by Cindy Dees
A gunshot exploded off to their right. Crap. That sounded like Joe’s voice grunting in pain. Was he hit? It wasn’t like Nick could stop and check on the guy. Adam’s arms tightened even more around his neck. Hang on, son.
Nick caught up to Lisbet, who waved him to go ahead of her. The young woman was fast, but not very good at seeing and dodging tree branches and brambles. Not that he was much better. He was just willing to slam into and through any obstacles in his path at this point.
“This way,” a female voice panted off to his left.
Laura. He veered toward her.
“Joe?” she gasped as he fell in beside her.
“Haven’t seen him,” Nick grunted back.
“We need that video.”
“We can’t stop for him,” he retorted.
She didn’t answer, but merely turned even more to the left. He followed in grim silence, glad that it sounded like Lisbet was keeping up with him leading the way.
When Laura screeched to a halt seconds later, he barely managed not to slam into her. Lisbet did slam into him. Adam let out an oomph that was all too audible in the sudden silence.
Laura signaled something. She pointed at her eyes then out into the woods and then held up three fingers. Three men off to their right, maybe? The pistol in his hand crept up into a firing position. He peered into the trees and shadows desperately. As much as he didn’t want anyone to be out there, he almost hoped he’d spot someone so he could shoot them.
Laura held up four fingers. Then five. He didn’t need to see the distress lining her face to know they were in serious trouble. They were out of distractions, and as best he could tell, they weren’t even close to the car, yet. Too bad they couldn’t just pay these guys off to go away. Pay…
Crouching, he slid over beside Laura. She looked at him questioningly, and he pointed at the diaper bag flung over her shoulder. Frowning, she handed it to him. He reached inside quickly and pulled out a bundle of hundred-dollar bills, sliding off the paper ring holding it together. Quickly, he scattered the bills on the ground around them.
Laura smiled briefly and got into the act, yanking out handfuls of cash. They started moving again, sliding slowly from shadow to shadow, spreading handfuls of bills all around them.
He didn’t actually expect their pursuers to abandon the chase and go on a money hunt, but perhaps the incongruous sight of thousands of dollars in cash lying on the ground and clinging to leaves and branches would at least give the men pause. And they were playing a game of seconds right now.
The money ran out all too soon, and Laura took off running again. He and Lisbet followed.
The women were panting nearly as hard as he was. The woods stretched on interminably before them with no sign of that dirt road and their vehicle. Had they gone the wrong direction? Missed the car entirely?
His thighs and lungs were burning, and Adam was starting to feel like he weighed a hundred pounds. Not that Nick minded. He’d have gladly carried his son if he weighed a thousand pounds.
Without warning, a sandy track opened up before them. The road. Praise the Lord.
Laura paused, looking right and left, and took off running to the left. The footing was firm and free of obstacles, and her stride lengthened. Nick stretched out his long legs into a full run. Lisbet was falling behind a little, but he couldn’t stop for her any more than he could for Joe. His first priority was to get his son out of here safely.
He thought he recognized a clump of brambles and bushes from before. They were getting close to the car, now.
And that was when the apparition rose up in front of them, standing in the middle of the road, an automatic weapon pointed directly at them. Laura pulled up, breathing hard, and he did the same. Lisbet stopped just behind him, and he felt the woman’s hands go around Adam’s waist, preparing to grab the boy and take off with him if necessary. If they lived through this night, he was going to make that nanny a very rich woman for her loyalty to Adam.
“My God,” Laura breathed. “Kent? Is that you?”
Kent? Her old CIA partner? The one who’d disappeared in Paris the night he and Laura met? Nick peered into the darkness. A shock of recognition rolled through him. He’d seen this guy before. In Paris. Six years ago. A flash of a darkened street, wreathed in shadows not unlike these ones, came to him.
Nick didn’t know if he was more staggered by the fact that he’d remembered something from the lost years, or the fact that he suddenly and certainly knew exactly why he’d been in that alley in Paris. Nick had found out that a young, beautiful CIA agent’s partner had defected to the Russians and was setting her up for kidnapping. Laura had been the target that night in Paris. He’d taken it upon himself to save her because it would be a rush to play James Bond and because he thought she was hot.
“Hi, Laura. You’re looking good,” the Russian double-agent said casually.
“I thought you were dead,” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad you’re alive. Where have you been?”
“Long story.”
Nick snorted. “Is that what they call treason these days? A long story?”
Laura glanced at him in shock and dawning comprehension. She looked back at her old partner in dismay. “How could you? We were lovers. Friends.”
Kent shrugged. “The money was a hell of a lot better on the other side of the fence.”
“You sold Nick out for money?” she asked in burgeoning outrage.
Nick corrected gently, “He sold you out, not me. You were the target that night, Laura. Kent and Meredith were going to kill you.”
She glanced over at him in horror, then over at her old partner. “No. We were going to meet an informant. And the guy turned on us. Kidnapped you.”
“I was kidnapped because I knew too much. If it weren’t for that crazy prenup, they’d have just killed me. Isn’t that right, Kent?” Nick asked. He continued gently, “Kent works for Meredith. Tell her. Laura deserves that much from you. After all, you betrayed a woman who loved you.”
“You loved me?” Kent asked sadly.
“Yes,” she half whispered. “I did.”
Nick interjected. “Look. We’ve got a small child with us. Let him and Laura go and you can have me.”
“No!” Laura cried out, staring at him, aghast. “The two of you have to leave. I couldn’t live with losing either of you.”
Something big crashed out of the trees behind them just then, and Nick and Laura whirled simultaneously to face this new threat.
Nick grunted as a bloody Joe all but fell into him. He caught the man and barely managed to keep his feet under the man’s weight. Lisbet rushed forward to wedge a shoulder under Joe’s armpit. Adam started to cry and Nick shushed him. The child buried his face against Nick’s neck and continued to shake with now-silent sobs.
“They’re coming,” Joe gasped. “Did what I could. Go.”
“We’ve got a small problem,” Nick murmured to the older man. “Laura’s old partner is between us and the car and pointing a big gun at us.”
Laura was speaking again, her voice low and reasonable. “Let us go for old time’s sake, Kent.”
“Why should I?”
“You owe me one. I loved you, and I know you loved me at least a little. And Lord knows, you owe Nick one after locking him in a box for five years.”
Kent frowned.
Nick added, pitching his voice to be calm and soothing, “He’s just a boy. Let Adam go and we won’t kill you.”
The former spy seemed to consider that.
“Do you have children of your own?” Nick asked.
Kent shook his head in the negative.
Vividly aware that a whole bunch of bad guys would burst out of the trees any second and shoot them all, Nick explained with desperate calm, “You see, Laura and I are parents. We’ll both die without a second thought to protect our son. And we both have weapons. As soon as you fire yours, we’re both going to fire ours at you. You’ll kill one of us, but you won’t get us both
before the survivor takes you out. Frankly, Kent, that’s a trade I can live with because my son walks away alive and with one parent. How ’bout you, darling?”
She nodded resolutely beside him. “Yup. I’m good with that. Besides, these woods are swarming with law enforcement. You’ll never get away from here if you fire your gun and draw them all with the noise.”
Kent’s weapon wavered.
Crashing noises and shouting came from the trees close by.
“It’s now or never,” Laura muttered under her breath.
“Let’s go,” Nick replied grimly.
The two of them started walking forward. When Kent didn’t immediately shoot them, they picked up their pace. Broke into a jog. And then raced past the man, who took off in the other direction.
Nick spotted the outline of the car ahead.
Gunshots erupted behind them. Maybe the law enforcement types Laura had just lied about had, indeed, arrived. Ducking instinctively, Nick dived for the car. He shoved Adam in the backseat. Lisbet piled in after him and Laura pushed Joe in the other side.
Nick glanced up in time to see a figure in black racing toward them. For the second time in as many minutes, he recognized the face bearing down on him. The female face. Of his wife. Meredith Black-Spiros—criminal, traitor, and bitch. The person who had not only made his life hell for five years, but who had threatened his son. He could forgive all the rest. But not that.
Without hesitating, he swung his pistol to bear on her.
Meredith made eye contact with him as she pointed a wicked looking semiautomatic weapon in his direction. She grinned, a disdainful expression that said she knew full well he didn’t have what it took to kill her.
Quickly taking aim at the middle of her chest, he double-tapped the trigger. The impact of flying lead slammed Meredith backward. She looked down at the wet stain blossoming on her chest in stunned disbelief and back up at him. For good measure, he sent two more rounds into her torso.
“In the immortal words of Arnold Schwarznegger,” Nick snarled, “consider this a divorce.”
Meredith’s legs folded and she crumpled to the ground.
Nick spun, jumped into the driver’s seat and punched the ignition button, Laura leaped in and, hanging out the window partway, fired her weapon at someone behind them.
“Gun!” she shouted at Nick holding out her free hand.
He passed her his weapon and she continued rapid firing out the window.
Nick stomped on the accelerator and the vehicle jumped forward. The Prius wasn’t exactly a Formula One race car, but in a few seconds it was still faster than a bunch of guys running on foot. Between shots, Laura tossed her empty pistol into the backseat, and Lisbet dug out a spare clip from the bottom of the diaper bag. Joe slammed the new clip into the weapon and passed it forward to Laura when Nick’s pistol clicked on empty.
The accelerating car bumped wildly and careened around a corner, finally getting up a good head of steam. The sound of gunfire retreated abruptly into the distance behind them. In a few more seconds, only the sound of the car’s gasoline engine whining disturbed the sudden silence.
He drove a few minutes in tense silence while everyone else watched out the back window for pursuit.
Finally, Laura said tentatively, “I think we did it.”
He glanced over at her, and the two of them traded looks of mutual relief and triumph. They had their son back. Their family was safe. Their family. God, he liked the thought of that.
“Uhh, sir, I think we’d better find a hospital rather quickly. Joe’s bleeding quite a lot back here,” Lisbet announced.
Adam wailed at that. “Uncle Joe, don’t die! I never had an uncle before.”
Laura stabbed at the car’s GPS system and gave Nick tense instructions to the nearest hospital while Lisbet performed what first aid she could in the backseat. No ambulance ever drove so fast, and perhaps no other Prius, as Nick coaxed every last ounce of power out of the hybrid engine.
Eventually, the bright lights of a small hospital came into view. Laura had already been on the phone requesting that medics meet them at the door. Nick spotted several nurses and doctors waiting as they pulled up.
The trauma team whisked an unconscious Joe out of the back of the car onto a stretcher and then away into the bowels of the emergency room. Adam cried softly in Lisbet’s arms.
“They’ll do everything they can for him, buddy,” Nick assured his son gently.
The three adults and Adam trailed inside the waiting room and Laura headed for the admissions desk. “You need to call the police immediately,” she told the attendant. “A whole bunch of men just tried to kill us. That’s how our friend got shot. They’ll be here soon with big guns.”
Panic lit the woman’s face and she snatched up a telephone and began babbling into it.
Nick put an arm around Laura’s shoulder. “You do have a way of evoking strong reactions in people.”
Smiling a little, she gazed up at him. “Do I do that to you?”
“You always have. Always will.”
She turned into him, leaning her forehead against his chest. “I like the sound of that.”
They stood together like that for a long moment, and he savored the rightness of her in his arms. No doubt about it, this woman was his entire world.
“Were you really willing to die for Adam?” she asked in a small voice.
“You even have to ask? Of course. He and you and Ellie are my family. The three of you are my whole world. I’d die for any of you. I love you.” By that he meant all of them, but she was bright. She’d get that. “Laura, love is about all the things you said it is: trust and openness and respect. But it’s also about sacrifice and protectiveness and taking care of those you love. Love has many, many forms of expression.”
She went still against him. And by slow degrees, she finally relaxed in his arms. “You really don’t remember Paris?”
“Funny that. Seeing Kent jogged a brief memory for me of the night we met. Enough to know he’d sold you out and was working with Meredith.”
She jolted and pulled back to stare at him.
“If I got that back, maybe I can get more.” He shrugged. “I’m willing to try if you’re willing to wait for the truth before you condemn me and throw in the towel on us.”
She frowned thoughtfully and he took that as a hopeful sign. At least she hadn’t rejected the offer outright.
Several police cars streamed into the parking lot just then, light and sirens screaming. Laura stepped away from him to go brief the police.
It was a long night. They had to answer questions from the police for hours. Doris and Marta got calls to let them know all was well. Joe survived surgery to remove three bullets from his gut, but faced a long recovery. It went without question that he’d come back to the estate with them for that. After all, Adam had never had an uncle.
Laura was dozing in Nick’s arms the next morning when an all-news channel announced that the trial of AbaCo Shipping had been suspended by federal prosecutors on grounds of national security. He woke up Laura to catch the end of the announcement, although it was moot at this point. Adam was safe and asleep with Lisbet in one of the examining rooms under police guard.
Nick was surprised, though, when the newscaster continued, “In other news, wealthy socialite, Meredith Black-Spiros was found dead last night in Virginia. The circumstances of her death are being withheld by police pending an investigation.”
He jolted. “Will they send me to jail for killing her?”
“She pointed her weapon at you, and you had every reason to believe she would fire it. Trust me, it was self-defense all the way. Joe and Lisbet and I will all testify to it. No worries.” She reached up to smooth the furrows from between his brows. Slowly, his clenched neck and shoulder muscles unwound.
Laura glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. “What are your plans now that she’s dead?”
Nick shifted so he could look down fully at her
. “To marry you as soon as possible if you’ll have me. After that, I’d like to work with those doctors of yours—cooperatively this time—to see if I can recover any more of my memories for you, so you’ll know without a shadow of a doubt that I always loved you and only you.”
She was silent for a long time, and then she said slowly, “I don’t need a psychiatrist to extract that information from your mind for me to know it’s true. I’ve known it deep down in my gut all along. I was just hurt and scared and worried about Adam. Can you forgive me for doubting you?”
“Truly?” he breathed.
“Pinkie swear,” she avowed solemnly.
The explosion of joy in his gut was so forceful it hurt. Laughing, he answered, “Darling, there’s nothing to forgive. I’m the one who needs forgiveness. I swear, everything I did, good, bad, or stupid, was to protect you and the children.”
“I believe you. Only a man who loves his family would offer to sacrifice himself to save them like you did last night.”
She leaned up to kiss him, and as always, he lost himself in her the moment their lips met. She was everything he’d ever wanted and more. How blessed was he to have found her not once, but twice in a lifetime?
“Uhh, Laura?” he mumbled against her mouth.
“Hmm?” she mumbled back, not breaking the addictive contact.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question would that be?”
“Will you marry me?”
She leaned back to smile up at him. “I thought you’d never ask.”
For some reason, his heart was pounding and his face felt like it was on fire. “Is that a yes?”
She laughed softly. “Of course, it’s a yes. I was a goner from the moment you stepped out of that alley and saved my life.”
His arms tightened around her. “You’ve got that all wrong. You saved me that night. You’ve saved me over and over, in fact. How can I ever repay you?”
“Love me and the children for the rest of our lives.”
“And our grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s lives,” he promised.