“You’re bleeding. Where are you hurt?” His voice was smooth and calm, and just hearing it helped sooth her jangled nerves. He was with her, and they were going to make it out of here—Yes, ma’am, I can take care of you, one hundred percent guaranteed.
“My right shoulder.”
He looked at the wound and swore softly under his breath. “You’re just skinned, babe, but I’m going to carry you.”
“Good idea.” It was going to take more time than they had for her to get steady on her feet, a fact proved by the shot fired from above. It hit the water, ten feet out, but was still way too damn close.
He turned and raised his pistol in one smooth move, aiming a precise shot toward the top of the wall, and a body came over the side, landing in the sand with a deathly thud.
“Change in plans,” he said, kicking off his shoes and stripping off his slacks. “We’re heading out to sea.”
Another good idea, really, but Lani didn’t see a boat anywhere close to where they were beached. Then she did see some boats, a lot of boats, moored at the Muelle Fiscal wharf, but the wharf was a long way away.
“How far can you swim?” She thought it was a question worth asking, especially as how he’d already picked her up and was carrying her out into the water.
“Miles,” he assured her.
“Yes, but how far can you swim with me?” With the Pacific Ocean lapping at her butt, that was the sticking point.
He just grinned and kissed the tip of her nose as they sunk into the water and he turned her over onto her back. “Miles,” he said. “Miles and miles and miles.”
“The saltwater hurts like hell.” And it did, burning like a brand where the bullet had sliced her skin open. For a moment, all she wanted was out of the water, and she started to panic.
But his voice came to her, steady as a rock. “I was born in Alabama, in the northern part of the state, and when I was five, my folks packed us all up, my two brothers, one sister, and me and we moved over to Louisiana. Now there’s a great state.”
Stroke after stroke, they headed into deeper water on a course that would take them to the wharf, where—in between telling her his life story—he informed her they would “borrow” a boat.
He never faltered, not once, not for an instant, but she did. By the time he got her into one of the motorized canoes the locals called piraguas, she felt half dead, feverish, and like she might not make it. But he knew better.
“You’re doing great, Lani. Just hang in there. We’re almost home. Everything is going to be okay.”
Home was the U.S. Embassy. Across the bay, she could see the lights of central Panama City, and as they came up to the Balboa Monument, she knew he was right. Home wasn’t very far away.
Slowly, with effort, she brought her hand up to the bodice of her dress and felt the silver cigarette case still secure in the secret pocket.
Yes, she thought. Everything was going to be okay.
Epilogue
Four months later, somewhere in Louisiana
“Hey, babe, you want to hand me that bait can?” she asked.
Fishing had been his idea. Jack would be the first to admit it, but who in the world would have guessed his secret agent girlfriend would take to it like a duck to water?
Not him, that was for damn sure, or he might have held off for a few years.
Whether she was after largemouth bass, crappie, or a mess of bream and shellcracker for supper, Little Miss Blondie left his bed way too damn early every morning to get down to the lake and start casting her line.
From where he was stretched out on the dock, he rolled over and looked in the white plastic bucket she’d brought down. The water was murky in the bucket.
“What have you got in here?”
“Ditch shrimp.”
“You go, girl,” he said around a yawn, pushing the bait bucket in her direction.
He was on leave, and she was still on hiatus, and hiatus looked good on her, almost as good as her Daisy Duke cut-offs and bikini top. Barefoot and suntanned, her hair had gotten long enough for a little ponytail in back, and he knew she liked sporting one around.
He liked sporting her around, taking her down to the nearest backwater roadhouse for crawfish and zydeco, and every night, bringing her back to their cabin in the swamp oak and tupelo forest, where he made love to her by the light of a southern moon.
Down on the end of the dock, she got a bite, her cane pole dipping toward the water, and with a dimpled smile and a short laugh, she pulled the fish in and got busy baiting another shrimp on her line. From this angle, he could see the scar across her shoulder from the night she’d been shot. She thought it made her look tough.
He thought she was tough.
“What did you get?” he asked, more to be polite than any actual interest. It was too early in the morning to be interested in fish.
“Bluegill.” She looked up with the smile still on her face.
God, she was beautiful. No wonder he loved her. The truth had been staring him down for weeks. Smart, funny, gorgeous women were hard to find, but he’d done it, and he wasn’t going to let her go.
He wasn’t going to rush things, though. He wanted to give her plenty of time to figure out she was crazy about him, too. So he’d gotten her something special to let her know how he felt. This morning’s phone call had cinched it for him.
“I heard from a friend of mine this morning, the guy whose house I was staying in while I was stationed in Panama.”
“J.T. Chronopolous, right?” She threw her line back in, casting it into the weed beds lining the bank.
“Yep. Seems he and this group of guys he works with out of a place called Steele Street in Denver tracked down a shipping container full of stolen shoulder-launched surface to air missiles at a port in Yemen.”
That got her attention.
She turned to face him so quickly, she almost dropped her pole.
“They found the Stingers?”
“And the Mistrals and the Russian SA-18s.” There had been doubts. The encryption on the cigarette case hadn’t been as definitive as Nikolayevich had promised. “It’s all thanks to you, babe. You saved a lot of lives.”
She was beaming, the sunlight caressing her skin and turning it that peachy golden color that made her look good enough to eat. “They found the SAMs.”
Oh, yeah. He was in love.
Pushing himself upright, he rolled to his feet and padded down to her end of the dock just to drop down next to her and take her in his arms. She snuggled in close, and he kissed the top of her head. She was warm, and he was in love, and the time was right for the box in his pocket.
“J.T. has a sister-in-law who’s an artist, and I had her design and make up something for you.” He reached into the pocket of his shorts.
Lani leaned a little ways back, and he opened the box between them. Nestled inside was a necklace, a silver chain with three charms hanging from the middle, two in gold and one in silver.
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered, reaching out to take the necklace and hold it in her hand. “It’s beautiful, but what . . . ”
She was a smart girl, she’d recognize the charms in a minute.
It took less than that.
“Missiles?” She looked up, her expression a fascinating mix of confusion and delight. “You had somebody design little missiles for me?”
He just grinned. Yes, he was the man who knew how to deliver.
“Ohmigosh.” A rapturous smile spread across her face. “This is so awesome.”
“One of a kind, sweetheart. Just like you. But a couple of the girls down at Steele Street—”
“The place in Denver,” she clarified.
“Yes. They liked your necklace so much, they’d like to have a couple more made. I told them I would check with you. What do you think? Would you mind if Skeeter and Red Dog had necklaces like yours?”
Her eyes widened a little. “I think any woman with enough guts to wear missiles on a chain around he
r neck ought to have exactly what she wants. And Skeeter? Red Dog? Cripes, babe, do names even get cooler than that?”
“They’re cool, all right. Cool like you.” He reached over and took the necklace out of her hand and clasped it around her neck. “Maybe you’ll get to meet them someday.”
“I’d like that.” She looked down and ran the tips of her fingers over the three charms.
“Yeah, I think you would.” He leaned in closer and kissed her cheek, and her forehead, and the tip of her nose. “Can we go back to bed, now. Dawn is long gone, thank God, and the fish won’t start biting again until noon.”
“But, sweetie-pie, it’s a gorgeous day out here. What in the world are we going to do in bed?”
His grin broadened. Right, he thought. Like that was a mystery.
In answer, he scooped her up into his arms and started back up the dock. “Oh, I’m guessing we’ll figure something out.”
She laughed and leaned in close to whisper in his ear. “You know I love you, Flipper.”
Yeah, he knew, and my, oh, my, wasn’t it really just a damn fine day.
WRAPPED AND SEALed
Leslie Kelly
Chapter One
Tanner Boudreau wasn’t intimidated by much.
He’d endured the seven months of grueling torment that the U.S. Navy called BUD/S training, capped off by a hell week to rival Dante’s. He’d swum waters frigid enough to stop a man’s heart. He’d seen battle. He’d leapt out of planes and dangled from helicopters and crawled through caves as dark as a demon’s soul. And while all of those experiences could—and had—caused a twinge of anxiety here or a moment of concern there, none had ever really scared him.
But this? This intimidated the hell out of him. “Gram, I just don’t—”
“Oh, Tanner, it would mean so much to me,” his elderly grandmother said, casting him one of those melting, I’m-just-a-weak-old-lady looks. “I’ll be so disappointed if you say no.”
And that was it. He was done for. Because she’d dragged out the “d” word.
Disappointing this kind, loving old woman, who, along with Gramps, had raised him and his sister after their parents had died, was the one thing Tanner truly couldn’t handle. He could face physical danger, discomfort and even the threat of his own death, but he could not deal with causing his grandparents a moment of grief or sadness. He’d already put them through enough when he’d decided, on September 12, 2001, to enlist in the Navy, with the intention of becoming a SEAL. And God knows they’d had a lot of scary moments since. Fortunately, that would soon change. When he gave them the gift of his news on Christmas morning, and they realized he would soon be home for good, their worries and fears would be lifted.
“It would just be for an hour?” he asked, stalling. “I do have stuff to do.”
Nearby, someone snickered. He shot a glare at his kid sister, Marie, who sat in a chair in the corner, busily sewing. She obviously saw right through him, knowing he’d never been able to refuse his grandmother any reasonable request. And while this one was stretching that word—reasonable—to its utter Webster limits, he knew he couldn’t now.
“Yeah, Gram, you know how busy Tanner’s been this week with his mysterious nights out,” Marie said. “I bet some random bimbo is already kindling her Yule log for tomorrow night.”
He could have retorted that his “mysterious” nights out hadn’t had anything to do with a random women—just his search for a very specific one, whose last name he didn’t even know. But he didn’t want to go there, not with these two, already so in his business they might as well live in his back pocket. Besides, what could he say? That he was literally haunted by someone he’d met years ago, someone with whom he’d shared coffee and grief on a violent night filled with pain, blood and loss? That he had been scouring hospitals in the area, knowing she’d said she was from this area, too? That every time he closed his eyes, he could still see her beautiful smile, even though the last time he’d seen her she’d been wrists-deep in a wounded man’s guts, looking so exhausted but also utterly determined to save his life?
That he’d never forgotten her—and he never would?
No. He wasn’t about to share any of those things. Because sometimes he wondered if that woman—Jessica, her name was Jessica—was even real, or if he’d conjured her up on a night when he’d needed to feel warm and sane and normal.
“An hour will be fine, dear. So will you do it?” Gram said.
He stalled, not meeting her eye, looking around the room for inspiration. As his gaze skimmed over his sister, something drew his attention. It finally registered that the fabric Marie was torturing with the needle was red and fluffy.
The truth hit him. She was making his costume. She had been, since before he’d walked into his grandparents’ house. “I never had any choice in this, did I.”
“Well, of course you did. If you refuse, I will find another way.” His grandmother shook her head sadly, then pulled out the first nail and hammered it into his coffin. “Of course, it might mean your grandfather has to do it, and with his heart—”
His grandfather’s recent heart attack was one reason Ty had pulled every string he could to get this holiday leave.
“Or,” she added, hammering nail number two, “I could spend all the entertainment budget on hiring the one professional not already busy, meaning I’d have to cancel the Glenn Miller tribute band from the New Year’s Eve party. Of course, the seniors do so love to dance and the news would probably be enough to ruin Christmas.”
That was so below the belt.
“Or maybe we should just cancel both events, it’s getting so complicated.”
Nail three. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” he snapped.
Marie, laughing loudly now, pulled out a big bag of fluffy, white pillow stuffing.
He groaned. “Please tell me that’s not for me.”
“You have to have a big belly—Santa.”
Santa. Freaking Santa Claus. He could not believe he was gonna dress up as the fat guy in red and play the part of the jolly old elf at an assisted living facility’s Christmas party.
“Thank you so much dear,” Gram said. “The residents of Rolling Hills would have been heartbroken if anything ruined their holiday party. For some, it’s the only day of the year they get to see their families. Some people don’t even make the effort to visit more often than that.”
His heart twisting, he bit back any further commentary. Just the thought of his own grandparents ending up feeling so neglected made him queasy. It was enough that his seventy-eight year old grandmother devoted so much of her time volunteering in the place.
Besides, it wasn’t that much to ask, one hour in a silly costume to make a lot of people happy. But this sure wasn’t how he’d pictured his first Christmas at home in so many years. Honestly, he hadn’t experienced a real Christmas in so long, he didn’t know what he’d been picturing. Eggnog, carols, presents?
Well, it appeared he was the present, being wrapped with a bow and gifted by the bossy—lovable—women of his family. And, for the first time in a decade, Tanner was unable to think of one single thing he could do to save himself from his fate.
“So, little girl, what do you want for Christmas? Why don’t you sit on Santa’s lap and tell him all about it?”
The comment was accompanied by a leer, but Jessica D’Angelo wasn’t exactly excited by the flirtation. Because the man doing the flirting was grey-haired, denture-wearing, and married. Considering the pathetic state of her love life, she might soon have to stop being so picky, and shorten her list of requirements in a man. But “married” would be a total non-starter no matter what. Dentures were pretty much a deal-breaker, too.
“Now, Mr. Shaughnessy, remember what happened the last time your wife got jealous of your flirting? She exchanged your denture cream for hemorrhoidal ointment.”
The eighty-four year old frowned deeply, his bushy brows veeing over his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about my lap,” he sa
id. “Santa Claus is right over there, and from what I hear, he’s a young fella. You oughta go climb aboard, Doc. If anybody needs a little romance in her life, it’s you.”
She didn’t need romance. Sure, it might be nice to have some, but needing and wanting were two different things. Besides, she was too busy to meet any eligible men. Her patients were elderly veterans and their spouses or widows, and since coming to work here, taking over as in-house physician at the assisted-living community, which also had an intensive nursing wing, she’d had no time for socializing. And she certainly wouldn’t look for some by “climbing aboard” the lap of some random Santa.
That said, though, she had to concede, having caught a glimpse of him earlier, that the Santa in question did look extremely nice from behind. If his red coat had been checked with white, he might have been mistaken for a table in an Italian restaurant—his shoulders were that broad.
“Forget it,” she said, as much to herself as to Mr. Shaughnessy.
“Scared, huh?”
“Of course not.”
“I dare ya.”
“Not even if you triple-dog it.”
“Come on, it’ll make everybody laugh.” The elderly man gestured toward the few seniors sitting alone. Those whose families hadn’t come. Those who quietly watched other residents share special moments with their grandchildren.
Those who looked so damned sad they made her heart ache in her chest.
“They all love you, and it would give them a smile,” he added, all humor gone now. “I think a few folks could use some cheering up with all this partying going on.”
He was right, as crazy as it sounded.
Jess wanted to make her lonely patients smile. Wanted to do so much for them, to brighten their days. And heck, considering they all had, at one time or another, commented on the fact that she was an all-work-and-no-play kind of “gal,” she knew they’d get a kick out of seeing her being a little silly.
This is crazy, a voice whispered in her head. But she ignored it, edging closer to Santa and his throne. All the kids had had their turns, and a few nurses, too—obviously she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the build under the costume. Right now, he sat alone, posture straight, his hands griping the armrests of his chair, his lap totally empty.
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