The Return of Rafe MacKade

by Nora Roberts

  “That’s the answer?”

  “Hey, it works.” He slammed her door, then circled the truck to climb behind the wheel.

  “You’d have gone with him. After Joe.”

  “We’d have all gone with him.” Shane glanced in the rearview, then whipped the truck into a quick and illegal U-turn. “Dev and Jared would have spouted off for a while about law and order. We’d have shoved each other around. Then we’d have gone with him.” With some regret, he shook his head. “It would’ve been fun.”

  “Fun.” She could almost laugh as she let her head sink back on the seat.

  “Nobody messes with a MacKade woman.”

  “Oh, really? And is that my status at this point?”

  He caught the tone, and then, with a wary glance, the martial look in her eyes. “I just meant…seeing as you and Rafe… That is, the way he’s…” Even a MacKade knew the value of retreat. “I ain’t touching this one.”

  He pulled up at the base of her stairs and looked up to study the door. “Looks like somebody beat me to it.”

  “What?” She was still simmering.

  “I’ll check it, but it looks from here like it’s already been fixed.” He got out of the truck, climbed the stairs. “Yep. Few nicks and scratches, but it’s back on its hinges.” As a precaution, he tried the lock, gave it a good shove. “Solid. Rafe probably took care of it.”

  “I see.” It did nothing to appease her. “I’ll have to be sure to thank him, won’t I?”

  “Yeah.” Shane retreated again, backing down the stairs. “Are you going to be all right? Want me to get you anything, or hang around?”

  “No, no, I’m fine. Just fine.” It wasn’t pleasant to take out her keys, but she did it, turned the lock. “I appreciate the ride.”

  “No problem.” As he hurried back to his truck, Shane decided Rafe had a problem. A big one. It gave him a reason to smile all the way through town.

  Chapter 10

  It felt good to beat on something. Even if it was only a nail. To prevent himself beating on something, or someone else, Rafe had closed himself inside the east-wing bedroom. The look in his eye had warned any and all of his men to keep their distance—if they wanted to keep their teeth.

  The sounds of construction bumped against the walls, a sound just violent enough to suit his black mood. Rafe ignored the nail gun at his disposal and beat in nails with hammer and muscle. Every new stud that he secured with nails and a swing of his arm was Joe Dolin’s face.

  When the door opened behind him, Rafe bared his teeth without looking around. “Get the hell out. Stay out or you’re fired.”

  “Go ahead and fire me.” Regan slammed the door at her back. “Then I can say what I have to say to you without damaging our professional relationship.”

  He looked over his shoulder now, briefly. She’d changed, he noted. Not just the slacks, but everything—shirt, blazer, jewelry. From her hair to her shoes, she was neat as a pin.

  But he remembered exactly how she’d looked, frazzled, pale, with blood on her clothes.

  “You don’t want to be here right now.” He set another nail, shot it home.

  “You couldn’t be more accurate on that, MacKade, but I’m here.”

  She’d had to shower first, had to scrub herself everywhere and throw out every stitch she’d been wearing when Joe touched her. But she was steady again, and ready to deal with Rafe MacKade.

  “I want to know what the hell is wrong with you.”

  If he told her, she was liable to laugh in his face. And that, he was dead sure, would push him over that final edge.

  “I’m busy, Regan. Weather’s cost me a full day.”

  “Don’t hand me that. Look at me when I’m talking to you, damn it.” When he didn’t, just kept battering nails into wood, she fisted her hands on her hips. “Why did you leave Devin’s office that way? Just leave?”

  “I had things to do.”

  To illustrate her opinion of that, she kicked at a toolbox. “I suppose I’m to thank you now for fixing my door.”

  “I’ll bill you.”

  “Why are you mad at me?” she demanded. “I didn’t do anything to—”

  Her breath sucked in as the hammer sailed across the room and crashed into a newly framed wall.

  “No, you didn’t do a damn thing. You just got yourself tossed around, bruised, bloodied up and damn near raped. Why the hell should that bother me?”

  Someone had to be calm, she told herself. Obviously, the way his eyes were glowing, it was going to have to be her. “I know you’re upset about what happened.”

  “Yeah, I’m upset.” He picked up the toolbox, heaved it, because it made more sense than throwing her around. Metal and steel crashed and scattered like small bombs. “I’m just a little upset. Now get out.”

  “I won’t.” Instead she angled her chin. “Go ahead, big guy, throw something else. When you’ve got it out of your system, we’ll have a civilized conversation.”

  “You’d better get it through that thick head that there’s nothing civilized about me.”

  “Oh, that’s coming through loud and clear,” she tossed back. “What’s next? You want to take a shot at me? That should prove you’re a bigger man than Joe Dolin.”

  His eyes went black. For an instant, a heartbeat, she thought she saw hurt mixed with the rage. And it shamed her. “I’m sorry.” Fumbling, she lifted her hands. “You didn’t deserve that. I didn’t mean that.”

  Now there was only rage, viciously controlled. “You usually say what you mean.” He held up a hand before she could speak again. “You want to have a conversation, fine. We’ll have a damn conversation.”

  He strode to the door, simmering when she flinched. Yanking it open, he bellowed to every corner of the rambling house. “Out! Everybody out, now!”

  He slammed the door again, satisfied by the scramble of feet and the clatter of tools.

  “There’s no need for the work to stop,” she began. “I’m sure this will only take a few minutes.”

  “Sometimes it just can’t be your way.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No, I don’t guess you do.” Disgusted, he hauled open the door again. “Somebody give me a damn cigarette,” he shouted. But as there was no one brave enough to approach, he ended up slamming the door again.

  Regan watched, quietly fascinated, while he paced and swore. His shirt was shoved up to the elbows, a tool belt was slung at his hips like a holster. He’d wrapped a bandanna around his forehead to catch the sweat. He looked, she thought, like a bandit who would just as soon kill as steal.

  And it was certainly ridiculous to be aroused.

  “I could make coffee,” she began, then let out a breath at the razor-edged look he shot her. “Maybe not. Rafe—”

  “Just shut up.”

  Her back jammed straight as a poker. “I don’t care to be spoken to that way.”

  “Get used to it. I’ve held back long enough with you.”

  “Held back?” Her eyes went wide. If he hadn’t looked like a maniac, she might have laughed. “You’ve been holding back? I’d like to see what you consider cutting loose.”

  “You’re about to.” He gnawed off the words like stringy meat from a bone. “You’re ticked off that I left? Well, now you’re going to be treated to what would have happened if I’d stayed.”

  “Don’t you touch me.” Her arms shot up, hands fisted like those of a boxer ready to spar. “Don’t you dare.”

  Eyes simmering, he closed a hand over her fist and used his leverage to push her back to the door. “Same goes, darling. I gave you a chance to walk, you didn’t take it.”

  “Don’t call me darling in that tone of voice.”

  The way his lips peeled back, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see fangs. “God, you’re a piece of work.” He tossed her hand down and walked away, because it was safer for both of them. “You want to know why I left. That’s the big, burning question, isn’t it? T
hat’s what had you coming over here? Coming to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t come to me this morning when he threatened you. You didn’t come to me when he hurt you.” And that, Rafe thought, however it devastated him, was that.

  “I had to tell Devin,” she began.

  “Yeah. You had to tell Devin.” Bitterly calm now, he turned back. “You know what I heard in that nice and detailed statement you made, Regan? Dolin came into your place this morning, just like I thought he would.”

  “And I handled it,” she countered. “Just like I told you I would.”

  “Sure, you’re great at handling things. He threatened you. He scared you.”

  “Yes, all right, he scared me.” And she was scared now, too, she realized, of where this was leading. “That’s why I called Devin.”

  “But not me. You went down to Devin’s office, filed your charges.”

  “Yes, of course. I wanted Joe arrested.”

  “Nice and tidy. Then you went grocery shopping.”

  “I…” She linked her hands together, pulled them apart. “I thought—I knew Cassie was going to be upset, and I wanted… I just thought if I fixed a meal it would make us both feel better.”

  “And in all that time, going to Devin’s, to the market, walking there and back, you never stopped to call me. It never even occurred to you, did it?”

  “I was—” She opened her mouth, closed it again. “All right, yes. It was my first reaction, but I calmed down and decided against it.”

  “You calmed down?”

  “Yes, I realized it was my problem, and my responsibility to handle it.”

  Her simple honesty sliced through him like a blade. He could almost see himself split in half, one part rage, one part misery. “And after he had you, after he had his hands on you, and hurt you, tried to—”

  He couldn’t say it. If he did, he’d fall to pieces.

  “You didn’t think to call me then, either. I only heard it from Shane because he was in with Devin when the call came through, and he figured I’d be interested.”

  Somehow, she realized, she had hurt him. She’d never meant to. Hadn’t known he could be hurt. “Rafe, I wasn’t thinking at all.” She started forward, stopped, knowing it would do no good to go farther. “I was numb. By the time I could really think again, I was in Devin’s office. It all happened so fast,” she said hurriedly, desperate now to make him see. To understand. “And part of the time it seemed as if I wasn’t really there at all.”

  “You were handling it.”

  “I had to. It wouldn’t have done any good to fall apart.”

  “You’re real good at keeping yourself together.” He walked over, picked up the hammer. “All by yourself.”

  “I have to be. I expect myself to be, because—”

  “You don’t want to be like your mother,” he finished for her.

  It sounded so callous, and so foolish. “All right, yes, that’s partially true. It’s important for me to be a certain way, but that really doesn’t apply to this. If I didn’t call you, it was only because…”

  “You didn’t need me.” His eyes were level, and no longer hot. He had very little heat left inside him. “You don’t need me.”

  A new kind of panic was twisting through her. “That’s not true.”

  “Oh, the sex is great.” He smiled then, coolly, humorlessly. “That’s a need we handle together real well. It’s my problem that I let it get personal. I won’t make the mistake again.”

  “It’s not about sex.”

  “Sure it is.” He plucked a nail out of his pouch, set it in place. “It’s been about sex right from the get-go. That’s all we’ve got. It’s plenty.” He rammed the nail home. “You know where to find me when you’ve got the itch.”

  The blood drained from her cheeks and froze around her heart. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “Your rules, darling. Why complicate a good thing, right?”

  “I don’t want things to be this way between us, Rafe.”

  “Well, now I do. Take it or leave it.” He rammed another nail into wood. She wasn’t going to get the chance to hurt him again, he told himself. No woman hurt him like this.

  She opened her mouth, primed to tell him she’d leave it. Leave him. And couldn’t. Tears burned in her eyes, in her throat. Could there have been a worse possible time, she wondered, for her to realize she was in love with him?

  “Is that the way you really feel?”

  “I try to say what I mean, too.”

  Unwilling to humiliate herself, she swallowed the tears. “And all this is because you’re angry about what happened. About how I dealt with it.”

  “Let’s just say it made everything clear. You don’t want to clutter up your life, right?”

  “No, I—”

  “Hell, neither do I. Call it ego— I’ve got one. I didn’t like you running to my brother instead of me. Like you said, I’ve got it out of my system. We can just go back to the way things were. The way things are.”

  She hadn’t realized how much she could prefer that lethal temper over this calculated disinterest. “I’m not sure that’s possible. I can’t give you an answer right at the moment.”

  “You mull it over, Regan. You do that real well, too.”

  “Would you rather—” She pressed a hand to her lips, waited until she could steady her voice. “If you’d rather suspend our business relationship, I can give you the names of some other dealers in the area.”

  “No reason for that. I’m already behind.” When he turned to her, all he saw was that her eyes were dry, her face was composed. “I can take shipment on this room in about a week, if you’ve got a problem with storage.”

  “That’ll be fine. I’ll make the arrangements.” She turned and reached blindly for the doorknob. Terrified she’d crumble, she walked away quickly. She didn’t start to run until she was outside, with the wind slapping her wet cheeks.

  When he heard the door close below, Rafe sat down on the floor. At the sound of weeping shimmering in the air, he rubbed his hands hard over his face.

  “I know just how you feel,” he muttered.

  It was the first time in his checkered career that anyone had managed to break his heart. His only solace was that he’d make damn sure it was the last.

  The predicted ice storm raged through, glazing the snow, turning the streets to glass. It was days before the temperature inched up enough to soften it. Each night the thermometer would plunge again, hardening and slickening every coated surface.

  It didn’t mean a damn thing to Rafe. The lousy weather gave him an excuse to stay just where he was, work twenty out of every twenty-four hours. With every nail he hammered, every wall he sanded, the house became more his.

  When he couldn’t sleep, even after exhausting himself, he wandered the house with the other ghosts.

  He was too busy to think about Regan. Or so he tried to convince himself.

  Whenever he did, whenever she snuck through his well-fortified defenses, he just worked harder, longer.

  “You look a little ragged, pal.” Devin lit a cigarette and watched Rafe hammer freshly painted baseboard into place. “Remember that book—Dorian Gray? The way it’s starting to look, you’re the picture in the closet, and this house is old Dorian.”

  “Pick up a hammer, or beat it.”

  Instead, Devin crouched, ran a fingertip over the wide, carved trim. “Sure is pretty as a picture. What’d you call this color?”

  “Rose dust.” He framed the words like a dare.

  “Yep, sure is pretty.” Devin used an empty coffee can as an ashtray. “If you’re into pink.”

  Rafe spared him a look. “You trying to start something?”

  “Nope, just making conversation. They transferred Joe from the hospital today.”

  Rafe’s eyes iced over before he turned away. “None of my business.”

  “He didn’t lose his eye,” Devin went on easily. “Be w
earing a patch for a while though. They can’t tell yet if there’ll be permanent damage.”

  “She should have aimed between his legs.”

  “Yeah, too bad about that. Well, I thought you’d want to know, he pleaded guilty to the B and E, the assault, on advice of counsel. They dumped the attempted rape charges to get the guilty plea and avoid trial, but he’s not going to pass Go.”

  Rafe didn’t want to care. “How long?”

  “My guess is three, solid. Before you say it’s not enough, I’m going to the sentencing tomorrow myself, and adding weight. When he’s up for parole, in a year or so, I’ll go back and add more.”

  “I said it’s none of my business.” Rafe toed in the last piece of baseboard. “How’s Cassie holding up?”

  “Okay, I guess. Jared’s pushing through the divorce. With the spousal abuse and adultery, it won’t take the usual year. Joe’s not in much of a position to contest it. The quicker it’s done, the quicker she and the kids can get on with things.”

  Thoughtfully he tapped his cigarette out in the can. “Aren’t you going to ask how Regan’s holding up?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you.” Ignoring Rafe’s snarl, Devin folded his legs and sat. “She doesn’t look like she’s been getting a lot of sleep, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Ed says she hasn’t been coming in for lunch, so I guess her appetite’s off, too. I could figure that experience with Joe shook her up enough to interfere with her sleeping and eating. But I got a hunch it’s something else.”

  “She’ll handle it. She’s good at taking care of herself.”

  “Good thing, too. Odds are, if Joe had managed to drag her inside that day, somebody would’ve seen the door quick enough, heard the ruckus. Still, he could’ve done a lot of damage in a short time.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Rafe shot out. “Do you think I don’t know what he could have done to her?”

  “Yeah, I think you know it. I think it’s eating at you, and I’m sorry. Are you ready to listen to me?”

  “No.”

  But there wasn’t any heat behind the denial, so Devin prepared to say his piece. “Witnesses in the diner said they thought she was drunk at first when she came in, the way she was walking. She’d have passed out if Ed hadn’t gotten her down first.”

  “I don’t need to hear this.”

  “Yeah,” Devin murmured, watching Rafe’s knuckles whiten on the hilt of the hammer, “you do. When I got to her, Rafe, she was in shock. Are you getting this? Her pupils were as narrow as the point of one of those nails. I was set to have her taken into Emergency, but she pulled herself together. I watched her do it. It was impressive.”

  “So she’s tough.” The image projecting into his mind scraped him raw. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Okay. I don’t figure you were in any shape to see the way she looked at you when you walked into my office. She’d pulled herself together because she had to, because that’s the way she’s made, I guess. Then you walked in. A man could go his whole life without having a woman look at him the way she looked at you.”

  “She doesn’t need me.”

  “That’s bull. You may be stupid, but you should know that.”

  “I know I was stupid enough to let her matter. To let what she thought of me, what she wanted from me, matter. I’m not doing it again.” He rose, hooked his