Keeping his body hunched he raced up the deck steps, threw his shoulder into the door of the house, felt the locks give, and fell inside the house with her. His body covered hers as he rolled her across the floor, forced to ignore her cries until he could get her safely on the other side of the room, behind the couch.
“Rogue. Baby.” Propping her against the couch he let his hands race over, his gaze searching her body for wounds or broken bones. “Rogue, talk to me.”
“Son of a bitch,” she gasped, her bruised face swelling, her violet eyes filled with rage.
Zeke watched her in shock until her hand cracked against his face. The stinging slap wasn’t gentle. It slammed into his cheek with enough force that he knew he’d be carrying the imprint of her hand for hours. In the next second, his ever-strong, impossibly stubborn Rogue collapsed into his arms in tears.
“I have you, baby.” He buried his head in her hair, a shudder working through his body at how close she had come to dying. “It’s okay, baby. I have you.”
Rogue never cried. She wasn’t a whiner. She didn’t complain. She was sobbing in his arms, holding on to him with desperate hands and trying to burrow into his chest.
And God help him, he didn’t blame her. Tightening his arms around her, he held her to him, rocked her, and closed his eyes as he fought the overload of fear and remorse that struck his system.
He shouldn’t have left her. He should have never left her, believing she would be safe.
He should have considered Jonesy, but instead he had relied on the loyalty the other man had always appeared to show her. Zeke knew he should have known better. It was his mistake, and it was one Rogue had nearly paid for.
“Damn, he’s in trouble,” Rowdy’s low voice whispered across the room in a tone of amazement and male concern. “I’ve never heard of her crying. I bet she cuts his dick off for him.”
“Shut up, Rowdy,” Dawg growled.
“Yeah, shut up, Rowdy.” From Cranston, his voice low and filled with regret.
Zeke lifted his head and stared back at the agent.
“I have to take you in, Zeke.” He sighed. “This has to be wrapped up.”
His arms contracted around Rogue. God, he’d known it was coming. He’d known all along that the sins of the past could never be buried or even forgotten by the DHS agent that knew the truth.
“God, Cranston, give him a day or two at least,” Rowdy protested. “You mean-hearted, slimy bastard. Someone’s going to end up killing you.”
Zeke heard sirens wailing in the distance then. Reinforcements that would have been too late if Natches hadn’t managed to get in place with that sniper rifle. Zeke knew it had to have been Natches, because he was the only one missing at the moment.
“Zeke knew our deal,” Cranston stated. “We need the information, those pictures, and his testimony. This wraps it up, boys. The pictures he sent earlier had faces of men we don’t have in custody, and he remembers them. This fucking group is gone. It’s damned history and I’ll do whatever it takes to wrap it up for good.” Because this group had destroyed his family, had killed his wife, his daughter, and his grandchild. Because destroying them was all Cranston knew and he would stop at nothing to see it finished.
It finished here, just as he said.
“No matter who you have to destroy?” Rowdy asked.
“No matter who’s destroyed,” Cranston affirmed. “No matter what it takes.”
Zeke held Rogue closer, already feeling the chill inside his soul because he knew he would have to let her go, walk away again, and walking away would destroy him more than the truth of his past ever could.
Pressing his lips to her ear he whispered. “You fill me. Remember that, Rogue. For the first time in my life, I knew what love was supposed to be.”
Her head shook against his chest as another sob tore from her throat. Her arms were like silken bands of steel around his neck, and God knew he didn’t know if he had the strength to force her to release him.
“I didn’t use you.” He kissed the top of her head, her forehead. “I was helpless against you. Know that, Caitlyn Rogue. I couldn’t have walked away for anything. Even my own life.”
TWENTY-FOUR
But he did walk away.
A week later Rogue stood in the parking lot of what had once been the Bar and stared at the debris with a sense of . . . relief.
She’d lost everything she owned except the Harley, but she was thankful she had a reason to walk away from it now. An era had come to an end. The Bar was gone, the dangerous Dayle Mackay and his rabid revolutionists were gone. Jonesy was gone.
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants and let her gaze wander over the blackened remains of lumber where the walls had toppled in.
“So what now?” Her father’s arm went around her shoulders as his tall, sturdy body gave her a place to lean.
She shrugged at his question. “I bought out Natches Mackay. I guess I’m part owner in a restaurant now.”
Her father gave a heavy sigh as she looked up into the strong features of his still-handsome face.
“I want you to come home,” he told her as her mother, Brianna Walker, moved to her other side. “Damned house is too quiet. With your sister married and gone, and damned John won’t even stay the night. The nest is too empty.”
She grinned at that. “Sorry, Dad. This is home.”
Somerset was home. Lake Cumberland was home.All she had left to do was to get over one arrogant, too-sexy sheriff and her life would even out. One day she might even sleep through the night without crying.
“What about Zeke?” her mother asked as though reading her thoughts. “He called again last night.”
He had called every night for the past three nights. She refused to answer the phone; she refused to talk to him. He was back on the job now, the crime that had been committed when he was a child had never been mentioned, and for that, she was glad.
His father had betrayed him, tried to destroy him and his future. No man should have to pay for that.
“I don’t want to talk about Zeke.” She didn’t want to cry again. The pain was like a festering wound inside her soul that refused to heal.
He had used her. He may not have suspected Jonesy of being the killer he was seeking, but he hadn’t been honest with her, either. He hadn’t told her he was fucking her so the killer would believe he was distracted by her and not giving his attention to tracking him. He hadn’t told her that the only reason he had come to her bed was to further the goal of capturing that killer.
I was helpless against you. Know that, Caitlyn Rogue. I couldn’t have walked away for anything. Even my own life.
He had whispered those words before he had left with Cranston. But he had still left. He had walked away from her without a backward glance to help Cranston round up the final straggling members of the organization he had fought to bring down.
James Maynard had been arrested, though he was now free on bond due to his cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department.
Gene Maynard, she had learned, had been helping DHS all along.
There had been other arrests in Louisville as well as Frankfort, and according to Alex Jansen, the Freedom League was now nothing more than a very bad memory.
“Just come home for a while,” her father tried again. “A month.”
She shook her head again as a smile touched her lips. He kept trying; she had to give him credit for that.
“I’m ready to go back to the apartment now, Daddy. It should be repaired enough,” she told him as she turned into his embrace and hugged him quickly. “Just take me home now.”
There was a small moment of silence. Her parents were sharing that look, she thought.
The one they shared whenever they didn’t know what to do with the children they had raised.
“Fine.” Her father finally sighed heavily. “But if you’re not coming home, then I’m hanging around awhile. Dawg Mackay offered us the use of his houseboat now that’s he’s moved into the house he built. I think we’ll take him up on that.”
She almost winced. God, would Lake Cumberland survive her parents? Even for a few days? Surely they wouldn’t stay any longer than that.
“You should go home, Daddy,” she began to argue the decision.
“Caitlyn, your father said we’re staying. The decision has been made.” She was using her best “mommy” voice. The one that all three of her strong-willed children understood clearly. That was the final word. Period.
“Fine, but you know he’s just going to cause trouble while he’s here,” she informed her mother as they made their way back to the limo they had ridden in from the airport in Louisville. “He’s a trouble magnet, Mom. Him and John. John’s already causing trouble and he hasn’t been here two weeks yet.”
“I’m certain we’ll all survive,” her mother stated. “We’ll take you home, then go check out Mr. Mackay’s houseboat. It looked simply charming when we drove around the docks earlier. Did you know your father used to have a boat on the lake as well? When he was much younger.”
“No.” Rogue looked at her askance. “And I’m sure I don’t want to know about it, either.
Don’t gross me out with your tales of dating Daddy. Please.”
Her mother laughed as they sat back in the limo and the vehicle pulled away.
Rogue gazed back at the charred remains of the Bar and wondered about this turn in her life. She was twenty-six years old, and she had just lost the only man she could have ever imagined loving. The knowledge that he had walked away from her that night, claiming to have used her, pushing her back to be protected like a little china doll while he went off to fight the bad guys, still had the power to hurt.
It wasn’t that he had left her there. He had believed she would be safe, she could forgive him for that. No, she was angry, she was hurt, because he hadn’t left with so much as a
“see you later.” She could have died believing he had felt nothing for her.
It was the betrayal that hurt. When he needed her he hadn’t wanted to accept that she would be there for him. He hadn’t told her the full details of what he was doing and why he was doing it. He hadn’t shared his feelings for her. He had just left her there. He could have died, been arrested for whatever, and gone from her life, and she wouldn’t have known she was any more important to him than the grass under his feet.
Because he had lied to her. He had let her think he was simply using her, when she had known, known to the bottom of her soul that he cared.
“Rogue?” her mother spoke her name softly. “When you’re young it’s very easy to let pride get in the way of what’s most important in your life. Don’t make that mistake.”
She turned away from her mother’s compassionate gaze and swallowed tightly. Was it just pride?
“He lied to me,” she whispered. “He left me, denying he cared anything for me.”
“And if he hadn’t come back?” her father asked. “If he’d died, Rogue? He was looking out for you.”
She fought the tears that would have fallen. “He just left.”
“And perhaps he had no other choice,” her mother said gently as the limo turned into Somerset and headed for the old town center where her new apartment was located.
“Men aren’t always as logical as they think they are. Sometimes, Rogue, it’s up to the women who love them to point that out to them.”
“And sometimes it takes a good swift kick,” her father drawled in amusement. “Your mother has delivered a few of those over the years.”
She stared out the window, her throat tight with unshed tears as she fought the pain that never seemed to ease, the chill that she swore went clear to her soul.