Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (39 page)

Butterflies swarmed her stomach. “Then you shouldn’t do things like that.” She smiled as she inched closer to him. “Tell me about your mom.”

The shift in his demeanor was swift and large. “No.”

“Why do you think you could’ve saved her, stopped her death?”

“She was murdered.” His breathing grew heavier, his eyes clouded. “Murdered right in front of me.”

“Oh Dane, I’m so sorry.” Less than a foot remained between them, but the romance dimmed beneath his words.

“I just stood there, watching, like I was disembodied.” His words whispered his agony. “But I wasn’t. I was there.
Right there.”
His brows rippled. “Why didn’t I stop him?”

“You were only fifteen.”

“But she was my life, the only good thing besides my sister.”

Waves of grief and awe crashed through Aspen—first that he’d paralleled what he felt for her with what he felt for his mother, murdered. And he’d just told her he had a sister, too. “Is your sister still alive?”

Dane blinked. His grief washed away. “What?”

Oh no. She saw it. The vulnerable side of him blinked out, like darkness when a light is turned off, and in its place returned the formidable fortress that was Dane Markoski. Aspen cupped his face. The move surprised them both.

“Dane, don’t shut me out.” She leaned closer, just inches from him. “Please—I see what you feel for me. It’s a reflection of my feelings for you. It’s not wrong or bad.”

“No, but I am.” He stood, and she saw the move for what it was—his attempt to place distance between them.

“You’re what? Bad?”

Though he stood at least a foot taller than her, he sagged beneath whatever weighted him. “That’s an oversimplification. I’m just…”

“What?”

He cast a sidelong glance in her direction, the moon and city lights, sparse though they were, reflecting off his face and eyes. “This is upsetting you.” He turned and stalked the three feet to the other ledge. More distance.

“No.” She snorted off a laugh as she trailed him. “You are upsetting me by consistently pushing me away when I can see as plain as day you are attracted to me. Whatever it is, Dane, whatever is haunting you, you need to get out from under its power.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

Aspen didn’t yield. “Why isn’t it?”

He traced her cheek, tingling and shooting darts of heat down her neck and into her stomach. “You are sweet but nai—”

“Naive.” She smiled up at him. “Yeah. It’s not the first time that’s been said about me. And it’s not a bad thing, I’ll have you know. Just because I believe in you, believe in the man you are—”

“You don’t know who I am.” Razor sharp, his words sliced through her heart.

Fear and uncertainty swooped in, striking at the essence of what she believed was happening—clearing the air, deepening their relationship. She wanted that. Wanted him to break free from whatever stopped him from accepting her.

“See? You aren’t even sure. Is that what you want?” His words weren’t as confident this time. Hurt glowed like a halo around them. “Doubts, fears—about me, being afraid of me?”

What was he saying? Why did he look at her with that loathing expression?

“So, you’re not Dane Markoski, technically and legally my husband?” Man, she wanted to smack him, smack some sense into him. Or the cantankerous side out of him.

After a long, lingering look, he turned away. “Right now, he’s the only person I want to be.”

“How is it you can face untold terrors and dangers in the field, on missions, but when it comes to what you feel for me, you run scared?”

“I’m not scared.”

Aspen nearly laughed. He sounded just like Austin in high school, when he gave his litany of reasons why he couldn’t ask Amanda Blair to the homecoming dance.

“Baloney!” Aspen slapped the curl from her face that kept batting her cheek. “Fear is driving your campaign of misery. Fear is stopping you from what you feel for me. When will you man up and face whatever is eating you alive? If this isn’t who you are, then
be
who you are. Show that man to me!”

Fire spewed from his eyes. “Be careful what you ask for.”

“Why?” She stepped closer, furious. “Are you afraid I might actually like him better?”

Everything in him seemed to swell. His shoulders bunched. His fists balled as he curled in on himself, his chin tucked. “You will never see that man.” He took a breath, and the fire gushed out of him. The difference reminded her of a balloon, deflated of helium. Shriveled. Used. Empty.

Though something in her wanted to quit, to walk away from this insane argument with him, she had a larger sense of dread that if she did, Dane would be lost to her forever.

Fight for him
. The words boomed through her. So, he said she’d never see that man, huh? “Why? I’m not good enough?”

“Once you see that man, you’ll beat the fastest path out of my life.”

Oh no, no he wouldn’t get away with that. Wouldn’t blame her for walking away. “Give me more credit than that. I might be stupid and naive in your book, but at least I have a heart and give people a chance, believe in them—in you, Dane.” How many times would she have to say it before he believed and accepted it?

“Then your belief is misplaced.”

“No.” Breathing through the pounding of her heart hurt. “No, it’s not. Your fear is crippling you, Dane. Robbing you, stealing joy from your life. You sit in cathedrals longing for something you think you can never have because you’re too afraid to reach for it.”

Dane jerked toward her, scowling. But silent.

“That’s the same thing happening right here, right now. I know that. I feel it deep”—she touched her fingers together and pressed them to her abdomen—“in the core of my being.”

“Can’t you see?” He took a step toward her but held himself tense. “You’re angry.
I
made you angry. Do you think it ends there?”

“Dane, people fight. They argue. Get mad at each other. It’s normal.”

“No.” He returned to the wall and stepped around her. “Not like—” He clamped his mouth shut. Lips in a thin line, he lowered his head.

There
. There it was, whatever was haunting him, turning him into this stubborn, thickheaded oaf who wouldn’t release whatever insanity held his mind and heart captive in a painful prison.

“Like what? Like you?”

He wouldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t move.

Aspen went to him. “Dane…?”

“The c”—he drew in a long breath—“the man who killed my mother.”

Was that who Dane feared? Why? What did his mom’s murderer have to do with him? The dots wouldn’t connect. “Talk to me, please. I want to help.” She touched his side, felt the deep rise and fall of his breathing. “I’m not going anywhere, Dane. I’m here. I love you.” The words rang in her ears, startling. Exhilarating.

Locked on to her, Dane’s eyes searched her face. “Don’t say that. Please…don’t. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She couldn’t help the smile. His words warred with the longing, the aching resonating through his handsome face. “Well, I
do
love you, and you
will
hurt me. It’s what people do, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

“You are so beautiful, so pure…” His hand slid to the back of her neck as he captured her mouth with his, pulling her deeper beneath the swell of his strength and passion. It felt as if she tumbled into a hot tub, the warmth bubbling around her as his arms encircled her. Crushed her against his chest.

Neil Crane cursed. God forgive his Christian upbringing, but he did. That whopper of a kiss severely complicated things.

“You ready?”

He turned to Lina. “You kidding? That”—he pointed toward the building where Cardinal and the American team had holed up—“screws up everything.”

“It changes nothing.” She turned and lifted a phone from the windowsill. Eyes on him, she pressed a button then placed the phone to her ear.

“Who are you calling?” He drew his own phone out, surreptitiously hitting the record button.

With a rueful smile, she walked away from him. Out of the room.
“Privet…On v lyubvi.”

Neil turned from the window. Russian? She was speaking Russian? Since when? He moved carefully, quietly, closer. He watched the screen as his phone received the words and translated them for him.

Hello. He’s in love.

Thank God for gadgets.

“…da…nyet! Nyet, on slishkom khorosho…Khorosho. Prekrasno. Da
,
segodnya vecherom…”

Y
ES
. N
O!
N
O
,
HE
’
S TOO GOOD
…O
KAY
. V
ERY WELL
. Y
ES
, tonight. She stood by a wall, her head in her hand as she listened.
“Poka.”

B
YE
.

Neil pocketed the phone and drew the Ruger from its holster. He eased into the room, aiming at her head.

    Twenty-Seven    

H
is universe tilted a degree. Cardinal felt the implosion of everything he’d carefully constructed to keep him safe, to stop him from perpetuating a curse. And Aspen Courtland had dismantled every trap, every barrier, every reason.