babies from a shaman?”
“Oh, yes. She’s brilliant. So in touch with all the ley lines that run
through the valley. It’s where she pulls her energy from. She’s from
Del Norte, like you, Wolf.”
Wolf’s eyebrows rose on his face. “Are you talking about crazy
Irene? She works at the Dairy Queen.”
Nell waved off that little tidbit. “The universe leads us where it
will. She’s recommended a home water birth for Callie’s son. Oh, and
Rachel, she’s already had a vision of your daughter and Callie’s son.
Don’t tell Max, but they get married. And some guy named Charlie. I
don’t know who he is.”
“I fucking love this place,” Wolf said under his breath.
Lost in Bliss
31
Laura stood, ready to throw herself in front of Nell if Rachel
started playing Mama Bear, and it was almost a sure thing at this
point. Laura liked Rachel, but more than that, Laura understood
Rachel. Rachel was the alpha female of her group. Rachel led her
little tribe that included Callie and Jen. And Laura had found herself
with Holly and Nell under her wing. Laura crossed her arms over her
chest and sent Rachel a look, alpha female to alpha female.
“What do you think I’m going to do, Laura? I’m not going to
murder her,” Rachel said with a huff. “Not when I’m holding my
baby.”
“She’s sworn not to kill anyone around her baby,” Jen added with
a serious nod.
Nell looked from one face to another as though trying to figure
out where she’d gone wrong. “Don’t worry. I’m very prepared. The
tub at Callie’s cabin is too small, so I’ve found a biodegradable kiddie pool that I think will work.”
Holly groaned as her head hit the table.
Rachel growled a little as she leaned in. “Look, Nell, feel free to
prophesize all you like, but Callie is not having a water birth. She’s
my friend, and I have to look out for her. I have been lying to her for
months, and I will continue to lie to her because I don’t want her to be scared, but here’s the truth, Nell. Giving birth hurts. I mean it really fucking hurts. Oh, I know that according to Callie, Zane and Nate
have seriously stretched out that whole part of her body, but I refuse
to believe that Zane Hollister’s cock is as big as a baby’s head.”
Rachel pointed to her daughter’s perfectly round noggin. “Look at
that. Oh, it’s a little bigger than it was then, but not much. That came out of my vagina. And no one thought to lube her head up. You would
think the way these men are in this town that someone would have a
tube of K-Y on their persons, but no. No lube, Rachel. No whiskey,
Rachel. No, you’re giving birth. You can’t have a hamburger. Callie’s
going to the hospital. Callie is going to have drugs.”
32
Sophie Oak
Nell stood up, but didn’t move past the safety of Laura’s back.
Despite her sometimes out-of-touch-with-the-real-world nature, she
had a healthy sense of self-preservation. “But women have been
giving birth naturally for thousands of years.”
Rachel had an answer for that, too. “Well, people have been
crapping in the forests for thousands of years, too, Nell, but I don’t
see you and Henry giving up your indoor plumbing. It’s called
progress. When Callie goes into the hospital, I’m going to tell those
doctors to put all the drugs they have into her epidural. All of them.
And don’t you even talk about a silent birth. There’s nothing silent
about birth. It’s really loud. First there’s the screaming because of the contractions, and then there’s some man whining about me breaking
his hand. That wasn’t what I wanted to break that day, let me tell
you.”
“Hey, guys,” Callie said, a bright smile on her face as she made
her way toward the table. She’d changed back into her street clothes,
which included shorts and one of the new T-shirts from her husband’s
bar. It had the Trio logo and sported a new “tourist friendly” slogan
that the town council had informed all of the business owners in Bliss
they must use to rehabilitate Bliss’s image.
Don’t worry about the murder rate in Bliss
The wings are hot at Trio
“I bet the mayor loves that shirt,” Laura said with a genuine smile.
Zane Hollister was an asshole, but damn if he wasn’t a lovable one.
Callie smoothed her T-shirt over her belly. “Well, Zane and Nate
don’t agree that we need to change Bliss’s image as a place where
tourists get murdered.”
Holly leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. “Most of the
murders that have occurred here weren’t our fault. Rachel had to kill
her stalker. That shouldn’t count.”
Lost in Bliss
33
“They count him as a tourist because he bought some fudge from
Teeny,” Rachel explained. “And the guy Callie killed stayed at the
motel. So did that Ivan fellow, who is the only one who killed an
actual tourist.”
Callie tapped a foot against the floor. “And those other Russian
mob guys weren’t in town long enough to buy anything before we
killed them. They really shouldn’t count. I think the mayor is making
way too much of that little tiny article.”
It hadn’t been tiny. It had been a feature in Time Magazine
wondering if Bliss, Colorado, wasn’t the most dangerous place in the
United States to visit. Strangely, Laura had noticed it hadn’t really
kept the tourists away. If nothing else, there had been an odd surge of
thrill seekers, but the mayor and the town council were busily trying
to refute the statistics.
“Zane just wants to make sure no one else moves here,” Callie
continued. “He likes Bliss just the way it is. He and Nate are like
those immigrants who come to a place and then want to build a wall
to keep everyone else out.”
Rachel sighed. “I think Max and Rye are right there with them.
Are you ready for some lunch? Jen and I thought we could have some
girl time.”
Callie leaned over and kissed Paige’s nearly bald head. “I
wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She turned back to Nell. “I’ll see you
on Friday. I can’t wait to start my breathing exercises. And tell Irene
to bring me a double chocolate Blizzard.”
As they left, Rachel turned back to Nell, her eyes silently
promising retribution if Callie didn’t get her drugs.
“Hey, Holly and Nell, I’m ready for you guys,” Brooke Harper
called out from the back of the store.
Holly got up. “Time to get poked and prodded.”
“Darlin’, it’s always the right time to get prodded if it’s with the
right instrument,” Wolf said with a grin on his ridiculously handsome
face.
34
Sophie Oak
Holly shook her head and wandered off to her fitting. Nell gave
Laura a hug.
“Maybe Rachel is right. Maybe I should think about my plumbing
practices.”
It was time to go a little alpha on Nell. “Nell, you are not getting
an outhouse. No one will come to your place and make b
lankets for
the homeless if they have to use an outhouse.”
Nell bit at her lower lip. “I suppose you’re right. Well, I like my
bathroom anyway, and if it helps the homeless, then I’ll keep it the
way it is.”
“You’re very good with her,” Wolf said as Laura sat back down
after her friends were gone. “And you were quite good with Rachel.
You’re a very intuitive woman.”
Laura took a sip of her tea and wished with all her heart she could
feel a deep connection to the man in front of her. Wolf Meyer was
everything she could hope for. He was well educated, gorgeous, and
kind. He was easier to get along with than any man she’d met in a
long time. So why did she long for the fight? For the push and pull
she’d had with Rafe and Cam?
Rafe and Cam had turned out to be assholes.
Laura stopped herself. She couldn’t think that way. They weren’t
assholes. They were just men looking out for their careers. That was
the way it was in the real world. It hadn’t really been their fault that she’d been taken hostage and nearly murdered by a serial killer. They
had followed their leads, and she had followed hers. Her heart ached,
but that was the way it was.
A callused hand slid over hers. “You’re so far away.”
“Or someone else,” Wolf murmured. “I was going to ask you if
you wanted to go out with me tonight. I think your answer is going to
be no, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Wolf, I am so sorry.”
Lost in Bliss
35
He shook his head. “It’s all right. I like you, Laura. I like you a
lot, but I don’t intend to be here for too long. I’m getting back in.”
Laura doubted that. Wolf had been discharged from the Navy
against his own wishes. He’d taken heavy fire in Afghanistan, and
given his injuries, the Navy decided to decline his offer to re-up. He’d flown in to Washington just weeks before to try to talk his way back
in, but Laura doubted it would happen.
“I hope you do,” she said.
Wolf seemed a little lost. He’d come home to recuperate at his
mother’s house. He’d been working odd jobs in the months since he’d
returned. Laura had met him through James Glen, a local rancher
Wolf was friends with.
“It’ll happen,” Wolf said with confidence. “Now, I was also
looking for you for another reason. Do you have any idea why feds
would be looking for you?”
Laura sat straight up. Every nerve in her body came alive with
suspicion. “What feds?”
“I went by your place, and there were a couple of feds knocking
on your door. They asked if I knew where you were, but I said no. I
said I hadn’t seen you in a couple of days, but that they should go up
to Mountain and Valley because you spend a lot of time up there.”
And they would believe Wolf, because he was an excellent liar.
Laura had sensed that about him. He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t have
to, but if the occasion called for it, Wolf Meyer could lie and never
bat an eye. He would have made an excellent CIA operative if he
hadn’t been a SEAL. She couldn’t help it. Even five years after she’d
been fired from her job, she still profiled everyone around her. “That
should throw them off for a while.”
The Mountain and Valley was the local naturist community, a
nudist colony on the mountain. Bill Hartman ran the place, and he
didn’t like feds, either. Bliss was a very suspicious community. Bill
would likely send them on a merry chase.
36
Sophie Oak
Wolf leaned forward in his chair, his dark eyes softening, drawing
her in. He was also damn good at that. “I wanted to give you a little
time if you needed to get out of here. I don’t have anything to do,
Laura. If you want to, say, take a little trip, I can go with you, make
sure you’re safe. I can take care of you.”
Oh, yeah, she was a dumb shit for not falling for this guy, but it
wouldn’t be fair to him. “I’m not on the run, Wolf. Well, not in the
way you think. I’m not wanted for anything.”
“But you would prefer not to talk to the feds?”
Oh, she would prefer to never see a federal agent for the rest of
her life. When she’d walked out of DC, she’d done it for good. She’d
known she would never go back. That was why she’d changed her
name and hadn’t spoken to anyone she knew from there in five years.
Her parents were gone. She had a sister who lived in France. Laura
talked to her once a year, but Michelle had promised not to tell
anyone where Laura was. They had agreed that it was best for Laura
to hide. Given the fact that she was certain the Marquis de Sade was
involved in some sort of law enforcement, she didn’t particularly want
them to know where she was hiding.
“No, I would rather not talk to them, but now I’m curious.” And a
little scared. Had he caught up to her? “Are you sure they were FBI?”
“If they weren’t, then they were doing a damn fine impersonation.
And that’s the other thing I want to talk to you about. We need to get
rid of those guys, whoever they are. Mel is out at my mom’s, but he’s
going to come into town at some point in time today, and what’s he
going to see? Two dudes in suits and sunglasses riding around in a
dark SUV.”
Laura sighed. Mel wouldn’t see feds. Mel was a lovely man, but
with them. “Men in black.”
Wolf pointed. “On the nose, love. My mom’s boyfriend is going
to flip out, and then he’ll come and get my mom and they’ll end up in
the bomb shelter plotting how to survive the invasion, and I’ll have to
Lost in Bliss
37
call my brother to talk her down. I don’t want to call my brother.
Every time I call my brother I get a lecture about moving on. I get
some Zen-craptastic speech on how getting booted from the teams is
the best thing in the world for me—or it would be if I would get a job.
Like he has a job. Do you know what he does? My sainted brother
works in a BDSM club spanking subs. Maybe if some dude was
willing to pay me a ton of money to spank pretty subs, I would be fine
with my military career being over. So we need to figure out how to
get the feds into something less conspicuous so my mom’s boyfriend
doesn’t freak. You see the precarious house of cards I live in?”
Wolf was talking, but his voice had faded to the background. Only
one thing held Laura’s attention as a big, black SUV pulled up, and
Laura realized her time was up.
It was really happening. Someone had found her.
Why had the FBI tracked her down? Had something happened
with the de Sade case? Her heart fluttered at the thought of having to
get involved in that again. She felt herself get a little faint. Best case scenario—this was unrelated and someone needed to talk to her about
the Russian mob case. She’d stayed off the record, but someone might
have
mentioned her name. Worst case scenario? She’d been right. The
Marquis de Sade had tracked her down because he wouldn’t want to
leave loose ends.
“Laura? Are you all right?” Wolf stood and then knelt at her side,
his hand grasping hers. “Maybe we should take you upstairs so you
can lie down.”
The door to the SUV opened.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I should have dealt with them myself,”
Wolf said in a deep, soothing tone. This was another reason Laura had
known she and Wolf couldn’t work out. He was so much more
interested in her when she needed help. Wolf was looking for a
damsel in distress. Where the hell had he been five years earlier?
“I’m fine, Wolf. I’m just seeing ghosts, that’s all. I can handle
them.” And if de Sade had come for her, then maybe she had some
38
Sophie Oak
unfinished business with him, too. But it was more than likely about
the mob trials. Alexei Markov had set off a firestorm when he’d
decided to turn on his mob boss. Nate Wright, Bliss’s sheriff and
Callie’s second husband, had already had his fill of Feds. He’d
complained to Laura about it earlier in the day.
Except the minute the dark-haired man in the perfectly tailored
suit slid gracefully from the SUV, Laura realized this had nothing to
do with Alexei’s case.
She’d left out a scenario.
Armageddon. In that scenario, Rafael Kincaid showed up and her
past finally, truly caught up with her. Laura closed her eyes and
prayed it was just an illusion. That glorious man in the suit wasn’t
Rafe. She opened her eyes.
Shit. It was Rafe, and he wasn’t alone. An enormous man walked
behind him. His suit wasn’t perfectly tailored. He looked
uncomfortable in it, like any moment his body was going to burst
from its confines.
Cameron Briggs.
Rafe was an elegant bird of prey, while Cam was a huge tiger
stalking his next meal.
What the hell were they doing here? When she’d left, she’d made
damn sure that the two men who had broken her heart into tiny little
pieces and then stomped on it in a public forum couldn’t find her. Oh
sure, they’d been all tears and apologies after she’d been nearly
murdered, but it was just guilt.