Читать книгу Possessed by a Warrior - Sharon Ashwood - Страница 11

Chapter 4

Chloe curled up under the covers, her eyes sandy from lack of sleep. The room should have felt restful, for this was where she’d slept most of her teenage years—but too much had dramatically, tragically changed.

Someone had murdered Jack, she was sure of it, but she had no proof. She’d tried talking to the police, but they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help. They’d treated her like a kid too young for grown-up worries. It pushed every one of her buttons. Still, how could she blame the cops? All she had to go on was Jack’s character and the suspicious behavior of his buddies.

In the dark quiet of the bedroom, she surrendered to pain and loss, letting the pillow muffle her sobs. She just couldn’t grasp the fact that she wouldn’t see Jack again. Ever. For as long as she drew breath. But it wasn’t just grief she felt. Hot, frustrated anger sliced along her raw nerves. She wanted to act, to avenge, but she didn’t know how.

Chloe sniffed and rolled over, the sheets sticking to her hot skin. Outside the window, wind hissed through the trees, making a lullaby of the restless breeze. Chloe’s mind ticked on.

Suspicion just wouldn’t stop clawing at her. She knew she was right to speak up, but other people reacted like she was a hysterical freak—even Sam Ralston. Once she’d asked him about Jack’s accident, it had been like talking to a wall, his handsome face wiped of expression.

Oh, well. At least stone-faced was a change from broody or bossy, which seemed to be his other settings. Too bad he had a magnetism that turned her insides to pudding. Yeah, right. A broody, bossy blank wall with gobs of animal magnetism. Every girl’s dream.

She had worked long enough in the marriage business to know what she wanted in a man: dependable, home-oriented, quiet and sensible. None of her family’s nasty competitive streak. An independent business owner or middle-ranking executive would be perfect. Solid, but not flashy.

Chloe pulled the blanket under her chin. Someone who likes gardening and country fairs.

Not Sam Ralston.

She rolled over again and froze.

What was that? It wasn’t a sound so much as the sense of the air being displaced. As if something had passed in absolute silence. Chloe held her breath, listening.

The wind soughed outside. Almost beyond her range of hearing, she could hear the clock on the grand sweep of stairs chime half past midnight, and then the house was still once more. Logic said she’d been imagining things. There was no one there.

And yet every nerve ending strained with apprehension. A bead of sweat trickled down the small of her back, making her shiver.

She heard a faint exhalation of breath.

Not her own.

Someone’s in the room with me!

Without moving a muscle, she scanned the darkness. The bedroom curtains were partially open, admitting just enough moonlight to separate one blob of furniture from the next. Opposite the foot of the bed, the wedding dress hung on the wardrobe door like a filmy ghost. She wasn’t about to leave the dress unattended, but having it near made her feel closer to Jack so she’d left it there for the night. She suddenly wondered if that had been a wise thing to do.

Beside the tall wardrobe lurked a darker shape, and it was slowly moving. Like a stain, it crept across the white cloud of the dress, making the garment shift. The moonlight caught the crystal beads, making the bodice glitter with shards of cold light. Chloe heard the soft rustle of silk, and then the dress seemed to bob in the air.

Someone was stealing it. Outrage sparked through her, followed by flat-out disbelief. She was right there, mere feet away! Why would anyone risk her catching them? And who knows I’ve got it?

Aunt Mavis? Her hand snaked out from beneath the comforter, finding the switch of her bedside lamp.

“Don’t.” The male voice was hard and cold and not one she recognized.

The sneering tone made her more defiant than smart. Chloe swore under her breath and flicked the switch anyway.

She felt the rush of air as the figure lunged across the room. The china lamp exploded as it hit the floor. Chloe yelped in surprise, instinctively rolling away to avoid the spray of shards. Rough hands grabbed her by the back of her nightgown, forcing her facedown on the mattress.

“Don’t,” the voice repeated, the sneer turning to something more sinister.

Chloe panted in fright, her face turned away from her attacker and pressed hard into the bed. He had her arms pinned behind her back at a painful angle.

Let go of me! she screamed in her head, but somehow the words couldn’t find her tongue. She was paralyzed, the man’s hot breath stroking her skin as he chuckled, long and low.

“Can I trust you not to move?” he said.

It was then she felt the cold kiss of a gun muzzle against her spine. She sucked in a stuttering gasp. She felt his lips brush her ear. “I’d rather not shoot. I’d rather leave without attracting attention. Get it?”

“Y-yes,” she whispered, feeling a hot sting as tears filled her eyes. She squeezed her eyelids tight, stifling a sob. She wanted to scream so badly, but her voice had abandoned her. She’d taken self-defense classes, but the gun trumped any tricks she knew. She’d never been so terrified in her life.

She felt a sudden weight on her back as the thief straddled her, pinning her arms with his body and squeezing the air from her lungs. Her head was turned to the side, but it was still hard to breathe. Chloe struggled, gulping air that stank with her attacker’s sweat.

She sensed him grabbing a pillow off the bed. A moment later, the cool cotton muffled her face, filling her nose and mouth. A gun might make too much noise, but suffocation was silent.

Desperate, Chloe tried to squirm away.

“Damn you!” he muttered, and she felt his grip tighten.

Fighting would only get her killed a different way, but Chloe couldn’t stop. The will to survive was too strong. She bucked hard enough that the pillow slipped and she gasped in precious oxygen.

Wham!

Her eyes went wide as the bedroom door slammed against the wall. The pillow fell away and a flare of sudden light filled the room as someone turned on the overhead. The thief swore, pushing Chloe’s face against the bed with his bare hand. Her mouth flooded with the metallic taste of fresh panic.

“Get away from her!” someone barked. Someone used to shouting orders. It sounded like Faran Kenyon.

“Now!” That one was Ralston!

Chloe felt her attacker’s weight shift.

The deafening noise from his gun came from right above her, making her skull ring.

Oh, God!

A hot spray of blood spattered the pillow in front of Chloe. She recoiled, covering her head, and realized a beat later that she could move her arms. Her attacker had leaped off the bed.

Or been blown off. She scanned the sheets in front of her, crimson spreading across the white like bright drops of paint. Nausea lurched in her throat.

Ralston vaulted over the bed with an unholy snarl, leaping for her attacker. Chloe twisted around to catch a glimpse of a dark-clad man lunging toward the window. She covered her face as the window smashed, her own scream sounding muffled because she was still deaf from the gunshot.

Her attacker disappeared in a hail of glass. Ralston skidded to a stop as he reached the gaping mess where the window had been. Kenyon joined him a second later. Both had their weapons up, standing to the side of the window frame and scanning the grass below.

Chloe could guess what they were thinking. Her room was on the second story, but a porch roof jutted out below. Someone could use that as a halfway point while jumping to the ground.

“Do you see him?” Ralston demanded. He was wearing nothing but worn jeans and sneakers, his torso bare. His big body was still ready to spring, coiled muscles drawn tight.

“Not from here,” Kenyon replied.

“Go.”

Kenyon turned, running for the door and thumbing on his cell phone as he went. By the time he reached the door, someone on the other end of the connection had answered. “Close the gates!”

Chloe could make out the words, but beyond that was nothing but the muffled ringing from the gunshot. For a moment, her emotions felt the same: numb, stunned, distant.

I nearly died.

“You okay?” Ralston stared out the window, still scanning the darkness.

She cleared her throat. “I think so.” The words quavered.

“Good.”

As her pulse slowed, Chloe studied his back, her gaze tracing the muscles and bones of his broad shoulders. Half naked, he looked far more at home than he had in a suit.

It was as if, stripped of clothes, the real man was visible. Sam Ralston moved with an animal grace that stirred something primitive in her. Her fear responded to his blatantly male presence, wanting all that size and strength on her side.

“Is he gone?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“Not for long,” he replied, his head moving slowly as he scanned the grounds. “He’s going to pay for this.”

Finally, Ralston turned away from the window, a furrow between his dark brows. His gaze flicked over her face. “You’re not okay. You’re pale.”

“So are you.”

His gaze flicked around the room. “It’s the smell of blood.”

“I hate it, too.” Chloe hiccupped, feeling a wave of nervous energy shudder through her. The numbness was fading. She wanted to scream. Or cry. He held me at gunpoint. He tried to smother me.

The very idea was surreal. For a moment, she doubted that it had happened at all.

“You’re safe now.” Ralston took a quick step toward her. The speed of it, the size of him made her flinch. He stopped, looking at her for a long moment. Chloe felt her pulse speeding again, pounding in her head.

Slowly now, he set his gun on the nightstand and put his hands on his hips, a gesture that showed his broad chest. His gray eyes were dark and angry. “Do you know what he wanted?”

Chloe felt slightly dizzy. Adrenaline aftermath and unexpected desire hit her like strong brandy. Sam rescued me! A wave of new emotions—ones she couldn’t even name—lapped dangerously at the edges of her thoughts. “He was after the dress.”

They both looked over at the gown, which pooled like a deflated cloud on the carpet. Sam crossed over to it, picking it up by the hanger and replacing it on the wardrobe door. The gesture was surprisingly careful.

Something about it—the crumpled dress or the way he handled it—made her start to cry in soft, gulping sobs. Chloe covered her face, horrified at the pathetic sounds coming from her throat, but the feel of the pillow against her face, the attacker’s hands on her skin played over and over again in her mind.

The bed dipped as Sam’s weight settled next to her. He pulled a blanket around her, his gestures efficient but gentle, as if he were holding himself firmly in check. “It’s over. He’s gone.”

“Then why am I crying?” she snapped. She was weirdly angry, as if it were all Sam’s fault.

“You’re in shock,” he said quietly.

“I don’t cry.”

“I know.” He sounded apologetic.

She wanted to demand how he could possibly know what she did or didn’t do, but it was clear he was just being kind. Biting her lip, she struggled to stop weeping. She craved Sam’s protection but was furious that she needed it. I’ve got to pull myself together.

Frustrated, her mind lunged for specifics. Something besides the horrible feeling of being pushed and crushed and threatened that played over and over in her head, like a bad song that just wouldn’t shut up. “How did he get in?”

“Probably the window. I don’t know yet.”

Yet? That meant the mysterious Mr. Ralston was going to investigate. She swallowed down a fresh batch of sobs. “How did you know I was in trouble?”

“I heard something break.”

“Uh-huh.” That sounded too pat. Chloe’s mind grappled for some way to probe his answer, but she was still too overwhelmed. “Thank you for saving me.”

He gave her a guarded look. “No problem. I was hoping to hit the guy in the leg so we could catch and question him. Didn’t quite work out that way. I overcompensated my aim. I didn’t want to risk shooting you by mistake.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Yeah.” Sam touched her arm gently. She would have expected him to crush her to his chest, do the manly-man protective thing, but he didn’t. He was being careful about how he handled her. He knew enough to give her distance, as though he’d dealt with situations like this before.

Chloe realized she was thinking of him as Sam now, and not Ralston. Sam, her savior. Super Sam. Oh, what the heck, he’d earned some girlish gratitude. She was just glad her mind was starting to function again.

A babble of voices came from the hallway. Was her hearing just coming back or had they been out there all along? She slid off the bed, feeling a little unsteady.

“Where are you going?” Sam demanded.

She gestured helplessly at the door. “My aunt. My cousin. People. They’re wondering what’s going on.”

Sam held up a hand. “Let me.”

He pulled open the door, looking like the sexy tradesman from a bored housewife’s daydream. From where she stood, all she could see was the curve of Sam’s shoulder and his denim-hugged backside. That would set the family’s collective imagination spinning. Go me.

While he stood in the hallway, Chloe changed into a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. She saw with disgust the nightgown she’d been wearing had splatters of blood on it. She balled up the garment and threw it in the garbage can. There was blood on the sheets, too, and glass on the floor, but suddenly she was too exhausted to deal with any of it. She perched on a corner of the bed far from the blood, wishing she could just lie down.

No, no lying down. Not here. She could still feel the echo of a hand crushing her face into the bed.

“How are you doing?” Sam asked as he came back into the room.

The question wasn’t the vague politeness of a stranger. To her utter surprise, Sam crouched in front of her, studying her face. His expression was concerned, almost tender. He reached out, catching her hands gently in his. His skin was cool and wonderful, the gesture infinitely comforting. “Look at me,” he said. “You’re going to be okay. I’m here.”

Chloe met his eyes. A subtle shift came over his features, a tightening of the lips, his pupils eating up the steel-gray irises. There was concern there, but something else now, too. Desire. Possession. He lifted her hand to his lips, brushing the lightest of kisses across the back of her fingers.

The gesture was courtly, barely qualifying as a true kiss, but a flood of tingling arousal swamped her skin from head to foot. No one had ever touched her so intimately with so little flesh.

She gasped lightly, and the skin around his eyes flinched, a predator narrowing his focus. Now it was her neck that prickled with the faintest frisson of fear.

It was too much. Chloe looked down, unable to hold his hypnotic gaze a moment longer. Heat flooded her face.

“Chloe?”

His voice was soft, intimate. It sucked her down further, so she fought it, clawing her way back to the present. She’d just been attacked. Sam had chased the bad guy away.

Memory slammed back, ripping the cobwebs away.

“I wanted to fight,” she said. “I wanted to cry out.”

He made a noise as close to a sigh as someone like Sam Ralston would make. “You did what you needed to. It’s called surviving. That’s how we’re programmed.”

She took a steadying breath. “You didn’t freeze. Neither did your friend. How did you just happen to be there with guns?”

“I always carry.” In a blink, his face was back to his blank-wall setting. Sam rose and put an appropriate distance between them.

Chloe folded her arms, feeling suddenly as if a fire had been doused, leaving her in the cold. What had just happened? Had she asked one question too many? Too bad, because every answer he gave prompted a dozen questions more.

There was a sharp rap on the door. Sam opened it, looking relieved. Kenyon pushed his way in, a grumpy look on his face. His blond hair looked mussed, as if he’d been pushing his hands through it. He stopped, giving Chloe a once-over. “You all right?”

“Sure,” she replied.

“Anything?” Sam asked his friend.

“Nope. The security here means well, but what can you expect?”

Sam swore lustily. “How can that happen? I shot him in the shoulder. He was bleeding.”

“They don’t have our training. Trampled the trail. Messed it up.”

Chloe caught the shut-up look Sam shot his friend. What training?

Kenyon either didn’t notice the look or pretended not to care. “So what was that guy after?”

“The wedding dress,” Sam replied, gesturing toward the place where it hung.

Kenyon gave it a curious look. “Seriously?”

Then something seemed to catch his eye. Suddenly alert, he crossed to the wardrobe. He pulled a small Maglite flashlight from the pocket of his cargo pants and shone it at the beading around the gown’s low neckline.

Chloe got to her feet, still feeling shaky. “What do you see?”

“Interesting decoration. It’s not all crystals.”

Chloe had noticed that, too. There was elaborate embroidery all around the neckline, much of it gold wire couched with silk thread and dotted with seed pearls. Dozens and dozens of set stones had been added to the design, giving a shimmering fire to every movement of the dress. “The headpiece has similar decoration. I think the pearls might be real.”

Kenyon looked up, an odd expression on his face. “So are the stones.”

Chloe gulped. “What do you mean?”

He gave a wry smile to Sam. “You remember last March?”

“That can’t be right,” Sam said dully. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“You know your guns, I know my luxury goods.”

Sam cursed. “We should have known the moment this turned up in Jack’s safe. Though how he ended up with them...”

“Were you looking for a wedding dress?”

“No.” Sam suddenly looked offended. “What in the nine hells was Jack up to?”

“What are you talking about?” Chloe demanded, her voice going shrill.

Kenyon pulled out his light again and played it across the bodice of the dress, making the stones dance with white fire. “These are diamonds. Whatever bride belongs to this dress could have bought a small country with this dowry. In fact, if I’m right, one almost did. I think these are the lost diamonds of the Kingdom of Marcari.”