“And he’s been helping you since? Out of the goodness of his heart?”
Emma clasped her hand in her lap and tried to relax. “Pretty much.”
“So he’s hot for you?” Lucy pushed again.
“Really? You’re going there?” Emma said, objecting louder than she should’ve.
“Why were there other people at the hospital and why wouldn’t they give you your purse? Why were you running from him?”
“It’s complicated, Lucy. Please drop it. We have to leave Somewhere as soon as possible.”
“MmmmHmmmm.” The murmur was loud enough for Lucy to get her point across without coming right out and saying “gotcha”.
Chapter 19
They entered Lucy’s property through the stock gate she and Noah had ridden through the night before. The beginning flicker of oranges and yellows on the horizon, signaled the start of the sunrise.
Emma threw a quick glance over her shoulder. If the sunrise was supposed to affect Noah, it hadn’t yet. That’s all she needed. Him changing into a man—naked—in the back of the moving pick-up truck.
Lucy pulled to a stop behind a thick grove of trees and underbrush. She cut the engine, but left the keys dangling from the ignition. “When you get out, don’t close the doors. The noise will carry all the way to the house when it’s this quiet.”
Emma nodded, leaving the door hanging after slipping out. She grabbed the duffle from the bed and heaved it over the side. The gear hit the ground with a metallic thud.
“What do you want first?” Emma asked, yanking the zipper on the bag open. A smorgasbord of weapons clinked against each other, sleek metal shining in the dawning light.
Lucy leaned against the side of the truck. “Hand me the Barrett XM 500 sniper and that scope, there,” she answered, pointing toward a snazzy thermal scope. “You take the SIG, and the other Barrett rifle.”
Emma pulled the rifle strap over her head and shoulder, rotating it until it rested on her back. Then took the holstered SIG and clipped it to the waistband of her pants.
“I need the knapsack of smokers, too.”
Emma grabbed the small nylon backpack and handed it to Lucy, who slung it over one shoulder while she peered through the trees toward the farmhouse.”
“They still there?”
“Yep,” Lucy answered. “Two heat signatures.” “Are you going to be able to move okay without crutches?”
Lucy stepped forward on her boot-casted foot and nodded her head. “I’ll be fine. The drugs that were making me wobbly are out of my system and the break wasn’t that bad...Is that truck of Noah’s still in my barn?”
“Yes,” Emma said, zipping the duffle closed and slinging it over her other shoulder.
“Good. I want you to head to the barn after I throw the grenades. Disable the GPS like I taught you and put the weapons in the backseat. We’ll put the jerk wads in the bed of the truck and hightail it.”
Reality struck like the butt of a rifle to her face. They were leaving.
Soon.
Within a few hours she and Lucy would disappear from the country, and she’d never see Noah again. Her chest tightened painfully and she drew in a deep breath.
She glanced over at Noah, who was sitting on his haunches silently watching them both, and then trained her eye on Lucy as she stealthily approached the farmhouse, moving as if she wasn’t hindered at all by a giant strap-on boot.
“Come on,” Emma said, her voice barely above a whisper. The wolf moved soundlessly at her side as she made her way through the trees, snapping twigs left and right, toward the barn. It’d been a while since she’d played war games with Lucy. Her stealth approach could use some practice.
Once inside the barn, Emma moved slowly through the shadows to the driver’s side door. She pulled the handle, opened the door slowly, and jumped into Noah’s truck. The overhead light came to life, illuminating the cab. She pushed a small device into the 12v plug on the dashboard. The light on the jammer flashed red for a few seconds and then green.
Signal blocked. They could now use the truck without anyone being able to lo-jack them and follow .
A low howl from outside the barn made Emma’s skin tingle. She slipped down from the truck’s driver’s seat. Noah was still in wolf form, standing a mere few feet from her.
“What is it, Noah?” she asked, pulling the SIG from her holster.
Noah nudged her leg and whined, looking from her to the raised weapon.
Guilt crept into her mind. These weren’t just wolves. They were family members. She holstered the gun. “I’m not letting them take me, Noah.”
The barn door slid open a few inches more and two wolves, bigger than Noah entered, their teeth bared. One was nearly solid black and the other was a mixture of gray and white. If they hadn’t been snarling in her direction, she would’ve called them beautiful.
Noah advanced, his hackles raised as much as the other two. Emma reached for her gun, but hesitated. She didn’t know where she could shoot a wolf and not mortally wound it. What if it was his brother? Or father.
No one moved for what seemed like ages. Sweat beaded on Emma’s forehead. She could hear shouting from the house and the sound of glass breaking. Lucy was moving forward, taking her house back from Hollis and Grimes. She should be helping her, not stuck here playing checkmate with a pack of wolves.
She edged closer to a side door and all three wolves mirrored her movements. The two at the door moved closer and Noah kept his shoulder pressed against her thigh. The rumble of his growl vibrated through her entire body. Instead of causing more tension, she could feel her body relaxing, knowing he was right there, ready and able to protect and stand up for her even against his family’s wishes.
A sliver of sunlight snaked through the boards of the old barn and two of them began to shift. The very naked, very large man next to the door was older and unfamiliar. The other wolf sprinted out the barn door.
Noah finished shifting and pulled open the back door of his truck, grabbing from a stash of clothes in the back seat. He slipped into a pair of sweats and moved to stand in front of Emma.
“You’re going to have to get in my truck and leave before Allan knocks me out.”
“What?” she squeaked.
“I can’t hold him off for long. He’s older and better at fighting than me. I won’t last very long.” He turned, grabbing her shoulders and meeting her gaze. His blue eyes flashed with determination.
He was fighting for her.
“The spell,” she said, her voice a breath of a whisper. “Say the spell, Noah.”
“Noooooo!” Allan roared, running across the barn toward them, holding a horse blanket around his waist like a towel.
“Noah. You don’t want to do this!”
“It can’t be undone, Emma.” Noah stared at her questioningly. “You belong to me if I do this. We will always be connected in more ways than you can imagine.”
“I know.”
“Chun tú Geallaim mo chroí agus anam go deo,” he spoke quietly, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Chun tú Geallaim mo chroí agus anam go deo.”
Emma gasped as something intangible surrounded her. It felt like a blanket of static electricity at first, prickling and sparking, and then more like a heat wave as it melted into her skin. Emotions surged through her. Excitement. Arousal. Desire. Fear. Uncertainty. They all rioted inside her mind fighting to be heard like an angry crowd. What had he done to her? She couldn’t explain what she felt. But it terrified her as much as it excited her.
“You’re an idiot. You can’t do this, Noah. She doesn’t belong here. She won’t stay with you. Your mother is going to have my head over this,” Allan shouted angrily from a few feet away.
“Uncle. It’s my choice. My mother knows that. I refuse to let my father “fix” my mistake by punishing Emma,” Noah snarled over his shoulder.
“How could you give up your only chance at a bond for someone like this? She’s the daughter of an arms deale
r masquerading as a philanthropist. The pack can’t take the kind of scrutiny she would bring to this town if she—Arrrrrruuuugh!”
Emma and Noah both whirled to see Kara standing over Allan’s barely covered twitching body.
“Hey guys,” she said, her voice much too perky for the situation. A broad smile split her face with a look of satisfaction that said she’d done something she’d really enjoyed. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting. Emma, I figured you’d want your purse. And this,” she said, holding up the stun gun she’d used to knock the giant deputy sheriff on his ass. “He won’t be down long. I recommend moving out quickly. Your aunt has a couple of thugs hogtied on her porch.”
“Crap!”
Everything had happened so quickly, she’d completely forgotten that Lucy was taking down Hollis and Grimes a few dozen yards away in the house.
Noah grabbed her arm and pulled her close, crushing his mouth to hers. She sighed and found her body melting into his before a loud growl from the ground startled her out of the blissful bubble his kiss had provided.
“I have to deal with my family. I’ll find you afterward, I promise.”
Her voice choked in her throat. She couldn’t tell him. It hurt too much. She could feel his attraction. His desire. His genuine concern, even... love.
He pulled her wrists to his mouth and kissed the pulse point of each.
Her eyes widened as a shimmering emerald green band manifested, encircling not only her pale wrists but his tanned ones as well. This was more real than she had imagined. He’d given her more than she should’ve asked for. Tears welled in her eyes and she bit her lip, trying to keep them from cascading down her cheeks like fiery stripes of pain.
“Hurry,” Kara said, breaking the moment between them.
Emma wiped her eyes and pulled away from Noah. Their gaze met for another second and she saw the moment he realized she wasn’t coming back. Her heart felt his break, but he didn’t protest. He didn’t call her out on it. Instead, he walked away.
She didn’t understand how this exchange worked. Hell. She didn’t understand how he was a werewolf either. But this. This was hell on earth. If she could feel his heart. His pain and grief. He could feel hers, too. Her guilt. Her anguish over the choice she was making. It was like his uncle warned. If she stayed, the consequences would be catastrophic for Noah and his family.
It would never work.
Chapter 20
Emma turned the ignition and gassed the truck. It lurched forward and she maneuvered out of the barn. Kara had left it open more than wide enough for the truck to get through.
She swerved and headed for the back porch, stopping where Lucy was standing over two crumpled bodies. Hollis and Grimes had definitely had better days.
“What took you so long? Help me get them into the bed of the truck.”
Emma jumped out, surprised by Lucy’s ability to dead lift an unconscious man. “What are we doing with them?”
“Leaving them at the sheriff’s office on our way out of town.”
“What’s he going to do with them? Their covers will show in the system.”
Lucy shook her head as they slammed the tailgate closed. “I hacked their covers and fixed that problem. When the sheriff runs their prints, they will go directly to jail for the rest of their miserable lives. No one messes with my little girl and gets away with it.”
Emma grimaced, feeling the slightest bit of pity for the two mercenaries in the back of the truck.
“I’ll drive, sweetheart. Grab those go-bags I packed us,” she said, pointing to the porch again.
She hurried around the side of the truck and took the stairs onto the porch two at a time. Grabbing the duffles, she hurried to the truck, nerves sailing toward red-alert freak-out-mode when another truck pulled around the side of the house. She recognized Aaron VonBrandt and his wife from the other night.
Tossing the bags into the back seats, she scrambled into the cab and slammed the door behind her. “We have to go, now!”
“Why are the VonBrandts on my property? What is going on between you and them? And when the hell did you have time to get tattoos?”
“Lucy,” she hissed. “Floor it.”
The truck surged forward and seconds later they were flying toward town. It took them only a few minutes to reach the sheriff’s station and the dark front windows of the street were a clear indication that no one was awake or open yet.
“Are you going to tell me why the VonBrandts are hunting you like a pack of wolves?”
Words of surprise leapt to her tongue, but she held them back. Lucy didn’t know. She couldn’t know. “It’s complicated and I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Fair enough. That boy knows we are leaving, right?”
“He knows,” Emma whispered.
Lucy pulled to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office and left the truck idling.
Emma got out and together they moved both men to the sidewalk next to the sheriff’s front door. Lucy injected the unconscious men with something, and then handcuffed them to the bike rack that was bolted into the concrete sidewalk.
They turned to go to the truck and froze in place. A man stood across the street, leaning against a telephone pole, staring. His wide-brimmed hat was pulled down to cover most of his face and he wore typical clothes for being in a small Texas town — jeans, flannel shirt, boots. But the way he watched them made Emma’s inner cop radar buzz frantically.
Lucy saw him too. Emma had seen the hitch in her step when she turned around, and it wasn’t the heavy-booted broken foot. He didn’t move toward them or say anything. The staring match only lasted a few seconds before Lucy started for the driver’s seat. Emma followed suit.
“Do you know him?” Emma asked, as they turned the corner and left the sheriff’s office in the rearview mirror.
“Nope, he’s new in town. A nice-looking man built like a brick house and taller than sin-on- steroids doesn’t go unnoticed in Somewhere.”
“Lucy.”
“What? I might be old, but I’m never gonna be old enough not to appreciate a handsome man.”
Emma let the sigh she’d been holding onto slip slowly from her lungs. A few more turns had them barreling out of town and toward the highway. A sign for Houston appeared shortly after getting onto the busy four-lane freeway.
Each mile made the hole in Emma’s heart grow bigger. Noah’s anguish choked the air from her lungs and tore tore a hole in her heart. She’d hurt him—deeply. Except... it hurt her as much as it did him. Everything he felt she could feel. The farther they got, the more it felt like the drive was literally going to rip her heart, or her soul, from her chest.
She glanced down at her wrists again. Two wide green bands of Celtic knots encircled them, and strands from one circlet intertwined with the other, like a plant that had grown roots alongside another plant.
He’d had them too. The markings on his wrists had been nearly identical, only wider and more pronounced, like a male and female version of the same thing. Where hers were delicate and feminine, his had been darker and the strands had been wider.
“What are the tattoos?” Lucy asked, moving to the left lane of the highway.
“A memory.”
“Of Noah?”
Emma nodded. “Yes.”
“I’ve seen tattoos like that before. Lots of the VonBrandts have them, usually only paired off ones though. You didn’t marry that boy or anything crazy, did you?”
“No,” Emma said, “Nothing crazy.” Which was the furthest thing from the truth. But she couldn’t talk to Lucy about the VonBrandts. It was their secret, and she’d promised Noah she would carry it. Though now it was her secret as well.
“Are we going to Houston?”
“We will pass through it. We’ll stop for the night in San Antonio, then head to Laredo where I have a contact who can get us through the border into Mexico without a hitch.”
“Will we stay in Mexico?”
“Yes, I have a safe ho
use on the coast of Argentina. We’ll head to it and we can get your family finances in order from there.”
“I’ll never be able to go home, will I?”
“No, sweetie. Not to the Hamptons. People will be watching for that. But eventually you’ll be able to return to the states. We will need to make sure your new identity is solid. Change your hair color a little. But you’ll never be able to go back to your old life. To old friends.”
Emma swallowed. A new wave of grief washed over her. She might not have lost her memories to some spell, but she was still losing everything about her life. She was still being forced to start over completely.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. I promise. Life will eventually seem more normal. Give it time.” Lucy’s voice held a shadow of promise. She wouldn’t lie to her. She’d never lied to her. If she thought things would get better, then Emma trusted that they would. She wished she didn’t have an invisible dagger plunged into her chest that drove a little deeper with each mile of highway they put between them and Somewhere. She’d couldn’t imagine how much it was going to hurt when they made it all the way to Argentina…
Chapter 21
Noah sat against one of the center posts of Lucy’s barn. After he’d said the spell, everything between them had become so transparent. He could feel her attraction and her hesitation. They were both drawn to each other, but she was running from something terrible. A darkness that threatened to completely envelop her. Something that frightened her enough to leave town without saying goodbye—even though they were completely bonded. The pull between them was strong. Leaving, had not been easy. Still, it afforded little comfort.
She’d still left.
His mate.
The woman his wolf had sensed had left him.
He’d seen the bond in her eyes after their kiss in the barn and felt the hole in his soul widen when she’d driven out of town. He rubbed his wrists where the intricate tattoos wound their connected patterns. Their bond solidified instantly. He hadn’t realized it would. But he should’ve. They’d already slept together.
To Love A Mate: Somewhere, TX (VonBrandt Pack Book 2) Page 11
