Dealing with Annie

by Jill Shalvis

  “She didn’t do anything to you. I did. It’s me you want. Let’s make a trade—”

  “Oh, it’s you I most definitely want,” Tony agreed. “I want your world to unravel as mine has. Are you suffering yet, Ian?”

  “I—”

  Click.

  Ian slammed the phone down and eyed the brass staring at him. “I’ve got to get back to Cooper’s Corner. Now.”

  * * *

  THEY FLEW A HELICOPTER INTO Cooper’s Corner, with the full support of three different agencies, all of whom wanted to talk to Tony. Behind bars.

  Ian just wanted Annie, safe and preferably in his arms. He’d called Thomas, but his brother hadn’t answered and was most likely working outside. He’d then called Annie’s house, not knowing what to expect, and had gotten a sleepy Aunt Gerdie, who upon completely waking up, discovered she’d been locked in her room.

  Ian had really panicked over that. “Yell for Annie,” he’d directed.

  But Aunt Gerdie had gotten no response, and she could hear nothing from the other side of her locked bedroom door.

  According to Aunt Gerdie, the house was ominously silent, and the knowledge had Ian sitting there in the chopper imagining everything that could be happening to Annie right this very second.

  All because of him.

  As they rode through the storm and into the Berkshires, Ian tried to console himself with the fact that Tony was not a cold-blooded killer. He and his gang had killed only the scum of the earth, and all in the supposed name of justice.

  They’d never murdered an innocent.

  But that was before Ian had shot and nearly killed Tony.

  * * *

  “HERE’S WHAT WE’RE GOING to do,” said the raspy voice in Annie’s ear. “I’m going to put you in my truck, where you’ll sit like a good girl or I’ll knock you out.” He rubbed the muzzle of the gun over her jaw. “You’re coming home with me, Annie, so get used to that idea.”

  Annie slammed her eyes shut and shuddered. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. “I don’t understand…”

  “Don’t you? It’s a revenge game, and tag, you’re it.”

  He had his hand over her mouth, and part of her nose, so that she felt as if she were suffocating, which was taking up a good part of her concentration. With all her weight, she stomped on his foot. When he bent over, she plowed her elbow into his belly. Just like in the movies.

  But unlike the movies, he didn’t drop to the ground. Instead he growled and shoved her toward the front door.

  Before she could run, he was on her, grabbing her arm, hauling open the door. The storm blew in, icy snowflakes and wind hit them full in the face. Annie didn’t have a coat or shoes on, just a thin blouse and pants, but that didn’t seem to worry her captor.

  Two steps off the porch, they heard a helicopter. With a nasty oath and hard, vicious hands, Tony jerked Annie back into the house, then shoved her out of his way. She fell into her old-fashioned umbrella stand in the foyer.

  Head still down, she came up to her knees, her fist wrapped around her neatly folded, heavy-duty umbrella.

  “Get up,” he snarled behind her. “Damn it, get up. We’ll go out the back.”

  When she didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her up.

  Using the momentum, she let it take her, swinging out with the umbrella with all her strength as she went, clobbering Tony along the side of his head.

  Without a sound, he toppled like a ton of lead.

  She was still standing there, swaying in shock, staring down at the lifeless body when the front door slammed open.

  Then there were uniformed officers everywhere, shouting, and one man not wearing a uniform.

  “Annie.” Ian held her against him so close she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. He squeezed her so tight she could hardly breathe, but that was okay, she didn’t need air, she didn’t need anything in that moment but him.

  “My God.” He sank his fingers in her hair and tipped her face up.

  “I take it that was your vigilante,” she said shakily. “Tony.”

  “Yes, he’s Steve’s brother…he found me here in Cooper’s that very first day by pretending to be my commander’s assistant, calling Thomas, claiming to be sending flowers—Never mind. Are you all right?”

  “Aunt Gerdie—”

  “She’s fine, she’s locked in her room. Did he touch you, are you hurt—”

  “No.” She put her face to the crook of his neck and breathed him in. “I’m fine, thanks to you.”

  He sagged in relief but didn’t let her go. “Thanks to me?” A rough laugh escaped him. “You were nearly killed because of me. You didn’t need me at all.”

  Annie went still, then tilted her face up to look into his. She threw caution and all her anal tendencies out the window, because she had to do this, she could have died without doing this, and that would have been the crime. “You’re wrong about that, Ian.”

  The look on his face assured her he wasn’t told he was wrong very often. “I do need you,” she whispered. “I need you right this minute, just to hold me. I need you tomorrow, just to hold me. And Ian…I think I’m going to need you forever.”

  “Annie—”

  “No. Wait. Please? I have to say this right this very minute or I’ll start thinking, overanalyzing, and then it’s quite possible I’ll talk myself out of—”

  “Annie.” Looking shaken, he backed her farther into the living room, passing uniformed officers and the mess she’d created fighting Tony. His jaw ticked, his eyes darkened, but he never took his hands off her as he lowered her to the couch, ignoring everyone around them. “Just say it.”

  “Yeah.” She swallowed hard, looking into his beautiful, tense face. “Just say it. I—”

  “Goddamn it.” He stroked her jaw with a light, tender touch while fury raged in his eyes. “You have a bruise. Ice!” he bellowed over his shoulder. “She needs ice!” He whipped back to her. “Where else are you hurt? Where else did he touch you—”

  “Ian.” Laughing a little, she gathered his hands in hers. “I’m having a hard time here.”

  He grimaced and gathered her close. “I know, baby, I know. I swear, if I could do it again, I’d kill him before he could touch you—”

  “No.” She took his face in her hands. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that tonight I realized so many things. Life is more important than work, did you know that? It has to be lived, even lived on the edge, lived every single moment of every single day because you never know when it could be ripped out from beneath you—”

  “Annie—”

  “Ian, don’t take this wrong, but if you interrupt me one more time I’m going to get violent.”

  He blinked. “Okay.”

  “I’m trying to say that I blamed you for keeping me out of your life, when I did the very same thing to you. I didn’t let you in, either, not even when we made love, because in my experience people…” Do it. Say it. “People…”

  “People leave you,” he finished gently. “Is that it, Annie?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes blazed with emotion. Empathy, affection and so much more that her own eyes filled as she put a finger to his lips when he would have spoken. “I know it wasn’t fair to judge you on my past,” she said. “But that’s exactly what I did. I’m sorry, Ian.”

  “Annie—”

  She pushed her finger tighter against his lips, ensuring his silence. “And there’s…something else.” This was hard. Harder than clobbering Tony over the head. “I want to let you in now because…” Her smile wobbled. “Because I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Grasping her fingers, he pulled them away from his mouth. “You think you’ve fallen in love with me?”

  “Y-yes.” She stared into his eyes, trying to decide how he felt about that. As she watched, his eyes went suspiciously shiny.

  “Annie, do you know what I intended to do toni
ght? Before you were abducted and nearly killed because of me?” He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “Do you?”

  “No,” she whispered, never having felt safer. “What were you going to do?”

  “Try to talk you into loving me and giving me forever.” A disbelieving laugh rumbled from his chest as he buried his face in her hair. “And here you are offering it to me for free.”

  “Love should be free.”

  He lifted his head. “Yeah, from family, maybe. But without the blood ties?” Slowly he shook his head. “Nothing’s free. No woman’s ever offered me so much. I love you, Annie. No thinking about it, I just do.”

  As her eyes filled, he ran his thumb over her cheek, catching a tear. “And I learned something about myself tonight, too. Like you, I thought my work was everything. I thought the world began and ended in the city. But oh, baby, was I wrong. Coming here to Cooper’s, where time seems to stand still and everyone knows everything about everyone…meeting you…I found something, too. Home. For the first time in my life, I found home.”

  “You’re…not going back?”

  “I’m thinking not.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Thinking?”

  He smiled. “I can promise you this much. I won’t ever walk away from you. Ever,” he repeated softly. “Know that right now. Wherever we end up, we do it together.”

  “I love it here,” she whispered. “Right here.”

  “Good. Because I do, too.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “Consulting, maybe. Whatever it is, I don’t want to bring danger anywhere near you ever again. Not near you or my family.”

  “I think Thomas can take care of himself.”

  “Yes, but I was thinking about our kids.”

  “K-kids?”

  “You seem to have a new stuttering issue.” He grinned and nuzzled at her throat. “Do you have a problem with kids, Annie?”

  She wanted tall, wild, rough-and-tumble boys with eyes that sparkled with trouble. “Does this mean we’re going to get married?”

  A slow, sexy smile crossed his face. “Yeah. How about it, Annie? Want to marry me? Want to live with me every day for the rest of your life?”

  She flung her arms around him with such velocity they fell backward to the couch, Ian on the bottom. He let out an “oof” but she just held on, unable to speak past the emotion clogging her throat.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he whispered, and wrapped his arms around her.

  “Most definitely yes.” Then he stole what little breath she had left with his mouth. “Yes, yes, yes…”

  * * * * *

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  Back in college, Mia Hayes had a secret crush on uptight Daniel Keegan. But she fantasized about turning Mr. Uptight into Mr. Hot Sex. Now a successful event planner, Mia runs into Mr. Uptight himself at a bachelor party. And she’s determined to show overly serious Daniel how to loosen up a little…

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  “SO WHAT’S NEW with you?”

  It was the third variation of that question Daniel Keegan had heard in the last fifteen minutes. He’d always dreaded parties where he had to make small talk with strangers, but tonight was proving that catching up with former acquaintances could be just as awkward.

  Daniel sipped his beer, stalling. “Um…” Very articulate for a man with a PhD. He could share the story of how he’d proposed a few weeks ago. It had seemed romantic to pop the question at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s.

  Would’ve been a lot more romantic if Felicity had said yes. She’d blurted out a panicked no and fled his parents’ lavish party.

  Or Daniel could discuss how he was being considered for tenure at the university—never mind that he was up against three very qualified candidates all competing for the same vacated spot. Professional triumph would ease the sting of getting dumped, but even with tenure, he’d still be the underachiever in the Keegan family. His older brother was hoping to be the next governor of Georgia.

  Fortunately, the opening trombone notes of a classic striptease score interrupted conversation. Men eagerly turned toward the makeshift stage. The chandeliers in the rented ballroom dimmed even further as a spotlight appeared. Leaning against a column toward the back, Daniel tried to look enthusiastic, but part of him would rather be at home in his Buckhead condo, grading papers. You’re the best man. Participation in the bachelor party is mandatory. Hell, he was just lucky Eli hadn’t asked him to plan it.

  Tonight’s location-hopping party—dinner followed by a private burlesque show before winding down at a jazz club—had been part of a package deal with the same event planning service that was managing Eli’s wedding next Saturday. The company had even provided a luxury bus and chauffeur.

  A voluptuous redhead in a rhinestone-studded mesh bodysuit sauntered onto the stage, asking where the lucky groom-to-be was and making jokes about the honeymoon. From there, she progressed to audience participation, gathering bits of trivia about Eli’s past. The spotlight followed her to the guest of honor, where she sat in Eli’s lap and serenaded him with an improvised song about his favorite childhood stuffed animal and the day he got his driver’s license. Her lyrics were met with laughter and applause, but the guests really went wild when she introduced the next act—a pair of dancers with large feather fans and teasing smiles.

  “Get you another?” A petite blonde waitress, wearing not much more than the women on stage, nodded at the microbrew in Daniel’s hand.

  “Oh, no thanks.” He’d been nursing the same beer since arriving, and it was only half-finished. Party animal. “I’m trying to set the record for how long it takes to finish a single drink.”

  “Designated driver?”

  “Nope, just really boring.” It was something Sean Clark, head of the university kinesiology department, heckled him about once a week. Sean was the poster child for impulsive fun—which was why Eli hadn’t asked him to be the best man. Sean was the kind of guy who would lose the rings. Or miss the wedding entirely because he’d skipped town with a hot bridesmaid.

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” the waitress protested. She gave him a slow once-over and a mischievous smile. “You look like you would be very exciting under the right circumstances.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he agreed politely. “Maybe I’ll surprise myself.” Liar. It had been drilled into him from birth that he had a family name and image to protect; he’d repressed his wild side for so long it probably didn’t exist anymore.

  Another lie. Daniel knew damn well he had a rebellious streak buried deep down. But after so many years censoring himself, if he ever gave in to it, how would he regain his self-control?

  “I’ll be sure to check back with you later,” the waitress promised. “I like surprises.”

  As she moved on toward the tables clustered in front, Eli W
allace appeared, clapping Daniel on the shoulder. “Did I see you flirting with the cute waitress?” His approving smile gleamed white against his dark skin. “Progress!”

  “Just a bit of friendly conversation.”

  “At least I can trust you not to get too friendly.” Eli’s smile vanished. “My dumb-ass cousin Terrence got a little handsy with the bartender. I questioned whether to even invite him tonight, but since both of his brothers were coming… Help me keep an eye on him? If he gets too obnoxious, we pour him into a cab and send his ass home.”

  “Remind me, which one’s Terrence?” Daniel and Eli had gone to high school together before ending up as professors at the same university years later; Daniel had met many of the man’s relatives in passing, but only knew Eli’s parents well.

  Eli pointed across the room to a man in a disheveled suit whistling at the dancers from his seat.

  “I’ll keep an eye out,” Daniel promised.

  “Thanks, man. If you’ll excuse me, I should mingle—and keep some distance between me and the performers. If anyone else ends up in my lap, Bex will kick my ass.”

  Rebekah was tiny compared to Eli’s six-foot-five but the surgical resident was fierce. “Yeah, probably best not to piss off a woman with regular access to scalpels and bone cutters.”

  Eli laughed, but his amusement gave way to sincerity. “All I want to do is make her happy.”

  “You will. You guys are great together.” Daniel almost winced at the unintentional irony; Eli had said the same to him when Daniel was psyching himself up to propose to Felicity.

  Sympathy flashed in Eli’s gaze, and Daniel waved his friend away. “Go. You’ve got other guests to talk to.”

  Making good on his agreement to watch Terrence, Daniel glanced in the man’s direction a few minutes later, but his gaze snagged on the second waitress working the room. She had her back to him, her black hair swishing across her bare shoulders in a straight, shiny fall that reminded him of someone he hadn’t thought of in almost a decade. Mia Hayes. In college, she’d had hair like that, but streaked with turquoise.

  Trying not to ogle, he resisted the urge to compare the waitress’s body to Mia’s. Déjà vu aside, they couldn’t be the same woman. Mia had been in the MBA program. With her intelligence and aggressive nature, she’d probably taken over a company by now. Or a small country. Seeing people from his past tonight had simply triggered a sense of nostalgia.