Just Beyond Reach

by Candace Irvin

  "Damn it, don't move!"

  She took another step, but it wasn't Nicole who stopped her this time, it was the door. It burst open as Joe vaulted into the room with what had to be Brohm's Glock in his hand. He froze as he spotted Nicole.

  As for Nicole, the woman had turned as white as the sheets on the row of beds to Tess's left as she also realized what Joe's presence—and Brohm's absence—undoubtedly meant. Unfortunately, the ICU nurse within had risen to the fore as well, and quickly, allowing Nicole to push through her personal pain and maintain her focus. Or maybe it was just self-preservation.

  Either way, the woman kept her 9mm leveled on Tess. "Drop the gun, you bastard, and kick it away, or your wife dies."

  "Joe, she won't—"

  "I will."

  And, damn it, Joe did. He slowly lowered the 9mm to the concrete, kicking it back to the door behind him as he rose. Tess caught the flick of his gaze toward her switchblade—and knew what Joe was suggesting. If she could keep Nicole distracted, he could get to that blade near the foot of the bed closest to him, and seconds later, this standoff would be over—in their favor.

  Tess inched forward again.

  The barrel pushed closer as well—to her. "You take one more step, Tess, and I swear I'll shoot you and then him. I don't have a hell of a lot live for now, and you know it."

  But could the woman actually do it?

  Evidently, with Brohm down for the count and most likely dead, Nicole could. Because as she claimed another inch of ground, the barrel sliced up.

  Tess lunged for the Glock, but it was too late.

  The deafening shot, the stinging pain in her left upper arm—and the anguish in Joe's hoarse shout—all blended together as momentum continued to carry her forward until her right ribs were cracking into the metal railing on the med student's bed.

  By the time she'd staggered back up to her feet, Nicole was already down, the switchblade buried within the pocket of the woman's right shoulder, complements of Joe's swift, unerring aim.

  Joe followed through with a lunge of his own—right over Eddie's trussed up form. He reached Nicole before Tess could draw her next breath and bent down to retrieve the stray Glock, as well as the switchblade from the now sobbing nurse's shoulder.

  Ignoring the woman's tears, Joe retracted the knife, tucking it and the 9mm into his waistband as he stood.

  A split second later, Tess was in his arms, his hands shaking as he ripped open the collar of her dress and pulled the sleeve down to assess her injuries.

  She peered at the reasonably neat, if bloody path the bullet had sliced across her outer arm. "I'm okay." She'd need a few stitches, and that was it.

  But he was still shaking, still searching.

  "Joe."

  His gaze finally found hers and the agony within tore through her with more force than any bullet could.

  "Joe, I'm fine. It's just a scratch. I'm fine." Hell, her ribs were throbbing more than her arm from where she'd slammed into the rail of the bed.

  But there was no way she was telling him that.

  She cupped his face, pulling him close, reassuring him twice more that she was okay, even as she continued to smooth her fingers along the stubble darkening his jaw. Her touch succeeded in bringing him back from wherever he was.

  Back to her.

  "Madre de Dios, Teresa—"

  Nicole's sobs morphed into a round of wracking hiccups. Ironically, the nurse's face had landed two feet from the crotch of Eddie's spotted briefs. Tess couldn't see the extent of the damage to Nicole's shoulder, but there was enough blood saturating the woman's shirt to give her pause.

  Tess tugged the sleeve of her dress up as she turned to Joe. She might need stitches, but there were others who needed more—and that didn't account for the family that had yet to rouse. "C'mon, Agent Cortez. I've got patients to check on, and you've got arrests to make. And don't forget the charge for indecent exposure."

  Those briefs were hideous.

  Joe followed her as she headed for Nicole's side and knelt to assess the injury behind all that blood. Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as she'd feared. Though the woman would be minus a functioning right shoulder and arm for a while, she'd live.

  Nicole reached out with her left, clutching at the hem of her dress as Tess glanced up at Joe to let him know she ready to move on.

  "Agent C-Cortez? Then you two really are just…p-partners?"

  Tess didn't bother answering as Joe helped her to her feet. Nor did she look at him. Despite everything that had happened between the two of them these past few days, and everything that still might, Joe was so much more than her partner.

  And so much more than just a friend.

  But if they were ever going to be more than that, the next move was up to him.

  14

  "Hey, little lady. How's the arm?"

  Tess tucked her phone into the crook of her neck, grateful for the distraction of Gray's call. If she was lucky, it would keep her mind off more depressing matters. Like packing up her clothes and personal items from the apartment she'd just shared with Joe. Like avoiding that looming, empty bed.

  "It was just a graze and you know it, Cowboy." An already stitched up one at that. "How's that shiny new medal of yours?"

  "They refused to give me one. Can you believe it? Something about how you and that sidekick of yours had saved the day all by yourselves before I even got there."

  Tess grinned, turning to her dresser to pull out her sweats. She dumped them into the canvas duffle at her feet. "Thanks for bringing up the rear anyway. Though I confess, I thought the cavalry was supposed to thunder in on horseback, not a chopper."

  "Yeah? You try getting one of those stubborn, four-legged beasts to take to the sky, city girl, and then we'll talk."

  She couldn't help it; after all the stress of the afternoon—and worse, the silent waiting—Gray's impugned Texas honor had her chuckling.

  But she was right about the cavalry.

  Less than ten minutes after she'd begun treating the family lying in those beds, Gray had shown up with half their respective agencies in tow. When she'd missed their rendezvous, Gray had scrambled every chopper the DEA and the FBI owned within fifty miles—and had also managed to abuse a critical connection within the Mexican government to gain immediate clearance to enter their airspace for the search.

  Starting at the Kidney Center, the choppers had circled out until one of the pilots had spotted Eddie's truck.

  God bless that tacky lift kit—that and the fire engine paint job had made it stand out like a prancing pink poodle in a snarling pit bull parade. Both the color and the lift had saved lives, too. The family was recuperating in a patient ward at Tijuana General.

  As for Nicole, the nurse was back at Lorring, this time as a patient, albeit under armed guard. Arthur Brohm hadn't been so lucky.

  The bastard.

  Apparently, Eddie had simply been along for the ride. He'd also squealed like a pig before the bulk of the cavalry had even arrived.

  Joe had simply walked by the tech, the stained switchblade that he'd removed from Nicole in hand.

  It was enough.

  Not only had Eddie given up the names of both CBP officers from the inspection booths, the tech had admitted that he'd panicked after Nicole had left Tess alone in his bedroom. Apparently, under the terms of his agreement with Arthur and Nicole, he'd promised to quit skimming from the pharmacy, which of course was how Nicole had latched on to him in the first place. Both Arthur and Nicole had insisted that the risk of detection from his skimming was too great. Plus, the money wasn't even close to what the tech was pulling down through the kidney scheme.

  But Eddie was greedy. And when he discovered that Nicole had left Tess alone in his room with unobserved access to his current—albeit concealed—stash, he'd panicked and confessed. That had sent Nicole back to the bedroom.

  Unfortunately, the nurse had made it in time to spot the colored contacts Tess had been cleaning and had decided
that Tess had definitely changed her eye color to attract the tech. An easy enough deduction for the woman to have made—given that Nicole had already altered her own body for effect, creating the track marks on her wrist with sterile saline water to throw off Tess…just in case Eddie's latest rutting target wasn't the desperate wife with a failing marriage that she'd presented herself to be.

  Those tracks had been clever as hell, too. Especially since Nicole could've passed a drug test at any point had another nurse spotted them and reported her.

  Gray cleared his throat, politely reminding her that he was still on the other end of the line. "You get those ribs looked at, too?"

  Tess flushed as she returned to the dresser to scoop her T-shirts from the upper drawer and dump them into the duffle atop her sweats. "Sorry, just thinking through everything. But, yes, I did. And as I told you in Mexico, they're just bruised. They don't even hurt anymore."

  Gray hadn't been able to get her to sit long enough to get her ribs looked at any more than Joe had. Frankly, she'd had more important concerns, like making sure five innocent kids had recovered from anesthesia before she'd loaded them into one of the choppers. From there, she and Joe had gotten split up.

  She hadn't seen him since.

  Joe had taken charge of Nicole and Eddie. She'd gone to Tijuana General with the parents and the kids while Gray had accompanied the Mexican medical student turned victim back to the States for his own treatment and subsequent arrest.

  Tess was suddenly and acutely aware of the silence that had settled into the phone line once again.

  Don't do it. Don't ask.

  But what if Gray knew?

  "So…how's Joe?"

  The silence ticked out for several more moments and then, "Honey, the man left your office hours ago. I was there when the approval came down."

  The chill she'd been experiencing on and off since she and Joe had gotten separated returned. She clamped down on her phone to stave it off. "Approval?"

  Oh, God, please don't let it be for—

  "His vacation." Gray's soft curse reverberated through the line. "I'm sorry, Tess. I thought you knew. I assumed he was on his way to see you. Hell, much as I wanted to touch base, I didn't expect you to pick up the phone."

  That was it then. Joe really was leaving.

  She reached for the empty dresser drawer, almost afraid to shatter the latest silence that had fallen, afraid of what else she might learn. She pushed the drawer home instead. A hollow thud filled the room, not unlike the one echoing deep in her heart.

  Who was she kidding? Joe wasn't leaving. He was already gone.

  The worst part was, he hadn't even said goodbye.

  "I don't suppose it would help to know I heard your vacation was approved, too?"

  Big deal. Without Joe to spend it with, what was the point?

  "You…ah…need a friend?"

  "N-no." Damn it, she was not going to break down. Not now, and certainly not on the stupid phone, in a bedroom that wasn't even hers.

  No matter what had happened in here last night.

  Despite her resolve, she felt the tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. The only thing that prevented them from spilling over altogether was the soft thump at the door.

  The door to the apartment.

  She was in the middle of the living room in five seconds flat, her pounding heart crashing into raw, jangling hope. The resulting knot clogged up her throat, cutting off her air. She swallowed firmly as the door unlocked, then opened.

  Joe.

  He entered the apartment and closed the door. But then he just stood there, looking across that godforsaken cheap blue sectional. Looking at her.

  "Tess?"

  Gray. The phone.

  It took her a few moments more to find the strength to turn away from that mesmerizing stare. A few more to regain her composure enough to clear her throat. Speak. "Gray, I've…ah…gotta go. A friend just stopped by. A good friend."

  She swore she heard Gray's grin. "I'm gone."

  She set her phone on the end table and turned back to that smolder.

  Joe was still at the door, focused solely on her. The emerald fire in the stud in his ear burning as steadily as the darker fire in his eyes. He hadn't shaved, but he had changed from the shirt that had gotten stained with her blood hours before. He'd replaced it with another one of those incredibly shrinking tees, this one gray.

  Her heart bottomed out, but it wasn't because of what she saw. It was what she didn't.

  There was no smile in Joe's face. No dimples. No laughter.

  In fact, she'd never seen him this serious. Not in six years. Not even at the church.

  This really was goodbye.

  She screwed up her nerve and opened her mouth. But before she could get the words out, let alone force a greeting, Joe was standing in front of her, pulling her close, holding her, kissing her. It was the same kiss he'd given her that afternoon in that barn in Mexico when she'd feared it might be the last time that she'd see him.

  It was kiss full of fire and love.

  But also desperation.

  She didn't care. If this was goodbye, it was going to be the best damned sendoff this man would ever get. She wound her arms about his neck, sealing herself to his quaking body as he deepened the kiss, leaving no doubt that she wanted him too. She was his for the taking. Always had been, always would be.

  All he had to do was accept.

  His hoarse groan did it for him as he pulled her closer, anchoring her to his groin. Seconds later, her hands were tugging at the hem of that shrinking tee. He peeled her shirt up and off first, then helped her remove his. Bending low, he pressed his lips along the row of tiny stitches across her outer arm, then dragged his mouth down and across her bra to nuzzle her breasts through the lace.

  She shuddered right along with him.

  Love, fear and the lingering adrenaline from all that had happened in that barn crashed in as the rasping, needy sound of his-and-her zippers filled the air. She wasn't sure who had pushed whose jeans down whose thighs, nor did she care.

  All she cared was that the moment they were gone, Joe swept her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  Her bra and panties melted beneath the heat of his fingers as he pressed her down onto the cool sheets. Within seconds, his tongue, teeth and lips had followed, only this time he was consuming her bare, aching flesh. She gasped as he covered the whole of a nipple with his mouth and began to suck.

  She wasn't going to last.

  She was so ready for him, it was all she could do not to beg. And she refused to wait. She locked her legs around his hips before he could stop her. She wanted him inside her. Now. He responded by grabbing her hair in fistfuls as the blunt tip of his shaft caught at her entrance—but then he paused, staring deep into her eyes, hovering there for what felt like eternity. His voice finally broke on her name, the raw, jagged sound filling her ears, filling her, as he drove home in one slick, fierce thrust.

  Then he began to move.

  Over and over. Harder, faster, hotter. As though he never wanted to stop, as though he couldn't stop. Neither could she. She didn't know what tomorrow would bring. She didn't care. Because right here, right now, this was Joe's scent in her lungs, Joe's taste in her mouth. The harsh rasp of his breath grating into her ears as he seared in and out of her. All the while, that molten stare of his burned into hers.

  Beneath his gaze, she burst into flames. A second later, she watched him do the same.

  She was still quivering around him as he collapsed into her, burying his face in her hair and smoothing his hands down her body while he murmured her name over and over, as though he'd been holding it back for far too long.

  Until finally, he breathed in deeply and fell silent.

  Now what?

  Except—she really didn't want to know, did she?

  She certainly didn't want to move, nor did she want him to move—because then he'd be leaving. But, of course, he would…eventu
ally.

  And he did.

  He eased his chest from her, his stare dark and fathomless as his fingers captured the strands of hair that'd fused themselves to her face during their lovemaking, carefully smoothing them from her lips as he smiled.

  She couldn't help it; she lowered her lashes and turned away.

  How could he do that? How could he look into her eyes like that, smile at her like that and just…leave?

  "Tessa?"

  She could hear the uncertainty in his whisper, the pain and the fear.

  It was the need to ease them that gave her the courage to turn back to him and open her eyes. "Wh-When…ah—"

  Damn.

  She swallowed the tears burning her throat and drew her breath in slowly, then pushed it out before she tried again. "When are you going?"

  When was he—

  Joe stared down at Teresa as the confusion and panic that had thickened his thoughts cleared. Surely, she did not believe he had chosen to abandon her?

  But as he continued to stare into the ache that was consuming the soft green he loved so very much, he knew she did.

  Just as he knew why.

  For had he not made love to her in this very bed less than twenty-four hours ago and then, coward that he was, attempted his escape?

  Little had he known then, there was no escaping. Not from her.

  Not from them.

  Indeed, perhaps the dream as well.

  He might continue to suffer that horror every night hence—and have the one he loved most of all added to it—but waking each following day to a world without this woman in his life would be a far more painful burden to bear. Impossible, in fact.

  No matter what the future held, he would be remaining beside Teresa for the remainder of their days.

  But she was not so certain.

  And when she raised her hand to thread those slender fingers of hers into the strands of hair at his temple, he knew the reason for this as well.

  She smiled softly, sadly. "You cut your hair because of him, didn't you? The monster who murdered your parents. You cut it so you wouldn't be recognized when you left to confront him. To avenge them."