Naked Edge (35 page)

It wasn't a rhetorical question. Somehow, she knocked him off balance, getting past his guard, breaking through the wall he'd built around the pieces of his heart. He'd let her stay at his house. He'd slept beside her. He'd told her things he'd never told anyone. And now, after he'd spent the past hour explaining to her why she shouldn't waste any more time or emotion on him, he couldn't keep his hands off her.

He didn't wait for her to answer, kissing her again, drawing her closer. She whimpered into his mouth, melting against him in a way that sent heat shooting straight to his groin, her fingers curling in his hair. It was only when his hand bumped against her IV line that he remembered she was supposed to be resting in bed.

He dragged his lips from hers, looked into her eyes and saw a need that matched his own, both of them breathless. "It's a good thing you're off the heart monitor, or we'd have set off the alarm. Nurse Ratched would have come and kicked my ass."

He'd wanted to make her laugh, but she didn't even smile. Tears filled her eyes again, and she reached up to rest her hand against his cheek. "Don't push me away, Gabe. I know you're hurting, but please don't push me away. Don't ask Chief Irving to put me someplace where I can't be with you."

He lifted her back onto the bed, then drew the covers up around her and sat beside her. "I'm not a saint, Kat. Far from it. If we spend much more time together, we're going to end up having sex. Are you sure it's worth the risk?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

And some part of Gabe was relieved.

GABE ARRIVED LATE the next afternoon to find Kat sitting on her bed, dressed and talking on the phone. Given what she was talking about, he guessed she was speaking with her editor. He sat in the chair and glanced at his watch. They had a schedule to keep and needed to be on the road in fifteen minutes.

"He said that artifacts from this area have been showing up on the black market as far away as Beijing and Riyadh, everything from pots to moccasins to human remains. He couldn't say whether they'd come from Mesa Butte specifically, but the designs on the pottery indicate that they were painted by Cheyenne during the century prior to the arrival of settlers."

So she'd spoken with Darcangelo. His FBI contacts had put him in touch with an Interpol agent who'd noticed a sharp uptick in artifacts from this region. Apparently, he'd arranged for Kat to interview the agent. Strange that Darcangelo hadn't mentioned it--or maybe not so strange, given how busy they'd been.

Gabe had spent yesterday afternoon and all day today with Darcangelo and Hunter, getting things ready. They'd used the time to talk over her case but hadn't gotten any closer to piecing things together than they'd been yesterday. The
inipi
raid. Red Crow's death. Threatening phone calls. Looting. Attempts on Kat's life. Lots of puzzle pieces, but no clue as to how they went together. Then Gabe had remembered the hunch he'd gotten just before he'd gone upstairs and seen Kat with the photo album.

"The person who'd made those death threats knew that the phones he was calling from were beyond the city's surveillance cameras," he'd told them.

"What makes you say that?" Hunter had asked.

"Just a hunch."

Darcangelo and Hunter had stared at him, then looked at each other. Darcangelo had called Irving, who'd agreed to ask the city of Boulder for a list of everyone who had access to information about the city's surveillance system. Gabe was pretty damn certain he'd see Daniels's name on that list. It wouldn't prove anything, of course, but it would be a step in the right direction.

He glanced at his watch again, then back at the woman he couldn't seem to get out of his mind. All night long what she'd said had run through his head, permeating his dreams, waking him again and again until he'd given up sleeping.

You're not broken, Gabe Rossiter. You're just afraid to let yourself feel because feeling hurts so much. But feeling is part of living. You can't escape it. If you try, you'll hurt yourself worse than Jill ever could.

Well, Kat was right that he couldn't escape feeling. And his feelings for her were confusing the shit out of him. One moment he was certain the best thing he could do for her--for both of them--was to get the hell out of her life. The next he wanted her so badly that he could barely stand being away from her. It was a wonder he hadn't given himself whiplash.

He let his gaze travel over her, unable to help himself, her femininity enticing him even from across the room. She had tucked her long hair behind her ear, her cheeks a healthy rose color once more. She was wearing the same sweater she'd worn at the restaurant with a pair of sleek jeans, her legs tucked beneath her, her toes peeking out from beneath her, her feet covered with adorable fuzzy pink girl socks.

Adorable fuzzy pink girl socks? Damn, Rossiter, listen to yourself!

So many things had changed since she'd come into his life. He had changed. It scared the hell out of him, and yet, he couldn't deny that when'd woken up this morning he'd felt ... lighter. Faced with the undeniable fact that Kat meant something to him--and that he was going to be holed up with her for the foreseeable future--he'd decided he had no choice but to take it day by day and see what happened.

You know what's going to happen, dumbass. You're going to fuck her brains out, and then walk away and leave her broken, too.

No, he'd keep his prick in his pants--or at least out of her. He caught Kat's gaze and pointed at his watch. "We need to go."

She nodded. "Yes, but I'm only about halfway through the documents. That's as far as I made it before ... Yes, I'll try to have a story ready for you by deadline on Monday. But I have to go now. I've been discharged, so they're moving me."

Gabe scowled at her and shook his head, wishing she hadn't said that.

Kat rolled her eyes at him.

They'd planned to move her in secret, without anyone knowing when she was leaving the hospital besides the three of them, Chief Irving, and the hospital's security staff. Though Gabe was certain no one at the paper would deliberately endanger Kat, the fewer people who knew, the better. The hospital wouldn't acknowledge that she'd been discharged until later this afternoon in order to keep whoever was after her in the dark for as long as possible. Hopefully, by the time the bastard found out she was gone, she'd be far beyond his reach.

"Thanks, Tom. Tell everyone I miss them. Bye." She ended the call and slid off the bed, just as a gray-haired nurse entered pushing a wheelchair. Kat stared at it, then shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm fine. I can walk."

The nurse shrugged. "Hospital policy."

Gabe couldn't help but smile at the dismay on Kat's face. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride, honey."

THEY TOOK KAT out through a basement exit that led to the employee's underground parking garage, where Marc and Julian were waiting. First they had her put on a Kevlar vest. Then she and Gabe, who was also wearing Kevlar, got into Marc's SUV, Kat sitting in the backseat and Gabe riding up front, while Julian followed in an unmarked police car.

"Where are we going?" she asked Marc.

He slid his Bluetooth headset into place, meeting her gaze in the rearview mirror. "That's for us to know, and no one to find out."

They left the parking garage and emerged onto the street, Julian lagging a few car lengths behind them as they drove south on Broadway. Fifteen minutes later, they'd left Boulder behind. Forty-five minutes later, they were on 1-70 and heading into the snowy mountains.

Kat watched the foothills give way to deep canyons and rising peaks, her thoughts drifting once again to what Gabe had told her yesterday. Now she understood why he didn't believe in love, why he thought sex was only about pheromones. How could he believe anything else when the woman he'd loved--the woman who'd said she loved him and who'd agreed to marry him-had hurt and misled him so completely? If what Gabe's so-called friend had told him was true, Jill had been unfaithful from the very beginning. She'd taken Gabe's love under false pretenses--and she'd squandered it.

Kat might have despised her for what she'd done, but Jill was dead. It wasn't right to think bad thoughts of the dead.

And though Kat hadn't considered it until last night, she also understood why he lived his life so completely alone, no longer surrounded by the big group of friends she'd seen in the photographs. He'd lost Jill, discovered the truth about her and Wade, and then learned that his friends had known but hadn't been brave or loyal enough to tell him. His hopes, his dreams, and his faith in other people had been smashed with a single devastating blow. In his grief and rage, he'd cut himself off from everyone.

I can't be the man you want me to be. I'm broken. Inside, I'm broken.

Kat didn't believe that. He wasn't broken. A broken man wouldn't have risked his life to save hers. But she knew he hadn't healed, either. And as she considered it, she thought perhaps she understood why.

Gabe had never let himself grieve for Jill because he was hurt and angry that she'd betrayed him, but he'd hadn't been able to express his hurt or rage, either, because he'd still loved her and had been overwhelmed with grief. One emotion blocked the next, bottled them up inside him. The grief, the hurt, and the rage were still there. She'd seen them all yesterday. Like a man who didn't know which way to turn, he was lost, trapped between irreconcilable emotions.

Don't waste your time hoping for things that can't happen.

Was that what she was doing? Was she hoping for something impossible, something that could never be? No. She refused to consider that.

Kat might not uphold all the traditions of her people. She might not believe everything her grandmother had taught her--the Navajo creation stories, the tales of mythological creatures, the prophesies about the Time of the End. But she was Dine. And she knew that nothing in life was random. Things happened for a reason.

It hadn't been coincidence when the rocks had fallen from beneath her feet, bringing to her side the one man who was both willing and able to watch over her, protect her, and save her life, a man who cared about Native people and respected the land. It wasn't an accident when she'd tried to push him away and events had conspired again and again to bring them together until she'd fallen in love with him. So it couldn't be a mistake that he'd bared his soul to her, revealing to her the shattered part of himself that he'd shared with no one else.

Somehow, Kat was supposed to help him heal.

She knew it in her heart, knew it in her soul, knew it just as she knew the sun would rise in the morning. What she didn't know was how to do it.

He is far from himself and no longer knows what he wants. You must help him.

Grandpa Red Crow's words came back to her.

But how?
What should I do?

She closed her eyes and prayed.

She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep until Gabe woke her with a kiss. "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty."

"Where are we?" She sat up, zipped her coat, and looked around to find herself in another parking garage, this one full of people carrying snowboards and skis.

"Nowhere yet."

He and Marc hustled her through the parking garage, Marc walking in front of her, Gabe walking behind her, both of them alert. People seemed naturally to make way for them, taking one look at Marc and Gabe and finding some better place to be. And for the first time all day, Kat felt nervous.

Someone was trying very hard to kill her.

Then abruptly Marc glanced over his shoulder, one hand on his Bluetooth headset. "Copy that. You need backup?"

Kat felt her pulse skip. She looked over her shoulder and caught just a glimpse of flashing police lights before Gabe's arm went around her shoulders, compelling her to move faster. "Now isn't the time to be curious, honey. Keep moving."

Marc had picked up the pace, as well. "We're almost out. Don't worry about us. Take care of yourself."

"Was it Daniels?" Gabe asked.

"Yep."

"Son of a bitch!"

"Frank Daniels?" Kat stopped in her tracks--only to be dragged forward again. "What happened to Julian?"

"Nothing." Marc opened the door to a stairway that led up. "Someone tailed us up the canyon. Darcangelo pulled the car over and found Frank Daniels behind the wheel. I imagine the two of them are having a nice little chat."

Kat didn't know whether to feel relieved by this news--or afraid for Julian.

"I'd like to have a chat with him," Gabe muttered under his breath. "Darcangelo gets to have all the fun."

Marc grinned. "Not today he doesn't."

CHAPTER 24

KAT UNDERSTOOD WHAT Marc meant when she saw the snowmobiles. They sat on a trailer hitched to Gabe's SUV, which was parked in a nearby parking lot. Immediately she realized two things. The first was that they'd put a lot of preparation and effort into this secret plan of theirs. The second was that wherever they were going, they'd be riding these. A swarm of butterflies took flight in her stomach. She'd never even touched a snowmobile, much less driven one.

"Don't worry." Gabe rested his hand reassuringly on her back. "You'll be riding with me, safe and snug."

"Thank goodness!" she muttered.

He chuckled.