Alaskan Nights (10 page)

His gut told him no mere monster from the deep could rip through her the way it had last night. She’d been terrified. There was absolutely no other word for the way she’d reacted. One hundred percent sheer terror.

He’d experienced nights like hers most recently after the explosion at the meth lab. Hours spent reliving the mistakes made and the horrors of that night. The heat, the flames, the explosion, the bodies.

The bodies. Three men he barely knew. Agents just like him.

But he’d survived. The survivor’s guilt he’d been warned about hadn’t come until the day after he left the hospital and met with their families. He thought it was the least he could do. Hooked up to too many damn machines, too drugged, and in too much pain to attend the funerals, he hadn’t been able to express his condolences. It was part of his duty to meet with Jeff and John’s widows, Xavier’s mother.

That was when the guilt had hit hard. The women were pleasant enough, no one blamed him, but he saw the pain in their eyes. The wives who would never again be held in their husband’s arms. The mother who looked at him with tears in her eyes.

Brandon scrubbed his hand over his face as he remembered Xavier’s mother. She was the same age as his own mother. What would his mom do if she were ever awakened by that knock on her door at three in the morning? Dear God, for that matter what was she going through now? He’d been missing for days. She was probably worrying herself sick.

When he thought about the weeks upon weeks he hadn’t bothered to pick up the phone to call her, when she’d left messages for him and he’d blown off returning the calls, shame nearly drowned him. He loved his mother. How could he have ever been so selfish?

Not anymore.

He needed to get out of the agency and come home. He wasn’t sure what he’d do, but he was his mother’s only living relative, and he needed to look out for her. Be there when her furnace went out at forty below, when she got a flat tire.

His mortality was all too real now, and as he approached forty, having spent the last twenty years in law enforcement of one kind or another, he thought maybe it was time to pass the torch to the younger guys. The ones who had the guts, wanted the glory, and lacked the knowledge that life is too fleeting. He’d done his duty to his country. He wanted to live to see forty-five, sixty, eighty if he was lucky.

He’d been a proud Marine, Special Ops for the secret, elite Viper Team, a big city detective on the Seattle police force and then a Drug Enforcement agent. Enough was enough.

He reached up to his left shoulder and found the scar, the only bullet he’d ever taken. Only a deep flesh wound, nothing life threatening. How he’d matured since then. When it had happened only a few years earlier, he’d felt like Superman. Indestructible. Even a bullet couldn’t stop him.

But an exploding building sure had. And if he’d been standing two feet to his left, he’d be just like Jeff, Xavier, and John. In a box, six feet under.

Shaking his head, he finished off his coffee and put another cookie in his mouth to dispel the bitter aftertaste. He was home now. Even when he was going down in that plane, he never felt totally out of control. An emergency water landing was so much easier than staring down a drug dealer with an automatic weapon pointed in your face.

This was right where he belonged. In Alaska.

In Alaska with a totally infuriating, absolutely captivating woman who’d saved his life. He wanted to know her secrets. All of them. And then he wanted to know the rest of her. Her body. Her love. And he didn’t give a good god damn how long it took. He wanted forever. With her.

And that, more than anything, shocked the hell out of him. He’d never thought he’d be in law enforcement his entire life. He knew someday he’d come home and start up a business of some kind because he didn’t want to work for anyone else. But never in his life had he had thoughts of long term relationships and all the homey shit that came with them.

Like a house. A big yard. A dog or two. Children…

If God looked out for fools like him, he could believe that he was sent to this deserted part of the state and plopped in sweet Bella’s lap.

He’d often imagined himself a bit like a cowboy. The one in the white hat who came to save the day. He’d been playing cops and robbers for half his lifetime, but it wasn’t a game, and he didn’t like the odds any longer.

~*~*~

Isabella sat on the ridge above the small cabin, the sun hot on her head and back, and stared at the sparkling azure lake until her eyes watered. She should be walking; that was what she’d come here to do. She needed to regain her strength, and walking was a good way to accomplish that goal, especially when traipsing the spongy moss. She just didn’t have the energy today. Exhaustion weighted her down. Made her bone weary. Sad.

She’d awaken in Brandon’s arms, and it had felt good. Too good. His long, lean body wrapped around her like a warm, magnificent blanket. From head to heels she’d felt the power of him. And he hadn’t made one sexual move. Not a single one. Even his hands had been appropriately placed this morning. One holding her snugly around the waist, the other lying innocently beneath her head, cradling her.

Damn it! At least if she’d awaken with groping fingers or pressing hips, she’d have a reason to...what? Be mad? Push him away? Demand that he never lay a hand on her again? But he’d been so sweet. She didn’t like sweet. No, that wasn’t true. She didn’t trust herself with sweet.

She hadn’t found any man appealing enough to want to touch or kiss, let alone sleep with, since just after her divorce. For one brief week, about a year after the divorce papers were signed, she’d had a quick fling with a lion tamer from Ringling Brothers’ Circus. The circus had been one of her uncle’s research projects. The affair had been fast, heavy, and very unfulfilling. The night she woke in his bed, in the throes of a nightmare, the asshole had practically tucked tail and run. After that one brief liaison, she’d sworn off men.

The only person who’d treated her nightmares as something serious was Cam. And now Cam was part of them. Cam had held her in the middle of the night when terror ripped through her until she couldn’t see or feel anything but the past. Cam had rocked her back to sleep after calming her fears. Brandon wasn’t Cam. Brandon wasn’t her uncle. Brandon was all man. And the worst thing about it...she wanted him. Desperately.

Flopping back on the soft carpet of sphagnum, Isabella groaned. She stared up at the sky so blue not a single cloud to marred its perfection.

The nightmare encompassed everything in her life that had ever gone wrong: Finding out she couldn’t have children, Bart’s infidelity, the murder she’d committed as a child. And now Cam’s death.

She’d been nightmare-free for three whole years. Now they were returning at an alarming rate—she’d had five since coming here. All because of Cam’s death.

She’d have to throw herself back into therapy. Silly wasn’t it that she’d thought she’d be able to handle this one on her own? But the person who’d helped her through the rest of it, her faithful, unwavering supporter, was gone. And it was her fault. Just like the rest of it. If she hadn’t been sick, if she’d been stronger, he’d still be alive.

If her life wasn’t messed up as it was, now there was the icing on top of the cream-filled cake. One very handsome, extremely wonderful, totally forbidden, Brandon Wilks. Who was slowly stealing her heart.

He worked in law enforcement. That in itself should have been a major turn-off. Isabella had no intention of ever getting romantically involved with a man who might or might not come home every night. Who might or might not be lying dead in a ditch, or in an exploding building, when he should be having dinner with her. She could never understand women who married cops. Their lives were too dangerous. She saw what her uncle looked like with a bullet in the head. She sure as hell didn’t need to see her husband that way.

No man could live with her nightmares. Bart had been ready to check her into the loony bin because of them. He couldn’t stand them. They kept him awake. He wanted her to take sleeping pills or Prozac or anything that would stop them because he wasn’t getting enough sleep.

But Brandon had held her, she reminded herself. Asked if she was all right. Asked if she’d wanted to talk. And then he’d held her all night long.

She threw her arm over her eyes, blocking out the bright perfection of the day. Damn him anyway. Why did he have to crash in her lake? She didn’t need this. Not now. Not ever.

She needed to cry.

She wanted to go back to the cabin, crawl in bed next to Brandon and beg him to hold her until the rest of the world disappeared and there was nothing left but the two of them. Here, in the middle of nowhere. Forever.

~*~*~

The damn mosquito kept buzzing in her ear. Its high-pitched whine would drive a monk to curse.

Isabella rolled over on the soft carpet of moss and put her arm over her head to block the annoying sound. The gun on her belt jabbed into her flesh. Damn it. She rolled to the other side. The whine grew louder, and she finally opened her eyes to find the little bugger and squash it into silence.

The sun blazed down on her, and she had no idea how long she’d been sleeping. Overheated and completely drained of energy she sat up, her back moist from the damp moss and her own sweat. Jeez, the weather was fickle here. Pouring rain one day, hot and dry the next. She squinted at the sky.

It wasn’t a mosquito she’d heard. A single-engine plane came in low over the lake. It must be someone looking for Brandon. Thank God, now his mother would know he was all right.

That means he’ll be leaving
.

Panic shot through her. He was going to leave her? No, not yet. She wasn’t ready for him to leave yet.

She pushed to her feet in a rush, straightened the shirt that had twisted around her while she slept, grabbed her pack from the ground, and headed down the long slope toward the cabin at the fastest pace she could without twisting an ankle or tripping over the hidden boulders and flash, slippery rocks beneath the thick layer of moss. She had to stop Brandon from leaving. She didn’t want him to go. She wanted—what was she thinking? Of course he’d leave. Why shouldn’t he? He wanted to get home to his mother. Reassure her he was safe. He probably had a job to get back to somewhere. He was already almost a week behind schedule.

And why would she want him to stay? He’d been nothing but trouble. He was eating all her food, and he kept touching her. Yesterday he’d dumped her in the stream. She could have frozen to death. And then he’d kissed her senseless.

“Aaagh!” she growled when her ankle twisted as she stepped into a hole. Better to keep her mind off his lips and on the path in front of her.
But ohh, those lips!

~*~*~

Brandon was at least a hundred yards from the cabin, chopping a downed, dead spruce tree for firewood. He’d found an axe under the cabin and spent a good hour sharpening it with the minuscule whetstone from the tackle box. There was plenty of wood stacked near the cabin, but he’d needed something to do. Some exercise to exorcize some of the burning desire putting him on edge. Besides, lying around, letting Bella wait on him, feeding him all sorts of good food, he was going to get soft. He needed his strength back. He’d spent too long doing nothing, first in the hospital and now here.

He wondered where Bella had gone and hoped she wouldn’t get lost. He didn’t like her being out there all alone. He knew she’d taken the gun, but that didn’t really reassure him. He still didn’t know if she knew how to use it. She was so bent on taking care of herself she was liable to get herself killed.

The trunk of the old, dry tree gave a satisfying crack as the axe made contact with the wood. It had been years since he’d chopped wood. It felt good. Comfortable. Almost exhilarating. He wondered if he could keep Bella out here forever. Just the two of them. “Me Tarzan,” he said under his breath as he swung the heavy axe. “You Jane,” he added as the wood splintered under his assault.

Brandon laughed at himself. He wouldn’t want to keep her here. He wanted to take her home and introduce her to his mother. Wanted to take her to meet Sheila and Case and the McCormicks. Hell, he wanted to take her out on a date, to a nice restaurant, maybe some dancing afterwards. He wanted...everything with her.

It was hard to believe he’d been here less than a week. There was something about her—something wonderful—that made him feel as though he’d known her forever. Yet, there was so much mystery.

Brandon set the axe against the trunk of the tree he’d been working at, pulled his T-shirt out of his back pocket and wiped his forehead, cleanly shaven cheeks and chest. His weakness disgusted him, his headache was returning, and his shoulder throbbed when he let himself think about it. He hadn’t been so weak since undergoing back surgery after his helicopter went down in a South American jungle nearly fourteen years ago. That crash had ended his career with the Special Forces. Because of his injuries, he’d been discharged from service. A year later, fully recovered, he’d joined the Seattle Police Department and started his career in law enforcement.

He wished Bella had asked him to go hiking with her this morning. He wondered if she was feeling awkward about last night. She tried to pretend she was strong and capable, but he wanted to be there for her when her burdens became too much to bear.