“Doesn’t mean you can’t reap the benefits of it either, huh?” The disappointment in Noah’s voice wasn’t hard to miss, and it struck at one of the few vulnerable areas Jordan possessed. His affection for family, his need for that family’s affection.
Jordan raked his fingers through his hair impatiently as he met his nephew’s mockingly angry gaze. “Just because I believe it’s an illusion doesn’t mean I can’t claim the results of it,” Jordan amended, his voice darker as a part of him cringed, or seemed to, at the illogical feeling of having betrayed Tehya somehow with that statement.
Noah didn’t say anything further. His lips thinned, his expression became set in lines of disapproval, but he kept his argument to himself.
If only the others were so kind.
“Hey, Noah, did you notice he said just because he believed it was an illusion rather than just because it is an illusion?” Nik piped up from beside Noah, his voice heavy with amusement. “Maybe he’s relenting just a little bit.”
Neither Jordan nor Noah responded. Jordan could feel the heavy threat of condemnation rising from each of his men as they rode toward the
senator’s estate.
Noah had to fight to rein in the impatient anger brewing inside him.
Hell, he’d been around Tehya and his uncle enough to know that Jordan was determined to fight whatever he was feeling for Tehya. He’d been feeling it for six damned years now or more, and still, Jordan didn’t dare mention the L word. If he acknowledged it, then he might have to admit it actually existed.
But if any man had ever been born to love a woman, then Jordan had been born for Tehya, just as Noah knew he had been born for Sabella.
It was the Malone curse, his grandfather had always said. Malone men were warned to love wisely, because once they loved, they loved forever, they loved deep, and they loved with a blazing heat that burned clear to the soul.
Jordan just didn’t want to admit he was in love with Tehya. If he admitted it, then he had to face the fact that he couldn’t exist without her.
And it wasn’t a bad thing, Noah acknowledged to himself. He’d made mistakes with Sabella. He’d left her when he should have had her brought to him. He’d turned his back on his marriage, his life, his identity because of his own stupid pride and fear. But as Noah Blake rather than Nathan Malone, he’d returned, claimed everything that had ever belonged to him, and at the same time, Sabella managed to mark his soul a second time with a lash of delicate, feminine claws, female stubbornness, and raging hunger.
Hell, if he could knock some sense into his uncle, then that was exactly what he would do. Unfortunately, the more a man, or a woman, pushed at Jordan Malone, the more stubborn he could get.
Maybe, hopefully, this time Jordan would realize the gift Tehya had been holding for him all these years. The other men swore they’d seen it, eight years before. That first night they had come face-to-face in Aruba during the operation to identify and neutralize Sorrel, Tehya’s father.
Noah prayed, for his uncle’s sake, that he realized what he saw as an illusion was the only emotion that would ever ease that core of agonizing loneliness Noah glimpsed in Jordan’s eyes. If Jordan let her go this time, if he walked away, then Noah feared there would be no going back.
Glancing in the rearview mirror once again, he glimpsed that dark, dangerous set of Jordan’s face once again. He’d seen it too often, watched it growing over the years until Noah was beginning to fear that one day, it would become a permanent set to his face.
Until Jordan had come after Tehya. Only with her did he lose that look. Only when Tehya was around, did Jordan soften. She was Jordan’s last hope, and Noah prayed, he prayed often, that this time she would break through shield around his uncle’s soul and dissolve that core of dangerous darkness overtaking him.
If she didn’t, then Noah feared Jordan would only return to the Ops, and if he did that, then it wouldn’t be as a base commander. Jordan would take field command, and one day, he just wouldn’t return.
As Jordan’s gaze slid to the mirror, meeting Noah’s as he glanced back again, Noah realized his uncle was riding a much finer line than he’d imagined. If the look in his eyes was any indication, if Tehya couldn’t settle that darkness, then Noah feared he’d lose the uncle who had risked his career as well as his life, to save him.
* * *
Lightning flared across the sky, sharp brilliant fingers of electricity shedding its brilliant glow over the Stanton estate as it pierced the night. Thunder rattled and rolled and sheets of rain blew through the night, saturating the ground and lending a heavy sensual excitement to the air outside.
The storm vibrated with primal fury, pounding through the night as well as the senses as Tehya sat in the large, well-padded chair that faced the window and stared into the heart of the storm.
She felt isolated, alone. Fear and worry crowded her mind, turning her senses bleak and reminding her of the danger there seemed to be no escape from.
She was thirty years old. For twenty-five years she had been on the run in one way or the other, fighting to survive, clawing for freedom. And God, she was so tired. She was so tired of hiding, of watching over her shoulder, of knowing whomever she loved, whoever tried to protect her, would only lose their life for their effort.
Tonight, as she had so many nights before, she was dressed in borrowed clothes, a nightgown in this case, and sleeping in a borrowed bed. She was watching the night, knowing the monsters that existed there, knowing that any moment they could be watching her, coming for her. Just as they had so many nights before.
Or Jordan could be coming.
Tucking her feet beneath her, Tehya laid her cheek against her knees and stared into the night, feeling the storm raging inside her as well.
She wanted to run.
Oh God, she should have run the minute she suspected she was being watched again. Why had she become so stubborn when Jordan had arrived? What in God’s name made her believe a house, a business, or friends was worth the risk Jordan and his men were facing?