Unbound Pursuit (15 page)

Throughout the dinner, he answered the questions everyone had as best he could. No one mentioned Mark, and he was grateful he could dodge that topic. Mattie, across the table from him, looked okay tonight. He didn’t see the normal bleakness in her eyes, and he drew in a sigh of relief. Maybe seeing Mark had done something good for her. He just didn’t know. Mattie wasn’t the easiest person to read. She’d had her heart broken by Mark. What was she feeling and thinking? If Wyatt wasn’t so damned tired and stressed out by his own screwup with Tal, he might have taken his sister aside to talk with her. But he couldn’t right now. He had serious damage control to do with Tal. She was his life. His focus. And he ached because he’d caused her so much unnecessary pain. Somehow, he wanted to atone for it.

Jake was less upbeat. “How do we know the Cardona cartel won’t keep using our property?”

“The DEA says it’s going to keep a drone in the area,” Wyatt said.

Jake grimaced. “Right, until some dweeb from the U.S. government decides it’s not in their budget and it gets crossed off the list. And of course, we won’t be told about it.”

“I’m hoping that Artemis, because of its unique relationship with the government agencies, will be notified if there’s a change,” Wyatt told them. “We can’t tell them to pull or add a drone, but we should at least get a heads-up if they’re removing a drone from that airspace.”

Jake snorted and shook his head, continuing to shovel in the pot roast, potatoes, and gravy.

“Will they stay in touch with you via Artemis?” Hank asked his son, opening up another homemade biscuit and slathering butter across it.

“Yes. We have a drone management team in-house,” Wyatt assured him.

“We also still have access to satellite data, and we can work with the Air Force regarding their passes over this ranch,” Tal told them. “We have good eyes in the sky.”

“Gonna need ’em,” Jake growled, giving them a disbelieving look.

“Nothing is perfect,” Wyatt agreed. “But when Tal and I get back to the office, we’ll assign people to keep an eye on our land. And if we see something, then we’ll be on the phone to Mom and Dad here, plus to the Border Patrol, among other people.”

“That’s as good as it’s gonna get,” Cat said, giving Jake a reproving look.

“Drug runners are constantly shifting strategies,” Tal told them. “At some point—and maybe hitting them in that ambush brought the message home—Cardona and his men will get that it doesn’t pay to go through your property.”

Daisy shook her head. “Who would have thought twenty years ago we would be where we’re at now?”

Tal heard the worry and regret in Daisy’s voice. “I don’t think anyone envisioned what is going on, and it’s going to continue.”

“Well, there are plenty of other ranchers along the Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona borders with Mexico who are also paying the price,” Wyatt said. “A rancher in Arizona was killed by someone crossing the border.”

“It’s not a good situation,” Tal agreed. “Until our government can figure out a solution, we’re going to continue to have a porous border.”

“It’s a pretty helpless feeling,” Cat muttered, cutting into her pot roast. “We have herds of cattle out in that area where the ambush occurred. We know ranches have had their cattle slaughtered and eaten by groups coming across. What are we supposed to do? Just sit back and let it happen?”

Wyatt felt his family’s frustration and mounting sense of helplessness. “In one way, we’re lucky. At Artemis, we have the latest photographic and electronic equipment known to mankind at our facility. And if we know someone in the federal government who has information we need, we can ask nicely to utilize it.”

“But it doesn’t fix the problem,” Tal told them. “It’s a fix for a specific area.”

“I wonder,” Mattie said, “if the Reuss Ranch is being used like that, too?”

Wyatt shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re friends with Sage. Have you talked to her about this?”

“No, but I’m going to,” Mattie promised. “They should know what’s going on.”

Wyatt nodded. “Next time you see her, let her know what happened over here. At least give her a heads-up.” He doubted seriously, since Mark was involved with the Cardona cartel, that the Reuss Ranch was being used. It made sense to him privately that Mark would make his family’s ranch off-limits to drug trafficking, for obvious reasons.

Saying nothing else, he continued to eat, noticing that Tal was still strained from their earlier talk. This vacation was turning out to be anything but. His conscience ate at him. Tonight after dinner and dessert, he wanted quiet time just to talk with Tal further. This was the first big issue that had erupted between them. And he wanted to fix it as best he could since he was the one who had hurt her.

Wyatt knew that she’d fallen in love with Brian at Bagram five years earlier. And he knew from speaking to Tal’s mother, Dilara, that she’d had very few relationships over the years. Alexa, the youngest Culver daughter, had a Teflon heart and had survived hookups and breakups, always ready to risk her heart again, but Tal was not built that way.

Dilara had talked to him privately one day in his Mission Planning office about Tal. They had shared a cup of Turkish coffee, which Tal made sure was available in the Artemis kitchens and cafeteria.

He found out that Tal, the firstborn daughter of Dilara and Robert Culver, had always been a serious, studious, super-reliable human being. And Tal took after her father in every respect, Dilara had told Wyatt. She was focused, responsible, and hardworking, and she made sure that her word was her bond. She also warmed up slowly to any man who might catch her interest. She was cautious with her heart, just as Robert was.

Wyatt had asked if Robert had a lot of relationships before he’d met Dilara in Istanbul, Turkey, when she was twenty years old. Smiling, her aquamarine eyes sparkling, Dilara had told him that Robert had exactly two relationships before meeting her, and that was it. He was very serious when it came to wanting depth, meaning, and emotional connection with a woman who interested him. Not just sex. He never ran after women, Dilara had confided. Rather, he’d allowed his relationships with women to take root as friendship first. She told Wyatt of her long courtship with Robert. They’d started off as friends and then later, their relationship developed into something deeper and very beautiful. It was another year after that before they got married.

Wyatt recognized that in Tal. He’d discreetly chased her for years after the death of Brian. Well, sometimes he wasn’t so discreet, he had to admit. He had made a point of showing up regularly in Tal’s life; she’d accused him of being like a bad penny. Wyatt made her smile, joked with her, and lifted some of that heavy weight she always carried on her proud shoulders. Tal had finally allowed him entrance into her heavily guarded heart, which had taken a nearly lethal hit when Brian died unexpectedly. That event had nearly destroyed her. In that way, Tal was a dead ringer for his sister Mattie. She was built the same way.

Wyatt didn’t feel good about his part in hurting Tal of late. There was no way to know how deep the wound had gone, because he hadn’t been completely forthright with her. His need to protect her warred with her need to know the truth about him on every level. He loved her. He’d never fallen so hard or so fast as he had for Tal. From the moment he’d accidentally met her at the helicopter terminal at Bagram, he’d been powerfully drawn to her. She was coming in off a sniper op with Jay, her Marine Corps spotter, face covered in greasepaint, tall, looking like the woman warrior she was. What had drawn him most was her confidence and self-assuredness. He saw that in men all the time but rarely to this degree in a woman. And it was such a helluva turn-on for him.

Being a SEAL, Wyatt had gone to great, stealthy lengths to find out who this woman Marine sniper was. She wore nothing on her uniform to indicate her status, whether she was enlisted or officer. But in Wyatt’s estimation, she had to be an officer because of the way she carried herself, though she didn’t lord it over anyone, either. She was what he termed a “good officer,” a damned fine manager of the enlisted people beneath her for whom she was responsible. And when he found out who she was and started tailing her discreetly to learn more about her, he realized she was one of those rare officers whom enlisted people would die to work for. Tal always inspired her people to rise to the level of the expectations she had for them, because she held herself to the same standard. She never asked anything from them that she wouldn’t demand from herself.

Later, he plotted seriously to meet Tal, which he did at the Olympic-size pool in the gym at Bagram. Wyatt gave swimming lessons to Afghan children, and he’d noticed Tal swam every day that she wasn’t out on an op. It was the first time they could meet and talk. It had gone well, and from then on, Wyatt made sure he would show up in her life from time to time, developing a friendship with her.

Now that Tal was a civilian and the CEO of Artemis, she led her company the same way she’d led her unit as a Marine captain. The firm had two hundred of the best people in the security business from around the world working for it. And Wyatt enjoyed watching Tal be the consummate leader that she really was.

She wasn’t the kind to arbitrarily fire a person who’d made a mistake. Instead, she’d work with their department manager to find out why the mistake had been made in the first place. Then the employee was counseled so that it wouldn’t happen again, and things moved on without a ripple on the surface of Artemis. Mistakes, as Wyatt well knew, were going to happen in their organic, constantly changing business. But they also happened in personal relationships. He hoped that she would give him the benefit of the doubt, the same way she would with an employee who’d screwed up.

One way or another, over the next few days, Wyatt was going to carve out some of the quality time they badly needed so that he could really reach Tal’s heart and head. They had to iron this out once and for all so they could move on after learning from this mistake. The only question was: would Tal truly forgive him for his decisions? He was going to find out.

W
yatt had Tal
leaned against the brass headboard, several pillows behind her back, while he massaged her swollen ankle. She’d taken her bath earlier, and he’d taken his shower. It was nearly ten p.m., and most of the family had already gone to bed. On a ranch, it was early to rise and early to sleep. They worked dawn to dusk. Tal’s hair was down, the ends curled and slightly damp. He hid a smile; he liked Tal in those white and blue flannel PJs she’d borrowed from Mattie when she arrived at the ranch. They made her look girlish, not like the serious, mature woman that she really was.

She had leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes, hands in her lap, as he gently massaged the excess fluid out from around her ankle. A lot of the tension from earlier was gone, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “How’s that feelin’?” he asked her.

“Mmm, wonderful . . . you’ve really spoiled me, Wyatt.” She barely opened her eyes, smiling over at him. Her heart opened wide to him. She loved that glint in his dark gray eyes, the way his mouth tipped up boyishly at one corner. That laid-back Texan in him often served to put her in a state of calm, as it did now. Wyatt just didn’t get upset about anything. She supposed his training and years in the SEALs had also buttressed that natural proclivity.

“Good,” he murmured.

She frowned. “Are you going to tell Mattie at all about your run-in with Mark out there on that ambush?”

Wyatt looked up, seeing the concern in Tal’s green eyes. “I’ve tossed it around,” he admitted, moving his fingers tenderly across her slender ankle. “I waffle a lot on it, Tal. If I do tell Mattie, I wonder how she’ll take it. Will she want to go find Mark? Will she feel hurt because he disappeared from her life for so long? Will she expect him to show up at the kindergarten class as he did before? Will she think that there’s still something left unsaid or unfinished between them? Because you know my sister has
never
stopped loving Mark.” His mouth thinned. “How do you feel about it?”

“I have the same questions you do, Wyatt. And I don’t have any answers. This was the first time Mattie had seen Mark in four months, so I don’t think this is going to become standard operating procedure. I doubt he’ll show up again in her life soon, if ever.”

“That’s what I thought.” He smoothed the almond oil he used for her massages from midcalf all the way down into her delicate arch. Tal made a sound of pleasure in her throat, and his heart leaped with need of her. “If I tell her, she’ll probably expect or want Mark to show up again. And none of us know if that will happen.”

“Mark knew you’d be in that ambush.”

Giving a one-shouldered shrug, Wyatt said, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that, too. I talked to Sage a day earlier, giving her a verbal warning, hoping she would get in touch with Mark. I think she did. I think he knew I’d be there. He was wearing NVGs. He could see me even though I wore greasepaint and my goggles. He knows my build, and he knows how I move. I’m pretty sure that’s how he ID’d me out there in the dark.”

“Wyatt, he was Marine Force Recon. Why wouldn’t he be thinking ahead like he did?”

“Yeah, I keep forgetting that,” he admitted, smoothing the oil now to those little toes of hers.

“I’m not surprised Mark figured things out ahead of time. And he must have spotted you.”

“Well, when I fired my SIG to blow the tires out on the vehicle, he’d have spotted the muzzle flash. Whether he knew it was me or not, I don’t know.”

She snorted. “Look, while the federal agencies are good, they are not military-trained or trained to anticipate ambushes like us. Don’t you think Mark probably figured out it was you, Wyatt? He could probably guess who you were by the muzzle suppressor on your SIG.”

“Could be,” he murmured. “Mark was always smart as a damned whip.”

She held his gaze, which showed consternation in its depths. “You know what else I think?”

“Tell me.”

“I think Mark expected you to be there from the beginning. I think he was counting on the fact that Mattie would pass his message on to your family. I think he knew we were here visiting your family, Wyatt. I think that Mark has one helluva communications network in this region. He could have eyes via another drug soldier who works as a mole around here.”