Love Scars (16 page)

“No!” Nick raced out of his hiding place toward the guy. Fourteen-year-old Nick, defending his dead dog. The guy killed him with one shot to the forehead.

They were all dead. They were all dead!

Chapter 20

I passed through Foresthill and still no word from Brad. According to the GPS I’d be at the dig within twenty minutes. He must still be without a signal down in the tunnels. I had to hope Nora was with him.

The great news was those readings were better than we’d hoped. The not-so-great news was we had to keep the data out of MolyMo’s hands until we could make our move with the legislature on mineral rights. I hate politics.

Finally. Brad answered my call. “Hey, dude, it’s all good. I got the readings. And let me tell you, Jane Marks was about to bust my—”

“Brad, stop talking,” I said. “Is Nora with you?”

“Ah, no. She had a bout of claustrophobia. Can’t handle the tunnel. Heron’s going to have to find someone else for his nefarious plot.”

“Dammit. She may have already done Heron’s work for him. She has Proto 1. You have to get it from her before she turns it over.”

“She’s gone, dude. Left half an hour ago. Did I hear you right? She has Proto 1?”

“Nicole gave it to Heron, and I’m pretty sure he gave it to Nora.”

A white car passed me going toward Foresthill Road. “Hey, Brad. I should have passed Nora’s car coming out.”

“Where are you?”

“Sugar Pine Road.”

“You’re on a cell?”

“I’m practical, not paranoid,” I said. “I use cell phones when necessary.”

“Right. Well, Nora’s gone. She said she had something to do. Face an old dragon.”

“Crap, she’s going to her old cabin,” I said. Why would she do that on her own? “Where her family was murdered.”

“That’s a big dragon.”

“Can you get hold of Lisa and find out where it is?”

“I can tell you where it is,” Brad said. “At the end of Sugar Pine Road. You’re on your way.”

“I don’t know how you do that,” I said.

“It’s called talking to people.”

“Right. I’ll talk to you later.” I jammed on the accelerator.

After ten minutes the two paved lanes ended and became a gravel road too narrow for more than one vehicle. The bends were so close together, it was slow going. I will never understand the allure of a cabin in the woods.

I pulled up behind an empty red Altima parked fifty feet away from a brown two-story cabin built at the end of the road. As soon as I opened my door, I heard the screams. In front of the cabin, a man raised a shotgun and fired nearly straight up in the air.

“What the hell are you doing?” I said. “Put that thing down.”

“They’re all dead!” Nora’s voice came from a tree near the guy with the gun. There were steps built around the trunk leading up to a good-sized tree house.

“There’s a crazy woman up there,” the guy said. “I’m just trying to scare her off.”

“Scare her to death, you idiot.” It occurred to me he was the one with the gun. Calling him an idiot was probably not a good idea. “Look, I know her. I’ll bring her down.”

“And who the hell are you?” He lowered the rifle. He’d made his point. He kept an eye on me as I went up the tree house steps, but he didn’t say anything more.

Nora was on the floor crying, her whole body shaking, and her fists in tight balls. I picked her up and pulled her onto my lap and rocked her there on the floor. “It’s going to be all right,” I said. “Everything is going to be all right.”

I kissed her forehead and brushed her hair out of her eyes and rocked until the shaking stopped and she was able to get down to the ground. I put her in the Range Rover buckled her in. She stared straight ahead. I had no idea if she knew I was there.

I got her purse out of her car and gave it to her. Nothing else looked worth keeping.

“I’ll have someone come for the car,” I told the guy, though I wasn’t confident it would still be there. 

I turned off the music in the Range Rover. Noise was last thing she’d want now.

I know J.D. would have listened, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I was grateful he didn’t push me. When we got home, the house was empty. “Stacey and Lisa are at work,” I said.

He came inside with me and looked in the refrigerator for something to drink. “Beer?” he said. “Or there’s a bottle of pinot grigio.”

“The pinot.” I sat at a counter stool while he opened the wine. After half a glass, the words started. “Something happened,” I said. “Back then. Something I never told anyone. Not the police, not the therapist. I guess I thought if I didn’t say it, it wouldn’t be true.”

I drank some more, and he filled my glass again. Hell, I might drink a whole bottle myself.

“I was a coward, J.D. I didn’t try to save them. I hid, and I watched them die. And then I…I couldn’t hold onto the leash. I didn’t hold tight enough. Trill ran at the gunman, and he shot her. Nick was safe, but he came out of hiding to save his dog and he was killed for it.”

A tear slid down my cheek.

“It was my fault. If I’d only held on, held on tighter….”

Wracking sobs shook my body. J.D. came to me and held me close to his chest.

“I could have saved him. I can still feel the leash burning in my hands. If only I’d held tighter, I could have saved Nick. If I’d only…if only…”

“You can’t think like that,” J.D. said. “You have nothing to blame yourself for.”

He kissed my forehead and pressed me closer. At the sound of his heartbeat, my tension eased. I hung on to the rhythmic cadence. So sure. So steady.

“You saved Stacey,” he said. “You saved yourself. That was brave and good.”

“It wasn’t brave or good,” I said. “It was chance. We should have been there with the others.”

“Maybe it was a miracle,” J.D. said. “Maybe you have a guardian angel. Maybe there’s a god after all and he saved you that night. All I know is I’m glad you’re here, Nora Deven, and I wish you’d stop feeling guilty for being alive in the world.”

I believed him. God in heaven, I believed him.

Tears streamed down my face, but I felt better than I had in years. Better than I ever had in my life. He kissed me ever so gently, but I didn’t want gentle. I needed more.

I set the glass aside. “I don’t want more wine. I want you.”

Before I finished the sentence, he swept me into his arms and was carrying me down the hall. I threw my arms around his neck. 

I needed him. Not to obliterate my pain or render my senses inoperable. I needed to make love to him. To feel alive in my body while I made his body come alive.

He put me down on the bed and tore his shirt off over his head, exposing his lean muscular torso and arms. I ripped my clothes off. I didn’t want a lingering undressing scene. I needed to feel his bare skin on mine.

His chest was hairless and his skin smooth and tanned. He slipped his jeans down over his hips. His cock was a monster, as beautiful as I remembered. We grabbed each other and clung together, my breasts pressing against his chest, his hands on my back, our mouths locked together, tongues seeking, driving. I was hot and swollen and crazy with need. There would be time, time, and more time for leisurely enjoyment. Right now I needed something else.

I pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips. I found his cock with my hand and guided him inside me.
Ah! So good.

He groaned with pleasure as I came down on him, working him deeper, deeper inside me. I arched my back and rode him, my hands on his chest. I teased his nipples with my fingers and felt him grow even larger inside me until my walls clenched and spasmed. His fingers found my clit and rubbed as I rode. I cried out and let the waves of orgasm consume me as he sat up and rolled me over, never leaving my body. He drove into me relentlessly until I didn't exist anymore and he didn’t exist anymore. We were one mind, one heart, one soul. And I truly knew what it meant to be purged.

I was a new person, one who loved and was loved, and in the arms of my beloved I fell into blissful sleep.

I woke up in heaven, a.k.a. Nora Deven’s bed. The birds were singing, and sunlight filtered through the window. Nora was snuggled against me, her hair spread over my arm. She was still sleeping. Her breath hit my chest in soft in little puffs. My arm was in agony under her weight, but I didn't care.

She stirred, and I moved out from underneath her. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll bring us some coffee.

I found my boxers and went out to the kitchen. A new Nespresso machine was set up on the counter near the sink. Frank had been as good as his word. While I looked for the pods, I spotted Nora’s purse on the counter against the wall.

The Proto 1
. I’d forgotten. I guess that proved it. I was in love. Nora Deven’s welfare had obliterated BlueMagick from my consciousness.

But BlueMagick still existed. I opened the bag and looked inside. Gah, is there any greater mystery than a woman’s purse? I reached in and felt around. “Yes!” My hand touched the small bioplastic device, and I pulled it out.

“J.D., what are you doing?” Nora stood not three feet away from me.

“Nora.”

“I come out to keep you company and find you rifling through my purse?”

“I can explain.” Did that sentence just come out of my mouth?

“Can you?” said a male voice. Frank came into the kitchen behind Nora. “Can you explain what the hell you’re doing here in the first place,
J.D. Reider
?”

He said my name dramatically. Meaningfully. With a sinking feeling, I realized Frank knew who I was.

“Frank, what are you talking about?” Nora said. “Of course this is J.D. Reider.” She looked at me. “That
is
your name, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Nora.”

“J.D. Reider,” Frank said. “Wonder boy CEO of BlueMagick. Multimillionaire at eighteen. Multibillionaire…when exactly?”

“Is this true?” Nora said. All the good and the wonder of last night fell from her face. Disappeared. Evaporated into the air. As if our lovemaking was as much a lie as all the lies I’d already told her.

“It is true.”

“Then why do you need to steal from my bag?”

“This device belongs to BlueMagick. Steve Heron stole it from us so he could get you to take those readings at the Barton dig.”

“And you got close to me so you could steal it back.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “I’ll pay you whatever MolyMo was going to pay.”

Mistake. She looked like I’d slapped her across the face. “But that’s not the point is it? You lied to me. Used me…when I thought you cared about me.”

“I do care. I had to protect my company—and the dig.”

“You could have told me the truth, J.D. If you don’t know that about me, you don’t know me at all.”

“Nora—”

“Just go. Really. Go.” Tears were in her eyes, but she fought against crying. “I can’t be with you. I never want to see you again.”

Chapter 21

Panic ripped through my guts when Nora caught me going through her purse. Panic and irritation. She fled the kitchen and disappeared down the hall toward her room, but the look on her face stayed with me, the feeling of betrayal hanging in the air. How could I be so stupid?

Frank leaned against the wall. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I thought she’d like to know her new boyfriend’s a billionaire.” As if he was genuinely perplexed.

“Yeah, well.”
Wanker.
Was I the only one who saw Frank as he really was? He relished pushing in, dropping little spoilers on other people’s happiness.

The Proto 1 was still in my hand. Instinctively I hit the reset button and smiled to myself when the numbers came up zero. I played around with the unit until I was able to enter different numbers into the data fields.

Wait a minute.
Did Frank say boyfriend? “Did Nora say something about me to Lisa?” I looked over at the wanker.

He didn’t hear me. He had the look, the reason I didn’t socialize with normal people. I could see the calculations clicking in his mind as he contemplated billions of dollars. It wasn’t his fault. The mere thought of all that money was intoxicating, I got that.