the agony of remembered pain blading into her bruised ribs and her slashed neck. His heart swelled at her bravery and willpower.

  “Pain was good,” she said. “Pain kept me alert. I scooted around so I braced my feet against the seat divider. I had no strength to kick, so my leather pumps couldn’t budge the hard surface. I kept kicking until exhaustion put me to sleep. When I woke up—no telling how much later—I kicked again. And again. And again. Until finally the seat back collapsed and I saw light. And a hole big enough for a gang of rats.”

  She gave a bitter laugh, a laugh dragged up from the roots of her tortured soul. “Dragging through that hole was like squeezing toothpaste from a tube. It might have been hours later that I flopped out onto the ground.”

  “The report said you were in a junkyard. In a car slated to be crushed the next morning.” Nearly as wrung out as she, he drew in a ragged breath, took the empty mug from her stiff hands and covered them with his. “You got out just in time.”

  “I found the night watchman. He helped me. He called the police. I’ll never forget the poor man’s shocked expression when I shuffled toward his trailer. He thought I wore a red shirt. It was my best cream silk blouse, but it…the blood. I…” Her voice scraped, as if she’d swallowed nails.

  “Shhh, Laura, everything’s all right. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” He slid his hands up her torso to her hunched shoulders. He kneaded at the tension there. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known. Most people would have given up and died. But not you. You turned tragedy into triumph.”

  And then her nearness, her maple-syrup eyes, live wires shooting sparks between them, robbed him of thought.

  He sieved his fingers through the silky hair at her nape. Twining his fingers in it, he traced her satiny skin from ear to chin with his thumb before he released the softly curling locks. He touched his mouth to the salt trails on her cheeks and kissed away the remaining tears.

  From each stroke, tingles zapped his nerve endings. He didn’t want to feel this voltage, knew he should keep their relationship professional. But the sensual pull sapped his will, and the tension between them shifted to an intangible lure that transcended conscious feelings.

  “But I…” Her words died as the spark in her eyes heated to amber flame.

  Caught in each other’s stare, neither moved.

  Laura’s gaze roamed over his heated face and settled on his lips. His complete focus on her, his strength and support kept her from falling into an abyss of panic while she relived that harrowing experience. She felt cleansed of the horror, its talons withdrawn and the pain soothed after holding it all in for so long. And now she had another need.

  Cole.

  He tugged on her hair to tilt her head back as he lowered his mouth. “Oh Laura, I can’t keep away.”

  Offering no gentle, exploratory kiss, his mouth plundered and devoured hers. While one hand cupped the back of her head, the other bracketed her body.

  Her knees dissolved, and she could only clutch at his shirtfront as she slid from the stool onto his lap. His heart raced beneath her fingers.

  She fitted her lips to his, claiming his mouth as he did hers, savagely and hungrily. He tasted of heat and hunger and something darker.

  As the kiss deepened, she forgot everything—her fears about the past, about the present—everything but the intoxication that reached deep into her soul. With no other man had she ever felt this intense rush of agony and pleasure, this piercing need, this spiraling fall, as if she’d tumbled off a precipice only to soar. No other man. Only Cole.

  Too late.

  She’d fallen over that precipice into love with him.

  If she’d ever stopped loving him.

  Her heart stumbled and slammed against her ribs. The knowledge that loving him would bring only more pain to both of them suffocated her until she could barely breathe.

  But it was Cole who ended the kiss. “Damn, I didn’t mean to take advantage of you.” Lifting his arms, he let her slide away. Desire dilated his pupils so there was almost no blue. “Wanting you is a fire in my blood. And you want me just as bad. You can’t deny it.”

  Fearful her emotions played across her face, she could only shake her head as she pushed to her feet.

  At her bedroom door, she turned. “No, Cole, I can’t deny it, but I can refuse. What we had is over. It’s too late now. Nothing can change what happened. We’re not the same people.”

  “Of course we’re not the same. No one is. But—”

  “We have no future together. Our lives are different.”

  When more questions furrowed his brow, she knew the time had come.

  She owed him the truth, the simple part.

  Chapter 8

  She drew a deep breath, steeling herself. “You need to know something I’ve kept from you. I didn’t tell you before because I wasn’t prepared. Because it was—is painful. We were still half angry with each other, and—”

  “It’s okay, Laura.” Cole waited. He was on his feet, arms at his sides, but his hands flexing. The wary wolf. “Tell me.”

  Aching at the pain on his face, she held the doorknob for support. Her throat was dry, so she could barely speak. “After…after our weekend together, I was pregnant.”

  He reeled backward as though she’d slugged him. His tanned cheeks paled. “Pregnant. A baby. But…”

  Tears burned her eyes, and she tried to blink them away, but the dam had burst. “I had a…miscarriage.”

  “Oh, God, Laura. What a hell of a thing.” Scrubbing his knuckles across his day’s growth of dark stubble, he started toward her, but stopped two steps away. Distrustful or did he see her invisible barrier? “Damn, there were a couple of times that weekend we didn’t use protection. I’m sorry. I should’ve known better.”

  She swiped the tears off her cheeks and gulped down the lump in her throat. She closed her mind to the images of the lost baby and others that could never be. A boy with Cole’s eyes. A little girl with his dark curly hair.

  Her chest ached with tension and regrets. She resisted running into his arms. “We both should have. I admit I blamed you at first. I hated you for the pregnancy, for deserting me, for everything. But later I realized you were the easy target. I was responsible, too.”

  “Laura, I have to know. Can you tell me how it happened, the miscarriage?” His voice throbbed with anguish.

  “Not now.” Every cell in her body slumped with exhaustion. She’d tell him about the accident, but later. She’d make him accept she’d been through too much for them to try again.

  “Aw, hell, of course. I already put you through the wringer.” The realization hit him that she’d stretched her emotions to the bursting point, but desperation to know more tensed his whole body. “Enough for one night. I can wait.”

  Nodding mu
tely, she escaped to her bedroom.

  The raucous reveille of crows awoke Cole from a fitful sleep. He couldn’t blame the damned couch. Half the cushions sagged nearly to the floor with his weight, and springs in the rest bayoneted his back. Lumpy as it was, he’d sacked out on worse. Not discomfort but awareness of the woman sleeping in the bedroom had kept him on edge.

  He blinked at the window, hazy with sunlight seeping through the fog. Raking a hand through his head, he headed to the shower.

  The hot water pelted his head like a waterfall, but couldn’t wash away last night’s images. She’d opened her soul to him by relating her painful escape from death. Afterward she’d clung to him, and they’d kissed until both were aflame.

  And then he’d pushed her into revealing what she’d kept secret for so long. A baby. His heart twisted with joy and fury. And doubt. Had he slipped up on purpose? Had he wanted her so much that he’d risked a pregnancy to bind her to him?

  What a farce. As if her parents would’ve allowed it.

  He tried to picture her round with his baby growing in her belly. Turning his gritty face up to the shower spray, he allowed a small grin before the rest of what she’d said flattened it. The miscarriage had robbed them of a child.

  Was it a boy or a girl? What caused the miscarriage? So many questions peppered his brain that he felt as wired as if he were dodging an AK-47 volley from an Afghan cave.

  Laura had been right to put a halt to their lovemaking. They had more hurdles before the path smoothed out.

  But he wished she’d at least let him hold her and comfort her—and himself, if he was honest—when she was so clearly in pain. She’d suffered more over the years than he’d imagined.

  Yet comforting would’ve for sure led to something more.

  He’d kept imagining lying with her in that double bed. The damned iron frame creaked with her every toss and turn. Ten times he’d thrown back the covers to go to her, and ten times he’d called himself a fool.

  Was she sleeping in those sinfully short boxers and the thin T-shirt that barely veiled her pale nipples? His hands cupped unconsciously for the soft weight of her breasts, more generous than in her youth. Her apple fragrance, the scent of her shampoo, perfumed the bathroom.