Her Sanctuary

by Toni Anderson

  “What if she’s bolted?” Marsh felt uneasy about this. Elizabeth wouldn’t have stayed in one place for so long. Not when she’d had a run in with the local sheriff.

  What the hell was she up to?

  “We just keep on tracking Josephine.” Dancer nodded to the red dot moving across the screen. “Sooner or later those two gals are going to hook up.”

  And they’d be ready...you betcha.

  Marsh prayed it was sooner.

  If DeLattio being on the loose wasn’t bad enough, he’d also got a call from Director Lovine telling him Peter Uri had given his surveillance team the slip. Marsh didn’t like the timing, didn’t believe in coincidence. The assassin seemed to know DeLattio’s moves before he did. Or maybe Uri had a different agenda.

  The FBI had to have a leak, but no one had traced it yet. That meant the chances were Peter Uri was on his way to Stone Creek, Montana, just like they were. Marsh peeled a banana and ate without enthusiasm.

  He’d baited a trap with a woman who might well be carrying his child, never expecting two predators to be unleashed into the fray. Throwing the banana peel in the trash, he settled back in his seat to get some sleep. Getting to Eliza before anybody else did was the best they could hope for. Even with that bastard DeLattio on the loose it was still the best they could do.

  ****

  Nothing had changed. The ranch house still stood. The world still spun on its axis and the mob still wanted to kill her. But she’d changed. She’d changed beyond belief.

  She was stretched out naked on the bed, still breathing hard. The soft wool of the blankets tickled, making her shiver, so did the sweat that was going cold on her skin. Nat lay beside her, face down in the covers, unmoving.

  Slowly her heart rate returned to normal and she raised her head, laid her cheek against the warm muscles of his broad back and tasted the salty dampness of his flesh.

  “Again?” Nat’s voice rumbled through the pillow. “Already?”

  She laughed and kissed the flat hollow between his shoulder blades. “I’m so exhausted I couldn’t move if there was an earthquake.”

  She trailed a finger down his spine, over each bony indent, and marveled at the strength of the man, tempered by gentleness. She savored the freedom she had to explore his body—those strong wide shoulders and long muscled limbs. His skin was smooth beneath the pad of her finger, made her tingle with want.

  There was only a little time left. She didn’t want to waste any of it.

  She’d made him laugh, tried to make him forget, and had comforted him while he’d cried. Then, as she’d been wrapped securely in his arms, he’d told her how Rose had fought valiantly for life and how hard it would be to let her go.

  She remembered that. Remembered the pain of being left behind, remembered being told her parents were dead. She’d been scared and lonely until her aunt had come to claim her. Then she’d been scared and lonely in boarding school.

  “Rose told me she was dying,” Eliza told him quietly. He lifted his head off the mattress to stare at her.

  “What?” Nat asked her. An incredulous note overrode the roughness of his voice.

  Eliza studied the way the dim light flowed over his back and avoided his eyes. “She told me she was dying. She wanted to make sure you were going to be okay.”

  “What did you tell her?” Nat asked. His blue eyes were intent on her face.

  Moisture dried up in her throat as Eliza forced herself to meet his eyes. “That we don’t always get to make the choices we want.”

  He rolled over, snagged her to him so that she lay across his chest. She tried to pull away, but he held her effortlessly.

  “How come you joined the FBI?” He watched her eyes intently as if looking for secrets.

  “Marshall Hayes, a friend of mine.” Elizabeth relaxed on a sigh. “I’d known him for years.” The details didn’t matter anymore. “He recruited me when I was still too stupid to know better.”

  She remembered how easy it had all seemed. “We had a lot of fun over the years, caught a lot of crooks.”

  With three agents working deep undercover and very little backup they didn’t have time for the usual Bureau politics. They didn’t apprehend the criminals, just collected information then called in the field agents for arrests. An easy job, for the most part.

  “What made you become an agent?” Nat caressed her cheek with his index finger and caused a shiver of reaction to flutter all the way down to her toes.

  She shrugged, unconsciously played with the crisp hair that sprinkled his chest.

  “I don’t really know...I guess it was all tied up with losing my parents.” She looked up at Nat, touched his hand. “I still have a lot of baggage up here.” She tapped her finger against her skull. “I wanted to help people, to make a difference and my specialty subject was art.” She laughed at how young she sounded. “When Marsh offered me the chance to join his team it seemed like the perfect opportunity. And I was good at it too. Thought I was finally doing something that mattered.”

  She looked down into dark eyes, absorbed the contrast with the pale lashes and golden skin. She could feel the hard length of him beneath her, the solid planes of sinew and bone that made up his body. Heat radiated from him like a furnace and she wanted to remember him this way forever.

  “I was very good at it until I started work with the Organized Crime Unit.”

  A chill glanced against her skin and she pulled the covers up around her shoulders. Nat watched her, quiet and somber.

  “When Andrew DeLattio asked me out on a date,” she laughed, bitterness sweeping through her like poison, “OCU couldn’t believe it when they realized I was an undercover Fed. They orchestrated a second meeting and this time I agreed to go out with him.” The bastards had moved heaven and earth to throw them together again.

  Holding herself very still, as if a single movement would shatter her control she continued. “He was very polite at first, a real gentleman.” She didn’t want to remember how he’d become less polite and more insistent. More forceful.

  “I planted bugs in locations other agents couldn’t infiltrate.” She tapped her finger against his chest. Tap, tap, tap, before she caught herself. “I witnessed some incidents and helped OCU work out who worked for whom.” She looked down, held his gaze. “But I got nervous and bailed.”

  “You didn’t want to sleep with him.” It was a statement, not a question.

  She nodded, moved her gaze to his lips and dropped a quick kiss there for good measure. “OCU begged and threatened, but I stopped seeing DeLattio and tried to return to my other duties.”

  Pulling the covers around her shoulders she sat up, stared down at the wooden floor. “I guess I was feeling pretty damned proud of myself.” Her fingers clenched the blanket.

  Foolish.

  “He came to the museum’s Christmas party, spiked my drink, and carried me out telling everyone I was drunk and needed to go home.” Her voice shook with both anguish and anger. “He took me up to my apartment, tied me up, beat the crap out of me and then raped me.”

  Nat put a hands on her shoulder, touched her as if she were fragile.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” His gaze was full of empathy and rage. She understood the rage.

  “You deserve to know.” Elizabeth let the blanket hang loosely around her shoulders, stretched her hands and arms out in front of her, and then felt a tear glide down her cheek. When had she started to cry?

  “It’s crazy. I don’t remember most of the attack. But for me, the worst thing was having the other agents find me tied to the bed.” Her voice cracked. “The special surveillance group had stood down when I stopped seeing DeLattio, but my purse was still wired and monitored by OCU. They recorded every scream I made, taped me begging for help and pleading. And they used it. Used it to make him turn State’s evidence and give up his crime connections. Can you imagine?”

  Elizabeth could see that Nat imagined all too well.

>   She held his gaze. “I spent two days in hospital before my friend Josie broke me out.” God, she’d have been lost without Josie. “When the bruising on my face faded enough, I covered it with makeup and went back to work.”

  She ignored the ache in his eyes. It was a reflection of her suffering and she wanted it to end.

  “I made a lot of mistakes, Nat. I ignored the advice I was given. Refused counseling. Refused to let OCU tell Marsh or any of my other colleagues.” Tears spilled over again. “I was too humiliated for them to know.”

  Nat wrapped his arms around her, silently gave her his strength.

  “I walked around like a zombie for weeks, terrified, absolutely terrified he would come back. I barely slept or ate, carried a loaded gun wherever I went.” She laughed when he raised a brow. “Even worse than I am now.”

  Elizabeth ran a hand through her hair, brushing it away from her face. “Then one day I quit—left Marsh in the lurch and ran. Like a coward.”

  Tears formed on her lashes, but she dashed them away. “I was so scared for so long...” She didn’t know how to go on, but Nat silenced her by placing two fingers gently on her lips.

  “You did what you had to do.” He wrapped her up tight in his arms, kissed her cheek. “What are you going to do now?” His directness startled her.

  She avoided his gaze and made a part confession.

  “Every day since then I’ve fantasized about killing Andrew Mario DeLattio.” She closed her eyes and hid the emotions that might reveal the plans she’d put into action. He couldn’t begin to understand. “I have to leave.”

  Nat leaned his forehead against hers. “Listen to me, Eliza, it doesn’t matter. None of the past matters.” He took her hands in his. “I don’t care who’s after you. I don’t care what you’ve done.”

  She stared back at him. Sadness drowned what should have been pleasure. It wasn’t the past she was worried about.

  “I need you to stay.” Nat’s eyes burned fierce and bright in the lamplight while his hands were as hard as steel. “Please stay.”

  The words jolted her, like unexpectedly stepping off a curb. She looked up at him, a quick glance that read the truth in his intensity. In the stark vulnerability of his gaze. Anguish and hopelessness burst the euphoria of finally finding love. He was everything she had ever wanted. Good and honest. Strong and brave. Integrity matched with an innate sense of honor.

  Another tear formed and overflowed down her cheek. She didn’t want to leave him, but she had to.

  She wiped away the tear, pulled the blankets back up around her shoulders.

  The world was caving in around her. It was happening so fast now that she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t plug the gaps with lies anymore. Every day she spent on the ranch increased the danger to the others. Nat had already lost his mother, she didn’t want to bring more disaster down on him.

  He’d told her once she was trouble and he was right.

  I love you, whispered through her mind, but she couldn’t say it. If she did, she’d never be able to leave him. He didn’t care what she’d done? He should care. She was beyond redemption. Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t put him at risk.

  The scent of their lovemaking filled the air, reminded her of the bond they’d forged, but the words dragged out of her mouth anyway.

  “I can’t stay. I’ll leave today.” She hadn’t wanted to tell him—had wanted to creep away like a mouse in the dark.

  “What?” he jerked as if he’d been bitten. “What the hell did you say?”

  Elizabeth bowed her head. “After the auction.”

  Nat jumped off the bed, paced up and down.

  “Jesus!” He rubbed his hands through his flaxen hair, so upset he was physically shaking. “My mother died and you can’t even wait a couple of days?”

  Elizabeth was silent. Nothing she said would make this any easier. She could only screw it up.

  His anger didn’t scare her. She’d rediscovered the courage that had deserted her for so long—thanks to Nat. He stared at her, his jaw set in a hard line. “You’re not telling me everything.”

  No, she wasn’t.

  Nat stood at the end of the bed, oblivious to his nakedness, legs spread, arms folded across his chest. He tucked his chin in, narrowed his eyes and frowned down at her.

  “You could stay here couldn’t you? No one knows you’re here.”

  The idea was so tempting...and drove home every reason she had to leave. She desperately wanted to stay. Desperately.

  She shook her head. “Talbot knows. I have to go.”

  “Why?” Nat asked.

  She could see Nat’s mind at work, trying to fit all the pieces of the puzzle, trying to solve the problems she ran from, but he didn’t have all the pieces.

  “Why?” he demanded, louder this time.

  She didn’t answer, just stared down at her hands spread across the coverlet. The ring her mother had given her on her seventh birthday glinted on her finger.

  “You think the mob will find you here?” Nat asked.

  Elizabeth nodded, biting her lip against the need to stay.

  With quick jerky movements he started to get dressed, doing up his jeans, pulling on a shirt.

  This was goodbye, she realized suddenly. Nat stood by the edge of the bed and looked down at her. Elizabeth lifted her head to meet his turbulent gaze.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this, Eliza,” he said softly.

  “Yes.” Elizabeth straightened her back. “It does.”

  Nat cursed and left, closing the door behind him with a quiet click that sounded like the final nail being driven home in her coffin.

  A bitter draft streamed through the air and swept goose bumps across her flesh. Nat’s scent clung to the pillow and she hugged it to her, trying to commit the smell to memory, but she knew it would fade. Given time, everything faded.

  ****

  Nat shoved the truck into third gear, going down the steep incline towards the lower river valley, and again, down into second. The engine roared in protest, but the truck slowed a little. The old Ford shook in time to Dwight Yokam and Sheryl Crow singing Baby Don’t Go and made his teeth ache.

  Every time he went over a rut his brain jounced and he braced himself on the steering wheel and hung on for the ride. He was glad he needed to concentrate and wasn’t able to think much. Sas had come home around eight a.m., grief-stricken and worn, her eyes puffy from crying.

  She was holding up, but barely. Ryan had been unconscious in the bunkhouse, Cal and Ezra each nursing coffee, subdued and silent. Nat had left them. Refused their offers of help and headed out to the auction on his own.

  Rose would have wanted it this way.

  The trail was only marginally quicker than going back down onto the main road and heading along the highway. It was just a tractor rut truth be told, a double indentation of bare gray earth surrounded by the crush of wilderness. But Nat wanted to use this route—it might be the last time he’d have the right.

  He didn’t know if Eliza would be there when he got back. It burned his gut to think about her so he stamped down on his thoughts and even harder on the truck’s lousy brakes. She was leaving him—that was all that mattered.

  Going too fast, he hit a big rut and just managed to jerk the steering wheel back before he smacked the verge. Punching the dashboard in frustration, he tried to concentrate on the drive. He entered the cool and shaded forest and rolled down the window to let fresh air flow around the airless cab.

  This land was no good for ranching and cost them a heap in taxes. Didn’t matter how beautiful the place was, sentimentality didn’t pay the bills.

  The light inside the forest was sharp and bright and a gentle breeze brushed shadows across the lush grass. Bluebells and dog daisies covered the underbelly, popping up along the edge of the trail like brightly colored pennants.

  Breathing deeply, he smelled the fresh earth and tasted the essence of life as nature took advantage of the short summer. Birds s
ang in the trees and he heard the tentative buzz of newly hatched insects.

  He’d lost his virginity in these woods, in this very truck. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Him and Adele Black, a pair of sixteen-year-olds with their heads full of hormones and curiosity. Adele had been a tiny little thing and he’d been a good deal smaller back then too. He couldn’t imagine doing it in a truck anymore. The image of Eliza stretched naked on the burgundy upholstery made his heart hammer and his blood pound.

  Shit. He had to deal with this. The woman was leaving him.

  He neared the old gate that led through to a meadow at the bottom of his property. It was the ideal location to build that picture-perfect little holiday home, if you had the cash. Nat hoped to God that someone other than Troy Strange had the cash.

  Bracing his shoulders, he looked down to the bottom of the meadow, through the gate that led onto the highway where cars were parked. He spotted Strange, deep in conversation with their local bank manager. Nat parked the truck behind the gate, got out and vaulted the old five-bar.

  Though he wanted to kill Troy Strange, he clamped down on the urge for now.

  Marlena lounged against the Mercedes in a clingy top, micro-shorts and high-heels, looking as out of place as a hooker at kindergarten. She spotted him, eyeing him like a piece of meat and he grimaced, figuring maybe those feminists were onto something after all.

  He spotted Molly Adams, another old high school girlfriend, sitting on the fender of a little Honda. She was plump, but still pretty, and ran an old fashioned saloon that drew in the tourists. She smiled, waved a half-eaten apple in his direction. She obviously hadn’t heard about Rose’s death yet, but it was still early. Feeling grim, he nodded, but stayed back, in no mood for pleasantries or conversation.

  Several lawyer-types clutched cell phones like substitute personalities and he recognized some of Sarah’s co-workers from the hospital. Nat smiled woodenly and tipped his hat to a couple he’d met at a wedding about a year ago. He hoped his smile didn’t look as bitter as it felt.

  Nat crossed over to where the auctioneer, Rich Willard, a short, beefy man, stood perched on some sort of wooden podium. Rich had been a great friend of Nat’s dad’s, a good man to know in a crisis. His belly protruded over tightly buckled trousers and a stray piece of food dangled from his moustache.