Wild Card (53 page)

Her face was paper white. Her body shuddering.

"Don't you leave me!" She gripped his shirt and tried to shake him, tears falling from her eyes.

"Don't you leave me, Noah."

His head lowered. He touched her lips with his and knew this woman held the best part of him.

The memories of the husband he had been, the man he had been. He couldn't destroy that. He

refused to.

He pushed her to Jordan slowly, loath to let her go. To release her. Knowing that releasing her

was the only way to save the memories she held.

"Don't you leave me!" She screamed the order, eyes blazing, her lips trembling as tears fell and hysteria threatened to overwhelm her. "If you leave me, Noah Blake. If you don't come back

when this is over, don't bother coming back at all."

He touched her cheek. Ran his thumb over her lips. "You're the best part of me," he whispered.

"Always remember that, Sabella. The very best part of me."

Before she could grab him, hold him to her, he pulled away, grabbed one of the rifles Mike had

laid on the table across the room, and left.

Nik was wounded and the militia members were scattering like rats on a sinking ship. It was

time to contain them. It was time for death to take its toll, and Noah was the hand that would

deal the devil's deck.

He strode from the cavern, her sobs in his head. He shouldn't have had to hear her crying for

him. It sliced through his senses, through his control, but not the ice that filled him. Every man

in the militia Gaylen had brought together had threatened his wife. Risked her life. Risked her

world. They wouldn't have the chance to do it again.

Sabella let the tears stop. She pulled out of Jordan's arms and stared at Mike Conrad's and

Sienna's dead bodies.

The cave stank of death, of blood. She pressed her hand to her stomach, to her child.

"Take me home."

Noah had left and a part of her knew he wasn't coming back. She wanted out of here. She didn't

want her child exposed to this scent, to the atrocities that had been committed in this cave, any

longer. She swore she could hear the screams of the innocent people who had died here

recently.

Sienna lay in her own blood. Her slender body was stretched out on her stomach, her long hair

covering her face. Sabella knew she would have to deal with the fallout on this one soon. She

had loved Sienna like a sister. Trusted her.

"Sabella." Jordan said her name softly. "You can't talk about this."

She held her hand up, silencing him. "I know the line. I was married to a SEAL. Remember?"

Jordan nodded slowly.

"I don't know shit," she whispered tearfully. "Not a damned thing. Now take me home, Jordan.

Take me home before I lose my mind."

From the radio the screams of the dying could be heard. Orders to run, to ambush, curses and

cries echoed through the cave as Jordan gripped her arm and they made their way out.

Outside, firelight flickered in the distance. Gunfire. The echo of shots sounded, overly loud,

causing her to flinch as Jordan helped her into the black SUV he and Rick must have arrived in.

She stared into the night as she buckled up. She held on and rocked with the vehicle as Jordan

raced from the canyon. He was barking commands, though she couldn't see a radio. She

glimpsed an insert at his ear though.

"Nik, get your ass out of there," Jordan was ordering. "I don't give a shit if you're a reincarnated berserker. Haul ass!" Then he cursed.

Nik. Her mechanic. She crossed her arms over her stomach and turned her face to the window

beside her. And she cried. As they hit the small dirt road that led back to the main interstate,

she let her tears fall, and she let the past go.

Her husband was dead. The man in his place wasn't coming back. She had seen it in his eyes,

felt it in his touch. But this time, Sabella wasn't alone.

She touched her stomach, closed her eyes. This time, she had a part of that love to hold on to.

Their child.

Jordan took her home.

Sabella waited in the living room, curled up in the same chair she had sat in the day Jordan and

Reno had arrived to tell her of Nathan's death.

She wasn't crying. Her head was pillowed in the corner of the wingback, Grandpop Rory had

wrapped a quilt around her then pulled his chair close to her and held her hand.

For hours he just sat there. Until Jordan and Rory went into the kitchen and the silence

stretched between them.

Finally, Grandpop sighed deeply. His age-ravaged face was filled with sadness, with grief, as

he patted her hand.

She lifted her eyes to him. Blue eyes. Wild Irish blue eyes. She wondered if she would ever be

free of them.

"He loves you," he said softly. "He always loved you, girl. From the day you showed up here, till the day he came back."

Her lips parted in shock as he made a little shushing motion. "We'll not tell them." He nodded

to the other room. "They know, but what we know is between us. Right?"

She blinked back her tears.

"When I lost my Erin, I couldn't go with her." His voice became hoarse, tear filled. "I felt her death in every corner of my soul. But I had Nathan and Rory, and Grant, well, he changed over

the years, I guess. Someone had to watch over my boys."

A sob caught and locked in her voice. "He's not coming back." And it hurt. It hurt until she was a mass of pain, worse than it had been when she thought he was dead. More all consuming.

Ravaging her insides.

He lowered his head. Shook it. Then stared back at her. "He loves you with all his soul. If he's

not coming back, then it's for you, Bella. Not for him." He looked to her stomach. "And he left you life. Don't be bitter, girl. Don't convince yourself he doesn't love you. You know better."

The sob tore free. Grandpop did the same thing he'd done when he came to the house after the

notice of Nathan's death. He rocked her. Wrapped his arms around her and rocked her against

the pain before she drew back and shook her head.

She wiped her tears. She had cried for him the first time. She wasn't crying for him again.

Grandpop, in some ways perhaps, was right. Nathan had always had a sharp, very narrow

vision of honor. He would leave her to protect her. She had known that ever since she had

realized who he was, that he was hiding, pretending to be dead. If it meant her life, or her

sadness, he'd take her sadness gladly. Just as she would have.

But she couldn't pull herself out of the chair. She waited. She waited until the sun rose high

overhead. The phone rang and no one answered it. Finally, Rick arrived.

He looked haggard. Years older. Blood stained his clothes and grief etched his face, but his

eyes were hollow.

"State and federal agents are on scene rounding everyone up," he told Jordan. "They're

covering the judge's involvement in it. He was hustled out of there by the first two agents on

scene. The marshal's dead. They found Gaylen Patrick in a gully, gutted like a fish, and son of a

bitch if they didn't catch Mayor Silbert in the group. Most of the militia is dead. What's left

alive won't live long. Otherwise there were no other bodies to collect."

Noah was alive.

"And you?" Jordan asked him. "How much of this will you keep to yourself?"

Rick's lips tightened. "Sienna and Sabella were kidnapped. Sienna was killed in a rescue

attempt. That's the orders from the feds." His lips tightened. "What the fuck-ever. Kent doesn't need to know his mother was a fuckin' murdering junkie. And I'll be damned if I can find it in

me to give a shit right now."

Jordan nodded.

Rick turned back to look at her, his shoulders straight, his gaze direct. "I'm damned sorry,

Belle. If I'd suspected…"

She shook her head. "None of us did. Rick. It's over. Let's let it stay over."

But it wasn't over. She turned to the mantel and saw the pictures and felt something wither

inside her.

"Grandpop. Rory. I want to speak to Jordan alone."

"Belle." Grandpop started toward her.

He was stooped and aging, and it broke her heart how he accepted the man his son was, and the

deceit of his grandson. Noah, Nathan, he hadn't told grandpop either. They were losing him all

over again.

"Alone, Grandpop," she whispered. "Just for a minute."

Rory shook his head as Grandpop sighed. They moved out the front door with Rick. She

watched from the wide window as they walked the sheriff to his car.

Sabella turned back to Jordan and walked toward him slowly.

"Where. Is. My. Husband." She made it simple for him. Said it clearly. Even a simpleton

couldn't mistake the question.

Jordan inhaled roughly. His lips tightened but he stared her in the eyes and he lied to her.

"Nathan's dead, Belle."

She wasn't aware of her own clenched fists until she delivered a right hook her father would

have been damned proud of.

"Fuck!" Jordan stepped back, shock, disbelief filling his eyes. "Damn, Belle. You hit me."

"Do I need to ask you again?"

He stared back at her, keeping plenty of distance between them now. He watched her carefully,

that edge of Malone calculation in his gaze.

"It won't change my answer, Belle."

Her smile was tight. Hard. "Go home. You're not needed here."

"Belle." His protest was low, rough.

He was a damned handsome man, she thought. He resembled Nathan. Just as Rory did. The

Malone men were quite simply male perfection. In looks anyway. And he had been her friend.

Once.

"My husband has been dead for six years," she told him. "And he was never the man I thought he was anyway. I don't need your compassion or your sympathy over another man that never

cared enough to stick around either. So leave."

He started to say something more.

"Get out!" she screamed. "Just go."

He left.

It took longer to convince Rory and Grandpop to leave. It hurt more to make them go. But

finally, the house was silent. She turned the phones off, she locked the doors, and she walked to

the mantel. The pictures.

She stared at them, seeing the stranger who had held her and the stranger she had married.

They had loved, but they had never known each other, not fully. She had sensed all that

darkness roiling in her husband, but he had never shown it to her. And she—she touched his

brow in the closest picture. She had been what she thought he needed her to be. She wouldn't

ever be that woman again. Not for him. Not for the man he was now.

As she stared, the fury rose inside her. It bit inside her mind, dug vicious claws into her soul,

until she screamed with the rage and the pain that exploded through her.

In one long hard swipe of her arm they crashed to the floor. Glass shattered, flew around her.

She pressed her fists to her stomach and let the first sob free. It ripped out of her. It tore

through her. It was a howl of agony that echoed through the house and caused the man standing

in the doorway to flinch.

Noah felt the ragged pain inside him as though it were his own. Sharper, brighter than any pain

Diego Fuentes had ever dealt him.

He watched as she knelt in the middle of that broken glass, lifted the broken frame of their

wedding picture, and held it to her breasts as she curled over it.

The sobs were wrenching, torn, desperate, and he couldn't handle it. He hadn't been able to

handle the pain since the moment he walked from those caves.

He had lost it. Lost control. Lost that icy edge. He had slashed through the militia in a rage so

brilliant, so white hot, it had terrified him.

He moved across the room now, still bloodstained. He hadn't changed clothes. Dirt and blood

were caked on him. He smelled of death. Reeked of it. But he hadn't been able to stay away

from her. He hadn't forgotten the knowledge in her eyes as he walked away from her. Heard

her last desperate cry in his ears.

She had known. All along, his Bella had known who he was. And still, she had loved him. She

had waited. She had cried and she had fought for him in every way that she knew how.

He bent his knees and crouched down in front of her, staring at the past, destroyed in front of

his eyes.

Her head lifted, tears streaked her pale face, fury burned inside her.

"Six years," she sobbed accusingly. "Six fucking years. Where were you?"

He stared at her, at the pictures, and he knew the truth for himself. "Nathan truly died, Sabella.

The only part left living was his love for you."

Not he was dead. Or her husband was dead.

Sabella heard the quiet acceptance in his voice, the resignation. And in part, he was right. The

man he had been had changed. Changed drastically, but he was still the man she loved.

"But that part of him is here," she whispered. "Has always been here."

She couldn't stop the sobs, the tears, the agony. "And that part was alive inside me. No matter

the name, Noah, no matter who or what you want to call yourself, that part of you has always

been with me."

His hands hung between his bent knees, his hair was tangled, dusty, and fell over the savage

angles of his face like a fall of worn silk.

His eyes were wilder, darker than they had been before he disappeared. His face sharper. His

brows were the same. His lower lip a little thinner. But he was still her Irish. He was still her

husband.

He looked at the pictures and finally lifted another of them together. He held it out to her. "This