by Diana Palmer
Inside the house, Cecily was lying in bed in her pretty pink flannel gown wide-awake, her eyes still red from crying. Tate had come after her, and just when she’d thought there might be a real chance for them, he’d admitted that he was only here out of a sense of responsibility. He didn’t love her. He wanted the child, perhaps, and he felt it was his duty to provide for Cecily. It was the old, old story again. Tate, running interference. He would never love her. He would never let himself love her. He had excuse after excuse, but it all boiled down to the fact that he didn’t want to share his life with anyone. That wasn’t going to change, and the sooner she realized it…
She froze. There had been a sound, like wood being broken. She sat up in bed, her heart racing. Could Tate have come back? She got out of the bed and padded softly on the cold linoleum floor to the hallway. She listened, but she didn’t hear anything. There was a faint slither, like someone moving in the darkness. Her heart pounded like crazy as she thought of the shadowy person who’d tried to run her down in Washington. Someone from the gambling syndicate, out for revenge? But how would he have found her? Tate had found her, she realized. Someone up to his neck in organized crime could have found her, too.
She swallowed. Her hand went to the swell of her belly as she thought of her child and what could happen. She shouldn’t have let her pride force her to do this stupid thing. She’d never run away before in her life. She should have stayed where she was, where she could be protected. In normal circumstances, she could take care of herself. But she had no illusions about her ability to save herself from a professional criminal. She could shoot a gun, but she didn’t own one. She had a few karate lessons, during which Tate, who had a belt in tae kwon do, had shown her that sometimes even a lifetime of lessons wasn’t enough against a gun or a knife. Her eyes closed as she listened, shivering, for more noises. As a last resort, she could scream, or run. But she had no really close neighbors, and how would she outrun a bullet if the man was armed?
Tate was probably on his way back to the nation’s capitol right now, she thought miserably. He would have protected her, and her child, but she’d sent him off in a fury. Great going, Cecily, she told herself. What a headline they’ll have now! Former Teenage Love Slave Killed By Vengeful Gambling Syndicate. That would give people something to read with their morning coffee!
She drew in a slow, shaky breath, listening. Something rocked, as if her intruder—she knew it was an intruder now—had knocked against the little telephone table where the living room connected to the dining room. There was another faint noise, and then a jerking sound. There goes the telephone cord, she thought, and almost panicked. What could she do?
She didn’t have anything in the bedroom that would serve as a weapon. Her furniture was mostly of the antique sort, because she’d rented this old house furnished. If only she had a club of some sort, it might give her a chance.
She was at the wall beside one of the long, low windows that had disturbed her a little when she’d rented the house. Her sharp eyes focused on the homemade window lock in the bedroom. The metal thumb-latch had broken in here, and the house’s owner had taken a broomstick and cut it to fit vertically against the top section of the window to keep it from being opened from outside. It was just right to knock a gun out of a man’s hand, perhaps, if she could get it quickly and silently and not get herself killed in the process. She was on her own. She had to help herself. Oh, please, God, she prayed silently, give me strength. Help me!
Swallowing the nausea in her throat, she slid to the window soft-footed and reached up to tug at the stick. It came away smoothly into her hand and she let out a faint sigh of relief. The feel of the wood in her hand gave her confidence. It was heavy and thick, and if she used it properly, it might save her life.
She eased back to the door and bit her lower lip hard to keep panic at bay. She heard soft footfalls in the hall now, coming closer. The bedroom door was standing wide open. She was just beside it and her heartbeat was so loud that she feared her attacker would hear it. She closed her eyes, swallowed again and ground her teeth together. She could do this. She could…!
A shadow moved in the hall. It hesitated. Her teeth ground together harder as she waited. Her hands were trembling on the stick. She couldn’t let her nerve fail now! Her mouth was so dry that she could barely swallow. Her hands were sweating on the stick. She gripped it tighter.
The shadow began to move again. It came closer. She held the stick just at shoulder level, waiting, waiting…
A hand holding a pistol came suddenly into view and Cecily acted without even thinking. She brought the stick down so hard that the gun went flying. There was a cry of pain in a strange voice, a loud curse, and she found her hand in a merciless grip as the stick was wrenched from it and raised.
A dark streak came flying at her assailant, knocking him free of Cecily and carrying him headlong to the floor. There was a quick, fierce struggle on the linoleum. The smaller man was suddenly dragged to his feet and knocked down again, with such ferocity that Cecily knew her number was up. There were two of them, and the one still standing was coming toward her.
She cried out, all her courage gone as she realized the skill of this new intruder. She had no weapon. He would kill her…!
“Cecily!”
That voice! She shivered with mingled relief and horror as she found herself pulled into a fierce embrace, locked to a hard, muscular body, safe. Safe. Her arms went under his and around him and she burst into tears.
“Tate,” she whispered brokenly. “Oh, Tate!”
He kissed her hungrily, his lips cold from the time he’d spent outside. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be in time,” he ground out. “I’m bigger than he is, and I had to force the window up. It stuck. God, what a close call! You disarmed him!”
“I hit his arm with a stick,” she said, choking. She shuddered. “He had a gun.”
“Yes.”
He let her go and fumbled for the light switch, throwing the room into brilliance. On the floor, the smaller man was huddled with his hands against his chest, groaning.
Tate pulled off his face mask and retrieved the man’s gun, a small automatic, before he pulled a flip-phone from his pocket and dialed the emergency services number, adding a request for an ambulance to be dispatched before he hung up.
“Oh, do you think I broke his wrist?” Cecily asked, puzzled, as she wrapped her arms around her chest and stared at the writhing form on the floor.
“You might have,” Tate returned in a voice like steel. “But I called the ambulance because I broke several of his ribs.”
He didn’t sound sorry, either. He went down on one knee and jerked the mask off the intruder, revealing a thin, unremarkable face now contorted with pain.
“Did you think I was stupid enough to lead you here and then take off without a backward glance?” Tate asked the man furiously. “I checked with the airport and the car rental service. Not that many people rent automobiles and ask for directions to Cullenville. Today it was just myself…and you.”
“Damn…you,” the man choked. “She…ruined everything. Everything! We had…it made!” He choked again and glared at Tate. “We’ll…get her…and you!”
Tate caught the man by the hair and Cecily felt her hands go cold at the way he looked at his fallen enemy. “Do you know Marcus Carrera?”
The other man seemed to go still for an instant. Sure he knew Carrera. Everybody did. The man was a don, a legend, in mob circles. He made Gabrini look like a pickpocket. He swallowed. “Yeah. I know who Carrera is.”
“He knows where you live.”
Already pale, the man’s face went white. “Hey, you can’t…!”
“I can. I have.” Tate let go of his hair. His face was rigid. “If one hair on Cecily’s head is damaged, in any way, I don’t have to tell you what to expect. You might tell your friends that you aren’t the only member of your syndicate that I’ve investigated.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“You’re just…a…crazy Native American. You work for wages for a construction company! What can you do to us!” the man said contemptuously.
“Wait and see.” Tate got to his feet.
“My name is…Gabrini. I got family everywhere!”
Tate went back to Cecily, checking to make sure she was all right. “So have I,” he said, watching her.
She was still too shaken to say much. She let Tate pull her close and hold her until the shaking stopped. Reaction was only now setting in. It was uncomfortable to find out how vulnerable, and fragile, she really was.
The ambulance arrived when the police cars did. They were accompanied by a man in a black suit who had the look of a federal agent. It didn’t surprise Cecily that he went right up to Tate and drew him to one side.
While Cecily was being checked over by a paramedic, Gabrini, who’d already been loaded onto a gurney, was being watched by two police officers.
Tate came back to Cecily while the federal agent paused by the police officers.
“You can take him to the hospital to have his ribs strapped,” the man told the ambulance attendant. “But we’ll have transport for him to New Jersey with two federal marshals.”
“Marshals!” Gabrini exclaimed, holding his side, because the outburst had hurt.
“Marshals,” the federal agent replied. There was something menacing about the smile that accompanied the words. “It seems that you’re wanted in Jersey for much more serious crimes than breaking an entering and assault with a deadly weapon, Mr. Gabrini.”
“Not in Jersey,” Gabrini began. “No, those other charges, they’re in D.C.”
“You’ll get to D.C. eventually,” the federal agent murmured, then the dark man smiled. And Gabrini knew at once that he wasn’t connected in any way at all to the government.
Gabrini was suddenly yelling his head off, begging for federal protection, but nobody paid him much attention. He was carried off in the ambulance with the sedan following close behind. Cecily and Tate filled out the police reports over cups of coffee in the kitchen while one of the officers closed the window and secured it with a small curtain rod crossways at the top.
Tate stared at her over his second cup of coffee with quiet, proud eyes. “You kept your head,” he said. “I’m proud of the way you handled yourself. Were you afraid?”
She smiled at the rare praise. “Terrified. But I didn’t know you were still in town. I thought I’d go down fighting.”
“I underestimated that few seconds of head start he had. I could have dropped him with one shot, but I had to consider that he might have had time to put a bullet in you before he fell.”
“You saved me.”
“You helped.”
She sipped her decaf. “Mr. Gabrini was afraid of you,” she said.
“He should be. I have some ties that he doesn’t know about,” he added. “He won’t come to any harm as long as he leaves you alone.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
“The danger’s over. But I’d still rather have you back in D.C., where I can keep an eye on you.”
She hesitated. He’d saved her tonight. He did care about her, too, in his own way. But if she went back, he’d feel obliged to look after her constantly. She knew how he felt about marriage, because he’d made his attitude perfectly clear. He lived alone and he liked it. She’d had a good look tonight at the world he occupied, a world of violence and dangerous people, a world in which he excelled. He wasn’t going to be able to give up his work because she might worry about him. And what sort of life would she and the baby have, on the fringe of his life? He’d love his son, certainly, but someday he might find a woman whom he could love. She’d cheat him by clinging. She’d had her perfect night with him, a night she’d dreamed of most of her life, and she had his child growing in her body. She could live on the past all her life.
“I want to stay here,” she said quietly.
He drew in a short breath, still full of adrenaline from the violence and still fuming because she was rejecting him.
He looked into her eyes. “My parents want you to come home so that they can be near their first grandchild.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “That’s a new angle,” she said. “Pulling out all the stops, are you?”
He glared at her. “Don’t think I can’t live without you, even if you are carrying my son.”
She shrugged, not letting her sorrow show. “I’ve never thought that, Tate,” she said with forced cheer. “How could a mere woman compete with covert ops?”
“I don’t do that anymore,” he muttered.
“You do that every day,” she countered. “You did it thirty minutes ago. You’re very good,” she added with a measure of fascination in the eyes that searched over his lean face. “I never knew how good until I saw you in action. You live for those adrenaline rushes. I’ve never seen you as happy as you were when you came back from rescuing Pierce Hutton and his wife in the Middle East. It’s quite a change from the nuts and bolts of daily routine around D.C. And you think you could give that up to marry me…”
“Marry you!”
She could see the shock in his face and misunderstood it. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I know you wouldn’t do that. I don’t want marriage, either,” she lied glibly. “But even though we’d be living apart, I don’t want to raise my child in a combat zone with prospective assassins at the door every night. I feel safe here, now.”
He was reeling from the way she’d discounted marriage. She’d always wanted to marry him, and now that she was pregnant, she didn’t? He was staggered by the knowledge.
He smoothed his long fingers over his coffee cup. “I thought marriage was the one thing you did want.”
“Your mistake,” she said without meeting his eyes. “I’m happy with my life the way it is. I’ll love the baby,” she added softly. “You can see him whenever you like…Tate?”
He was out the door before she could finish the sentence. He closed the front door with a hard jerk and she heard the lock fall into place. By the time she reached it, she saw Tate at the curb talking with a police officer and gesturing toward the house. The other man nodded. She was going to be watched, apparently.
She went back and cleaned up the kitchen. Well, he had what he wanted now, an excuse not to offer her marriage. She felt empty and alone, but she couldn’t trap him into a marriage that he didn’t want with a child he’d never intended to give her in the first place. It was going to be a lonely life, but she had the baby. Tate had his job, and his freedom, for the first time in eight years. With Cecily out of the way, and safe, he could take up his life where her place in it had begun.
Sure enough, the next morning a police officer came by with a telephone technician to fix her phone. Mr. Winthrop, the officer related, had gone last night and made arrangements for a private security firm to look after Cecily. It was no surprise that he hadn’t called to say goodbye. She hadn’t expected him to. She thought of all the long, lonely years ahead and hoped her new job and the baby would compensate for what she’d lost.
Chapter Sixteen
Colby Lane and Pierce Hutton had the manager of Tate’s apartment building open his door for them. They knew that Tate had come back from Tennessee, and that he’d saved Cecily from Gabrini, but nobody had seen him for almost a week. His answering machine was left on permanently. He didn’t answer knocks at the door. It was such odd behavior that his colleague and his boss became actually concerned.
They were more concerned when they saw him passed out on the couch in a forest of beer cans and discarded pizza boxes. He hadn’t shaved or, apparently, bathed since his return.
“Good God,” Pierce said gruffly.
“That’s a familiar sight,” Colby murmured. “He’s turned into me.”
Pierce glared at him. “Don’
t be insulting.” He moved to the sofa and shook Tate. “Wake up!” he snapped.
Tate didn’t open his eyes. He shifted, groaning. “She won’t come back,” he mumbled. “Won’t come. Hates me…”
He drifted off again. Pierce and Colby exchanged knowing glances. Without a word, they rolled up their sleeves and set to work, first on the apartment, and then on Tate.
Tate was sprawled across the bed in his robe early the next morning when the sound of the front door opening penetrated his mind. There was an unholy commotion out there and his head was still throbbing, despite a bath, several cups of coffee and a handful of aspirin that had been forced on him the day before by two men he’d thought were his friends. He didn’t want to sober up. He only wanted to forget that Cecily didn’t want him anymore.
He dragged himself off the bed and went into the living room, just in time to hear the door close.
Cecily and her suitcase were standing with mutual rigidity just inside the front door. She was wearing a dress and boots and a coat and hat, red-faced and muttering words Tate had never heard her use before.
He scowled. “How did you get here?” he asked.
“Your boss brought me!” she raged. “He and that turncoat Colby Lane and two bodyguards, one of whom was the female counterpart of Ivan the Terrible! They forcibly dressed me and packed me and flew me up here on Mr. Hutton’s Learjet! When I refused to get out of the car, the male bodyguard swept me up and carried me here! I am going to kill people as soon as I get my breath and my wits back, and I am starting with you!”