Rival Forces (11 page)

In the little more than twelve hours since his arrival, he'd encountered the FBI, the DEA, and been witness to a felony assault that brought out half the county's sheriff's department. It hadn't occurred to him that Law's instinct was right. That there was real trouble brewing in Yardley's life. The kind in which people could get hurt.

He needed to get up to speed. Find his phone. Check in with Law. He needed intel. Though heaven knew he couldn't count on anything more from Yardley tonight.

His last clear view of her face was of a woman moving from anger to shock. Her eyes were unfocused by exhaustion and pain. Like a soldier sometimes did in a tough situation, she'd gone to ground, silent within her own thoughts. With only her thoughts keeping her company, he could feel her veering into dark territory.

Get her home. Get her cleaned up. Get her fed. Get her to bed. In the morning, get her to talk.

Setting his priorities helped.

After sitting like a statue on the drive back, she reacted quickly upon their arrival. Before he could even put the SUV in park she pushed Lily from her lap and was out of the vehicle.

He and Lily followed, catching up before she could open her front door. He snagged her arm. “Hang on, Yard.” She shot him a wary glance. “You should have told me you'd been threatened.”

She swung back to him, her eyes like liquid onyx in the porch light. “It had nothing to do with you.”

“You're my business right now, Yard. I wouldn't have left you alone for a second if I'd thought there was the slightest chance of you being in danger.”

Her forehead furrowed. “Why?”

“Because.” He wished he had better.

She studied his face. He knew she was seeing everything he felt, hurt and worry and an inexplicable attraction, and it was all for her. “Why did you leave earlier without a good-bye?”

“I didn't leave you. I went to find us something to eat.” He rubbed his hands together, cold because she was wearing his SAR jacket. “It's New Year's Day. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is open in this valley. I had to drive almost to Richmond to find a place where I could get a hot meal. I was bringing back dinner for us, but we got distracted.”

The softening in her expression surprised him. He stared at her, trying to hold back what he felt. Resisting the urge to touch. But something tender moved through his voice. “I wish the fuck I knew what was going on between us.”

She stayed perfectly still, as if she didn't understand. Or because she did.

He reached out and touched her face as tenderly as he could, fingertips barely resting along her jawline. “I owe you an apology for this morning. I should never have put my hands on you. I'm sorry.”

She looked perplexed for a moment, but she hadn't backed out of his touch. “The kiss?”

“Okay. Yeah.”

Is that how she remembered their physical confrontation? Not the fact that he, much like Stokes, had forced her to deal with the fact that he was bigger and stronger than she was? No, that wasn't honest. He hadn't been doing that. He'd taken the opportunity to give in to the urge to touch her because he couldn't help himself. It was there now. His gaze locked on her mouth but he dropped his hand before he could finish the impulse to pull her close.

That urge had been hammering away at him ever since he saw her walking up the drive this morning. He'd heard some scientist say recently on a show about intergalactic travel that time and distance were elastic in the universe. Changeable by circumstances. Time and distance had collapsed when he saw Yardley this morning. The years in between had been sucked into a black hole of emotions that had not dimmed and winked out, hadn't even aged. As fucked up an idea as it seemed, he still felt—everything—for Yardley Summers.

He'd come here to serve Law's request and protect Yard. But once he saw her, he was never far from the uncomfortable truth that there was a third imperative to his unspoken charge. Touch. He wanted to serve, protect, and touch her.

But wanting wasn't having. Thinking wasn't acting. He wasn't going to act on that third imperative. Then she'd touched him first.

He could still feel the irritation of her poking him with her finger. Only it didn't provoke anger from him. He'd gone hard as rock under that prodding touch. With her face only inches from his, the sensual warmth of her breath feathering across his face while the dark gleam of her angry stare dared him to act, he'd reacted to the only command getting through to his blood-starved brain.
Grab her. Hold her. Take her.

He'd grabbed. He'd held her. He'd kissed her.

A good guy wouldn't have taken advantage. Wouldn't have pulled her in and kissed her thoroughly with lips and tongue while giving her a full-body massage. A good guy would have had more control. Yeah. His apology had been all about the kiss.

It took him a few seconds to think those thoughts. At the end of them he realized he wasn't the only one evaluating their silence.

Yard was looking at him with eyes wider than before. Her lips had parted softly, as if she needed more oxygen than she was getting. He'd swear she was leaning toward him, her chin raised a fraction. Was she reading him, feeling the surge of impulses he plainly wanted to bury but couldn't completely master? Was her quickened breath an indication that she was not averse to the carnal thoughts running through his head?

“Dammit, Yard. Stop staring at me.”

She blinked and looked down, but there was a curious smile on the uplift of her mouth.

He reached past her, registering but ignoring the brush of his arm across her breasts. She didn't move away. In fact, it felt like she moved deliberately against him, her warm moist breath expelled practically into his ear. His dick jerked, angling like the needle on a Geiger counter toward the source of the near-radioactive lust surging through him. Hell. Gritting his teeth, pretending he didn't register the lush mounts pressed against his arm or the sweet breath tickling his ear, he opened her door. “Inside. Now. You're shivering.”

*   *   *

Oleg greeted Yardley with excited yips and jumps of greeting. She bent down to accept his doggy affections, glad that Kye had left him free to protect her home. Even if Stokes was safely behind bars in the county jail, she knew she wasn't going to feel safe again in her house for a very long time.

She suspected all that chewed paper strewn across the floor had been once been a roll of kitchen towels. But Oleg hadn't damaged anything else within her view. Or continued to tear up her house. She'd seen the damage he could do. He'd tried to take down a wall to get to her, to protect her. The crisis had bonded them. She and Oleg were a K-9 team. She'd never doubt him again.

It took her a few more seconds to realize that, beside the chewed towels, the living room was clean. Without asking, she knew Kye had picked up the shattered blinds and removed them. The chunks of plaster had been swept up and the drapes had been rehung, even if they did droop unevenly from a bent rod. He must have done it before following to the hospital. His efforts touched her more than she would have expected.

She turned back and noticed he hadn't come in behind her. She went out to the porch and saw a dark form moving away. He was carrying Lily on his shoulders toward the bunkhouse.

“Wait!”

He turned around. If surprise had a posture, his was it.

“You said you brought food. Did you eat?” Not waiting to see if her indirect invitation would be accepted, she turned and went back in.

A few minutes later Kye entered and lowered the crate he carried with Lily onto the floor. He was smiling at her with more gratitude than she expected, or deserved. She didn't want to be alone just yet. Anyone, she told herself, would have been welcome.

She ignored the little voice whispering
Liar
. Kye had been there tonight. It meant everything.

He came in quickly and lifted a pair of leashes off their pegs by the door. “I'll walk the dogs while you hop in the shower. Then I'll heat up dinner.”

He didn't wait for her to respond but began leashing Oleg and then Lily. When he was done he opened the door. “Let's go, Lily. Oleg.
Jdi ven.
”

“Hold on.” Yardley swung his coat from her shoulders and held it out.

He smiled at her with more tenderness than her offer required. “Thank you.”

Yardley stripped and stepped into the shower without even peeking at herself in the mirror. Afraid to register how bad she must look. The hot water stung her skin in a dozen places—her left cheek, one shoulder, her left breast, her knees—but she didn't care. She would have stood uncomplaining under water twice as hot if it would erase Stokes's touch.

She wasn't badly hurt, she reminded herself. She wasn't raped. She wasn't any of the many awful things that might have been. She was only roughed up.

But the longer she stood scrubbing at her body, the angrier she became. By the time she stepped out to towel herself off, she was more torqued up than she could ever remember being. Flame-red furious. No longer at Stokes. At herself.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kye looked up from stirring a pot when he heard a door slam. A moment later Yard appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her damp hair was twisted up in a topknot with one take-out chopstick pushed through to anchor it. She was dressed as he'd never seen her, in leggings of some soft pastel sweater material and a matching oversized top that slipped off one shoulder and still managed to cling to her braless breasts, outlining their fullness. His eyes hung there for a second too long. He knew it. Because when they rose to her face she looked ready for a fight.

He glanced back at the pan he stood over. “I hope you like beef tips with onions and bell pepper. Or smothered chicken. I'm heating both up.”

“I tried to kill a man.”

Ah.
He didn't look up as her voice echoed through the kitchen. “You wouldn't have killed him. Maimed him, maybe. You want mashed potatoes with this?”

She came up beside him, forcing him to glance over at her. A few tendrils of hair had escaped. The long ribbons of her damp hair were leaving wet streaks on her top. One drip formed a wet line down her breast so that her nipple showed like a dark smudge beneath the fabric.

Swallowing carefully, he looked back up into the furious expression of the beautiful woman before him. “Beef or chicken?”

She moved away from him, using her hands to punctuate her thoughts as she moved around. “At first I didn't think Stokes would really try to hurt me. But then he did. He had me on my back. The rain was running into my nose. I couldn't breathe.” Her hands had formed fists held at shoulder height, as if she might need at any second to protect herself.

“You're a warrior.” Kye spoke in a casual tone as he filled one of the plates he'd brought to the stove. “Win or lose, a warrior goes down fighting. If you're alive you're surviving. That's what they teach you in the service.”

She stared at him, as if trying to absorb his words despite the turbulence he could see swirling inside her like an offshore hurricane. “I would have killed him, Kye. I wanted to.” Saying the words seemed to intimidate her, but she continued. “One second I was scared. I knew he was going to hurt me if I don't stop him. I was screaming. Oleg was going mad, hurling himself at the windows because he couldn't get to me. All at once this crazy mad anger just boiled up out of me. All I could think was
I mustn't lose this fight. Whatever it takes.
Then the hammer was in my hand. And I would have done anything, anything to win.”

He put down the plate and approached her slowly. “Yard. That bastard deserved anything he got.”

“No.” She shook her head, fists flying open as if to hold him off. “I train my K-9 teams to be the best. That means being in control of a situation. But I wasn't ready. He came at me before I could think. I should have been ready. I train my K-9s every day to be certain they are ready. I shouldn't have let him get the better of me.”

He took her gently by the shoulders and ducked his head to make her glance up. “Now listen to me. You were about to—” His heart shifted into overdrive at the thought of what might have happened if he hadn't arrived, but he didn't let it show. “You were fighting for your life. You were doing what you had to do to protect yourself.”

She looked past him suddenly toward Oleg, who stood silently watching them from the doorway. “Oleg knew Stokes was out there. He was trying to get to the door before I went out. I thought it was just the storm upsetting him. That's why I wouldn't let him out with me. I should have trusted him. He knew something was wrong. I made a rookie mistake.”

“You made a decision based on the best information you had.”

He steered her toward the place where he had put the plate down and pushed her into the chair. Then he bent down on a knee in front of her. “I saw you fighting Stokes. And I believe you when you said you had it. Maybe I should have waited for you to prove it. Then Stokes would have to explain in court how he got beat by a girl.”

He watched her try to smile at his small joke. But it was as faulty as a shorted lightbulb. She twisted her arms together under her breasts. He had to use every ounce of control not to look down. “It's over now, Yard.”

“It doesn't feel over.” Her expression was rigid, as if the pressure of holding back her emotions had tightened every muscle in her face. “I'm still so angry. Like I want to explode. And I don't know why.”

Kye nodded, in sync at last. This wasn't about Stokes, exactly. Being vulnerable frightened her more than being attacked. He supposed that made sense. For a person who thought she had to fight every battle alone. “What do you want, Yard?”

She glanced as one of his hands curved tightly on her shoulder. She saw that the knuckles were slightly scraped. He'd fought Stokes, too, until she'd been able to release Oleg.