Harmony's Way (30 page)

Harmony watched from the opposite side of the water stream as he rinsed, realizing that with her, Lance broke his own rules in some way.

Unwritten rules. She understood that. He was a man who took life as it came and fixed what was in his power to fix. And he did so without waste. He wasn’t a man to posture or to make excuses if he failed. He saw all the different shades of the world, and he did his part and more if the opportunity arose, to make the world a better place.

“You deserve better,” she said sadly as he turned the shower off and grabbed two thick, fluffy towels.

“Better than what?” He began drying her. Slow, gentle movements, as though he relished touching her.

“Better than a killer with an ugly past and even uglier disposition.” She stared back at him as he tossed her towel aside and began drying himself.

He didn’t speak. At first she thought he intended to ignore her statement. Once he’d dried himself and tossed the towel aside, though, he leveled a long, assessing look at her.

“I would die for you, Harmony.” He said the words simply, easily. “I love you. And I’ve never said that to another woman outside my own family, in my life. All I am belongs to you. Ugly past and all. And no man could ask for more than what you are.” His hands clasped her face as she felt tears welling in your eyes. “Beautiful, strong. Capable. I have more than I ever deserved, in you. And don’t forget it.” His eyes sparkled wickedly. “Or I might have to spank you again. Now, get ready. We have plans to make.”

He patted her rear, an affectionate reminder of the spanking she would receive. Unfortunately, she had liked that spanking way more than she should have.

———

“Where’s the information hidden?” An hour later Lance cleared the dinner dishes from the table and refilled their coffee cups before returning.

Harmony leaned back in her chair and watched him. She could feel the change in him. This was what made Lance such a powerful force in the county. He solved problems, and he was ready to solve this one. Now.

She breathed out roughly, leaning forward as she gripped the coffee cup between her hands. “Boulder, Colorado,” she said softly. “I have them hidden in the mountains.”

“Why not a safe-deposit box or storage area?”

She shook her head. “Video cameras. There’s no way to hide completely from them, and some of the Trainers the Council possessed could have picked me up easily, no matter my disguises when I was younger.”

He nodded at that. “Do you have a cabin…?”

“It’s not that simple, Lance.” She wished it were. “The hike is a long one. It’s hidden someplace where I knew it would be protected, no matter what. Getting it won’t be easy.”

“I’m not heading out of here blind,” he snapped. “There are no bugs in the house, and no one listening from outside. We’re safe here, Harmony. Now, where is it?”

Her lips twitched. The hard male force that lay dormant beneath the easygoing sheriff was in full force now. She leaned back in her chair and watched him closely.

“It’s in a small cave occupied year-round by one cougar lioness or another. Though for the past few years, the same one has managed to hold onto it. The satchel itself is sealed into a protective, lined box with a coded lock. Any attempts to move it or break into it without the code destroy the interior.”

His brow lifted as she basked in the approval she saw in his gaze.

“Smart,” he murmured.

“I thought so.”

“You’re going to have to give the Breed Cabinet the information…”

She shook her head furiously. “There’s a spy in Sanctuary. Leo would be murdered or captured before the Enforcers could ever figure out where he was hidden. That is not a workable solution.”

He sat back in his chair, pushing his hands through his hair as he stared up at the ceiling for long moments.

“What about Braden? He’s aware of the spy. He and Megan could work on this.”

“It could endanger their work with the Breeds they’ve already taken under their wing.” She shook her head at that one too. “I don’t know, Lance.”

“It’s our only choice,” he told her roughly. “He’ll know someone to contact outside Sanctuary if nothing else. The Breeds are a cohesive unit, but like everything else, certain branches work under the radar from the others. It’s our only answer, because after this, you’re no longer in the game.”

There was that dominant tone again. It sent shivers up her spine even as she leveled him a hard look.

“You can’t take the killer out of the Breed,” she told him quietly.

“No, but I can take my Breed out of the killing arena.” He leaned forward, his gaze hardening as he watched her. “And never doubt, baby, that you’re being taken out.”

And why did that send a strange little thrill racing through her body?

“We can discuss this later,” she said, rather than arguing over something so pointless. Hell, she wanted out, she realized. She wanted to sleep in Lance’s arms every night and feel their child grow inside her.

“We’re not far from Boulder,” he mused then. “But there’s too many damned eyes watching us. I’ll call Braden and have him put together what we need and meet us tonight on the other side of the courthouse. There’s an underground tunnel that leads over there from the days that the downstairs cells were used regularly. We can sneak over to the courthouse and slip away from there.”

That could work. Harmony straightened in her chair as she let the plan roll through her mind. “We could hit Boulder by daybreak.” She nodded. “We’ll take a room until dark. It’s the only way to slip into the mountains unnoticed if we’re being followed.”

“We won’t be followed. But we’ll go in after dark anyway, just to be safe. Get me a list of what you need and I’ll put Braden on it.”

Her brows lifted. “You mean I get to contribute?” she asked sweetly.

Lance grunted, his gaze heating up at her sarcasm.

“If I could lock you up and keep you, I would,” he growled, though she had a feeling they both knew better. “You scare the hell out of me, Harmony, but this is your world. You know a damned sight more about it than I do. This time, I’ll follow you.”

She was going to go into shock. She stared back at him in disbelief, knowing that following was not a word this man usually played with.

“I didn’t say I would like it,” he growled. “I said I’d do it. There’s a hell of a difference. And I’ll spank you for it later.”

Damn, there was that purr again. She blinked at the little rumble that came from her chest.

“Minx.” His eyes were like dark blue flames as he stared back at her. “Keep that up and I’ll just tie you up in the bed until this is over. That sound makes me harder than hell.”

“The mating heat is going away,” she pointed out.

“Tell that to my dick.” He rose from his chair, and sure enough, the bulge in his jeans was there. Thick. Heavy. Her mouth watered. “And stop looking at me like that. Get your list together and we’ll head out.”

Bossy, that’s what he was. Harmony watched as he moved from the table, all business despite the hard-on straining beneath his jeans. But he was also willing to work with her. She liked that. She hadn’t expected it, but she liked it. Her eyes followed him, lingering on his hard back as he turned away from her, feeling the further softening in her chest.

She loved him.

That fact hit her like a two-by-four against the head. For a moment, she even swore she saw stars.

She loved him.

It was quite possibly the most weakening and yet the most strengthening emotion she had ever known in her life. This was why she hadn’t been able to leave him. Even knowing the danger she represented to his life, the heartache she had feared was coming, she hadn’t been able to leave because she had fallen in love with him that first night.

When he had touched her as though she were something beautiful, something fragile and to be cherished; when he had whispered his naughty demands at her ear and made her feel like the woman she had never been, she had fallen in love with him.

“Harmony, that look on your face is going to get you fucked and we’re already eating daylight here. Get the list together and let’s get moving. I want this taken care of.”

“A quickie…”

“You’ve had your quickie,” he growled, the dark demand in his voice making her insides melt. “I want all night. Hell. I want fucking forever. Now let’s take care of it.”

CHAPTER 22

The sniper rifle surprised her.

Harmony had known that Lance had been on the SWAT team in Chicago; she had even been aware that he was a sharpshooter. Yet when he pulled the specially designed sniper rifle from its case and began to put it together, she could only watch him.

He handled the weapon like an extension of himself— confidently, certain of each move he made as the different parts of the weapon were cleaned, then put in place.

With each added part, he checked the weapon for any flaws, any weakness.

She studied his expression as he worked at the small table in the hotel room they had finally settled on. His face was set, composed, relaxed. There was no frown marring his strong brow, no sense of anger tightening his mouth.

As she cleaned and checked her own weapons on the extra bed in the room, she realized that perhaps there were parts of Lance that she didn’t know as well as she should. Parts of him that perhaps she was frightened to know.

He was a man of many layers, of many depths, and infinite patience. She had never met a male as patient, and yet with such a sense of inner strength as Lance held. Unlike Breed males, Lance didn’t push his dominance, his power. He used it when he had to, when it became apparent that cool logic or patience wouldn’t achieve the results he was searching for. But he didn’t feel the need to impress that dominance on anyone.

Unlike Jonas, Lance didn’t play games, he didn’t manipulate or threaten. Like the wind, what he couldn’t go through, he went around or chipped at, layer by layer. But this was the first time she had seen the warrior she had only caught glimpses of before. In his face, in the prepared readiness of his muscles and the cool, objective look in his blue eyes as he studied his weapon, she saw a man who had no qualms in taking that final step to do what he felt was necessary.

It sent a strange tingle of arousal through her body. The certainty that in ways, many ways perhaps, he was stronger than she was, stronger than the Breeds she had known. He was a man who understood and believed in the laws of the land. In justice. But he was also a man who understood that even those laws had a limit.

Tonight, his laws and his justice wouldn’t exist. And she regretted that. Dragging him into her world wasn’t what she had wanted to do.

Tearing her eyes from him, she lowered her head and concentrated on cleaning her own weapon, on preparing for the night they would awaken to later. It was barely daylight now; the ride from Broken Butte to Estes Park had been made ahead of schedule. Of course, the fact that the wind seemed to push at their vehicle had helped. Lance had broken speed limits and driven with a calm efficiency that she admitted had made her nervous.

He had spoken little. His gaze had been fierce, his expression set. They had eaten breakfast before checking in, and the minute the door locked behind them, he had picked up the metal case he had carried in with his duffel bag and begun assembling the rifle.

Harmony had followed his example, beginning her own pre-battle rituals. But it was different now. As she searched inside her for that core of ice, for the shadow called Death, she realized it wasn’t there anymore. Rather than feeling the vengeance clawing inside her, she could only feel regret.

Emotions rose, twisting, churning inside her chest until she wondered at the fact that she could breathe for them. As though something inside her had changed with this mating, some intrinsic, important part of her that had once enabled her to kill so easily. It felt… missing.

She shook her head unconsciously, frowning as she tried to make sense of herself. Had the potential to love always been inside her? She had never felt it before, had never known the need to love, until Lance.

Laying the ammunition clips aside, she laid her hand on her abdomen, her fingers rubbing at the area imperceptibly. A baby. What was she supposed to do with a baby?

But her arms ached to hold it, and as she closed her eyes, she saw tiny features framed by Lance’s thick black hair, seeing the world through his midnight blue eyes. A little boy perhaps, one who could know laughter.

A cold shudder raced over her body as her eyes jerked open and she moved from the bed. It wasn’t that innocent picture she saw, it was the labs, the babies whose ragged cries echoed through the cold stone walls as they wailed for attention. Their cries piercing as they screamed for warmth.

Little faces flushed with rage, eyes staring out at the world in wounded fury as nothing but the cries of others answered their demands.

“Are you normally this jittery before a job?” Lance’s voice broke through the nightmarish memory as she swung around to face him. “We need to leave.”

Fear and anger knotted her insides as she paced to the closed curtains, her hands rubbing at the chill bumps that had risen on her arms. “And go where?” Harmony’s gaze flickered to him as he carefully broke the gun apart again and laid the pieces in the foam padding of the metal case. “My first idea was better.” She breathed in a shallow, quick gasp. “Dane will hide us until the child is born. We’ll be safe. The baby will be safe.”

Lance clipped the case closed before lifting it from the table and setting it on the floor. Watching her closely, he leaned back in the chair, bracing his arms on the sides, and watched her with grim determination. “If we start running now, we’ll never stop. And neither will our child.” Lance’s voice was firm, final.

This was a side of Lance that, she admitted, made her pause. The dominance was like a fire in those blue eyes and in the chiseled planes of his face. A part of her responded to the sheer force she glimpsed in him then. It made her want to submit to him, made her want to give him whatever he was demanding. But he was demanding her soul now.