“I know. Don’t worry about it.”
She shot him a look of such disbelief, he wanted to laugh. It was so Honey. “Right. I’ll just be over here not worrying about the mob guy who’s gunning for my boyfriend.”
“Am I?” he asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
“Are you what?”
“Am I your boyfriend?”
She turned in her chair, shifting her whole body so she faced him firmly. The fact that she still held his hand had hope blooming in his heart, but her face was anything but loving.
Eyes blazing, mouth set, color high. Fierce and unfaltering and so damn gorgeous, it nearly hurt to look at her.
“Is that what you’re sitting there thinking?” she asked quietly. Her voice was soft, but there was steel under it—and insult. Hearing it, he felt a little flutter of hope.
“Well,” he began, but he didn’t get any further.
“Did you think I was lying the other day when I said that your past didn’t matter?” Her eyes were starting to shoot sparks. “Did you think those were just words?”
“No,” he managed. Her hand had clamped down on his, and her nails threatened to draw blood. He didn’t care. “But now that you know exactly what I’ve done, I thought—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted sharply. “Don’t think, just listen. And hear me, okay?”
He nodded, unable to look away from her dark, burning eyes.
“I love you. I love you,” she repeated, her voice low and harsh. “That means I’m with you. And you don’t owe me an explanation for anything that you did, anything that came before me. As far as I’m concerned, you and me? We started with a blank slate. I care about what comes now, and a year from now, and five years from now.”
She squeezed his hand, hard. “You get me?”
“Yeah,” he managed, throat thick with emotion. God, she humbled him. “Yeah, I get you.”
“Good.” Now her eyes went bright with tears. “But just so you know, you bring a gun into my house again without telling me about it, I’ll kick your ass across the lake to Wisconsin.”
He choked out a laugh. “That’s fair.”
“Okay, then.” She swiped at her eyes with her free hand. “Now that’s settled, what are we going to do about the rest of it?”
“You’re going to do nothing,” he told her. “Hopefully the Giordanos will catch up with Damico before he gets here, but if he does, Michael and I will deal with it, not you.”
She studied him for a moment, her head tilted slightly as though she was trying to puzzle through a particularly vexing problem. “Why do you expect me to argue with you?” she wondered.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “It might have something to do with you being pig stubborn.”
She sniffed. “That’s determination, not stubbornness. And I’m not stupid, so you can bet I don’t want any part of this.”
“Good.”
“But you and Michael can’t be everywhere,” she went on. “Don’t you think I at least ought to know what this Damico guy looks like?”
He frowned. “It probably couldn’t hurt.”
She gave his shoulder an approving pat as he tugged his phone out of his pocket. “I knew you could be reasonable.”
“I’m always reasonable,” he told her and ignored her snort as he thumbed through the phone. Finally coming to the photo Michael had texted him, he passed the phone over and pushed to his feet. “You feel like a snack? I feel like a snack.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I didn’t eat that much at the carnival,” he protested as he took the coffee cups to the sink. “You’re the one who ate that whole bag of fried Oreos, and I only ate half my corn dog.”
He turned to tease her about eating the other half, then froze at the look on her face as she stared at his phone. She’d gone dead white, her eyes dark with shock. “Honey?”
“I saw him,” she whispered.
“What?” He was next to her in a flash, sliding an arm around her waist as she swayed. “What do you mean? When?”
“Tonight. At the carnival.” She pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “He was my last customer.”
“When?”
“I...I don’t know.” She glanced up at him. “My shift was almost over, so it was a few minutes before nine. I was reaching under the table to grab my purse because I was thinking about ducking out early, and then there he was.”
Ethan’s eyes had narrowed. “He didn’t come through the front door.”
“He must have come in through the back,” she said slowly. “He left that way, but I thought he just didn’t know how he was supposed to leave. I didn’t recognize him, but I just assumed he was a tourist.”
Ethan tightened his arm around her waist, pulling her more firmly against him. “Tell me what he said to you.”
“Let me think.” She shoved at her hair with both hands. “He wanted a reading. Asked a question, just like everyone does.”
“What’d he ask?”
“He said, ‘Will my business be successful.’” Her eyes were impossibly dark when she looked up at him. “I remember that, because his voice was so flat, so...I don’t know, cold.”
“Easy, love,” he murmured as she shivered.
“No, I’m okay. I just...I told him his business would be complicated and dangerous, but if he were clever, it would be successful. I was just making it up, Ethan.”
“I know, babe. I know.” He pressed a kiss to her temple while his mind raced. “Did he say anything else?”
She shook her head. “No. Nothing.”
“Okay, good.” He drew back to smile at her. “You did good.”
She nodded even as her fingers curled into the lapels of his shirt. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make a few phone calls.”
“Michael?”
He nodded. “Him and the Giordanos. I promised to keep them in the loop.”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes, and he could see her trying to gather herself. “Then what?”
“I don’t know, baby. We’ll figure it out.” He slipped his hand under her chin and waited until she opened her eyes. “Trust me, okay?”
She smiled at him. It was shaky, and it didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it was there. “Okay.”
He stroked her hair back from her face. “I love you, you know.”
Her smile widened, and this time it reached her eyes, warming them brilliantly. “I know.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I wish you’d be reasonable about this,” Ethan muttered.
Honey merely sipped her coffee while he paced the kitchen. “I’m staying home, aren’t I? Even though I have class and work, and any number of things I should be doing other than sitting at home all day.”
The look he shot her could’ve scorched earth. “You should be out of town.”
She sipped again, struggling to stay relaxed. Her neck was already so tight it throbbed, and a tension headache had settled in like a too-tight headband. “I told you,” she said with a calm she was far from feeling. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Dammit, Honey. I don’t want to worry about you.”
She met his stormy gaze levelly. “Same goes.”
“Winnie left,” he began.
“Winnie,” she said pointedly, “took her boyfriend up on his offer of a surprise weekend trip to Mackinac Island, and you can bet your very fine ass that if she’d known why she was going, she wouldn’t have budged.”
“You’re probably right,” he acknowledged and paced to the other side of the kitchen. He poked a toe at the dog door cut into the bottom half of the door, making the flap rattle. “Can you block this up?”
“Milo’s out doing his neighborhood patrol,” she told him. “I’ll block it when he comes back in.”
He frowned at that but didn’t say anything more.
“How much did you tell Jacob?”
“Nothing, really.” He shrugged as he st
ared out the kitchen window, a quick jerk of his shoulders that told her more than words how agitated he was. “I made up a story about a free weekend at the Grand Hotel, and he didn’t question it.”
“But he knew something was up.”
“Yeah.” He glanced back at her. “He didn’t say anything, but he knew.”
“You could tell him,” Honey said quietly. “He’d understand.”
He just shook his head. “Not everyone is as forgiving or as generous as you are, babe.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. His secrets were his to keep, no matter how she felt about it. “You know, if you want to take me away for a romantic weekend, I’ll pack a bag now.”
“You know I can’t leave.”
“You could,” she countered. “Michael’s here, and the guys the Giordanos sent. They’ll probably find this guy without you. But I understand why you won’t.” She rose from her chair to pour her coffee down the sink. It had gone cold, and she was jittery enough without adding more caffeine to her system.
He scowled out the window, muttering something about how he should’ve shoved her on a goddamn plane, bound and gagged. She placed her mug in the dishwasher and leaned against the counter. “We’ll try the bound and gagged some other time when we can have more fun with it.”
“Don’t try to distract me with sex,” he warned, and she laughed.
“We don’t have anything else to do, but I’m not really in the mood.” It drove home just how tense she was that, for maybe the first time since she’d known him, she was completely uninterested in getting naked with him. “And something tells me you aren’t, either.”
“I’m always in the mood,” he countered, and a glimmer of desire sparked in his eyes before it was snuffed out by icy determination. “But I can’t have sex and keep watch at the same time, so I’ll take a raincheck.”
“That’s a deal. But if we’re not going to have sex, and we can’t leave the house, what are we going to do all day?”
“Netflix and chill?”
Her lips twitched. “You know that’s code for staying home and fucking, right?”
He pursed his lips, considering. “Is it?”
“So the kids say,” she said mildly, ridiculously relieved at the flash of humor on his face.
“Huh. Learn something new every day.” He shrugged, and his lips curved in the first smile she’d seen since last night. “How about we watch a movie, then? Something scary, so you have to cuddle in my lap.”
“I hate scary movies,” she told him, wrinkling her nose. “I want something romantic.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her hair as they turned toward the living room. “Not on your life.”
* * *
“This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
He barely grunted as Honey drove her elbow into his side. “It is not. It’s beautiful.”
He eyed her warily as she sniffed. Again. “How many times have you seen this?”
“Dozens,” she sighed.
“And it makes you cry every time?”
“Of course.” She sniffed again and snagged a fresh Kleenex from the box at her hip. She’d gone through at least half of it; the coffee table was littered with tear-stained tissues.
He shook his head. She’d been dripping on and off during the movie, even the non-sappy parts, but he figured that was because she knew what was coming. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s okay.” She snuggled into his side, her hand fisted around a wad of soggy tissues.
He shook his head again. On the screen, Cary Grant pulled a paralyzed and sobbing Debra Kerr into his arms. He assumed from the swelling music—and the increased tear production—that meant the movie was almost over. “Can we watch Animal House now?”
Her dreamy sigh turned into a snort of disgust as she slapped the remote into his belly. “Fine.”
He chuckled and dug his fingers into her ribs, making her squeal with laughter. “I can’t believe you’re such a sap.”
She giggled and twisted, trying to get away from his dancing fingers. “Just because you have no romance in your soul,” she began.
“No romance? No romance?” He dug in harder, then had to duck a flailing elbow as she bucked. “I’ll show you romance.”
“You said you weren’t in the mood,” she gasped.
“Changed my mind,” he said, then froze when his phone buzzed.
She went still, breathing hard as he dug the phone out of his pocket. “Who is it?”
“Michael.” He glanced at her, apologetic. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She shifted off his lap to sit beside him, her hand warm on his thigh.
He sent her a look of gratitude as he tapped the screen. “Sullivan.”
“I think we got him,” Michael said.
Every muscle went tense. “Where?”
“Little motel outside of town. The one,” Michael went on, “that I was staying in before I shifted locations.”
“Jesus.” Ethan pushed to his feet, dragging a hand through his hair. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” Ethan heard Michael murmur something to someone else. “The desk clerk recognized the photo, said he’s been here two days. He didn’t give them a firm checkout date, paid extra to keep it open-ended. And from the looks of the room, he’s not planning to leave anytime soon.”
“He’s not there?”
“Not right now, but he’s coming back. We’ll get him when he does.”
“Who’s watching the room?”
“The Giordano guys are going to sit on it for the next couple of hours, then we’ll switch off.”
“Okay.” Ethan struggled with the urge to get in the car and drive to the motel. He fairly itched to be in on the capture, but he knew he needed to stay with Honey. “Give me a call when you’ve got him.”
“Will do, friend. Don’t worry, we’ll—”
There was a sudden flurry of noise over the phone, shouts and the blast of gunshots. “What’s going on?”
“He’s here.” Michael’s voice was breathless, with that odd bounce that told Ethan his friend was running. “He was walking to the room when he bolted. Must’ve made us.”
“Where are you?”
“He’s on foot, headed for the shoreline behind the motel. Away from town.”
“I’m on my way.” He hung up before Michael could protest, dashing to the door to scoop up his keys.
“What’s going on?” Honey hurried up behind him.
“They found him, but he bolted.” He gave her a swift kiss and opened the front door. “I need to go. Stay here, okay?”
“Okay.” Her eyes were dark with worry, but she worked up a tremulous smile. “Be safe.”
“You got it.”
He bolted out the door and into the light drizzle that had begun to fall sometime during the movie. His skin roughened with chills, but he didn’t notice. He paid no attention to the speed limit, and it took less than five minutes to reach the little motel on the outskirts of town.
He parked next to the nondescript sedan that he knew belonged to Giordano’s crew and stepped out. The rain had turned from a drizzle to a steady downpour, soaking him to the skin as he circled the motel to the beachside. The thought crossed his mind that it wasn’t that long ago that he’d stood at the back of another motel, on another beach in the rain.
He shook off the eerie sense of déjà vu as he spotted the figures walking up from the water. Clouds had blocked the sun, making it feel more like dusk than early afternoon, but he picked Michael out easily, as well as the two stocky figures walking with a third man, slumped with his head hanging low, between them.
The relief made him sag, nearly brought him to his knees. Over. It was over. He could go back to his life, to building things rather than tearing them down, and watching stupid, sappy movies with his woman. He wanted that—wanted the days of hot, sweaty work and nights full of hot, sweaty sex. He wanted Honey and th
e life they could make together.
He drew in a shaky breath, joy streaming through him so strongly he wanted to shout it out. He held it back and straightening his spine, started toward the men on the beach.
He’d gotten three steps when he caught sight of Michael’s face. Tight, tense, his dark eyes cold and flat. Not, he realized as his stomach twisted, the face of a man who’d just caught the bad guy.
He began to walk faster, then he was jogging, and a heartbeat later he was running full out. He skidded to a halt in front of Michael, his gaze flicking over the Giordano muscle, and the man slumped between them. “What’s wrong?”
If anything, Michael’s expression grew even grimmer. “It’s not him.”
“What do you mean, it’s not him?”
Michael stepped in front of the slumped man and grasped his hair, yanking his head back. Ethan saw olive skin and dark eyes, one of them going black with fresh bruising. But the jaw was wrong, the shape of the face was wrong, and whoever this man was, he was at least twenty years younger than Damico.
“What the fuck?”
“He’s a decoy, Ethan.” Michael let the man’s hair go, and he slumped forward again. “Damico paid him to come back to the motel, told him to walk halfway to the room then run.”
Ethan cursed under his breath. “He knew you were here.”
“Yeah. And I have to figure, he knew you’d be here once we thought we had him.”
Ethan just stared as the blood in his veins turned to ice. “Fuck. Honey.”
Michael shifted subtly, his eyes sharpening. “Where is she?”
“I left her at the house.” Fear was a bitter taste in his mouth. “I left her at the house alone. Fuck!”
He turned and sprinted for the car. He heard Michael’s terse orders to Giordano’s men to secure the decoy and get their asses in gear, then his footsteps pounded behind.
“I’m coming with you.”
“Then keep up,” Ethan ground out.
They dove into the car. As soon as the engine roared to life, Ethan had it in gear with his foot to the floor. He had his hands full keeping the little car from sliding around on roads made slick by the rain and couldn’t get to his phone.
“Call her,” he ground out. From the corner of his eye, he saw Michael pull out his phone. He rattled off Honey’s cell number, his knuckles white on the wheel as he sped through the rain.
Honey and the Hitman Page 24