by Cherry Adair
Acadia.
Her medallion was his link to her. As long as he held it, Zak had known exactly where she was from the moment she’d made it safely home to Junction City. He’d “seen” her traveling cross-country by car, and he’d known to the exact coordinates when she’d arrived here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He’d traveled across the country to find her. The GPS location coordinates had been scrolling through his mind for weeks. Now the numbers glowed “hot,” indicating she was right there, minutes away. He blew out a hard breath, letting go of his death grip on the steering wheel. The sun shone down from an ice blue sky, no warmth in it. He hadn’t felt warm since they’d parted.
Carrying a large cardboard box, Zak strode confidently up the path, stepped through the glass doors, crossed the lobby, then hesitated like a lovesick schoolboy as the elevator doors slid open. He needed another minute—
No, he didn’t. Months had already been wasted. He got in and slapped the button for the eleventh floor and concentrated on breathing in and out to slow his racing heartbeat. Which was ridiculous. He’d done more dangerous stunts in his quest for adventure than a Hollywood stuntman. He’d scaled the highest pinnacles, dived to the deepest depths, leaped from heights that had made even his equally adventurous brother quail. Yet here he was, sweaty-palmed at the mere thought of seeing the woman he loved.
The elevator ride was over before he could think of anything intelligent to say. Although he’d considered dozens of opening lines in the last few months, none of them now seemed right. Fuckit. Possibly the most important negotiation of his life, and he was tongue-tied. Gid would have laughed his ass off.
Zak got out and strode down a quiet, carpeted hallway. Staring at Acadia’s front door, he waited through several heavy heartbeats before he was able to ring the bell. Chicken.
It was almost as though she had been standing with her fingers on the handle, because the door jerked open. “I was just—Zak!”
Ah, man. Acadia. His heart sang her name in three-part harmony. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Dressed in skinny light blue jeans that hugged her curves and a white cotton sweater that clung to her breasts, her honey-colored hair loose and silky around her shoulders, she looked even better than she had in his dreams. Cool, fresh, healthy, and—
Damn. She was gorgeous. Smelled like heaven, too. Night-blooming jasmine and Acadia Gray. He was as addicted now as he’d been thousands of miles and too many adventures ago, in Caracas. A feeling of euphoria swept over him, and he smiled. “Expecting someone?”
“No. Yes.” She opened the door wider. “I thought you were the guys coming to pick up—Never mind. You’re a long way from … wherever you’ve been.” Her voice was a little frosty, her expression hard to read.
“Can I come in?” He’d hoped for a warmer reception.
She gave a noncommittal shrug and opened the door wider, then turned and padded in bare feet across the marble foyer, not waiting to see if he followed her. Thinking he’d follow her to the ends of the earth and back again, Zak bent to place the box he was carrying on the floor beside the hall table and surreptitiously pocketed her car keys in case she decided to make a run for it.
It wasn’t an overwhelming welcome, but she hadn’t slammed the door in his face, and he was profoundly grateful that she didn’t hate him. God only knew she had just cause: putting her in danger, dragging her all over the jungle, nearly getting her killed, nearly dying on her, leaving her at the end. It was a long and damning list.
“Do you want something to drink?” Acadia tossed a glance at him over her shoulder as she led him into a living room. “I have—Ohmf!”
Zak spun her around, sliding his fingers under the silk of her hair to cup the back of her neck. Her body instantly melted against his. She felt deceptively fragile as she opened her mouth to welcome him. She felt achingly feminine in his arms, and he loved that part of her just as much as he loved her tensile strength.
He just … loved her.
Zak put everything he had into that kiss. Longing, need, regret, the apologies. Reaching into that raw, empty void in his heart, he desperately, silently tried to convey to her how he felt.
Her lips softened under his. Her lashes fluttered closed, and she sighed. After a few breathless moments he reluctantly lifted his head, and was gratified to see the haze in her wonderful gray eyes as she struggled to refocus.
He brushed his thumb over her smooth cheek and said tenderly, “How’ve you been?” Have you missed me as much as I’ve missed you?
“Fine.” She was getting her bearings back faster than he was. But then, he reminded himself, poker was her game. “Busy.” She pushed back, forcing distance between them as she smoothed her hands down her thighs. “Getting settled in my new place, getting ready to start school. How are you?”
“I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Everything is in monochrome. Awful … without you,” he finished. “My life is colorless without you in it, Acadia.”
“Really?” She cocked a brow. “And yet I haven’t heard a peep from you in three months.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Really?” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “So have I. In fact, I have an appointment in”—she glanced at her wristwatch—“twenty minutes, so say whatever you have to say, I need to get ready to go.”
“I love you.”
She didn’t skip a beat. “You had a traumatic experience. You miss your brother—”
“Agreed. But that doesn’t negate how I feel.”
She folded her arms under her breasts and gave him a level look. “Is that it?”
Zak laughed. “You aren’t going to give an inch, are you?”
They were standing four feet apart, in the middle of her living room. Zak felt an unfamiliar sensation of panic and ineptitude. He’d given symposiums to upward of twenty thousand people at a time, yet he couldn’t effectively communicate with the woman who held his heart.
“Just because I picked you up in a bar and slept with you an hour later doesn’t mean I’m available whenever you feel like showing up for a booty call. I’m worth considerably more effort than a few easy-to-say words, Zakary Stark.”
Oh, that the words were easy, he thought with self-deprecation. “Seattle to Boston is a hell of a long way for a booty call.”
“One would think.”
His lips twitched at the asperity in her voice. Her eyes said one thing, her folded arms another. “Can we sit down?”
“No.” Her look was unflinching, but he noticed that she let out a breath she seemed to have been holding. “Tell me what happened when you went back after I left.”
“How—”
“I know you wouldn’t leave Gideon there, Zak.”
Because he felt touching her now wouldn’t be to his advantage, Zak shoved his fingers into the back pockets of his jeans. “I went back at first light the next day. There was nothing to find.” In the area where his brother had fallen, there were a few partial remnants of human bones scattered about. But not only Gideon and Jennifer had lost their lives there; there’d been half a dozen others who’d died that day. And although he and the men he’d taken with him had found bone fragments within several hundred yards of the kill zone, there’d been no bodies. Remains were food. Animals and the voracious insect life had wasted nothing.
He found himself tenderly tracing a line to her chin, then the corner of her mouth, but didn’t remember taking his hand out of his pocket. Touchable. Alive. Present. No matter how desperately Zak had wanted to bring Gid home for a decent burial, there’d been nothing left. And that would’ve been the way Gid wanted to go. Dangerous, and on the edge. Going out winning. Saving Zak’s ass, knowing he’d leave behind an exciting story for others to tell in the aftermath.
Acadia covered the hand he had against her cheek. “I’m so, so sorry, Zak.”
“Me, too.” More than he could ever say, but he knew she understood. She moved her hand from his, and he tucked a strand of silky hair behind her ear
and felt the small shiver that ran through her body at his light touch. “No more regrets, Acadia.” Zak filled his senses with the smell of her hair and skin, filled the void she’d left where his heart had been. Now he felt filled to bursting with emotion. As if she were pouring liquid sunshine into his every dark nook and cranny.
“Tell me about Jennifer.”
Zak almost groaned. She was the last person he wanted in the room with them right now. “Can I just hit the high points?” he begged, voice thick. God. He wanted—everything from her. Everything. And wasn’t getting everything worth waiting for? Hell, yeah. But it was still killing him.
“Sure.”
“She was behind it all. The kidnapping, the police, the explosions.”
“Why? How?”
It had to be said, but Zak sure as shit didn’t want to talk about any of it. “She claimed she’d always hated our marriage. Apparently she’d been in love with Nikki Buckner, Buck’s wife, for years. I had my forensic accountants go back to the day we married and found that the two women had been funneling millions for years.” They’d also spent most of their time together, while he and Buck had been working their asses off.
“You didn’t notice the loss of ‘millions’ of dollars?” Acadia asked dryly as she ran the flat of her hand up and down his arm in an unconscious comforting gesture.
Zak shrugged. He’d noticed, he just hadn’t cared. If Jennifer had wanted the money, she had been welcome to it. “It wasn’t important. Of course, if I’d known what she was using it for, that would have put a whole different spin on it,” he told her dryly. “She started putting things into place to stage a kidnapping just before her fake death in Haiti two years ago.”
“She sounds very organized, but she couldn’t have known you’d be in Venezuela at that exact time.” Acadia’s curious gaze met his. Was she playing with the shirt button, or undoing it?
“Because of our various business commitments, Gideon and I couldn’t always coordinate time off simultaneously. It took considerable planning. We’d been talking about BASE-jumping Angel Falls for a while, so she knew we’d be there, eventually.”
“A long-range goal.”
His lips twitched at her sarcastic tone. “Let me get this on the table before I tell you the rest. I honest to God loved Jennifer when we first met. I thought she was everything I wanted. Bold and daring and ready for anything at any time.”
She raised both pale brows. “A female version of you?”
Probably. “The scales fell from my eyes within months.”
Zak wasn’t willing to air every scrap of dirty laundry between himself and Jen. Not now. “And for the next six years I tried everything in me to make it work.”
“If she was in love with Nikki, that wasn’t going to happen.”
“I wish I’d known that at the time. If she’d been honest, I would’ve wished her well and gone on with my life. Her subterfuge made both of us extremely unhappy.” Her lies had gotten two good men killed. “She hired Loida Piñero and her men to kidnap us. It was all about the money right from the start. A divorce would have netted her half my assets, if that. We had a prenup. But she wanted it all. Christ. If I’d known, I would’ve gladly given her every last cent I had! Her plan was to kill Gideon so I’d inherit, then keep me prisoner at the first camp—Remember the place they were building? That was to be my home away from home for a few weeks while she taunted me with a laundry list of my failures and wrongdoings.”
“The freaking bitch. She was a black widow patiently waiting in her web.”
“Yeah. She and Nikki were responsible for a lot of deaths, not just Gideon’s and Buck’s. Gid shot her before he died.”
“Good.” Acadia’s soft eyes filled with empathy, and she reached out to take his hand, twining her fingers with his. “He didn’t want you to have to do it. Your brother loved you.”
“Yeah, he did.” The feel of her slender hand in his gave Zak hope. “I realized, standing there in the jungle, confronting my own mortality, when everything I knew and loved was about to blow up in my face, I knew what I felt for you was overwhelmingly … different. She was nothing more than a pale imitation of the real thing. You’re the real deal, Acadia. As real as it gets.”
She smiled a Mona Lisa smile, but she didn’t move out of reach. “It’s understandable you’d think that under the circumstances—”
“I’ve had three months, and I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. Knowing where you were kept me doing what had to be done. Jennifer is dead. Nikki’s awaiting trial for first-degree murder.” She’d killed the father of her children. Zak had tracked down the hundred million she’d stashed in a Swiss account; that mess would take years to unravel. He’d set up trust funds for Buck’s kids to attend whatever college they wanted in the world, buy themselves homes and have a healthy start in whatever career path they chose once they graduated, but it wouldn’t be enough.
The strain was leaving her eyes, and her shoulders were a little less stiff. “How did you find me? Did you ZAG me? Or was it through your spy network?” And she had reason to wonder, since she’d told all her friends and coworkers back in Junction City not to tell him where she was if he came calling.
“I used this.” He pulled the chain and medal from beneath his shirt.
She smiled. “It kept you safe.”
“Your St. Christopher medal brought me directly to you. But it did more than that. You’re my lodestone, Acadia, in so many ways.” Zak wanted to hold her. He wanted the conversation to be postponed so he could make love to her—God, he wanted to touch her so badly he hurt. It took everything in him to allow this to move at her pace. Because if things progressed at the pace he wanted, he’d have her naked and on the closest flat surface the moment she said yes. “But know this: I would have done whatever it took to get to you.” This part he wasn’t so confident about sharing. “The number thing wasn’t just a link to my brother, Acadia. As soon as I held this, I saw your GPS location scrolling through my mind, clear as day. And the closer I got, the brighter and more vibrant the numbers became.”
“You saw my GPS coordinates. Here?”
“Yes. But if my newly found skill hadn’t worked, I would’ve turned the world upside down and shaken it until I found you, make no mistake. But it seems my new sense is here to stay. I’m going to use this … skill to help other people find their loved ones. In time—”
“Wait a minute,” she cut in, shaking her head. “Hang on; just to be clear, are you saying that if you hold an item that belonged to someone, you can find them? It doesn’t have to be a person you’re related to, or someone”—she gave him a mischievous glance—“you love?”
“No. As long as I hold an item, I can track the person with this new sixth sense my near-death seems to have given me. It’s a gift, Acadia.”
She didn’t look horrified, or appalled, or disbelieving. He should have known. He brushed his lips across hers. They clung for a second, and then she moved a little out of reach.
“So far it’s only worked on Gideon and, you say, me.”
“I tried it with a client of my lawyer’s, a young mother whose son was snatched from his bedroom. Turned out it was her ex as suspected, but the guy was Serbian, so that’s where they were looking. Instead he had the kid holed up in a small town in Greece. I was able to lead the police right to him. I’m not going to waste this skill, trait, magical sixth sense, internal GPS tracking system, whatever the hell it is. I’m going to turn something negative into something positive.”
Acadia grinned. “You’re a superhero.”
He shook his head. “I’m no superhero. Just a man. I’ve sold ZAG Search. It was something for me, Gid, and Buck. It’s time for a fresh start. A new company.”
“In Seattle?”
“So far I have the name but not the location.” He searched her face, but her expression gave nothing away. “The company is small. Just me. I’m calling this new venture Lodestone. Acadia, I can find people, I can find
things—anywhere, anyone. I found you. Come back to Seattle with me. God only knows I need your organizational skills. And the University of Washington has an excellent Architecture–Construction Management, dual-degree undergraduate program, if you want to go to school.”
“I came here to go to school, Zak.”
“Then I’ll move here,” he replied immediately. “Wherever you are is where I want to be. When I thought I had nothing left to feel, you taught me to love.” He threaded his fingers through the silky fall of her hair.
Her beautiful eyes clouded. “Our worlds are nothing alike, Zak. I think you’re confusing the heat of the moment with something else. Maybe … maybe you built what we shared into something bigger than it was.” She bit her lip. “I’m just—I’m just me. I don’t like heights; I’m not jumping from a plane unless it’s on fire and I have two parachutes. Our time together was high-octane passion, but for me, it was almost like visiting someone else’s life.” She lifted her chin. “I like popcorn and television on Friday night, not being gunned down by guerrilla terrorists. I can’t compete with all the bells and whistles, all the excitement you thrive on.”
Zak’s heart twisted. “I love you, Acadia. I love the way you plan your day, I love the way you stay true to who you are.” He leaned in and kissed her until the protests he saw forming behind her delicate features vanished. “I love your passion, I love how meticulously organized you always are, I love that you’re my center in a storm, and that you lie through your teeth when you’re scared. I love your sense of humor, and your strengths, as well as the way you combat any perceived weaknesses. I love the whole Acadia Gray package.”
Sunlight streamed through the uncurtained window behind her, highlighting her golden hair and the smooth curve of her cheek. Zak felt an overwhelming surge of love mingle with the intense lust.
“I—”
He pressed two fingers across her lips and smiled into her eyes. “I have some plans I think you can help me with.”
