Alaskan Nights (14 page)

After unending hours of tossing and turning, Brandon was up with the sun. Between the lumpy cushions and thoughts of Bella, he’d spent most of the night staring across the cabin, out the window at the stars. As soon as the sun peeked over the tops of the hills, he rolled off the torture-bed and pulled on his jeans and a heavy, still slightly damp, flannel shirt.

After a quick trip to the outhouse, where he discovered a thick layer of frost covering the ground, he stoked up the fire in the stove and went into the kitchen to make coffee.

The lump on his forehead was finally smoothing out. The one on the back of his head only hurt if he touched it. His bottom lip was tender and a bit swollen on one side. He’d live. Maybe. If he didn’t die of sexual frustration.

Listening to Bella move around all night, to the sound of her breathing in the still cabin, the soft sounds she made as she slept, had nearly driven him outside into the cold. He’d almost wished she’d have another nightmare to give him an excuse to climb up there and hold her.

“What are you doing up so early?” a sleepy, extremely intoxicating voice asked.

He turned away from the burner after setting down the coffee pot to see Bella hanging over the edge of the loft like she had the night before to grab a candy bar.

“Coffee.”

“You look tired.”

No kidding, he wanted to say, but bit his tongue. “I’m fine.”

“Come here.” She reached down and grabbed his shoulder. He stepped closer to her. Her face turned red from hanging upside down. She ran her thumb over his swollen lip. “I’m really sorry about that. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.”

Placing his hand over hers, he kissed her palm. “I’ll live.”

Her eyes widened for an instant then she tried pulling away. He let her go. She completely disappeared into the blankets. “How’s your arms? Are the scratches red? Do you need more salve?”

She just didn’t get it, did she? She threw her little fits and then wanted to pamper and tend his wounds. He shook his head. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

From the pantry he pulled out a box of hot cereal mix. Bella came down the ladder fully dressed in jeans and flannel and thick gray sweat socks, looking about as cute and sleepy and cuddly as a kitten. She slipped on her boots that he’d left right where they’d fallen. He still wondered if she’d intended to hit him with them.

“We got frost last night. Maybe we should go pick some blueberries this afternoon.”

“Sure.” She practically ran out the door.

They spent the morning each doing their own thing. Brandon went fishing, while Bella sat on the porch, her feet propped up on the hand rail, writing in her notebook. He’d been tempted to peek at whatever she wrote when he’d used her paper and pen to write the letters, but he’d refrained. He didn’t want to invade her privacy, not like that anyway. He wanted her to tell him her secrets, not find them out through snooping.

Around noon she came down to the stream and handed him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “How’s the fishing?” she asked as she sat herself on a nearby boulder.

“One more and we’ll have dinner.” He took a bite of the sandwich. “Unless you want me to catch your limit, too. We know how much you can eat.”

She rolled her eyes at him, and he smiled. First smile of the day. He hadn’t realized how much he missed them until there weren’t any.

“What are you working on?” he asked before he took another bite.

“What?”

“The writing.”

“Oh, nothing. Well... I’m trying to write a résumé so I can start looking for a job.” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Damn, she looked sexy when she did that. “I don’t even know what I want to do with myself,” she added with a little shrug.

He finished off the sandwich, wiped his hands on his jeans, then sat down next to her. Their arms touched. She didn’t pull away. “You were happy traveling the world with your uncle?”

She shrugged. “It sounds pretty pathetic, but I worked at a grocery store until I left Bart, and then went right to work with Cam. I’ve never really thought about doing anything else. Sometimes the places we went were exciting and wonderful. Those trips I really enjoyed.”

“Like what?” He put his arm around her waist. Again, she didn’t move away. Another bit of progress.

“He did an entire piece on the castles of Ireland.” She smiled, staring off over the gurgling creek, as if she was envisioning Ireland all over again. “We spent a month there, traveling from place to place. Talking with locals, learning the lore. The land is beautiful. The people and places magical.”

When he gently pulled her closer, she leaned against his side. Laid her head against him.

“Of course, there was the billionaire we sailed the Caribbean with on his yacht. That was a pretty fantastic voyage.” She sighed. “But those were the times it was like a vacation. Most of the time accommodations weren’t so luxurious. And the locals weren’t so welcoming.”

“Tell me?” he whispered, her silky hair tickling his lips as he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

“The middle east. Religious wars. The battle between the Koreas. Leper colonies in India. The poor of Appalachia. Gang wars in L.A.” Her voice dropped to a shallow whisper. “Guerilla warfare in Central America.” She took a deep shaky breath. “Even though we were there looking for some rare species of bird, Cam found the guerillas.”

Brandon’s muscles tightened. Those were no places for a woman. Her uncle had no business dragging her to those Godforsaken spots. She could have been killed, or worse. Dear God, the worse was unspeakable. He’d been sent on missions to pull out Americans that had been taken by guerillas. The women who’d survived wished they hadn’t.

“I’d say it was about fifty-fifty,” Bella continued, her tone almost matter-of-fact. “The good times to the bad. I’ve traveled the world. Been on every continent except Antarctica, and I’ve seen some of the most amazing things. The pyramids in Egypt, Aztec ruins, twelve-hundred-year-old castles.” She turned her head taking in the scenery.

“I think Uncle Cam would have liked it here. It’s so new, yet so old. Ancient glaciers that date back tens of thousands of years, yet the civilization is so young. He’d talked about coming up here in the next couple of years to do a story on the Iditarod or Yukon Quest or one of those dog sled races. Of course, that would have been in the winter and we might as well have gone to Antarctica.” She chuckled. “He loved to fish, though. We once spent time on a fishing trawler off the coast of North Carolina.”

He still couldn’t believe it. That she could talk that way about her uncle who’d hauled her skinny little behind all over the globe, exposing her to the worst horrors of humanity.

“Sweetie,” he said softly, holding his fury at her uncle in check. “Why?”

She turned her head to meet his eyes. “Why, what?”

“Why did you go with him to those horrible places?”

Her brow wrinkled in a frown of confusion. “He needed me. We worked well together. I don’t think he would have been as successful as he was if I hadn’t been there. And he paid me well.”

“Did you get a byline? Any credit? How much did he pay you?”

Bella slipped from beneath his arm, slid off the rock, her eyes never wavering from his. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked as he came off the rock to stand toe-to-toe with her. “What was wrong with him, hauling you around to places you had no business being.”

“How dare you speak about Cam that way.” Her eyes fairly crackled with anger, her face flushing deep pink. “He never
made
me go anywhere. It was by my own choice!”

“That’s how you know about this, isn’t it?” he pointed at his tattoo. “You had to be extracted out of somewhere you should never have been.”

She flinched. Her bottom lip trembled.

“That’s how he died, isn’t it?” Brandon pressed on. “We didn’t get there in time.” He reached for her, but she backed away. “Bella, tell me.”

“We were looking for a Goddamned bird!” Her hands clenched in fists and tears rolled down her cheeks. “It wasn’t supposed to be a dangerous project. Just a bird. A lousy bird.” Her legs buckled, but he caught her and pulled her into his arms. Her hot tears soaked through his T-shirt as she sobbed.

“Bella, I’m sorry.” She clung to him, her whole body shaking. “Sweetheart,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset you. God, baby, I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t know if she heard him or not. She buried her face against his shoulder, her hands clenching the front his shirt in tight fists, and cried all the harder. His guts twisted. That fist that had been tampering with his heart squeezed painfully.

He lifted her into his arms and headed back to the cabin. Once inside, he sat down on the couch, snuggled her on his lap, and let her cry. Maybe that was what she needed. Maybe she’d never let it out. He could only imagine what she’d seen. How she may have been hurt. He prayed none of those bastards had touched her as he ran his hand over her arm, her back, her legs, reassuring himself she wasn’t hurt. Hadn’t been hurt. “Sweet baby,” he whispered against her temple.

Her fist twisting in his shirt slowly loosened. Brandon pulled the bottom of his shirt up and wiped her face, her nose. “Everything’s all right, baby.”

She nodded, her breathing choppy, hiccupping like a child. Her body still trembled with each shuddery breath.

“Relax.” He cupped her cheek, rubbed his thumb over her silky skin. He couldn’t believe how much he ached for her. How he felt her pain so deep inside him like a knife to his gut.

“I was so sick,” she whispered.

He waited, his thumb lightly caressing her cheek. Could she feel his love, his worry?

“Bad water, bad food. I don’t know what caused it, but I could barely walk. There were two Brazilian guides with us. They tried to make the trek more comfortable for me. Cam had just made the decision to turn back. He wanted to get me to a hospital. We’d only been in the jungle for three days.”

Her voice died on a strain. She brought her hand up to his neck and curled her fingers around his collar, as if she needed the anchor he provided. Her fingers were ice cold. He kissed her forehead. She snuggled deeper into his lap, pulling her legs up, her nose pressed into his neck as if she wanted to crawl inside him. He wrapped both arms around her and held her tight, wanting to make her feel safe enough to talk to him.

“We got up and headed back the way we came. Up ahead of us appeared eight men with automatic rifles and dirty fatigues with the arms ripped off the uniforms. Our guides tried talking to them. They shot the guides. Both of them. Right there.”

Her body tensed and she buried her face deeper against him.

“They grabbed us and tied our hands together with hard, prickly ropes. We walked for a long time.” Her fingers at his throat held his shirt in a death grip. “We got to this camp. The ground was muddy, it smelled of rotting food and decay. The buildings were shabby wood huts that looked like they’d been constructed from pallet boards. We were shoved into one of them. There were three other Americans in there. They’d been there for days.”

Brandon wanted to tell her to stop talking, to stop reliving the horror, but he knew she needed to get it out. No wonder she had nightmares.

“He was trying to get me help. He was begging a guard to get me a doctor. Fresh water. The other Americans were telling him to keep his mouth shut, but he wouldn’t listen.” She sobbed and wrapped her arm around his neck, nearly choking him. “They shot him.”

Bella’s story tore Brandon’s heart open, and he held her as tightly as she clung to him. He’d seen what those men could do without blinking an eye, but he’d been trained to deal with it. He’d gone through months and months of training before dealing with those kinds of men. And it was still awful. It had taken years to stop the memories once he was out of the Special Forces. Bella was such a sweet, compassionate woman. So tender. How would she ever heal?

“We were there for nearly a month,” she said, her voice hoarse, strained, as she held back more tears. “It was a Viper Team that came in the middle of the night. We didn’t even know they were there. They killed the guards and took us away. Cam never came home.” She choked on a sob. “He’s still down there somewhere in that horrible place. No burial. Nothing. All because of me.” She buried her face in his neck as more racking sobs seized her.

“No. No, Bella. It’s not your fault.” Brandon pulled her arm from his neck and held her by the shoulders so he could see her face. Her eyes overflowed with tears, her nose red. “Baby, look at me. Look at me.” He waited until she raised her eyes. “Sweetheart. Cameron’s death had absolutely nothing to do with you. I’ve been down there. I know what those animals are like. If it wasn’t then, it could have been later. They kill indiscriminately. Because they can.”

A spark of hope ignited in her eyes, as though she desperately wanted to believe him.

She should be at home, going through post-hostage counseling. She probably thought she could deal with it on her own, that she could take care of herself. He pulled her back into his arms and cradled her like a child. “Nothing is your fault, baby. Nothing.”

“I killed my stepfather when I was twelve.”