Handcuffed by Her Hero (18 page)

The weather got worse as they
drove another hour north. It was a perfect companion for Rayna’s mood. Her
chest was a thunderhead of frustration, her mind on fire with a thousand stabs
of angry lightning.

With a strange jolt, she
remembered pizza dough. An uncooked slab of it sat at home in her refrigerator.
She was going to make a giant, gooey, pineapple and pepperoni pie as a
self-pity snack as soon as she got off the phone with Sally. That had only been
six hours ago. She’d almost disconnected the call before Sal picked up, because
she began to think the pizza would be enough to help her deal with the weirdness
of her feelings surrounding Zeke.

Shit. “Weird” didn’t begin to
describe how she felt now. Conflicted? Probably. Torn between appreciation and
exasperation? That one was good. Completely baffled about what she was going to
do in the middle of the Cascades Forest with him?
Ding, ding, ding.
Someone give Sergeant Chestain a prize.

Just when it didn’t seem the
highway could get darker, Z swung the Jag onto a murkier side road. The
pavement gave way to gravel and dirt, which had now turned to rain-soaked muck.
Mud spattered the car’s windows and front windshield.

“Is Max going to speak to you
again after this?” she cracked with grim humor.

“He knew where I was going,” Z muttered.

“The middle of the Haunted
Forest?”

When they rounded the next corner,
she winced through an attack of spoke-too-soon.

Zeke directed the car up onto a paved
surface again: a driveway formed of interconnected flagstones. It swept around
in a wide horseshoe shape that had a spacious three-floor cabin at the apex.
There was nothing remotely “haunted” about it. The deep A-framed building had a
glass wall that took up its first two floors with an intricate stained glass
pane fitted into the triangle shape of the top floor. The front porch was
bracketed by natural stone pillars and contained a spacious swing that was currently
protected by a rain cover. Hanging baskets across that area were still
surprisingly abloom, brimming over with verbena that seemed impervious to the
downpour.

She felt an instant, welcoming
presence from the place. A firm strength, as well.

Zeke threw the car into park but
didn’t cut the engine. He gazed over as if trying to assess her reaction to
what she saw. She didn’t try to hide her smile. His uncertainty was a bit
different. And a lot endearing.

“Wow. I get to enter the inner
sanctum of the Zeke Hayes private lair.”

His eyes narrowed by a fraction.
“How do you know it’s mine?”

“Oh, it’s yours.”

He shot her a nonplussed glance.
“Stay here while I get some lights turned on. The entry will be slick in this
piss party, and I don’t want you falling into the stream.”

“Falling into the—huh?”

He’d already left the car and was
sprinting through the rain.

After a few seconds, lights from
the cabin spilled into the torrent. Rayna watched Z moving through the rooms on
the ground and second floors, scooting around the furniture with wide and easy
steps. He clearly had a comfort level here. She wondered how often he came up
to enjoy the hideaway.

She also wondered who came with
him.

The twinge in her stomach didn’t
get time to fester. He was at the car door less than a minute later, bearing a
jacket he’d gotten from inside, holding it over her as she got out and started
bolting for the house. The flagstones gave way to a wood plank bridge. Sure
enough, the din of the rain got joined by the clamor of a rushing stream that
she judged to be about fifteen feet below. Also as he’d predicted, the boards
were slick. Even in her tennis shoes, Rayna slid and nearly went down. Only
Zeke’s hold, solid as a steel pole around her elbow, kept her balanced enough
to make it inside on her feet.

She wasn’t sure what to expect
once she’d entered the cabin—but this wasn’t it.

If there was such a thing as
décor porn, she was sure Zeke was capable of corrupting people by the millions
with his forest cabin version of it. Recessed lighting led the eye toward a
sunken living room with a huge leather couch that was flanked by overstuffed
love seats, all done in inviting shades of brown, russet and dark blue. Large
seating pillows on the floor were covered in complementary fabrics. They were
arranged around the fireplace, which soared through to the second floor, its
mismatched stones forming an eclectic piece of artwork in their own right.
Reflected in the floor-to-ceiling windows across the room, she caught a glimpse
of the dining room and kitchen, both possessing the same inviting colors and
comfortable woods. On the walls were unique pieces fashioned out of a
combination of copper and driftwood. The one over the couch depicted a sunset
with a family of deer. On the wall next to her, waterfowl took flight off a
lake.

One word tumbled off her lips.
“Wow.”

Zeke scooted past her to the
thermostat. “I hope that’s a good wow,” he said while flipping on the heat.

“Here’s the part where I really
get to hit you, right?” After he joined her in a soft laugh, she blurted,
“Zeke, this is—I mean, I never expected—”

“I know what you expected.” He
lifted a knowing smirk. “I like hanging out at the Bastille, honey. But I
wouldn’t want to live there.”

“I wasn’t talking about the
club.” She gave him an inquiring stare. “Come on. Even your apartment near the
base isn’t—”

“I don’t live there, either.” He
walked to the bar area, set into the alcove beneath the stairs, and swung down
a bottle of Scotch along with two glasses. “That’s just parking space for my
body when I’m not here or out on a mission. Here; drink it. In case you don’t
know, that’s good shit so do it slowly.”

She made a face into the glass.
“I’m strictly a wine girl, thanks.”

“You’re so blue, I’m going to
call you Smurfette in a second.
Drink
.” He took a small sip from his own
glass. “It’ll warm you up—and give you some liquid courage.”

“Courage?” The distraction of her
curiosity lent the ability to tip the Scotch to her lips. Holy shit, he was right.
It was like drinking fire and tasted just as horrid. Between a couple chokes,
she asked, “For what?”

“For calling your brothers.”

Damn. She’d forgotten about that
detail. “You promised I could look at your bandage.”

“After you call your brothers.”

“Now who’s doing the stalling
thing?” She smirked at his peeved scowl. “I only need to call one of them, you
know.”

“Close enough for rock and roll,
honey,” he called while pacing into the kitchen. While he was gone, Rayna took
another hit of her Scotch. Dear God, people drank this stuff on purpose? The
only benefit she could fathom to the act was how every inch of her body
acknowledged each warm sip. By the time he circled back into the living room
with a sizable satellite phone in hand, her third sip was proving his theory
true about the liquid fortitude, as well.

“You ready?” He extended the
phone.

She took a deep breath. “Not
really.”

Z’s eyes laughed at that, though
the rest of his face was sober. “I’ll be right here.”

As you always
have been.
She yearned to say it aloud but knew where her weighted words would lead. He’d
roll his eyes. Tell her she was full of shit. She’d finally get so fed up,
she’d blurt out everything from the hypnosis session, and God only knew where
that would lead right now. Z fiercely guarded the things that different people
knew about him. Cross the lines into a life compartment in which you weren’t
supposed to be in, like her visit to Bastille, and you suffered the
not-so-pretty repercussions.

Right now, she was preparing for
a metric shit ton of backlash from another neurotic man in her life. She just
had to figure out which one.

She had seven choices on the big brother
hot line. Actually, six. After the scene that went down in her kitchen on
Friday morning, Trevor was automatically off the options list. She instantly
crossed off Dallas, as well. He was eleven months behind Trev, a chronological
proximity than made him just as much a butthead, especially since ATF had
crowned him Special Agent in Charge on the squad. Finn and Shane were rarely
reachable, a fact that had nothing to do with their Alaska addresses. Finn was simply
surgically attached to his helicopter and Shane took the “ranger” part of his
national parks badge to a different level of serious.

That left Rhys, Jenner, and Arah.
Her heart leaned toward Rhys, who could throw down on the asshole act as well
as Trev but had gained a voice of reason in the last year—by the name of Kelly.
Rayna would love the chance to talk with him if only to nag the dork again
about putting a ring on it with Kel soon. But Rhys wasn’t a morning person and
a glance at the clock confirmed it was ten after four in the morning. That took
Jenner out of the mix, too. He loved the dawn as much as his twin hated it, to
the degree that he’d chosen a life as a fishing fleet captain. Jen was probably
prepping his first net to toss out on the Sound right now.

Arah won by process of elimination,
as he usually did. Rayna almost smiled as she punched in the number for the
brother who was separated from her by eighteen months. She wondered what part
of the world in which she’d find her guitar god of a brother today.

He got in a stunner at her by
clicking the line open after one ring. “Rayna!”

That answered her question about
whether her siblings had been contacted about all this yet. Nevertheless, Arah
delivered another shock with his stress. Zombies could be invading half the
world and Arah would merely write a guitar ballad about it.

“Wow.” She tried a teasing tone.
“Were you sitting on top of the phone or something?”

“Where are you? What’s he done to
you? Did you escape?”

She laughed. She couldn’t help
it. “Escape? Arah, listen; I’m fine. The shit they’re reporting—”

“I’m on my way to Seattle now.
I’m in San Francisco on a fucking layover, but that gives Ava the chance to
catch up with me and—”

“Ava?” Her astonishment punched
both syllables. “Damn it, not cool. Why did you guys bother her? She can’t miss
a day on the set. Bella Lanza is the most demanding diva on TV right now—”

“Who’s recovering from a nose job
in Malibu, so chill, sister mine. Ava’s her stylist, not her assistant, so Bella’s
ordered her away until the swelling goes down. As far as the ‘not cool’ and the
‘bothering her’ part, pull your claws back right now. The local news affiliates
in LA have already picked up the story. Thanks to your sergeant being such a hunky
piece of man candy, there’s a good chance the trashy entertainment peeps will
carry it soon, too.”

Her stomach twisted like taffy
from his report. She hated taffy.

“He’s not a ‘piece’ of anything,”
she muttered, though every tastebud in her mouth watered as she caught Zeke’s
curious frown.
And he sure as hell isn’t mine.
“And he knows what he’s
doing, okay? You guys
have
to stay out of this. I mean it.” When her
brother’s anxious silence stretched more than five seconds, she persisted,
“Arah…”

He pushed out a hard grunt.
“Fine. Trev and Dallas are already working with the police, all right?”

“No!” She yelled it before she
could think about it. Since Zeke actually grinned at her with pride, she tore
back in with a growl. “
Not
all right! Arah, you can’t trust them. None
of you can. A lot of them are in the back pocket of a shithead criminal named
Mua. He’s trying to capture and sell me again, Arah. Please, you need to listen
to me!”

There was a pause that gave her
hope, though she could practically taste her brother’s incredulity through the
phone. Hell. If she was Arah, she wouldn’t believe what she was hearing,
either. Police officials in collusion with criminal masterminds? People out to
kidnap her, to sell her into slavery? It sounded like a TV show instead of her
life. She prayed Arah would heed the desperation in her voice.

Finally, her brother asked
slowly, “What the hell are you saying, Ray?”

Thank God.
“It’s all
lies,” she told him. “The scene they’re showing in that feed…it’s not the
truth. Zeke was saving me from those two men, not the other way around. They
work for the twin of the bastard who imprisoned Sage and me in Thailand. He
should be in prison and according to all the records, he is, but he’s not. I
saw him with my own eyes just four hours ago.”

“So why don’t you go on TV
yourself and say that?

She huffed and took another sip
of Scotch. “Remember the part where I said he was still after me?”

“But why?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

It wasn’t a lie. So much of what had
gone down during their Thailand rescue had been tagged as classified by the CIA
that it had been easier to tell her brothers only the surface details of what
had happened. And the follow-up nightmare in that Medina mansion, which had
ended up with her shooting King, hadn’t even happened according to the Army,
the police, and most of the feds.