Soldier's Redemption Read online

  “I found it in the snow on top of the pier. It looks like the color Aneta’s mother wore, doesn’t it?”

  “Lots of women wear that shade,” Skylar said, but her voice was subdued.

  “I guess another guest dropped it earlier today.” He set the golden case on the counter. “By the way, I called housekeeping before I ordered the soup. They’re sending up grooming kits for each of us.”

  A light knock on the outer door followed this announcement. He escaped the bathroom, closing the door behind him, relieved for a few moments to get his emotions—and his body—under control.

  * * *

  “WHAT EXACTLY AM I supposed to mind my own business about?” Skylar asked as she stared at the soup. Those hissed words replayed themselves in her head. She could buy being the target of a random act of violence, but what in the world had she done to warrant such a sneaky confrontation?

  She’d visited Aneta’s family and asked about Aneta’s little sister. But how could that possibly be connected to this? Or was it her involvement with Svetlana? Could it have been Ian Banderas who came at her? She frowned in concentration, and her skin prickled. It didn’t help that Cole kept glancing at his watch and toying with his food.

  And to top it off, she hurt everywhere.

  “There was something about the person who attacked me,” she said, pushing the half-eaten soup away. Cole, sitting across from her at the room’s small round table, set his fork down as though relieved not to have to pretend to eat food he didn’t want.

  “You said he kicked you once the blanket covered you,” he said.

  “Over and over again.” She stood up, wincing as her weight settled on her left foot. That was the side she’d landed on, and it ached now like she’d been slugged repeatedly with a mallet.

  She walked back into the bathroom and returned holding the lipstick tube. “I know what it is,” she said.

  “It’s lipstick,” he deadpanned.

  “No, what it is about my attacker. I was standing there when I heard footsteps. I thought it might be you, so I turned but realized almost immediately that the size and shape and gait was wrong. The person asked for help, and I thought they might be holding an ill child. A moment later, the blanket came at me. I didn’t have time to process it before, but I’m almost positive it was a woman.”

  “A woman? Really?”

  “I think so. And that’s why the kicks felt so pointed. It was a woman’s shoe instead of a man’s. Smaller toe box.”

  “And that might be why she threw the blanket at you. If she wasn’t that much bigger than you, she might not have wanted to chance getting too close.”

  “She got close enough to kick the blazes out of my knee. She was strong.” Skylar wrapped her arms around herself. The shivers were back as though all the hot water and warm food in the world couldn’t reach that frozen, frightened core still inside her.

  Oddly enough, a sort of lethargy set in as she stood there, a deep fatigue that spread like creeping tendrils. Cole was suddenly at her side, holding her arms. He looked down into her eyes and she tried to smile, but to her horror what came were tears, quiet ones, sliding down her cheeks, dripping onto her chest where the thick white terry cloth absorbed them.

  She tried to explain, but there were no words.

  “It’s okay,” he said, leading her to the bed. He sat down and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping both his strong arms around her. “I think you’re having a delayed reaction.”

  She nodded as the tears kept coming, and for several seconds, they sat there entwined, her crying, him comforting. She’d never felt so sheltered in her life. In that moment, she knew she could trust him, that he wouldn’t hurt her, that she was safe with him.

  “Any better?” he asked.

  She nodded as he handed her a tissue. “I was just so sure it was going to be you, and I was so glad. I wanted to know how your meeting went and have a warm drink together...and then it turned brutal....”

  He buried his head against her chest. “I’m sorry it wasn’t me,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”

  “It’s not your fault. You can’t always be there for me.”

  “Can’t I?”

  She stared into his eyes. “No, sweetheart,” she said. “Life doesn’t work that way.” She took a breath, trying to gather control over herself. “How did your meeting go?”

  “My meeting. Oh. Fine.”

  “Did it turn out like you wanted? Are you going to buy something from them? Is that how it works?”

  He licked his lips. “It’s a co-op of women who spin their own wool and create hats and scarves and things. I think it’s too small an operation to go global.”

  “That’s too bad.” She took another deep breath and added, “You said earlier that you wanted to tell me something. What?”

  He searched her face for a moment. “Not tonight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. Tomorrow morning, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He finally helped her slide under the sheets. Between the blankets and the thick robe she still wore, the chill began to recede. She curled on her right side and watched him set the room service tray outside the door. The do-not-disturb sign came next. For her part, she never wanted to leave this room again.

  Someone was out there waiting for her, waiting for her to stop meddling, stop asking questions although it seemed to her she’d done very little of either. She closed her eyes for a second, putting the fear, the pain and the uncertainty of the past few days aside for a moment, and drifted, the sounds Cole made as he moved around the room comforting to her until sleep swept her away.

  * * *

  HE AWOKE TO a cry. As usual, he was able to instantly go from dead sleep to wide-awake. He found himself in a very plush bed.

  Another cry reminded him he wasn’t alone, and he turned on the bedside light. Skylar lay facing him, too far away to touch, curled on her side, obviously still asleep but flinching, shoulders twitching, eyebrows furled, lips parting as if in pain.

  He scooted across the mattress and touched her arm. It took her a moment, but when she opened her eyes at last, it reminded him of when she’d first come to after the fall: fear followed by relief.

  “You’re okay,” he said. “I’m here.”

  He’d been inured to terror a long time ago—at least when it came to his own fate. As of today, he knew he could still experience it when it came to her—the thought she was beaten and bruised and frightened made him want to find the jerk behind it and permanently turn off all his lights.

  She snuggled into him, her face pressed into his bare chest. When he put his arms around her, he found her robe had come untied. His hands met bare, warm flesh, scented with soap, scented with the essence of her. His head spun as he tried to ignore the physical ramifications of lying with her in this bed in this room, but he was only a man and he’d wanted her for days now.

  But he couldn’t have her. Not when she was vulnerable like this and not when he had so much to tell her that would probably forever color the way she thought about him. He tried to withdraw his arms, but she grasped him tighter.

  “Don’t leave me,” she said, her breasts pressed against his chest, warm and weighty and delectable, her breath hot against his throat. She titled her face up and looked into his eyes.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  “I can’t.” He whispered it but it sounded like a blast from a bazooka.

  “You want me,” she said, kissing his neck, her hands in his hair, running along his shoulders.

  “God, yes,” he said.

  “Then take me.”

  He found her lips and kissed her. There was no need to tease her lips apart. Her mouth was open, and the touch of her tongue against his shot through his body like a cattle prod. For a moment, he lost his head. Skylar was all there was in the world, all he wanted. He didn’t want revenge, he didn’t want justice, he didn’t want brothers or even t
omorrow. All he wanted was her.

  “I can’t,” he said, coming up for air as his hands cupped her breasts and his mouth longed to follow.

  “Why? Were you hurt...there...too?”

  “No,” he said.

  She touched his rock-hard maleness, and a chuckle sounded from deep inside her. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “I take the pill. It’s safe.”

  “It’s not any of that,” he said, though talking was damn near impossible as she hadn’t stopped touching him. “Skylar, please.”

  Her gaze was suddenly riveted to his again. “No. You listen to me. Unless there’s a wife at home you neglected to mention, I don’t want to hear it right now. Okay?”

  He kissed her lips again, sucking on the lower one. He’d make a meal out of her if he could. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said as her head disappeared down his body, kissing him as she went until her lips touched his erection, and he almost shot through the roof. He immediately pulled her back up beside him. He didn’t want it to end too quickly especially since she was obviously as aroused as he was. Her nipples were hard beneath his fingertips, begging to be sucked.

  “I love you,” she said softly, and that caught him off guard. He could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t compound his duplicity, so he kissed her instead, long and deep, his burning need for her turning him inside out.

  He’d come so close to losing her.

  He clutched her soft, naked rear and pulled her against him. As he lowered his head to devour her luscious flesh, he knew there was only one way for this night to end. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Skylar awoke to find herself alone in the huge bed. She spent a moment stretching and yawning and reliving the exquisite sensations that had kept her awake half the night. Cole Bennett was a hell of a lover. She wasn’t exactly a pro when it came to sex, but she knew enough to know when a man was selfish and when he was innately generous, and Cole was generous, seeing to her needs before his own.

  She sat up at last and found the bathroom door open. Until that moment, she’d assumed he was in there, but now it was clear the room was empty. Where could he have gone? She got out of bed and slipped back on the heavy robe before noticing her clothes from the day before were now draped across a chair, encased in laundry bags, looking clean and pressed. Her shoes were even polished. She took everything into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later, dressed and suddenly ravenous.

  Cole was just coming through the hall door, carrying her carry-on in his hands. He smiled when he saw her, a smile that lit every inch of his face. She hurried to his open arms, lifting herself on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. “Good morning,” she whispered.

  He embraced her, kissing her forehead in a fierce, almost defiant manner. His skin was cold and a little ruddy. “Where did you find that?” she asked, glancing at her bag. He looked so strong and so very male, her opposite in many ways. She yearned for him to pick her up and carry her back to the bed.

  “Stuffed in a garbage can,” he said. “I went to the pier and looked around. It appears someone came back during the night and evened everything out. The depression you made when you fell has been covered and all our tracks obliterated both on top of and under the pier.”

  Whatever peace she’d been able to find that morning now fled. Someone had come back. Was their intention to finish her off? Had they had second thoughts about leaving her alive? She dropped her arms and stepped away from him, the room suddenly a sanctuary she was afraid to leave.

  “I should’ve staked it out,” he added. “I might have been able to catch whoever is behind this.”

  Was that why he was acting odd, because he’d allowed himself to go to bed with her instead of sitting in the cold all night to catch a bad guy?

  “Let’s order breakfast from the room service menu,” she said.

  “I already did,” he replied, taking off his jacket. “I have something to talk to you about before we head back to Traterg.”

  “That sounds serious,” she said lightly, but her words landed like a brick in a punch bowl. He only nodded. Her stomach clenched; her appetite disappeared. Nevertheless, breakfast showed up a few minutes later. Cole met the waiter at the door and sent him away, rolling the tray of covered dishes into the room himself.

  They sat at the round table again and picked at eggs and fruit. He could hardly meet her gaze, and that alone disturbed her.

  “This is about last night, isn’t it?” she said.

  He looked up from studying a strawberry. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?”

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned love. It’s too early. I said you were going too fast and then I blurted that out. Don’t feel bad because you don’t care for me that way. I was just caught up in the moment.”

  “Stop,” he said, laying his fork down on his plate. “This has nothing to do with that. Your telling me you love me did not upset me. Quite the contrary. Let that go.”

  “What then?” she asked, getting to her feet. She crossed to the window and looked down at the castle grounds. All she could think about when she looked through the window were snipers on the battlements looking up at her. She moved away.

  “I need to talk to you about my meeting last night.”

  She tilted her head. “Okay.” She waited as he wandered over to the window and stared outside, a knot in his jaw. “You told me a little bit about it already,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah. Well—” he turned around and pinned her with his intense blue gaze “—it wasn’t actually a business meeting.”

  She sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed. “What kind of meeting was it?” she asked.

  “Personal.”

  “Oh.” What she didn’t add was I knew he was hiding something! What is it? A wife or a child or heaven forbid, both? “So it wasn’t the main reason you came to Kanistan?” she asked, hopeful he could reassure her.

  “It’s exactly why I came,” he said.

  So much for hope. “You’re confusing me.”

  “I’m not here for the import/export business.”

  “I figured that. But you’re legitimate. Uncle Luca checked you out.”

  “Yes, it’s a legitimate business and I’m part owner, and it’s true I’ve only been doing it a few weeks. But that’s a cover for the real reason I’m here, which, as I said, is extremely personal.”

  She wished he would just say whatever it was he had to say. “And the real reason you’re here is to do what exactly?”

  He crossed the room and sat next to her on the bench, his hands folded in his lap. No parts of their bodies touched, and that in itself struck Skylar as ominous. “You’re scaring me, Cole,” she added softly.

  “I apologize for that. You know, this might be easier if I told you a little more about myself.”

  “Yes,” she said, detecting a tremor in her voice.

  “First off, I was adopted. I didn’t know anything about it until after my adoptive mother died. What I told you about my adoptive father is true. We did not have an easy relationship, and I guess I now understand why.

  “When I was about two years old, my birth parents were killed and my two older brothers were adopted out to different families. So was I. The family that took me originally, however, had health and financial troubles and couldn’t keep me so they released me. I was adopted by the people who raised me.”

  “That must have been very hard for them and for you.”

  “I don’t recall any of it, but according to my adoptive father, I cried pretty much all the time. It turned him off completely, and he washed his hands of me. My adoptive mother was different. She was a kind woman with a million causes pulling her a million directions, but she’d never been around children, and then she got stuck with a traumatized toddler. Hardly the cozy scenario she’d pictured. Anyway, because of the two families, I ended up with a different last name than
the people who arranged the adoption originally knew about.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Yes. But first things first.”

  “How did your parents die?” she asked. There was a part of her that was so relieved this didn’t have anything to do with her that she was beginning to relax. Whatever his problem was, she would be there for him and help him fix it. She leaned forward, anxious now to understand.

  “They died in a fire.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “They were murdered. Someone didn’t want my father to act on information he had that would have landed them in jail and ruined their career for good. So they killed him and my mother, too. Then they framed another man’s family, killed half of them and ran the others underground.”

  “This sounds like the plot for a movie,” she said.

  “I know, but it actually gets worse. This person was responsible for the well-being of my brothers and myself should something happen to our parents, so they had total control. After the explosion, this guy and his cohort spread the story that the children had died, too. The oldest one had been injured and his memory affected, so they kept him close by, but the two little ones—and that includes me—got sent off to the United States with forged documents and passports and adopted out to unsuspecting families.”

  “You were separated from each other,” she said, holding her stomach, her thoughts flying to her siblings. “Does this mean you know where your brothers are now?”

  “It does. They managed to find me with the help of the woman I met with yesterday.”

  “And your brothers told you all of this?”

  “They want justice for our parents and for themselves. The older one, John, especially suffered because of this.”

  “But what about the police? Surely they can reopen the case.”

  “The police were in collusion back then, and there’s every reason to suspect they are now, too. For instance, when John came back here to find out about his past, the people who raised him were murdered for speaking with him, and every indication is that it was the police who were behind it. John actually came face-to-face with the man who orchestrated that part of the cover-up.”