“I recognized that man’s voice.”
He jerked backward to look into her eyes. “What man?”
“The one who said you son of a…” She winced. The shot had come next.
“Where do you recognize it from?”
“When they took me off the street.”
The pieces snapped together in his brain. Men on the street who stuffed Rose into the van.
“It’s all right now, honey.” He cradled her face. Her blue eyes burned with fear.
“What if…what if they know about my family?” she asked.
“Your father will have all the protection in place that he needs.”
She closed her eyes and dropped her head to his chest. He held her there for another minute while gathering his thoughts about how to clean up this mess he’d made on the road. In time, another car would come along and see two dead men.
“I have to do some things, Rose. I’m going to close the door now, and you lock the car. Understand?”
“You’ll come back for me? Promise you’ll come back,” she whispered.
Fuck. Rose didn’t just tug at his protective instincts, she yanked him right in.
“I’ll be back. I swear. Lock the doors just in case. I can get back in.”
“With your wrist thing?”
She’d noticed. Of course she would—she’d always been quick, and maybe he’d let down his guard with her too much and allowed her to see it.
He nodded. If someone else came along, he would need a whole lot of Jesus to get them both safe. “Just lock it.”
With that, he closed the door. The locks clicked, and he moved to the first man he’d shot on the road. He took out a cloth and settled the man’s weapon in his own hand in a position that would suggest a shootout between the driver and passenger of that car.
Quickly, he checked for bloody footprints to implicate him and saw none. Then he returned to the Spyder, unlocked the car and climbed behind the wheel.
Rose’s hands trembled. “I’m guessing we won’t be attending that wedding now.”
“No. Someone else can make the pickup. I know a place, and nobody will trouble us there. I need some time to collect myself and plan.”
What he didn’t say was he needed time to stop the tremor deep in his gut at the fact that he could have lost her…this time forever.
* * * * *
Of course Rose’s mind wouldn’t stop spinning from the events of the past few days. She’d witnessed so many horrors…but the lulls were what made it seem surreal.
Making sense of the bad somehow came easier than the quiet beach, the penthouse suite or this beautiful and secluded beach house ever could.
Shades of white and blue filled the house, along with quite a few covetable artworks hanging on the walls. The images drew her to them, and for long minutes she stared at a painting of a woman by the sea. She recognized Cornwall, England in every brushstroke of the muted turquoise and aquamarine of the water and sky. One year she’d taken her boys there, and her father had uncharacteristically taken a short leave and surprised them by joining them all. That family time lived in her mind as some of the best moments of her life.
Was it coincidence that this painting hung on the wall? Right this minute, she didn’t know if she could trust Oz not to already know about Nick and Alex. The man knew everything. It came down to how secure her father had locked up their information. She must trust her father’s actions would keep her sons safe from all this.
Her stare traveled over the pebbles painted on the beach in shades of gray that drew her eye to the subject matter. The young woman stood in profile, with a lock of brown hair caught up in the sea breeze, trapped forever in motion.
The painting both soothed Rose and gave her a feeling of unease. Would she ever get back to Cornwall with her boys? She turned to look across the room at Oz. He’d spun a kitchen chair backward and sat on it, gazing out the tall windows at a different kind of beach.
If ever an opportunity had come to tell Oz about his sons, it was now. He deserved to know.
He didn’t want to know. He never wanted children.
Keeping a secret like this weighed on her. She flip-flopped from guilt of holding her tongue to anger with Oz for expecting her to just handle an unexpected pregnancy on her own.
Looking at him now, though, she couldn’t hate him. His shoulders slumped, and his head bowed. He didn’t stir, and the chiseled cut of his form mimicked art. He could be a statue, formed from granite.
She couldn’t stand seeing him like this. If not for her Alex, she might not recognize the pain emanating from Oz. Both of them kept it buried deeper than most.
She stole across the whitewashed hardwood floors and didn’t hesitate to slip her arms around him from behind. When she pressed her cheek against his beard-roughened one, her stomach gave a small lurch of knowing.
I never stopped loving him. I never will.
The masculine scents of the soap he’d used back in the penthouse what felt like days ago now mingled with his personal musk that would forever live in her memory.
“I don’t even know where we are for certain,” she said quietly. “South Carolina?” She stared at the view.
He nodded and remained silent.
She took the time to memorize new things about Oz. The black beard he wore sported spikes of silver here and there—a sign of the years separating them. And he bore scars she’d never seen before. One on his temple, another on his cheekbone.
He’d gotten ink too. A clock with the inner workings visible, a rose and some feathered filigree lining one arm. And on the other, just below the crease of his elbow, he bore a set of roman numerals with no meaning at all. VII meant 7, but she couldn’t make out the reason for the IIV.
She slipped the pad of her thumb over the black inked number now. Oz stirred from his thoughts and glanced down.
“It’s backward. What does it mean?” she asked.
For a moment, she didn’t think he’d answer.
“Seven is a number associated with inner wisdom—a mythical number. An angel number. Have you ever heard that if you see the number seven over and over again that something positive will happen to you?”
“No.” Her insides fluttered at what the exact opposite of positive things would be…like an attack where he had to kill two men in order to save her life?
“The people I work with…we’re not exactly angels. We may guard people but we use violence in order to do it. So the seven is backward.” His words came out gritty, as if he battled an inner turmoil that she would never be fully shown, let alone helped to heal.
“It’s kind of beautiful to think of,” she said instead.
He pivoted his face to look at her. Up close, his dark eyes glittered. “What do you mean?”
“People doing anything in their power to guard someone else is the most noble thing I’ve ever heard.”
He closed his fingers around her upper arm and drew her around his body and into his lap. She melted against her protector, the opposite of her guardian angel, and he pressed his lips against her temple.
“What happened back there, Oz…”
“My fault. I was careless.”
She withdrew enough to meet his gaze. “Careless? You saved my life—again.”
He gave a light shake of his head. “I shouldn’t have let them come that close to you in the first place. I was distracted and I let down my guard.”