But this wasn’t just an exercise or another mission. This wasn’t just a job. The human shield was Maggie. And goddamn it, she was crying! Del could see the sparkle of her tears even from this distance. Yet her grip on her daughter never wavered. Her fingers moved over Delilah’s back in a soothing caress to keep her calm. Even when her own life hung in the balance, her first thought was of her baby.
He felt a primitive scream gather in his throat. This one time, when he needed a cool head more than ever, his vision hazed over with rage. He didn’t have his rifle. He didn’t have the luxury of setup time. All he had was a gut churning with anxiety, hands that were shaking from fatigue and a pistol concealed behind the bandage on his arm.
“Jonah!” Simon shouted. He put his gun beneath Maggie’s ear and watched the hovering helicopter. “Show yourself. That was the deal.”
Del tongued his transmitter again. He knew Jonah was monitoring everything from behind the shelter of armor plating. Jonah was too important to SPEAR to take unnecessary risks. But Del wasn’t thinking about the organization he had dedicated himself to. Simon had made this personal, and Del wasn’t thinking with a hunter’s impersonal logic, he was thinking with his heart. “Sir? We need more time.”
“All teams, stand by,” Jonah said levelly. “I’m setting down. No mistakes this time.”
“I’m betting my life on it,” Del muttered.
“We all are, Rogers,” Jonah said.
Like a huge, ungainly hummingbird, the black helicopter tilted to one side, lifted its nose and cleared the cement wall. Seconds later, its long, narrow skids settled lightly to earth less than twenty yards away from the gleaming yellow taxi and the bearded man with the gun.
Barely daring to breathe, Del kept his attention focused on Simon. From the corner of his eye, he saw the blades of the helicopter gradually slow to a sluggish swirl. Nothing was visible through the darkened windshield, but he knew Jonah was there.
Under other circumstances, Del might have marveled at the fact that at long last, he was in the presence of the reclusive, mysterious head of SPEAR. Yet that wasn’t what went through his mind. The man he had sworn loyalty to eight years ago held the power to save Maggie’s life. Why the hell didn’t he get on with it?
A door in the side of the helicopter slid open a crack.
Del’s ears rang with the slamming of his pulse.
“Hurry up, Jonah,” Simon called across the distance between them. “I don’t have all night.”
The crack widened. From within the darkened interior, a light flashed outward, its beam stabbing toward Simon.
“What’s that for?” Simon asked, laughing wildly. “You want to see me, Jonah? Then come here and face me, manto-man.”
Barely discernible behind the light, a figure moved into the helicopter’s doorway. There was a second of silence, then Jonah’s voice came through Del’s receiver in a shocked exhalation. “No. It isn’t possible.”
“Take a good look, Jonah,” Simon said. “I want you to know your executioner.” He laughed again. Before the sound had finished echoing from the buildings, he took his gun from Maggie’s neck and aimed at the shadowy figure in the doorway.
The instant Simon moved the gun away from Maggie, Del saw his opening. He didn’t wait for another heartbeat. All the years of training, all the practice and dedication to his craft came together in one concentrated movement. He plunged his right hand beneath his bandage and wrapped his fingers around the grip of his pistol. Gauze tore away as he freed the weapon and swung it toward Simon.
The bullet caught Simon in the right shoulder. He screamed and dropped his gun, staggering backward toward the river.
“Maggie, get down!” Del yelled, sprinting toward her.
Wide-eyed, her cheek spattered with Simon’s blood, Maggie used her free hand to claw at the arm around her throat.
Del sighted his weapon on the run and fired again.
This time, the bullet took off the top of Simon’s ear. He loosened his hold on Maggie and slapped his palm to the side of his head, the backs of his knees hitting the riverside wall.
Maggie broke free. Gasping, crying, she stumbled blindly toward Del.
He wrapped his arms around her and took her to the ground in a modified tackle. Keeping Delilah safely tucked between them, he rolled her beneath him to shelter them both with his body.
From the surrounding rooftops came the crackle of rifle fire.
Simon fell. His body rolled off the top of the low wall and disappeared. Over the whisper of the helicopter and the hiss of the wind from its slowly rotating blades, there was the distant sound of a splash.
Del risked lifting his head to look around.
“Simon is down.” The jubilant shout from one of the marksmen came through Del’s earpiece. “We got him, sir!”
But there was no answering joy from the head of SPEAR. The light that had been trained on Simon winked out. The door of the black helicopter slid shut, securing Jonah within. A heavy silence ticked past. “Find his body,” Jonah ordered. His voice over the radio was hoarse. “Now.”
Powerful outboard motors roared to life. Instantly, the river was lit by the crisscrossing beams of searchlights.
Over the sound of the chase boats and the chatter in his earpiece, Del heard a baby’s indignant wail. He straddled Maggie’s hips and pushed himself up on his knees.
Maggie was lying on her back, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her cheeks streaming with tears as she continued to gasp for breath. Lying across her mother’s chest, Delilah was doing the same.
“Rogers, I need you to—”
But Del didn’t listen to the rest of Jonah’s order. He yanked out his earpiece, peeled off his transmitter and flung them both aside. He tried to pick up Delilah, but Maggie wasn’t letting go of her baby again for anyone. So Del sat up and scooped them both into his arms.
“Oh, Maggie,” he breathed, settling her on his lap. “Maggie.”
The shaking started in her shoulders. It spread to her arms, then her legs, until soon her entire body was trembling violently. She drew in her breath in big, gulping sobs and doubled over to shelter her baby.
Del felt his cheeks grow wet. He’d seen this kind of reaction to trauma before, and he knew what to expect and how to treat it, yet his training seemed irrelevant in the face of Maggie’s emotions. This wonderful, generous, positive, good-natured woman, who had faced and overcome the problems in her life with more courage than anyone he had ever known, was falling apart before his eyes.
He had done this to her, he realized. He had been the cause of this anguish. He had led Simon to her door and into her world. If he really loved her, he would let her go, get out of her life, allow her to find someone else—
No, he thought, tightening his embrace. He wasn’t going to use nobility as an excuse. He wasn’t going to hide behind his duty as a way to keep from risking his heart. She showed him what courage was all about. He wasn’t ever going to let her go.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Del said, rocking her in his embrace. He didn’t even try to check his tears as they fell on her hair. He had come so close to losing her forever, he was through with pretending. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Sirens whined in the distance, drawing closer. Motorboats continued to roar from the river, their waves lapping noisily against the shore. Jonah’s helicopter leaped into the air with a sudden gust from its rotors, carrying the leader of SPEAR into the concealment of the predawn darkness.
Bill jogged toward Del, his rifle slung over his shoulder. “Del!” he called. “Are you all right?”
The amphetamines had worn off several minutes ago. The wound in his arm had opened up again the instant he had taken his gun from the bandage. He had scraped his bare ribs raw when he’d rolled to the ground with Maggie. Yet compared to the soul-deep agony he would have felt if he’d lost her, the discomfort he was feeling was nothing. He nodded and pressed his cheek to Maggie’s head.
“The ambulance is on
its way.” Bill squatted beside them. He touched his fingertips to her shoulder. “Maggie?”
She cried out and flinched away from his touch.
Del blinked against a wave of self-recrimination. She was too emotionally shattered to listen to anyone now. As much as he wanted to come clean about everything, to pledge his love and promise a future, he had to wait. “I’ll ride to the hospital with her.”
“She’ll be okay in time,” Bill said. He handed Del the windbreaker he’d discarded during his confrontation with Simon. “She’s a strong woman.”
Del felt another round of shivering go through Maggie’s small frame. Thank God, it wasn’t as violent as the last. He draped his coat over her back.
“You did great, partner,” Bill said.
“No, I didn’t. I failed.”
“What do you mean? Those two shots were phenomenal. There isn’t another man alive who could have done it.”
“I missed,” Del said.
“No, you didn’t. You wounded Simon twice.”
Del brushed a kiss over Maggie’s curls and lifted his head. An echo of the deep, primal rage he had felt when he had pulled that trigger still burned in his belly. He stared at the spot where Simon had gone over the wall into the river.
For eight years, Del’s record had been unblemished. He had never taken a life in the course of his profession. Tonight, if not for the shaking in his hands, that record would have changed. “Bill,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t trying to wound him.”
Chapter 15
The mind must come equipped with some kind of protective device, Maggie thought, staring at her bedroom ceiling. When things got too much to handle, it simply shut itself down.
She blinked, her eyelids lowering as if in slow motion. The doctors had given her a shot of something to calm her down. When she had first seen them coming at her with the needle, she had practically clawed her way out of the curtained cubicle in the emergency ward. But Del had listened to her hysterical ramblings and had somehow understood her concern. He had made the hospital staff wait until they could contact Maggie’s doctor. Only when Dr. Hendricks had assured Maggie the tranquilizer wouldn’t hurt Delilah through her milk had she permitted them to proceed.
The drug had caused her to slip in and out of sleep, but it hadn’t been strong enough to erase the memory of the previous night’s terror. Whenever snippets of those hours would flash through her brain, her pulse would trip into double time and she wouldn’t be able to catch her breath.
But then she would reach out her hand and touch Delilah, feel her baby’s chest rise and fall while the warmth of the infant’s breath puffed over her wrist, and the terror would slink back into the darkness.
She felt her eyelids do another one of those slow motion blinks as she turned her head on the pillow. Delilah slept peacefully beside her on the bed. Del had known Maggie wasn’t ready to let her out of her sight, so he had made barriers out of rolled blankets and placed the baby safely in the center. Maggie brushed her fingertips over Delilah’s cheek, then looked past her to the man who hadn’t left her side since she had fallen into his arms.
Del had brought one of her kitchen chairs into the bedroom. It was small and uncomfortable, but it was the only one that would fit into the space between the bed and the wall. He hadn’t said much—he must have known her mind had shut down. Instead, he simply sat there and watched over her. From time to time he would rest his hand on her chest to feel her breathing, or brush his fingertips over her cheek, as if he wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight….
He was acting the same way with her as she was with Delilah, as if he needed to reassure himself that she was all right, that the nightmare was over.
If her mind hadn’t shut down, she almost might think Del was acting like a man in love.
Her lips parted in a sigh that bore the hint of a smile as she once more sank into a dreamless, healing sleep.
The next time Maggie awoke, afternoon sunlight was streaming through the bedroom window and Delilah was crying. She pushed herself up on her elbows quickly and looked around the empty bedroom.
Empty. The bedroom was empty. Where was her baby? Where was Del?
Before the budding panic could take hold, Del walked through the doorway with Delilah in his arms. “I’m sorry for taking her,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, but I know you need your sleep.”
Maggie sat back against the headboard and rubbed her face, waiting for her heartbeat to slow to normal.
“I’ve given her a bath and changed her diaper,” Del said. The mattress dipped as he sat beside her. “But as you once told me, there are some things I don’t have the equipment for.”
Maggie lowered her hands and looked at him.
Had he slept at all during the past forty-eight hours? The skin under his eyes looked puffy and bruised, and the lines around his mouth had deepened into furrows. A day’s growth of beard darkened his jaw, and the edge of a bandage peeked out from beneath the short sleeve of his polo shirt.
She couldn’t remember seeing him look more wonderful. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and pull him down beside her and reassure herself that he was really here—
No, wait. Her gaze returned to the bandage. Someone had said that he’d been shot. That was a gunshot wound under there. The fuzzy lethargy that had enveloped her since dawn was gone. In its place, her mind was rapidly filling with memories and emotions and a million unanswered questions.
Delilah let out an impatient squeal and arched toward her mother.
“She’s hungry,” Del said, handing the baby to Maggie.
She settled Delilah in the crook of her arm and reached for the hem of her T-shirt. Then she stopped and looked at Del.
He met her gaze levelly. “I’d like to stay. Would you mind?”
“Del—”
“I promised you an explanation. We got interrupted before. That was my fault. I brought that horror into your life, and there is no apology I can make that would come close to expressing the regret I feel.” He paused, his nostrils flaring as he took a steadying breath. “All I’m asking is a chance to finish what I have to say this time.”
Delilah whimpered restlessly and wetly gummed the front of Maggie’s shirt. Still, Maggie hesitated.
“I don’t blame you for not trusting me, Maggie,” Del said. “But I can’t leave you now.” He stroked the back of Delilah’s head with the edge of his knuckles. “I can’t leave either one of you. Please, don’t ask me to.”
Was that moisture in his eyes due to fatigue? she wondered. Vaguely, she remembered how he had sat with her and watched her, and she remembered what she had thought….
Love. She had thought that he might love her.
But wasn’t that how all this started? Didn’t her dream of having someone to love, of loving Del, lead to this disaster in the first place? Did she want to give him another chance and set herself up to fall flat on her face yet again? Hadn’t she been through enough?
As she looked at the weary, disheveled man who had just bathed and changed her baby, another image superimposed itself in her mind. She saw Del standing alone in the center of that dark, rubble-strewn lot, his chest bare, his arms raised, offering to sacrifice himself in her place.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, shifting as if to stand. “After what I dragged you into, I have no right to expect—”
“Stay, Del,” she said, brushing his sleeve with her free hand. “I don’t feel like waiting any longer to hear your explanations, either.”
He eased down on the edge of the bed and turned to the side to give her a small degree of privacy. “I wish there was an easy way to say this. I’ve spent the past day trying to figure out the best—”
“Just start at the beginning,” she said, lifting her shirt and unfastening one side of her nursing bra. She winced as Delilah, out of patience, latched on with a vengeance. “That’s usually the easiest.”
He braced his elbows on his thighs and dropped his head into
his hands. “I guess you know by now that I’ve been lying to you practically from the day we met.”
She winced again, not from Delilah but from the sharp pang in her heart. Lies. Alan had lied. Until yesterday, she hadn’t wanted to believe that Del could do the same. Still, knowing was better than not knowing, even if it meant Del was a criminal, right?
“I don’t work for an electronics company,” he said. “For the past eight years I’ve been an operative in a top-secret government agency called SPEAR. That stands for Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue. We are highly classified. Only a handful of top bureaucrats even know we exist. I have been stationed in New York in a cooperative attempt to trap a terrorist who goes by the name of Simon. The diner you worked in was around the corner from the surveillance site we had set up across from the UN….”
As he talked, Maggie imagined she heard pieces of a puzzle click into place in her head. The small inconsistencies, the mysterious calls on that cell phone, his reticence when it came to talking about his business, the flashes of cold purpose that occasionally hardened his expression, everything she had tried to rationalize and ignore suddenly made perfect sense. Reality was shifting, aligning itself in a new pattern.
Because of Alan, she had thought Del’s secrecy had to be due to something personal, like a wife or a family somewhere. She had never guessed in her wildest dreams that it could have been due to…to…
“You’re a spy?” she asked.
Del shook his head. “As an agent, my assignments are varied, but my specialty is sharpshooting.”
She lifted Delilah to her shoulder and rubbed her back, her gaze riveted on the enigmatic man who sat beside her. It turned out her very first impression of Del had been more accurate than she could have guessed. Joanne had called him a cowboy, but Maggie had always felt he was more like…a gunslinger.
So now she knew the truth. Del Rogers, the last nice guy in New York, the man who had stolen her heart with his gentle kindness, was actually a secret agent.
Damn, she really knew how to pick them, didn’t she?
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