God, she’d missed him. Missed that hard look that said, “What the hell is going on?” even as he had yet to ask it. He still smelled of soap, hay from the barn, and the cologne she’d bought him every year from Macy’s in the Galleria. The thought brought tears to her eyes.
“What?” a voice said through the doorway into the kitchen. “As if I don’t have enough to do with all the relatives coming and you not helping a bit. Still stuck in the time when women were supposed to miraculously make a holiday meal appear,” she muttered.
The short woman wiped her hands on a dish towel at her waist, looking over her shoulder back into the kitchen as she walked into the formal dining room, where the table was laid with the best china and crystal.
“I don’t know why . . . ” Her voice trailed off as she turned back toward Jack and stopped.
Morgan saw those green eyes shine. Suzy propped her hands on her slender hips and scowled the tears away. “’Bout damn time you came home. Glad to see you still know where it is.”
The lump in Morgan’s throat grew. She tried to think of something to say.
Suzy, from the looks of it, still visited Tico’s Beauty Parlor once a week to get her hair washed, rolled and ratted. It had always reminded Morgan of a puffed poodle with enough hairspray that a tornado wouldn’t move it.
Morgan smiled.
Suzy frowned. “You look like something the cat drug up and decided to leave alone.” The woman hurried over and wrapped Morgan in a quick tight hug before stepping back. She still smelled like Tresemmé hairspray and honeysuckle.
“I feel like it,” Morgan answered.
Silence settled and netted around them. Morgan gripped her elbows, wishing the trembles would stop. Her stomach tightened.
Suzy looked to the doorway with a narrow-eyed look. “Who the hell are you?”
“Oh,” Morgan said.
Lincoln stepped around Morgan and offered his hand to Suzy, smiling. “I’m Lincoln Blade.”
“So?” Suzy shook his hand and jerked her head toward Morgan. “Doesn’t tell me what you’re doing with her.”
“He—” Morgan started, staring at Lincoln. What did she tell them? “He helped me get home.” Finally. She huffed out a sigh.
Suzy relaxed. “In that case, you’re invited to dinner.”
Jack chuckled and Lincoln merely inclined his head. “Thank you, Miss Hendelbach.”
Suzy humphed, but smiled.
“No one here y—” a voice said from the foyer.
Morgan whirled. “Gideon?”
“Well, I’ll be a sonofabitch,” he said with a grin. “Morgan?” He hurried across the room and lifted her into a bear hug. “’Bout damn time you came home,” he said against her hair.
She hugged him back, breathing deep. Where Jack smelled of the outdoors and the barn, Gideon smelled urban. Expensive cologne and that stupid stuff he used to clean his computer and equipment. It always stung her nose like alcohol. He whirled her once, laughing, squeezing her until she couldn’t breathe.
“You break anything in this room and I’ll have both your hides,” Suzy broke in, though amusement laced her words.
Gideon held her like he didn’t want to let her go. Uneasy memories coated her. Arms holding her tight.
“Put me down, Gid.”
“In a minute.” He squeezed her tighter. “I’m glad you’re home.”
She pushed against him. “Put me down.”
He dropped her on her feet and she swayed. He grinned like a loon. Morgan took a deep breath and tried to calm her chaotic nerves. Another deep breath.
Gideon’s smile slid away. He reached a hand out, saying, “Hey? You okay?”
She stepped back, and into the server. Dishes clanked.
Lincoln stepped around Gideon. “Morgan. Morgan.”
What if they found her here? Should she have come home? She trembled.
“Morgan.” She heard his soft calm voice as if through a tunnel. His hands reached up and turned her to face him. “Morgan,” he snapped.
Her gaze locked with his, her focus sharpened on his face. “It’s not too late, luv. But you’ve got to make a decision and stick with it.”
Dead silence so thick she could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the entryway. A tremble wracked her body. “I’m safe,” she whispered. “I’m safe and I’m home.” She was home. Morgan Gaelord was home. She squeezed her eyes shut. I’m home. I’m home. Morgan Gaelord is home. She opened her eyes and looked at them.
“Yes,” Lincoln said. “You’re safe.” A slight grin tilted the edge of his mouth but didn’t reach his eyes. “And you’re home.”
“Calm down,” Jackson said, stepping forward.
Again she automatically moved away, her breath jerking in her chest. Squeezing her eyes shut, she concentrated on her breathing, on the here-and-now.
“Morgan,” Lincoln said, in that soft soothing voice. She tried to ignore— “Morgan, look at me.”
Slowly she opened her eyes and stared into Lincoln’s dark ones. His mouth was set, a muscle ticking beside his jaw. His hands came up to rub her arms. “You’re safe. You’re home. No one here will ever harm you.” The words were said quietly, to calm. And it worked.
He was right. She was home, so why was she freaking out? The fear was there, thick and waiting under the glaze of relief at coming home. Lincoln’s eyes studied her a moment more, before he nodded and stepped back.
Gideon stood to the side and shoved his hands in his pockets. Both his and J.D.’s frowns were identical. Two years separated them and people had often remarked they could have been twins, with the same build and features.
The phone rang and Morgan jumped, her hand fisting over her heart.
“I’ll get it,” Suzy said, reaching around the corner to the old-fashioned, wall-mounted landline phone. Her frown deepened as she stared at Morgan. “Gaelord residence.”
Morgan took another breath and closed her eyes. Calm, she just had to stay calm. That was all. They’d think she was crazy.
“Eight o’clock, same as it always is, Maybell. Yes. Yes. See you then,” Suzy said before hanging up without a good-bye.
J.D. motioned them toward the kitchen and they all filed in.
“Anyone want something to drink?” Suzy asked. “There’s coffee, tea, cider, whatever.” Suzy motioned toward the counter where pitchers sat beside the carafe of black brew.
“You have tea?” Lincoln asked.
Morgan felt a smile pull her lips. “Not your kind. Ours. Very sweet tea you pour over ice.”
He raised his black brows. “Yes, well then, a cup of coffee sounds just the thing.”
Suzy busied herself making him one. Morgan leaned against the wall and looked out across the rock-walled yard toward the barn. She turned her back to her brothers and stepped into the kitchen. Both of them brushed by her to stand at the counter. There never had been keeping anything from them.
“So you brought our Morgan home,” Suzy started. “There’s a story there, I’ll wager.”
Morgan closed her eyes and wondered what he’d say. “But it is not mine to tell,” Lincoln answered.
She sighed and looked at her brothers, standing side by side. Both their arms were crossed over their chests, their ankles crossed as they leaned back against the counter. Her brothers were staring at her. She glanced at the big iron-worked clock that hung on the yellow wall. The rest of the family would be here soon.
Not mine to tell . . . Which clearly stated that if they wanted to know anything, she’d have to tell them. And what could she possibly tell them? Morgan just stared at her brothers. One in starched jeans and a button-down and scuffed boots, the other in a suit and Gucci loafers. They drank coffee and thought the worst was what they heard on the evening news.
J.D.’s icy gaze locked with hers, and without breaking contact, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Blade, for seeing our sister home. We were very worried.”
Still he stared at her and Morgan couldn’t look away. The
lump in her throat grew, the tightness in her chest pressing her breath out. She looked at them in turn and wondered if she should have come here. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe she should have disappeared.
“Yes, I’m certain you were very worried,” Lincoln answered.
She rubbed her forehead. God, she couldn’t think. Lincoln’s cup clicked onto the countertop. He walked past her brothers and stopped in front of her. “I’m going to the car to get our bags. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Morgan nodded, swallowed and watched him walk out through the dining room.
No one in the kitchen said a word. A headache throbbed at the base of her skull and she rubbed her forehead again.
J.D. watched his sister struggle with whatever plagued her mind.
He glanced at the clock and saw it was almost six. “You should go up and get ready. Shower.” The others had missed her and she was going to at least say hi. He had no idea what the hell was going on. She showed up out of the blue looking sick and weary and not herself. But he couldn’t change the fact that the house would be filled with family tonight.
Her eyes met his, then slid away. For a moment, she stiffened, but shrugged. “Whatever.”
He watched her lick her lips, swallow and walk out the kitchen.
Gideon took a deep breath. “What the hell happened to her?”
J.D. watched her disappear around the corner. “I don’t know.”
Suzy slammed the oven shut, shoved her red sweater sleeves up to her elbows. “Girl should be in bed. She looks half dead. Not entertaining that nosy-ass aunt of yours and the other poachers. Not Eve, of course. Only decent one out of the entire bunch.”
Suzy had firm ideas on everything. One of them was the extended Gaelord family, of which she could mumble about all day if she were so inclined. Thankfully, she rarely was.
She turned on him, and the small bells at her ears jingled. “You go easy on her, J.D. Someone’s hurt her and hurt her bad.” The wooden spoon she waved at him slung brown mixture at his white shirt.
J.D. sighed and scraped it off with his finger, licking it off. “You’re making brownies.”
“Don’t you try and change the subject. Go talk to her. See if she needs anything. And you,” she said, turning to Gideon, “you go see if that Mr. Blade needs help carrying their stuff in.”
“Yes, ma’am,” both he and his brother answered. How was it he rarely felt as if he had control over his own house?
Gideon followed him out of the kitchen, into the dining room and back into the foyer.
Morgan was walking up the stairs, her hand gripping the railing. She did look ill. She was too damn skinny.
“Are you sick?” he asked, more gruffly than he’d intended.
She stopped, slowly turning back to him. “Sick is as sick does.”
Fear slid through him. “Don’t play those damn word games with me, Morg.” He walked to the base of the stairs, she several above him. “Answer me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Don’t think so.”
Well, they’d damn well find out. “You’re seeing a doctor first chance after the holidays.”
Her eyes seemed almost hollow now. She opened her mouth, then shut it.
What was with her?
He started to ask her that very question, but the door shut behind him. He didn’t miss Morgan’s startle at the sound.
“We’re not finished with this discussion.” He turned and saw their guest standing with three bags. The coat had shifted and J.D. caught the glimpse of a shoulder holster.
What the hell?
His gaze rose to Mr. Blade, who stared back at him.
“Jack,” Morgan said, “I’m tired.”
A cell phone chirped out and Mr. Blade set the bags down, reached into his pocket and grabbed the phone out before it rang again.
“Yes?”
They watched as his face hardened.
“When?” he snapped out, jerking his wrist to check the time on a sleek black Movado watch. “How long ago? Any word yet?” Those intense eyes rose and collided with Morgan’s.
J.D. looked from one to the other.
Morgan was pale, sinking slowly down to sit on the steps, her eyes locked on Blade’s.
“Description?” Blade asked, drawing J.D.’s attention back to him.
If possible the man’s features hardened even more, the skin pulling tight over his bones, his mouth thinning, his eyes narrowing. “Bugger it.” He sighed, raked a hand over his face and shook his head. “I don’t fucking know a bloody damn thing anymore. I’ll get back with you.”
With that he hung up.
“What?” Morgan asked softly.
For a moment Blade just stared at her, then said, “They found another. Near Prague. Three weeks old from preliminary tests.”
J.D. looked from one to the other, lost.
“Another?” Gideon asked.
Blade didn’t answer them; instead, his gaze on Morgan, he said, “She rather looked a bit like you.”
* * *
Lincoln saw Morgan to her room, dropped her bag and purse just inside the door. He glanced around. A white iron bed frame, a quilt in yellows and lavender. Sheer curtains, books on a shelf, some photos on the dresser. He didn’t cross the threshold.
She stood just inside, her arms crossed over her chest, slightly bent, as if she might bow at any time.
Without turning, she said, “They want me to go downstairs to play nice with the family tonight.”
The hell she would. “You’re not.”
She turned and smiled at him. “You tell that to my brother. I’m too tired to argue with him. When one argues with Jackson, you have to explain . . . ” Her jaw moved out then back in. “I can’t. I just can’t explain all . . . all . . . ” She shook her head. “Did I make a mistake coming here?”
He leaned against the door frame. “I don’t think so. You need them, and they need you and you will all get through this.”
She took a deep breath and nodded once, then again. “Yeah, maybe.”
“I’ll go talk to your brothers.”
She shrugged and he opened his mouth to say more, then shut it, changing his mind. Instead he merely said, “Get some rest, Morgan.” He pulled her door closed.
For a moment, he stood in the dimly lit hallway, the smell of dinner below filling the house. Smells of roasted meat, spices, sweets, vanilla and cinnamon.
The door behind him opened and he felt her, knew she was there.
Without turning, he said, “You should rest.”
“She looked like me?” Her voice, the pain in it, washed over him.
Instead of answering her, he walked down the stairs, glad when she didn’t follow him. Did she look like me?
He shook his head. One dead body found on the outskirts of Prague. The woman had been dead since the time he’d taken Dusk. Long dark hair, pale eyes, beaten and strangled. Anger beat in him. Lincoln wasn’t stupid. He didn’t believe in coincidences either.
Jezek was not one who would have taken lightly to being fooled. Berlin proved that, as did the dead in Amsterdam. He sighed and shoved the macabre thoughts away. As cold as it was, he was damn glad it was another dead woman in Prague and not Morgan.
At least her brothers would be here to help her. Jackson Gaelord might be a problem on the finer points, but to give the man some slight credit, he didn’t know the whole story. Unfortunately, that could be dangerous. One, her return needed to be quiet. Two, if the brothers didn’t have the whole story, or at least enough, they wouldn’t know what they were dealing with, when or if she needed help. And that was the surface.
She’d had nightmares with him. He didn’t think it would be any different now that she was home. He remembered her eyes, those haunted eyes, long-lashed and pale as a frozen December.
He’d seen pictures of one Morgan Gaelord before her fall from grace. She’d been a model, clothing and lingerie, more of the latter from what he’d seen. Designers from L.A. to Paris
had wanted her to strut their articles of merchandise down the aisle.
Then she’d met a Simon Dixon in Martinique. The rest, as the saying went, was history. Whirlwind romance and the slimeball whisked her half a world away from her family, and straight into the world of gamblers, black markets and prostitution.
Bastard. Too bad the bleeding sod wasn’t still alive. Linc would have liked to have paid him a visit.
But all that was beside the point. Right now his main concern was for Morgan. The rest would come later.
The entryway was empty, and he followed the voices back to the kitchen.
“She looks sick,” Jackson Gaelord said.
“So lay off her, J.D. I know you want her to be there tonight, but for God’s sake . . . ”
Lincoln turned the corner and said into the silence, “Morgan isn’t coming down to entertain any guests this evening.”
For a minute no one said a word. Then Suzy looked at him and said, “Is she resting?”
“She’s upstairs. I hope she’s resting.”
Suzy nodded and picked up a cup. “I made her some cider. She always liked my cider. I’ll take it up to her.” To J.D. she glared, then glanced back at Lincoln. “We really are happy she’s home, Mr. Blade, we’re just very curious.”
“Thank you, Suzy, though I have a favor to ask. Please don’t mention the fact she’s here to anyone tonight.” He kept his gaze on the housekeeper, who was more the mother hen.
She nodded and left the kitchen through a back door that he now saw hid a staircase. There was another entrance into the kitchen from the side—an outer hallway.
Hunted Page 16
