Wade (20 page)

“And Nat Hedley that you may have heard me mention,” Wade agreed, then looked up to point out the others along with a bit of information to place them.

Chloe dutifully noted that the rather fey beauty with her hair like a cloud around her shoulders was Adam's psychic bride, the redhead with softly freckled skin next to her was Regina, married to Kane, and that Tory of the shining brown hair and patina of moneyed perfection should be paired with the sheriff. All of them spoke, all of them smiled, and yet it was plain that they weren't precisely happy to meet her. It wasn't surprising, perhaps, considering the turmoil she'd brought into their lives, but Chloe felt the sting of it.

An awkward pause settled over them all. Wade's
mother opened her mouth to speak. Then Clay appeared in the doorway that opened off the kitchen into a long hall.

“Unhand my wife, sir,” he said in mock anger as he strolled toward where Wade stood with Janna, “or suffer the consequences.” Then his frown disappeared, replaced by a grin. “Never mind, I'll just hug Chloe as a substitute.”

He did just that, sweeping her into a quick, brotherly embrace that was over before she had a chance to be flustered.

“You're the one who'll suffer,” Janna told him as she disengaged herself from Wade and went to her husband. “I may have to maim you severely.”

“You're welcome to try,” Clay said, catching his wife in a close yet careful embrace. “I do love an aggressive woman.”

“You'll think aggressive after this kid makes his appearance.” Rich color spread across Janna's cheekbones and she avoided looking at anyone else, reserving her gaze for her husband.

“Promises, promises.”

Embarrassment at such a public display of affection warred with fascination inside Chloe. No one else seemed surprised, much less shocked. Tory and Regina rolled their eyes at each other while Wade's mother looked on with indulgent humor.

Wade shook his head at his brother with a wry grin, then sobered as he asked of no one in particular, “So whose idea was it to turn this into a family reunion?”

“Mine,” his mother answered. “You have a problem with it?”

“Everybody's scattered all over, so hard to protect. It will take time to get them to safety if something goes down.”

“That's why Luke and the others are on guard duty. At least we're all together, and the kids won't have to be scared out of their wits by extreme safeguards unless it's necessary.”

“There's a plan,” Clay said. “Even if you weren't here to direct it.”

Janna spoke up, perhaps to smooth over what might have sounded like a reproach. “Everybody knows the drill for taking emergency cover. The kids think it's a game.”

Wade gave a slow nod, though he didn't look convinced.

“When you've settled in, then come take a look at my new pickup, a dually club cab that I traded for in place of my shot-up SUV,” Clay said. “I'll clue you in while you drool.”

“Nat, here, has a couple of new developments to explain at the same time.”

Chloe, hearing the grim note in Wade's rejoinder, suspected he was talking about the fact that Ahmad had been allowed into the country and brought someone with him who might, eventually, supply information on his movements. How that would be greeted, she didn't even want to think.

“In the meantime, we have people to feed,”
Wade's mother said as she returned to her pot on the stove. “Why don't you show Chloe to her room, son. And Clay, honey, that batch of fish over there is mealed and ready, and the grease ought to be hot enough by now. You can take the pan out to whoever is doing the cooking.”

“Pop's in charge there.”

“Good. At least he won't be cuddling in corners.”

“Not unless he can get you alone,” her younger son returned with a wicked glint in his eyes.

“That'll be the day.”

“Or night.”

“Out,” his mother said dangerously, waving her spoon toward the door.

“This way,” Wade told Chloe, steering her back in the direction they had come, “before we get caught in the cross fire.”

Traversing the living room again, they left what seemed to be the oldest section of the house and entered the right-hand wing that had a late Victorian appearance. More polished wood paneling and less plaster were in evidence here, and the furniture had the dark, Gothic influence and antimacassars of that era. The staircase that twisted its way upward from one side of a different living area was of aged golden oak, with a stained-glass window over the landing and a heavy railing polished by generations of use. The muted glow of a converted gaslight fixture with milky globes lighted their way, reflecting also in the stained glass that was dark from the plywood behind it.

“Do you and your brothers all live here together?” Chloe asked as Wade waved her upward then mounted the runner-covered treads behind her.

“Only Clay and Janna are here permanently. They claim the antebellum section on the far side of the kitchen. Adam and Lara have a place of their own in New Orleans, and I'm in and out, mostly out. The place is like three houses in one because families used to be a lot bigger and additions were made as they expanded. We inherited the old pile jointly and no one wants to sell. Adam has dibs on the center part of the house, then, being the oldest, and this wing is supposed to be mine.”

“Do you think you'll ever live here full-time?”

“Who knows?”

It wasn't much of an answer, though Chloe wasn't sure what she'd expected. Or even why she'd asked.

They reached the top of the stairs. A long upper hall stretched before them, carpeted in burgundy wool with a design of gold scrolls and cabbage roses. Wade opened the door of a bedroom on the left and flicked on the light to reveal a large, high-ceilinged room done in chintz and organdy, and with a heavy oak bed and matching marble-topped washstand set with a pitcher and bowl.

“Bathroom's through there, and more modern than it looks,” he said, indicating a white-painted door. “I'll bring up your things from the car in a few minutes. My room is just down the hall. Feel free to take whatever you might need from the closet. Come
back down when you're ready, or not at all if you'd rather rest.”

“Yes. Thank you.” His voice was so neutral and polite that it seemed best to follow suit. He was telling her, she thought, that she was a guest, not family. Also that he didn't expect her to share his room or his bed. “I understand.”

He watched her a long moment, as if debating whether to say more. Then he gave a short nod and turned to go.

“Wade?”

He stopped with his hand on the door, looking back over his shoulder. Wariness sat on his features as he waited for her to go on.

“I really am sorry…for all the trouble, the danger and everything. I didn't quite realize how big your family is or how it would seem to them, until I saw them. I shouldn't have come here. I wish…”

“We've already been over this,” he said, his voice even.

“Yes, but none of this would be happening if it wasn't for me.”

“None of it would be happening if people were reasonable, if they could manage to live without looking for someone to blame for where and how they were born or needing someone to hate in order to feel better about themselves. You've harmed no one, threatened no one. Let me say it again. You are not to blame.”

“If I could talk to Ahmad, offer him the money from my father…”

“No.” The negative was implacable, leaving no room for argument. “The time for that is long past. He'll kill you now. He has to and you know it.”

“What if he kills your kin? How could I live with that?”

“To get to them, he'll have to go through me and every other male Benedict alive.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better.”

“Just stating a fact. Anyway, if it happens then…”

“Then Ahmad will get to me, too, and it won't matter.”

“Exactly.”

She turned away from him. “But it does matter. I can't stand it. I should never have spoken to you, never have listened to what you had to say, never have gone away with you, and certainly never have asked…what I did last night. I'm sorry for all of it, so sorry.”

He made no answer for long moments. Then he spoke with perfect distinction. “I'm not.”

She swung around, but the door was closing. He had gone.

She didn't move, but stared blindly at the wall in front of her that was papered with ribbons and sprigged roses. Did he have any real idea of what he faced in the hard warrior spirit and ferocity of men like Ahmad? Did any of the Benedicts? She wished she could be sure.

Their courage, she feared, was grounded in endless decades of utter security. Instead of secluding the women and children and turning the woods around Grand Point into an armed camp, they arranged a family reunion. How could they hope to prevail against men who considered killing a natural and holy act and death a promise of paradise?

The scene in the yard outside and in the kitchen played itself in her mind, again, and yet again. Something was missing, but she couldn't quite grasp what it might be.

Then she had it. Terror, that was what was missing, particularly among the women. The wives of the Benedict men were worried, yes, but unafraid. Trust in the ability of their men to protect them was in their smiles and in their eyes.

That would change. She had brought terror with her. Soon Ahmad and the men with him would come with their guns and explosives, their fanatical ideas and disdain for women and for the lives of children. The reality of the threat he represented would alter forever the way they lived and the looks in their eyes, the way they thought and planned and dreamed.

She couldn't bear it. This thing had to be stopped. There had to be a way.

Ahmad was a fanatic, but he was also a realist. His personal honor might be sacred, but that didn't prevent him from seeing advantage to himself. Changing alliances, changing sides, changing plans were often seen as intelligent decisions among the Hazaris, ac
tions based on altered circumstances or agile bending before the winds of fate. If she could show Ahmad that he would benefit materially from abandoning his personal jihad, he might go away. The chance was slim, but better than being the cause of the utter annihilation of all she'd seen this morning.

She didn't want to die. But neither could she live with the idea that others must die for her sake.

Chloe shut her eyes, squeezing them tight. Her voice barely above a whisper, she repeated, “I should not have come.”

W
ade and Adam met Lara as they were coming out of the woods. They had been scouting the east property line that ran along a dirt road giving access to the lake. A guard had been posted at that potential entry point, one of many that now staked out the perimeter. How Adam's wife had managed to find the two of them was no great mystery. She had a sixth sense about where her husband was at all times. Adam complained about her psychic ability and the fact that he had no secrets from her, but it had its advantages.

Wade expected Lara to have some message for her husband. She walked up to him, instead. He saw the pity in her eyes even before she spoke.

“Chloe's gone, Wade. At least an hour ago.”

He felt his heart stop dead still for a full second before it kicked into a harder beat. “How? Why?”

“In the back of Johnnie Hopewell's pickup truck. I seem to see her under a tarp or cover of some kind…Johnnie had an emergency call, an obstetrical emergency at the hospital. As to why, you'd know that better than anyone.”

“Luke didn't try to stop her?”

“He wasn't checking vehicles coming from here, since it's his job to keep people out instead of the other way around. Anyway, who'd have thought she might want to leave?”

“I should have,” Wade said. And he would've if he had really listened to what she'd been trying to tell him earlier, instead of cutting it short because her regret about everything he'd done or been asked to do wasn't what he wanted to hear.

“Where would she go?” Adam asked, his gaze on Lara's face.

“In search of something, or someone,” she answered.

“Her stepbrother. Though I can't imagine how she hopes to find him.” Wade hoped that it wasn't possible, prayed that it wasn't.

A frown drew Adam's brows together. “You don't think she might be in with this stepbrother of hers? That she could have come to the house to check out the lay of the land, then left to report back to him?”

Anger hit Wade with hurricane force. “Where did you get an idea like that?”

“Hell, Wade, it's just a suggestion. She may be American, but she's been over there since she was a kid. People have been brainwashed before.”

“Not Chloe. She blames herself for what's going on, and I think she's scared to death that every single Benedict here will be massacred.”

“You understand her very well for someone who just met her,” Lara said.

Wade twitched a shoulder. “We've been through a lot together.”

“I see.”

He thought she might have, at that. At any rate, he had no intention of asking what she'd found.

“What now?” Adam asked, putting his hands on his hipbones.

“I have to go after her.”

“How? Where?”

He had one possibility, a single hope. “Let me borrow your cell phone?”

Adam unclipped it from his belt and passed it over without a word. Wade flipped open the cover and dialed a number.

“Yeah,” Nat said in his ear. “What took you so long?”

“Otherwise occupied,” Wade answered. “You got her?”

“Been following her for the past hour. Next time, make sure I have access to you before you set me up for a wild-goose chase.”

“You might have come back for me.”

“Afraid I'd lose her.”

“Or kept her in one spot long enough to call the house.”

“Did you say hold her prisoner? Did you even think about it?”

He hadn't and wouldn't have, not after what she'd
been through. The main idea had been to give her a bodyguard while he was otherwise occupied. He had to swallow an odd obstruction in his throat before he could go on. “Where is she? What's she doing?”

“Turn-Coupe is where she left her transport, in the hospital parking lot after the driver went inside. She walked back uptown from there. As to what she's doing, the answer is not much.”

“She's not trying to find her stepbrother?”

“Nope,” Nat said. “Just wandering around, mostly in and out of the stores opposite the courthouse. Seems to be shopping.”

“She doesn't have that much money.”

“Looking then. Or maybe she intends to let the stepbrother find her instead of the other way around.”

Wade closed his eyes. The tactic had some chance of working if Ahmad was looking for him and his family in their hometown.

“What?” Adam asked, his voice sharp.

Wade ignored the question. “I'll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said into the phone. “Stay with her. Don't let anything happen to her. Call this number if anything changes.” He raised a brow at Adam who gave him the required digits. After repeating them into the phone, he slapped the cover shut.

“Sounds like you're going after her,” his brother said. “Want company?”

Wade considered that for a tense moment. Then he shook his head. “You're needed here. Ahmad may know where we live already.”

“And if he doesn't?”

“I'll handle it. But you could tell Roan. He must have a deputy or two left in town for reinforcements.”

Lara spoke up then. “Chloe isn't doing this for herself, you know. It's for you and all the rest of us.”

“But what if it doesn't work?” Wade asked. “Or what if it does, and Ahmad still wants her as well as her money?” What he didn't say, because he couldn't, was that any desire Ahmad might have would probably be temporary. Afterward, he would kill Chloe as easily as crushing a butterfly.

“She knew the risk.”

Wade didn't answer. He couldn't. The obstruction in his throat, he realized, was fear.

The ten miles or so into town were covered in record time in Clay's new dually. He scoped out his cousin Betsy's motel and coffee shop on the way in, but saw nothing unusual, no sign of the green sedan Ahmad had been driving on the chase from the airport. Parking at the courthouse, he surveyed the main drag in a single glance, a mere four blocks of stores crowded together to accommodate nineteenth-century foot traffic. Nothing moved except a couple of elderly women just going into the beauty shop and the black cat grooming itself in the window of the Magnolia Gift Store and Tea Room. He'd glimpsed Nat's rental near the feed and seed store one street over, but his friend was nowhere in sight.

Chloe wasn't in the dress shop when he looked
inside, nor was she at the flower shop. Checking didn't take long, since they weren't big places. The clerk on duty at the dress shop said a woman answering her description had been in but left without buying anything. Emerging again, Wade paused on the sidewalk in front of the shoe shop, staring up and down. There was still no sign of her or Nat.

Wade took out the cell phone, but stood weighing it in his hand. He wasn't sure calling Nat again was such a good idea. Could be he was in a situation where a chirping phone might attract unneeded attention. If not, then he'd have made himself available.

Wade's side hurt and his stomach felt on fire. The need to do something pounded inside his skull. He couldn't stand this waiting, not knowing. When he got his hands on Chloe Madison, the two of them were going to come to an understanding. He was responsible for her. If he was to keep her safe, she had to cooperate. He couldn't do it alone.

The appalling death of Chloe's stepsister gnawed away at the back of his mind. For a woman to be killed was worse, somehow, than the death of a man. He thought that was the unspoken reason a lot of men hated the idea of women in combat operations. Something inside them held a female body with its power to produce life as sacred, inherently more valuable than that of a male. They couldn't stand the thought of everything tender and precious, everything they tried so hard to keep inviolate outside their military lives, annihilated in the stink of sweat and blood.

He knew he couldn't. Even less could he stand to think of Chloe deliberately putting herself in Ahmad's hands, no matter what the cause.

It was possible of course that they were wrong about why she had left. It could be because she didn't care for the whole situation. She hadn't bargained on being cooped up at Grand Point or put into a bedroom only a step down the hall from his own. She'd only wanted one night with him, after all.

He should never have agreed. The trust between them had been fragile, not up to the strain the night before had placed on it. He'd attempted to show her the pitfalls, but maybe he hadn't tried hard enough. Willpower was a fine thing, but only went so far.

He'd done what she'd asked to the best of his ability. There'd been no critique of the performance, and he was positively not the kind to ask if it had been good. He'd been enthralled, knew very well there was no such thing as having enough of her. She'd seemed lost in the moment, but women had been known to fake it before. Nothing said that she'd gotten a thing from the experience except an end to virginal inconvenience.

That was the last thing he wanted to explain to Adam or anybody else. Even if he could find the words, which he was fairly sure would be impossible.

Something moved at the periphery of his vision.

He snapped his head around in time to see Chloe step out of the hamburger joint a block down from the courthouse. She had a white paper bag in one
hand and a drink cup in the other. After waiting for an elderly woman in an ancient Cadillac to pass, she crossed the street to the courthouse lawn and took a seat on an iron bench under one of the big oaks. Setting her drink beside her, she pulled her hamburger out of the bag. Even from where Wade stood, he could see the ceremony with which she peeled off the wrapping and the way she closed her eyes to savor the first bite.

A wry smile tugged one corner of his mouth. It must have been a very long time since she'd tasted anything so totally American. He wished he'd known it was what she'd wanted.

Hard on that thought came recognition of just what she was doing. Could there be a better place to see and be seen than the Courthouse Square? And what more logical reason could there be to sit there in plain sight than to eat her lunch?

He had to admire her initiative and her courage. He might even tell her so, after he gave her a piece of his mind.

At that instant, a sedan turned the corner. It cruised past the flower shop and restaurant, slowing as it neared the courthouse. It eased past where Chloe sat on her bench.

Instinct kicked in with a vengeance. Wade pulled his weapon from his waistband and broke into a hard, ground-eating run even before his mind registered the identity of the man behind the wheel.

He thought for a second that Ahmad had missed
seeing Chloe. Then the vehicle swerved toward the curb. Brakes squealed as it jarred to a halt. The doors swung open and four men scrambled out. They swarmed toward Chloe.

She had just picked up her drink. With it still in her hand, she wheeled to face the threat.

The sedan with its doors wide open sat between Wade and the others. He dropped into a crouch, using it for cover. Reaching it in a few swift steps, he braced his arms across the hood and drew down on his quarry.

“Halt!” he shouted. “Hold it right there.”

The Hazaris flung him a fast glance, then scattered like a flock of chickens, rolling, scrambling for cover. A shot exploded and the bullet zinged over the sedan. Wade ducked, but held his fire. He couldn't risk hitting Chloe.

Ahmad expected that or else didn't care. He sprang from the cover of the big oak, firing as he ran toward Chloe. She whirled away, but was caught from behind. Wade cringed, eyes strained for the flash of a knife. Instead Ahmad grabbed her wrist and jerked it up behind her back. Then he dragged her around in front of him as a shield while he backed across the street. Within seconds, they disappeared inside the gift shop.

At that instant, two men burst out of the doors of the courthouse and raced down the steps. A quick glance was enough to identify Nat and the uniformed deputy with him. The remaining jihadis broke and ran
before this new threat. The deputy pounded after them, but Nat came on.

Wade rounded the sedan and sprinted headlong for the dress shop. Nat joined him, weapon in hand, just outside the door.

“Sorry I wasn't closer,” he said, trying to catch his breath as they flanked the opening on either side, backs to the wall. “Deputy flagged me down. Had to call Roan for verification that I was really who I said.”

“Figures.” Wade clenched his teeth against the ache in his side, then risked a fast look around the door facing. Nothing moved in the interior, nobody shot at him. He nodded to Nat. “Go!”

They whipped inside, guns ready. The only person in the shop was a saleswoman behind the checkout counter, standing frozen with a ceramic turkey in one hand and a pricing gun in the other.

“Which way?” he demanded.

She pointed toward the back, her eyes as big as the ceramic pumpkins scattered around her.

A framed opening led into a storeroom. With Nat close behind him, Wade raced through dusty shelving and stacked boxes, and crunched over foam packing peanuts. A metal-clad door at the rear was just closing on its compressed air hinge. He hit it hard, then leaped down the rickety steps that led into a narrow access alley. Directly across the way was the rear loading dock for the feed and seed store that backed
up to the alley. Ahmad and Chloe were just disappearing inside.

Nat headed for the steps, but Wade took the dock in a single, athletic leap. Seconds later, he was inside.

Cursing could be heard from the front of the store. The voice belonged to a crusty old reprobate named Zach Buchanan, longtime proprietor known for giving good deals in spring and summer bulbs to pretty gardeners and keeping a double-barreled shotgun under the counter by way of a security system. A shattering roar punctuated his profane comments. Then everything was quiet.

Wade's forward momentum carried him into the front room. A single, comprehensive glance showed Zach looking down the second barrel of his shotgun at Ahmad. Chloe's stepbrother held her in front of him like living body armor even as he pressed a knifepoint against the jugular that pulsed under the white skin of her throat.