“I take it the one at the State House was a hoax?”
“Yeah, some guy’s idea of a joke. Was this one, too?”
“No, sir. Real thing. We suspect our guy called in the other as a diversion. We’ve disarmed the detonator. The bomb expert is dismantling it as we speak.”
Johnson arched one grey brow towards his hairline. “What expert? Mendez is right here.”
Dave nodded at the tall, thin man standing just behind the captain. “One I’d trust with my life or any member of my family. She’ll be done soon.”
“She?”
At that moment, Luke and a middle-aged nurse in scrubs, a group of similarly clad hospital personnel on their tails, came up behind the team. When a SWAT member stepped up to block their way, Luke held a cooler in the air. “Got the blood, bro.”
“Let him through, guys,” Dave said, motioning them to make a path. “He’s with me.”
The captain gave a nod and the team split. “Another member of your team?” he asked as Luke passed by, noting how much they resembled each other.
“Younger brother. Treasury agent.”
“And the fed?”
Dave gave a lift to one side of his lips. “Brother-in-law.”
“Bomb expert?”
“There’s a team. Other brother and his wife.”
“And the big guy holding down that corridor?” he asked nodding in Castello’s direction.
“U.S. Marshal.”
“What, a cousin?”
“Nope, a stray we seem to have adopted.”
“Hell, next you’re going to tell me your wife is a hostage negotiator,” Johnson said and his men laughed.
Dave lost all humor at that. “No, sir. She was one of the hostages.”
“Shit, Edgars. I didn’t know. And what the hell did you think you were doing dragging your family into this situation? You shouldn’t be anywhere near it.”
“Dave.” Luke called behind him.
He turned to see Matt standing in the newly opened doors.
“Sir, you can chew my ass out later, but right now I have something important to do.” He signaled Lydia and her people to come through. “Mendez. You come, too. I’m sure my people would like the help.”
At the door the nurse stopped them. “You can’t come into that OR, Mr. Edgars. Not in street clothes.”
He wanted to argue that sterile protocol had already been obliterated, but he knew she had a job to do.
She took the cooler of blood from Luke. The group of nurses and doctors pulled on fresh masks and hats at the door, some going to scrub their hands in the big metal sinks. “We’ll take it from here.”
“Tell Judy…” he choked on the words.
Lydia patted his shoulders. “I’ll send her right out.”
He nodded and watched her disappear into the operating room. Then he focused on the situation once more. “Matt, this is Officer Mendez of the bomb disposal team. Figured you and Katie could use a hand.”
The two shook hands, then his brother showed him what they’d done to dismantle the main trigger and how the bomber had strung wires down the hallway to the next entrance where Katie knelt, hard at work.
Dave stood frozen, his attention solely fixed on the doors of the operating room—waiting, praying for them to open and Judy to step out.
How long did it take to let someone take over?
Then the doors swung open and four scrubs-clad, blood-splattered bodies emerged. The man Judy’d nearly tackled earlier ripped his mask off and ran his hands over his bearded face. The tall, lanky nurse anesthetist she’d called Bill had his arms around a nurse, holding her pressed up against his body as they left, smiles of relief on their faces.
And finally, Judy.
She pulled her mask off and dumped it in the wastebasket. Raising her gaze to stare at him like they’d been apart for months.
Slowly she walked toward him, tears filling her eyes.
She stopped three feet from him.
The dam burst. Her body started shaking, tears flowed down her cheeks.
“Oh, God!” she wailed.
He caught her before she hit her knees.
Chapter Seven
Judy didn’t know how long she sat there, curled up on Dave’s lap, the sobs and tears long gone.
It had always been like this. Anytime there was a major emergency, she’d be so focused on the task of saving the patient’s life, almost functioning as if some higher being was controlling her, that the fear of the situation was pushed to the back of her mind. Then, when the case would be over, she’d dissolve into a short crying jag, purging herself of all the extra adrenaline. One doctor told her it was the “decompression phase.”
This time it was worse. It took more than five minutes to calm down. Thank God, Dave had been here to help. His body heat did as much to stop the trembling as his hand rubbing slowly and firmly up and down her back.
As she slowly came back to the world around her, glimpses of things passed by. Hospital personnel hurried in and out of the OR. Bob from maintenance replaced the ceiling tiles in the OR hallway and out in the waiting area where they sat. The SWAT leader questioned Katie and Matt about the bomb and the explosives being cleaned out. Crime Scene people, with their titles in large letters on their coats, milled about like worker ants. They’d even moved Wilkes, completely revived, breathing on his own, handcuffed to a wheelchair and looking defeated, through the emergency exit.
Still she clung to Dave, letting the steady beat of his heart soothe her frayed nerves.
“You okay to answer questions now, babe?” His deep voice rumbled against her ear, warming her with his concern. “If not, we can go in and talk to them tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. A few hours ago she hadn’t thought there would be a tomorrow. She’d held everything together, even through that horrible moment when she’d plugged Wilkes’ wife’s name into the bomb trigger, unsure it would work. Then after she’d been relieved from finishing the patient’s surgery, she’d seen Dave standing in the open doorway and all her courage faded away. All she wanted to do was go home, kiss her kids and snuggle in her bed with this man. But the police commander across from them wanted answers—answers only she could give.
“I’d rather do this now while it’s fresh in my mind.” She glanced at the clock. Two a.m. She lifted up to look at Dave’s face. “Who’s with the kids?”
“The kids are fine. Sami is with them.” He gently pushed her head back down against his chest as if he too were trying to calm down and she were his anchor. She reached up and patted his chest, letting her hand rest over his heart.
“Let’s start with when you first noticed something was wrong,” the captain began.
***
For the next hour Captain Johnson and Jake took notes on everything that Wilkes said and everything that transpired in the operating room, often repeating questions for clarification and to be sure Judy hadn’t forgotten anything. Luke sat on the other side of them, typing out the question-and-answer session into his laptop.
Not too far away the senator and his entourage huddled in a corner, still waiting for information about his son. One of his men, a man named Compton, sat beside Jake. He, too, took notes.
Dave barely restrained his impatience at this point. No new information was given and no new questions were being asked.
“You’re sure he acted alone?” Johnson asked.
Judy nodded. “Like I said before, he didn’t communicate with anyone while he had us hostage. He made me answer the phones and talk to Lydia at the door. He didn’t mention anyone else and he never used the term we.” She gave a big yawn, her body relaxing in Dave’s arms. “As far as I know, Mr. Wilkes acted alone.”
“That’s enough. She’s told you everything she can. Twice.” Dave set her on her feet and stood, slipping her coat that Katie had retrieved from the locker room around her shoulders. “I’m taking my wife home. Now.”
“Uh, one more question, Mrs. Edgars,” Compton said, as he stood. “Are
you sure he didn’t have some other agenda aimed at the senator?”
“Besides justice for the deaths of his wife and child?” Judy asked with a pointed look at the man.
Compton swallowed hard, a flush starting at his neck. “Um. Yes, anything political?”
“No, sir. Mr. Wilkes was just looking for revenge.”
Compton gave them a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. Something irritated Dave as he watched the man stride back to the senator’s side.
“Luke,” he said once Johnson and all those on his team had left the area.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to do more digging into the senator.”
“As in?” Luke asked, pulling his parka on and grabbing his laptop.
“Don’t know. Could be nothing. Just take a look around. Deep.”
“You sure you want to go there?” Jake asked as they started for the exit.
Dave looked at the gray-haired senator staring out the window, his people talking on cell phones around him. “My gut tells me something isn’t right about this.”
“I’ll see what I can find out from my end, too.”
“Appreciate it.”
Castello met them outside and they piled in his SUV. Jake took the front seat. Judy snuggled tightly against Dave in the back. Matt and Katie traveled in their car and Luke headed for his own.
“You know he did say something odd once,” Judy mumbled beside him.
“Who?”
“Paul Wilkes. He said, the senator and his warmongering cronies weren’t getting his son out of this one,” she said and was asleep almost instantly.
Dave raised his gaze to meet Jake’s in the front seat. “Whatever you and Luke learn, keep it between us.”
Jake gave him a nod, his eyes taking on the look of a predator.
Once they were on the road, Dave pulled out his phone and texted a location to Castello in the front seat. “Drop us off here.”
“This time of night?” Frank asked him, their eyes meeting in the rearview mirror.
“We need this.”
Frank gave him a nod and they headed north into the night.
Adrenaline still pumping through his body, Dave dialed the number to make arrangements. He looked down at the woman who held his heart. When they arrived, he was going to have his hands full.
***
The hard warmth beneath her shifted, then she was being lifted and carried. She snuggled in closer and inhaled. Masculine, rugged, a hint of dark beer. She knew that scent.
David.
She should wake up. With little effort, she tried to move her head away from his chest and the strong beating of his heart. “Too heavy,” she mumbled.
“Hush, sweetheart,” he murmured against her ear. “I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”
His natural arrogance brought a smile to her lips and she snuggled back against him.
A bell sounded. Then they were moving again. He jostled her a moment and she wrapped both her arms around his neck. “I like the way you smell.”
“Like sweat and stink?” Another voice asked.
Jake’s.
Why was Jake with them? She wanted to ask, but it felt too good in the safety of Dave’s arms and it was too much effort to open her eyes.
He stopped walking. A click sounded then he was moving again, his footsteps muffled. Muffled? They had hardwood floors in their bedroom.
Once more he jostled her before she felt him lowering her, his thighs cradling her bottom. They were sitting. Water was running somewhere. Dave unzipped her coat and tugged on the sleeves. Slowly she opened her eyes and looked around.
This wasn’t their bedroom at home. The walls were covered in luxurious wallpaper with thick curtains framing the sheer ones letting in only the moonlight. They were seated on a king-sized bed, not the queen they shared at home. A flat-screen TV faced the bed and a mahogany armoire stood next to it.
“Where are we?”
He leaned in and kissed her softly. “That new hotel at Polaris Mall that you’ve been wanting us to have a grown-up weekend at.”
“The one with the spa?”
“Yes. And all the stores close by.”
“Why?”
“Why are the stores close by? Because the architect built it that way?” A little grin played at the corners of his mouth, his dimple showing in the dark stubble of his evening beard.
She giggled. “No, why are we here?”
Before he could answer, Jake walked out of the bathroom. “Water’s running, a little on the warm side. Here’s the keycards,” he said laying them on the top of the armoire. “Don’t worry about the kids. Sami and I got ’em covered.”
He gave them a wink and left, the door clicking behind him.
She turned slightly in Dave’s lap and stared into his forest-green eyes. “A bath?”
“A bath. Hot, soapy, relaxing bath.” He leaned in, capturing her lips with his, parting them with a stroke of his tongue in the way a couple learned to tease each other over the years of intimacy. Heat swirled and built immediately with a need deep inside her, only to have him pull back just as she was willing to give in to it.
Opening her eyes, her mouth still parted in need and question, she stared into his eyes, dark as a forest at night, his desire apparent there and in the erection pressing into her thighs where she sat on his lap. “David?”
“Not yet, babe.”
He nipped at her lower lip with his teeth, at the same time reaching down to the hem of her scrub top, pulling it up and breaking the playful kiss long enough to jerk it over her head. Hooking his thumbs into the straps of her bra, he brought them down as his hands caressed her arms, following the path of one with his mouth. The lace cups clung to the taut pebbles of her nipples.
“Have I told you lately how much I love your breasts?” he asked, his breath warming the mounds of both just before he darted his tongue down into her cleavage.
Arching her back, she cupped his head with her hand, the other clutching his coat as a moan escaped her. “Every time I nurse a baby you tell me that.”
“I do find that sexy,” he murmured, his hands reaching back to quickly unfasten her bra. “But I’ve always loved them, even before our first baby was born.”
“They aren’t as perky as when we first met,” she whispered against his ear.
He slipped his hand under her left breast, cupping it, his thumb gently teasing the nipple and sending sensation and heat skittering over her body. “They’re even better. They fill my hand and you are so sensitive to my every touch.”
She reached up and cupped his face in her hand. “I thought I’d never—”
“Don’t say it,” he said, releasing her breast to still her words with a finger to her lips. “Not. Yet. I can’t…hear it…yet.”
He leaned his forehead onto hers and swallowed hard. His eyes misted, the raw emotion on his face tore at her soul, bringing her own tears to the brink once more. She laid her hand over his heart, feeling the steady beat.
They sat there for a few minutes, gazing into each other’s eyes as if seeing the other for the first time.
Finally, he released her, sliding his hands down to pull her work shoes off then helping her stand. When she reached for the waistband of her scrubs, he brushed her hands away. “Let me.”
With a laugh, she rolled her eyes. “I’m the mother of three, Dave, I think I can finish undressing myself.”
“I know.” He gave her another quick kiss even as he peeled the soft cotton pants down over her hips and thighs. “But I need to do this. I need to take care of you.”
Something in the way he said it, the near anguish in his voice told her his control on the fear he’d been feeling all evening was near the breaking point. Not trusting her own voice at this moment, she simply nodded her acquiescence.
Then he paused. He leaned closer and let his fingers glide over her right hip. “What the hell happened here?”
Twisting sideways, she peered down at th
e tender area on her hip where his fingers gently touched a large black-and-blue spot. “That must’ve been where I hit the OR table.”
“He pushed you into the table?” Dave’s eyes grew intense and he growled his rage.
“No, sweetheart,” she said soothingly, rubbing his cheek with her hand. “I did that when I slammed the Succs into him and tried to get out of the way. I’m okay.”
The anger in his face eased slightly. He leaned forward and kissed the spot. “I guess you earned one battle wound, as long as it wasn’t too bad.”
He exhaled slowly and knelt in front of her, pulling her panties down over hips and thighs. She braced her hand on his shoulder to balance as she stepped out of her scrubs and panties and finally her socks.
“You are still the most beautiful woman in the world to me,” he said, gazing up at her from his knees as if she were the statue of Venus or a supermodel on a pedestal. Heat flushed her body from her toes straight up to the roots of her hair.
Before she could question his eyesight, he was on his feet again, scooping her into his arms. He carried her into the bathroom and lowered her to stand by the side of the tub.
“Hang on just a second.” He turned off the running water then quickly shucked his own clothing, tossing it out the bathroom door to land on the luxury suite’s floor. With a wink and wiggle of his hips, he climbed in.
She giggled. “We haven’t taken a bath together in years.”
“I told you. Tonight, it’s about me taking care of you.” Settling into the warm water, he held his hand out to her. “Come join me.”
She laid her hand in his big warm one and climbed in front of him, sitting between his spread legs and leaning back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.
“Oh, yes,” she moaned as the warm water and Dave’s body helped her relax and soothe away the tensions from the night’s adventure. “A girl could get used to this.”
“We need to do this more when we get home,” he murmured, his lips pulling on her earlobe, eliciting another moan from her. She tilted her head sideways to give him better access as he nibbled softly on the spot just behind her ear—the spot he’d learned was her most erogenous place back on their second date. Heat pooled between her thighs and she felt his erection pressing hard against her lower back.
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