Duke stepped in from the patio, his gaze going immediately to her leg. A second later he gave a slow shake of his head and his expression tightened, a sure sign he was trying to hide the depth of his anger. And of course, right on his heels were Chaya and Natches.
“She won’t let me restitch it, Duke,” Ethan complained, obviously hiding a smile. “She’s whining like a petulant little five-year-old. Would you do something with her?”
Sliding Ethan a look of promised retribution she pulled her leg to the side again as he reached for it.
“I’ll take care of it myself,” she gritted out, shooting him a furious glare. “Go away.”
Duke shook his head, lifted his hand to pinch the top of his nose, then moved to her.
“Stop being such a little wimp,” he berated her as he moved around the bed to the other side of the room. “Let him fix it before I have to hold you down.”
Watching him closely as he moved around her, she silently dared him to try anything.
Hold her down, would he? She’d bust his balls.
“I so wouldn’t try that if I were you. Trust me, Duke, that would be bad. . . .” Her head jerked around at the sting in her arm, eyes widening in outrage as she watched Ethan pull a syringe back from it.
“You’ll feel great once you wake up.” He was obviously laughing at her. “Can’t believe you fell for that one again, Shorty . . .”
She blinked at him.
“Hate you . . .” She sighed, already feeling the effects of whatever he pushed in her arm. “Gonna neuter you.”
Her eyes dipped closed as she felt Duke’s arms go around her and lift her from the bed, only to lay her back on the pillows, giving Ethan easy access to her leg.
She stared up at him, those dark green eyes meeting hers so somberly.
“Make her leave,” she whispered. “Not while I’m weak . . .”
She couldn’t let her mother see her while she was weak.
• • •
Duke was aware of Chaya and Natches as they stared at Angel silently, concern marking their expressions before Chaya turned on her heel and left the bedroom.
“She’s the same way.” Natches sighed heavily, shaking his head before meeting Duke’s gaze. “Find me when Ethan’s finished.”
Nodding in reply, Duke waited until the door leading to the hall closed behind them before turning back to Ethan.
“She’s hurting, and I’m not talking about her leg,” Ethan stated as Duke sat on the bed next to Angel and brushed her hair from her forehead.
Ethan was meticulously cleaning the three-inch cut she had in her leg after removing the previous stitches. Tracker had warned Duke about the leg when he called to inform him she was in Somerset and possibly in trouble and he had laughed when Duke promised to kill him.
“I know.” Staring down at her unconscious face he tried to feel guilty about the trick he and Ethan had played on her, but both of them were well aware of her squeamishness when it came to stitches as well as needles.
For a woman that risked bullets on a nearly daily basis that aversion surprised him.
Duke restrained a need to smile at the little snort of breath Angel made as she slept. Not a snore, but definitely bordering on it.
Ethan actually chuckled as he began restitching the wound. Taking care of her when she was wounded was a job itself at times. Watching his brother meticulously sew the flesh back together and tie the thread off, Duke wondered how the hell that infection had happened. Angel was too careful, too exact about keeping wounds clean, he thought as Ethan smeared the goop he got from Memmie Mary on the newly stitched flesh.
Their grandmother made the noxious salve for Ethan and stored it until he visited to collect more. For as long as Duke could remember the family had used that salve for every known ill they’d ever faced and Ethan swore by it.
“Being here with Chaya hurts her,” Ethan guessed, repacking the case. “She’s not going to give in easy.”
Yes, it does, Duke agreed silently, and he had no idea how to fix it. He’d spent five years trying to take away Angel’s hurt, only to hurt her worse in the end, just as he’d feared he would. And it wasn’t about to end. This situation had to be fixed, and like a wound that had healed badly, it would have to be reopened first.
The pain, the loss, the uncertainty Angel felt in keeping her identity hidden only weakened her. Duke was terrified it was going to end up getting her killed.
Applying a large adhesive bandage over the stitches, Ethan made certain each side was securely hugging the skin before he sat back, his gaze returning to meet Duke’s.
“She’ll sleep for a few hours,” his brother predicted. “If she goes a little longer I won’t worry. From the shadows under her eyes it’s been a while since she’s had a good night’s rest.”
Duke recalled the nightmare she’d had the other night. Years of blood, death, and seeing the worst humanity had to offer weighed too heavily on her young soul.
“Stay here with her,” he told his brother, staring down at Angel’s sleeping face. “I’ll go let Chaya know her little lamb is doing good.”
Ethan snorted at that. “Better get back before she wakes. I’m not knocking her out again and she’s not hitting me because you’re not here. I need to get some blood, though, while she’s out. I’ll have Doc Marlin run it for me, make sure everything’s okay.”
“If she wakes, tell her if she hits you I’m going after Tracker and Chance. And they won’t enjoy the meetup.” And he was known to keep his word, just as he was getting ready to do in another matter.
“I’ll be back soon.” He sighed, easing from the bed, though he was reluctant to take his eyes from her. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and she won’t be too mad.”
• • •
Chaya sat alone in the dark, curled in the oversized chair, a hand-sewn child’s blanket pulled up to her chin. She had made the blanket herself during her first pregnancy. Block by block, thread by thread, sitting in this chair awaiting the birth of her daughter. The child created during a not-so-loving night with a jealous, abusive husband, who she’d eventually ordered away from their home. The whoremongering bastard. She’d known he was cheating on her, known he had a mistress, but by the time she’d thrown him out, she hadn’t cared to find out who it was.
After she’d learned she was pregnant, something changed inside her. Her child, despite the conditions of the conception, became her world. She’d never had anyone that belonged to her. Never had anyone to love her unconditionally. Wasn’t that a baby? That someone that belonged to her? Someone who would love her unconditionally? And her beautiful Beth had more than completed her. Craig hadn’t wanted their child and that had suited her just fine.
And her baby had been such a mini-me. And so smart.
She’d walked more than a month early, had begun talking early. And after watching Chaya working out and practicing with her knife, her two-and-a-half-year-old baby had found herself a stick and shocked the hell out of her by imitating Chaya’s movements with a babyesque lack of grace. She couldn’t execute the moves, but she’d shown such talent. So much so that it had become a game. Beth with her stick, then the hard rubber practice knife Chaya had given her.
Weeks after she turned three, Chaya had bought herself a new weapon. She completely dulled the blade of the bone-handled knife passed down from her great-grandmother and gave it to her daughter.
Beth had very solemnly tucked that knife in the pocket Chaya had made in her favorite teddy bear, closed the pouch, then once again picked up the rubber knife Chaya had originally given her, and so sweetly said, “Play, Momma.”
“Play, baby,” Chaya whispered into the dark, her voice hoarse, strained. . . . “We played.”
For six more months Chaya had “played” with her baby. Then Army Intelligence and Timothy Cranston had arrived on her doorstep, and one month late
r, she’d left her baby with the sister she rarely spoke with but loved. Trusted.
How had she not known her sister had been pregnant, given birth to a little girl only a few months after Chaya had given birth to Beth? A child Craig had fathered.
Jo-Ellen had come to Chaya’s home a handful of times to get to know Beth. When Chaya had taken her daughter to her sister’s home in Canada, she hadn’t gone past the living room. She saw a few toys and assumed Jo bought them for Beth. Chaya had tried every way imaginable to get out of her assignment, but neither her superiors nor Timothy would hear of it. Chaya knew it’d be too dangerous to leave Beth with Craig, so she had left her baby with her sister while she was deployed to Iraq.
“Momma . . . please don’t leave me. I’m scared, Momma. . . .”
Chaya’s breathing hitched, the tears of the past building once again.
She’d been in the hospital in Iraq recovering from the torture she’d been subjected to when a spy had captured her. If it hadn’t been for Natches and Declan, she would have died there. She’d been eager to heal, turn in her report, and leave for Canada with Natches, when she’d learned Beth was being held at the hotel by Craig. It was one of the agents she worked with who had forced her way past the guards at Chaya’s door to give her the information.
Chaya had hurriedly dressed and run from the hospital to the agent’s car. Nearly half a mile from the hotel they’d been forced to leave the car due to debris in the road. Natches had arrived as she’d begun running for the hotel, fighting to get to her daughter. He’d been there to throw her to the street and cover her as a rogue missile slammed into the building and destroyed it, along with Chaya’s heart.
She’d cried for what seemed forever. For twenty years. Every year on Beth’s birthday, every Christmas, every anniversary of that fucking explosion, every fucking nightmare . . .
She was barely aware of the broken cries that escaped her lips or the slow rocking motions of her body.
“Why do you have this room, Chaya? It’s morbid. A shrine to a child that’s not returning. Beth wasn’t taken, she wasn’t lost or missing, sweetheart. . . . She’s dead.” Timothy’s voice whispered around her, heavy with grief and with regret.
This was Beth’s room. The same type and color of carpeting, and every toy, piece of furniture, and article of clothing from Beth’s room. As though somehow she’d known. Had she known Beth was alive?
She had to have. Look at the bedroom, the presents from every year, the shrine, as Timothy called it. What was it, if not a knowledge that her baby wasn’t dead?
“Oh God . . . Oh God, baby, I’m so sorry. . . .” she whispered into the dark, the control she had always depended upon so thin now she knew it was nonexistent.
How could she have not realized her baby was still alive? How had she not known, even then, that something wasn’t right?
She was an interrogator, a profiler. If she’d found this room in a suspect’s home, she’d immediately have suspected the child wasn’t dead. For twenty years, her baby had lived in a hell Chaya couldn’t imagine. Training to kill from age three. Her baby had been forced to stab someone at six to keep from being raped.
Had her baby screamed? Cried? Had she wondered why her momma didn’t come for her? Why her momma hadn’t come for her and her half sister before her life exploded around her? Had she cried for the momma she’d loved? The momma she had stopped loving for some reason?
And now, hurt, unconscious, her daughter hadn’t wanted her with her. She’d wanted her mother to leave. Didn’t she know how desperately Chaya wanted to comfort her? How desperate she was to just ease a moment of the pain her daughter was suffering? How badly she wanted to just hold her, to touch her hair, her face, reassure her baby that she was going to be okay?
Instead, she’d left rather than have Angel awaken and know someone besides Duke and Ethan had seen her weak.
As though she couldn’t trust her mother enough to allow her to see her when she was weak, unconscious.
A movement at the door had her head lifting, her gaze connecting with her husband’s as he walked to her then eased down beside her on the chair. Touching her cheek, his fingers came away damp with her tears.
“I would have come for her, if I’d known,” she whispered, trying to hold back her sobs. “I would have come for her.”
“And I would have gone with you, baby,” he swore, drawing her into his arms. “I would have gone with you.”
THIRTEEN
Stepping into the kitchen the next morning after doing an excellent job of pretending Duke didn’t exist, Angel faced yet another morning of a full house. Didn’t her mother—Chaya—ever get tired of having so many people around her?
The work island with its large stove and small sink also held an array of food in warmers obviously kept on hand for just such emergencies. Scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, bacon, sausage, ham, pancakes, and piles of toast.
Christa, Kelly, and Dawg’s sisters and mother were all behind the stove working, their voices a quiet murmur as they filled plates and handed them out or refreshed the warmers. Folding tables and chairs were set up in the huge living room, and the murmur of voices from within the room assured her that most of the men were gathered there.
Peeking inside the living area, she saw Duke standing on the other side of the room talking to Rowdy and Dawg. Catching her look, he shot her a little wink but went back to his conversation rather than joining her.
“There you are.” Christa looked up from the fried potatoes she loaded a warmer with. “I thought you’d sleep awhile longer.”
Brushing back her fringe of bangs nervously, Angel lowered her hand and tucked both into the front pockets of the camo pants she wore, looking around.
“I slept enough.” She shrugged, uncomfortable as Mercedes Mackay turned from where she was unloading the dishwasher and handing off the dishes to one of her daughters to put away.
“This one, she likes to prowl the night like a little cat,” Mercedes said and Angel had to restrain a grimace as the other woman smiled back at her warmly. “Did you think I would not remember the young woman that stayed with us that summer? You can change your hair and your eyes, but many things will always remain the same.”
And some people were just too damned perceptive, now weren’t they?
“Most people don’t realize that.” She shrugged, hoping Chaya wasn’t around to hear this conversation. “Have you seen Bliss?”
She’d promised her sister they’d work on her knife skills.
“She is in her parents’ room speaking with them,” Mercedes said quietly, her expression somber. “I believe Natches is beginning to get a clue that his young daughter is not going to be as easy to protect and guide as he believed she would be. She is certain she needs to participate in drawing these men who wish her harm out into the open.”
Hopefully, she’d listen to her parents, Angel thought.
“She’s as stubborn as Natches is,” Angel said, not really certain what to say to any of them.
“They butt heads often.” Mercedes laughed then, looking to her daughter Zoey. “That I believe is as much a Mackay trait as well as one Chaya possesses.”
Angel nodded uncertainly, looked around the kitchen, and felt about as out of place as she imagined she’d ever felt.
“All the girls are as stubborn as their fathers,” Christa pointed out with a low laugh. “They have the potential of being more stubborn.”
The other women’s soft laughter was an agreement as they continued with what they were doing. They worked well together, too, she noticed. It was a comfortable, familiar rhythm between them that spoke of practice and a knowledge of each other that came from working together often.
“Chaya was bragging about your cooking skills this morning.” Kelly, Rowdy’s wife, smiled back at her from the counter where she was buttering toast and placing it on the stack o
f bread already browned. “Even Bliss can’t boil water. Maybe I won’t worry about them starving to death so much with you around.”
Angel met her brown gaze in surprise.
They thought she was actually going to be able to stay? Weren’t they such an optimistic bunch.
“Bliss needs to learn to cook then.” Angel frowned at the knowledge of how Chaya was spoiling the teenager and just how much Bliss chafed at the lack of responsibility. “I knew how to cook certain things at six. A campfire’s low enough that height wasn’t an issue, and all you have to do is burn your fingers once to learn not to do it again.”
She shrugged as everyone seemed to look at her in surprise. Or was that shock? With this group, who the hell knew for sure? She knew they were grilling her with such friendly warmth that it was impossible to get truly angry.
“Tracker’s mother taught you to cook then?” Mercedes asked, turning back to her as she began loading the dishwasher again.
“Hunger taught me to cook.” She was ready to find an escape route now. She didn’t do interrogations well. “Do you need any help or anything?”
“Yes.” Zoey turned from the other side of the far counter, a steaming cup of coffee in hand. “Here’s your coffee, pull up a stool, and let us get to know you. That’s what we need.”
“Zoey, your manners.” Mercedes sighed as though it were a recurring chastisement.
Zoey winked back at Angel and placed the coffee on the counter in front of a stool with a nod to indicate Angel should sit.
“Mom even remembered how you took your coffee.” Zoey grinned. “Strong, with plenty of sugar and cream.”
“Why?” Angel asked, then immediately regretted it. Dammit, they were making her uncomfortable and that never failed to make her defensive. But she couldn’t figure out why they wanted to get to know her now when they hadn’t given a damn before.
Everyone was staring at her again. Seven pairs of eyes locked on her inquisitively.