Staying where he was, making no attempt to go into her arms, the child held out his little hand. Rorie clasped it in hers and uttered a silent prayer of thanks. She led him away from the guards and across the room to Hawk.
"Frankie, this is Hawk. He's my… He's my friend, and he's going to take us to the ocean where we'll board a big boat and go all the way to the United States."
The female soldier stepped forward, halting behind Rorie. "It is time for us to leave. We will go to the car now. We are to follow Señor Murdock, after waiting ten minutes."
Daylight spread across the horizon, the sky pale blue and clear. The guards hustled Rorie and Frankie into the back seat, Santos's female soldier joining them. Hawk was sandwiched between the two male soldiers in the front.
As the miles passed, taking them farther and farther from La Vega and the war raging in the distance, Rorie grew more and more uneasy. They were only a few miles from Cabo Verde—their destination. Murdock would be waiting and within an hour, she and Hawk and Frankie would be safely aboard the cruiser and headed for home.
She held Frankie's hand securely in hers and tried to push aside all her doubts and fears.
The car gave a sudden lurch. After coughing and spluttering several times, the motor died. Cursing loudly, the driver slammed his hands down on the steering wheel.
"What's wrong?" Rorie asked. "Why are we stopping?"
"Something is wrong with the engine," the female soldier said. "We will get out and walk about while Diego checks under the hood."
Hawk glanced over his shoulder, giving Rorie an unspoken warning. Her heartbeat accelerated. Dear God, what was going on? What did Hawk think would happen once they got out of the car?
The female guard opened the door and stepped outside, then motioned for Rorie and Frankie to follow. The driver got out, walked over and lifted the hood. The guard to Hawk's right, opened the passenger door and stepped out. Hesitantly, Hawk slid across the seat and eased out of the car.
From the thicket near the road came the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. Four men suddenly appeared.
"Take cover, Rorie!" Hawk yelled as he drew out the 9-mm pistol Murdock had strapped on him. He hit the ground and rolled over and over, firing repeatedly at their attackers.
Rorie grabbed Frankie and shoved him under the car, then crawled in beside him. Santos's female guard clasped her hand around Frankie's leg and dragged him from beneath the car. Rorie screamed at the woman, but she didn't pay any attention.
As Rorie slid out from beneath the car, she drew her pistol from the shoulder holster. Gunfire erupted all around her. The four attackers lay dead on the ground as did the male guard Santos had sent with Frankie. Lazaro's guard, his gun in his hand, knelt over Hawk, who lay crumpled against the right rear fender. Hawk held the 9-mm against his belly.
Salty bile rose in Rorie's throat. Blood stained the front of Hawk's shirt. His face was chalk white. Sweat dotted his brow and upper lip.
Rorie glanced back quickly at the female, who had one arm draped beneath Frankie's throat. In her other hand she held a gun that was pointed directly at Rorie.
Rorie tightened her hold on the pistol in her trembling hand. "Let Prince Francisco go," she said. "Let him come to me, right now."
"The boy is going nowhere, señorita," the woman said. "General Lazaro is weak, but Emilio Santos is strong. He does not let his enemies live to attack him again." She tightened her hold on Frankie's neck. The boy cried out in fear. "Prince Francisco dies! You all die!"
The woman's eyes held a wild, insane look, like a mad dog, crazed and ready to kill.
Elizabeth Landry's prediction reverberated inside Rorie's head. In the end it will be you who must save both Frankie and Gabriel. If you have the courage. If your love is strong enough.
Without thinking, without planning, acting purely on instinct, Rorie aimed the semiautomatic and fired. The gun in the female soldier's hand went off once, twice, the bullets piercing the earth, then fell from her fingers to the road. Blood gushed from the wound in her head. She slumped slowly to the ground. Frankie pulled free and ran toward Rorie.
Gripping the gun tightly, Rorie stared at the weapon she had used to kill another human being. For one split second she froze, the reality of what she'd done hitting her full force. And then she felt Frankie clinging to her, burying his little face against her stomach. She dropped to her knees, flung her arms around him and lifted him onto her hip.
"Señorita, your man is badly hurt," Lazaro's guard said.
Carrying Frankie, Rorie rushed around the car. She stopped dead still. "Hawk!"
"It's only a couple of miles to the beach where Murdock is waiting," Hawk told her. "Take Lazaro's man here with you and get Frankie to the boat."
"What about you?" Rorie set Frankie on his feet. He clung to her. She knelt beside Hawk. "We can't leave you here like this."
"I'll be all right. Murdock can send someone back for me." Lifting his bloody hand, Hawk let it hover near Rorie's cheek. "Get the hell out of here. Now!"
"Dammit, Gabriel Hawk, don't you curse at me! And don't you give me orders."
Rorie stood, picked up Frankie and handed him to Lazaro's guard. "Take him to Murdock. And tell Murdock that Hawk and I will expect him to come for us as soon as he can."
"No! Dammit, Rorie, you're not staying here with me. I want you to go with Frankie."
She turned to the guard, who looked back and forth from Hawk to Rorie, obviously uncertain what he should do.
"You must get Prince Francisco to Murdock as soon as possible." Rorie clutched the soldier's arm. "I will stay with my man."
Frankie cried out for Rorie. She kissed his cheek and tried to reassure him, then waved goodbye as Lazaro's guard headed off down the road to Cabo Verde.
Rorie knelt down beside Hawk. "Do you think you can stand? We can't stay out here in the open like this. It isn't safe."
"It isn't safe for you here with me," Hawk told her. "Why the hell did you stay?"
"Because I couldn't leave you."
She lifted his arm and draped it around her neck, then slid her arm around his waist and urged him to stand. Using every ounce of her strength, she helped him to his feet. When he swayed, she tightened her hold and led him off the road and into a nearby thicket.
When the burden of his weight became too much for her, Rorie and Hawk dropped to the ground. With quick, quivering fingers, she unbuttoned his shirt and examined his wounds.
"I've got to stop the bleeding," she told him, knowing if she didn't do something, Hawk would bleed to death. Hurriedly she removed her shirt, ripped it apart and used it for makeshift bandages.
"I think one of the bullets went all the way through," Hawk told her. "But the other one is still in me."
"How—how long do you think it will take Murdock to get Frankie aboard the ship and get back here to help us?"
Hawk's eyelids flickered. Rorie grabbed his face between her hands. "Gabriel! Gabriel!"
"What's the matter?" He slurred his words.
"You nearly passed out."
"Need to get the bullet out," he mumbled.
"Me?" her voice squeaked. "You want me to remove the bullet? But how?"
Hawk reached toward his boot, then promptly passed out cold. Rorie unlaced his boot and discovered the knife Paz Santos had hidden in the sack of fruit he'd given them.
She held up the knife, staring at it as if it were an unknown object. How did Hawk expect her to remove the bullet? She had some first-aid training, but she'd never operated on anyone in her life.
Hawk's eyelids fluttered again. He opened his eyes. "Did I faint?" he asked.
"Yes, you fainted."
He looked at the knife she held in her hand. "You know what you have to do."
"I can't do it," Rorie said. "I'll kill you if I try to remove the bullet. I don't know how."
"I'm a dead man if you don't," he said.
"But how—"
"You assisted me in two surgeries that night in U
tuado. You saw what I did. Just stick the knife in the wound and dig for the bullet."
"But we don't have any way to sterilize the knife and nothing to use as anesthesia, not even whiskey."
"It won't matter." He gripped Rorie's hand. "I'll probably pass out from the pain and won't feel a thing."
Rorie leaned over, kissed Hawk on the lips, then removed her belt and slid the leather between his teeth. He grinned at her. A silly, cockeyed grin. Tears spilled from her eyes. He reached up and wiped her face, mingling the blood on his fingers with her tears.
Using her ripped shirt, she smeared the blood away from the open wound in Hawk's shoulder, then glanced at his other wound. The bandage on his side was soaked with fresh red blood.
Lifting the knife, she prayed for divine assistance. Please, dear Lord, give me the strength and courage to do this. I don't want Gabriel to die. I love him. I love him so very, very much.
Rorie embedded the blade a couple of inches into Hawk's shoulder. He roared with pain. Her hand trembled. A thick stream of blood poured from the gunshot wound. Rorie probed deeper. Hawk cried out, then bit down on the leather belt in his mouth. She glanced at his pale, clammy face. Perspiration covered his forehead. Rivulets of sweat poured down his neck.
Slowly, carefully, she continued delving into Hawk's flesh, seeking the bullet. When he groaned again, she took a quick look at his agonized face. His eyes closed. His mouth gaped open. The belt slid out and down over his chin.
Rorie thanked God that Gabriel had finally passed out. She eased the knife deeper and encountered the bullet. She had no tweezers, no means of removing the bullet. She had no choice; she would have to dig it out with the knife.
Gabriel Hawk's blood covered her hands as she worked diligently to remove the bullet. With her tears almost blinding her, she continued relentlessly.
"I love you," she told an unconscious Hawk. "I love you and I forgive you. Do you hear me, Gabriel? No matter what you did in the past, I forgive you. You can't die." She lifted the bullet higher and higher, praying she could bring it to the surface without losing it. "I won't let you die!"
* * *
Chapter 17
« ^ »
Six hours later, Murdock found them in the thicket, less than thirty feet off the road from where the stalled car sat with the hood still open. Rorie held Hawk's head in her lap, her bloody hand pressed gently over the ripped-shirt bandage covering the bullet wound in his side.
"Is he still alive?" Murdock asked.
Rorie nodded. "Yes, he's alive. He's unconscious. He passed out while I was removing the bullet from his shoulder."
"Well, I'll be damned."
"How is Frankie?" Rorie asked.
"Last I saw of the young prince, he was crying his eyes out, but he was on our cruiser headed for the States."
Rorie let out a deep breath. Fresh tears misted her eyes. "Thank you." She mouthed the words as her emotions lodged in her throat.
Murdock removed his shirt, leaned over and draped it around Rorie's shoulders. "I'm sorry it took us so long to get back, but we ran into a little trouble. It seems the war is spreading quickly all over the island."
"Gabriel needs a doctor." Rorie caressed his pale cheek. "He should be in a hospital."
"There's another ship on its way to pick us up. It should be waiting for us by the time we get to the beach. We'll go straight to Miami. I'll radio ahead and have a medical helicopter waiting for us the minute we dock."
"He thought I'd leave him." Lowering her head, Rorie lifted Gabriel in her arms and laid her cheek against the top of his head. "He actually thought I'd leave him."
Murdock grasped Rorie's shoulder. "Arturo and I can carry him to the truck."
Murdock called for the guard's help, then eased Rorie away from Hawk. The two men lifted him and carried him toward the back of the truck. Rorie slipped on Murdock's shirt, then stumbled along behind them, her body weak and her mind fuzzy from exhaustion. She rushed over and lowered the tailgate, then crawled up and onto the truck bed. Arturo and Murdock lifted Hawk into the truck, placing him back in Rorie's arms.
"He's tough," Murdock said. "He'll make it."
"Yes, I know. He's a big, strong man." Tears cascaded down Rorie's cheeks.
Within an hour they were on the ship, headed for Miami. Rorie stayed with Hawk, cradling him in her arms. Their adventure to hell and back would soon come to an end. They had accomplished their goal. They had rescued Frankie. Her parents would be overjoyed to know that both she and their grandson were safe.
When they reached Miami and she knew for sure that Hawk was going to be all right, she would catch the first plane to Chattanooga. As much as she wanted to stay with Gabriel, she realized that the longer she stayed with him, the harder it would be to leave him.
If she'd thought that he loved her, that he wanted a lifetime commitment, no power on earth could have torn her from his side. But although Gabriel wanted her and perhaps, in his own way, cared about her, he'd made it perfectly clear that beyond obtaining her forgiveness for his part in Peter's death, all he'd ever wanted from her was a physical relationship. She could give him the forgiveness he so desperately needed, but he could not give her the forever-after kind of love she wanted.
* * *
When Hawk awoke, the first face he saw was Rorie's. She sat by his bedside, all fresh and golden and beautiful in the morning sunlight that filtered through the closed blinds.
"Hello," she said, her voice soft and sweet.
"Hello, yourself." He glanced around the hospital room. "Where are we?"
"In Miami. Murdock made it back to us. He and Arturo, Lazaro's guard who got Frankie to safety. Murdock had another ship waiting for us." Rorie sighed. "Frankie's here in the hospital getting a complete physical. Murdock's keeping an eye on him for me."
"Murdock's the man you need if you want to get things done." Hawk looked down at his bandaged side and then over at his bandaged shoulder. "I take it I'm going to live."
"Yes, the doctors say you'll be as good as new in no time."
"You got the bullet out, didn't you?" He had never doubted for a minute that Rorie had the strength and courage to cut the bullet out of his shoulder.
Biting down on her bottom lip, she nodded, then turned her head and wiped away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes.
"How's Frankie?" Hawk asked.
"He's fine, considering what he's been through." Rorie faced him again and smiled. "I'm eager to get him home to Chattanooga and get him settled with Mama and Daddy. They've spoken to him on the phone, but I'm afraid neither of them is prolific in Spanish."
"Thanks, honey, for staying with me back there in San Miguel. You're quite a lady, you know. I'm going to miss you."
She took in and released a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm sort of going to miss you, too."
"I'm glad things turned out the way they did," Hawk said. "To be honest with you, I was never sure we'd be able to get Frankie out of San Miguel. He's a lucky kid to have an aunt willing to risk her life to save him."
"Gabriel … I…"
Every time she called him Gabriel, he went all soft inside. He couldn't bear to think about losing her, about her walking out of his life forever, about never hearing her say his name again in her sweet, sultry drawl.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save Peter and Cipriana," he said. "I'll go to my grave wishing I'd never been a part of that damn war in San Miguel, wishing I'd never— And I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you from the beginning. I had no right to make love to you." Hawk swallowed hard. Emotions he'd thought long dead resurfaced, making him feel the way he had when he'd been a scared, lonely kid.
Rorie leaned closer, lifted Hawk's hand and squeezed gently. "I think I understand how you feel. I've tried very hard to put everything in the proper perspective. While you were unconscious and I was praying for Murdock to come back and find us, I did a lot of thinking."
Hawk held his breath, hoping beyond hope that she would say what he wan
ted to hear.
"You aren't responsible for Peter's and Cipriana's deaths. There's no way you could have prevented what happened to them." Rorie lifted his hand and held it against her cheek. "I forgive you for being part of the madness that took my brother's life. Please, Gabriel, please, forgive yourself and free yourself from the past."
Tears misted Gabriel Hawk's eyes. He breathed deeply and tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. He drew Rorie's hand to his lips and kissed her tenderly.
Rorie swallowed her tears. "If you're ever in Chattanooga… I know you probably don't… What I'm trying to say is thank you for Frankie's life, and I'm sure someday, when he understands everything that happened, he'll want to thank you himself."
"I was just doing my job," Hawk said. "You hired me to protect you and to get your nephew out of San Miguel. Of course, in the end, you were the one who saved both Frankie and me."
Elizabeth Landry's prophetic words echoed in Rorie's head. In the end it will be you who must save both Frankie and Gabriel. If you have the courage. If your love is strong enough.
"I'll never forget you, Gabriel Hawk." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "And I'll never regret anything that happened between us."
Rorie rushed out of the room, ignoring Gabriel when he called her name. Outside in the corridor, she leaned back against the wall and sobbed.
Murdock walked up to her. "Is he being a difficult patient?"
Wiping her eyes and sniffling, Rorie smiled. "No. He's… It's just me. I'm still a bit shaky."
"I've had news from San Miguel." Murdock placed his hand on her shoulder. "King Julio is dead."
"My poor little Frankie. He's lost so many people he loved." Rorie could tell by Murdock's expression that he had more to tell her. "What else?"
"Emilio Santos is dead, too." Murdock squeezed her shoulder, then released it. "Paz Santos has taken command of the renegades."
"Then there's hope for San Miguel, isn't there? With General Lazaro and Paz Santos working together to end the war and rebuild their country."
"Are you going back in to see Hawk?" Murdock asked. "I thought I'd give him an update on San Miguel."
GABRIEL HAWK'S LADY Page 24