Heart of a Hero

by Marie Ferrarella

  She watched the pool of blood spread on the ground. The driver was dead.

  His partner stood rooted to the spot, his hands raised high over his head. She was barely conscious of him, leaving that to Rusty. Hurrying to her son, Dakota picked him up and held him against her. He was whimpering again. She silently swore to spend the rest of her life making this up to him.

  Turning, she looked at Rusty. He was even paler now than he had been a moment ago.

  Gratitude shone in her eyes. “You certainly do earn your pay.”

  “I try,” he murmured.

  “We can tie him up.” She nodded at the other man. “I want to take a look at that shoulder.” The blood was soaking into his jacket at an alarming rate.

  But he shook his head. He began pressing the cell phone keypad again. “Not until after I get through to Gray.”

  She was about to tell him that she didn’t think he could wait. She’d taken some nursing courses in hopes of eventually getting a degree and knew an ugly wound when she saw one, even when it was partially hidden by a jacket. But the sound of sirens in the distance disrupted any tug-of-war of wills that was about to happen.

  “I’d say you don’t have to bother.” She nodded toward the direction of the sirens. Beautiful music to her ears. “Sounds like help is on the way.”

  Within moments Detective Graham Redhawk was hurrying out of his pink pride and joy to join them. It took him less time than that to assess the situation.

  He shook his head, pushing back his black Stetson. “I was coming to the rescue, but it looks like you two don’t need my help. You seem to have things pretty well in hand.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled at the little boy in Dakota’s arms. “I take it that this is the brave soldier you were looking for.”

  Vinny responded to Gray’s voice and the approval in it. He smiled shyly, then hid his head, winding his arms more tightly around Dakota’s neck.

  Dakota thought her heart was going to burst. “This is him,” Dakota verified with pride.

  There were three squad cars in all, counting Gray’s. The rest had been deployed to the Stavos estate and had remained there. “Looks like I get to clean up.”

  “How did you know we were here?” Dakota wanted to know.

  “They patched his message through to me at the hospital. I figured you probably needed me more than Caitlin did. My wife’s resting right now. It was a long labor.” And she had come through like a trouper, he thought. She always did.

  “What did you have?” Rusty asked weakly.

  “Girl. Just like her big brother ordered,” Gray added. “I followed you out here after one of the men inside the estate ‘volunteered’ that two of Stavos’s men were headed for the airport with the boy. I figured you’d be right behind them.” Gray nodded in the direction from which they’d come. “You left quite a mess back there.”

  “It wasn’t our doing,” Rusty assured him. That had undoubtedly been the result of the confrontation between the warring organizations. Drained now that Dakota was safe, Rusty sank down again in the car. “The limousine was just leaving when we arrived. We went right after it.”

  Gray eyed the wound. He’d seen a lot worse, but it was far from good. “What happened to you?”

  “Cut myself shaving,” Rusty quipped, though it cost him.

  Gray laughed under his breath. “Yeah, I hear you hairy Caucasians spend a lot of money on razors.” Placing a hand under Rusty’s arm, he helped him slowly to his feet. “C’mon, let’s get you in the car. I’ll take you to the nearest hospital. You and Dakota can fill me in on your ‘nonparticipation’ on the way over.”

  Rusty was leaning on the man more than he was happy about, but he knew that if he tried to be stubborn about it, he wasn’t going to make it to the vehicle under his own power. He’d used up all of his available strength pushing Dakota out of the way.

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll get blood on your car?”

  Gray grinned as he brought Rusty over to one of the two black-and-whites. “That’s why we’re using a squad car.” He lowered Rusty into the back seat as gently as if he were setting down his new baby daughter. “By the way—” he turned to look at Dakota “—I thought you might want to know, Del Greco’s dead.”

  She froze, stunned. Afraid to believe her own ears. “What?”

  He nodded. “Dead. We identified his body when we arrived.” He opened the opposite door for her and Vinny. “It’s too soon to tell, but it looks like the bullet might have come from one of his own men’s guns. My guess it was someone looking to change organizations and eager to get on the good side of Stavos.” He closed the door behind Dakota and her son, then rounded the hood to get in behind the wheel. “In any case, it’s going to take us a while to sort things out.”

  Gray shook his head, starting the car. “Times like this, I wish I had gone into tribal medicine.” He glanced over his shoulder at his passengers. “No pension plan, but you sure can’t beat the hours.”

  Dead. Vincent Del Greco was dead. The man who had haunted her every waking and sleeping moment was dead.

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  As if reading her mind, Rusty placed his hand over hers and offered her a weak smile.

  She was drained, completely, utterly drained. In the background, the TV she’d left on was into the second hour of It’s a Wonderful Life but she barely heard it.

  Sinking down onto the sofa, she felt almost numb. She told herself to snap out of it and to count her blessings. After all, they really were bountiful. She had Vinny back, something she would always be eternally grateful for, and she didn’t have to run anymore. Del Greco, the only one who truly wanted to take her son, was dead. He couldn’t hurt her or Vinny anymore.

  To insure that his organization would be dismantled, she’d taken Vincent’s diary and mailed it anonymously to the Nevada D.A.’s office after first wiping it clean of her own fingerprints as well as Rusty’s. She’d only touched the thick volume once with her bare hands, using gloves to turn the pages once she realized what the book contained. She hoped it would help the D.A. make an ironclad case against everyone left alive in Del Greco’s crime syndicate.

  She was free. Really free.

  So why didn’t she feel that way? Why was there this awful heavy feeling pressing down on her chest, making her feel disoriented? Why wouldn’t it go away?

  Restless, she got up just as George Bailey encountered Clarence, his second-class angel. Maybe she felt like this because she knew she would never see Rusty again.

  Maybe? It was a sure thing. She’d already made up her mind that she was moving away as soon as she found another apartment. One more move. Hopefully, the last one she would have to make for a long, long time.

  Still running, aren’t you? she mocked herself.

  But what else could she do? At the hospital where Gray had taken them, she’d confided in Rusty in a moment of weakness, probably because of all the blood that he had lost, and said that she was beginning to realize that some people could actually be trusted.

  He’d taken that small opening to mean that she was talking about him and proposed.

  Proposed.

  Of all the stupid, misguided things to do. He hadn’t picked up on her cue when she’d suddenly fallen silent, and he had continued. He’d told her that he wanted to be around to take care of her. She’d snapped at him then and informed him that she didn’t need taking care of, that she was fine by herself and that she certainly didn’t need anyone proposing to her.

  And he hadn’t said anything. Not a word. Just nodded and walked away.

  Maybe the whole thing had been a joke on his part. Otherwise, wouldn’t he have pressed? Wouldn’t he have tried to convince her to say yes? Wouldn’t he have tried to talk her out of this raw fear that had seized her heart, the fear that if she let her heart loose, it was going to be forever lost, forever useless to her?

  She’d been battered around emotionally for most of her life; she needed some assurances that that wa
sn’t going to happen again.

  He was a detective, damn him, why couldn’t he detect her fear and talk her out of it?

  She blinked. Behind her, on the TV set, people were sharing the holidays with a Christmas beer in one of the endlessly cheerful commercials littering the airwaves. She could feel her eyes smarting.

  Oh, no, she wasn’t going to cry. She couldn’t. She refused. She had Vinny; she had a new life; now she could finally move on. Everything was great. Just great.

  She just had to remember that.

  She looked at the set just as another commercial came on with carolers singing in front of a huge tree. Dakota looked at the empty spot she’d cleared away for a tree just before Vinny had been kidnapped.

  Tomorrow, when she had her head screwed on right, she was going to go out and buy the best damn Christmas tree she could find.

  If there were any decent ones left on the day before Christmas.

  The movie came back on. She watched for a moment, then began clearing away the large plate from the coffee table. She’d brought her dinner over from the kitchen table in hopes of finally finishing it. Or at least eating half. The change in venue hadn’t stimulated her appetite. And watching the Christmas classic hadn’t helped. Especially now that George Bailey was calling to Clarence, saying he wanted to live again.

  George would get his wife and family back, but she was going to go on alone.

  Alone except for the wonderful boy who was sleeping in the next room.

  She stepped into the minuscule hall to check on him. The door was partially open and she could see him. He was sound asleep.

  Someone knocked on her door. Dakota stiffened. Fear instantly leaped into her veins, then she laughed herself out of it, releasing the breath she’d caught. She was going to have to get used to hearing someone at the door without being afraid that Del Greco had managed to track her down.

  Del Greco wasn’t going to be tracking down anyone anymore.

  Approaching the door, she called, “Who is it?” When there was no answer, she opened the peephole. All she could see was a lush expanse of green. What was going on here?

  “Who is it?” she asked louder.

  “Santa Claus. Ho, ho, ho, have you been naughty or nice?”

  Her heart constricted as she recognized the voice. Rusty.

  Her fingers trembled a little as she opened the door. Dakota called herself an idiot. She’d sent him on his way, what was he doing here? And why was she behaving like some elementary schoolgirl confronted with the class hunk she had a huge crush on? She hadn’t behaved that way when she was in elementary school, worldly wise years before her time. This was an awful time for a flashback.

  He looked like Santa Claus.

  From the top of his red cap to his long, flowing white beard, down to his shiny black boots. The only thing she recognized were Rusty’s eyes. And his mouth. The same mouth that had quickly turned her into molten lava in a small motel room on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

  She stared at him. He was holding a tree up that looked about seven feet tall against him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Bringing Christmas to you.” Without waiting for an invitation, he walked in, carrying the tree in with him. “When I brought you home yesterday, I realized that you weren’t ready for the holidays.”

  She didn’t bother saying that she had a tendency to leave things to the last minute, or that she’d planned on getting the tree and gifts. She was done with excuses. “Things got away from me.”

  She watched as Rusty stood the tree up in exactly the place she’d chosen.

  He crossed back to her, opened the door she’d just closed and leaned over to pick up something. Only then did she realize that he’d brought a sack with him, as well. A sack bulging with gifts.

  He hefted it over his good shoulder, just the way Santa Claus would have done. “Good thing I’ve got a workshop and elves. Those malls are damn crowded.” Taking the sack over to the tree, he began to unpack the gifts and place them beneath the tree.

  “Santa Claus doesn’t say ‘damn.’”

  He looked at her over his shoulder. It felt a hell of a lot better than it had, but it was still fairly stiff. Because he was trying to perpetuate the image of Santa Claus, he’d temporarily abandoned the sling.

  “That’s because Santa doesn’t usually spend an hour trying to locate his sleigh in a parking lot.” He dug toward the bottom of the sack. “You’d be surprised what Santa says when he’s really frustrated.”

  He’d gone shopping for her son after she’d all but told him to take a flying leap. Guilt gnawed at her, taking out large chunks. “You didn’t have to do this,” she told him.

  He rose to his feet again. “Haven’t you heard? Shopping’s good for the economy.” He picked up the sack. “I figure I just sent it up another few notches.”

  She could feel them starting again. Tears. No one had treated her like this before. Ever. Not even Vincent. “You’re a good man.”

  He inclined his head. “Santa Claus has to be.”

  She felt like tugging off his beard, but she refrained. “And how about Russell Andreini?”

  He smiled to himself at the sound of his formal name. “Nobody calls me Russell.”

  Rusty was a boy’s name, and he had been all man. “Maybe someone should start.”

  His eyes held hers. He wanted to take her into his arms, ache or no ache, but he didn’t want to frighten her off the way he had yesterday. “Are you volunteering?”

  “Maybe.” She ran her tongue over her lips nervously. Measuring her words. “And maybe I was a little too hasty.”

  “About?”

  She took a breath, warning herself to not back down. She was through running from something. It was time she ran toward something.

  “About turning you down so flat yesterday.” She wasn’t accustomed to explaining herself, but he had more than earned an explanation. “You have to understand, everything has always come the hard way for me.” She looked at him pointedly. “Especially everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  He touched her face softly. “It doesn’t always have to be that way.”

  “I know.” She felt foolish now. “But I was suspicious.”

  He tried to understand what she meant. “Of an ulterior motive?”

  Dakota shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “Something like that.”

  “My only ulterior motive is that I want to wake up every morning and find you next to me. If I’ve frightened you, I’m willing to do anything I have to to make it up to you.”

  How could he even think that there was anything to make up? And how could she have run from someone like him? “You already have. You gave me back my son.” She looked at his shoulder. “You took a bullet doing it. And you saved my life. If anything, I owe you debts that I know I can never repay.”

  That was where she was wrong, he thought, beginning to feel for the first time since he’d entered that it was going to turn out all right. “We could work on the installment plan.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “We could do that.” Dakota caught her bottom lip between her teeth. A grin was beginning to take hold. A grin and a feeling of complacency that overwhelmed her. “When would you like your first payment?”

  Instead of answering her, Rusty began digging through his sack again.

  Her eyes narrowed. She’d expected him to toss the sack aside, not to rummage through its folds. “What are you doing?”

  “There’s one more present in here.” He felt around the very bottom. The box was small and easily lost. “I wasn’t sure whether or not to put it under the tree.” Finding what he was looking for, he pulled it out and held the box out to her. “Now I am.”

  She felt her throat go dry. He’d gotten her a ring. After she’d turned him down. Dakota raised her eyes to his. “Is that what I think it is?”

  He placed the box in her hands. “Only one way to find out.”

  She wanted to savor the moment. “It’s not Christmas yet.�
��

  “I’m Santa Claus, I can let you bend the rules a little.” When she made no move to open the velvet box, he leaned over and did it himself.

  Dakota felt her heart pounding as she looked down at the perfect marquis diamond that caught the light from the television set and winked back at her. “Oh, God, it’s a ring.”

  “In a box like that, you were pretty safe in assuming it wasn’t a pony.” He peered at her face. “Is that a good ‘Oh, God’ or a bad ‘Oh, God’?”

  “Good. Very good.” Still holding the box in her hand, she threw her arms around his neck. On the screen, Clarence had just gotten his wings. Dakota felt as if she’d just gotten hers, as well. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you, Russell.”

  “Easy, you were just you.” And having her in his life was more than he had ever expected. His arms tightened around her, bringing her even closer. “Now, about that first installment.”

  She laughed, looking up at him. “I guess you’re really going to give me that happy ending you promised me when we started out.”

  He remembered. He had said it to seal their bargain just before they’d left for Vegas. It felt like an entire lifetime ago. “I always try to deliver.”

  Her eyes shone. “Then get started.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “One more thing,” she interjected just before he lowered his mouth to hers.

  “What?”

  “I love you,” she whispered. When his eyes lit up, she was filled with warmth. “I just thought you’d like to know. I didn’t think I ever could again, but I do. I love you,” she repeated.

  He framed her face with his hands. “That’s good to know, although I already love you enough for both of us.”

  She could feel a smile all but consume her. It was going to be the best Christmas ever. For her and for Vinny.

  When Rusty began to lower his beard, she stopped him, her eyes shining. “What’s it like to kiss a man with a beard?”

  “Can’t tell you firsthand.” He smiled into her eyes. “But why don’t you find out?”

  She was more than up to the challenge.