by Cherry Adair
"I was having fun before." Marnie ran her tongue over her dry lips. Her brain buzzed, her mind whirled, her eyes were losing focus, and there didn't seem to be enough air. How could that be? They were outside. There must be plenty of air.
"This… isn't so fun anymore. It… hurts." She looked up with tremendous effort into Jake's face, dirt-streaked, gleaming with sweat, and grave with concern. "Can I… have some water?"
"No!" five voices shouted in unison.
"I know you're thirsty," Jake told her gently. "We can't take the chance of giving you anything to drink right now. Just keep your eyes open. We'll be down in the lair in a couple of minutes, so just hang in there with me, okay?" His face was chalky, his mouth grim.
She ran her tongue uselessly over her lips again. "Sure."
"Shit," Jake said bitterly. "I should have protected her better."
"Yeah, you should have, you son of a bitch," Michael snarled. "And your hour of reckoning is coming, don't think it isn't."
"Give it a rest, Michael," Kane said quietly. "He wasn't the one who shot her."
"Perhaps I didn't pull the trigger," Jake bit out, "but I should have made sure she was safe."
"You sure as hell should have."
Marnie struggled to grab Jake's hand. He turned his bleak eyes on her, and she managed a smile. "Not… m-my keeper."
He smoothed her hair. It felt nice.
"How are you feeling?" he asked softly. There was a faint tremor in his voice.
" 'Kay," she reassured him. "Sleepy. Hot. Kind of floaty."
Kane crouched down to look at her. "How's she doing?"
"Not good. Her blood pressure's dropped. She's lost too much blood. There's no exit wound." A long pause. "I've done all I can," Kyle said grimly. "Derek went off to radio for help."
"He told me," Kane said. "Chopper's ETA is nine minutes. Thank God we had it stand by."
"That's too damn long." Jake pulled at the coat covering her, tucking it under her chin. Her skin felt like ice.
"You look like you're about to pass out yourself," Kyle observed. "Want me to look at that hole in your side?"
"Later. I'm fine." He focused on another brother crouched nearby. "See if you can hail that chopper and tell them to get the lead out. There's another entrance to the lair, but it's too far to carry her, and it doesn't look as though this way in is feasible."
Duchess rested her head against Jake's shoulder.
"Marnie?" It took a few moments for her to surface. He stroked back her hair, careful of the bloody gash on her scalp.
"Mmmm. Grammy."
"What about your Grammy?"
"Did… that… stroky thing with m… my hair."
"Oh, God, sweetheart…"
"She smelled… so good. Flowers." Marnie thought she must be drunk. Her tongue felt thick. She wheezed when she tried to drag in more air. "Where was I? Oh, yes. Love…"
He had to keep her conscious until the chopper arrived. Her skin looked almost transparent, making her fair eyebrows and hair and the obscenely thick trail of blood oozing from her scalp stand out even more sharply. Coats covered her shoulder, where her skin was pale and soft and—He stopped his train of thought.
He shifted so he could pull the coats more snugly around her. Her lips were turning blue. Dawn was hours away on this hellish day and she was frozen to the marrow, bleeding like a frigging sieve and it was all his fault. Tears stung his lids as he rubbed a hand on his thigh to warm it, his eyes never leaving her face.
Cupping her cheeks in his warmed hand, he said in an achingly broken voice, "Marnie?" She didn't answer this time.
Desperately Jake searched the heavens for the rescue choppers. The sky was navy and empty. Minutes had come and gone.
"How's she doing?" Michael demanded, coming back from helping his brother try to shift debris to get inside the cabin.
Kyle looked grim. "Not good, not good at all. Where the frigging hell is the rescue team?"
"They'll be here."
"I hope to God it's not too late," Derek said in a low voice as he pulled off the black cashmere sweater he wore and tucked it around Marnie's head, unmindful of the fresh blood.
"Marnie? Open those beautiful eyes for me." Jake's voice sounded as panicked as he felt. "Marnie. Open your eyes. Do it. Right now!"
The last hurrah of the fire painted false color in her cheeks. She'd passed out. He pressed shaking fingertips on the weak pulse at the base of her throat. In the background he dimly heard the whop-whop of a chopper coming over the mountain, but his focus was on Marnie.
Her hand twitched and his eyes shot to her face, his heart leaping as her dry lips moved.
"Love y…" Her voice was low and raspy.
Jake rested his forehead against hers. Gritting his teeth, he dredged up the last minuscule drop of energy he possessed to stay conscious himself.
Chapter Seventeen
« ^ »
Jake had always thought himself infinitely patient. But then he'd never had to pace a hospital hallway desperate for a surgeon to come out and tell him if his life was worth living or not.
Marnie had required immediate surgery. The five and a half hours since they'd wheeled her into the OR seemed like decades.
They'd flown directly to Gray Feather. The fifteen-minute flight was the longest, most terror-filled journey of Jake's life. Just the memory of getting her inert body hoisted into the chopper was enough to make him break out in an icy sweat.
The chopper hadn't been able to land. Thank God it had been a military transport, commandeered by her navy SEAL brother, Michael. The exact details had been thankfully blurred. He'd been unconscious by the time his turn came to be lifted in the sling and dragged on board.
Some sixth sense had roused him enough to hold Marnie in his arms until they landed, and she was put on a gurney and taken away from him. That had been six hours ago.
The small mountain hospital's waiting room seemed filled to overflowing with raging testosterone—Jake on one side of the small room, Marnie's father and three of her brothers on the other. None of them sat in the molded orange plastic chairs.
There was barely room to move, let alone pace. Instead the men paced mentally, causing the heat in the room to rise with tempers and temperaments.
Besides having almost gotten their sister killed, Jake had been at a distinct disadvantage in the skimpy hospital gown and drawstring cotton pants he'd been wearing. Luckily an obliging nurse had gone out and bought him some clothes. The jeans were stiffly new, the flannel shirt a size too small; still, he felt marginally better dressed.
"What the hell is taking them so long?" he demanded, sinking gingerly into one of the uncomfortable chairs before he fell over.
"She's still in surgery," Kyle said quietly as he entered the waiting room. "I just checked. They're closing now. It went well. Being off the Coumadin those few days helped her not bleed out. And the bullet didn't do as much damage as it could have.
"After piercing the lung, it lodged in the humerus. She required two and a half units of blood. With the cast on her arm, she'll be as good as new in no time."
He glanced at Jake. "I'm sure the doctor doesn't want you pacing."
"I don't give a rat's ass what he wants. I only had a few stitches. What the hell's taking so long?" Jake heard himself and scowled. He sounded like a petulant kid. He ran his fingers through his hair; the movement pulled at the stitches in his side. The bullet had passed through, leaving a gaping exit wound.
He rose. "Thanks for the update. I'm going for a walk."
"Don't bug the nurses again," Kyle warned. Jake nodded and strode out of the confining room and down the corridor to Marnie's empty room. They'd been damn decent, the father and brothers. Hell, if she'd been his sister…
Jake shook his head, at a loss to figure out why the other men had taken his explanation of the events at face value. Certainly Michael Wright knew of T-FLAC. They were in the same business, after all. But still, Jake was astounded they'd believed h
im and run interference with both the authorities and the press.
They'd also been remarkably calm in the face of his dementia when hospital personnel had taken Marnie away. Talk about behaving like a lunatic…
It figured that when he fell, he'd fall hard.
Jake wandered about the room. Sterile. White. Empty. Midmorning sunlight streamed through the open blinds. He strode the four paces to the window. The view from the second floor faced away from the mountains, looking down into the valley below.
He needed to see her. To touch her. To hold her.
His fingers curled on the windowsill as he stared sightlessly over the trees. How dare the damned sun shine now? How dare it come out as if nothing had happened? Where was the rain? The sleet? The promised snowstorm?
Standing here in this empty room, smelling the typical hospital smells, turned Jake's stomach. What the hell is taking so long? How long could it possibly take to close her up?
He paced back to the open door, turned, and paced back to the bed.
He'd been in here about twenty times in the past two and a half hours. It helped—a little. He sank down on the chair he'd pulled up beside the bed hours ago.
The sheets and blankets were pulled taut, waiting. Just as he was waiting. He rested his burning eyes on the heels of his hands, elbows balanced on his knees.
He rose, paced, closed the blinds, opened them, then closed them again. Paced.
There had never been this much excitement in the small clinic. Jake's face flushed with both chagrin and embarrassment. God, what a damned fiasco. By the time he was bandaged and in a sterile white room Marnie had been in surgery.
The wait for her to come out of the operating room was interminable. He grabbed the phone. He could accomplish a few things while he waited.
After making a couple of calls, Jake got up to sit on the bed. With a wince, he leaned back against the pillows and swung his legs up onto the tight blankets. He couldn't close his eyes because a picture kept forming, a picture he would never forget as long as he lived and beyond.
He'd seen Marnie running toward him, a rictus of terror contorting her face. She'd thrown her healthy, supple young body against him, taking the bullets meant for him. Her slight weight had thrown him backward out of harm's way.
The combination of the painkillers and too many sleepless nights dragged Jake and his dreams down, until his weighted lids closed over bloodshot eyes.
The sound of a squeaking wheel woke him. He was up on his feet in seconds. The door bumped against the wall as they wheeled Marnie into the room. She lay as still as death under a blue surgical sheet, her hair covered by a paper cap.
"What are you doing in my patient's room, pal?" the doctor asked gruffly, eyeing Jake's gaunt, unshaven face and wild eyes.
Jake gave the good doctor a brief speaking look before coming to stand over the gurney. Her left arm was in a too bright white cast. His finger traced the faint blue lines in her closed eyelids. Her face was parchment pale. He pushed back the paper cap gently. The bandage on her head looked small considering the pain the bullet had caused.
"How is she?"
"She's going to be fine." The doctor motioned for the waiting orderlies to move Marnie to the bed. "Woke up for a few minutes in recovery, asked about you, said howdy to her family, then decided to take another little nap and told them to push off."
The doctor glanced around the room, then smiled at the banks of roses, drifts of pastel balloons, and jungle of foliage. Jake had bought out the only florist in town. One phone call and they'd delivered the entire shop to her room. Her brothers had had to go to the local grocery store for their offerings.
He wanted her to see only beauty. If he could, he'd have her memories of the last few days blocked from her mind forever. But then she wouldn't remember him. And he'd spend his life trying to make her fall in love with him. A fresh start.
"You've been busy," the doctor said. "And I see you managed to get yourself some clothes."
"No offense, Doc." Jake watched every move the other two men made as they transferred her to the bed. "Careful, there! But that hospital outfit was beginning to get a little breezy. And frankly, after the impression I made this morning, I thought I better clean up my act."
The doctor chuckled. "Everyone understood your concern. It was the most excitement we've had around here for a while."
Jake walked over to stroke Marnie's cheek. Warm. Smooth. Alive. He looked up through blurred eyes at the doctor. "You did good. Thanks."
"Hey, pal, I told you I'm a pro. Remember?"
"Yeah, right before you slipped me that mickey," Jake said without heat. "I owe you big, Doc."
Jake sat very still, listening to the soft, even breathing of the woman beside him. A monitor beeped regularly on the other side of the bed. Tubes and wires hooked her up to various pieces of equipment. He couldn't restrain himself from touching her for the millionth time in the last two days. Her hand felt small and frail in his. But she wasn't frail, this small blond bombshell lying in this stark hospital room because she'd taken the bullet meant for him.
There was nothing frail or weak about her.
He'd give anything to switch places with her.
He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. He shuddered remembering her grabbing hold of his jacket to prevent him tumbling off the rungs of the ladder perched sixty feet above a raging river, with absolutely no thought to her own safety.
She'd competently bandaged his bullet wound, then fainted because she couldn't bear the sight of blood. Circumstances had thrown her into a situation beyond her realm of experience. She'd faced each new challenge with unstinting bravery and her quirky sense of humor.
How the hell he could have compared her with Soledad, even in the beginning, was incomprehensible now. There was nothing similar. The two women were as different as night and day.
He touched her cheek. She wasn't hot. She wasn't feverish. She slept a deep, natural, healing sleep, just the way she was supposed to.
Her father and brothers had left word with the nurses' station to be called as soon as she woke up again.
They'd come and gone, gone and come, in the last forty-eight hours. They'd shoved food at him, brought him clothes, and sat vigil with him at her bedside.
Jake preferred his purgatory without witnesses, thank you very much. They'd taken off at last.
Which was fine with Jake. He didn't want them to spell him. He didn't want to talk to them, see the condemnation in their eyes, or hear what a son of a bitch he was for jeopardizing their daughter and sister. He knew all that.
Marnie had come swimming out of it several times, groggy and disoriented, calling his name, then fallen back to sleep. He hadn't left her side for more than ten minutes in the past two days.
He doubted she'd remember any of the brief conversations with him or her family. The anesthetic and loss of blood had knocked her for a loop. She'd spent a restful night last night, and Jake had laid his head beside hers on the pillow, his body twisted in the chair, just so he could breathe with her.
Damn. Am I a fool, or what?
"Good. You're still here."
Jake's head shot up as Michael Wright walked into the room. "I thought you guys went back to the hotel."
"The others went ahead. I wanted a word with you, alone. Outside."
It wasn't a request.
Jake rose from the uncomfortable chair, ready for the inevitable confrontation. In a way he was looking forward to it—to hearing out loud and in the open everything he'd been saying to himself for two days now. He followed the other man out into the hallway.
Tall, dark, and surly, Michael was the oldest and least charming of the brothers. His military training gave him the muscle and short haircut. He had his sister's blue eyes, but there was nothing either soft or feminine about the man leading the way through a side door to a small outside patio.
"If you're going to beat the crap outta me," Jake told the other man mildly, "better take it off
hospital grounds."
He wasn't wearing a jacket, and icy air bit through his flannel shirt. His eyes burned from lack of sleep, his side hurt like hell, and he wasn't going to defend his actions to Marnie's brother either physically or verbally.
Not that the physical release wouldn't be a godsend, the way he was feeling. But there wasn't a damn thing the other man could possibly say that Jake hadn't thought himself multiplied to infinity.
"The family discussed the pros and cons of that action. We decided against it. For now." Michael stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket and narrowed his eyes, hunching his shoulders against the biting cold.
"I've heard of you before, you know." He looked out at the mountains beyond the manicured gardens of the hospital. "T-FLAC has quite a few ex-SEALs." He turned to look at Jake. "None of the men believed you were the mole."
When Jake responded with a disbelieving snort, Michael said flatly, "You have quite the rep, Tin Man. Quite the rep. Fair. Honest. Honorable. A veritable Boy Scout. You're also known to be hell on wheels when crossed. Antisocial. And relentless in your pursuit of the bad guys."
Michael leaned his hip against the low wall separating the patio from the brown lawn of the late fall garden. "In fact, you're precisely the kind of guy I'd like at my back in a dark alley. You and I could've been friends, if not for one thing."
"And that is?"
"You might choose to fight fair, Tin Man, but you're still a warrior. One we don't want anywhere near our sister. Marnie doesn't need a fighting man. Capisce?"
Oh, yeah. Only too well.
"I did some checking. They think highly of you at T-FLAC," Michael said grudgingly. "You're a hero for taking down Dancer, and with him SPA."
Jake had spoken to his boss already and resolved their conflict. All was set right with the spy world. It was his personal world that was FUBAR. He looked at Michael Wright and raised a brow. "That's nice to know. And your point is?"
"My point," Michael said grimly, pacing the narrow confines of the cement patio like a tightly leashed tiger, "is that Marnie needs someone who can take care of her. Something you, apparently, are incapable of doing."