"Who do you think put the bomb in Ms. St. Clair's car?"
"An expert."
"Expert what?"
"An expert in constructing incendiary devices." Doug spoke in his flat command voice. "Captain Alexander has disarmed this one. He should be able to identify the maker if he's a repeater."
"Huh. And you know this how?" Colbert was more and more skeptical.
"It's what I trained him to do."
"You trained Homeland Security's Bomb expert?"
"When he was doing his tour in Iraq."
"Huh." Colbert thought. "So you got an expert in mind?"
"No. But I believe he may have been hired by Ms. St. Clair’s ex-husband. On three occasions in the last four days, a dark brown Cayenne with dealer plates has been circling this area. Parkhurst works in a Porsche dealership."
"That's it?
Doug filled him in on the pattern of contacts.
"Major leap from flowers to murder."
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was no surprise to Doug that the Portland detectives were not taking Parkhurst seriously as a threat. Or that they were taking a hard look at the presence in Madeline's life of an expert who could wire up an explosive and who had access to her car. One of them seemed taken with the theory that he was trying to play hero for his girlfriend.
Bottom line was that there was nothing to connect Parkhurst to the sabotage of Maddie's SUV. Doug could hardly inform the detectives that if they had a suspect he could identify the bastard if he could get close enough to smell him. Maybe the forensic guys would have more luck with DNA or fingerprints. That bomb was intended to get rid of evidence. But evidence of what?
Doug wondered if Parkhurst had met with his hit man, or just phoned him. Could he backtrack the bomber from Parkhurst? Or was he best off just sticking to Maddie and guarding her?
What he wanted to do was secure the perimeter and put Maddie on lock down. Of course, that was pretty much what his and Adam's instincts had been telling them from the get go. There was something desperate and odd about Pretty Boy sniffing around his ex-wife after so many years.
Maddie was so not going to hunker down until this mess was sorted out, but he still had to keep her safe. Could he persuade her to head to Washington State and the family compound in Hanover? He was certain he could keep her safe there.
When thugs from Jack's past had trespassed, the entire family had taken them out in one neat maneuver. He had had the full details from Tom and Sam and was looking forward to Uncle Yury's version when he went for the wedding celebrations in three weeks.
* * *
Eric kept checking the news for a story about an SUV rolled over on the highway. Nothing. Damn it to hell, was it so hard for that prick to take his car to the hardware store?
* * *
Detective Colbert was following up by checking Col. Enright out with his C.O.
"Let me see if I understand you, Colbert. You are asking if Col. Enright knows how to set a bomb?"
Colbert swallowed hard and stood a little straighter. General Boyd had not offered him a seat. "Yes, sir."
"Hell, yes. He wrote the book."
"Sir?"
General Boyd flung a small, much thumbed manual across the desk. "Col. Enright prepared this document which is used to train all members of the armed forces." He paused. "Homeland Security used it as the basis for their manual.
"What you want to know is whether Col. Enright put a live bomb in his girlfriend's car and pretended to save her. FYI, Detective, when you have a chest full of medals and you want to impress a pretty girl, you just put on your dress uniform."
"Huh."
* * *
Even after a glass of wine and a hot shower, Madeline found that she was jumpy and irritable. Discovering someone hated you enough to try to blow you into pieces was a good excuse to be shattered she reminded herself. But this didn't help to settle her pulse.
When Doug came bare chested into the bathroom to shave at the other sink, she thought he looked even grimmer than usual. He set his shaving kit out on the counter with precision, as if he planned war not simply paring away his five o'clock shadow.
"Ever thought of growing a beard?" she inquired.
Doug scraped stubble and rinsed his razor. He grunted. He firmed his lips and shaved his upper lip smooth. "You wouldn't like it," he said curtly.
"I might," argued Maddie.
Doug gave her the evil eye and removed the bristles from under his chin. "Your skin's too tender for a beard. Besides, beards itch." He rinsed his razor one last time and shook it out. He bent over and got out the sponge and cleaned the sink of all traces of lather.
"A beard might be sexy," she persisted despite Doug's irritation.
"I'll show you sexy," he growled. He picked her up and carried her into the other room and plopped her on the bed so she sprawled bare legged on the mattress with her sleep tee rucked up to her waist. He pulled his pants down and kicked them aside to reveal his king sized erection. He came down onto the bed and held her legs apart.
"If I grew a beard," he growled, "You wouldn't want me to do this." He put his face into her vulva and began to lap at her delicate folds. She pulled her knees up so she could grant him better access and let her fingers rove through his short hair.
Doug made happy rootling noises as he sucked and slurped at Madeline's honey pot. She was wet and growing wetter and the more he licked and kissed the more her honey flowed. He swirled his tongue around her stiff little button and then took it completely into his mouth. Maddie bucked and came with another gush of cream. He lapped it up. Waste not want not.
He surged up her voluptuous, satiated body and set his cock to her wetness and plunged in to the hilt. Her thighs gripped his hips and she matched his vigorous thrusts as if she had not been satisfied. The liquid sound of their intercourse was sweet to his ears. The mingled aromas of their excitement was a delicious perfume in his nostrils.
This woman was his mate and he was bonded to her forever. He had come close to watching her die today and the knowledge lent urgency to his primitive lunges. He wanted to make her feel not only the sensual bond between them but the link between their two souls. She strained against him and her passage began to convulse as he emptied himself into her.
Doug rolled aside carefully and gathered his mate against his sweaty chest. She was as damp as he was and she cuddled closer.
"My cousin Len will be here in the morning," Doug told her hair.
"Your cousin Len?"
"I thought I needed some backup. And my brothers are busy."
"Start over, Douglas. You lost me at Len."
"This situation has gotten complicated. It's not just your ex stalking you. He tried to have you killed. He's hired help. I've got myself some."
"Well that's as clear as mud. What can Len do that you can't?"
"Guard the house while I guard you. This whole situation stinks to heaven and I wish I knew why. What do you have that Parkhurst wants that he gets if you die?"
"I would have said nothing." Maddie nestled closer, afraid again. "Eric left me. Dropped me flat. I didn't even find out how much of a skunk he was until after he was gone."
"But you took him to the cleaners."
"I got a fraction of his assets. No alimony. If all he wants is revenge, why the flowers and the calls?"
"So when you turn up dead, the cops don't think it could be him?" Doug thought some more. "Have you changed your will?"
"Of course. My lawyer insisted."
"So why the sabotage and car bomb?"
"Maybe he thought it was your car?"
"Huh. What did you drive when you were a couple?"
"Little red Rio. Then I had a Tucson. Bought the SUV three months ago. My dad's a mechanic, some guy brought it in to the garage and asked him to find a buyer." Maddie frowned. "It would be just like Eric to assume my life has stood still since the divorce and I still drive that Rio."
"Huh."
* * *
&n
bsp; Doug woke from a dream in which Maddie's Buick was a smoldering pile of rubble, and Maddie herself reduced to blood red debris. He groped for her and found her whole and breathing. Relief made him rough.
Madeline awakened to find herself beneath two hundred and eighty pounds of sweating muscle. Doug was pounding into her, his arms braced on either side of her head. In the darkness his head was a gray blur but sweat dripped onto her face. His breathing was harsh and stentorian.
She put her palms on his chest and was unsurprised to find his heart racing and his chest hair clotted with sweat. "Hey, lover," she whispered.
In response he dropped his mouth onto hers. He plundered her lips and tongue as if it were all that stood between him and certain death. Maddie could only cling to his big arms and counter his ravaging tongue with her own plunging caresses.
She caught his urgency and wound her legs around his and met his impassioned charge with an equally swift retreat. Together they hurtled into climax. Doug rolled her swiftly sideways before he could collapse on her. He pulled her close and held her tightly while their racing hearts settled and the sweat dried on their replete bodies.
Doug wanted to explain. But what were the words you used to tell a woman you feared her death and dismemberment? He could not explain his sense of dread. And he could not explain his terror or what was in his heart. In his arms Madeline relaxed and drifted trustingly into sleep.
The dream returned towards dawn, but when he reached for his mate she was gone. His roar of despair rang loudly and brought him to full waking. Madeline was sitting up and looking at him in shock.
"What's the matter?" she asked softly.
Doug sat up, sweating profusely. He shook his head in inarticulate despair. His big hand reached for Maddie's and clung. She kissed his bristly cheek. "Good morning," she tried again.
"Is it morning?" Doug turned his head to the dark curtains.
"Almost." Maddie instinctively kept her voice low. What was going on? Doug was such a contradiction: Confident Alpha male and hesitant lover. Tender yet driven. She suspected he didn't want to admit to the weakness of nightmares.
She rubbed his arm gently. He was tense. Stiff everywhere but where he should be. Something was awfully wrong. "Do you think you can go back to sleep?" she asked tentatively.
"Probably not." His voice was bleak.
"Then let's get up." She tugged her hand free and leapt out of bed.
Doug watched as Maddie's lush pink body disappeared into the bathroom. The toilet flushed. "Come on," she coaxed from the opened door. The shower began to run. Reluctantly he pulled himself up to join her, lured by her sultry voice.
Steam erupted from the shower stall. He wiped the mirror and stared at his morning beard. He rubbed his chin, yup, sandpaper. Cherry had called it a lethal weapon. He didn't think she had been joking. He squirted shaving cream and plied his razor.
He thought Maddie might be stewed by the time he was smooth enough to join her, but she was standing with her back to the spray lathering her hair. Bubbles dripped down the slopes of her magnificent breasts and trickled over the swell of belly and thighs. Her curly auburn triangle was frothy white. His cock was suddenly broad awake and tumescent.
"Let me help," he rumbled. His big hand covered her lathered mound and massaged the suds into the curls. She shimmied a little as his fingers found her slit and worked the shampoo into the fuzz he found on her nether lips. His soapy fingers dipped deep into her slick passage and she gave up all pretense of washing her hair. Her head fell back and the spray cascaded onto her face.
Doug lifted her up and braced her against the tiles. He slipped her onto his cock as if her passage was a custom made glove. Her long legs hauled his pubes hard against her own. She swiveled her hips as he began to rock inside her. Her wet face was scented with some absurd floral fragrance but he lapped at her full cheeks and lips before she insisted on a searing soul kiss.
Maddie's tongue played the same tune as their mating pelvises. It glided gently along the length of his and around keeping to his slow and sensual rhythm. Her round breasts firmed and the aureoles puckered. He left her mouth to pay them homage. He sucked them in time to his thrusts.
She shattered first, going stiff in his arms, and then limp. He followed her over the edge and let her slide down his body. He turned her into the water and soaped her up. Back, rump, hips and legs. He paid special attention to her sex, before lathering her belly, arms, and breasts.
"Enough," she groaned. "I have to go to work." She bolted for her towel.
Doug grinned and completed his ablutions. The day suddenly seemed a bunch brighter.
CHAPTER NINE
"Well, ma'am, we call the Enrights cousins, but where exactly we meet up on the family tree is not easy to say." Leonard Benoit shuffled his huge feet and grinned down at his hostess.
"My grandpa Benoit, he was cousins with Uncle Ed's grandma. That's for a fact. But Uncle Ed's great-granddaddy was my mother's great grand's uncle or brother or cousin. Maybe all three. For a fact, there's Benoits all over Kittitas County and we're all related to each other."
Len leaned over and lowered his voice. "Of course the Enrights are incomers," he told Madeline.
Incomers? What hillbilly world had she fallen into? Madeline dredged up a welcoming smile. It wasn't this pleasant man's fault that Doug had asked him to drive down to Portland.
Leonard Benoit was a taller, even burlier version of Doug. His straight dark hair was cut military short like Doug's. His face was a shade broader, his nose a sharper blade, and his beard a touch lighter. And he was more tanned and his forearms only lightly dusted with hair. But his carefree attitude was miles from Doug's stern personality.
"You can put your bag in your room," she said. She led the way into the guest room. If Adam decided to drop in again, he could stay in the sewing room.
Len's dark eyes took the room in with one sharp eyed glance. He went to the small window and opened the shutters and looked out. "Good view of the street," he said.
"Sight lines to the porch are blocked by those shrubs," Doug's deep voice interjected.
"We could cut those back," Len suggested.
Madeline put her hands on her hips. She cleared her throat. "One of the reasons I bought this particular house was the mature landscaping. I like my bushes the way they are now."
"Anyone could hide behind those rhododendrons and wait for you," said Doug.
Len nodded sagely. "Pretty much ideal for an ambush." He thought. "Course, we could lay ourselves a little trap for anyone with ideas," he said happily to his cousin.
Doug grunted approvingly.
Madeline gave up. These two were in their own world. "Would you like some breakfast, Len?" she asked.
"Thank you, ma’am. I ate before I left French Town, and I stopped for coffee on the highway, but I could get myself around some ham and eggs."
"I operate Sawmill Three," Len told her as he tucked into the last of her eggs and bacon. "But when Uncle Ed said Dougie needed a hand in Portland I volunteered right away." He laughed. "Me and about half the guys. We drew straws and I was the winner."
"Oh yes," Maddie said politely as she tidied up the kitchen. She was just about out of food. If Len and Dougie were going to hang around she would need to stock up again. She began a mental shopping list. "You work for Doug's dad?"
"Uncle Ed figures he's responsible for making sure we're all gainfully employed. Enright's Mill is the biggest employer in the county. Joe and I work there summers. Winters we build cabinets."
"Cabinets?"
"Like for a kitchen. Or a bathroom. We do custom work. Sometimes we make furniture."
"Is there a lot of call for custom cabinetry in Kittitas County?" Maddie asked.
"You'd be surprised. Lots of summer people. They build a big house. Call it a cottage, but it's anything but. And then they want it to look like a magazine. So Joe and me we make them something fancy."
He leaned towards her confidentially. "Had a
lady last fall wanted her refrigerator hidden behind a set of doors." He put a huge hand over his heart. "Swear to God. Built her a set of oak doors could have gone in a church, just so no one can get to the milk without hunting." He shook his head in wonder.
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