JOSS: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) (11 page)

I touched her face and ran my fingertip over the scrapes and scratches that only seemed to enhance the beauty of her face instead of marring it. And then I touched the tape that held the bandage at her shoulder in place; I touched it until the edges disappeared too far under the scrub top to reach.

She took my hand and pressed her lips to my palm.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “Everything’s okay now.”

I stared in wonder at her, taking her face between both my hands.

“Say my name,” I begged.

“Carrington,” she said, a slow smile slipping over her lips as she did. Then a little stronger. “Carrington.”

I shook my head, drawing her to me.

“You are amazing,” I said before stealing her lips. And then I lifted her onto the bed and held her close to me until exhaustion stole our moment, until she slept soundly against my shoulder. And still I held her, knowing I was headed down a road I didn’t want to be on, but unable to care at the moment.

Joss

Pain in my shoulder woke me long before I was ready to get up. Carrington was sleeping soundly beside me, his soft snores more reassuring than I would have imagined before. Before I opened myself to the possibility of moving on. Before someone invaded his house and tried to steal his daughter away in the night.

I touched his face gently before I slipped out of bed. Dressing with one arm was complicated, but I managed to pull on a pair of jeans and an oversized t-shirt. It was the bra that was the hardest, but I managed without falling over or waking everyone within a fifty-mile radius.

I tugged McKelty’s blanket higher up on her shoulders before I slipped out of the cottage, walking slowly along the path to the main house. It felt like it should be early, but it was really closer to one in the afternoon. When you don’t get to bed until after five…

Rose smiled when I slipped through the door of the main house.

“Hello, darling,” she said, standing to greet me. She touched my healthy shoulder and kissed my cheek lightly.

I smiled, habits deeply ingrained.

Donovan and Kate were sitting at the conference table, binders and papers and magazines all open in front of them. Wedding planning. I remembered that. However, Esteban and I took one look at all that a big wedding required and decided to elope, much to the horror of his mother. But I never regretted it.

“Hey,” Kirkland said, coming up behind me. “How are you?”

He seemed almost weary when I turned to face him, but I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I moved into him, threw my good arm around him, and gave him the biggest hug I could.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice stronger than it’d been last night. “I don’t know what would have happened last night if you hadn’t been there.”

Kirkland’s eyes widened, his eyes moving over me as if he thought someone had replaced me with an inadequate substitute.

“What?” I asked.

He suddenly laughed and threw his arms around me, pulling me so tight against him that I couldn’t breathe. And the pain that shot through my shoulder was excruciating. Funny how it hadn’t hurt when it first happened, but now the pain was constant. And growing.

“Hey,” I said, pushing against his chest.

“Oh, sorry!”

I stepped back, suddenly aware that everyone was staring at me.

“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up my good hand. “Yes, I’m talking. No, it’s not a miracle. No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Eyes dropped. However, Kirkland was still staring at me as if he still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it.

“I’m good,” I said, slapping him against the side of his arm.

I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, looking for something to snack on. I was starving, and the fridge at my place was pretty much empty because I’d known I’d be gone for a week or more. There was a bowl of fruit salad—thanks Rose!—and a bottle of water. Kirkland came up behind me and slipped the bowl out of my hand and spooned some out for me.

“I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know. You always have been.”

“So let me.”

“Indulge me for a minute, won’t you?” He carried the fruit to the table and pulled out a chair, gesturing for me to sit. “Your voice is slightly higher than I expected it to be.”

“Yeah?”

“Somehow I expected you to have a deep, almost masculine voice.”

I slapped his arm again, and he acted as if I’d wounded him quite significantly. He grabbed his arm and moaned, his bottom lip coming out.

I just laughed, sitting back and tucking into my salad.

Ash came downstairs a little bit later, a smile brightening his dark features when he saw me.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked, as he came into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of the old coffee he seemed to live off of.

“Sore.”

“Doctor said it would be. You should let me fill the prescription.”

I shook my head. “Don’t want it.”

“Joss, it wouldn’t hurt.”

I shook my head again, shooting him a look. He knew why I didn’t want to take a pain pill; he knew better than anyone else did. But I guess it was easy to forget when so much time had passed.

He finally nodded—even as Kirkland looked between him and me, his eyes coming to rest on me.

“Why don’t you want to take pain pills?”

“None of your business,” Ash said, knocking his hand against the back of Kirkland’s head as he walked past him to take a seat across from me.

“Since when?”

“Since a lady has to have some secrets, even from her best friend,” I said.

Kirkland’s eyes lit up. “I’m your best friend?”

I groaned and he laughed.

“You can’t take it back now!”

He stood, leaning down to kiss my cheek before wandering off to cause trouble elsewhere. I watched him go, avoiding Ash’s eyes for as long as I could. I knew he was worried about me. I knew he didn’t approve of what he’d seen between Carrington and me last night. But I wasn’t in the mood to argue with him over it.

“So you speak.”

I stared at my salad, picking at the fruit with my fork.

“Are you okay?”

I looked up then, touched by the concern in his voice.

“I’m okay.”

He didn’t say anything, just studied my face for a long minute. Then he stood and came around to touch my shoulder.

“If you change your mind about the pills, let me know.”

Then he walked away. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or frightened by how easy that was.

I watched him cross the room and settle in his office chair. It had been so odd to me to see him sitting behind a desk when I first came to work here. Ash had always been active, always the first to volunteer for guard duty, the first on the physical training course in the mornings. And when he came to Illinois to check on me…he wouldn’t leave me alone, wouldn’t allow me a second’s privacy.

He was a good friend.

I saw him slip a file folder from a desk drawer and knew without needing to peek over his shoulder exactly what he was looking at. He’d lost his fiancée over there. Alexi. I never met her, but I’d seen pictures of them together. She was beautiful, the kind of woman who seemed too perfect to be real. And a CIA agent on top of that. She was perfect for him. Maybe that was why he wouldn’t let her go. The government declared her dead over three years ago, but Ash held on to the idea that she’d survived the operation they were running. They were gathering intel on a corrupt government official when they got separated. Ash insisted that she was smart enough to get herself out of any situation. But when I pushed him, he couldn’t tell me how she could possibly still be alive. He threw out wild theories, like she had amnesia, that she was being held captive, that she was injured but alive in a hospital somewhere. We all knew that was so unlikely, but Ash held on.

I supposed I would have, too, if I hadn’t held Isaac in my arms when he took his last breaths. If I hadn’t seen Esteban’s crushed body.

I finished my fruit, throwing glances at Ash from time to time. David came over to grab a water from the fridge.

“Is he okay?” I asked.

David hesitated, the same concerned look on his face that I imagined was on mine.

“He went to Maine last month, following up on a tip.”

“Anything come of it?”

“No. It never does.”

I sat back and dragged my fingers through my hair, wishing I’d been able to pull it back in my customary ponytail before I left my cottage.

“Do you think he’ll ever get past it?”

David stared at his hands for a long minute, his long fingers playing with the lid of his water bottle.

“Can I show you something?”

“Of course.”

I stood and followed him across the room to his workstation. He reached into a desk drawer and tugged a file folder of his own out, but before he could open it, an alarm began to flash on his computer monitors.

“Shit,” he muttered, dropping the file back into his drawer as he leaned forward to see what was happening. “It’s at the front gate!”

I took off before he could say anything else, before anyone else heard the alarm. I knew what it was. I knew they were coming for McKelty and Carrington. I had to get to them before anyone else did.

Carrington

McKelty jumped into the bed, narrowly missing my stomach in her enthusiasm.

“Wake up, Daddy!”

I groaned, pulling the blankets up over my head even though I’d been awake for a while, just lying there listening to the quiet. I’d reached for Joss the moment my consciousness awoke and, even though I’d known she wouldn’t be there, felt a second of cold disappointment.

It reminded me too much of those first weeks without Andrea.

“Come on, Daddy,” McKelty said, tugging at the blankets. “I’m hungry.”

“Okay, baby.”

I sat up and caught sight of my daughter’s face, the scratches that she, like Joss, had collected as they ran past the trees on the property behind my house. I touched one and she pulled away, jumping off the bed and racing into the living room of the tiny cottage.

I climbed out of bed, looking around the room as I slowly dressed. There were trinkets on top of the cheap, wooden dresser. No pictures. A snow globe. A souvenir spoon. But nothing truly personal.

Seemed familiar.

McKelty was sitting on the couch, watching television when I walked out of the bedroom.

“Joss has satellite,” she announced.

“Cool.”

“How come we don’t have satellite? She has Disney
and
Nickelodeon.”

“Because we have cable.”

I went into the kitchen and discovered absolutely nothing in the fridge. I found myself wondering how Joss sustained herself when she was on her own, then remembered the large kitchen in the main house. She must spend an awful lot of time up there since there was nothing here but a few frozen dinners.

The idea of Joss spending all her time in Kirkland Parish’s company made my blood boil. I tried not to think about it, but with him shoving it into my face constantly, it was kind of hard not to think about it.

But, again, I supposed there was no point in getting jealous over something that was doomed to end sooner rather than later.

I liked Joss. I really did. She was a challenge I’d never imagined taking on. And her body…I suddenly understood every word of that song “Wonderland.” Being with her was like every fantasy I’d ever had coming together and creating a new, wilder, more exciting fantasy than my imagination could ever come up with.

But it was just that. Sex.

“Where is Joss?” McKelty called from the living room.

I went to the door and watched her swing her legs as she sat there, looking so small despite the fact that she was sitting in the center of what was a loveseat aspiring to be a couch. The fear of the night before suddenly came back, gripping me once again with its cold fingers. If I’d lost her, I would have been lost.

Almost as though she could hear my thoughts, Joss suddenly burst through the front door, her face a mask of panic.

“What’s going on?”

She ignored me in favor of going into the bedroom. When I came up behind her, I backtracked to close the door so that McKelty wouldn’t see the weapon in Joss’ hands.

“Are they back?”

Joss was checking the clip that normally stayed nestled inside the grip of the gun. She shoved it back inside with a satisfying click and turned to the closet to grab another clip that was also fully loaded.

“Joss,” I said, grabbing her shoulders, “what’s going on?”

She looked up at me, her eyes wild.

“There was a—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish. Her cell phone vibrated as it had a habit of doing. She yanked it out of her pocket, then stiffened as though she didn’t like what she was reading.

“Joss!”

“False alarm,” she said, her low, rough voice filled with disbelief.

“False alarm? From what?”

She shook her head, sitting back on the bed with a sigh that spoke of all the tension that had built in her shoulders that was suddenly slipping away.

“David had an alarm at the front gate. I assumed…” She looked up at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“After everything that happened last night, I’m only grateful to you and the rest of the team here.”

She smiled almost distractedly, her eyes falling to the floor.

“Are you okay?” I sat beside her, brushing my fingers over the bandage that was visible in the curve created by her shoulder connecting to her neck. “Are you in pain?”

She touched the shoulder as if she’d forgotten the wound was even there.

“We should go up to the main house. Detective Warren is there.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, then winced at the movement of her wound. “I’d guess she wants to let us know what the police found at your house last night.”

“I don’t suppose they were able to get them all. The entire cartel? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I doubt it. But maybe they were able to get the few that were there last night. Slow them down a little.”

“Will this ever be over?”

She set her gun back in the drawer and took my hand. She didn’t try to reassure me, didn’t try to fill me with words that would, ultimately, be proven false. She just held my hand.

We got up after a while and headed up to the main house. I lifted McKelty up onto my shoulder, making her laugh.

“Rose makes amazing spaghetti and meatballs,” Joss told her. “I bet there are some leftovers in the fridge.”

“Awesome!”

The main house was abuzz with activity. Rose was fielding phone calls and the big fella who pulled me off Kirkland was discussing something intense with Grayson and a middle-aged woman. All three looked up as we came through the door.

“Donovan Pritchard,” the big guy said as he approached me. “We never really were introduced last night.”

“Carrington Matthews.”

“I’m Detective Emily Warren,” the woman said, holding out a hand to me. “I just stopped by to get everyone up-to-date on the aftermath of last night’s situation.”

“Hey, beautiful,” another woman said, this one younger but still attractive with startling hazel eyes. She smiled at me before reaching her hands out to McKelty. “Would you like to go find something to eat with me? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

McKelty looked down at me from her perch on my shoulder.

“Go,” I said, lifting her down to the floor.

“That’s Kate,” Joss said, moving up beside me. “She’s Donovan’s fiancée.”

“She was one of our clients, back in January,” Ash told me.

I just nodded, not sure if I was supposed to be impressed, or what.

Detective Warren wrapped her arms around her chest, regarding me with what I could only call a cop’s expression.

“We found three men searching the woods behind your house. They claimed they’d gotten lost when their car broke down, but we found a gun equipped with a silencer on one of the men that matched the description Joss gave us.” She glanced at Joss, giving her a look that was like a non-physical high five. “All three men have records longer than my arm. Each one has connections to the Bazarov Cartel.”

I nodded. That was no surprise.

“We’ve got them on breaking and entering, attempted kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon. With any luck, we’ll be able to keep them tied up for a long time.”

“If you’re not lucky?”

She offered me a little shrugged. “They’ll be out by the end of the week.”

A little bit of desperation built up in my chest. I glanced at Joss, and the worried look in her eyes did nothing to soothe my thoughts. Ash, too, didn’t seem very hopeful.

“These people have deep pockets and incredible resources,” the detective said. “All we can do is take them out one at a time. Eventually…”

She didn’t seem terribly hopeful. But this was my child and my business that was at risk.

“What do I do, then?”

“Keep us informed when they contact you. Keep your head down.”

I shook my head. “Don’t you think I’ve been doing that?”

“I know this is frustrating—”

“Frustrating doesn’t even begin to cover it,” I said, my voice rising. “I’m trying to run a legitimate business, and you’re basically standing here telling me I’d be better off letting these people run their drugs on my ships because it’s better than the alternative. And that is not something I can do.”

“I realize that’s how it sounds—”

“That’s not just how it sounds. That’s how it is.”

“No, Mr. Matthews,” the detective said, moving closer to me even as she glanced at my child—my daughter—and lowered her voice so that she wouldn’t hear what came next, “we want you to continue cooperating with us so that we can take these people down. We have a dozen of these cartel members in our jail at this moment because of the tips you’ve given us. I was about to inform you that the tip that they were going to hit your shipment containers was good. At the same time they entered your house, ten of their men hit the shipment containers at the Port of Los Angeles. We were waiting and were able to arrest all of them without incident. And that’s because of you.”

“That’s only going to make them angrier! Don’t you realize that by trying to help me, all of you are simply placing me and my child deeper in danger?”

“Mr. Matthews,” Ash said, his voice deep, low, and controlled, “you need to remain calm.”

“I need to protect my family!”

“Carrington,” Joss said, moving around the detective to move up against my chest, her big, round eyes so blue in this light, “we’re all doing everything we can. But we have to do this the right way, or it won’t make any difference in the long run. You do understand that, right?”

I wanted to lose myself in those eyes. I wanted to hide under the covers with her for the rest of my life and pretend that nothing else mattered any more. But my daughter was nearly kidnapped out of her own bed last night. How could I ignore that?

“We need to get out of here.”

“This is the safest place for you right now, Mr. Matthews,” Ash said.

I shook my head, ignoring him as I continued to look at Joss. “Let’s get out of here. I have a place in Oregon, in the mountains. Let’s go there and get away from all this bullshit.”

Joss lifted her hand as if she wanted to touch me, but she stopped, her hand inches from my chest. She glanced at Ash, as though asking for permission to touch me. That nearly pushed me over the edge.

I was not a man who was comfortable being so far outside his comfort zone. I needed to be in control. I needed to be the one who called all the shots, not the one who waited for everyone else to make a decision.

“McKelty,” I called, stepping back. “We’re leaving, baby.”

“Mr. Matthews,” the detective began to say, but Joss gestured to her to shut the hell up.

“Okay,” Joss said. She studied my face for a second, the she turned to Ash. “I can protect them just as well there as I can here.”

“But your shoulder…?”

“I’m good,” she said, pulling her arm out of the sling and moving the shoulder without the slightest hint of pain. I knew what it took for her to do that. I saw the wince of pain in the bedroom not fifteen minutes ago. And that made me respect her so much more than I already did.

Ash inclined his head even as Donovan began to protest. But it was too late. Joss had made up her mind.

We were out of there before anyone could do a thing to stop us.