Making the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

  She dove forward, pushing right off her battered Rio, firing point blank at Ramont—hitting home and sliding across glass bricks on her side, waiting for the thugboy to fall out of her way...waiting...waiting—

  Get my back, Rio—

  Romajn found her gaze, locked onto it—spilling over with hate, spilling over with rage. Fast enough to bring her gun around as her living shield staggered and held.

  Fast enough to fire it, a punch in the gut so hard that Kimmer lost all her air, couldn't find more, couldn't bring her own gun back up, couldn't think, couldn't see, couldn't do anything but feel the massive regret of chances taken and chances lost—

  Another gunshot—whose?—and the world fell down on her, hard enough to flatten her to nothingness and leave her that way.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER 20

  "What do you mean, she fell on me?" Kimmer turned a bleary eye on Rio, cradled in his lap and her thoughts not yet coming together.

  "I had your back," Rio said, a little too much amusement behind his patience.

  Not to mention the relief.

  "I shot her," he added, when she clearly didn't get it. "As soon as old Ramont got out of the way. By, you know. Falling." He held out an object; she couldn't make anything of it. "You were already stunned, probably not breathing much. The weight of her—"

  "No," Kimmer said, decisive in this if nothing else, and ignoring the chaos around them. Officialdom, descending upon them. "I did not faint because a goonboss fell on me."

  Apologetic now, he kissed her forehead and said, "You might have." Then he showed her the object again. "On the other hand, you only got slammed by that bullet instead of killed by it."

  The object. She squinted at it. Was that—?

  "You're kidding," she said, still not quite able to focus—but close enough.

  Rio pressed the battered object into her hand. "The Hunter super-operative phone," he said. "It slices, it dices, it handles scrambled conversation and text messaging and global positioning. Made to withstand radiation, laugh at signal drop-out, and perform complex calculations. Made," he said, a smile on lips bruised from his treatment at the hands of the Basajaun, "to withstand everything but Kimmer Reed."

  She turned the phone over in her hands, still fuzzy and dazed and barely paying attention to the police activity around them. The Spanish paramedics, taking Jurdan away in critical condition; the cops marking brass and photographing bodies and blocking the footbridge from all casual traffic. "The damned phone stopped her bullet?" She dropped it, pulling up at Rio's purloined jacket, pulling her shirt up as well. Just to the inside of one hip bone, above her short-rise jeans, the skin already bloomed with color.

  But no blood.

  And Rio sat beside her, his leg sticking out and bleeding only sluggishly, his arm cradled in his lap. "You need to be seen," he said. "Make sure there's no internal damage."

  "But—" She looked down at herself again, and over at the twisted, unmoving body of Paula Romajn. Not quite done with that image of Romajn's gun, pointing her way...the look on Romajn's face. Vengeance and death. "I thought—"

  "I told you," he said, and wiped a probably invisible smudge off her cheek, his hand lingering. "I had your back."

  She found some dignity, some edge to put in her voice. "I knew that."

  And while Rio laughed, not nice at all, an Ertzaintza cop walked up to them with a phone in his hand and a puzzled look on his face. "Señorita," he said. "I have been speaking to this man, Owen Hunter. He says—"

  "I'll take it," Kimmer said, and reached for the phone as she struggled upright.

  "His phone? Ohh, no." Rio intercepted the phone on the fly, his longer reach making it effortless. "I'll take it. Just in case he'd like to have it back when we're done."

  She would have hit him. She should have. But somehow she just ended up tucked beneath his shoulder while she listened to the one-sided conversation. Listened, and found her gaze on Paula Romajn's blank stare.

  Wrong, she told the dead woman. You were totally, completely, utterly wrong.

  After all, right now, she and Rio were the only things holding each other up. And sometimes that was just the way it was supposed to be.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER 21

  U.S. soil greeted them with very little fanfare. They hopped from JFK to Buffalo to the tiny Elmira-Corning airport in southwestern New York, blessedly close to home at the southwestern end of Seneca Lake.

  Not so bad, then, Kimmer decided. This traveling with a medicated partner.

  "Are you sure," Rio said as they took their time traversing the short terminal, "that I agreed to ceramic gnomes? Along the driveway?"

  "Absolutely certain." Kimmer kept her face straight. Let him believe her. If the gnomes actually appeared, she'd use them for target practice.

  Rio made a disgruntled noise and lengthened his stride; Kimmer let a grin slip out.

  Plenty enough to smile about. She and Rio had left Spain with official blessings—Gandiaga safe, minor injuries in the crowd...Sein and another thugboy, dead. They'd had an uneventful flight home, laden with little girl gifts.

  Not that Spain wasn't decidedly unhappy they'd been there under false pretenses, leaving locals out of the loop. Couldn't blame them for that. But that was just as decidedly now Owen's cross to bear.

  Before they left she'd seen Danele and Ginea, discovering them with little more than scrapes and bruises. On the plus side, Ginea not only had a new respect for his granddaughter, he had a new role as a local advisor to the unharmed senator.

  Now Rio limped swiftly down the terminal. Fleeing the gnomes.

  "I talked to Owen while you were sleeping," she told him, her most casual voice. It nearly stopped him short; he slowed until she caught up, then kept her easy pace. No hurrying for Kimmer—she was still stiff and bruised all the way through.

  She told him, "The real Doña is happy to report that the Etxea is finally ensconced in the museum. She's making quite the recovery now that Romajn isn't meddling with her. And she's kept Jurdan on staff—his big mistake was letting Larraitz lead him around by his hormones, but he's learned better. And Larraitz...is in jail, where she belongs. Along with those two posers I met coming out of the driveway."

  "Not so much the posers," Rio muttered. "They took us down at the villa."

  "They cheated," Kimmer said indignantly.

  Rio gave her a sideways look as they exited the secure area. A long one. No longer thinking of posers and cheating, but going back to the most crucial thing on his mind. "Gnomes?"

  Kimmer burst into laughter. "Maybe not."

  "Uncle Rio!"

  Unexpected, that voice, but no mistaking it.

  "Uncle Rio!" A welcoming committee. Wound up and charging forth for a small person interception.

  The girls? What?

  Sandy ran up on her sister's heels, and to Kimmer's surprise, Caro wasn't too far behind—smiling at the girls' antics, waving at Kimmer and Rio and their surprise.

  "Uncle Rio!" Karlene cried again, and it sounded more like a challenge this time, barely a pause in it as Kimmer met her with a lift and a little toss, finishing with a big hug before letting her slide down to the carpet again. "Did you really get shot? I want to see!"

  That garnered some attention, reunions stopping short all around them. Rio cleared his throat and said, "Hey, kiddo. Later, huh? Because, you know...no undressing out here on the concourse."

  "What's a concourse?" Karlene demanded, and Kimmer left Rio to it so she could open her arms to Sandy. The girl was too big to hoist and toss—but not too big for a good swing before her hug. Arm around the girl's shoulder, she glanced at Rio—broken arm and all, he'd pulled Karlene up to sit on his shoulders, towering fearlessly over the world. Good enough.

  She guided Sandy out of the way from the people piling up behind them, and met Carolyne.

  No big hugs there; Caro had long respected Kimmer's reserved nature, and understood that the girls were an
exception. But Rio leaned over to give his cousin a kiss, swinging Karlene down from his shoulders. "This is a nice surprise," he said, and there was a question in it; the girls were six hours from home. So was Caro, for that matter, if from the opposite direction—and their visit had ended a week earlier.

  "Oh, it's sort of an experiment," Caro said, and she was far too casual about it to pass muster.

  Kimmer put it together, right then and there, much faster than Caro had likely intended. "You," she said. "You're—"

  Thinking about fostering them. Permanently.

  But Caro's eyes widened as she looked at the girls, and Kimmer shut herself up. They didn't know yet.

  Of course they didn't know.

  But here was Caro, trying to find her way, yearning for family, and here were two girls in need. Two girls who were almost family already.

  Except as far as Caro knew, Kimmer herself planned to take the mommy role.

  "Sex," Karlene said suddenly, just as loudly as ever. "It's about sex. It always is, when they stop talking all of a sudden. Or else it's bad things happening."

  "Karlene," Kimmer said, hunting an edge of stern. "I've always been straight with you about the bad things."

  Karlene nodded solemnly. "Must be sex, then."

  "Let's get soft pretzels," Kimmer said brightly, pointing to the closest store front.

  Karlene squealed in happy assent and ran off to get in line, while Sandy lingered, her hand quietly curled around Kimmer's. "Is it sex?" she asked.

  Kimmer gave Caro a rueful look. "And that," she said pointedly, "is why I'm better off as an aunt."

  Caro didn't miss the unspoken message. She was, after all, a genius. Her eyes widened; she looked at Rio.

  "Aunt," he said, putting an arm around Kimmer in a gesture that felt amazingly intimate in this public place. "Uncle."

  Caro faltered...all over her face, it was—especially for Kimmer. I don't dare believe. "You mean, I can—?"

  Kimmer lifted a shoulder, pretending not to notice Caro's reddening eyes, her little hiccough of emotion. She left it to Rio to sling an arm around his cousin, giving her a supportive squeeze.

  And that, too, was why. Kimmer was what her life had made her, no matter how much self-awareness she had in the aftermath. Figuring out what it meant to be partner—in every way—still needed some time.

  Maybe one day she'd get past that. Looking at Rio—at the way his gaze fell on the girls and softened—she thought...

  Yeah. Maybe. But not now.

  Karlene bounced up and down in the pretzel line, waving them over, and Sandy—waiting for Caro's nod of permission—headed over to join her. It gave Kimmer the chance to say rather fiercely, "We want visits. Lots of them."

  Caro drew a sharp breath. "Single mother," she said. "They might not—"

  "Bureaucratic blah-blah-blah," Kimmer said, dismissing it. Besides, Hunter owed them one or two right now...and Hunter was not without influence.

  "Family," Rio reminded her. "We'll work it." He laid a big hand on top of her head and messed her hair. With one last glance at the girls, he said, his voice low but true, "It's better this way."

  "I don't understand." Caro shook her head, but the shine in her eye had taken on a purpose—already planning, those genius thoughts spinning. "Because of work?"

  Kimmer didn't quite say it. Because of me. Because of us. Rio knew it. Caro, shell-shocked and beginning to believe, didn't need to think about it.

  Genius or not, she didn't quite catch the undercurrent. "It's just...I was sure, after all that happened this trip..." She indicated Rio's leg, his arm, and shook her head again.

  Heaven forbid she should see the incredible mutating monstrosity of Kimmer's bruised abdomen.

  "You thought we'd quit?" Rio shook his head, and when he looked over at Kimmer, his grin had returned. Possessive, confident...totally Rio.

  Totally hers.

  She grinned back at him. Tall, strong...strikingly battered on that striking face, Danish bones and Japanese angles.

  "Not a chance," he said, pretty much making the rest of the world disappear. No Caro, no girls, no bustling airport.

  Kimmer gave Caro the merest glance, a grin, before leaning into Rio. "We're playing by our rules, now."

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Other Works by Doranna Durgin

  http://doranna.net

  FANTASY

  Changespell Saga:

  Dun Lady's Jess (Winner, Compton Crook Award)

  Changespell

  Changespell Legacy

  Barrenlands (prequel)

  King's Wolf Saga

  Touched by Magic

  Wolf Justice

  Stand-Alone Fantasies

  Wolverine's Daughter

  Seer's Blood

  A Feral Darkness

  ROMANCE

  Action Romance

  Shaken and Stirred (Femme Fatale Novella)

  Chameleon (Smokescreen Novella)

  Exception to the Rules

  Beyond the Rules

  Making the Rules (author e-published only)

  Heavy Metal Honey

  Survival Instinct

  Hidden Steel

  Checkmate: Athena Force

  Comeback Athena Force 2

  Paranormal

  Sentinels: Jaguar Night

  Sentinels: Lion Heart

  Sentinels: Wolf Hunt

  Demon Blade

  The Reckoners Series:

  The Reckoners

  Storm of Reckoning

  MYSTERY

  Nose for Trouble

  Scent of Danger

  FRANCHISE BOOKS

  Star Trek: Next Generation

  Tooth and Claw, #60

  Earth: Final Conflict

  Heritage

  Angel

  Impressions

  Fearless

  Mage Knight

  Dark Debts

  Ghost Whisperer

  Revenge

  Ghost Trap

  SHORT STORIES

  Harvest of Souls

  Fool's Gold

  A Bitch in Time

  The Right Bitch

  Bitch Bewitched

  Mornglom Dreaming

  Bummed out

  The Yoke of the Soul

  Feef's House

  Hair of the Dog

  Call from the Wild

  Just Hanah

  Emerging Legacy

  The Scoria

  Bitch Bewitched

  Fountane Of