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“How’s she handling it?” Angel felt as though she were strangling on her own fears as they drew closer to Natches and Chaya’s home.
“She’s scared.” Duke shot her a worried look as he made the second turn onto yet another gravel road. “Confused. But she’s a lot like you, Angel. She’s doing her best to learn how to help those around her protect her. I know Natches is both proud as hell and terrified of the strength he’s seeing in her.”
She nodded at that.
Bliss looked like a feminine version of her father, all the savage male lines blurred and softened to an exquisite beauty even at fifteen. She was like Natches inside as well, Angel always thought, no one else. She was strong, determined. What no one ever mentioned about Bliss, though, was the fact that a personal challenge was like a drug to the girl. When she won, it was a high for her.
The final turn was made, and Angel knew the twenty-year reprieve was over. She would once again face her mother as a daughter. But she wasn’t three any longer, she reminded herself. Chaya couldn’t quell anything she had to say or any decision she made with no more than a look. It was a privilege the other woman had thrown away the day she refused to come after her daughter.
As the house came into view, she felt it.
First, she felt the sights coming from two directions, the knowledge she was being tracked by a sniper. It was an unmistakable feeling, but in this case, she didn’t feel the sensation when a finger lay on the trigger. She was being watched, nothing more. But she also felt a veil slam down over her emotions.
She’d survived because of that shield that held back fear, mercy, even pain whenever she faced combat. Training, J.T. called it. The mind’s knowledge that the heart had no place there, that emotions would only weaken her, defeat her.
A mile later Duke turned onto the paved road that led to the house. Heavy evergreen vines and shrubs bordered the road on the side the house sat on. Growing tall and appearing impenetrable, the thick, thorny vines of the wisteria twisted and grew within the shrubs, and she knew the smaller, thickly growing vines were a trap just waiting for the unwary.
There were three ways past the natural border that grew nearly eight feet tall. The break at the front of the house when the gates across the driveway were open, another on the lake side of the house, and one that led into the mountains at the back of the house. All three were gated and armed with motion detectors as well as security cameras.
Natches Mackay was not known for his trusting nature.
“Angel, this is going to be okay.”
She turned to him, staring at him, seeing him, and hearing him as she felt herself shutting down inside.
“Of course it is,” she agreed. “It’s just another job, Duke. Nothing more.”
The front door opened and the couple stepped out.
Tall, black-haired, still handsome and powerful, Natches Mackay wrapped his arm around his wife’s back, holding her beside him as he whispered something to her.
His wife didn’t reply. She stared at the Jeep.
Angel slid from the vehicle, saw the flash of distaste in her mother’s expression before it was carefully controlled, and reminded herself—it was just another job.
She’d faced other women that looked at her and saw a killer rather than an agent. A woman that was beneath them because she didn’t wear silk blouses and linen slacks, makeup, or pretty jewelry.
There was a flash of pain as Chaya’s gaze dropped to the knife Angel wore, though. But Angel had expected that as well. The knife had been given to her because she wouldn’t stop crying before Chaya took her to the woman who was to keep her while Chaya was out of the country. It was given to her to shut her up, she guessed. Nothing more.
Keeping her head held high, her chin up, her shoulders straight, she walked at Duke’s side, aware of the look Natches obviously shared with him but refusing to attempt to decipher it.
“I’m glad to see you made it.” Natches nodded to her as they stopped at the single step to the cement porch.
Angel merely nodded in return. What did he expect her to say? She’d more or less been forced to show up.
“Come in. I put coffee on when you turned into the drive,” Chaya invited, turning from them and leading the way to the house. “I’m sure you have questions.”
“I’ll need to know how much time I have before your daughter arrives back at the house. And I’d like a chance to walk through the property, ascertain its strengths and weaknesses for myself, then we can discuss any concerns I might have over coffee if you like.” It was just another job.
So why did it feel as though she was breaking apart behind that shield she was hiding behind? And why did the memory of her own screams when she was only three haunt her?
• • •
Duke caught Natches’s concerned look as he and Chaya turned back to them slowly. Restraining himself was never easy for the other man, Duke knew. He would have been more prone to drag Angel into a hard embrace as he welcomed her to his and Chaya’s home. Chaya would have beat him to it. The need to drag Angel to her, to hold her daughter was like a hunger burning in her eyes.
Until Angel had stepped from the Jeep, her military correct shield in place, her “soldier” face more than just an appearance.
He’d felt her shut down. The second that door had slammed shut on her emotions, he’d felt it. Just a
