“No!”
Kane hardly knew what got to him more, the accusation or the denial. He moved forward a quick step, intent on drawing Berry’s fire toward himself again. “Could be she’s sick of both of us and looking out for herself for a change. You thought of that?”
“Yeah, sure, like a cheap whore,” Berry said as he wheeled in Kane’s direction.
Kane lunged the instant the pistol’s aim cleared Regina. His fist connected in a hard right to the chin with every ounce of his outrage and power behind it.
Berry fell backward into the hall. He hit the floor on his backside. A sharp report rang out and the gun in his hand spat a red streak.
Something tugged at Kane’s waistline, spun him around. Then Luke was hurtling past him, flinging himself on Berry. Luke ripped the weapon from the other man’s fist and laid it alongside his head in a short, hard rap. Berry went still. Crouching over him, Luke looked up at Kane with his face set in taut concern.
Kane knew what his cousin was asking. He was hit; he could feel a numb spot along his side and the creep of warm wetness at his waistline above the belt. Berry’s handgun must have been small caliber, however, for he didn’t think the damage was major. Anyway, there was no time to think about it, much less discuss it. The sound of the shot could bring more company down on them than they wanted or needed.
He stooped to pick up the backpack with the boy’s clothes that he’d dropped, then clamped it against his side to help conceal and control the bleeding. Grabbing Regina’s elbow to make sure she kept close, he jerked his head at Luke. “Let’s get out of here.”
The trip to the airport seemed to take forever, the preflight checks and preparation longer still. Finally, they were airborne, climbing high into the night sky. They rose through a fluffy cotton mattress of clouds, then banked in a sweeping curve that would take them on a southern course. At last, they leveled off. Kane leaned back in the copilot’s seat and closed his eyes.
His side hurt like hell, now that the feeling was returning. At the same time, he felt out of it, as if he could drift off into something like bone-deep sleep if he let go. It seemed like a fine idea.
No. Mustn’t. He had to stay awake and help Luke. Had to get Regina home. He had to find out if the boy—what was his name? Stephan. Yes—had to find out if Stephan was all right.
Hands touched him, shaking him. A competent palm was pressed to his forehead as if searching for fever. When was the last time anyone had done that for him? He couldn’t remember, but he thought it must have been when he was thirteen and had the flu.
“Kane? Kane, wake up!”
It was Regina, her hands, her voice. Both were cool yet urgent. He liked that. He pried his eyes open and was vaguely surprised at the effort it took.
She was leaning over him, trying to unfasten his seat belt. He searched her face that was so close, willing her to meet his eyes. When she did, he found he preferred staring into their intriguing hazel depths instead of speaking.
“You’re bleeding,” she said as if he were committing a terrible crime.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you say something, for heaven’s sake? What were you doing being such a macho martyr?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Oh, sure. Just a scratch, I suppose. Who do you think you are, Eastwood and Stallone rolled into one?”
He grinned, couldn’t help it. “Why are you so mad? I’m the one who got shot.”
“Because you’ve got blood all over Stephan’s clothes, you jerk,” she answered, dragging the sodden backpack away from his side, refusing to meet his gaze again. “Come on, get up and let’s go to the back so I can do something about whatever hole you’ve got in you.”
Luke, frowning as he glanced away from the plane’s controls, said to her, “First-aid kit’s in one of the bins. Should be some sizable bandages in it.”
She nodded her thanks, then leaned down to remove Kane’s seat belt. “Come on, get up,” she insisted as she lifted his arm and put it around her neck. “I can’t move you by myself, though I’ll help all I can.”
He let her take a part of his weight, not because he couldn’t make it by himself, but because it was irresistible. He wanted to see how far her care would go. He was also curious to know what drove it, whether gratitude or guilt, simple human kindness or something that he could give no name.
Her hands were gentle as she helped him out of his light jacket. She frowned and sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she saw the gory sight he presented under it, but reached at once for the buttons of his shirt. Briefly, he was reminded of the night before, when he had forced her to undress him. It almost seemed that this repeat under far different circumstances was a suitable punishment for that crime.
“Why didn’t you tell someone about this before we took off?” she asked in a strained undertone. “You need more than a bandage. You need a good doctor.”
“We could have wound up spending the rest of the night in an emergency room and all day tomorrow at a police station after the doctor filed his gunshot-wound report. No thanks.”
“You’d rather bleed to death first?”
“I’d rather you stopped fussing as if I were no older than Stephan and just fixed me up.”
She gave him an incensed look. “I’m trying!”
She was, though he saw her shiver and turn pale as she looked closely at the bloody mess of his wound. Still, she didn’t balk at tending him, only swallowed hard, then set to work. But her hair that brushed his arm set him on fire, and the clean, fresh scent of her had an effect on his senses like twelve-year-old bourbon. His side ached and he felt dizzy, yet all he could think of was pulling her down on his lap in the female superior position and seeing how much of him she would take, how deep inside her he could get, before he passed out.
He was losing it. Moistening his lips that seemed far too dry, he said, “I don’t suppose there’s any orange juice or cold drinks on board?”
“Orange juice?”
“I need the sugar for glucose, to counter blood loss.”
She gave him a swift, appraising glance, then pushed abruptly to her feet. “I’ll see.”
The juice was sweet and cold and hit his system like a blood transfusion. He downed the whole can and asked for another. Afterward, he was able to stay awake while she peeled his sticky wet shirt away from the wound. She wouldn’t try cleaning it, she said, because the long gouge had almost stopped bleeding and she didn’t want to start it again.
Kane was just as happy. His family doctor, a man as old as Pops and twice as discreet, would see to him when he got home. He told her so, and it seemed to satisfy her. She strapped him up in a couple of gauze pads, two whole rolls of bandaging, and a few metal hooks. When she was through, he felt as if he was wearing a corset that barely allowed him to breathe, but had conquered both his queasiness and peculiar sexual impulses.
Regina disappeared into the rest room, presumably to wash his blood from her hands. When she came back, she draped a blanket around his shoulders, then sat down in the seat beside him. Folding her hands like a prim child, she looked at him for long moments with pained regret in her eyes. Finally, she said, “I’m so sorry you were hurt because of what I asked you to do. I’d never have asked you if I’d known this would happen.”
“You weren’t the one who took it for granted Berry wouldn’t be around just because his lawyers said so.” He kept the words light, hoping she’d let it drop.
“I could have told you he carried a pocket pistol.”
Kane lay with his head resting on the back of the seat, observing in fascination the shift of color under her pale skin. “It might have been nice to know, but it wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
“Maybe, but I still feel terrible.” She looked down at her hands and her voice was compressed as she went on, “I can’t thank you enough for what you did, getting Stephan out of there for me. You had your reasons, I know. Still, I’m more grateful than I can say. If there’
s any way I can repay you, you have only to ask.”
Weariness hit him like a hard right to the heart. He didn’t know why the few words she’d spoken should affect him that way, but they did. Maybe he was weaker than he knew. His voice toneless, he asked, “What are you suggesting, Regina?”
“Whatever you like.” She gave a small, helpless shrug. “I owe you so much that—”
“You owe me nothing.” The fans of her lashes were like rust-and-gold moths, shadow fine against her skin. He wanted to touch them, to run the edge of his tongue along them, more than he’d wanted anything in a long time.
“But I do. Without you, I would never have seen Stephan again, at least not without knuckling under to Gervis and doing exactly as he wanted. You were hurt, might even have been killed, because of me.” She looked up with rose color flaring across her cheekbones. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make it up to you.”
“No.” It was the hardest word he’d ever spoken, but also the most necessary.
“No?” Her glance was shadowed, hesitant. “But you said the other night that you expected it. You seemed to want—”
“No. Not now, not ever again. I didn’t go after your son for the sake of having you in my bed. I went to make up to you for what I did to you, for what I took from you.”
Speaking so softly he had to strain to hear, she said, “You didn’t take anything I wasn’t ready to give.”
He stopped breathing, almost forgot to start again. He wondered how much it had cost her to make that simple statement and exactly what it meant. Asking didn’t seem like a good idea, however; he preferred to keep a few illusions. “Good try,” he said in wry salute, “but I know differently.”
She lifted her chin as she stared at him. He held her gaze, wondering if his own was as hard to read. He thought it must be, for it felt stiff and unnatural, like a mask to hide his doubt and pain.
“I’d still like to do something, somehow, to repay you,” she said after a long moment.
He closed his eyes, resisting the urge to squeeze them tight. “Forget it. I don’t have much use for sacrificial lambs.”
The plane vibrated, cushioned on air and nothing else, as it held its course in the dark, star-spangled night. The engines made a deep, steady roar. After a long, long time, she replied in toneless understanding, “No, I don’t suppose you do.”
18
Sacrificial lamb.
The phrase came back to Regina again and again in the hours that followed. It was with her as the plane finally landed at the airstrip outside Turn-Coupe. She couldn’t get it out of her mind as she lost an argument with Kane over whether she and Stephan were going to the motel or continuing on with him and Luke to let the doctor look at Stephan at Hallowed Ground. It echoed in her thoughts while they all, including Mr. Lewis, waited for the doctor to arrive.
Was that really how Kane saw her? Did he think she had endured the love they’d made with gritted teeth? She had meant to, had thought it would be necessary at first. It hadn’t turned out that way.
Kane had freed her from her crippling fears and taught her the sweet, untrammeled pleasure of loving. She would never forget that. At the same time, she never expected to find another man she could ever trust in the same way, never expected to love again.
She loved him.
She loved him, and it wasn’t about sex or gratitude for what he had done, or even because he had risked so much for her sake and been hurt in the process. She loved him for all the things he was, for his strength and sense of right, for his bone-deep honor and his attachment to the place he lived, for the way he protected his grandfather and stood steadfast with his family and his friends against the things that threatened them. She loved the way he smiled and the way he frowned, the way he touched her and held her, and even the way he didn’t do it when he felt it wasn’t right. And more, so much more.
How had it happened with all that lay between them? She didn’t know. It was simply there, a bedrock certainty in the hidden center of her heart.
It seemed impossible that he couldn’t see. She had been so afraid that he would. If he thought it had been a sacrifice for her to be with him, however, then he could have no idea.
The urge to tell him the truth hovered inside her. She didn’t dare risk it. That would be to presume it mattered. It could also force him to tell her that he didn’t care for her at all. She didn’t think she could stand that just now, wasn’t sure she could ever face that particular truth.
Stephan, curled up in an overstuffed chair, began to stir as he tried to wake. He whimpered, and she went to him at once and gathered him in her arms. He opened his eyes, stared into her face for long seconds, then his sweet, joyful smile spread over his face.
“Mama.”
The amazed happiness in the single word shredded her heart and filled her eyes with tears of love and grief for all he had been through and anguish that she had let it happen. Beneath them burned a fierce resolve that nothing and no one would ever touch him again. “I’m here,” she whispered against the silk of his hair. “I’m here, and I’ll never, ever leave you.”
Kane, lying on the sofa across from her, turned his head toward where she sat. His movement drew her attention and she met his dark gaze over her son’s head. There was a suspended look on Kane’s face, as if he was struggling with some conclusion that didn’t sit particularly well with him. He glanced at Luke, who lounged, face impassive and long legs stretched out before him, in an armchair between them. For an irrational moment, she thought he seemed impatient, as if he wished they were alone.
“Regina—” he began.
The chiming of the doorbell interrupted him. Mr. Lewis, who had been waiting in the long entrance hall for the doctor, ushered his friend into the room. The moment passed.
The elderly physician was introduced as Dr. Tom Watkins. He grumbled from the moment he set foot in the house, a rumbling and irascible undertone that carried as much caring as it did complaint. After a cursory examination, he informed Kane that he’d have to give him something for pain while he explored the wound and cleaned it thoroughly, then stitched it closed. The surgery would be better performed under sterile conditions, but since Kane had been dumb enough to get himself shot, then he’d have to risk the infection. Seeing as how he, Dr. Watkins, was about ready to retire, he was more than willing to “forget” to inform the authorities that he’d treated a gunshot wound, but there was no way to keep the thing secret if they went through the hospital. And he’d thank Kane to follow his grandpa’s example and heal quick as he was able, not go fretting himself into a high fever that required some danged young emergency room intern to ruin all his good work.
Kane insisted that Stephan be looked after before the doctor set to work on him. Regina’s son was pronounced healthy except for the lingering effect of some potent tranquilizer. There should be no lasting harm, Doc Watkins said, ruffling the boy’s soft hair. Fluids, food, and a watchful eye until the drug wore off were the only recommendations. If Stephan seemed inclined to fall asleep again, it would likely be the result of long-term stress as much as the drug. In that case, they weren’t to fret, but just let the boy be, let him rest.
Turning to Kane then, the elderly physician ordered him to find a bed to use for the necessary procedures and get in it. Mr. Lewis offered his own downstairs bedroom, and Luke gave the patient a shoulder to lean on as he headed in that direction. Regina offered to help, but was refused with gruff kindness and then barred from the makeshift surgical center by a firmly closed door.
She concentrated instead on Stephan, who roused from his tranquilized stupor by rapid degrees. He claimed to be hungry and followed Dora into the kitchen to watch with intent interest while she stirred up a batch of pancakes and put them on the table. He also had a million questions to ask, as if he had bottled up the need to talk for months and was now letting it all pour out. Eyes bright with curiosity, waving a fork on which he had speared a huge bite of pancake dripping with butter and syr
up, he fired off salvo after salvo as fast as he could get them out. He not only demanded to know exactly where they were and how they got there, but seemed determined to extract every particle of information anyone could give him about the wonders of Hallowed Ground. Exhausting Regina’s scanty knowledge in short order, he turned to Dora. He soon had the dour housekeeper laughing, telling him stories, and promising to take him to see the new litter of kittens in the old carriage house by the back garden, kittens sired by Mr. Lewis’s cat, Samson.
Stephan rushed through the rest of his meal, then turned to Regina and asked to be excused in the careful way that he’d been taught. When she agreed, he swung to Dora, his expression expectant yet doubtful as he asked, “May I see the kittens now, please?”
The housekeeper raised an inquiring brow in Regina’s direction. She nodded at once, but couldn’t control the grief that rose inside her as she realized how restricted, how endlessly corrected and controlled, her son had been to make him so terribly polite or doubtful about such a simple pleasure.
The housekeeper’s gaze held compassion as she met Regina’s eyes. “Don’t you worry, honey,” she said as she took off her chef’s apron and tossed it over the back of a chair. “I’ll take good care of him.”
“I know,” Regina said over the lump in her throat. The housekeeper had carefully avoided mentioning the fact that she’d had to wash the bloodstains from Stephan’s clothes before he could wear them. They both knew it was a detail from which he needed to be protected.
“It’ll be all right, you’ll see,” Dora said. “This boy stays around here, we’ll have him running and ripping in no time.”
It was all Regina could do to retain her smile as the housekeeper handed her son a napkin to wipe his milk mustache, then took his hand and led him away. Stephan would not be staying long enough for the running and ripping. There was nothing for either of them at Hallowed Ground or in Turn-Coupe.
Kane Page 26