Amanda had used five seeds, taken from plants scattered about the gardens of her sprawling estate back in South Carolina. The same plants now grew in Cara’s backyard, thanks to Amanda. Of course, Tate wouldn’t care to make public the sordid details of Cara’s suicide, so it would be termed an accidental overdose, possibly influenced by Cara’s fear of scandal, resulting from the discovery of her visit to Los Reyes Clinic.
A yellow sign flashed by the side of the road, blurred by the dust, but Patrick didn’t slow down. Amanda coughed, hard, struggling to breathe. Sophy knew she was allergic to cats. Why had the girl turned on her that way, screaming and unrecognizable?
In growing confusion Amanda thought about her meticulous plans for Christmas at the White House and fireworks on Independence Day, along with select little dinners perfectly orchestrated to make Tate the most powerful president in history. And her files full of secrets would be carefully held in reserve, in case anyone dared to cross her precious son.
But what would happen now? Sophy would tell Tate what had happened, and then Tate would turn against her. If the truth ever leaked to the press, the scandal would destroy him.
Amanda closed her eyes in confusion. She couldn’t allow Tate to be harmed. There had to be some other way.
Patrick was staring at her again. “You’re starting to annoy me, old woman. Stop rambling and tell me what Cara said when you left. Costello will want to know.”
“She said that I was twisted and I needed medical help. She told me to keep my hands off her girls.” Amanda searched the rocky landscape, looking for an answer that would protect her son. If Costello found out what she had done, he would never let Tate go. He would blackmail Tate and bleed him dry, destroying his glorious future.
Dear God, what to do?
The answer came to her, a bright light in the midst of her terrible confusion. She recognized the turn ahead. When Bud had mentioned something about the road being washed out, she hadn’t paid much attention but now it made all the difference. Sitting beside her, Patrick was oblivious to the danger as her expensive Michelin tires dug in hard, then kicked free and swerved across the gravel.
It was time.
It was her duty—to her son and to her country. A Winslow never forgot the importance of duty.
Through the racing dust, she saw the turn flash before her.
Amanda Winslow took a deep breath and yanked the wheel, closing her eyes as Patrick screamed and the road vanished beneath them.
chapter 39
Tucson, Arizona
Sonoran Medical Center
S he’s pretty banged up.”
Gabe stared through the windows to the emergency room unit where three doctors worked on Summer. She was shoving away their hands, groggy but complaining loudly, demanding to see Gabe and Izzy. “Give me the details, Teague.”
“You want the technical stuff, I can throw that on you. Trust me, it won’t amount to more than this. She has a head wound, substantial blood loss, but nothing invasive. She narrowly missed a broken rib, and she has a broken arm, which they’re preparing to set right now.” Izzy smiled slightly. “If she stops raising hell long enough, that is. She’s also got extensive lacerations on the chest and neck from breaking glass.”
Gabe swallowed. “How bad?”
“She’s going to need some cosmetic surgery. Nothing crucial that has to be sewed back on, if that’s what you mean.”
Gabe closed his eyes. “Yeah. That’s what I meant.” He forced away nightmarish visions and told himself sternly that she was alive. That was the bottom line. “Anything else?”
“Mild concussion. Some evidence of shock. Significant blood loss, which is being managed aggressively. The good news is she has no sign of hemorrhaging, no sign of internal injuries. If you hadn’t been airlifted to the hospital and stabilized so fast . . .” Izzy shrugged, letting the words trail away.
Gabe knew it was true, but seeing Summer pale and struggling didn’t seem to be cause for rejoicing. “What about Underhill?”
“He didn’t make it. Never regained consciousness, I’m afraid.”
After a moment Gabe shook his head. “So we didn’t get that name he promised us, after all.”
“Summer did. It was the first thing out of her mouth when she woke up in the chopper. Not panda, pal. Underhill was trying to say Amanda.”
Gabe stared at Summer, his leg throbbing in spite of the massive amount of painkillers the orthopedic specialist had ordered for him. “Tate Winslow’s mother? What does she have to do with this? The woman’s got to be seventy years old.”
“And sins are confined to youth? I just spoke to the senator in Laramie. Right now Cara O’Connor is in intensive care undergoing treatment for leptin poisoning induced by ground-up rosary pea seeds, courtesy of Amanda Winslow. None of us saw it coming.”
“That’s crazy.” Gabe rubbed his neck. “What’s Cara’s prognosis?”
“Too soon to say. She threw up fairly soon, which limited the amount of toxin she ingested. The ER team gave her gastric lavage and now she’s on IV fluids to stabilize her blood chemistry. So far, there’s been no sign of convulsions or cardiac involvement. The big question is whether she’ll lose kidney function, and that’s going to take time to assess.”
Gabe still couldn’t imagine the charming and stately Amanda Winslow planning anything like this. “I still can’t get a grip on this. I’ve known the Winslows forever, and they’re a great family.”
“From what Cara told Tate, his mother was irrational, afraid that news of Cara’s abortion would destroy his shot at Pennsylvania Avenue. To her, that meant everything. But it’s over now. Amanda and Patrick spun out on a mountain road. By the time they were found, both of them were dead.”
Gabe was silent for a long time. “I still don’t see how Amanda knew about Cara’s visit to Mexico.”
“You ready for this? She was working with Costello.” Izzy’s face hardened. “The chef was one of Costello’s people, too.”
“Patrick?” Gabe couldn’t hide his disbelief. “The man had the disposition of a pet rabbit.”
“A good actor, and hardly tame. Costello had every detail of Cara’s past researched during his trial. Eventually he discovered those missing weeks she spent in Mexico and he planned to blackmail her into working for him. That meant probing the evidence and testimony of key prosecution witnesses. The scary thing is, he might have succeeded, too. Apparently, the old forensic lab in San Francisco was a nightmare, because a leaking roof contaminated dozens of lab samples, invalidating some of the evidence actually gathered in the case. Thanks to Costello, two key witnesses also announced they wanted to change their testimony. Yes, he might have walked away, free and clear.”
“If Cara O’Connor hadn’t stayed tough,” Gabe said quietly. “How are Sophy and Audra?”
“Shaken up, scared crazy, but physically fine. They’re not leaving their mother’s side.”
“And the senator?”
“I spoke to him briefly. He told me exactly what he knew and exactly what Sophy had told him. None of it was pretty, considering that his mother appears to have arranged a complicated plan to murder his bride-to-be. The media is already on the scent, and they still don’t know the half of it.”
“Let’s hope they never do. Amanda’s dead and so is Patrick. I suppose they’ve paid their price.” Gabe grimaced as the wheelchair he was sitting in brushed the wall. “Damned chair. Damned knees.” He stared impassively at Izzy. “How much did they tell you?”
“That you’re going to be immobilized for two, maybe three months. After that there’s an experimental bone implant technique they want to try out.”
“The relevant word is experimental.” Gabe turned away, looking through the window at Summer, who had finally stopped arguing with the nearest doctor. An IV line hung from her arm and she was fighting to keep her eyes open.
Stubborn, difficult woman.
Wonderful woman.
“Don’t tell her about me,
Izzy. I don’t want her to know.”
Izzy frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It was time to leave, anyway.” Gabe’s hands tightened on the arms of the wheelchair. “This makes things cleaner.”
Izzy glared at Gabe. “Cleaner for who?”
“For both of us,” Gabe said quietly. “You think I should hang the hell around? Hold her hand and act warm and fuzzy? Sorry, but I don’t do warm and fuzzy.” Gabe’s jaw worked up and down. “I may not walk again, Teague. We both know that changes everything.”
Izzy crossed his arms in stony silence.
Gabe snorted. “I figured you’d say that.”
“I said nothing, Morgan.”
“That ugly, beat-up face of yours said it for you. You think I’m some kind of shit for cutting things off with her, and that’s too damned bad.” Gabe gripped the big wheels and started down the hall, moving awkwardly in a wave of unrelenting pain.
“That’s right, you are a first-class shit. Even more, you’re a fool. Now stop trying to run into a wall and let me help you.”
As Izzy took charge of the cumbersome chair, Gabe glared down at his legs, immobile in horizontal hip-to-ankle casts. “You’re wrong, Izzy. For once in my life, I’m being smart. And for the record, I can manage just fine.”
“Sure you can. I hear they’re holding a spot for you in the Boston Marathon, too.”
Gabe’s face was dotted with sweat. His hands fisted in his lap as he fought through a wall of dizziness and pain. “Damned straight they are. I just might win.”
At the end of the hall, a Navy orderly was waiting. He saluted Gabe smartly. “The helicopter is ready, sir.”
Gabe looked back at Summer. For a moment the silence hung heavy, and then he cleared his throat. “Take care of her,” he said hoarsely. “If she asks, tell her you don’t know where I am. Tell her I dropped out and started a new religion down in South America somewhere.”
Izzy shook his head. “You’re a real hard-ass, Morgan. I’ll tell her, but don’t ask me to like it.” Izzy hit a button on the wall, and the automatic door opened with a hiss. “And just for the record, my face may be busted up, but it still looks better than your ugly-as-sin mug.”
A hint of a smile brushed Gabe’s mouth.
He turned back for a last look at Summer, motionless in a white bed, a monitor beeping beside her, and his smile faded. “She’ll forget about me in a week, anyway. Couple of clean-cut young suits will whisk her back to Philadelphia, give her flowers, take her out to a fancy restaurant, and I’m history.”
Guys with whole bodies, Gabe thought grimly. Guys who can still walk. Young guys with some kind of future to offer a woman who didn’t need more pain and uncertainty in her life.
“In fact, I’m probably history already,” he muttered. His jaw locked hard as he gripped Izzy’s hand for a moment. Then the orderly pushed him over the threshold, out to the waiting military transport.
chapter 40
Coronado Island
San Diego
Four months later
I t was hard to breathe, harder still to stay. Every nerve was screaming for her to put a thousand miles between herself and this silent room.
But Summer Mulcahey had never been a coward or a quitter. Losing her father too young had made her tough; living with a mother who generally ignored her and often resented her had done the rest. So instead of bolting, Summer locked her hands in her lap and waited.
Mariachi music drifted through the open window of the second-floor apartment. She closed her eyes, breathing in the sea air scented with jasmine and lavender, thinking about Mexico. Thinking about a room where Gabe had made her feel cherished and unscarred, powerful in her choices and honest in her passion.
But a truck hurtling down a winding road had changed them both. She still awoke at night shuddering with terror from the memory—and from the knowledge that Gabe had bought her protection by covering her with his own body.
When she had resurfaced after surgery in Tucson, groggy and disoriented, Izzy had answered every question except those that involved Gabe. As the drugs wore off and her mind cleared, she had pelted him with demands for any piece of news about the SEAL, but Izzy had stood firm. Eventually Summer had returned to Philadelphia to continue her treatment nearer to home.
After weeks of rehab, her arm was weaker than normal, but she had recovered most of her range of motion in the elbow and her scars were no longer obvious. The good news was that she would be fit to return to work in a few short days.
The bad news?
Trying to decide if she wanted her old job back. Knowing Gabe had changed her, making her softer in some ways and harder in others. For the first time in years, Summer had examined her life objectively, and she hadn’t been thrilled by the sight. It was painful to realize that she had no friends, zero hobbies, and an apartment with all the warmth of a budget residential hotel.
Just as she’d told Gabe, she was the job. 24/7.
Her sister Jess had tried to hammer the same point home for years, but Summer hadn’t listened. Now, after a brief, intimate relationship with Gabe, she was suddenly hungry for more, not because she felt incomplete without him, but because a door had opened for her, revealing a side of herself she hadn’t glimpsed before. Summer was ready for the unexpected, and even if the prospect left her painfully vulnerable, she had to know if she and Gabe had any future together.
Which was how she came to be sitting on a beat-up leather sofa in a silent apartment on Coronado Island, watching the sun set in bloodred splendor over a beach she didn’t know the name of. She had dug and delved, berated Izzy and questioned Cara until she finally had Gabe’s address. Thanks to Izzy, she even had a copy of his key.
If only she could ignore an instinct to creep out the door and keep running, right back to Philadelphia and her old, familiar world.
But she wasn’t running. She wasn’t a quitter. She had to know, and for once in her life she was going to take a chance on her heart.
She heard a door open.
Slow footsteps crossed the hall, and Summer’s breath backed up like cotton in her throat as she watched the doorknob turn slowly.
He was as rugged and tall as she remembered, but his face wore new lines and his eyes looked tired. She couldn’t speak, afraid of the questions she had to ask. She should have called first, but what could you say in a phone call?
Gabe dropped a set of keys on a painted pine table and walked to the window without turning on the light. Against the drifting curtains Summer saw his dark silhouette as he stared out at the fading sunset and the red Victorian roof of the Hotel del Coronado.
Abruptly he turned, his eyes searching the darkness until they locked on her face. Summer realized he was carrying a cane, gripping it hard with gloved fingers.
“Why did you come?”
The blood drained out of her face.
Because I missed you like I’d miss part of my own body. Because I probably love you, but I’ve got no yardstick to measure by, and if it’s true, the possibility terrifies me.
But now that she was here, inches away from him, with every word so precious, Summer couldn’t think of one that was true enough for the storm of emotions she was feeling.
Trust your heart, she’d advised Sophy once, and the advice may have saved Cara O’Connor’s life. Summer decided to follow her own advice now, even if it terrified her. “I came because I had to. It wasn’t finished, Gabe.”
“For me it was.” His voice was harsh.
Summer stared into his eyes, unflinching. “I don’t believe you. Being a good liar must go with being a SEAL.”
“SEALs are good at a lot of things,” he said grimly.
“What happened to your hand?”
His gloved fingers tightened on the cane. “Skin grafts.” He didn’t look at her, his shoulders stiff. “How’s your head?”
“My quantum physics research is on hold, but otherwise I’m fine. The headaches aren’t so bad anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Summer felt dizzy just looking at him, overwhelmed by emotion. Odd, because she had always prided herself on being perfectly controlled, completely logical.
But that was before Gabe.
That thought left her terrified, too.
“Izzy didn’t tell me about the headaches.” Gabe stared at her, unmoving. “You okay otherwise?”
“Fine. Don’t expect me behind the wheel of a car, though. When I try to drive, I get a little crazy. Remembering, you know? Details about the road, the cement at the end.” Summer forced a smile. “I should be going back to work in a few weeks.”
Something crossed his face. “Glad to hear it.”
Silence fell. Why were they talking about everything but what mattered? Summer wondered.
“You got those cuts taken care of?” Gabe turned away, back to the window. “The ones on your neck and chest. Izzy told me about them.”
Summer shrugged. “He pulled some strings. So did Tate Winslow. The specialist they found did a great job. He wanted to take a few extra nips, make me into Julia Roberts, but I told him the cosmetics didn’t matter.”
“You don’t need to be made into anything else.” Gabe’s voice was gruff. “You hear from Izzy a lot?”
“About once a week.” Summer managed a smile. “How do you think I got your address and your key?”
“I figured something like that.”
Summer summoned her courage, standing up slowly. “I keep remembering something you told me, Gabe. You said that I had to trust someone, and it might as well be you.”
“I say a lot of things.” Gabe stared out at the boats hugging the curve of the shore. “Most of them are pure stupidity.”
“No, I learned to trust you then, and I trust you now. That’s a new experience for me.” Summer laughed tightly. “Of course, my dance card hasn’t exactly been overbooked, if you know what I mean.”
“Summer, you don’t have to—”
“Let me get this out, Gabe. I came to find you because I needed answers and finality.” Summer took a breath. “I wanted to see if—”
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