“And he was doing what? While you were switching guns?” the officer asked.
“He had a hard time seeing. Ms. Douglas sprayed him with tear gas after he shot this woman here.”
The officer looked to the others for confirmation.
“He would have killed us all,” Kira said. “He said as much. He’d aimed at Leigh Howard. Mrs. Baker got in the way.”
More officers poured through the door. An ambulance arrived, and paramedics worked on Mrs. Baker first, then the cut on Leigh’s neck.
Max led Kira outside. One officer stopped them.
“We’ll be right outside,” Max said.
“No one leaves the premises.”
Max nodded.
Once outside, he took her in his arms. She started trembling and couldn’t stop, even when he tightened his hold. “Rick is—was—Mrs. Baker’s son, not her nephew.” Max’s eyebrows went up.
“He planned to kill us and blame it on you,” she explained. Her hands trembled. Her entire body trembled. “He was going to kill you, too, and burn the barn.”
His arms went around her. “Shhhh … you’re safe. I never should have let you out of my sight.”
She hesitated, then said, “Mrs. Baker was involved to some extent. She just wanted to scare me off. Unfortunately, Rick had other ideas. He believed he was Ed Westerfield’s son. He thought if he could kill me and blame it on Leigh, then he could step in and claim everything. Then he heard there was something about your background and decided to include you in the mix.”
“And Mrs. Baker?”
“She threw herself in front of Leigh when he fired,” she said softly. “She … did it to save her.”
He was silent, but she saw a muscle move in his cheek. She knew from what he’d said about Mrs. Baker that he’d liked her. That she had been part of his life.
“I don’t think she wanted anyone harmed,” she hurried on. “Just scared. She was trying to protect Leigh. Go and speak to her,” she said, knowing that was what he wanted to do.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“She needs you more. You’re all she has now.”
“I killed her son,” he said, and she heard the numbness in his voice. “And Ed’s?”
“She said not.”
She followed Max back inside to where the paramedics were loading Mrs. Baker onto a stretcher. He stooped down. “Alma,” he said, taking her hand.
The paramedics had inserted a tube and her breathing was harsh, but she reached a hand out and touched his. Her eyes pleaded with him.
“I know,” he said softly.
Kira saw a tenderness deepen his eyes. She’d experienced his gentleness, but this was still another facet of Max Payton. As if he knew exactly the heartache Mrs. Baker felt. “Don’t say anything,” she heard him whisper. “I’m your attorney.”
More police arrived. Leigh and Kira were questioned while Mrs. Baker was loaded into an ambulance.
“I want to go with her,” Leigh said. “She saved my life.”
The paramedic looked at the officer who seemed to be in charge. Chris spoke to both for a moment, and the officer nodded.
He went over to them. “I’m going in the ambulance as well. Leigh needs some attention for the cut. A detective will meet us there.”
Kira was a reporter. She should be jotting down words in her mind, later to be delivered on paper. But she couldn’t. She was stunned by the emotional overload, by the tragedy of a mother, Leigh’s courage, the fear that had not entirely faded.
Her mind was beyond muddled.
Max returned to her side as the ambulance pulled away. Put his arms back around her and held her tight. “For a moment—several moments—I thought I was going to lose you.”
“I have six of my nine lives left.”
“More like five. Not nearly enough with your penchant for trouble.”
“I’ll try to do better.”
A muscle flexed in his cheek. “I love you,” he said, then looked startled that he had said such a thing.
“Good,” she said simply.
He caressed her cheek. Then touched his lips to hers. “My warrior,” he said. “Here I came charging to the rescue and you were well on the way to rescuing yourself.”
“Not really. I hesitated. I couldn’t …” She took a deep breath. “I think you made it just in time. And Leigh was the real heroine. She threw a rake behind him and distracted him.”
“I’ll never mock pepper spray again,” he said.
His arms tightened around her. They felt so good. So right. She was where she belonged. She knew that now. And she knew everything was going to be all right. More than all right.
Chris wouldn’t let go of Leigh’s hand, and that was fine with her. She never wanted to let go again.
Her gaze kept going to Mrs. Baker, who was on the next stretcher. She reached over to her housekeeper. The woman to whom she was now deeply indebted. No matter how this all started, Mrs. Baker had risked her life for Leigh.
Mrs. Baker looked at her through tearstained eyes.
Leigh said softly, “I’ll be waiting for my Mrs. Baker.”
“I wouldn’t … let him hurt you,” Mrs. Baker said.
“I know,” Leigh said.
Chris’s fingers tightened around hers in a strong grip.
“I’m so damned proud of you,” he said, brushing back a strand of hair that had escaped her clasp.
No one had ever said that to her before. But it was a lie.
“I’ve never … been so scared …” She stopped. She had been as scared. Decades ago.
But then she was helpless. And alone.
She looked up into those steady brown eyes and knew that she was neither now.
And never would be again.
38
Kira stepped into Max’s arms just inside her mother’s house. They had been at the police station until 6:00 p.m. While there, she’d called in the story to the newspaper and promised to have a first-person story the next day.
On the way home, she started shivering. She was still shivering. In the past six months, she’d lived with the possibility of her mother’s death. In the last few hours, she’d lived with the possibility of her own.
She had to change clothes before she left for the hospital to see her mother. Hers reeked of gunpowder and blood. And emotionally, she was a wreck, a condition her mother would immediately recognize.
So much to do. She wanted to check with the hospital about her mother, with Chris about Leigh.
But now she just wanted to stay where she was. In Max’s arms. She wanted him to repeat what he’d blurted out in the barn.
Max was not a man to blurt out comments like that.
She looked up at him. “Did you mean what you said in the barn?”
His arms tightened around her. “I always mean what I say.” He leaned down and kissed her. Gentle. Loving. Seeking. Then, finding what he sought, he kissed her harder, almost punishing before he lifted his head. “God, you scared the hell out me.”
He leaned back and searched her face with an intensity that made her blood warm. “When I heard that you had gone to the Westerfield estate, and I knew Rick was probably the one behind the attacks, I nearly lost it. Pedestrians and drivers are probably still in shock from the way I drove out there.”
“Leigh got the worst of it.”
“Knowing you, I doubt that. I think you suffered as much by having to watch. Chris said he told you not to go inside that barn.”
“Rick had a gun at her throat and threatened to kill her then and there. I couldn’t leave her.”
“Most people would.”
She frowned at him. “I don’t think so.”
“You see, love,” he said, “that’s a fundamental problem between us. You’re the perennial optimist and I’m the perennial pessimist.”
There was that word again. Love.
“Maybe we just balance each other,” she said.
Then he kissed her again.
All the fear, all the horror of the last hours faded. Nothing mattered now but his lips playing with hers. The air cracked with electricity. His body was like a furnace and she felt every bit of the heat.
The tenderness of the kiss erupted into the explosiveness she’d always sensed in him. Her mouth opened and his tongue entered her mouth, teasing and searching but still with a tenderness that made her heart sing. His arms drew her hard against him as their tongues played love games of their own.
Her hand went up around his neck, touching the thick dark hair that curled ever so slightly around her fingers.
Her gaze met his and she saw a raw, aching longing in them, a yearning that was only part passion. She felt it in his hands, in his lips, in his possessive arms. Then his eyes closed again, as if he realized he had revealed something private. She closed hers, too, absorbing the almost magical closeness of intimate feelings shared.
Her mouth tightened against his. His body shuddered. His lips left her mouth and moved along the contours of her cheek, hesitating at the corner of her eye. His tongue feathered her cheek, his lips caressing skin now burning at his touch.
“Kira,” he said in a ragged whisper.
Desire ripped through her as his lips moved again, nuzzling her ear, her neck, until she knew nothing but this consuming need for him.
She couldn’t stop a low moan coming from deep in her throat. She’d thought she wanted down and dirty. But this was so much better. An exquisite building of sensations. She shivered with expectation and her hands moved with a fierce tenderness along the side of his neck.
Then, to her shock, he picked her up. She was no lightweight, but he did it easily and carried her into her bedroom. He carefully placed her on the bed, then gently undressed her. As he took off each piece of clothing, he massaged the skin beneath until every part of her was on fire. He was ever so careful about the wound still healing on her side.
She drew a shaky breath, trying to restore calm to a body possessed by a firestorm. Raw lust charged through her, and she put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer until her body strained against his. She felt his arousal and reveled in his soft moan.
Not enough. She wanted more. She withdrew her arms and started unbuttoning his shirt. He unzipped his slacks. Finally he was down to a pair of dark blue briefs. He left her for a second, slipping off his briefs and taking a package from a pocket in his slacks.
He sat down as she lay on her side, watching him. He ran his fingers through her hair, then leaned down again, his mouth caressing her breasts, his tongue leaving a hot wake as it moved from one to the other.
He then arched his body above her, entering with a deliberate slowness that created an aching, agonizing need that made her move against him in instinctive, circular movements, drawing him deeper and deeper inside her.
She felt waves of pleasure wash over her, not only the physical reaction but the unexpectedly exquisite bliss of just being with him, of having him so near. She wanted to capture that feeling forever.
But then his strokes increased in rhythm and power. Her body responded wantonly to his, moving as he did in a sensuous dance that became more and more frantic as they rode an incredible wave that rushed them headlong into an explosion of sensations.
He plunged one last time, then collapsed on her and rolled over until they were both on their sides, both still locked together in the aftermath of their lovemaking. She relished the warmth of his body as aftershocks continued to rock her body.
“Wow,” she said. “I was thinking down and dirty, but that was down and glorious.”
He chuckled. “I never would have thought of it that way.”
She sighed with contentment and snuggled closer to him. “I hope not.”
He kissed her. “You always surprise me.”
“That’s good. I hope.”
“Oh, that’s very good.” He hesitated. “Feeling better?”
“I feel like I’ve been in a tornado, tossed from one momentous event to another.”
“I’m not sure I want to be linked by both events.”
“Oh, there’s something to be said about going from the bottom of the valley to the top of the mountain.”
“God, I love you,” he said. He paused, then said, “I’ve never said those words before.”
She wouldn’t believe that coming from anyone else. She did believe them now. She touched his face. It was just a wee bit bristly with late-afternoon beard. It was really quite beautiful. And sexy. But then, everything about him was sexy.
She kissed him slowly, very slowly. This time it was all her being the seductress.
He made her feel sexy. Very, very sexy.
He took her hand as she came up for air. “There are things you should know …”
She squeezed her fingers around his. She wanted to show him nothing would make a difference.
“Do you ever do anything halfway?” he asked.
“I try not to. Don’t you?”
The phone rang. She didn’t want to answer. She had to answer it. It could be the hospital.
She reluctantly rolled away from him and answered the bedside phone.
“Kira?” It was Leigh.
She straightened up. “What is it?”
“I had to turn off my cell phone when I was at the hospital. When I turned it back on, I had a message from the hospital. My blood tests show I’m compatible to give a kidney to your mother.”
Stunned, Kira couldn’t even answer for a moment. Everything she wanted, prayed for, wished for, even lied for.
“Kira, did you hear what I said?”
“Yes. What … what are you going to do?”
“I said yes. All we have to do is convince your … my … mother.”
“When?”
“In the morning. I already talked to the doctor. He needs a few more tests. He’s arranged to take more blood first thing in the morning. Has something to do with making sure there’s no infections, et cetera.”
“Bless you,” Kira said.
“I think I already am—blessed.”
“Where’s Chris?”
“Standing next to me. And now he says I have to go to his house and get some sleep. I couldn’t be … home tonight. Not alone.”
“Good. He and Archie will take good care of you.”
“I’ll like that.” She sounded tired and sad.
“What about the horses?”
“Seth found someone to see about them. He likes horses, too. He’ll be careful … more careful than I was.”
“Does he know?”
“Everything? Not yet. I have to tell both Seth and David that they have a new cousin.”
“Good.” She hesitated, then added, “Leigh, thank you. You’ll never know how much this means to me—”
Leigh cut her off. “Thanks for not driving off today. I think he would have killed me. He apparently was obsessed with being a Westerfield, not that it’s made many of us content. It’s not a happy legacy, Kira.”
“I’m beginning to understand that. I have Chris’s number. I’ll call if I learn anything.”
“Tomorrow then.”
“Good. Meet you there at eight a.m.”
She hung up.
Max sat up. “Leigh … is she okay?”
“Better than okay. The lab tests came in this afternoon. She’s a match, and she’ll donate a kidney.”
He just smiled. “I had a feeling she would. She just had to do it in her own way.”
“This will make us sisters of a sort. I always wanted one.”
“Well, now you’ll have cousins as well.”
She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. So much, so fast.”
Then she came back to the present. “You were saying … before the call …?”
“
That can wait. You wanted to see your mother.”
She nodded, suddenly mortified that she had been so distracted from doing what she always did. “What time is it?”
He looked at his watch. “Nine. Is it too late for visiting hours?”
“They’ll let me peek in. She’ll be worrying about me … especially if she’s heard anything from staff or on the tube.”
He massaged her back. “I think we both need showers first.”
“Together,” she said.
“I like that idea.”
So did she when he stood and she led him into the bathroom. He was beautiful, if a man could be called that. Lean and muscled. She was still amazed he wanted her. Had even said the L word. But then, they had been in a life-and-death situation. That did strange things to one’s psyche.
Once inside the shower, he turned on the water and held her. She was still a little self-conscious about her naked body. She wished it was more perfect. Yet he touched her as if she were pure gold and every bit as wondrous.
Steam filled the bathroom and filtered through her as well. Their bodies fit as the water washed away the bad memories and refreshed the very nice ones. Her body started reacting to his again, and his to hers. But she had to get to the hospital tonight.
She took the soap and washed his back, then his chest. He in turn did the same. Nothing in her life had been so seductive, so incredibly intimate. He was the one who cut off the water, then toweled her down.
When he finished, he wrapped the towel around her and combed out her damp hair. “My God, but you’re beautiful. Your eyes are always so alive, your smile so real. You take on the world, but on your own terms.”
“I lose a lot of battles.”
“I don’t think you ever lose. You merely have setbacks.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Let’s go.”
They hurried then. She found a pair of slacks and a dark blue blouse that deepened the blue in her eyes. He caught her hand as they left.
No more guards. Her fingers tightened around his. He stopped, leaned down, and kissed her, slowly and possessively.
“Ah … what you do to me, lady,” he whispered.
She didn’t have time to decipher that remark. He ushered her to his car. They were on the way.
Behind the Shadows Page 30