Colton Destiny Read online

  He had no doubt that kind of devotion and loyalty would extend to anyone she loved. An ache grew in him at the thought of her, someday, finding that love with a man of her world. He had no right to feel this way, yet he couldn’t seem to help it. He’d wrestled with this for days now, probably longer beneath the surface. And his self-warnings, his prayers, his denial, none of it had done any good.

  Desperate, he called on the only thing that came to mind that might put some distance between them. He remembered the little shock that had gone through him when, holding her, his fingers had brushed over the weapon she wore on her belt.

  “Have you ever shot someone?”

  She gave him a sideways glance that seemed almost startled, as he supposed the out-of-the-blue question deserved.

  “That’s a question I usually get from adolescent males.”

  Which is exactly what I’m feeling like now, he thought wryly.

  “Are the Amish antigun?” she asked.

  “No. We hunt, for food. But handguns...”

  “Serve a purpose.”

  Yes, he thought. To kill other human beings.

  “For me,” she went on, “target practice mostly. Same with long guns. I could never hunt.”

  “Yet isn’t that what you do? Hunt...people?”

  “That’s different. I couldn’t hunt animals. If they kill, it’s simply what they are. It’s their nature, and they can’t change it. Men choose.”

  “To be animals?”

  “Some, yes.”

  There was an odd undertone in her voice, more than just grim determination, but something that told him with no uncertainty that she would do whatever it took to protect those she loved.

  And others. She would fight for him, he realized with a certainty he couldn’t quite understand. And for his girls. She would fight to protect them all, if she had to, simply because that was who she was.

  It was not his way, not the way of his people. God’s will was God’s will. But he was also aware enough to realize that, in some ways, it was people like her who made his way of life possible. If not for those who kept order on the outside, there could be no peace in his community. The kind of outsiders who saw them as weak, as easy targets, were kept in check by people like Emma.

  It was a dilemma he’d been wrestling with ever since she’d arrived in Paradise Ridge. He didn’t question his faith, and yet something in the way she had sounded stirred him. So much that he had to speak words that grounded him, that brought him back to his life and faith.

  “To hunt and kill men would go against everything I believe. I couldn’t shoot a human being.”

  Even in the faint glow, he could see her fingers tighten around the steering wheel.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I can.”

  Chapter 23

  There was a huge gap between them, Emma told herself as they drove on in silence. A gap too wide to be bridged? She didn’t want to believe it, and yet this last conversation seemed to pound it home.

  History and some horrific events had proven time and again the depths of Amish pacifist beliefs. But she was having an awful time trying to reconcile that with the urge to protect. If those girls had been hurt or worse...

  She knew it was her own horrible ordeal that sometimes spiked her anger at this kind of predator to beyond containing. And it was those times, when she knew she was slipping out of control, that made her wonder if the help she needed, if what she’d been searching for, was not to be found in the office of yet another shrink, or counselor, or endless hard, physical workouts. Wondered if what she needed was what Caleb and his people had, that quiet acceptance that kept their lives, and seemingly their tempers, so peaceful and calm.

  She flicked another sideways glance at him. He was facing straight ahead but looking downward, apparently at his hands in his lap. She saw, in the faint light, his profile. Strong chin, sculpted nose, classically handsome lines. All softened by the impossibly long sweep of his lowered lashes, a darker semicircle against his cheek in the faint light.

  In that moment she admitted at last what she’d been fighting since the first moment she’d caught a glimpse of him and her knees had gone wobbly.

  She wanted this man. As crazy, as impossible as it was, he sent her pulse racing, heating her body in ways she’d never experienced before.

  What had happened tonight had only intensified her reaction. He’d held her, comforted her in a way she’d never known—in fact would never have allowed—from any other man. His warm, steady strength had warmed her, had taken the turmoil from her, calmed her in a way she wouldn’t have thought possible before him.

  Oh, yes, she wanted him.

  And she couldn’t have him.

  She knew that, knew it as surely as she knew anything. She couldn’t have him, the gap truly was too wide, and the sooner she stopped thinking about it, the better.

  Is it just me, Caleb?

  No.

  That simple exchange slammed through her mind like a careening mountain sled. It slowed her brain so that she almost didn’t react to the announcement from the GPS that they were at their destination.

  The small, tidy cluster of resort cabins had come on a recommendation from Derek, who had once taken his wife there in an effort to soothe her troubled spirit. It had bought him some time, but Tess’s instability was too deep, and two years ago Derek’s life had been shattered by her death. But he seemed to have come to terms with it since and said the place would serve Emma’s needs nicely.

  The proprietor, a jovial retiree from New Jersey, met the late arrival with a smile. Mr. Rinaldi remembered Derek—few who met him did not—and if he was surprised at her appearance, it didn’t show. He seemed much more than willing to talk and excited to have an FBI agent staying there, but after a few questions, she realized he wasn’t going to be any help. In fact, he’d probably have the news of the federal agent staying in one of his cabins all over the mountains soon, she thought as she glanced back to see him picking up the phone with an animated smile on his face.

  But she had the key and directions to the last cabin in the row, closest to the small lake or large pond, depending on your advertising spin. Lucky for her, the man had said, that it wasn’t high season, when he was usually full. He’d opened the cabin up, made sure it was clean and stocked, and turned the heat on, so she was good to go.

  Caleb had stayed in the car, perhaps beyond explaining his presence here to someone even more of an outsider to him than she was.

  The building she stopped in front of was small, but well kept and solid-looking, at least as far as she could see in the dark. It appeared to be a story and a half, and had been described as a one bedroom with a sleeping loft.

  There was a small covered porch at one end, with a welcoming light. She grabbed her go-bag and her kit and started that way, key in hand, hyperaware that Caleb had silently exited the vehicle and was behind her. She saw the cabin had a row of windows along the side facing the water, and it nestled among tall evergreens and large boulders strewn in an artful arrangement only Mother Nature could manage. In pleasanter times, she could imagine a family using the picnic table that sat outside, as her own family had often done at home during long-ago summers.

  When they’d been whole.

  Emma blinked away the sting of tears at the sharp jab of memory. She tried to get the key in the lock, but her vision was blurry.

  “Are you all right?”

  Did the man never miss anything? And how many times had he asked her that? But his voice was so quiet, so gentle, she found herself speaking of what she rarely spoke of anymore.

  “I used to think it would stop, that someday I’d be able to envision my family without tearing up over how it has changed.”

  The key caught, but a tremor in her hand sent it scraping sideways and she had to try again.

  “Many more were wounded that day than were in those planes and buildings,” Caleb said.

  “Yes. And the wounds never really heal. I’ve
come to accept it will always ache. “

  “Should you feel nothing, as if they had never lived?”

  “Of course not. I just thought...life goes on, and as it got more distant...”

  She still couldn’t get the damned key in the lock.

  “My people have struggled with this greatly. The idea of killing for your God is...anathema to us. The worst possible betrayal of who God is and His intent.”

  “On that,” she said, “we are in complete agreement.”

  She tried with the key once more. Only this time, Caleb reached out and put his hand over hers to steady it. The moment his fingers brushed over the back of her hand, a different emotion exploded in her. It was no more welcome than the remembered grief, but at the moment, it was also much more powerful.

  Heat shot through her, and she knew it wasn’t her imagination that his hand was lingering over hers. For a span of time that seemed endless, they stood there, scarcely breathing, his hand over hers. She felt as if they’d tapped into a current that only needed a touch to complete its circuit and begin to hum between them.

  She had to move, to do something, get the door open and get inside before she did something impossibly foolish. And she had to quash the rebellious, reckless part of her brain that was saying, He kissed you, didn’t he? Your turn.

  The key slid home, the door opened, and she wasn’t sure which of them had turned the knob. She needed to find the light switch, not trusting herself to be alone in the dark with him here in this place where neither her world nor his could intrude.

  She set her bags on the table she could barely make out next to the door. She unclipped her holster from her belt and laid the weapon beside them. Then she turned to look beside the doorway in the logical place for a light switch.

  And found herself barely an inch away from Caleb, who had stepped in after her and closed the door.

  “Emma,” he said, sounding as breathless as she felt.

  And then, against all her own warnings, she listened to that little internal voice.

  She kissed him.

  She had to stretch up slightly, at her height enough of a novelty to be appreciated. She thought he might recoil, he’d been so churned up by his own actions when she’d come to him, but he didn’t. For a moment he went stock-still, doing nothing as she leaned into him and pressed her lips to his. She knew it was wrong, knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop herself. She had to know if it had been a fluke, an accident of timing, a result of her chewed-up emotions, that fierce heat that had erupted in her before.

  And then he was kissing her back, his arms coming around her, his mouth no longer resisting but participating, and she had her answer. It had been no fluke, no accident. The fire was there, as raging as if it had been building beneath the surface ever since that first, slight kiss.

  She was barely aware of moving, yet somehow they’d found the sofa in front of the fireplace at the end of the main room of the cabin. She sank down, unable to stand as the heat consumed her. Some sane part of her mind thought he would pull away, but he went with her, pressing her back against the cushions, deepening the kiss as if it had been his idea in the first place.

  She gasped at the feel of his weight on her, the feel of his long, leanly muscled body against her, chest to toe. She wondered, in that last moment of sanity, if he was as stunned as she that it could leap to life so fast, so hot, so deep.

  And in that shrinking part of her mind that was still functioning, she felt a spurt of purely feminine pleasure that she had been able to push Caleb, strong, quiet, always-in-control Caleb, to this. She wasn’t particularly proud of the thought, but neither would she deny the power of it.

  She ran her hands over as much of him as she could reach, felt trails of heat tracking over her body as he did the same to her. On and on it went, spiraling higher with every stroke, every caress. And she delighted in the obvious fact that he was with her, holding, touching, caressing, and continuing a kiss so deep and so hot that she wished the need to breathe could be suspended so it could never end.

  But it did have to, if only so she could nibble her way down the strong, masculine cord of his neck to the hollow of his throat, glad there was no shirt collar to get in her way.

  “Emma,” he whispered, his voice low, husky and almost gasping, which only threw more fuel on the fire already nearly out of control. Through the rising haze of pleasure, she was aware that she’d been a little afraid that if he spoke, it would be the name of his dead wife. That it was not, that it was her name, telling her he was completely aware of who he held, whose body he was driving to the point of insanity.

  She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t hold him close enough; she wanted the barriers of clothing out of the way. She could feel how aroused he was, and when he pressed her harder against him, the flames leaped even higher.

  One of his hands slipped upward from her waist and cupped her breast. Her rapid breathing came to a shocked halt as she held it, in an agony of tension, waiting, afraid to move even as her stomach clenched and her nipple tightened in anticipation.

  When his fingertips brushed over that eager flesh, she gasped aloud. Her back arched upward almost involuntarily; more, she wanted more. Needed more. Needed more than she could ever remember needing in her life.

  Caleb’s low, guttural groan only fired that need.

  She barely recognized this creature, spared a split second for the irony of it being this man who turned her into this wild, desperate, aching female, with her destined mate so close and yet so far.

  Destiny, apparently, had a wicked sense of humor.

  But the knowledge couldn’t stop this rising tide of heat and need. She wasn’t sure anything could. It would take a strength greater than she had, she knew that.

  It would take a strength like Caleb’s. And somewhere, obviously, he’d found it.

  He stopped. He went still for a long, strained moment. Then he shifted off her.

  “I cannot do this.”

  His voice was so strained, so harsh she could almost feel the turmoil in him. Or maybe it was her own she was feeling.

  “Caleb,” she began, but stopped, with no idea what to say.

  “I want this too much. These feelings are too much. You are too much. I cannot.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “They are right,” he muttered. “Leaving the community leads to forgetting it.”

  He moved as if to rise, and she grasped his shoulder. “Please, don’t.”

  “I—”

  “We’ll stop. Just...don’t leave.”

  Because I’ll die if you do. I’ll freeze to death if I don’t have your heat. I’ll become a quivering mess without your strength.

  “You ask much of me.”

  “Yes.” There didn’t seem any point in denying it. “Because you are strong enough.”

  After a long, silent moment during which she could sense his inner battle, he sank back down beside her on the big couch. She didn’t mind that it was rather lumpy beneath her, was glad that it was big enough to hold them both yet narrow enough that they had to be in intimate contact.

  “Caleb,” she began again.

  “Please. Do not. It is best we don’t speak of this.”

  She gave in, thinking that as chaotic as her own feelings were, they probably didn’t hold a candle to his.

  “For now,” she agreed, knowing that not talking about it, not facing this now wasn’t going to make it go away.

  And thinking that he was likely right, what they had to talk about was better done in the light of day rather than the tempting darkness.

  She would have sworn the last thing she was likely to do was drift off to sleep, and yet she did. Not only did she sleep, but after the heat and emotion had finally ebbed, she slept soundly, waking only once to listen to Caleb’s steady breathing and realize with a little jolt of pleasure that in sleep he’d again wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled into his warmth and slipped back into the most peaceful sleep she could remember in ages.


  Hours later, the sharp, shattering sound of broken glass jolted her awake.

  Chapter 24

  For an instant Emma was confused, disoriented and distracted by Caleb, who was already beginning to sit up.

  “Was that glass?” he asked.

  Another time, she would love to tease him about that sleepy voice, another time she would ponder the wonder of waking up with him. But the agent within her had awakened, too, and she scrambled to her feet. Automatically she checked the time; just before dawn.

  The broken window was easy to see, about halfway along the wall that faced the water. Shards of glass glinted on the floor in the moonlight streaming through. And a foot farther into the room lay...something.

  Emma didn’t stop now, glanced only long enough to make a guess at trajectory on the object.

  “Don’t touch anything,” she said as she skirted the broken glass, racing toward the door. She grabbed up her Glock from the table as she went, shucking the holster heedlessly.

  She inched the door open and for a moment just stood there listening. She heard nothing in the still night, only the faint rustle of high boughs in the trees as a slight breeze wafted above.

  She stepped outside, weapon at the ready as she went, keeping to the shadow of the building until she reached the broken window. She looked in the direction she guessed the rock must have come from. Again she paused, listening, barely breathing.

  Nothing.

  Whoever had thrown that rock was long gone, her senses and her instincts told her. She went back to the cabin.

  Caleb was standing just inside the door. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but tension was evident in his posture. She didn’t have time to deal now; she needed to look at what had been thrown through the window.

  Thankfully, he didn’t speak. Glad this time that he tended toward taciturnity, Emma got to work.

  She walked quickly over to the broken glass, and Caleb followed. She knelt to examine the baseball-size object. “I should have turned on the light,” she muttered, almost to herself. Then, normally and aimed at Caleb, she added, “Could you get the switch?”