Gabriel West Still the One Page 17

The unsettling directness of his amber gaze was still the same, the shape of his mouth, that tough male jaw, but something had changed, the alteration as invisible as an electric current: powerful, but there. With a jolt, she realized that he was letting her see him. He had dropped his tough inner defences; the cool, impenetrable barrier to his emotions was gone.

  Her chest clenched on a hard pulse of emotion, the ache raising goose bumps and searing nerve endings.

  Too late to wish fiercely that she'd ignored that barrier before, but she now had what she'd always needed. For the first time she was certain of him. Like the subtle flow that had emanated from the jade, she could feel him, the moment he'd literally opened up to her powerful and immediate, as if in that moment a link had been forged.

  She had her barriers but West had a fortress. "You're like me, only worse."

  "You had what I was missing. Courage." Tears burned the back of her eyes. "Not enough to reach you."

  He framed her face with his hands. "You did nothing but reach me. I left, but I couldn't stop thinking about you. It got so that I couldn't concentrate, couldn't work."

  West didn't tell her that if he'd stayed in the SAS any longer he was certain he would have ended up dead because he'd gotten so used to walking toward death, he'd stopped caring about living.

  Fierceness gripped him. He didn't want that anymore; he'd found something better.''You know what I'm like." "Difficult."

  "But you'll take me back?" "I'll take you any way I can get you." Her gaze told him that not only would she take him back; this time she would hold him.

  His arms tightened convulsively around Tyler. He buried his face in her hair. His chest was so tight, he could barely breathe; his eyes were burning. The last time he'd cried had been when he and his mother had been evicted from her flat, and she'd told him she couldn't look after him anymore. She had walked in one direction, he'd walked in the other. He had been five.

  The morning gradually lightened, the glow from the sun warming his back, unlocking some of his tension. A faint morning breeze sprang up, soft with condensation and laced with the scents of the city and he finally lifted his head and loosened his hold.

  Tyler shifted in his grip, as if, like him, she didn't want to let go. Her mouth touched on his, clung.

  A horn sounded. Someone yelled out from a passing car.

  A jogger pounded past and whistled.

  A skinny dog planted its rump beside West. He was black and tan, and looked as though he would have been happier in a paddock full of sheep instead of sitting on the dusty sidewalk of a city. The dog lifted his head and eyed West with soft, dark eyes.

  "That's it, we're out of here." West unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for Tyler. "I'm sick of sharing you. We're going somewhere isolated. No people, no guns, no family, no friends. Absolutely no friends."

  "There's only one thing wrong with that scenario." She took the keys from his fingers. "You're injured, and I'm driving." West felt the smile build up inside him, roll through him like warmth and honey and sunlight, as he eased into the passenger seat. For the first time in years—no, cancel that, in his life—he felt happy.

  West noticed the dog continued to watch them with big, soulful eyes as Tyler pulled out from the curb.

  He fastened his seat belt, wincing at the pain the movement caused. Carter had padded the graze up, and West had swallowed a couple of painkillers at the station, but the area still throbbed. He leaned his head back on the headrest and glanced in the side rear vision mirror. "There's just one problem." Tyler was already pulling a U-turn. She threw him a glance, as they headed back toward the dog. "You have to bathe it."

  West climbed out and walked around to the dog. "It's a him. The dog is a him."

  "Okay, you have to bathe him."

  West opened the back door. The dog jumped in and made himself at home, settling down, tongue lolling happily, as if he owned the car.

  They had a marriage and two cats, and now they had a dog. All they needed were kids to complete the package. That thought should scare the hell out of him, but instead he felt a dizzying sense of anticipation. Fatherhood. It was a scary assignment, but he'd always been a risk taker, and this particular mission was right down his alley.

  Epilogue

  Tyler propped pillows behind her, careful not to disturb West, who was still sleeping, slipped on her spectacles and reached for the book that was on her bedside table. It was too early to get up, and she knew she wouldn't go back to sleep. Lately she'd been restless...unsettled. She'd had trouble sleeping she'd even had trouble concentrating at work.

  Smothering a yawn, she flipped pages slowly studying the exquisite line drawings of neolithic jade and bronze artifacts. She turned a page and her stomach tightened on a jolt of recognition.

  The line drawing was simple, a jade ko, or dagger, with the distinctive solar symbol engraved on the hilt.

  The book was a volume that had been compiled

  by a British archaeologist who'd spent time in China during the eighteenth century, long before China had closed its doors to the western world. In itself it was a rare and esoteric publication, but it didn't constitute proof that any of these artifacts actually existed, or that provenance had ever been established. Even so, it was another link to be explored, another layer to the mystery of the jade.

  She read the brief description that accompanied the drawing, and her heart thumped in her chest as she found a brief reference to the early solar warrior fraternities. For a moment she relived again the hamming energy that had radiated from the jade, and a sense of certainty settled inside her.

  She set the book down on her lap and contemplated West's bronzed back, his relaxed sprawl in the bed. It was early, and he needed to sleep, and he would probably think she'd gone crazy even to think what she was thinking, but she needed to talk about this now.

  She gave his bare shoulder a shake. He grunted and burrowed deeper into the pillow.

  She shook a little harder. This time there was even less response. Tyler eyed the deep groove of his spine, the slow rhythm of his breathing, and tenderness caught at her. No flight or fight response there.

  That was another of the changes she'd noticed in West. He slept, when years ago, after they'd first been married, she'd almost never seen him deeply asleep. Generally she'd found that if she'd been awake, he was, too, as if even the slight alteration in her breathing had alerted him.

  She shook him again, and this time he did respond, rolling onto his back. Too bad if there was danger. His eyes didn't flicker, and the slow rise and fall of his chest didn't alter, but as suddenly as if someone had flicked a switch, she knew he was awake.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I think the jade could have belonged to you."

  He took so long answering that for a moment she wondered if he'd drifted back to sleep again, then, "The jade's thousands of years old. I was born in--" "Reincarnation," she cut in, wondering if she was going a little crazy. She was an academic, and while the flow of history and the possibility of reincarnation had always fascinated her, she had no scientific basis for belief—just a funny, fizzy feeling in the pit of her stomach. "I'm talking reincarnation."

  West forced one eye open. It was Sunday morning, and overbright at that. He checked the bedside clock and groaned. Six-thirty. "I was trying to sleep." "Hah."

  She held a book open in front of his face. All he could make out was a dark blur. Six-thirty. It would be at least another half hour before his eyes wanted to see anything. He focused on a distinctive symbol, which was similar to the one on the jade artifacts.

  He switched his attention to Tyler. Her green gaze was shadowed in the early-morning light, and un-expectedly fierce. With her tanned skin and tawny hair, she reminded him of a tigress, and delight surged through him at the sheer pleasure of waking up next to his wife. "Anyone ever tell you you're cute when you're mad?"

  "No one alive."

  West sat up. It was an effort.

  Tyler
made a small sound. "Don't do that."

  Now what was wrong? Lately Tyler had become distracted and picky. In all the years he'd known her she had never been picky.

  "Don't flash your chest at me, okay? You know it wrecks my concentration."

  Okay. Now he was waking up.

  "Call it women's intuition," she said flatly. "That jade belonged to you."

  "Whoever it belonged to," he said flatly, "I'm glad it's gone."

  The jade had survived several months in limbo while it had been picked over by forensics, and argued over by the academics. A lot of theories had been tossed around about how it had arrived in New Zealand, and when and how it had come to end up in a burial cave. Maori taonga, or precious objects, were traditionally passed on, and not put in the ground unless there was some spiritual reason to do so.

  Academic arguments aside, the three objects had finally been gifted to the people of New Zealand, and were presently on tour, doing the rounds of several major overseas museums.

  West had been more than pleased to see the jade gone. It had been the catalyst for too much trouble for him to want it anywhere near Tyler. Other than that disorienting sense of another time—that he'd experienced when the jade had been shoved at his chest outside the motel room, he felt no sense of connection with it. And every time he thought about what Ashley James had planned, using the jade as the first stratagem in his game, he went cold inside.

  Ashley James was locked up, and it would be a long time before he hit the streets again, if ever. According to Cornell, they were still compiling evidence, and likely to continue to do so for years to come.

  Apparently James had used his entree into the exclusive world of diamond buying to ferret out information on who was buying high-grade gems, then he would plan a side trip and execute the theft. He had a policy of never stealing from his suppliers or Laine's, which made sense. Why destroy the source for the sake of one crime that would finish him in the diamond trade?

  His thefts were strictly from people who had no inside contacts with the diamond trade, and he had a penchant for stealing from the very wealthy. The problem with tracking all of Ashley's crimes was that, while his modus operandi—characterized by a methodical stalking of a victim, followed by hi-tech sabotage of lighting and security systems to facilitate the crime—remained the same, the nature of the crimes had changed dramatically.

  It seemed that, while the financial returns were great, the thrill of stealing diamonds didn't hold James for long. The design of his crimes became more elaborate, and the theft became secondary as he factored in the rape of the woman he was robbing. The stalking and the rapes became progressively more violent, until he finally crossed the line and added murder to his repertoire.

  When he stole the jade and stalked Tyler, the aberration in his M.O. had confused the police and In-terpol for a time because there was no diamond involved, but, essentially, the symbolism of what Ashley James was doing hadn't changed. He would invade the homes of the rich and steal an object they valued highly, then he would teach them how worthless the object, and all of their wealth and power were, as he proceeded to take everything from them. Cornell had gone so far as to suggest that in this case Ashley had shifted out of his pattern even further by fixating on Tyler and waiting for her to acquire a diamond. When she hadn't shown any interest in his gem of choice, he'd had to take what would hurt her the most: the jade.

  The other aberration in James's crime, was that for the first time he was breaking his own self-imposed rule of not stealing from his employer.

  The only possible motivation for him to expose himself in that way was that he had decided to retire from the diamond business. This was verified by the fact that he'd packed all of his household effects, and was leaving the country under an assumed identity. Ashley James was on the point of ceasing to exist when they'd caught him. He had been booked out on a flight that evening, and had taken time out to deliver the jade, a victim of his own rule that he must complete his crime, and in doing so further affirm his dominance over his victim by collecting payment.

  If he'd simply dropped the jade in the sea and walked away, he would probably be free right now, and Tyler would still be at risk.

  West propped himself on one elbow and surveyed Tyler. "How's this for intuition? You're pregnant."

  "I'm not. I can't be."

  "You are. It's not as if we haven't been trying. When was your last period?"

  She blinked, her eyes owlish behind her spectacles and he grinned. Those prim and proper little professor's glasses propped on her delicate nose drove him wild every time.

  "I can't be."

  "If you aren't pregnant, I'm checking into the clinic."

  She ran her hand down over her flat belly and he realized how vulnerable she was about the subject. Her childhood had been as traumatic as his own. The gift of a baby—the staggering responsibility of having charge of a child's life—held an extra dimension of fear for both of them because they knew just how much could go wrong.

  "You can't be sure."

  Tyler pressed on her abdomen again. She had noticed small changes in her body, but she'd kept her suspicions to herself—half afraid that she was imagining the changes because she wanted this baby so much. She'd even managed to restrain herself from buying a test kit because she couldn't bear the disappointment if it was too soon for a positive result to show.

  West propped his head on one hand, not about to be diverted from his discovery. "Your body's changed. Your breasts are larger."

  She lifted off her glasses and put them on the bedside table. Without the spectacles she looked younger and infinitely more vulnerable. "You've been reading up on the subject."

  "Bet on it." He was suddenly absolutely certain. "You're pregnant."

  She was silent for a moment, and he could feel the knowledge—the certainty—growing, expanding, settling between them, as fragile and soft as the morning light.

  He pulled her close beside him. Her head settled on his shoulder. He felt peaceful, yet curiously alert as they lay, immersed in a silence that was comfortable, though oddly electrified—as if the change that had taken place somehow existed subtly in the air, binding them even closer, and for a moment the déjà vu shimmered in his mind, sliding and elusive, so that for the briefest moment he was certain he'd held her this way before, felt this way before, even though he knew he never had.

  The memory of that moment with the jade resurfaced. He considered, then discarded it. The past was the past. Maybe the jade had linked them in some mysterious way in another time, another life, and maybe what had happened had been sheer coincidence. What was important was now.

  Fierce emotion filled him. Second chance, third chance or twentieth, what mattered was that they were together, and this time he wasn't walking away, and he wasn't letting go.

  She shifted, propping her chin on her hand, her eyes gimlet-green in the sunlight, and he had the sudden suspicion that he was about to be wound up.

  She poked a finger at his chest. "It's your fault."

  It took a moment for West to register that Tyler was referring to the pregnancy. "Of course it's my fault," he muttered, abruptly incensed by the illogical comment. "If it was anyone else's, I'd have to go kill somebody."

  A delighted grin split her face and he realized he'd been done.

  "You know what, West, you're easy. So easy."

  Amusement twitched the corner of his mouth.

  She had more to say on the subject of women's intuition and the fact that she was supposed to know first, not him, and then the morning blurred and passed and West reflected that this was the way it was going to be.

  The Lombard kids, who they'd been baby-sitting on occasion, must have been training his wife in standard terrorist tactics when he wasn't looking, which didn't leave much time. When they weren't making love, they were going to be arguing and bickering and playing like a couple of kids—hopefully for the next fifty or so years. On top of that they were going to have a bunch o
f kids. The noise and chaos would be horrendous.

  God help him. It was going to be fun.

  *****