by Lori Wilde
Without him, she had no hope of eluding the killer. He had saved her, and now she would save him.
Stop thinking like this, she scolded herself. He could be a married man.
He doesn’t wear a wedding ring, Angelina observed.
A lot of guys didn’t wear rings.
He said he’d gotten his heart broken. That means a breakup.
Yeah, it also means he probably still has feelings for her.
You’re here with him now, not her. Go with the flow, Montague.
But the moment had vanished. Thank God. The gentleness evaporated from his eyes, and his macho countenance was back in place.
He dropped his hand and jokingly said, “Got a bullet for me to bite on, Doc?”
“A bullet’s what got you into this fix.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. The bullet was secondary. What got me into this was the cute dark-haired ladybug who showed up on my doorstep batting her big brown eyes and looking for a knight in shining armor.”
He might have thought that he was flirting or paying her a compliment, but he actually pissed her off.
“I was trying to save my own life,” Marlie snapped peevishly. “I certainly wasn’t angling for some good-looking oaf to start following me around and causing me all kinds of problems.”
He laughed. “Channel that anger, Doc. You’re gonna need it.”
Irritated, she twisted open the buttons of his kitschy bloodstained Hawaiian shirt. The sooner they got this over with the better.
Anger steeled her nerves. When she saw the ugly way the assassin’s bullet had split his perfect skin, grazing a shallow trough just under and to the right of his last rib, she was less horrified than she might have been, even though she had to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from gasping.
The bullet had passed completely through, leaving the injury raw and jagged and scary-looking, but his bare-chested, beefcake days were far from behind him.
What now? She looked to Joel.
“Sew me up.”
“You want me to stitch your wound?”
“Needs closin’.”
“I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“You can hot-wire a car, you can do this.”
“Yes, but I researched that. I’ve never researched wound suturing.”
“Ever sewn a button on a shirt?”
“Yes.”
“Good enough.”
She hissed her breath in through clenched teeth. “It’s gonna leave a scar.”
He winked. “It’ll get me sympathy from the ladies.”
Marlie frowned. She didn’t want other women giving him sympathy.
Oooh, Angelina said in a teasing singsong, you’re jealous. You want him as your boyfriend. Marlie and Joel sitting in a tree . . .
Shut up.
She opened the first-aid kit. It was the most extensive one she’d ever seen, containing a suture kit, sterile drapes, gauze bandages, hydrogen peroxide, a scalpel, Betadine sticks, antibiotic ointment, a bottle of penicillin, and a second one of Vicodin.
“You could do surgery with these supplies. Is this some special Navy SEAL first-aid kit?”
“Yeah.”
She opened both vials of pills, took out one each of the antibiotic and painkiller, and handed them to him. “I know you probably shouldn’t wash the Vicodin down with whiskey, but this is going to hurt like hell so go ahead.”
“I know,” he said, took the proffered pills, and downed them with one long swallow from his flask. “Okay, ready. Go to it.”
“Shouldn’t we let the pain pill take effect first?” she asked, hoping to put off the inevitable for a little while longer.
“The whiskey has a pretty good head start. Fire away.” He nodded.
Opening one of the blue drapes from the first-aid kit, she then unfolded it and tucked it between his torso and the duvet. She struggled not to notice what an exceptionally fine body he possessed. She ignored the studly ripple of his six-pack. She denied that his navel was actually the most perfect creation ever bestowed upon any man. She disregarded the dark swirl of hair that extended down from that heavenly navel to disappear beyond the waistband of his jeans.
“This is going to sting.” She liberally poured hydrogen peroxide over the wound.
Joel sucked in his breath, but that was the only sound he made.
The wound effervesced as the peroxide cleaned out the dried blood. When the bubbles abated, Marlie tilted her head, trying to see better in the limited lighting from the bedside lamp. Gently, she took a gauze pad and patted the wound dry. It was ready to be stitched. Nervously, she opened the suture kit. Luckily, the thread was already attached to the needle.
For a better angle, she knelt on the floor beside the bed. “Scooch to the edge.”
He complied.
“Here goes nothing. Brace yourself.” Tentatively, she pushed the needle through his skin.
Joel grunted.
She stopped. “I’m hurting you.”
“I can take it. Go on.”
Muscles tensed, Marlie proceeded with her grim task. Joel took another slug off the flask. She felt so guilty. It was because of her that he’d been hurt.
“Got a question for you,” he said a few minutes later. He sounded tipsy.
“Uh-huh?”
“What’s with all the black and white?”
Marlie frowned and looked up at him.
His eyes gleamed.
“Excuse me?”
“Your clothes. Your house. Your car. Everything you own is black and white. Where’s the color? Where’s the zip? Where’s the joie de vivre?”
She shrugged off his comment even though it bothered her. “I like black and white.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just my preference.”
“But why?”
“You sound like a three-year-old.”
“Black and white feels secure to you,” he said, answering his own question. “People are less likely to notice you when you wear black and white. You use it to hide out.”
“You’re wrong. I like black and white because there’s no ambiguity about it. It’s either one or the other.”
“Is this because you believe the world is made up of morally ambiguous people?”
“There’s no believing to it. The world is made up of morally ambiguous people.”
“The world is made of flawed human beings.”
“Same thing.”
“So what color of human being am I?”
“Red,” she said immediately. “Startlingly hot fire engine red.”
“I’ll go along with that,” he said. “Red’s a power color. So what hue would you be if you couldn’t pick black or white?”
It was a silly question, but it did give her pause.
“Something quiet and deep. Forest green, I suppose. Natural. Earthy.”
“No.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t fit you at all.”
“Okay, Calvin Klein. What color would you say fits me?”
“Pink,” he said decisively. “Sweet, wholesome double-bubble pink.”
“Gak!” Marlie exclaimed. “Is that how you see me? As a five-year-old?”
“Not at all. I see you as a ripe, lush feminine woman.”
“What do you see your wife as?” She hadn’t meant to say it. The words just slipped out.
Liar, Angelina accused.
“Ex-wife,” he corrected.
Her heart fluttered hopefully. How stupid. “What’s her color?”
“Most definitely scarlet.”
“Two reds.”
“Terrible combo,” he said. “Too much color.”
“What happened to ruin your marriage?”
Don’t ask this stuff. Why are you asking this stuff? It’s just going to make you miserable.
He didn’t say anything for the longest time. Marlie kept sewing, kept her eyes trained on her work. If he hadn’t been plied with whiskey and Vicodin, she doubted
if he would have answered her at all.
“She married me to get back at her father,” he said.
“Why did you marry her?”
He laughed, but it was a dry, mirthless sound. “She was the opposite of my mother.”
Marlie didn’t say anything. She wanted him to keep talking, and she feared that if she commented, he would shut down. Although she couldn’t say for sure why she wanted to hear this.
“My mother is one of those dependent women who can’t survive without a guy, but she’s attracted to these hard-ass types who treat her badly.”
“Those bullying stepfathers you spoke of.”
“Yeah.”
It was difficult to visualize anyone bullying this powerhouse of a man. But he hadn’t always been a man. The thought of Joel as a kid vulnerable to oppressive adults tugged at her heartstrings.
“Treeni, that’s my ex, she’s tough. She didn’t need any man. Her biggest dream was to be a Navy SEAL, but women aren’t allowed. So she became a spy for ONI and married a SEAL instead. And spent the duration of our six-month marriage trying to show me up.”
“So what ended things?” Marlie dared.
He didn’t answer. Okay. She’d pushed too far. She understood. She didn’t offer up her private life for just any and every one either. She kept stitching his wound, watching his chest rise and fall.
“We were sent to Iraq together,” Joel said finally. “On the same detail, but we were assigned to different units. Our mission was to find weapons of mass destruction.”
Marlie made encouraging “Go on” noises, but she kept her eyes down, not wanting to distract him from his story or make a mistake with her suturing.
“Treeni was determined to beat me to the punch and find those weapons. While I followed the more traditional methods of information gathering, Treeni used her training as a spy.”
Marlie felt his muscles tense beneath her fingers, and she knew he’d arrived at the difficult part of his story.
“Following a hunch, I drove to the site where I believed that a cache of missiles was hidden in an underground bunker and discovered that Treeni had beaten me to the spot. There was a time bomb attached to one of the missiles, and she was in the middle of defusing it.”
He swallowed. The sound was dry and raspy in the quietness of the room. “She told me to leave, but of course I refused. I didn’t care who got credit for finding and defusing the damned missiles. I wasn’t going to leave her alone out there in the desert. But she was determined to claim victory. She told me how she’d found out about the cache. She’d slept with one of Saddam Hussein’s top-ranking officers in exchange for the information.” Joel’s voice broke.
Marlie’s heart twisted and tears misted her eyes. She was touched beyond measure that he’d shared this with her. Even if he was a little drunk, it had taken a great deal of courage to confess this. He gave off energy as sad as her own. What made them so in tune with each other? They were strangers, but she needed this intimacy that was growing deeper with every word he spoke.
“Shhh,” she said. Her rational mind wanted to stop the burgeoning connection, but her heart begged him to keep talking. “You don’t have to say any more.”
But it seemed, once started on his woeful tale, Joel could not be stopped.
“I walked away. I left Treeni alone in the darkness with the bomb. I let my pride and my pain override concern for her safety.” He drew in a deep breath and paused.
Just when Marlie thought he wasn’t going to tell her, Joel spoke.
“I was two hundred yards away, attempting to radio the bomb squad when the bunker exploded. Treeni’s lover had actually placed two bombs, but she didn’t realize it. She’d just walked away from the first bomb when the second one went off.”
“Oh, my God, Joel.”
“At the very same moment the bomb detonated, a convoy was going by on the road above the bunker. Four Navy SEALs, the men in my unit, were killed. Shrapnel from the bomb struck Treeni on the head and she almost died. And it was all because I let her hurt my feelings. I should never have left her alone. I took the blame. I said I was the one who didn’t follow regulations and defused the bomb on my own rather than following protocol by calling in the bomb squad. I protected her. She filed for divorce once she’d recovered from her injuries.”
“That’s why you got kicked out of the SEALs?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”
Marlie couldn’t begin to imagine how he must have tortured himself over what had happened. He’d paid a very high price for his mistakes.
“Joel,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t need your pity. I just thought if you knew the details it might make you feel better about trusting me.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much for telling me.”
The strange thing was she did feel better. He was a man trying to make amends, and if letting him help her would repair the crack in his soul, how could she refuse his assistance?
“I’m finished,” she said and wrapped up the medical supplies before returning them to the first-aid kit.
He looked down at her handiwork and then raised his eyes to meet her gaze. “You’re amazing.”
“Hang on. I still need to apply a dressing.”
She finished up her work, her mind filled with the story he’d just told her. When Marlie glanced up, she saw that he had fallen asleep and she was glad because she didn’t want him to see her crying for him. For a man who had lost so much and still managed to pretend he didn’t care.
CHAPTER TWELVE
For what seemed like hours, Penelope’s captor led her across the sand. He hadn’t strangled her as she’d feared, but instead used the scarf to blindfold her. She stumbled occasionally, but each and every time he was there to catch her, his hand at her elbow, gently guiding her along.
Who was this man? Where was he taking her? What did he want? She’d posed these questions to him numerous times, but he never answered and eventually she’d given up asking.
She thought once or twice about running, but something in her body language must have given her away, because each time the notion crossed her mind, her subjugator would tighten his grip on her arm and press the nose of his weapon softly against her side, a silent but deadly warning.
The surf roared unusually loud in her ears, her nose inhaling the unique smell of midnight sea, mingling with the scent of the man beside her. It was a hauntingly familiar aroma she could not quite place. It made her feel raw and vulnerable and achy for all that she’d lost.
The loneliness of her life settled over her with relentless vengeance. What more did she have to lose?
Wind buffeted, tossing handfuls of sand at them. The hem of Penelope’s dress billowed against her legs. Her mouth was dry. She was thirsty and hungry and tired.
He stopped suddenly and pulled Penelope up close against him.
Alarmed, she sucked in her breath.
He moved his face against hers, scraping her cheek gently with his whiskers, his evocative smell invading her.
How dare he?
A shiver shot down Penelope’s spine when she realized he’d removed his mask.
She wanted to look him in the eyes and demand to know what she was up against. She reached up for her blindfold with her bound hands, determined to find a way to yank it off, but he was quicker and snatched hold of her wrist before she could reach the scarf.
How was it that he anticipated her every move? It was almost as if he knew her every thought.
His breathing was as rapid and raspy as her own.
“Dammit,” Penelope cried. “Who are you? What do you want? Who sent you? Speak to me. I deserve an answer.”
But he uttered not a word, only grunted and tugged her away from the water.
Where was he taking her?
She fought, batting at his chest with her bound fists. Unaffected, he dragged her forward. Rusty hinges creaked. She heard a heavy metal door being swung open. In
her blindness, the sound escalated her fear.
As did the cool, musty-smelling air that rushed out to skim her skin.
He pulled her after him, down, down, down. They splashed through ankle-high water. Her elbow grazed the side of a wall.
Cement.
He was taking her underground. She thought wildly, crazily, Phantom of the Opera.
She heard skittering noises and high-pitched, irritated squeaks. Her stomach roiled. Rats. It had to be rats. Panic wrapped around her heart. What was this place? Was she to die here? Was this to be her tomb?
The last fifteen years had culminated in this moment. She’d made a grave mistake back then, giving up hope too easily, not fighting back. Balking, Penelope stopped, dug her heels into the cobblestone floor. “No, no, I won’t go.”
She battled him. Pushing, hitting, biting, whatever it took to survive.
He did not fight back. He let her do her worst and when she was played out, too weary and spent to struggle any longer, he tenderly but firmly pressed two fingers against the carotid artery in her neck until Penelope slipped into oblivious darkness.
Gathering up Joel’s shirt from the bed, Marlie went in search of a washer and dryer. She needed clean clothes, she needed a shower, and she needed to think.
She found the laundry room at the end of the hall, shucked out of her clothes, treated the bloodstain on Joel’s shirt with hydrogen peroxide, and stuffed all their laundry into the same load to wash in cold water. Stark naked, she padded back down the hallway to the bathroom adjoining the bedroom where Joel slept, stopping just long enough to snag her purse up from the floor where she’d left it.
Flicking on the bathroom’s overhead light, she came face-to-face with her reflection in the mirror. Her color was pale, the lipstick she’d slapped on hours earlier was long gone, and there were traces of soot on her neck from the fire.
And was that stubble burn on her mouth?
Marlie lightly fingered her lips. She thought of how Joel had given her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to save her life and then later, kissed her in the Durango to give meaning to the life he’d just saved.
She felt thrilled and stunned and in equal portions both powerful and overwhelmed. She was unable to make sense of her world and what was happening to her. Why was she having these kinds of feelings for Joel? And how did she stop them before things got out of hand?