by Diana Duncan
“You cannot question every detail or balk at decisions. You do what I say, when I say. Otherwise, someone could die. Got it?”
Mr. Large-and-In-Charge had a point. She already had two potentially deadly mistakes on her account. Which didn’t mean his drill-sergeant attitude rankled any less. She wasn’t a complete moron. After all, she’d taken out a bad guy and given Con an idea for an effective weapon. Bailey Chambers could carry her weight. Straightening, she snapped off a crisp salute. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“This isn’t the navy. Make that, ‘Yes, sir, Officer O’Rourke.’”
She stared into the twin lasers of his lethal brown gaze. Was he joking or serious? “Kiss my what? Officer O’Rourke. Sir.”
His sensual lips twitched. Then he burst into laughter. “Baby, I’ll kiss any thing you want. Any time. Any where.”
Whoo. “I appreciate the offer.” Was it normal to indulge in a brief erotic fantasy in the middle of a life-or-death situation? For her pulse to throb, her skin heat, awareness tingle over her? She was going insane.
As if he’d read her naughty thoughts, his eyes grew dark and smoky. “It’s not an offer, it’s a promise. But if it makes you feel better, you can tally it in your notebook.”
A guilty flush stole up her neck. What would he say if he knew over the past six months, she’d compiled a mental roster of intimate activities she’d like to indulge in with him?
“You’re not pale now.” He trailed a finger down her cheek. Studied her. Grinned with sudden enlightenment. “I’ll be damned. You and your lists. I’d love to get an eyes-on assessment of that one, darlin’. How much am I into you for?”
Busted by Officer Sexy. Her flush burned hotter. “About twenty items.”
Amusement and desire glittered in his dark eyes, danced around his mouth. “I’ll pay up in full.”
They had to live through the night first. Jolted to reality, she swallowed hard. “Let’s table this discussion until later.”
“Count on it.” He sobered. “Enjoyable as this is, I’ve got a recon to perform.”
“Right. What do you want me to do?”
He glanced around. “Most hunted animals, including humans, go to ground. If anyone comes looking, they’ll search low.” He pointed. “Up there.”
A trampoline hung suspended from the ceiling. He lifted her onto the counter and levered up beside her. His cupped hands boosted her onto the trampoline’s taut surface, and then he jumped to the floor. He extinguished the flashlights. “If you don’t move, I can’t see you at all in the dark. Stay put. Don’t budge. Don’t make a sound until I return and you know for sure it’s me.”
She scooted to the edge of the trampoline. “Be careful.” She blew him a kiss.
He pretended to tuck the kiss into his jacket pocket. “For later.” He gave her a roguish wink, turned and strode out.
Bailey lay spread-eagled on the trampoline and waited. Waited. And waited. Eerie silence smothered the room. How long did a recon take? She mentally skulked up the dark mall with Con, picturing every cautious step, every heart-shaking pause. Fear thrummed inside her. Stop it.
Seeking a diversion, she glanced around the store. A tiny pair of ice skates caught her gaze. She smiled. The mall held a lot of good memories. She and Con had gone ice-skating at the mall’s rink on their third date. On a weekday, the rink was sparsely populated. She’d stroked the ice to pop songs blaring from the loudspeakers. A natural-born athlete, Con had tossed cinnamon gum into his mouth, skated backward and teased her to go faster. His joie de vivre was contagious. They’d danced across the ice, engaged in a breathless, daring one-upmanship that he’d won by executing a back flip.
She’d jokingly called him a show-off and pushed him down on his backside. Laughing, he’d tugged her on top of him, and kissed her for the first time. The instant their lips touched, she’d felt as if she’d belonged to him forever. Lost in the kiss, all awareness had faded. Until he’d gently reminded her they were in a public arena. He’d helped her up, wiggled his eyebrows and offered to kiss her thoroughly later, in a more private place. She’d blushed crimson from forehead to toenails.
More flushed and breathless from the kiss than the exercise, they’d sat at a cozy table in the back of the concession area and sipped cocoa dotted with marshmallows. Later, at her front door, when his hard body had brushed hers and he’d kissed her goodbye, he’d tasted of sweet, dark chocolate and cinnamon…and oh-so-tempting sin.
The desire to take their relationship to the next level both physically and emotionally had grown each time they were together. Each touch, each kiss, every beat of his heart had made her long to be his. Until her doubts and fears had begun to choke off her feelings.
Tingling in her fingers tugged her back to the present. Her hand was going numb from inactivity, and she shook it. How long had it been? She retrieved a flashlight from her pack and checked her watch. Twenty-two minutes. Twenty-two minutes was plenty of time. Waiting turned into worrying. What if he’d been caught? What if—?
No. She wouldn’t wander down that horrifying road.
Con was smart, tough and capable. He’d be back. She rested her cheek against the trampoline’s textured surface. The pebbled rubber smelled like new sneakers. Strange how insignificant details sharpened when every sense was on edge. Worrying turned into praying. Please, keep him safe.
She again consulted her watch. Thirty-five minutes. Praying turned into planning. Stay put and don’t budge, my Aunt Fanny. In fifteen minutes, she’d go looking for him.
Ten more of the longest minutes of her life ticked by. Six hundred endless seconds before Con crept into the store. Relief made her giddy as she slithered to the edge of the trampoline, hung from the rim and dropped. She met him at the doorway. “Thank goodness! I was nearly frantic—”
Relief morphed into confusion. His face was sickly pale, his forehead and upper lip beaded with sweat. “What’s wrong?”
He looked at her, his eyes stunned, bewildered.
Her anxious gaze spun over him. No blood. But in the gloom, she couldn’t be sure. “Are you hurt?”
He blinked, as if he could not process her question.
She grabbed his shoulders. He was shaking. Her confusion blasted into fear. Steady, reliable, unshakable Con was trembling. “Con? What happened out there?”
A horrifying possibility speared into her. “Is it the hostages?” Even as her appalled mind rejected the thought, she blurted out, “My God, did the robbers kill Nan, Mike and Letty?”
Chapter 5
3:00 p.m.
Bailey was waiting for him. Depending on him. The thought had speared the painful haze clouding Con’s vision and forced him to keep moving. He couldn’t remember finding his way back. Now that he’d reached her, his legs collapsed, and he slid down the wall.
“Con, are you hurt?” She dropped to her knees in front of him. Her hands reached inside his jacket, gingerly feeling along his ribs and over his abdomen. “Answer me!”
It hurts like a bitch. He nodded, then shook his head no.
“Which is it, yes or no?” she demanded.
He shook his head no again.
She left and he heard rummaging noises before she returned. “Open.” Her fingers pressed his jaw and his mouth opened. Liquid poured over his tongue. He swallowed. Sticky, and far too sweet. “Gack!” He shuddered and the fog receded.
“Do you want more?”
He coughed. “Hell, no. What was that?”
“Instant glucose. Toy stores don’t sell brandy.”
“Huh?” He swiped his hand across his mouth and shuddered again.
“Candy syrup in a miniature wax bottle. Little kids drink it all the time with no ill effects. Well, except maybe excess energy. Better now?”
“Yeah.” His reply emerged graveled and raw, like his insides.
She cupped his face in her chilled hands, her eyes wide with fear. “Con, is it the hostages? Are they—”
“No. They’re okay, for now.�
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“Tell me what happened.”
He still couldn’t believe what he’d seen. The past thirty minutes were a disjointed nightmare. “The head honcho, the robber giving all the orders—” He swallowed again, the sweet aftertaste turning bitter in his mouth. “He’s wearing my father’s watch.”
She gasped. “What? Con…he’s been dead for nine years. How can you be sure?”
“My brothers and I gave the watch to Pop for Father’s Day, the year I was ten. Liam and Grady did chores to buy the face from a thrift store, and Aidan and I tooled a leather band with Celtic symbols and attached a new buckle in shop class. It’s one of a kind. Unmistakable. And that criminal is wearing it.”
She gripped his shoulders and held his gaze, her expression troubled. “Did you see his face?”
“No, he still has on the Kevlar hood.”
She frowned. “He couldn’t possibly be your father?”
For a few horrible, sick moments, he’d wondered. The ugly rumors had sunk their claws into his chest and ripped out his memories…held them up, torn and bleeding for examination. Uncertainty had shredded his confidence. Doubt had lacerated his faith. The O’Rourke boys had endured scorn for nearly nine years, along with whispered speculation, not-so-subtle innuendos and outright insults.
Ever since their father had been investigated by Internal Affairs for being dirty. A cop on the take.
Not everyone swallowed the accusations. Veteran cops who had known Brian O’Rourke defended his integrity to this day. His wife and four sons believed in his innocence. Internal Affairs had never proven he’d taken the half million dollars missing from the armored car robbery.
Unfortunately, Brian O’Rourke had never proven he hadn’t.
He’d been quietly shuffled off to ride a desk. Bitterly unhappy, he’d accepted the undeserved punishment with stoic fortitude inherited from ancestors who emigrated from famine-riddled Ireland. Maintained his dignity with tenacious Celtic warrior’s blood that never gave up the fight, that enabled him to hang on to hope for future exoneration.
The same fighter’s blood that flowed in Con’s veins. That gave him the determination not to give up on Bailey and their future. Con swiped the back of his hand over the moisture trickling into his eyes. He wasn’t getting teary-eyed, dammit. It was sweat from the exertion.
Their dad had died before he could clear his name. Assumed dead during the invasion robbery of his own house.
They’d never found his body. Or his killer.
The resulting court hearing had declared him legally dead. Murdered. There were still hard-line cops who thought he’d faked the crime scene. Rumor had him living the high life on a remote tropical island with his hot half million and a hot mistress.
Nobody who’d known Brian bought that garbage any more than they believed he’d stolen the money. But it hurt like hell.
Con cleared his throat. “Is the man in the bank my dad? No. No way.”
“No wonder you’re upset. It must have been an awful shock.”
The understatement of the millennium. “You believe me, don’t you—the man holding up the bank is not my dad?” Because he’d wavered, it seemed very, very important she did not.
She held him tight. “Absolutely. Your mom is too intelligent and principled to marry a dirty cop. And an unscrupulous man could never have raised four sons with such deeply rooted integrity.”
He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her silky curls. If he hadn’t known before she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, her loyalty would have sealed the deal. He breathed in her flowery fragrance. “Thank you.”
She drew away to look at him. “How did a criminal get your father’s watch? Why would he wear it? It has no monetary value.”
“One possibility.” When the first stunned, frozen moments had passed, and he’d assured himself the man wearing the watch was not his father, the answer had wrenched his guts. “Pop died when robbers invaded our home. Those men are robbers. The math adds up.”
“You think the criminal in the bank is responsible for your father’s murder, and the watch is a…sick souvenir?”
“Yes. And I intend to prove it.” He leaned his head against the wall. “The day he died, we’d been to a soccer game, did I tell you that?”
“No.” She stroked his hair. “Go ahead. Talking will help.”
“Grady was a senior in high school. It was the state championship. We’d planned a family outing, but Dad caught the flu. He was really torqued about missing out. He insisted on going, but Mom wouldn’t let him. You know Mom, she prevailed.”
Her lips curved in a tender smile. “I imagine she did.”
“Pop went to every game, every school event, every Boy Scout activity when work permitted. He was a great dad.”
“He was. You’ve got some wonderful memories.”
Yeah, but this wasn’t one of them. “Grady’s alma mater won. The three of us carried him into the house on our shoulders, with Mom brandishing his MVP award. We were chanting some stupid cheer at the top of our lungs. We got halfway across the living room before we noticed the place was trashed. Stuff was missing.” Staring over her shoulder into the gloomy store, he felt the blow all over again as he relived that awful night.
“Mom tore upstairs to the master bedroom. Grady and I hit the kitchen, Aidan and Liam rushed into the family room, calling for Pop. Then they went dead quiet. A tangible wall of silence rolled out. I don’t know how to explain, but the shock hung in the air.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve experienced that feeling.”
“Grady and I looked at one another, and knew bone deep it was bad. We ran into the family room. It was worse than anything we could have imagined. Sick and weak as he’d been, Pop must have put up a hell of a fight. Blood was everywhere. Enough blood…” He faltered, then soldiered on. “For the ME to testify Pop couldn’t have survived. They never found his body.”
“I’m sorry. Losing your father is hard enough when you’ve got closure.”
They’d been forced to hold a memorial service instead of a funeral. There was no coffin to drape the flag over. After the mournful echo of “Taps” faded, the honor guard had simply handed the folded flag to his mother. “We didn’t want Mom to see the carnage. It took both Aidan and me to keep her out. We brought her to Letty’s. Grady was the most visibly upset and least functional, so he stayed with her while the CSI team worked. Hours later, when they’d finished and taken the evidence they wanted, Grady showed up. The four of us cleaned up the mess. Scrubbed away the gore.”
“Oh, Con.” She hugged him again, and her slender body trembled in his arms.
He held her, comforted by her presence. “Took us all night. We ripped out what was left of the carpet and took it and Pop’s chair to the dump. Nobody except Grady showed any emotion.” Pop’s death had hit his youngest brother the hardest. “Until we threw that torn, lumpy recliner out of my truck. We stood there, looking at Dad’s chair amongst the garbage, bloody and battered. Then we lost it. Four grown men. Put our arms around one another and cried like babies.”
She drew back and touched his face. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s understandable. No wonder you’re all so close.”
He trailed a fingertip over her wet face. She shared his pain, just as he shared hers. Her empathy made the hurt more bearable. “Mom was devastated. But when we suggested she move, she got royally pissed off. She said—” An unsteady chuckle dislodged the aching lump in his throat. “Well, I won’t repeat it. The gist was that criminals were not going to drive her out of her home and destroy her memories.”
Bailey captured his hand in both of hers. “Your mom is incredible.”
Anger crackled, burning away sorrow. He’d watched his mom fall to her knees after the death of her soul mate, then struggle to her feet and get on with living. “She should have had the privilege of growing old with the man she loved by her side.”
“We can’t change what�
�s done, I know that better than anyone.” Her eyes softened, deep blue pools of sympathy. “Dwelling on it will only hurt you more.” She placed a tender kiss in the center of his palm. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Yeah.” He’d stood outside the bank racked by grief, and battled the urge to rush in and confiscate the robber’s Uzi. To turn the weapon on him and force a confession. To finally find justice. Only the thought of Bailey, alone and defenseless, hunted down by those ruthless men, had made him walk away. Each step had taken every ounce of stubborn Irish will he possessed.
Con sucked in a deep breath and yanked his thoughts out of the past. He would be fine. After he finished it.
“What do we do now?”
He looked at the woman he loved beyond all reason. Her eyes were dark with sadness. Her delicate face white with strain. Her sweet lips creased with worry. Those men had killed his father and now they were a threat to Bailey’s life. And the lives of innocent hostages. Anger boiled into rage. “I’m going to stash you somewhere safe, go back to the bank and clean house. Exterminate the vermin. No catch and release.”
She went rigid. “No! You can’t!”
“Hide and watch me, Bailey.” Years of anguish. His mother’s quiet suffering. His brothers’ pain. Tears. Loss. The ragged, empty hole in their lives that no one would ever be able to fill. No more. Never again. “They aren’t getting away without a trace this time. I’m going to stop them before they hurt anyone else.”
“Is that what you’ve been trained to do? Would your father want you to charge out there, hell-bent on revenge? I think not.”
He clenched his jaw. “That bastard has no right to wear my father’s watch like some kind of grisly trophy.”
She shook him. Hard. “Focus, Con. Those hostages need you. I need you. If you lose it, we will all die.”
She was right. Blind fury had overtaken him, pushed him too close to losing his head. To doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons. He’d come within a heartbeat of blowing off his training and throwing away his life to annihilate a criminal SOB who might very well have murdered his father. He’d nearly risked Bailey’s safety and the welfare of innocent hostages. Shame washed over him, cooling his rage. He swore.