by Lora Leigh
And their report on the tire was inconclusive.
There were several nails along the side of the road where the SUV had finally come to a stop, but the damage to the tire wasn’t typical for a blowout of that nature.
Not typical, but possible.
The vehicle could have run over the construction-grade nails, or one could have been shot into it. A bullet could have also taken it out, but no evidence of that had been found.
Every instinct he had was warning him that the blowout was deliberate, that someone had taken that tire out. He just couldn’t prove it.
“Impressions?” He looked up, his gaze going first to Noah where he stood next to the fireplace; to Micah, who stood just behind him; and to Tobias, who sat in the chair next to the couch.
“Doesn’t make sense to me.” Tobias shrugged. “All we found were nails, no bullets. There was too much damage to the tire to tell for certain what took it out.”
Riordan turned back to Noah and Micah.
Arms crossed, Noah leaned against the side of the fireplace, his gaze narrowed as he stared at the tablet on the table, his lips thinned as a muscle jumped in his jaw. “There’s ways to take out a tire that way, but I can’t say that’s what happened. As Tobias said, there’s too much damage to be sure. My gut though”—a grimace pulled at his lips—“my gut says to watch our backs. But hell, that’s normal under any situation that I can’t fully explain.”
“Yeah, yours and mine both,” Micah snorted. “And my neck itches too.”
Sitting back in the couch, Riordan breathed out roughly.
“Look, Riordan, like Noah there”—Tobias nodded to the other man—this doesn’t feel good to me. But I don’t care much for the two agents in the backup vehicle either. Grisha’s damned good at his job, but the other two…” He shook his head at the thought.
“Grisha had to call both of them down for leaving the vehicle at one point,” Micah injected. “Several times he had to keep watch on both vehicles because it was obvious they weren’t.”
He needed Ivan’s men off his team. He didn’t trust them, he didn’t know them.
“I’d be more comfortable if we pulled Sawyer and Max in on this,” Tobias said, mirroring his thoughts. “Max is a hell of driver. Micah trained her himself and I trust her and Sawyer a hell of a lot more than those two Russians. They’d never wander away from their vehicle, and they’d have eyes on both just like Grisha does.”
Tobias had been with Brute Force for a year, but he’d been proving himself not just capable but intuitive, just as he’d done as Sabella’s office assistant at the garage before Noah showed up.
“I agree with him, Riordan,” Noah stated quietly. “I was going to make the suggestion myself, he just beat me to it.”
“It seems we’re all on the same page.” Riordan nodded then turned back to Tobias. “I’ll contact them within the hour and have them here by morning. We have a blizzard moving in within the next forty-eight hours, and I want everything ready.”
“I want Jarvis here as well,” Noah stated. “Crowe’s already contacted me and offered to send him out. I’d like to accept the offer.”
Jarvis was hell with electronic security and his partner, Sabra was damn near as good. They were the best—and a hell of a lot better than the two Ivan currently had overseeing electronic security.
The fact that Noah wanted their own team members rather than Ivan’s working security was a bad sign though. That blowout might be inconclusive on paper, it might appear to be an accident, but like Riordan, something was warning Noah that there was more to it.
“I’ll go down and let Ivan know what we’re doing. Contact Crowe and while you’re at it, make the call to Sawyer and Max for me,” he told Noah. “I have a feeling I’m going to be dealing with her father for a while. He won’t be happy with my report.”
He was going to be pissed as hell, and Riordan couldn’t blame him.
“Like the rest of us, ‘inconclusive’ doesn’t sit well with Ivan. I don’t blame him much. If it were Erin or Aislinn, I’d be raising hell,” Noah admitted.
Getting to his feet, Riordan met his brother’s eyes and saw the same worry and suspicions he felt.
“He was tearing Ilya’s ass as I came up, and it was all I could do to keep him from locking Amara in the safe room until this was over,” he said heavily.
“She’s still in her room?” Noah straightened from the wall and glanced to the connecting door.
The last time he’d seen her she was too pale, her eyes haunted and filled with nightmares.
“Grandpops is with her.” His grandfather had actually insisted, even over Amara’s objections. “He promised to let me know when he left.”
Noah’s gaze reflected his sudden amusement, while Tobias nearly failed to smother a laugh as the three men stared back at him.
“Yeah, I know, I know. He’s probably showing her every embarrassing picture of me he could pack on his tablet, and relating every youthful indiscretion I ever had. He’s hell on a man’s ego.” Riordan had fought his grandfather over accompanying them, as had Noah and their uncle, Jordan.
At eighty-five, his grandpops didn’t need to be in a situation that could easily turn dangerous. Grandpops had only snorted at that and told them the good Lord already knew where and when He’d be coming for him, so he’d just do what he felt was best.
And he felt it was best to haul his ass from the comfort of his son, Grant’s, home and accompany them to Colorado.
Ivan, Grandpops said, was a friend, and Amara was now a Malone, whether she remembered it or not. A man always stood with friends and family, he’d declared. And there’d been no dissuading him.
“I’ll check with Grandpops and see if he needs a break. I’ll sit with her if he does.” Noah’s gaze met his, understanding filling the darker blue depths. “But you need to do something soon, Riordan. That, my gut is definitely telling me.”
And he wasn’t the only one who felt that warning rising inside.
With a sharp nod, Riordan picked up the tablet as they left the suite and headed out himself to talk to Amara’s father to get everything they needed in place. When he’d first arrived, there had been no warning of trouble, no reason to suspect that whoever had targeted Amara six months ago would be back.
There was still no proof of it, but Riordan couldn’t help but feel that something simply wasn’t right where that blowout was concerned. Just as he’d felt that whoever was behind the abduction wasn’t going to give up. But until Amara remembered what happened that night and who had taken her, they were working blind.
And he couldn’t allow that to continue.
* * *
“Now, girl, let me tell ya, ma Erin was a gentle little thing,” Grandpops remembered with a soft, so-loving smile that Amara couldn’t help but marvel at his expression.
For a moment, it was like looking into the face of a young man filled with all the passion and dedication of his first love. “But now, she was pure Irish,” he chuckled. “With a temper to match. Kept five boys and one hard-headed husband in line she did.”
“No daughters then?” she asked quietly, only to regret the question a moment later.
Grief filled his eyes as a sigh whispered from him.
“A tiny little thing was our girl.” Sadness filled his gaze, his expression. “She was thirteen when we lost her.” He looked down at his gnarled hands and gave a shake of his head. “She was Irish. Born in Ireland, wouldna ya know.” He cleared his throat and blinked, then looked up at her with a somber smile. “She was pushed inta a stream by some bullies that didna like her accent. The fever got her soon after.”
Because of judgmental bigots, this kind old man and his wife had lost their only daughter.
“I’m very sorry,” she whispered.
Grandpops nodded slowly. “She was a good girl, my Edan. Always smilin’, tendin’ to her brothers, and always eager to help others. She didn’t even blame the boys that pushed her to the water. Said
it wasn’t their fault what their da’s taught them.” A mocking smile curved his lips. “One of their das, he was with the men that caused ma Erin to wreck her car that night.” He tilted his head and stared at her curiously. “Shoulda I have not blamed him but his da instead, do ya think?”
The quietly voiced question was filled with a resignation that such bigotry was simply part of some people.
“He was old enough to know better.” Anger lashed at her for this gentle man’s losses. “I hope he’s burning in Hell.”
He didn’t say either way, but Amara saw something hard in his gaze for just a second and she suspected, as gentle as he was, he knew the value of justice.
“I’d had Grant and the baby boy, Jordan, left at the time. We lost Riordan Jr. in one war, and lost Dannan in another. Roark we lost in a car accident the night afore he was to marry.” He sighed heavily. “A man should never have ta bury a child. It just never seems right, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.” She had to blink back her tears at the loss on his face. To lose four of his children as well as his wife and to still remain so kind was a miracle, she thought.
“I’d have joined ma Erin years ago.” He suddenly smiled, his expression turning playful and filled with amusement. “But Jordan was still just a young’un. Then there was Nathan, Grant’s boy, and ten years later Grant brought Riordan for me to raise. It’s hard for a man to leave when his boys haven’t found their way yet. But Erin, she understands these things.”
She’d noticed he often talked about his deceased wife as though she still walked by his side.
“We lost Nathan, but we gained Noah,” he said with a nod. “An’ Riordan, now he keeps an old man young he does.” He chuckled. “That boy always was more wild Irish I think than the boys that were born there.”
There was no doubt his pride in Riordan was tremendous.
“I’ll agree with the wild part.” She grinned.
“He’s a good boy he is. All ma boys are good boys, Amara. Fine Irish boys,” he assured her.
For a second, just a second, the shadows in her mind shifted, like the briefest shift of a veil—there then gone. And with the shift came a voice, a husky Irish brogue. Go síoraí.
Just as quickly, the shadows blocked memory again, left her fighting against what she couldn’t remember but what she sensed, and only a single sound to hold onto.
“Go síoraí,” she whispered.
“Ya know the word?” Grandpops asked. “A Gaelic word it is. Ya surprise me.”
She surprised herself.
“What does it mean?” She was almost scared to know.
He watched her closely. “‘Forever.’ It’s the vow all Malone men give when they find their way to that one true love. The one whose soul will cling to theirs.”
And why would she know that word?
Before she could ask how she could have possibly heard that word, a quiet knock at the door forestalled her. A second later the door opened, revealing Noah Blake.
“Miss Resnova, is he telling you all the Malone family secrets?” he grinned, stepping a foot or so into the room.
Grandpops chuckled at the question.
“We’re just getting’ ta know each other a bit, boy. Go amuse yourself elsewhere,” he demanded with a grin and a tone filled with fondness.
“Yes, Grandpops,” Noah agreed, laughter tingeing his voice as he turned to Amara. “I’m going downstairs. Would you like me have anything sent up to you?”
“Hot chocolate,” Grandpops answered, then winked back at Amara. “I think the girl could use a pot of hot chocolate. Soothes the soul it does.”
Amara couldn’t help the soft laugh that fell from her lips.
“Cook makes a delicious pot of chocolate; if you wouldn’t mind to ask him to send some up,” she requested. “It soothes the soul.”
“I’ll take care of it right now.” Leaving the room, he closed the door behind him, once again leaving her with the old man’s soothing presence.
With the warmth of the gas fireplace whispering over her, the comfort of the butter-soft leather cushioning her body, and Grandpops’ quiet company, she was slowly relaxing. The tremors she felt shaking her insides earlier were gone, and as she rested in the corner of the couch she was in no hurry to see the old man leave.
How nice it would have been to have had him for her grandfather, she thought as he told her about living in Ireland. The peat fires, the smell of the sea and the fields of heather. He’d grown up in a family with six boys and three girls, and parents who taught them to laugh and to love.
He told her how he’d met his Erin and found his way, and followed his older brother to America.
When the chocolate came, she drank a cup with Grandpops, then set her cup aside and relaxed in the couch once again to another story.
This one was about Riordan.
As the words drifted around her, her eyes closed; and warmed by the chocolate, the fire, and an old man’s memories, Amara drifted off into sleep.
* * *
Riordan met his grandfather coming from Amara’s room. He closed the door quietly as Riordan stared back at him questioningly.
“She sleeps deep,” Grandpops said quietly, his expression, and his gaze somber. “Stay with her. Tonight, keep the nightmares at bay for her.”
He frowned, glancing toward her door then back to his grandfather.
“What aren’t you telling me, Grandpops?” Sometimes, his grandfather knew the damnedest things.
Wise, knowing blue eyes were filled with compassion as his grandfather gripped his shoulder. “She faced her nightmares today. The possibility, no matter how slight, that whatever happened before could happen again.” His expression grew heavier. “She’s comin’ to her memories soon enough—show her where peace lies, lad.”
Lowering his head, his grandfather walked across the hall to his own suite, opened the door slowly, and disappeared inside his room.
Yeah, sometimes Grandpops just knew things. Things a man wasn’t always comfortable knowing.
Moving into Amara’s suite, he closed and carefully locked the door behind him, then strode to the connecting door to his own room and opened it. He’d hear if anyone knocked and ensure no one knew where he slept.
Then he stepped to the couch and stared down at the woman he’d died for.
Bending, he rested on his haunches and stared at the elegant lines of her face, the short, wild curls that covered her head and fell below her neck. She’d pulled the blanket closer to her as she huddled in the corner of the couch, her nose all but buried in the leather cushions.
She looked like a damn teenager. Too damn fragile and far too innocent for the world.
Beneath the blanket she wore another of those silk pajamas she liked so much.
He’d finally convinced her to sleep naked that last month he spent with her. He’d wanted nothing between them, nothing separating his skin from hers. She’d been so damn shy about leaving her clothes off that he’d laughed at her just before he’d taken her again. All that innocent shyness just made him harder than hell. And melted his heart, even now.
She was such a contradiction at times, even now. Fiery passion and cool feminine determination existed hand in hand, and kept a man guessing from one minute to the next. A wicked sense of humor when she turned it loose, and a gentle heart.
And she terrified him at times.
“Go síoraí,” he whispered, a breath of sound as he felt that tug of emotion in his chest.
Rising, he stepped to her bed and turned the blankets down. To keep from terrifying her by sleeping naked beside her he went to his room and changed into a pair of thin cotton pants.
Turning out her lights and leaving only the fire burning, he lifted her gently into his arms and carried her to bed.
Sliding in beside her, he tucked her close against him and felt her settle naturally into the curve of his shoulder as she once had.
“I was cold,” she mumbled, more asleep than awake as his
arms went around her and he kissed the top of her head gently.
“I’ll warm you,” he promised her.
Her fingers trailed down his arm to his hand, then twined with his.
“I missed you,” she sighed, her voice blurred with sleep, with dreams as his fingers tightened on her. “Don’t stay away so long.”
“I missed you.” God, how he’d missed her.
He’d missed her every long, lonely night, every endless day.
Six months of hell and the only news he had of her was what Noah could get from Cook, their only contact within the house.
Six months of waking in a sweat as he lived her nightmares, her pain, and her fears and fought through each of them to bring her a little peace.
Grandpops had always said that the color of his eyes was a legacy. Irish eyes. Malone men, he claimed, loved with a heart outside their chest, saw with eyes not their own. That their souls became bound to only one woman, and once bound, they were never the same again.
And he’d never really believed.
Even after Noah and Sabella had recounted the hell they’d lived through during the years they were apart, he hadn’t really believed. He’d been certain that even if Noah and Sabella had that kind of love, he’d never find it himself.
He hadn’t believed until he’d regained consciousness in the hospital after Amara’s rescue and saw into her nightmares the first time. A bleak, dark world filled with pain, betrayal, and overwhelming loss. And his Amara was lost in it when the nightmares came. Lost, scared, and alone.
And he’d be damned if she’d be alone any longer.
chapter thirteen
Oh, now that felt so good …
The sensations eased over her, stronger than most, hotter, more real than any of the sensual sleeping fantasies she’d had before.
It was these dreams she ached for, the ones she sought when her eyes closed. Here, she found everything that was missing when she was awake, everything she’d forgotten …
Though a part of her knew this was no more a dream than the others had been, she wasn’t quite ready to admit to it.
Amara stretched beneath the slow, gliding caress along the bare skin of her back. Warm, work roughened, the broad male hand stroked over her flesh, sending sensations racing through her. Heated arcs of pleasure whipped from his touch and surrounded her in warmth and need.
