Revenge at Bella Terra (30 page)

Her computer case was still in the car, leaning against the downhill front door. He reached in the broken window and grabbed it. The computer was probably smashed, too, but someone might be able to retrieve her data off the hard drive, and right now, that might mean something in their search for whoever wanted her dead.

He knew, too, that she cherished her computer and the book she kept there, and his effort was now more about renewing his courtship than seeking evidence. He was a selfish ass, an excellent strategist, and . . . and he would do anything, sacrifice anything, including his life, for her.

In the cool predawn where morning was merely a hint and a promise, he rushed back to his truck, then headed down the road toward the bottom of the mountain. As soon as he got back in the valley and within cell phone range, his phone rang. He glanced at it.

Rafe. Undoubtedly inquiring what he was doing, where he was going, whether he had gone mad with grief.

Eli ignored it.

The sun peeked over the horizon.

Ringing again. He glanced at it.

DuPey. Undoubtedly ordering him to return and seek immediate care.

He turned off the phone and pulled the battery.

He didn’t need the distraction of trying to soothe Nonna or convince his brothers he was okay. More important, he didn’t need the police tracing his GPS as he had traced Chloë’s.

He drove the highway, then the side road; then at the broken-down sign reading, INTERESTING WINES, he turned into the unpaved driveway. This winery had been one of two dozen in Bella Valley that had fallen victim to the recession, and if Chloë had made it down the mountain, she was here: isolated and alone, hungry and cold.

He stopped to open the gate and examined the tracks in the dirt. No one else had driven this road lately, and that meant she was safe from her killer, whoever he was.

Eli drove past the tumbledown farmhouse, looking for any sign that Chloë had been there, then turned off into the gently sloping vineyard planted with a tangle of chardonnay grapes. Putting the truck in a low gear, he chugged through the long grass beside the end row, searching for one small, lone figure.

He saw no one.

Rolling down the window, he called Chloë’s name.

Nothing answered but the gently warming breeze.

He reached the end of the row. Here the mountain rose abruptly from the earth, and Eli knew that far above, Browena Road curved its way toward the summit. The mountain’s natural drainage channels should have led Chloë here, so he parked the truck and walked along the tree line, looking for proof that Chloë had descended to this place. If she hadn’t, he’d go up that mountain after her. He would find her no matter where she had gone.

But there: footprints beside a stream, turning, trekking along the edge of the forest toward whatever she could find in this abandoned winery. Breathless with relief and anticipation, he got back in the truck and drove along between the forest and the ends of the rows, watching for her footprints to trail off into the tall grass.

He found them, a straight line leading right to a fig tree, ripe with fruit. Some had been plucked and eaten. “Good girl,” he said.
Good survival instincts.

After that, it was easy. He drove through the remnants of a small orchard of plums and straight toward the vineyard’s sagging wine-making shack.

She was there, stretched out on canvas bags on a broken bench on the broken porch, asleep.

He parked the truck, walked toward her. Tears prickled his eyes as he approached.

He’d found her. Thank God, he’d found her, and now . . . how could he ever let her go again?

Softly he called her name.

For a moment she didn’t stir, so deeply asleep was she.

Then she was on her feet, her face bruised and fierce, a broken two-by-four held in her hand, ready to swing.

“Whoa!” He held up his hands.

For one long moment she stared blankly. Then she recognized him. Her eyes kindled with gladness. She flung the makeshift club aside, jumped off the porch, and ran to him.

Gently, he caught her in his arms and held her, and as he petted her head, she said over and over, “I knew you’d find me, Eli. I knew you would.”

She might not like him anymore, but she did have faith in him, and that was a start back in the right direction.

Tilting her face up to his, he examined the bruise on her cheek and under one eye, and cuts scattered across her forehead and neck caused by flying glass. “Where else are you hurt?”

“My shoulder aches, and I’m still jarred by the impact.”

“Anything broken?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but slid her jacket off her shoulders and lifted her T-shirt.

Her left side was bruised.

“Can you raise your arm?” he asked. “Can we get this off of you?”

“I don’t think so.” She grimaced and flexed her shoulder. “At least, I don’t want to try.”

“I’ll get you out.” Pulling out his pocketknife, he sliced her T-shirt from the neckline to the end of the sleeve in both directions, then sliced it down to the hem and pulled the rags away from her.

“Eli!” She half laughed.

But he was not amused. The sun too clearly illuminated bruises caused by the seat belt across her collarbone and between her breasts. Her shoulder showed no damage, but he never doubted she had smacked it hard. “Anything below the waist?”

She stepped back. “No, and I like these jeans, so put that knife away.”

“Darling, cutting off your clothes is the best thing we could do for them. They’re ruined.” But he shut the knife and put it away.

She looked down at herself. As if for the first time, she realized how much dirt caked her, how badly the wreck and the descent had frayed the cloth of every garment she wore. She sighed unhappily. “I really did love these jeans.”

He pulled out the knife again.

Hastily she said, “Nothing’s broken. Considering the shape of my car, I came off lightly. But what happened to you?” She touched the place where his eyebrows had been.

“I’ve got a first-aid kit in the truck.” He helped her back into her jacket. “Let’s get you an ice pack and some painkiller and move to another location, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

He got her settled in the truck. He turned on the heated seat for her, gave her an emergency ice pack and two aspirin washed down with a partial bottle of water he’d found rolling around in the backseat. After putting a blanket over her lap, he drove as swiftly as he dared back toward the highway.

“Why are we moving?” she asked.

“If whoever forced you off the road knows the area, he’ll know where you came down off the mountain and arrive soon.”

“Like you did.”

“Yes. If that happens, I want you away from there.”

She shifted the ice pack from her cheek to her ribs. “I’ve been thinking. It was probably some kind of random road rage.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, and told her about the cottage.

When he finished speaking, a quick glance in her direction showed her staring out the window, her eyes wide and frightened. She shuddered in tiny paroxysms of chill and distress. Tugging the blanket up to her neck, she huddled into it and whispered, “Someone’s trying to kill me. Why would someone try to kill me?”

He couldn’t stand it. As soon as he could, he pulled into an isolated side road and through the gate of another abandoned vineyard. He shut it behind them, pulled a chain and lock from his tool kit, and secured the gate from any but the most determined intruders.

Driving to the farthest vineyard on the place, he turned once more and drove along the row to the end.

He stopped the truck, then came around and gathered Chloë into his arms. Tucking the blanket close around her, he carried her onto a grassy knoll. There the wind blew softly and the sun shone, and he sat and cradled her, rocking her in anguish and relief.

This comfort went both ways.

He’d almost lost her, and not merely as his wife. He had almost lost her forever. When he remembered his horror at the explosion of the cottage, and his frantic fear at her phone call . . . when he remembered that someone had driven her off one of the most treacherous roads going out of Bella Valley . . . all he could do was hold her in gratitude and in love.

She was alive.

And the shell that had for so long protected him from pain lay shattered in a million pieces. No matter what, he would never be the man he was before.

That was her fault.

She deserved all the credit.

Putting her arm around his neck, she buried her face in his chest. By increments her shivering stopped and she relaxed against him.

“I don’t know who’s doing this, but I intend to find out,” he told her.

“I know you will.” She stroked his head, found the goose egg from his impact with the pavement, touched it lightly with her fingers. “My God, Eli, do you have a concussion?”

“It’s okay. I landed on my head. Hardest part of me.” She laughed a little dolefully. But she laughed.

He kissed the bruise on her cheek.

She turned her face up to the sunlight and to him, and let him press his lips to her forehead, her ear, her mouth.

Then . . . he was kissing her, really kissing her, his control crumpling under the twin onslaughts of an upwelling of overwhelming relief and desperate love.

He’d almost lost her. If she hadn’t left the cottage when she did . . . If she’d been forced off the road in a different spot . . .

She wrapped both arms around him. Her lips opened under his.

And he tasted the salt of her tears. Lifting his head, he said, “I’ve hurt you.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again. Then I was cold and afraid, and you found me.”

Then she said the sweetest words Eli had ever heard.

“Eli, please . . . make love to me. Make me know I’m truly alive again.”

Chapter 42

E
li spread the blanket on the grass, and tilted Chloë back until she rested on rough wool. The green scent of crushed grass enveloped her. The cool earth supported her. The blue sky collected wisps of clouds and sent them on a lazy journey from horizon to horizon.

And Eli leaned over her, his eyes hot, his face taut with passion. With need. For her. Yet his hands were gentle as he removed her jeans, and he winced at the bruise on her thigh, the scrape on her knee, as if her pain were his.

“I’m going to be sore tomorrow.” It could have been so much worse, she meant.

“So sore and stiff. I’ll take care of you.” He slid her panties off, kissed her hip, her belly. “Relax and let me take care of you.”

She closed her eyes against the bright sunshine and let him ease her clothes away until she was naked in this isolated place, alone with him. She felt new, like Eve cast back into the Garden of Eden and given everything she ever desired: sunshine, a faint breeze that stirred the warm air, the mingled scents of leaves and pine and Eli.

As he removed his own clothes, as he caressed her with a barely restrained eagerness, she was reminded of that first night when he had embodied all things forbidden, sinful, and sexy, when he rode her and she rode him and they were impetuous together. She wondered, as he stroked the sensitive cup of her palms, what would happen if she commanded him to stop.

As he came up to string kisses like pearls along her throat, she opened her eyes and looked into his—and saw a flame that would consume them both.

She couldn’t change her mind; it was far too late for that. He might be the epitome of a tender lover who treated her bruises with loving care, but he definitely intended to claim her.

Truthfully, she wanted him to blot the last twenty-four hours from her mind as if they had never been. As he kissed his way down her body, she knew she could depend on him to do just that.

He used his fingers in long, slow, firm strokes from her shoulders down her arms to her fingertips, then again from her chest down to her belly. He lingered over the bruises that marked her in splotches of blue and purple, and lifted her thighs and kissed her lightly between her legs. She caressed his hair, brittle and broken from the heat of the explosion, and sighed with the twin pleasures of the heat of the sun and the heat of desire.

Lifting her, he turned her onto her belly and stroked her shoulders again, pressing and kneading them until the tension she hadn’t even recognized dissipated. He massaged her lower back, strung kisses along her spine, nuzzled a bruise on her hip and one on her ankle.

She lay with her cheek pressed to the blanket, at peace, yet alive with passion, knowing nothing so wonderful could ever happen again, wanting to hold each moment even as it slipped away.

He touched, caressed, loved every inch of her body, then turned her again, and while she was relaxed and quiescent, he opened her, entered her, took her in gradual increments.

Even as the rhythm increased, tranquility clung to her, wrapping her in a golden daze of light and bliss.

Then he shifted, rose on his knees, and lifted her with him, and like a magician he whipped away her tranquility and revealed the hunger that beat like a drum in her veins.

She strained against him time and again, seeking . . . seeking. Every time she got close to climax, every time she shuddered and coiled her legs around him, he slowed, brought her back to the beginning. But never the same beginning. Each time she started a little higher, a little faster, with a little more desperation and a lot more need.

At last he leaned close to her, chest to chest, and pressed deep, so deep. Orgasm swept her, starting in the center of her being and spreading along each nerve, a climax composed of sky and earth, of memories and the moment, of Eli and Chloë.

Holding his body in her arms, she whimpered with joy as her spirit soared with his.