Never Alone (43 Light Street)

by Rebecca York

  When Garwill went still, Cal turned and staggered toward the stairs, forcing one foot in front of the other as he climbed into the sunlight, leaning heavily on the two-by-four, using it as a cane instead of a club to keep himself from falling on his face.

  After the darkness of the cellar, the light blinded him as he stood there, grasping the wood, swaying on his feet. Dimly, he could make out a ring of men wearing dark uniforms, body armor and helmets. They were armed with rifles—pointed at him.

  Then he heard Beth scream, “No. It’s Cal. Don’t shoot. It’s Cal.”

  In a blur he saw a running figure leap through the circle of men.

  “Beth, no. Get back.”

  He braced for the impact of bullets. Bullets slamming into her flesh, not his.

  But it didn’t happen.

  “Red light. Red light. Hold fire,” a voice ordered.

  He breathed out a sigh, seeing the rifles lower as Beth flung herself into his arms. She was real and solid, a burst of brightness after the dark nightmare of the past eighteen hours. The two of them swayed together, and he tried to absorb the enormity of what she’d just done.

  “Thank God,” she sobbed. “Thank God you’re safe.”

  Beyond words, he gathered her to him, holding on for dear life, feeling her warm and pliant in his arms, knowing that she had risked her life for him again.

  When he found his voice, he growled, “Don’t you ever, ever put yourself in the line of fire again! Do you hear me? Don’t ever do it!”

  She nodded against her chest, and he was oblivious to the scene around him, lost to everything but the joy of holding her close when he had thought he would never see her again. She clung to him, her lips against his chest.

  Then suddenly her body stiffened.

  “Beth?”

  “Down. Get down,” she shouted. “He’s coming. Get down.”

  He had heard nothing beyond her words. Seen nothing. But he had learned to trust his life to Beth’s sixth sense. He didn’t resist as she pulled him to the ground just as a bullet from behind him whizzed past the place where he’d been standing only seconds earlier.

  As he pushed Beth to the ground below him, a volley of shots rang out over their heads, and he turned to see Garwill teetering at the edge of the stairway, a gun in his hand and a pattern of red spreading across the front of his shirt.

  Then, in slow motion, the killer fell backward into the cellar, his body clattering down the steps and landing with a thud on the dirt floor.

  It was over. Finally, it was over. And all he could do was hang on to Beth for dear life.

  SOMEONE APPEARED at her side. It was Alex Shane.

  “You all right, buddy?” he asked Cal.

  “More or less.”

  “You can thank your wife for saving your ass.”

  “I intend to,” Cal answered, pushing himself up, then pulling Beth to a sitting position.

  “And you?” Shane asked Beth.

  “I—I’m all right.”

  Lieutenant Patterson came trotting up and scowled at them.

  “Are you here to make trouble?” Beth asked him.

  “No.” He cleared his throat. “I’m here to say I’m glad things turned out okay.” He dipped his head, then met her gaze again. “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time before. Will you accept my apology?”

  She swallowed. “Yes.”

  He turned toward Cal. “You were right. I was wrong,” he said in a low voice.

  Cal nodded tightly, and helped Beth to her feet.

  She saw the red lights of an ambulance flashing. Then paramedics appeared at Cal’s side.

  He looked from them to Beth and back again. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything from you guys.”

  “You need to have those wrists treated.”

  Cal looked down at his raw flesh as if he’d just realized he’d been injured.

  “I’m going with him,” Beth said, sticking by his side as they led him toward the ambulance.

  They climbed inside, and she sat beside him on the stretcher, after he told the paramedic that he was damned if he was going to lie down. Before the doors closed, Alex Shane joined them.

  “I thought I’d entertain you on the ride over,” he said as he pulled down a seat along the wall.

  “With what?” Cal asked as the vehicle started rolling slowly forward. A paramedic was leaning over him, taking his blood pressure.

  “Some information about Harold Mason and Tim Fillmore.”

  Beth raised her head. “What does Tim have to do with Harold Mason?”

  “With everything else going on, I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but we interviewed Fillmore. He was upset by Mason’s death—and scared. It looks like he and Mason had a scheme to get you to sell the farm. That’s what Mason was doing out there. When you went to Jo’s, Fillmore called him and said it was a good time to inspect the property.”

  She stared at him in dumb-eyed shock. “What?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, but the two of them worked out a systematic policy of harassing you. Mason started a fire in one of your fields and poisoned your sheep. Fillmore did most of the inside work, though. He could get close to the house because your dog didn’t bark when he came around. He took the cover off an old well. Left a water bottle in your barn so you’d wonder who’d been there.”

  Beth heard the words, but they made no sense. “Tim’s my…my friend. Why would he do any of that?”

  “Apparently, he wanted to be more than friends. He wanted you to turn to him for help. Marry him. He was attracted to you. But he also had an eye on making big bucks off your property.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “I’m afraid so. He was pretty upset when Cal walked into the picture, I can tell you that. Cal was in danger from him—a lot more danger than any of us knew.”

  Before Beth had time to contemplate that, Alex introduced another topic. “Did you know there was another man found outside the house a few minutes ago?”

  Beth’s gaze shot to him, saw him watching her and cringed. She had seen the man on the ground. Now she didn’t know what to say in front of Alex.

  “Beth,” he said quietly, “I authorized the SWAT team to come in based on the information you gave Kathryn. In the official report it will say that I used Hunter as a known and reliable source. But it was really you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding. Here was yet another person who was willing to accept her psychic abilities. In fact, he had come to Cal’s rescue based on her say-so. The knowledge sent a surge of emotion through her. For so long she’d felt like a freak. Now everything had suddenly changed.

  The paramedic had stopped hovering over Cal, and she felt his hand press over hers as she said, “Yes, I saw him. Who was he? Is he dead?”

  “No, I think the guy is going to pull through. He’s Jamie Naylor, the brother of Sean Naylor, the kid who was shot down in the drug bust in Baltimore. The one involving Hannah Dawson. It’s likely he’s the man who killed one of the other officers involved in the incident, Ron Wexler. He’s admitted to following Cal around, hoping he would lead him to Hannah. I guess that’s what he was doing out there. Unfortunately, he got in Garwill’s way.”

  “Was he the one who killed Deep Throat and shot at me?” Cal asked.

  Alex shook his head. “It’s more likely the shooter was protecting the interests of Dallas Sedgwick, the drug lord who’s still after Lucas.”

  “Which means Lucas and Hannah are going to have to stay undercover,” Cal muttered as the ambulance drew to a halt at the emergency room door.

  Inside, Cal got priority treatment, and Beth was allowed to stay with him while his wrists were cleaned, slathered with antiseptic and bandaged.

  Then, finally, the doctor stepped out of the room and they were alone.

  Wordlessly, she turned to him where he sat on the edge of the exam table. Wrapping him in her arms, she held tight. For a
moment he pulled her to him fiercely, then eased away.

  “I guess you’re sorry I ever came riding up your driveway that day,” he muttered.

  “We’re finally alone and that’s the first thing you want to say to me?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “You said we were supposed to be honest with each other. You married me because you were in danger. Now what are your plans?”

  Not so long ago the question and the tone of his voice might have put her off. Now she understood where he was coming from.

  Taking a step back, she raised her head and looked him square in the eye. “My plans are to love you, make you as good a wife as I can, have children with you and grow old with you. That is, if those plans don’t interfere with yours.”

  He looked stunned, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.

  “I told you on our wedding day, I married you because I love you, not because I was looking for a bodyguard. What do I have to do to make you believe that? Did you think I was lying?”

  “I thought—” He stopped, unable to go on.

  “What?” she demanded. “Say it.”

  “I thought that once the danger was over, you’d change your mind.”

  “No. Never.” She would have launched herself back into his arms again, except that she was afraid she would hurt him. Instead, she inched slowly toward him, watching him, seeing that he was holding his breath as she moved into the vee of his legs, into his warmth. Slowly she angled her head so that her lips could press against his.

  His hands simply dangled at his sides for several moments. Then they came up to clasp her, and she felt as if she’d moved from a storm-tossed sea into a safe harbor.

  She felt his lips soften against hers, felt his mouth open as he took what she was offering. The first wave of urgency changed to a lazy exploration as they relaxed into the kiss.

  “Oh Lord, Beth, how I love you,” he sighed as he finally lifted his head.

  She stared at him, her heart brimming over as she realized that she’d finally heard the words from him that she’d been longing for, praying for.

  Still, she needed to be sure of one important thing. “You mean, you don’t mind a wife who has psychic episodes at inconvenient times?” she murmured.

  His expression turned serious. “You saved my life with a couple of those episodes. When I was in that coma. And that’s how the SWAT team knew where to find me, how you knew Garwill was coming up the stairs, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded gravely.

  “I wouldn’t call that inconvenient. Or this morning when you were in that dirt cellar with me. You gave me hope—hope that I could cut through those damn ropes in time. How did you get there?”

  “I don’t know. Kathryn hypnotized me. I thought it wasn’t going to do any good. Then I heard your voice warning me to stay away…and I came to you.” She gave him a direct look. “So maybe I’m not the only one with psychic abilities. Maybe we never would have connected in your dream if you hadn’t been able to call me there.” She swallowed. “How do you feel about that?”

  “Whatever works.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding. “I guess you’ve traveled a long way from that first afternoon when you came up the driveway. I guess we both have.”

  “Yeah.” His expression grew very serious. Clearing his throat, he said, “I told you, I’m not so great at saying stuff. But I want you to know…I think before I met you, before I fell in love with you, I had convinced myself that marriage was an institution with no meaning. That’s what I kept telling myself, but I’m pretty sure I was really afraid that I’d be as big a failure as my parents. Then…” He dragged in a breath and let it out before continuing. “Then I met you, and I wanted you, but I knew I couldn’t make love with you and walk away. I had to take the honorable route. I’m still nervous about it. But I can’t give you up.”

  “Oh, Cal,” she whispered, folding him close, overwhelmed by what he had told her. “We’ll make it work. Because we both want this so much.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Do you think you could take me home now? I mean, to your house, where we can be alone.”

  “As soon as I get a doc to discharge me,” he answered, easing down off the table and slinging his arm around her shoulder. “Then we’ll get back to the honeymoon that was so rudely interrupted.”

  “It’s going to be a long honeymoon. I think a hundred years is a conservative estimate,” she murmured as she followed him to the door.

  He stopped, turned and looked at her with a gaze so fierce she felt her heart melt.

  “After we get started on the honeymoon, do you think we could do the wedding again? I mean in a church, with music and flowers and all the trimmings? And a reception afterward for our friends.”

  She felt her eyes brimming. She hadn’t had many friends in recent years, but through Cal she’d met a whole group of people who accepted her in a way she never would have believed possible. “I think that could be arranged.”

  “Good. And oh yeah. You need to get me a wedding ring. A thick gold one. Because I want the world to know I belong to you as long as I live.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5078-2

  NEVER ALONE

  Copyright © 2001 by Ruth Glick

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com

  *43 Light Street

  †The Peregrine Connection

  **43 Light Street/Mine To Keep