She’d protect her sister or die trying.
Before she could evade him, his arms were suddenly around her, her face smashed into his chest.
“Welcome home, girl,” he whispered, his voice thick, obviously sincere. “You won’t let her welcome you, but you can’t stop me.”
Angel jerked back, the shield cracking, pain surging through it, slapping at her, threatening to steal her objectivity, her training.
“Thank you for the gesture.” It took everything she’d learned, every iota of strength she had found over the years to stare back at him as though she wasn’t being flooded with a lifetime of grief and pain. “I’d like that tour of the house now, if you don’t mind.”
Duke saw the hunger, the pain, and the need as Natches jerked Chaya’s daughter into a quick embrace before Angel pulled back.
He saw Angel’s face when she pulled back, though.
Now Natches was showing her to the office that opened into the living room as well as the kitchen on one side. There was a door that led to a small patio outside as well.
“He’ll show her the downstairs first,” Chaya whispered, wrapping her arms around her breasts as she turned back to him. “He’ll take her upstairs last.”
Duke rubbed at the back of his neck. “He could wait. . . .”
The look he called Angel’s “soldier” face flashed across Chaya’s expression now. “No. If we’re going to come to a place where we can talk and hear each other then she needs to see it.”
“I hate to point this out,” he reminded her. “But right or wrong, she faced you with that chance and she was told to leave, Chaya. Shocking her now might not be a good idea.”
“Shocking her now is all I have left,” she whispered. “But I’ll give you the option of joining them. I don’t think I can bear it.”
Natches took Angel through the house, room by room. The office, then the kitchen, where Duke was enjoying a slice of Ms. Tully’s luscious cake and coffee, then through the other side of the kitchen to a hall. There they turned to the left and entered the guest suite.
She and Duke would unfortunately have to share the suite, he informed her as they walked through a small kitchenette. Then he showed her into the sitting area and pointed out that the couch let out into a surprisingly comfortable bed.
The bedroom had a king bed, covered with an obviously old white bedspread that kissed the floor on each side. Soft, cream-colored carpeting, heavy wood shutters over the windows that folded back to open the room to the sunlight, and light oak furniture. An attached bathroom with both a walk-in shower as well as a garden tub. And a door to the patio off the kitchenette.
Leaving the guest suite they moved farther down the hall. Bliss’s room was next, with a full-sized canopied bed, antique furniture, and a padded white rocking chair.
Angel stared at the chair as Natches pointed out the teenager’s bathroom. The soft pink cushions were well-worn, the paint a little faded here and there, but it was sturdy and comfortable.
Especially to a three-year-old who liked reading her two-words-to-a-page storybooks.
Hop. Hop. She struggled with the word then did like her momma taught her and made the sounds of the word. Hop, boy.
“Angel?” Natches paused beside her. “The safe room’s next.”
She turned, followed him, ignoring the need to sit in that chair for just a moment.
He showed her the safe room, though she knew she’d have to make him explain it to her again before Bliss came home, because she barely saw it. The same with his and Chaya’s bedroom, then back into the living room.
She stared around, looking at the pictures in the room, seeing so many, but none of Chaya’s first child.
“There’s only one room upstairs,” he told her as Duke joined them at the stairway leading to the upper room. “It’s never used. Are you sure you need to see it?”
She nodded, still seeing that rocker, remembering the room it had sat in first. The room in the house Chaya had sold.
“Very well.” He seemed to make some silent decision, then led the way up the wide stairwell. “Bathroom.” He opened the door on the left of the landing. “Bedroom.”
She stepped into the bedroom then froze.
She couldn’t breathe.
She stared around the room, refusing to speak, barely able to hold back the screams of rage.
The twin bed she’d once slept on, the quilt she’d so loved still covering it. The big chair sitting beside the gas fireplace where Chaya had taught her to read. The white dresser, chest, and child-sized vanity littered with ribbons and bows and the brush she’d used to brush her hair.
On the bench at the bottom of the bed and in front of it were several small stacks of gaily wrapped presents. Who bought presents for a child that they believed was dead?
On the walls were white shelves, lined with her dolls.
Lying on the bed was the doll she’d slept with and hugged to her as a child. The large rag doll had been her favorite besides the teddy bear she called Binny. She didn’t realize she’d walked to the bed, reached out, and almost touched the doll.
Cora. She’d named the doll Cora and she told her “good night” every night before she went to sleep. Cora lived in her bed; she didn’t travel with the child as Binny had, but had waited patiently to hold back any bad dreams she might have while she slept.
The real nightmares didn’t come in dreams, though, she thought. Life itself could be the real nightmare.
Duke moved to Angel, his chest aching as he blocked her expression from Natches just in time to allow her to keep the agony that crossed her face hidden. His cousin didn’t need to see it. Dammit, he hadn’t needed to see it.
She swallowed tightly as she caught sight of him in her periphery. Her body stiffened and she turned from the bed, her gaze meeting his for only a second. What he saw there had his jaw clenching in fury.
“I’m finished.” She walked past him, moving with that precise, loose-limbed walk she used when she knew danger was close. “We can discuss the layout after I walk the grounds.”
Angel felt threatened. She was off balance and she was hurting and all that training over the years was the only thing that kept her from breaking.
He followed her, aware of Natches closing the door softly behind him as Angel went down the stairs, not even pausing on her way to the front door when her mother stepped to the foyer.
She was escaping. Running away until she could handle whatever emotions were threatening to escape all that careful control.
Chaya might be right, she might have needed to see the room, but Duke still disagreed with the lack of warning she’d been given.
“Did you know about it?” she demanded, her voice rougher, her control shakier as he caught up with her in the front yard, moving beside her as she strode along the rock walkway that wove through the multitude of flower beds.
“The bedroom?” He breathed out roughly. “I knew,” he answered at her sharp nod. “But would you have believed me if I told you? Or accepted it?”
She paused, breathing in deep, and Duke saw the faintest tremble at her lips.
Damn Natches and Chaya.
Damn him.
He should have gone to Natches a year ago, the second he had the proof he’d been looking for, the pictures he’d found in an envelope in the back of one of the albums Mara Calloway had brought with her to the vacation house they’d invited Duke and Ethan to.
The pictures of the nearly broken child, the same child in the pictures Duke had seen in Natches and Chaya’s home when he was younger. Though in those pictures, the child had smiled, laughed, and looked out at the world with curious, bright eyes.
“It’s just a job,” she said then, her voice low, her shoulders straightening as she turned and stared at him coolly. “It’s just a job.”
Duke nodded slowly
. “If that’s what it takes to help you sleep at night, then I’ll go with that. For now.”
Because he knew better. Both of them knew better. But he knew she wasn’t quite ready to accept it yet.
SIX
The house was beautiful, as were the grounds, and it was obvious Natches and Chaya loved their home, Angel admitted silently as she and Duke retreated to the guest suite several hours later to settle in.
And their daughter.
Through the entire house the one thing that had really drawn her attention was the pictures. Framed, sitting on end tables and the mantel in the living room, hanging on the walls along the hall were dozens of pictures of Bliss growing up. Family portraits and spur-of-the-moment shots, yet there wasn’t a single picture of Chaya’s first child. Not alone, nor with her mother.
Not that Angel pointed that out.
She noticed it, felt the loss in her soul, but she remained silent.
Dropping her pack onto the overlarge chair next to the patio doors, she set the duffel bag beside it and stared at the cushioned furniture and shaded bistro table, ignoring Chaya, Natches, and Duke.
“Bliss will be home later tonight,” Chaya stated, pulling Angel’s attention back to her as she noticed the additional tension in the other woman’s voice.
Natches stood behind his wife, his hand at her hip, his gaze locked on Angel, the emerald color of his eyes predatory and wild with the fury he was holding back. Chaya stood with her hands clasped in front of her nervously, obviously worried.
“Is she okay?” Angel directed the question to Natches.
“She’s safe.” The snap in Chaya’s tone drew Angel’s gaze back to her. “Bliss doesn’t know who you are yet. I don’t want to tell her.”
Chaya continued speaking, Angel continued staring at her, but something was crashing through her soul. It swirled inside her with a dark, vicious pain she had no idea how to process.
How could it hurt more? How could anything inside her be left to shatter? Her heart simply couldn’t break any further, could it?
Bliss was dealing with too much right now. Fear and pain filled Chaya’s voice, her expression. She didn’t want the teenager to lose focus, to be distracted from remaining safe. She didn’t want her daughter to have to process another shock until the time was right.
Is there a right time? Angel wondered in disbelief.
She nodded when appropriate. She made herself breathe, made herself live through the additional, unexpected blow. Though she knew she should have expected it.
“Angel . . .” Chaya whispered when she finished, her arms lifting as though pleading for Angel to understand.
“Not a problem.” She pushed the words past her lips. “That’s for the best, of course. There’s no reason for her to be further upset when this is over and it’s time for me to leave.”
Chaya’s arms lowered slowly and she turned to her husband, his expression hardening savagely as he stared at Duke.
As though Duke could do something, fix something. They were obviously expecting more from her and she had no idea what more they could expect.
“We’ll let you settle in,” Natches said, his voice grating. “Breakfast is usually at seven.” His gaze sliced back to her. “I expect you to be there, Angel. We don’t miss family meals in this house. That means breakfast at seven, the evening meal at five, and if you want lunch, make yourself at home in the pantry.”
He drew his wife from the suite then and closed the door behind them.
“She must have learned to cook,” she said softly, remembering Chaya’s habit of burning most of the meals she attempted when Angel was younger.
Propping one hand on her hip she narrowed her eyes on the door. They didn’t miss family meals. He expected her to be there. As though she were three again.
“As though they consider me family.” Bitterness threatened to overwhelm her.
“Being a bitch isn’t going to help the situation, Angel,” Duke accused her, causing her to turn and glare back at him. There was no anger in his expression, but she could see the disappointment there.
“What the fucking hell do you and Natches want from me?” she snarled, the emotions tearing through her finally boiling over. “God damn the two of you. Son-of-a-bitch Mackay misfits. You’re a fucking plague with no hope of a cure. Leave me alone already or get the hell away from me!
“‘We don’t miss family meals in this house,’” Angel mocked Natches’s order. “Who the fuck does he believe he is? My father?” She sneered, but it was the pain that added the insulting tone. “Not hardly. And when did that woman learn to cook without trying to burn the kitchen down at the same time? She couldn’t have cooked when I was three if her very life depended on it. And you.” She pointed at him then, her gray eyes like thunder clouds rolling over the mountains. “Being a bitch, am I?” She sniffed at the accusation. “I have yet to be a bitch. I was actually putting myself out to be fucking nice.”
His brow arched at the statement, lips quirking in challenge as he watched her flush with anger.
“Sorry, sweetheart, that’s where you’re wrong,” he informed her. “For the situation and the emotions ripping at both of you? She was doing her best to hold back the need to grab you and hold you while you were doing your best to keep her as far from you as possible.”
The bitter, jeering laugh that passed her lips was painful to hear, Duke acknowledged.
“Dying to hold me, was she?” She snorted, that sneer curling her lips causing his hands to touch her, his heart aching to take away the pain. “I guess that’s why she couldn’t possibly tell Bliss who I am. Right? Because she just loves me so much, doesn’t she, Duke?”
The emotions raging through Angel didn’t need a gentle touch, though. She was looking for a fight instead. How many times had he watched her burn like this until she became lost, completely alone in the fury consuming her? It never failed that she’d end up in a fistfight with someone when she was like this. If he, Ethan, Tracker, or Chance didn’t manage to stop her.
“She’s dying to hold you,” he assured her. “And all you wanted to do was draw blood. You’re not that person, baby, to deliberately hurt an innocent person.”
He was pushing her and he knew it. Pushing the anger and the pain, but until she acknowledged the fact that she felt it, she’d never get past it.
“Innocent? You think you know so much, don’t you?” She flipped her hand toward him dismissively. “All your fucking research and your big file on my life. You don’t know a damned thing. You’re so-called facts? Those aren’t facts, those are other people’s ignorance of the situation, nothing more.”
His brow arched at the deliberately goading statement.
“Did you see the file?” he asked knowingly.
She hadn’t, and part of that was his fault, he admitted.
“I lived it,” she exploded, pointing at him accusingly. “Every second of the last twenty years I lived the life that . . . woman,” she spat, “left me to live. I don’t need to read your fucking file. I was there!”
“You were three, not an adult,” he reminded her, frowning back at her, his gaze harsh. “Just because you remember the event doesn’t mean you understood it. Or that you remember it correctly.”
Her eyes narrowed, her fists clenched at her side.
“Don’t presume to pretend you know anything about my memories, because I assure you, you don’t,” she snapped furiously.
A fine tremor raced through her, the emotions she kept so carefully contained inside her tearing her apart.
“Because you refuse to discuss it,” he told her calmly, shrugging at the accusation. “Because you tell no one, Angel. You keep it all inside you and draw your own conclusions, just as you did when your mother tried to explain to you about Bliss.”
“Bliss’s mother,” she burst out, that finger pointing out again,
her voice hoarse. “Not mine.”
“Your mother, Angel.” His expression hardened, his arms going over his chest in that dominant pose strong men seemed to like so well. “You share a mother with your sister. Chaya is your mother as well, whether you want to accept it or not.”
The hell she was. Angel didn’t have a mother. She hadn’t had a mother for twenty years and she didn’t need one now.
“Not my mother,” she rasped, enraged now. “My mother would have come to get me, no matter what. She would not have let my sister die in my arms because she couldn’t drag her ass away from Natches Mackay. . . .”
And there it was, the answer he’d searched for, the reason Angel had refused to inform her mother she was still alive. The reason why the fury was threatening to engulf her now.
“Chaya was in the hospital when you were at that hotel, Angel,” he told her carefully, watching her, wondering just how much she knew about her mother’s last days in Iraq. “She’d been grabbed in Iraq and tortured for hours when Natches found her. She was lucky to be alive.”
She inhaled raggedly, teeth clenching, a tremor shaking her body as she fought to bring herself back under control, to force the shield back in place.
“It doesn’t matter where she was,” she all but whispered. “She left me and Jenny and we paid for it. Jenny paid with her life.” She shook her head slowly. “I won’t lose Bliss as well.”
Her fingers curled over the knife still strapped at her thigh, something she did often when she was upset, Duke knew. As though it comforted her in some way. The knife her mother had left with her, and how many times had it saved her life over the years?
“And you think refusing to discuss any of this is going to help you protect Bliss?” he asked her, watching as she paced to the doors of the private patio before turning back to him.
“It won’t hurt.” The shrug was careless, as though it didn’t matter, but he knew better.