by BJ James
I did?"
He left unsaid that for him four years was an eternity in days, hours, weeks and months. But even an eternity couldn't erase his memories or ease his heart. Just as her strange attitude might hurt, yet still altered nothing. "I don't want your gratitude, Marissa. In fact, gratitude is the last thing I want."
His face was grim as he turned away. He would have left her then in the company of Simon's men, but Billy Blackhawk loomed before him with Simon only a step away. Their private discussion finished, both had come to join the gathering on the porch. The final plans concerning Marissa and the Elias had been resolved before the meeting adjourned, leaving time for pleasantries.
Jefferson was no more in the mood for pleasantries than for gratitude. He needed space, solitude. Time to organize his thoughts, to gather the willpower to curb his desire and his need for Marissa. Before, he hadn't thought past the message or considered the future. All he could think was that she was in trouble and she needed him. Worrying about how he would fit in to her life and she in his, hadn't been an option.
Neither was hurting her, but he had. Damning himself for flinging her gratitude back in her face, he stood in the gathering twilight, with twining currents of the heated air of the day and the cool of the night swirling about him. Of all the scents woven among them, it was her scent that caressed his skin. Her scent he breathed. Of all the looks that glanced at him, then looked away, it was her somber questioning look he saw.
He couldn't bear another minute. As conversation dwindled to a halt, he addressed Simon and Billy. "If there's nothing more to discuss that's pertinent to our plans, I'd like to take a walk by the lake before turning in."
He didn't wait for an answer. With a tilt of his bare head, he left the porch and crossed the stepping stones that led to the lake. At his back the buzz of conversation began again, before him there was the tranquil mountain lake.
Tranquillity that escaped him as he strolled the worn path. Laughter drifted over the water, a moment of returned camaraderie in the wake of tension. Farther along as drooping limbs of hemlock and pine surrounded him, he heard the pad of a footstep and the scrape of a claw against stone behind him.
Turning, he recognized the female Doberman, only because she was the smaller dog. "Jazz." Curling his hand around her cropped ears in a gesture the dog obviously enjoyed, he asked, "What are you doing out here alone?"
"Jazz isn't alone, Jefferson." Marissa skirted the limb of a hemlock. "She came with me." Pausing, gathering her courage she asked, "Would you mind if we walk with you?''
Jefferson hesitated only a half second. "Of course not." Normally he would have taken a woman's arm, even her hand, but tonight with Marissa, he simply walked in silence by her side. A quarter of the way around the natural lake fed by a waterfall and artesian springs, beyond the spill of light from the cabins, she stopped him with a light touch at his wrist.
When he halted she was waiting for his attention. "I'm sorry, Jefferson. I shouldn't have called on you. But I thought that after the years, I...we..." Curious at the sudden, faltering silence, Jazz nuzzled her hand. The hand that had touched him. Finally she continued. "I shouldn't have dragged you into this."
"Who else would you ask, Marissa?" Her hair was silvered by moonlight. She was light and darkness with eyes like midnight. And he was cold and cruel. Something he never believed he could be to any woman. Especially Marissa.
Something he wouldn't be. Certainly not to Marissa. Touching her face, brushing a wayward strand of dark silk from her cheek he tucked it behind her ear. "You were right to reach out to me. I didn't know how right until I met Simon, and his men. I'm sure there were others who would have tried. College friends, even others in Argentina. But would they have had Simon's resources, or men like Yancey and Rick and Ethan? Could they have offered a valley such as this, or a friend like Raven?'' "Or like you," she added softly. "My part in this?" A small gesture encompassed the valley, the towering mountains, the security. And most of all, though it was hidden by the foliage of trees and laurel and rhododendron, Simon's home and the men who gathered there. ''Purely the luck of a telephone call. I had no idea how to begin, or who to contact, so I called Jericho and asked for Yancey.
"I knew from past situations that he had mysterious and powerful connections. Since he can be anywhere in the world at any given time, I knew that if anyone could find him, it would be Jericho. That call was the beginner's luck of this."
A shrug of shoulders that had grown heavier and stronger through the years dismissed his part in her deliverance.
"The rest, God willing, is history. Tomorrow the future begins."
Marissa stared at him. She was taller than average, but still looked up at him. His face, tilted down, was in shadow
But in the silvered gold of the rising moon, his rough clothes were no longer the sensible jeans and boots of a horseman, but the mantle of a knight's armor. Though the
once turquoise-banded mane was cut short and silver that owed nothing to moonlight dusted the darkened blond of
his hair, he was still the Prince Charming she had thought she would never find in the swamp.
He would be that modern-day prince, that kind knight. In the swamp, on the plain, in a valley or a desert, in her heart. For that was the sort of man he was. The man he would always be.
"Tomorrow," she whispered, and clenched her hands to keep from touching him again.
Hearing the unsteady note in her voice, Jefferson framed her face with caressing fingers, gently raising her gaze to his. "Don't be afraid, Marissa. We'll do all right together at the ranch. Nothing will hurt you there." Then, remembering his curt words on Simon's porch, he murmured, "Nor will I."
"I'm not afraid, Jefferson. Not anymore. And never of you." As he looked down at her, his face was still veiled in darkness, but she knew it would reflect the tenderness in his touch. A touch that made her want to tilt her lips into his palm, to trace the gentle power there with her kiss.
Want that turned to searing pain, and to shattering guilt, as she remembered another kind and gentle man. Paulo.
"I should go." Backing away, one hand reaching out to caress the sleek and elegant head of the Doberman, she looked at the mountains that were only black and deep purple shapes lying beneath a darkening sky. She looked at the bright glitter of the lake as it gave back the light of the moon in countless ripples. She drew a deep breath, savoring the scent of honeysuckle and evergreen. Blended with it, the crisp, clean scent of sunshine and fresh mountain air that lingered on Jefferson.
For this moment she could almost imagine a different world where grief and guilt could never dishonor love.
"Marissa?"
She heard his concern, and only then realized that she was staring at him. "It's nothing." She evaded the truth and added the sin of lying by omission to her long list of guilt. "Tomorrow will be a long and busy day. I'll leave you to your walk and your thoughts." She meant to go, to flee from the churn of her emotions. But her conscience wouldn't let her. "I am sorry for what I've done to your life. For the danger I've put you in.
"Perhaps there were others I could have called on or turned to. But the truth is, I didn't consider anyone else. Without regard to what helping me would mean, or how it would disrupt your life, I thought only of you." Her head bowed, she stared at the ground, but saw Jefferson as he'd been that last day in the tree house. Tall, handsome, a golden man with eyes like sapphires. Her best friend, her gentle teacher, a tender lover. The man she couldn't forget.
Her head came up, she looked into the shadow of his face. "I wanted you, Jefferson."
Not sure how to interpret her words, Jefferson stood like carved darkness as he watched her walk away. "Don't be a fool, Cade," he muttered. "Don't read into this what you want it to be."
He was her trusted friend. It was natural that she would want him...to keep a promise.
A long while later, Jefferson retraced his steps, returning to the clearing. Simon's house still bla
zed with lights. The Canfields's was dark. He hoped that meant Marissa slept. She would need her rest for the journey tomorrow.
"Jefferson." Stepping from the gloom of a copse of pines, Raven fell into step beside him. The clasp of her hand at his elbow brought him to a halt. "Would you listen to someone who understands what Marissa is facing and has felt as she feels now?"
He knew from Yancey that Raven had lost her family as horrendously as Marissa had, but at a much younger age. Remembered hurt was there now in the reflected light of Simon's windows. "If that someone were you, Raven, I would listen to anything."
A nod acknowledged she understood he knew her history. Her smile was bittersweet. "Go carefully. Be as patient as Jericho says you can be. Treat each day as a separate accomplishment. Don't rush her, but don't let her heap guilt on herself.
' 'Most of all remember, through no fault of yours, you're a part of her guilt. If she lashes out or turns away from you, it will be for what you represent, not you. Wait for her then."
"What guilt am I to Marissa, Raven? I don't understand."
"She hasn't confided in me. I will only speak of what I see, Jefferson. Grief, guilt. The belief that, in some way she's responsible for the deaths of her husband and parents. Or that she could have prevented the tragedy. Most of all, she thinks it's wrong to feel, to care, especially to love again."
"When you lost your parents and your brother, did you think it was wrong to feel anything but guilt, Raven?"
She didn't reply for the length of a trembling breath. When she answered she was calm. "At first, I did. I hated the world. But I hated myself the most—for living, for feeling when my family never would again. But Simon had come for me and he brought me here to his mother, Rhea. Together they wouldn't let me not survive. They wouldn't let me not be whole."
"You think I can do that for Marissa?"
"Yes." She was adamant. "More than anyone, for I think you've felt the same in your own life. I suspect you still do in some ways. Just go carefully. For your sake and Marissa's. In the end, you might be surprised what you reap in helping her."
"You speak from experience," Jefferson suggested softly.
Raven didn't bother dissembling. "David was troubled when Simon sent him to the valley. I was as recovered as I could be as a solitary woman. Together we found our way to the love and life we share today. It can be the same for you, Jefferson."
"If I go carefully," he finished for her.
"Yes." A smile offered encouragement. "Now I'll leave you to think and rest. Tomorrow promises to be a long day."
She was at the steps of her own home when he called out. "Raven, how will I know what to do?"
"That's the simplest part of all. Follow your heart, Jefferson Cade. Always and forever, follow your heart."
Four
Jefferson brought his truck to a stop by a hangar, recalling another such structure that had housed the small jet flown cross-country by Rick Cahill. So much had happened, so much had changed, it didn't seem possible that the first: flight had been only a little more than a week ago.
Slightly jet-lagged and weary from all that had transpired; in those days, he looked at his watch. Mentally running through the agenda he'd been given, he was pleased. "Perfect timing. But what else would Simon McKinzie expect?"
Realizing that he was talking to himself again, instead of the horses and Satan as he was wont to do on the Broken Spur, he pushed open the door and swung to the ground. With the sun at his back, his stare searching the sky, he wasn't surprised when he heard the plane a second before he saw it. "Perfect timing again."
As Simon expected. The phrase rattled, unbidden, through his brain. It was, he'd discovered, the code of Simon's men. Doing what the man who had drawn them to him required. Not just because it was what they'd been trained to do. But because it was what they wanted. For Simon, for themselves. Most of all for the safety of their country and its citizens.
For people like Marissa.
Jefferson paced, suddenly anxious. Though he knew this part of Simon's proposed itinerary would be executed as meticulously as his part had been. Proving his trust and easing his concern, in a matter of a few more minutes, a small corporate plane touched down and taxied almost to the hangar.
Jogging onto the runway, Jefferson waved at Yancey as if he were accustomed to seeing his friend in the pilot seat of first one aircraft and then another. When it came to The Black Watch, one quickly became accustomed to many things. And learned to expect anything and any hidden skill among its men.
When the passenger door opened, Jefferson was there to help Marissa. His hands spanning her waist, her body sliding against his like a caress, he set her down on the tarmac. Keeping her close within his embrace he recalled another time, another caress. Another land. As his fingers lingered over her ribs and with the fullness of her breast almost touching his chest, he smiled down at her. "Welcome to Arizona, Marissa."
"Thank you," she murmured and stepped out of the steadying protection of his arms with the aplomb of nobility.
Not sure if she was thanking him for sparing her the leap to the tarmac or the welcome, Jefferson turned to Yancey who circled the plane with a clipboard in hand. "Good flight?"
"When you're flying a sweet baby like this—" with an easy move, Yancey tossed the clipboard inside the plane and secured the door Marissa had exited "—it's always a good flight."
"Another case of maintenance that won't happen? Or another plane that's not for sale?" Jefferson drawled.
"This sale is legit." Yancey grinned as he leveled an approving gaze at the sleek craft. "I'm delivering it as a favor to Patrick McCallum, a friend of Simon's."
"The Scottish financier." It wasn't a question, proving Jefferson's surprise quotient. "And strictly a favor?"
"Yes. Though there's a history there. One of Simon's own—a lady sharpshooter, to be exact—rescued Patrick's little daughter from a religious zealot. Patrick and Simon have also worn the Scottish kilts at more than a few of the same gatherings of the clans." Yancey grinned again and slid an arm about Marissa. Bringing her to him, he kissed the top of her head. "If it worked for The Watch that I had this beautiful traveling companion, Patrick will only be delighted."
"You know McCallum, too," Jefferson suggested.
"Our paths cross," Yancey admitted. "Now and again."
Stepping back from Marissa and offering a hand to Jefferson, his grin vanished. His brilliant green gaze held Jefferson's. "Our Merrie's all grown up now, so you two take care of each other. Watch your step, Jeffie."
"Count on it, Yance." There was warmth in the hand clasp of old friends, and memories recalled in names of the past.
Patrick McCallum's new plane was in the air, a diminishing speck of silver flying into the sun that rode high above the horizon when Jefferson turned again to Marissa. "We have hours of driving before we make the canyon. We should go."
"Right," she agreed and would have taken the luggage Yancey had left on the tarmac. Jefferson was there before her.
"After you." He waited until she turned, then together they crossed to his truck. Matching her long stride, he finished setting her bags in the bed of the truck in time to take her arm as she climbed into the passenger seat.
Marissa tensed, but didn't jerk away, and for the second time thanked him politely. When her door was closed, then his, she found being shut away from the world with only Jefferson was too intimate, too tempting. Though the truck was hardly the tree house, and Arizona's barren beauty bore little similarity to the lush lowcountry, memories came rushing back.
Memories that left her floundering, not sure what she felt, or should feel. Tension mounted and wore thin. A keening awareness scraped at raw nerves and crackled between them. An awareness as charged with emotion as it was unacknowledged.
Marissa's way of dealing with what she couldn't resolve was to huddle against the door, keeping her face toward the window. For hours she watched the stark and splendid vistas they
passed by. In those hours she tried to block everything from her mind except how the play of changing light brought new and different grandeur to this vast land.
Jefferson turned twice and angled and skirted box canyons and washes countless times. Eventually the truck always headed due west again. Some roads were paved, some loose gravel, some hard-packed dirt. The first was nearly deserted. The last, totally deserted. Unless one counted a cow or two. Or the occasional small herd of horses. Twice she glimpsed a rooftop, then again a windmill. Another time, a small oil rig constantly churning. Each meant people. But none were visible.
"I should have known," Jefferson said, at last, in a voice rusty from disuse and dust.
Marissa didn't look away from the window, or from the sprawl of unbroken, empty land. When Jefferson thought she wouldn't break her interminable silence, she stirred and shifted, long legs stretching in the little space allowed. Though he concentrated on potholes and bumps and billowing dust, he could feel her gaze on him.
"What should you have known, Jefferson?" Her question was the first she'd asked. The first time she'd spoken since they left the private airfield.
Making the most of this break in her silence, he kept the conversation going. "I should have known Simon was too, cautious to allow you to arrive by a straightforward, conventional route. The man thrives on intrigue. But, thank God he does."
"Yes." With that agreement, she resumed her mute study of the Arizona landscape.
"Yes?" He wanted to hear her voice more than an answer.
“I beg your pardon?''
"Yes, Simon's cautious? Yes, he thrives on intrigue? Or yes, thank God he does? Which is it, Marissa?"
She laughed. A husky, unconsciously seductive note. For ; a modicum of time, her tension eased. "All of the above."
"Yeah." He flashed a grin—for a beautiful woman, a father's daughter, a loyal wife. Even he didn't realize it was his first real grin in days. "Good call, sweetheart."
