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When Tom reached the guest room, he saw the light still on underneath the door. He rapped on it. “Elizabeth, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You can come in.”
He opened the door and walked inside, setting her bags on the floor. “Remember that Darien wants you to check them over tomorrow to see if anything is missing. Are you really all right?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Have a good night’s sleep.”
He paused, feeling she wasn’t sincere. He figured he could learn more about whatever was bothering her tomorrow when they were both well rested.
At least, that’s what he planned.
Chapter 14
Later that night, Elizabeth woke feeling much more herself physically, but emotionally she felt bad. She hadn’t realized how quickly she had become attached to Tom, and now she had to leave.
Despite the late hour, she called North to arrange another meeting, hoping he’d answer the phone. She had to get this resolved, get the evidence against her uncle, turn it over to Hrothgar, and return home soon.
Someone picked up, but when he didn’t say hello or anything, she thought North might be half-asleep. She said, “North?”
No response, just someone’s breathing. Her heart pounded, and she quickly hung up. Had someone learned North planned to meet with her to expose her uncle’s secrets? Someone who didn’t want those secrets revealed?
She paced across the guest bedroom’s carpeted floor. She had to leave. She couldn’t get Darien and Lelandi’s pack involved in this. All she wanted to do was resolve this on her own. This was not the Silver pack’s trouble. They already had enough problems with the other wolf strangers prowling around farms in the area.
She dialed another number. “I need the first flight out to Amarillo in the morning.”
***
The next morning, Darien greeted Elizabeth bright and early, but he knew something was amiss. He’d finished feeding the triplets, and a nanny watched them in the den while Lelandi ate eggs and toast before her first client session. She usually had one before this, but the woman had canceled because of the weather. Lelandi might be eating, but Darien knew she was trying to figure out what was wrong with Elizabeth, just as much as he was.
Being an alpha, Elizabeth told him how things would be right away. “I’m so sorry, but I need to leave. Could anyone drive me to the airport, or could I get a cab out here?”
She had three more days to be here, Darien remembered. Something was compelling her to leave this soon.
“Peter can take you. He’s on his way here now anyway.” Darien wasn’t about to wake Tom and ask him. He suspected something was wrong between the two of them or Elizabeth would have asked Tom herself. “How are you feeling?”
“Great. All better. Thanks.”
That was the way she’d spoken since she joined them. Brief. To the point. She wasn’t sharing how she was feeling. The fact she was downstairs so early after having been up half the night made Darien believe she was desperate to leave before Tom woke. He wondered if she’d slept at all.
“You’re not afraid the men will come after you, are you?”
“No,” she said so emphatically that he wasn’t sure he believed her.
Lelandi was so good at psychoanalyzing patients and pack members, including himself and his brothers, that Darien wished she would speak up and get to the bottom of the trouble. She wouldn’t. She just poured herself another cup of coffee while Elizabeth downed a glass of orange juice in a hurry, even though Peter was still on his way to the house.
“You spoke to Jake this morning.”
“Yes.” She looked out the window.
“He was pleased you did an interview of him,” Darien said, trying to draw her out.
“Yeah.”
“Did he manage to fix your camera?”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
He glanced at Lelandi. She raised her brows at him as if to say that the situation was in his court.
When Peter pulled into the driveway, Elizabeth hopped up from her chair—another indication she was physically fine—and hurried to slip into her parka. “Thanks for everything. You’ve all been… wonderful.”
Darien heard the hitch in her voice and saw the way she turned away and wouldn’t look at them.
She grabbed her suitcase handles and laptop, then hurried for the door, but Darien quickly snatched the bags from her hands and hauled them for her.
“I left a note for Tom on his computer,” she said, trying to sound businesslike and not entirely succeeding.
Tom would be upset that she had left without saying good-bye face-to-face or allowing him to take her to the airport. Unless they had fought. But what he had smelled on his brother last night wasn’t anger or upset. Worry and sex. That’s what he had smelled.
“You always have a home here with us anytime you want to return,” Darien said.
She offered him a faint smile. “Thanks.”
When she looked away, he got the feeling she wasn’t planning to return. He was disappointed, because he knew how much Tom liked her, and he’d seen the way she’d reacted to his brother in a positive, caring way. For that matter, everyone who had chanced to meet her had liked her. That video capturing Tom and Elizabeth kissing on the slope had totally surprised both Lelandi and him, and he knew more was going on between the two of them than they admitted.
He’d wanted to call Carol and ask if her talk with Elizabeth had revealed anything of her past, but Lelandi said what the two women discussed had been private. If Elizabeth wanted to share, it was her business to do so. It didn’t matter that Darien had mentioned that this could have an impact on the pack. Lelandi had only shaken her head—an emphatic, nonverbal “No, butt out.” He loved his mate, but sometimes, like now, she totally exasperated him.
He opened the door to find Peter standing on the porch, ready to knock. He smiled brightly at Elizabeth.
She hurried past him and headed for his vehicle.
“She’s in a hurry to get to the airport,” Darien said in explanation. “Could you take her?”
“Oh, sure.” Peter took her bags, hurried out to the truck, and stuck them in the backseat of the cab. “See you in a little while.”
Her eyes shiny with tears, Elizabeth waved at Darien and Lelandi. Then Peter got into the driver’s seat, and they were off.
