Manhunt in the Wild West (15 page)

And romance.

Chelsea sat on one of the picnic tables with her feet on the bench and her chin in her palms, staring out into the night. She turned when she heard his approach, but said nothing, just looked at him.

She was what had drawn him out here, Fax knew. Somehow, with some sort of internal surveillance that was tuned only to her, he’d known she’d be out here. Had known there were things he needed to say to her.

Because of it, because she deserved better than what he’d given her so far, he stepped off the trail and crossed to her, stopping when he was just a few paces away.

He took a deep breath. “We should talk.”

The old Chelsea probably would’ve agreed in a rush,
Yes, we do need to talk. I’m glad we’re on the same page.

The woman she’d become since first meeting Fax—tougher and more aware of her own worth and ability—simply looked at him and said, “I think pretty much everything’s been said, don’t you?” She lifted a shoulder. “You’re back in the fold. You don’t need anything from me.”

“That’s not true.” He said it so quickly that she might’ve thought it was a knee-jerk response, except he wasn’t the sort to do or say anything without thinking it through first.

“Isn’t it?” She turned away and looked back out across the vista, where moonlight hit on a canopy of pine, with occasional glints of silver tracing the path of one of the tributaries that fed into Bear Claw Creek.

She’d told herself she’d come out to the picnic area for some privacy, but now she acknowledged the lie.

She’d known he would come after her. Now that he was there, though, she didn’t know what came next.

After a moment, he hitched himself up and sat beside her. “You’re wrong. I do need you.”

The words sounded like they came hard to him, but she had little sympathy. “You cuffed me to a bed and left me alone because I threatened to go to the cops. Let’s face it, that’s not the sort of thing a guy does if he’s looking for a long-term relationship.”

A muscle pulsed at the corner of his jaw. “I did what I had to do.”

“You did what came easy to you.”

“It wasn’t easy.” His words were low and intense, and he surprised her by taking her hand in his, and threading their fingers together. “I won’t apologize, because I’m not sorry. But I will say that it bothered me more than I’d expected it to.”

“Because you’d spent so much time in solitary confinement,” she said, trying not to feel the way their palms matched up just right, or the fine shimmer of warmth that trailed up her arm from the simple contact.

“Because I was leaving you behind.”

The simple statement sliced through her, leveling her carefully built defenses. She floundered for a few seconds before saying, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.”

“Me either.” He moved a little closer to her on the picnic table and laid their joined hands on his muscular thigh. They were touching at hip and shoulder now, and she had to force herself not to lean into him as he continued, “I wasn’t looking for anyone, you know. I don’t have room in my life for a friend, never mind a lover.”

“You slept with Jane.” She hadn’t meant to go there, but how could she not? She might’ve suspected the relationship before, but the moment she’d seen them together she’d known for certain. It was in the way they’d looked at each other, the way they’d leaned close to talk, well within each other’s space.

“We had mutually agreeable sex. That doesn’t make her my lover.”

She winced. “That’s cold.”

“This isn’t.” He lifted their joined hands and pressed his lips to her knuckles, sending a frisson of heat radiating through her. “This is different, whether I want it to be or not.” He paused, then admitted, “I hated leaving you here, but I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t about you calling the cops, either. Not really.”

She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to let him weaken her. But the feel of his body against hers and the good pressure of their fingers intertwined had her saying, “What was it about?”

“I was afraid.” He said the word like it was a curse. “When I saw your police detail go down and I knew Muhammad and the others were out there, gunning for you, I couldn’t handle it. I was scared and furious, and I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”

His voice was so raw, the emotion etched so clearly on his face in the moonlight, that her heart turned over in her chest. She squeezed her fingers on his. “You did get to me. You got me out of there, kept me safe. I’m fine.”

“You might not be the next time. These guys are killers, Chelsea. If they want you dead, you might as well already be in the meat wagon.”

Her blood heated, not just at his words, but at the emotion beneath them, which was more than she’d expected, more even than she’d hoped for on the few brief occasions she’d allowed herself to hope.

Which didn’t change the way his face had lit when he’d seen Jane in the doorway, or the way the two of them had leaned close together, shutting the others out, including her.

“Why are you here, Jonah?” she said quietly, wishing he would go away, because if he didn’t she was likely to do something she’d regret.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Damned if I know.”

“You should be with Jane.”

“What if I’d rather be with you?”

“Can you honestly say that?”

His silence was answer enough, and Chelsea felt something wither and die within her. She pulled her hand away from his and stood. “I didn’t think so.” She turned to face him, her throat tightening a little at the moonlit sight of the man who had become too important to her in too short a time. “Let’s not make this any harder than it already is, okay?”

She didn’t really expect an answer, didn’t get one. A moment of silence drew out as they stared at each other, knowing there really wasn’t any answer to the gulf separating them—one of experience and priority, of lifestyle and goals.

Then she turned away, her eyes filling with angry tears as she returned to her room alone, leaving him in the darkness.

S
HE WAS RIGHT
, damn it. Fax knew it, knew he should leave things well enough alone. They’d had their moment and it’d been a good one, but neither of them had thought going in that it was going to be more than a flash in the pan, a night or two in the midst of chaos. He wasn’t the sort of guy for more than that.

So why did he feel like kicking the crap out of the picnic table and howling at the moon? Why did he want to follow her and pick a fight, argue the impossible?

“You were in prison, idiot,” he muttered as he dragged himself off the picnic table and headed back toward the scattered lights coming from the motel. “You were bound to get hooked on the first woman you saw.”

Which sounded logical enough. Too bad he couldn’t convince himself it was the truth. He’d gone longer between lovers before. Hell, after Abby died, it’d been more than two years before he’d taken Jane up on her no-strings offer, and they’d only been together maybe a dozen times total, and then only when it made sense.

He and Chelsea made no sense whatsoever. Yet damned if he didn’t hesitate when he reached the front of the motel, knowing he should get some sleep in his own drab room, but wanting to knock on Chelsea’s door instead.

Let’s not make this any harder than it already is,
she’d said, and he knew she was right. Thing was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to take the easy way out this time.

“Looking for company?”

He turned at the question, feeling a complicated mix of emotions at the sight of the woman backlit in her motel-room doorway.

The wrong woman.

He summoned a smile for Jane, one that felt like respect and trust, and nothing more. “Hey.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” She didn’t look like it bothered her one way or the other, but her expression hardened as she approached him.

She was wearing a T-shirt and yoga pants, no doubt borrowed—or more likely commandeered—from one of the other women. Even in the casual clothes, she looked like a leader, like a warrior in the battle against terrorism.

Tilting her head, she looked at him long and hard, then said simply, “You’ll want some time off after this, to make your decision.”

“I made my call a long time ago.” Or rather, circumstances had made it for him. Maybe back then he could’ve gone in a different direction, made a different choice, but he’d seen and done too much in the intervening years.

He couldn’t go back to real life now. He could only protect it for others.

“Are you sure? If your head’s not in the game…” She let the sentence trail off, but he had no trouble filling in the blank. If he wasn’t for her he was against her, and she’d leave him behind rather than let him interfere because of conflicted loyalties.

He knew, because it was what he would’ve done in her shoes. At least it would’ve been a few weeks earlier. Now, he couldn’t be entirely sure what he would’ve done in her place. He only knew that he damn well needed to be in on al-Jihad’s takedown—not just because he’d spent the past two years working toward it, but because the bastard was after Chelsea and her friends, and the residents of Bear Claw.

He couldn’t give Chelsea the commitment and the caring that she needed, but he could damn well protect her, and the people she cared about.

“I’m so far into the game it’s not even funny,” he grated, letting Jane see the determination in his eyes, and an edge of threat. He was in this one whether he went with her or through her. It was her choice.

Her lips curved ever so slightly and she nodded. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” She turned and headed back to her room, but paused at the threshold and looked back. “You’ve always been my best. After this, we’ll rebuild, and you’ll be in it every step of the way. Two teams—one mine, one yours. You have my word.”

His own team. It was an honor, a promotion. And it would consume his every waking moment from there on out.

Fax nodded. “I’m flattered.”

“And?”

“I’m in.”

“Good.” She didn’t say another word, just headed into her room and shut the door at her back.

Fax just stood there for a moment. Then he said, “You heard that, I take it?”

Three rooms down, Chelsea’s door opened from the cracked position it’d been occupying. She stood framed in the doorway as he crossed to her, trying to read her expression and failing.

Wearing bike shorts and a plain T-shirt, she should’ve looked soft and vulnerable. Instead, she looked supremely self-contained as she tilted her head and said, “I heard.”

“And?”

“What exactly is it that you want me to say?” Her eyes glittered, but with temper, not tears. “Congratulations?”

“Say you understand,” he said, the words coming from nowhere, from somewhere deep inside him, emerging before he knew he was going to ask.

She smiled with zero humor. “I understand that leading a team will be far easier—and way more comfortable—for you than trying to make a change.”

Anger flared, more familiar than the nerves that shimmered too near the surface. “That’s low.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Truth hurts. You didn’t—still don’t—want to trust me or my friends, because that might’ve proved that the way you live your life isn’t the way it has to be, that you’ve got other options if you’d only be brave enough to reach out and grab for them.”

“I’m not the one who thinks of myself as a wimp.”

“Neither do I. Not anymore. No,” she said softly, her focus turning inward, “I’ve given up too many times because I was afraid to try something I might not succeed at. But not anymore. I’m done wimping out.”

“Is that what this is about?” he snapped. “Leading your friends up the mountain on the basis of zero evidence isn’t exactly going to prove that you’re brave. Seems to me you’re heading away from the fight.”

“You’re getting nasty. That means you know I’m right.”

He stepped closer, until he was in her space, crowding her, breathing the same air she was. “It means I’m getting annoyed with this conversation. What exactly do you want from me right now, Chelsea? Another apology?”

“No. I want you to come inside.” She stepped back, into the motel room where he’d left her cuffed that morning, thinking it might be the last time he saw her.

She’d been unconscious, her eyelashes lying on her pale cheeks, her lips curved faintly on some dream he could only guess at, and envy.

His brain locked on the memory and on the invitation.

“You want…” He trailed off, sure he’d misheard.

But she crooked a finger. “I want you. Inside. Now.”

His feet moved before he knew he’d made the decision, propelling him into her motel room. His hands worked of their own volition, closing and locking the door, and putting the pitiful chain in place. But before he could touch her, he forced himself to stop, forced himself to be sure this was what she wanted.

He lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her mouth, in a gesture of tenderness that felt both foreign and right. “I can’t be what you need.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You think I haven’t figured that out? Please.” But she caught his hand in hers, and pressed his palm to her cheek. “This is it, Jonah. It’s been a hell of a week, but as of tomorrow, it’s over. Back to real life for me, back to the shadows for you. This is our last night. I’d rather not waste it being mad at each other for things we can’t or won’t change.”

He knew he should do something, say something; knew he should either move in or away from her, but he couldn’t do a damn thing. He didn’t trust himself to get it right, didn’t trust himself not to hurt her in taking what he wanted more than he wanted his next breath.

He’d nearly talked himself into being the gentleman when she leaned up on her toes and touched her lips to his.