The Target

by Catherine Coulter

  Emma pulled away from her mom and walked to him. She held up her arms. He picked her up and held her close. She drew back and said not five inches from his face, “You’re the best man in the whole world, Ramsey.”

  “Thanks, Emma. I think you’re about the greatest little kid. And just look at your mama. She’s not bad herself. I got myself a fairy princess.” He hugged her again, then said to Molly, “Emma and I are going to wake you up every hour and tell you how beautiful you are.”

  “In theory I like the sound of that,” Molly said, walking toward the king-size bed. “Now, you cutthroats, how about we play some Old Maid?”

  “No, Mama, you know I like gin rummy better.”

  “Emma, you always win at gin rummy. I just got married. Can’t you give me a break?”

  “All right,” Emma said. “We’ll play five-card draw.”

  Ramsey hooted with laughter.

  Emma looked quite pleased with herself. After she’d won the first hand with three jacks, she said, “This marriage thing isn’t any different. We did this in Ireland. Nothing’s changed. That’s good.”

  “That’s painfully true,” Ramsey said, and shuffled the deck.

  31

  JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, Molly awoke slowly when Ramsey curled her hair around her ear, licked her earlobe, bit it gently, and said quietly, “If you want to join the game, it’s best if you’re in on the kickoff.”

  “I’ve always loved football, from the very first kickoff. Where’s Emma?”

  He moved on his elbow, above her. “Our little darling was sleeping so deeply I thought she’d start snoring at any moment. I tucked her in in the other bedroom. I left the door open a crack so we could hear her if she woke up, so no yelling from either of us. Okay?”

  She raised her hand and touched her fingertips to his face. Her eyes were adjusted to the night. She touched his nose, ran her fingertips over his black eyebrows, touched his lips. “You’re a beautiful man, Ramsey. When I walked in on you in the bathroom at Dromoland, I wanted to jump you.”

  He grabbed her and pulled her tightly against him. He groaned against her hair. “I wish you had. As you saw clearly, I wanted to be jumped. I was shaking I wanted to be jumped so badly.”

  She touched his shoulders, ran her hand down his back to his flank, realizing in that moment that he’d shucked off his boxer shorts. “Oh dear,” she said, leaning up to bite his shoulder, “I’m overdressed.”

  He had that gorgeous silk nightgown off her in under ten seconds. She kissed his chin. “Do you want me to hang it up so it won’t get wrinkled?” At the horrified look on his face, she lightly smacked his chest, and laughed. He rolled over on top of her, feeling the length of her against him. He breathed in her scent, feeling the textures of her flesh pressed up against him, the firmness, the softness of her belly. “I’ve thought about this so many times I nearly scrambled my brains. I surprised myself. I’d never thought I was such a horny bastard before, but with you, I am. I’m in a pretty bad way here, Molly.”

  “Will you try to nail me in the closet?”

  He shook his head as he began kissing her, saying between kisses, “No, that’s got no class. Well, maybe a closet would be all right if Emma’s close by.”

  She arched up against him, found his mouth with her hands, and attacked him. “You don’t know what a bad way is,” she said into his mouth. “I want to eat you up.” She was biting his neck, nibbling on his mouth.

  “Nah, let me do that,” he said against her breast. “That’s my specialty. There’s a whole lot of other stuff you can do. But later, Molly, a lot later.” Then she opened her legs and he groaned in answer. He kissed her neck, her ear, her mouth, returning again and again. He balanced himself briefly on his elbow while his other hand went to her breast, then stroked down her ribs. “Well, hell,” he said, his hand coming back up to her face, “I’m this big-time federal judge and we still can’t do everything with Emma close. And the good Lord knows I want to very badly.”

  She was rubbing her foot along his leg. “Just keep trying. It’s wonderful.”

  He lifted himself up onto his knees, shuddering with the effort to separate himself from her, and pushed her hands away when she would have brought him back down to her. He looked down at her, lightly touching her with his fingers, opening her legs wider. He brought his head down and began kissing her stomach. “This is a very good place to start,” he said against her warm skin, moving downward until his mouth and his fingers stroked and pushed her, deepened inside her, until, in about the same time it had taken Ramsey to get her nightgown off, she was lurching up, choking out, “Ramsey, oh, goodness, this is too much. I think a yell is coming.”

  He clapped one hand over her mouth and she yelled against his palm, wondering if she were going to die, knowing she wouldn’t, and never wanting the incredible, shattering feelings to stop. When she slumped back, quivering as the aftershocks of that wild pleasure continued to careen through her, he came inside her, deeper inside, until he was sealed to her. He froze over her, and in that instant, the knowledge that he was finally where he belonged, that she was his wife and his lover until they both left the earth, plucked him up, making him dizzy and hot, then shattered through him. He’d never realized there could be such a binding force in the world as what he was feeling now. He’d wanted Emma, wanted her safe, and he still did. Always it had been Emma and then, only after Emma, Molly had been in his mind. Now he didn’t know. One thing he did know was that he hadn’t expected being this consumed until there was nothing inside him but Molly and what she was making him feel. He shuddered like a palsied man as he climaxed deep inside this woman he’d known for less than two months, this woman who’d been married to a rock star and was the daughter of a gangster. Who knew about life?

  Molly slowly opened her eyes only when she was certain she’d continue breathing if she tried such a violent movement. Nothing happened. She blinked. Nothing continued to happen. She concentrated on returning to life as she knew it. She couldn’t believe the utter dizzying pleasure she’d just experienced. She said, “I’m going to try to talk now, not move, just talk. Yes, that was a complete sentence. Yes, I’m getting there, thank you. That was nice, Ramsey.”

  He was still deep inside her. It felt incredible. She closed her eyes again, just thinking about how amazing it was that they’d found each other. She lifted her hips. He groaned into her hair.

  “What the hell do you mean ‘nice’? Nice is a wussy word. It’s close to an insult.”

  “Well, better than nice then. Really good. Maybe even getting close to superb.”

  He was quiet a moment, harder in her than he had been just the instant before. “What you need is a comparison. Now, you might think I would be ready right this minute, but I’m not. My spirit needs to revive. Give me at least five more minutes.”

  He was lying flat on top of her, his head on the pillow beside hers.

  Molly stroked her hands up and down his long back. “I forgot to check your back. Is the burn healed?”

  “Yes, it’s all right.”

  “It feels pretty smooth. How about your leg?”

  “My leg is as good as new. How about your arm? Are the stitches all gone?”

  “All gone. Just a little scar ridge. Ramsey, would you mind if I admitted that I sort of more than just like you a whole lot?”

  He was silent. She began to fidget. “No,” he said, still unable to move. “Truth be told, I more than sort of just like you as well.”

  He finally managed to lift himself above her again. He leaned his head down and kissed her mouth. “For so long now I would look at your mouth and wonder how you tasted, what you’d feel like. I wanted to make love to your mouth. Then I’d think how I’d feel with your mouth on me.”

  Not even five minutes later, Ramsey’s spirit completely revived, they made love again, and this time, he thought he’d die. It was close. It was wonderfully close. She could nail him anytime, anywhere.

  At about four o’c
lock in the morning, Ramsey felt small hands patting his shoulder. He’d had the brains to put his boxer shorts back on, thank God, which he’d believed was a miracle. He’d even gotten Molly to put her nightgown back on, and she’d been only semiconscious.

  He pulled Emma over his shoulder and scooted her down on the other side of her mother. Molly, still asleep, reached out her hand to touch him again. “Emma’s here,” he whispered. She quieted immediately. She smiled to herself in the darkness. She felt Emma’s small arm come over around her waist. Emma said in her ear, “I know you’re beautiful, Mama. It doesn’t matter that I can’t see you.”

  “Thank you, Em. You don’t have to wake me every hour to tell me.”

  She settled again. Just before she went back to sleep, she saw the Justice of the Peace pronounce them husband and wife, saw Emma grinning from ear to ear and announcing to the judge’s wife who’d sold Molly a bouquet for ten dollars that they were all together now and wasn’t that just perfect. The woman, bless her heart, had agreed, distracting Emma while Ramsey kissed her.

  She fell deeply asleep, her spirit so very content that she forgot ex-priest Sonny Dickerson, who had gone so far around the bend, he would probably die before he gave Emma up.

  THE next morning, Molly said over the breakfast table in their suite, “You know what I think?”

  She spoke softly, for Emma was close by, sitting on the floor, practicing printing her name in a notebook Molly had bought her in the hotel gift shop.

  Ramsey looked up from his hash browns. “I know this isn’t serious. You’re about ready to burst into laughter.”

  “No, you’re wrong. I’m dead serious.”

  “All right, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you think?”

  “I think being with you was beyond superb. It was so wonderful, maybe it should be taxed.”

  He nearly lost it right there. He gulped. He took a quick drink of his coffee and scalded his mouth. Then he clearly remembered how she felt and nearly shuddered his way off his chair.

  Emma looked up from her printing and said, “What’s my last name now, Mama?”

  Ramsey looked at Molly, sex forgotten, sudden fierce possessiveness in his voice as he said, “I’d like you to be Emma Hunt now. What do you think?”

  “Could you print it out for me, Ramsey?”

  He took her pencil and wrote out Emma Hunt. Emma went to work. She said finally, looking back up, “It looks pretty good all written out. It’s okay with me.” She held up the paper for them to see.

  Both Ramsey and Molly examined her effort. Ramsey said, “Well done, even good enough so I can read it. Emma Hunt. It has a ring to it.” Emma grinned and went back to her printing. Ramsey lowered his voice. “I’m sorry, Molly. We never discussed it, but I want this very badly. I want Emma to be mine, legally and every other way as well.”

  “I’m torn,” she said, cutting another slice of her grapefruit. “Louey wasn’t ever around, but he was her father. It’s like he’ll cease to exist now.”

  “Let me ask you a question. If Louey were still alive and you’d divorced him and then married me, what would you decide?”

  She forked down the grapefruit, then picked up a piece of wheat toast. She said quietly, so Emma couldn’t hear, “I’d say he was a bum and never even wanted to see Emma anyway. Maybe I’d say he didn’t deserve for her to carry a name that meant so little.” She shook her head. “But because he’s dead, I feel she needs to hold on to something. How about Emma Santera Hunt? We could ask Dr. Loo, but that sounds like a good idea.”

  “Emma will always know that he was her father.” Ramsey asked Emma what she thought of having three whole names. Emma approved.

  Molly said, “Are you going to eat your bacon, Ramsey?”

  “No, you take it. You need to keep up your strength. I’m brimming with strength. The more times a man gets jumped, the stronger he gets. He gets pumped up. All his muscles start to flex. His fortitude increases exponentially. I can’t wait to prove it to you.”

  “How do you think it looks, Mama?”

  Molly looked away from her new husband, wishing she could fling herself on top of him and screw his brains out. “Ah, Em, let’s see. Ah, you’ve printed it another six times. Each is better. Very good, love. Oh yes, that looks just grand. When you start the first grade this fall, you’ll be Emma Santera Hunt.”

  “Miss Emma Santera Hunt,” Emma said. “I won’t be a Ms. until I’m eighteen.”

  Molly looked over at Ramsey, who knew what she’d been thinking. “And I’ll be Mrs. Molly Hunt.”

  “That makes all of us Hunts,” Emma said happily, then frowned. “I never even thought about a Hunt before Ramsey found me.”

  Ramsey called his parents. His mother and father spoke to both Molly and Emma. It went well, though Molly heard the disappointment after they’d gotten over their shock. They agreed to go back for a reception in their honor sometime toward the end of the summer.

  “By that time, everything should be resolved,” Ramsey said as he put the receiver back into its cradle. “You’ll see how my mom treats all her daughters-in-law like they’re perfect and gives grief to her three sons.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Molly said. “I guess I should call my mom.”

  * * *

  THEY returned to San Francisco the following afternoon. It was close enough to midsummer to be chilly, with the fog from the Pacific rolling in through the Golden Gate.

  Emma was wearing a sweater, walking around her new backyard, examining the flowers that grew well in the protection of a sturdy redwood fence. Her piano was on a chair in the kitchen. An unmarked police car was parked across the street.

  “I’ll get her a swing set,” Ramsey said, coming up behind Molly, closing his arms around her. He leaned down and kissed her ear. “Maybe I can hang a tire from that branch on the pine tree over there.”

  She turned in his arms. “I want to have my way with you,” she said, and so she did, right there in his study, their clothes on, ever watchful because Emma was close by. They were standing together, still breathing hard, when they heard Emma call out from the kitchen, “Mama, Ramsey’s got a room that’s filled with all sorts of cans.”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “Cans? All different sizes, I’ll bet. You pervert.”

  “Mama? I can hear you laughing. Did you make a joke?”

  “Oh yes,” Molly said quietly. “Oh, yes.”

  AFTER a spicy dinner of Ramsey’s favorite Chinese Szechwan Beef, and garlic noodles with eggplant, Molly said, as she watched Emma set down her fork, “It’s time the three of us talked about this, Em. We’ve put it off long enough. You’re ready to jump out of your skin.” Emma’s head came up. “Let me be real up-front with you. Ramsey’s worried about you. He’s worried because that awful man is still out there. We hoped he would have been caught by now, but he hasn’t. This means, Em, that you’re going to have to be super-careful. That means whenever we leave the house, you’ve got to stay really close to either me or Ramsey. If one of us ever walks ahead of you, you grab Ramsey’s hand or mine. Do you understand? Does that make sense to you?”

  Ramsey would never have brought it right out in the open like this. He felt as if they were standing over an active volcano. He barely managed to make his throat swallow the strong black coffee he’d just brewed.

  Emma said, “Yes, I think it makes sense too, Mama. Dr. Loo told me that this man thought I could save him from going to Hell. She said that wasn’t true, but it was stuck in his brain like that, and so it was true to him.”

  She was talking. He supposed he was astounded that everything out of that small mouth made such sense.

  “She’s probably right,” Molly said.

  “If he thought I could save him from going to Hell, then why did he hurt me so much?”

  Molly said, “Mr. Savich told Ramsey that the doctors at the FBI think that just maybe he hurt you because he believed you should take his punishment for him, that by hurting you,
his savior, he was cleansing himself of his sins, readying to give himself into God’s hands.”

  “I don’t understand that, Mama.”

  “No one does, not really,” Ramsey said. “He’s very sick and therefore he’s very dangerous because he’s out of control. That’s why we’ve really got to be careful.”

  “I know he’s still out there,” Emma said. “He’s just waiting.”

  “I know,” Molly said. “I wish I could get him right this minute, but I can’t. Until we do catch him, though, things are going to be tough for us. I’m sorry, but I can’t change that. You’re going to have to be on the lookout all the time and stick close. Now I want you to go to the front window and look at that light blue car parked across the street. Those are police officers and they’re going to keep all their eyes open for that man.”

  “I see them, Mama.”

  Ramsey cleared his throat. But the reasonable sorts of words that had just come out of Molly’s mouth were stuck in his throat. He tried to say something intelligent, something comforting, but what came out of his mouth was, “Emma, do you think you could come here a minute? I need to have you close to me. I’m not feeling so good.”

  Emma came running back to the table. Ramsey barely had time to push back his chair and lift her onto his legs. He drew her close. Emma was patting his arms. “It’s going to be all right, Ramsey. We’ll get through this. I promise.”

  He buried his face in her French braid. “I love you, Emma Hunt.”

  “I love you too, Ramsey. A whole lot.” She kept stroking his arm and his shoulder, giving him all the comfort she could.

  THAT weekend they went to Monterey to be tourists. They went first to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Emma loved the jellyfish. The three of them sat on the bench facing the huge tank and watched the jellyfish for a good thirty minutes.

  They walked through Carmel, played on the beautiful beach at the cove at the bottom of Ocean Avenue, drove down to Big Sur and picnicked off the road on the Seventeen Mile Drive.