Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  “I need to get us inside,” she explained softly, wondering how much he understood. “I’m going to find a way to get in.”

  He nodded, and then let his lids close again.

  She got out and climbed the three wooden steps from the garage to a door that she knew would lead into the house. A steel door, she realized. Maybe that was why they hadn’t bothered to lock the garage—because even if someone got in here, they still couldn’t get into the house. She knocked on the door and waited, trying to think of a reasonable story to explain their presence if someone did answer. There was only silence. No response, but she knocked again, just to make sure, pounding with more confidence this time.

  Nothing. All she had to do now was get inside. There was probably a key hidden somewhere convenient. Everybody did that, provided an emergency key for when you were careless enough to lock yourself out of your own house. She just had to find it.

  She searched on top of the door moldings, under the plastic-grass mat and everywhere else she could imagine hiding a key. She had to get Deke inside, to look at whatever was happening under the pad and sling she had designed this morning. Feed him. Get him into bed. Maybe even find some medicine. Their chances were certainly better inside the house than out here in the afternoon heat. It must be over a hundred in the enclosed garage. “Damn,” she said, as her searching fingers ran futilely under the edge of the workbench, thinking maybe they’d taped a key there.

  She stepped back from the precisely arranged workbench, trying to think. Where else? Where hadn’t she searched? The neat row of baby-food jars that stretched across the back of the work surface caught her eye. Each appeared to be filled with a different size screw or nail, some small object. She found the key in the third one she opened and wasn’t even aware of her triumphant grin.

  “Bingo,” she said under her breath.

  She ran back up the stairs and inserted the key into the lock of the steel door, which now turned smoothly under her fingers. She hesitated, and then decided that Deke was better off where he was until she’d verified there was no one home.

  The house was empty, everything clean and orderly, the same kind of preparation she herself would make before any trip, not wanting to return to a disordered house. The refrigerator was, disappointingly, as thoroughly prepared for the vacation as the rest of the house. No milk, meat or fruit. Nothing perishable. The freezer was a little better and the pantry was well stocked. She could at least fix them a meal.

  With that thought, she realized Deke was still sitting in the heat of the garage while she explored. She had started across the kitchen when she looked up to find him standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching her.

  “I think it’s safe. At least for the moment,” she said.

  He nodded and stepped inside, moving slowly away from the support of the frame. He put his left hand on the counter, and holding on, began to walk across the white tile.

  “You better sit down,” she said. She pulled one of the bentwood chairs from under the round wicker table and put it almost in front of him. He eased down into it, that careful movement accompanied by a soft grunt of effort.

  She began to untie the sleeves of the sling. She held his right wrist as she slipped the black knit shirt away from his body, and then she lowered his forearm carefully to rest across his lap. She threw the ruined shirt into the sink. She dreaded trying to remove the green tee. She had taken a first-aid course or two, but she didn’t remember anything about treating gunshot wounds. Everybody assumed you’d rush a person who’d been shot to the hospital, not try to treat him yourself.

  She began to pull the cotton away from Deke’s back. It stuck in far too many places, and the scattered holes she was exposing began to bleed again with the shirt’s removal. Deke made no sound while she worked.

  Finally she managed to peel the discolored fabric completely away from the injury. Shocked by what she’d uncovered, she stood a moment just looking at the damage. It looked far worse than it had this morning. Swollen, the flesh bruised as well as torn, and still bleeding. She gently put her fingers against an undamaged spot.

  “A couple of them may have struck bone,” Deke said. Although his voice was very soft, she had jumped, not only hearing the sound, but feeling it through the sensitive tips of her fingers. “But you should be able to get the rest.”

  “I should be able…” Her voice faded as she realized what he meant. He thought she was going to remove the pellets that were embedded in his back and shoulder. Only, she didn’t have any idea how to go about that and wouldn’t have dared attempt it even if she had.

  “Deke, we have to get you to a doctor,” she said. Not intending to give him time to argue, she stepped toward the phone that rested on the counter, sure that the directory would be somewhere in its vicinity. Before she could get there, Deke had pushed up from the kitchen chair, his face contorted with pain, determined to block her path.

  “No doctors,” he ordered. His eyes, bloodshot and still almost glassy, held hers by sheer force of will.

  “You don’t know what your back is like,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know.” The crooked smile flickered briefly.

  “I can’t do anything about getting the shot out. You need a hospital. Surgery. A real doctor.”

  “And Josh?”

  The question stopped her as no other argument would have. And what about Josh?

  “You’re not going to do Josh any good in this condition,” she said practically. “You’re not going to do anybody any good if you bleed to death.”

  The unthinking words hung between them. Something had happened to his eyes, the pain and exhaustion replaced by the familiar coldness.

  When she saw what was in his face, the realization came that what she’d just said was the exact opposite of reality. She didn’t want the thought, but it crept, unwelcomed, into her intellect. The people following them wanted Deke Summers dead. And if he were, there would no longer be any threat to her son.

  “I didn’t—” she began and then stopped, because there was nothing to explain, nothing she could explain.

  “If I’m dead, Josh is safe. You’re safe. Did you just figure that out?” he asked calmly.

  “I don’t want you dead,” she whispered.

  “Not even to protect Josh?”

  She wanted to deny it outright, that the idea had even occurred to her. The idea of exchanging one human life for another was obscene. Unthinkable. At least to her.

  She shook her head, not sure what she was denying. She would die to protect Josh. Kill to protect him. But accept the sacrifice of another person’s life? Especially considering the circumstances Deke had described. His life, not given in an emergency to save a child’s, but brutally taken from him—execution style. It was not something she had considered, not even in the two days they’d spent together. And she wanted it out of her mind. Her eyes fell away from the emptiness in his, and she shook her head, trying to sort through all the feelings that were suddenly in her heart.

  The back of his left hand touched her cheek, the knuckles moving downward, pulling lightly against her skin, until he reached her chin.

  “I’m not quite ready to give up, Bec. Not quite ready to believe I can’t get us all out of this alive. Despite…everything,” he said simply, refusing to give voice again to the demons she’d forced him to share, “I always find myself trying to survive. Some kind of personality defect, maybe.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything defective about wanting to live,” she said. She touched his hand, and then let her fingers close around his. She was disconcerted to find that his were trembling.

  “No matter what?” he asked.

  Maybe he needed affirmation of the God-given instinct to survive—considering all that had happened to him, all that he’d lost. Although she had had Josh to give her a reason to keep going, there had been days after Tommy’s death when it had been so hard to believe that any of the things
she was expected to do really mattered. Getting up in the morning. Going to work. Making the effort. The temptation was always to give in, to take the easy way, to just follow the course of least resistance. And for Deke Summers that course would be…to finally allow this all to end. They’ll put the muzzle of a rifle…

  Obscene, she thought again, denying the image. Pushing it to the back of her mind. Especially now. Especially the way she felt. And she found herself wondering how he found the resolve to go on. Despite everything.

  “No matter what,” she agreed softly, wanting him to believe that. To do anything else was a desecration of life. So fragile echoed in her heart. So infinitely precious.

  And slowly he nodded.

  SHE HAD FOUND TWEEZERS. Alcohol. Peroxide. Even a tube of antibiotic salve. Some gauze pads. Most of those items came from a well-stocked first-aid kit that had even contained a threaded suture needle, but she couldn’t bring herself to imagine using that. To sew torn human flesh. She shivered, although the house was still hot, the central air-conditioning unit she’d reset not having had time to defeat the heat that had built in the time the house had been empty.

  After she’d finished searching through the cabinets under the lavatory in the downstairs master suite, she had taken her finds with her, laying them on the night table beside the king-size bed. She had pulled back the spread, folded it and was about to place it over the bedroom chair when she glanced up to find Deke standing in the doorway.

  “You’ve got to stop sneaking up on me,” she said, smiling at him. He looked like death warmed over.

  “I need the bathroom,” he said simply.

  “Of course,” she agreed.

  She had slept in the same bed with this man. She didn’t know why she was embarrassed by that simple confession. Feeling the blush climb into her throat, she laid down the comforter and tried to step around him.

  “I think I’m going to need some help.” The words were very soft. “Getting my clothes off,” he clarified, again reading too accurately what had been in her eyes.

  “Of course,” she said. “What—”

  “Boots,” he suggested hesitantly.

  It seemed he was almost as uncomfortable with the situation as she was. She nodded and helped him sit down on the edge of the bed she’d just turned back. She tugged off the work boots and then the heavy socks he’d been wearing inside them. She stood up, preparing to give him some privacy.

  “Jeans,” he said softly. And this time the word was more question than suggestion.

  She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. This was ridiculous. Come on, she urged herself, grow up. Florence Nightingale. Injured man. There was nothing sexual about helping a wounded man out of his clothes so you could dig around with a pair of tweezers for the shotgun pellets lodged in his back.

  Deke stood up and with his left hand unfastened the metal buttons of his fly. Hoping her face was giving away nothing of what she was feeling, she put her hands on either side of the loosened waistband and pulled the jeans down, stooping as she followed their descent down the long, muscled legs. Deke put his left hand on her shoulder for balance and then stepped out of them. She forced her eyes to remain fixed on the filthy denim she held in her lap while he walked around her. She didn’t look up until the bathroom door closed behind him. Almost immediately came the sound of running water. Deke was taking a shower, she realized in surprise. Which probably wasn’t a bad idea, she thought, as long as he didn’t pass out.

  In the meantime, she decided, deliberately banishing the images that had crept into her head, she could wash their clothes. She opened the drawers of the dresser until she found one that contained masculine clothing. She laid a pair of navy pajama bottoms on the bed. Turning to the walk-in closet, she considered the items there and finally selected a short cotton robe, pearl snap buttons up the front and appliquéd tulips around the hem. Her mother would have loved it, she thought with a trace of amusement, and she took the robe with her as she left the bedroom.

  Thinking about the bloodstains, she threw everything into the washer in the garage on cold-water wash. She could put them through a warm cycle later. After she’d stripped off her own garments, she had pulled the robe on over her naked body, but she knew she would also feel better with a shower. There would be another bathroom upstairs. The thought of just being able to wash her hair was an incredible morale booster. All the simple pleasures she had always taken for granted—clean clothes, clean body, food, shelter, safety—were now luxuries to be cherished.

  ALTHOUGH DEKE HAD allowed no sound to escape during the ordeal, his body had involuntarily reacted a few times, muscles clenching suddenly under the agonizing probe of the tweezers. They hadn’t talked during the procedure. He knew she was doing the best she could, and he was determined not to make the job any more difficult.

  Something else to be endured, he had thought, closing his mind to the pain. He had had a lot of experience at enduring. Maybe too much experience. But this required a different type of endurance. Easier, perhaps, because it was only physical. And limited. He could manage this, he had thought, locking his teeth into his bottom lip. He was sitting on the kitchen chair, straddling the seat, with his arm and shoulder bent forward over the top of the chair to give Becki better access.

  The first pellets she had dug out had not been too bad. She had chosen those nearest the surface and that success had given her confidence. He knew she was probably no longer even aware of him as a person, of the agony she was causing. That was, of course, exactly what he intended. To become an inanimate object from which buckshot could be extracted. No longer a person. No longer a man with nerve endings that were screaming their reaction to her probing.

  When the pain became worse, as he had known it would, he devised his own escape. Remembering. He remembered her tongue tracing over his lips in the woods. The soft, involuntary color of her blush spreading upward under the smooth skin. And the kiss. Savoring the memory of each movement of his mouth against the responses of hers. Not hesitant as she had been before in the motel. Today her tongue had been seeking. As urgent as his. As hungry. He had known that Sunday dawn that she wanted his kiss. There had always been some thread of desire between them. He had responded to it then as he had today in the woods. A stolen pleasure. Forbidden, he thought, reminding himself again of all the reasons, and so he forced himself to destroy the images in his head.

  With their destruction, the reality of the present intruded. He gasped as the tweezers dug into damaged flesh, and then the sound was quickly cut off. Responses again controlled.

  “Sorry,” she said softly.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. Get it over. Just do it.

  “That’s the last one,” she said. “I’m going to pour on some peroxide to try to clean out the holes and then put antibiotic salve on the gauze and cover them,” she explained.

  Then I’m just going to hope for the best, she added silently. He hadn’t given her much choice, since he still refused medical care. She knew that all gunshot wounds were reported to the authorities, which was why he’d refused a doctor, but surely there had to be someone they could trust, somebody not corrupted by the faceless, nameless enemy he feared.

  Paranoia, she thought again as she worked, but the memory of how his wife had died denied that easy judgment. The horror engendered by watching a car bomb destroy someone he loved was not neurotic. A small army storming his house in the dead of night was not imagined.

  “There’s got to be somebody we can call. Someone you trust,” she said aloud, her hands still attending to the lacerated flesh as she talked.

  “I trusted those people before,” he said.

  She worked a moment in silence. “And someone betrayed that trust?”

  “There’s no other way it could have been done,” Deke said. “Not without cooperation from one of the good guys.”

  She didn’t say anything else because she recognized argument on that issue was useless. When she spoke again, it was on a diffe
rent subject.

  “I saw arthritis-strength aspirin in the kitchen. Nothing stronger. Except a little Jack Daniels,” she amended, remembering the whiskey bottle in the cabinet over the stove.

  “Some of each,” Deke said, closing his eyes. His shoulder hurt like hell, but the real problem was that it would be much worse tomorrow. Increased soreness, a lack of mobility—and the strong possibility of infection. With the hike through the woods this morning and the time lapse before even this primitive treatment, the injuries were certainly ripe for going septic. His system was usually pretty good at fighting off sickness, but he wasn’t sure in this case it stood much of a chance.

  “Could you eat?” she asked, putting the final piece of tape across her handiwork.

  “Yes,” he said, although the thought of food was repulsive. That was something else he had learned through these last four years. He did what he had to do to keep going, to stay strong, and eating was a necessity.

  She stuck one of the frozen dinners into the microwave and then brought him the aspirin and whiskey. Over her protests he downed three of the big white tablets followed by a generous chaser straight from the bottle. He worked his way stolidly through the food when it was ready, managing the fork with his left hand, acting as if this were something else to be gotten through, eating with determination and without enjoyment. By the time he’d finished, he was exhausted enough to allow her to help him back to the bedroom.

  He lay down on his stomach, his throbbing shoulder propped against the extra pillows Becki stacked under it. When she cut off the overhead light, he realized it was already dark outside. He had meant to tell her to bring the gun to him, but the thought had slipped, unarticulated, out of his mind.

  If they weren’t safe, they were at least hidden. They had given it their best shot, and with luck they’d have a few hours to recoup today’s losses. He had thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep with the pain, but the combination of blood loss, whiskey and exhaustion edged him quickly into a state that was only slightly to the right side of unconsciousness.