REILLY'S RETURN

by Amelia Autin

  Gun in hand, Reilly sprinted toward Mandy, pulling her to her feet. "Run!" he shouted, pushing her behind him, shielding her from the barrage of gunfire he expected to explode from the truck any second.

  Instead, half a dozen men, faces blackened and with guns drawn, swarmed out of the back. "Federal marshals," barked the nearest man, flashing a badge when Reilly drew a bead on him.

  "It's okay, Callahan," called another, the driver of the truck. "We're the good guys."

  Reilly's eyes widened as he recognized Trace McKinnon beneath the camouflaging paint, but he didn't lower his guard just yet. "What took you so long?"

  "We picked up Walsh ten minutes ago," McKinnon explained. "And there was the little matter of defusing the nasty surprise Pennington had cooked up for you. Is that him over there?"

  "It's him, all right," confirmed a third man, kicking Pennington's weapons out of reach, then kneeling beside him and feeling for a pulse that was no longer there. "He's dead."

  Reilly blinked. The man kneeling beside Pennington needed no artificial blacking to cloak his face for night maneuvers, and Reilly recognized him, too, But Nick D'Arcy didn't handle field assignments anymore. What the hell was he doing here?

  Reilly asked the question out loud, not bothering to hide his suspicion, and without even looking up D'Arcy said, "After Walker called, I decided I wasn't trusting this assignment to anyone else, and it's a damn good thing, too."

  D'Arcy slipped a thin rubber glove over one hand, grasped the haft of the knife buried in Pennington's back, and pulled. The knife's six-inch blade slid out of the body with a sickening sound, accompanied by a small gush of blood, and Mandy gasped.

  That was when Reilly realized she hadn't run when he'd told her to. He turned and swept an arm around her, pressing her face against his shoulder. Over her head, his eyes flew from the familiar-looking knife in D'Arcy's hand to the direction it had come from earlier. Walker stood there, half in shadow, clinging to the corner of the building, his face paper-white.

  "McKinnon!" Reilly yelled, quickly locating the man and jerking his head toward Walker. McKinnon reached Walker's side just in time to catch him as he fell.

  Events moved swiftly after that. D'Arcy radioed instructions, then briefed Reilly while McKinnon and Mandy did what they could for Walker. It seemed no time at all before a medevac chopper was landing on the other side of the fence, then lifting off for Sheridan carrying Walker, in stable condition, and Pennington's body.

  When the chopper banked hard and whirled off into the darkness, Mandy's weary eyes followed it for a moment. Then she turned back toward Reilly. "Hold me," she pleaded. He held out his arms and she walked into his embrace.

  She clung to him in silence for several minutes, and he was content to just stand there holding her. Both were oblivious to the bustle around them as the marshals continued their thorough search of each of the buildings in the enclosure.

  When Mandy finally raised her head, her expression held joy and wonder in equal parts. "You're alive," she breathed, touching his face as if she still couldn't quite believe it. "I was so afraid I was going to have to watch you die again, but you're alive."

  "Yeah," he said, with a husky catch in his throat. "Thanks to you and Walker."

  Her face clouded up with remorse. "Thank God I didn't kill Cody," she said. "I thought for sure I had."

  Another voice broke in on their conversation. "It would take more than a bullet in the shoulder to kill Cody Walker," Nick D'Arcy said. "He's one tough SOB." The way he said it, the crude appellation was a token of admiration and respect.

  "Listen," he continued. "We've just about wrapped things up here, but we'll need official statements from both of you." He noted Mandy's weariness and Reilly's protective stance, then amended, "I guess it won't hurt to wait until tomorrow. I've got a command post set up in Sheridan. Here's the address," he said, scribbling furiously on a pad of paper, then tearing off the sheet and handing it to Reilly. "I'll expect both of you there by ten."

  Mandy waited until D'Arcy had rejoined his men, then looked up at Reilly. "You know," she said, brushing her wind-tangled hair away from her face with complete disregard for her appearance. "You still haven't explained what happened here."

  Reilly snorted. "That's just what I was going to ask you. I know Walker and I weren't playing the scene the way we planned last night, but what made you shoot him?"

  "When I saw him raise his gun, I thought he was going to kill you."

  "I figured that out already. But why? And while we're on the subject, how about explaining what you were doing here in the first place."

  "All those guns," she said obscurely. "And plastic explosives. I had to warn you."

  "You want to run that by me again?"

  Mandy sighed. "I found guns and plastic explosives underneath Cody's cabin earlier. I wasn't sure what to believe, but all I could think of was that he must he a member of the New World Militia. All the pieces seemed to fit. And if he was leading you into a trap…"

  "Oh, hell," Reilly said without heat, rubbing a hand over his face.

  "What? What is it?"

  He looked down at her. "You're not going to like this."

  "Just tell me, whatever it is."

  He took a deep breath. "Walker's been working undercover for the past four years, ever since he was first recruited by the militia," he said, then waited for the explosion.

  "What?" Mandy's astonishment soon turned to narrow-eyed displeasure, and she leaned back a little to glare at him.

  "That was the other reason why I moved to Black Rock in the first place," he added quickly, hoping to distract her. "It was D'Arcy's idea. He figured if Pennington tracked me out here, at the very least Walker would hear about it and be able to warn me in time to escape. It was a bonus that Pennington assigned Walker the job of getting rid of me last year."

  Her glare became even more pronounced. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  Reilly winced. "It wasn't my secret to tell—it was Walker's."

  "Don't give me that," she said, treating his weak defense with the disdain it deserved. "That's the last time—the last time, you hear?—that you keep a secret from me. I want your word on it."

  Reilly pulled her closer, then bent and surprised her with a kiss. "I'll have them put it into our wedding vows," he assured her.

  "I mean it," she declared. "I want your promise and I want it—" She stopped abruptly, the lines of her face softening in vulnerability. "What did you just say?"

  Her reaction was better than he'd hoped for, and he smiled down at her. "I said I'll have them put it into our wedding vows."

  "We're getting married." She seemed dazed by the realization, and her voice trembled a little. "Yes," she said softly, her eyes shining now as if lit from within. "We're getting married."

  Then her inner glow dimmed, and as he watched, a somber, almost wistful expression crept over her face. "But—" she started, then cut off the rest, appearing to be wrestling with some inner dilemma for a moment.

  "Mandy?"

  She shrugged off whatever was bothering her. "Yes," she repeated. "Of course."

  Her quick smile might have fooled someone who didn't know her, but not Reilly. He lifted her chin so she had to look him in the eye. "What's wrong, darlin'?"

  She shook her head. "It's nothing."

  Reilly thought he understood, and could have kicked himself. "I'm sorry, Mandy. That wasn't very romantic, was it?" He shifted self-consciously and gave a rueful laugh. "My only excuse is that I've never asked anyone to marry me before, and it just sort of … slipped out that way."

  She cupped his cheek, her eyes glistening all of a sudden. "It was romantic," she insisted. "You have nothing to apologize for." She blinked away the tears, then added, "As a matter of fact, it's the other way around."

  "What is?"

  "I'm the one who owes you an apology. I promised myself earlier I'd do it the first chance I had. If I had the chance. But I think I'm too tired to apologize properly."r />
  "Apologize? What for?"

  A couple of marshals passed them, and Mandy glanced around. Others were headed their way, and she shook her head again. "Not here."

  "Where, then? Walker's cabin?"

  "No, not yet." She looked off into the distance for a moment, as if she could see beyond the darkness, and breathed deeply. Then, with a wistfulness that pierced what few defenses he had left, she said, "Take me home, Reilly."

  "Mandy, no." He didn't want her to see what he'd seen the other day, didn't want her to be reminded of everything she'd lost. Not tonight. "It's late. You're worn out. And there's nothing there anymore."

  "I know." Her expression held understanding. "I know it's late, and we're both tired, and it's a long drive back and we have to get up early tomorrow. I know all of that. But I still want to go home, even if it's just for a few minutes." Her eyes beseeched him. "Please, Reilly. Please take me home."

  * * *

  Reilly surveyed the charred ruins of Mandy's house in the pale light of a half-hidden moon. There was an almost ghostly quality about it, with the few timbers still standing reflecting what moonlight there was with the silvery-gray luminescence of a black pearl.

  With all his heart he wished he hadn't brought her here. Just knowing about the destruction was bad enough. Seeing it was worse. It was a sad end for the house that had sheltered her and her family for almost a hundred years, and he wondered what was going through her mind as she stood there, lost in thought. She hadn't said a word since their arrival, and her silence weighed heavy on him.

  "We were lucky to get out alive," he said eventually, unable to bear the silence any longer.

  "No," Mandy answered softly. "Not lucky. Blessed." She turned toward him. "And not just that night, but tonight, too. And every day in between. When I think what could have happened, losing my home seems a relatively small price to pay."

  He held out his hand, needing the physical contact with her, and she twined her fingers with his. "So you don't blame me anymore?"

  "No, I don't blame you for anything anymore," she said, squeezing his hand reassuringly. Her eyes, though rimmed with the signs of fatigue, were clear and unshadowed. "That's what I wanted to apologize for. I judged you harshly in the past, and I'm sorry. I didn't understand. But now I do."

  Reilly suspected there was a lot she wasn't telling him, but decided further explanations could wait for another time, when she wasn't so worn out.

  "Come on," he said, putting his arm around her and leading her unresistingly toward his truck. "What you need right now is sleep. And so do I."

  At the last minute Mandy turned her head for one more view of the wreckage, then tore her eyes away. With false brightness, she said, "I guess there's one good thing about being burned out of house and home—I don't have anything left to pack."

  Reilly frowned. "Pack?" His tired brain wasn't functioning properly anymore. "Where are you going?"

  She threw him a puzzled look. "What do you mean, where am I going? I'm going wherever you're going." When he continued staring at her blankly, she explained patiently, "You said you couldn't stay in Black Rock, so I just wanted to come back home one last time before we moved on. I didn't know if I'd have the chance later."

  The light dawned for him. "Is that why you were upset tonight when I mentioned marriage? Because you thought you'd have to leave Black Rock?" He relaxed and shook his head. "We're not going anywhere."

  "But yesterday you said—"

  "Yesterday Pennington was still alive, and I didn't know who had betrayed me to him." He leaned against the fender and drew her next to him. "About the only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn't Walker—he didn't know I was returning here for you. Only D'Arcy and McKinnon knew that, and if either one of them had been the traitor, Black Rock wouldn't be safe for us."

  "How do you know it wasn't them?"

  "Walker convinced me. He pointed out that D'Arcy and McKinnon knew he was working undercover, knew he'd helped me set up my escape a year ago. But Pennington never knew that, because if he had, the militia would have tried to kill Walker, too. He also reminded me that both men have known where I was ever since then, but Pennington never tracked me down until now.

  "We tested them anyway, just to be on the safe side," he added, running the back of one finger along the delicate curve of her cheek, "because we weren't taking chances with your life. They both passed with flying colors."

  "So who was it? Do you know?"

  He nodded. "D'Arcy told me tonight while you and McKinnon were working on Walker. They traced the leak to some wet-behind-the-ears law clerk in the Justice Department who shot his mouth off to the wrong person. Can you believe it?" He made a sound of mild disgust over the stupidity that had almost cost them their lives.

  "How did this law clerk find out about you?"

  "Remember when I told you the list of suspects had expanded once I found out Pennington was getting a new trial?" he asked. Mandy nodded. "Well, it turns out I was right. The prosecution team panicked, thinking they had no case without me, so D'Arcy was forced to admit I was still alive. It was all supposed to be kept under wraps until I was back in protective custody, but as I said, this kid let it slip. D'Arcy couldn't reach me, but he knew where I was headed, so he sent a couple of his most trusted men to bring me in. One was McKinnon. The other was Larry Brooks."

  "Brooks? But wasn't that the man Pennington said—"

  "Yeah." He shook his head over the irony of it. "Brooks was Pennington's man on the inside, the one who betrayed my whereabouts the last time. He had no idea I was still alive until D'Arcy sent him after me. And from what D'Arcy tells me, it's a good bet Brooks was involved in the attack on us the other night."

  Reilly's expression turned grim. "Brooks and McKinnon were watching your house in shifts," he said, "waiting for me to show up. McKinnon found him after the fire, bound, gagged, and supposedly unconscious, but there were a couple of things that made McKinnon suspicious, and he reported them to D'Arcy. They've been watching Brooks closely ever since, and he finally slipped up tonight."

  Mandy sighed and sagged against Reilly in relief, resting her head against his shoulder. "So it's finally over."

  "Yeah." He stroked her hair absently. "Brooks and Walsh are both in custody, and D'Arcy's fairly confident Brooks, at least, will break under questioning and name names. Even if he doesn't, without Pennington's money and power backing them, it's not very likely the militia will come after me again. So it's really over."

  She sighed again, and the movement made him even more aware of her breasts pressing against his chest through the barriers of their clothing. His pulse speeded up, despite his exhaustion, and his body reacted in other ways, too. But he wasn't surprised.

  Guess I'd have to be six feet under not to react to her, Reilly told himself, and his arms tightened around Mandy as he remembered just how close he'd come to that fate tonight. And what would have been far worse, how close he'd come to losing her.

  "So what happens now?" she asked after a moment.

  He remembered her asking a similar question yesterday, and his response. But everything had changed since then, and he no longer had a ready answer.

  Reilly gazed out over the top of her head toward the burned-out shell that had been Mandy's home, and his, too, for a brief span of time. There was an ache in the region of his heart that he'd refused to recognize before, but now the emotions he'd denied for so long rushed toward him, and he didn't have the strength to resist.

  Mandy had been so proud of this house, not because it belonged to her, but for the heritage it symbolized. She'd recounted its history to him bit by bit over the months he'd known her, often by firelight, and he had vivid memories of watching the play of light and shadow over her emotive face. A natural storyteller, she'd delighted in bringing to life for him the generations of men and women who had lived here, each one leaving something of him or herself behind for the generations yet to come.

  The lonely, rootless orphan i
nside the man without a name had listened intently, and remembered. And yearned to belong.

  This house had stood steadfast as the mountain on which it was built through local uprisings and world wars and everything in between. It had survived blizzards, droughts, forest fires and landslides. But it hadn't survived the advent of one Ryan Patrick Callahan.

  That was the Irish in him talking, Reilly acknowledged, that sort of fatalistic whimsy his father had indulged in on occasion. Strange he should think of that now.

  Cool night air surged into his kings as he breathed deeply. The crisp, clean scent he associated with the mountains was overlaid with faint traces of wood smoke and ashes, and both mingled with the soft, warm fragrance of lilacs and woman that was Mandy's alone, imprinting themselves on his memory. In that moment a lifetime of inchoate dreams and longings coalesced at last, and the answer he'd been searching for suddenly came to him.

  "I know what I want to happen," he said with conviction, and Mandy raised sleepy eyes to his. She blinked at him curiously, as if he'd taken so long to answer she'd forgotten the question she'd asked, and he added, "But it's your decision."

  She blinked again, then smiled, a slow, breathtaking process that raised his physical awareness of her several notches, and tugged at his defenseless heart.

  "No," she said. "It's your decision, whatever it is. As long as we're together, nothing else matters to me."

  "This might," he insisted.

  "Then tell me."

  "I'd like to take a crack at rebuilding that house over there," he said. "If you'll let me." Her eyes widened, but she said nothing. "I know how much it meant to you," he explained. "It meant a lot to me, too, more than you know. More than I knew."

  He paused, wishing he were better at expressing his feelings, hoping that somehow she understood what he wanted to say but had no words for.

  "I can't replace the heirlooms you lost," he continued, "but you still have the memories, the stories to pass on to the next generation. And once we rebuild, we can start fresh. Together we can create memories and heirlooms of our own to leave to our children, and their children after them." Emotion spilled out of his heart, roughening his next words. "Will you do that with me, Mandy? Will you?"