Читать книгу Mission: Marriage - Karen Whiddon - Страница 13

Somehow they made it out from the porch and across the alley, moving through the neighboring yards, backtracking to their B and B.

The tourniquet held and he left no trail of blood to betray them.

Leaning on her heavily, Sean forced himself to shuffle his feet, step after step after painful, labored step. Grunting from the strain, Natalie kept her shoulder under him, staggering at times in her attempt to keep them moving.

Luckily, their room had French doors that led out to a small terrace. Privacy was always a good thing.

“Get me in that way. We need to avoid any questions from our hostess.”

“My thoughts exactly,” she huffed.

Shouts from the porch they’d recently vacated told them the police had arrived. Sweat rolling down his brow, Sean struggled futilely to increase his pace.

“Come on,” she urged. Together they shuffled forward as fast as they could. Sean kept his teeth clenched against the pain, forcing himself to move without uttering a sound of complaint.

Finally, they slipped through the metal garden gate. Natalie pulled it closed behind them, then quickly picked the lock on the French doors.

Pushing Sean inside, she slammed the door closed and drew the curtain shut. He staggered to the bed and dropped down on the mattress, breathing heavily.

They were safe. For the time being.

“What now?” he panted.

Licking her lips, she swallowed. “I have to see about getting that bullet out of your leg.” She rummaged around in the knapsack she’d carried with her all day, finally pulling out a small box. Then she grabbed the pillowcase off one of the pillows and tore it into strips, and some of the strips into pieces.

“No way.” He tried to rise, but couldn’t. Fighting against nausea and unconsciousness, he couldn’t even lift his leg to move it. “Damn thing burns like hell.”

“Hold still.” Her voice, still harsh and sounding completely unlike her, stopped him cold.

Through a haze of pain, he eyed her. “Like I can move,” he ground out, wondering if she’d ever been shot. He had, almost more times than he could count, though never seriously. No major organs or arteries. This was one aspect of his job he hadn’t missed over the last two years.

“You might be wanting to move in a minute.” Was that a warning? Without waiting for his response, she pushed him back and began unwrapping the makeshift tourniquet that had kept him from bleeding to death.

Each pass of the material hurt like hell.

Gritting his teeth, he bit back a few choice curse words. Instead, he managed to keep his voice relatively level. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’ve got to get the bullet out. And it’ll be painful.”

Her matter-of-fact tone told him she was cutting him no slack. Still, he’d done fieldwork for too long to argue with truth.

“How about whiskey? Do you have any?”

She barely even glanced at him. “No, of course not. Do you?”

He shook his head, wincing as a piece of fabric caught on the edge of his raw wound. The sharp bite of pain made everything spin, and he sucked in air, trying to stay conscious.

Wouldn’t do to show weakness before the woman he was supposed to protect. He bit back a groan.

“I’ll be as gentle as possible.” Was that a hint of concern in her voice? She began rummaging in the plastic box.

“I appreciate that,” he managed, the pain overwhelming. Worse, she hadn’t even started searching for the bullet. “Let’s get this over with.” He grabbed a piece of cloth from the small stack she had in front of her, twisted it and shoved it in his mouth.

“Wait a second.” She continued rummaging. “I think I saw some pain pills in here. Aha!” She held up a small, brown plastic bottle. “These might work.”

He took two and swallowed them dry.

“Ready?”

He nodded.

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Go ahead and pass out if that will help.”

Pass out? Who did she think he was? “Hell no,” he growled, mumbling around the cloth. Finally, he yanked it out and glared at her. “I’ve had bullets removed in the field before. I want to make sure you do this right.”

In the act of disinfecting her hands with waterless cleanser, she paused. “I’m sure I can handle it.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

“No.”

At least she was honest. Still, her answer didn’t give him the confidence in her ability he’d hoped for.

“Have you?” she asked.

He jerked his chin in a brief nod. “Of course. Make sure you sterilize whatever you use to get the bullet out.”

Intent on separating the rest of the blood-soaked material from his skin, she didn’t respond. When she had the area clear, she sucked in her breath with an audible hiss.

The sound had him raising his head. “Are you gonna be okay doing this?”

Instead of answering, she bent over him and, setting her jaw in that intent way she had, picked up a pair of tweezers, coated them with waterless cleanser and held a match to them. “Sterilized,” she said, still focused on the bloody mess the bullet had made of his leg.

An instant later she began poking with her tweezers.

Shoving his temporary gag back in place, Sean felt as if she was stabbing him with a fiery torch. Damn, that hurt. He tried to force himself to breathe deeply and evenly, fighting to maintain consciousness.

Struggling not to cry out, he broke out in a sweat. Hot and cold, dizziness and nausea, then, despite his best intentions, everything faded to gray and he passed out.

By the time she located the bullet, Natalie’s shirt clung to her back, drenched in perspiration. She dropped the bloody piece of metal onto the plastic lid and picked up her small bottle of rubbing alcohol. One thing she’d learned early on in her career—when doing fieldwork, always have a rudimentary first aid kit handy. Luckily, she hadn’t lost hers in the gun battle.

Bracing herself, she dumped half the bottle into Sean’s open wound.

“Aaaah!” Sitting bolt upright, Sean cursed. Then, mercifully for both of them, his eyes glazed over and he went back to unconsciousness.

“Good,” she muttered. Snatching up a needle and thread, she lit another match and sterilized the needle. Then, praying Sean stayed unaware, she began stitching up the wound.

Later, with the wound dressed and wrapped, Natalie made herself a cup of tea with the tiny electric kettle the B and B provided. Taking a seat in the chair at the side of the bed, she watched her husband sleep, wishing she could sort out her chaotic emotions.

Previously an optimist, she’d learned the hard way that clouds didn’t always have silver linings. People died, friends lost touch, and previously warm and sunny days were prone to become gray with a simple change in the direction of the wind.

Life wasn’t fair and if you didn’t like that, there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it.

Her rose-colored glasses forever broken, she’d grieved heavily over the loss of Sean. Her friends and coworkers had worried about her, finally contacting her father to help them pull her out of the deep, dark depression.

And she’d realized she had to go on without Sean. Somehow. Burying the ever-present sorrow deep inside her, she’d set about redefining her life, vowing she would live on her own terms now.

Though she’d always enjoyed her job, she hadn’t become fiercely intent on it until after Sean died. She’d made SIS her entire focus.

This showed in her work. In the two years she’d lived alone, she’d been promoted twice. Headquarters had even offered her a desk job, a plum most agents would have snatched eagerly.

Not her. She’d refused, preferring fieldwork. Every new assignment had brought her a fierce kind of happiness—the only happiness she knew these days. She lived for the excitement, the adrenaline rush. After all, danger and her emerging talent for cracking codes had been a working distraction from her pain.

She’d solved a few solid cases, one of them huge. Her father had been proud of her and Corbett Lazlo had even offered her a job working for him at the elite Lazlo Group. She’d said no, her loyalty to SIS strong. Her anger at Lazlo for the role he’d played in her life was still there, even if she knew it was unreasonable. Then her entire team had been killed and she’d become a target. And once again, the fates had intervened. Emerging from the grave, Sean had reappeared to claim her. Not dead. Not even hurt.

All along, she’d been living a lie. Her entire life—before and after his so-called death—had been false.

The turmoil this knowledge caused her felt overwhelming.

She had no time to deal with it. The mysterious and evil Hungarian they hunted seemed involved with it all—the SIS, the Lazlo Group, destroying her life and her team—and Sean’s, too, if she were honest.

Sean’s voice startled her.

“Could I have some water?” He licked his lips, his dark gaze as powerful as always.

Nodding, she rose and went to the tap, half filling a glass and carrying it to him. She moved the other pillow behind him and helped him sit up before handing him the glass.

He drank eagerly, gulping so quickly he spilled most of the water on the sheets. When he’d finished, she took it from him and placed it on the nightstand.

“You’re going to be all right,” she said.

Though he nodded, something in his gaze as he searched her face made her feel as if he knew what she’d been thinking. Hell, maybe he did. They’d used to joke about being able to read each other’s minds.

She’d once found this immensely satisfying, proof they were totally compatible. Now, she found it unsettling.

“What?” she asked, hating the defensive tone to her voice.

“Do you want to explain to me why you felt the need to go for a walk in the middle of the night, endangering our mission and our lives?”

A flash of anger warred with guilt. “Only when you feel like explaining to me how your entire family and you died in the same accident. In a car you weren’t even supposed to be in. And since you haven’t mentioned them, I’m going to assume your family really is dead.” She knew her voice was laced with pain and anger, and chose to focus on the anger. “I’ve long known someone had to be responsible, though no one—not Corbett, not my superiors at SIS—claimed to know who. You know, don’t you?”

For the space of two heartbeats, he simply stared. Finally, he gave a slow nod. “I do.”

Though she was skirting the edge and moving closer to dangerous territory, she realized she wanted to know, at least this. “Tell me.”

He breathed a sigh. “The Hungarian.”

“That’s what I thought. Especially when you said he might be after me because of you. Why?”

When he looked away, the stab of grief felt fierce.

“It’s a long story,” he said. “And while you might be ready to hear it, I’m not sure I can tell it.”

“Don’t you think it’s time I knew the truth?”

Dragging a hand through his hair, he looked down, up, anywhere but directly at her. “Yes. But you deserve to know everything, all at once, and what I’ve done might make you hate me even worse.”

About to tell him she could never hate him, she bit back the words. Her chest ached. “After all this, you’re still hiding something from me?”

“No more than you’re hiding from me.”

“Quit trying to change the subject.” She shook her head. “I’m not hiding anything. This isn’t about me, it’s about you.”

His smile mocked her. “See? You can’t go on feeling responsible and guilty.”

“Easy for you to say. My entire team died. I didn’t. I’ve got to figure out what the hell I know that the Hungarian wants to keep silent or that he wants to discover.”

“Natalie, listen to me. You need to stop feeling responsible and trying to fix this. It might not all be you.”

She stared at him, heart in her throat.

“Some of what’s happened—hell, most of what’s happened—might be because of me.”

“You keep saying that. But I don’t understand. Tell me.”

Though he looked reluctant, this time he held her gaze. That was Sean, never one to back down from bad news. “They might have gotten word that I wasn’t really dead. The Hungarian knows if that were true, you would be the one person who could bring me back to life.”

“The Hungarian used me to get to you? That makes no sense.”

“You asked about my accident, my family’s accident? There was no car crash, no accident.”

Bewildered, she put her hand to her throat. “If you’re telling the truth, there was one hell of a massive cover-up. Even SIS has the car crash in their files.”

“No car. No crash.”

Briefly, she closed her eyes. “Why? Why would anyone go to such lengths?”

“To protect you from the Hungarian. He’s sworn a vendetta on me.”

The old-fashioned word seemed out of place, wrong. “A vendetta?”

“Blood feud. That’s why he slaughtered my family.”

“Slaughtered?” Closing her mouth, she squared her shoulders. “Is that what really happened, Sean? Your mother, father, sister—he killed them? All of them?”

“Yes.” He inhaled, the sound loud in the quiet room. “He murdered my entire family for revenge.”

“Why? Because of Kitya Renkiewicz, his mistress?”

He shook his head. “I killed Kitya, but I had no choice. If I hadn’t shot her when I did, she would have killed me. But the Hungarian didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. My problems with him started long before Kitya.”

“That doesn’t explain why you faked your own death.”

“You were next. The only way I could stop him from coming after you was for him to believe I was dead.”

“You couldn’t come to me, tell me what was going on? Instead, you engineered a massive cover-up and faked your own death?”

He nodded.

In disbelief, she stared. Her pain felt ten times stronger faced with the unbelievable extent of his lies.

“This is all you can come up with?” She wanted to hit him. “I was your wife, the one person you could trust. You let me believe you were dead, ripped my heart out, and this is your explanation? Sean, I grieved for two years. Your death,” she spat the word, “changed my life.”

“It changed mine, too.”

She wanted to weep. “It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever—”

“It worked.”

“No. It didn’t. You’re here now. I’m getting shot at. Nothing worked.” Raising her gaze to his, she let him see the depths of her bitterness.

“Nat, I—”

“No.” She lifted her hand, managed a careless wave. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Ah, but I do.” The rancor seeped through to her voice, and she let it. “That’s why you need to drop it, Sean.”

“But—”

“If you want to work with me, don’t say another word.”

Turning her back, she blinked back tears. Their marriage had seemed so different, so real. Based on mutual respect and trust and love, or so she’d believed.

That only proved what a gullible fool she’d been.

No more.

“Go to sleep, Sean.” Without waiting for an answer, she got up, turned off the light and sat in the chair by the window.

“What about you?” His voice, combined with the room’s darkness, made her ache again.

“I’m going to sit here awhile.” She kept her tone curt. “I’ve got a lot to think about.”

Sean dreamed. For the past two years, he’d been unable to forget Natalie’s kiss. Or the feel of her body, supple and welcoming, wrapped around him while they made love.

Now, in his dream, he kissed her again, with all the ferocious passion pent up inside.

Instead of kissing him back, in his dream she froze, her huge amber eyes wide open.

He tried to deepen the kiss.

She made a sound of denial against his mouth.

Stunned, he backed away. What the hell was this? He knew she was angry with him. He didn’t blame her. But he’d been certain her fury would melt the instant his mouth touched hers. Always, always, always, the touch of his lips had made Natalie melt.

Not this time.

Made of ice, she hadn’t softened as he moved his mouth over hers. Hell, she hadn’t even parted her lips.

Had she really gotten over him so completely?

In his dream, sorrow engulfed him as he realized she had.

Worse, she didn’t understand why he’d done what he did. If she couldn’t handle that, how would she deal with the rest of his past?

He’d given her up to save her life. During the two years away from her, he’d almost managed to convince himself that he had no regrets.

He’d been lying.

The intensity of his pain woke him. Fully awake, he punched his pillow.

“Does your leg hurt?” Natalie’s voice, from across the room.

“Like hell.” Nearly as much as his heart. He pushed himself to a sitting position and clicked on the lamp, looking for her.

With her legs curled under her, she occupied the room’s single armchair. He couldn’t help but remember how she used to sit, head tilted just so, lost in the pages of a good book. This time, she’d been sitting in the dark, as lost in her thoughts as he’d been in his dream.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Blinking, she stared at him. The hostility in her voice dropped the temperature in the room ten degrees.

“You’re in no condition to go after anyone. I’m going to ask Corbett to get you out.”

He tried to move, to push himself out of the bed, but couldn’t make his leg go anywhere. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Sean, I’m perfectly capable of taking the Hungarian down alone. As it is now, you’ve become more of a liability than an asset.”

Stung, he bit back a sharp retort. “You’re using my leg as an excuse.”

Her reply was short and sweet. “Sorry. Sue me.”

He couldn’t believe the sweet irony of their situation. “Look. You can’t just dump me. You wanted to tag along with me to protect me, and the entire reason I wanted you nearby was to protect you.” He laughed, a tired, bitter sound, even to his own ears. “Admit it. And I’m not done protecting you yet.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

“Nor I yours.” He wished he could kiss her, hard and quick, like he had in the old days.

But he couldn’t, so he wouldn’t.

“How about a truce?” Her quiet question surprised him.

“I didn’t know we were at war.”

She shook her head, her short spiky hair making her look as if she’d just climbed from his bed. She was almost unbearably sexy.

Damn and double damn.

Swallowing, he collected his thoughts and tried again. “Look, we both want the same thing, right?”

She nodded. “I want to find him.”

“And learn who he is and why he—”

“Did what he did.”

“Yes.”

He held out his hand, bracing himself for the cool slide of her fingers into his.

“Let’s work together.”

“We’ve already tried that.” She didn’t take his hand. “You’re wounded. You need to go home. Once you’re healed, you can rejoin me.”

“I doubt you’d be alive.”

The statement didn’t appear to faze her.

“Such confidence you have in me,” she drawled. “Why don’t you let me worry about that, and you go back to doing what you do best—protecting your own ass.”

The barbs were getting sharper. He elected to opt out rather than continue slinging words.

“You know me. A little thing like this leg won’t get me down. We make a good team, Nat. Always have, always will.”

“Our marriage is over.”

He swallowed. Though she hadn’t meant it to be, that sentence was the most hurtful of all. “I’m not talking about our marriage. We are a working team, colleagues. You know that neither of us can get to the Hungarian alone. And to try to do so is suicide. Quit being so stubborn and admit it. Before you get yourself killed.”

Tilting her head, she considered his words, forced by their vehemence to put aside her personal feelings. “You may be right.”

“You know I am.”

Ignoring this, she continued. “If we’re going to be a real team, we need to lay down some ground rules.”

This should be interesting. “Like?”

“I’m in charge.” She said it so smoothly he wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly.

“Uh, no.”

She cocked her head, crossed her arms, and merely looked at him.

Still sexy as hell. But ten times more infuriating.

“Natalie, sweetheart—”

“I’m not your sweetheart.”

He tried again. “I’ve been doing this sort of thing far longer. I’m a trained assassin, for pity’s sake. I’m older, stronger and male.”

“So? Men lead and women follow, is that it?”

Since she had it pretty much in a nutshell, he didn’t see the need to elaborate. “You’ve got it.”

He waited for the explosion.

Instead, she threw back her head and laughed.

It was a truly amused, gut-rolling, belly-shaking laugh. The sort of laugh a confident woman had, a woman who knew what she was and where she was going.

Natalie had never, in the entire time he’d known her, laughed like that.

He stared at the beautiful woman who’d been his wife and finally acknowledged the truth. She’d become a stranger. Two years had passed, an eternity of living separately, time enough for both of them to change.

Though he might long for things to be as they’d been, too much water under the bridge ensured that could never happen.

Yet he couldn’t stop wanting her.

Despite the desire coiled in his gut, Sean had to sleep. Though his restless mind and tumbling thoughts tried to pump him full of adrenaline, his exhaustion was so complete that he found himself nodding off in the middle of Natalie’s next question.

“What?” he repeated, groggy and slow and wishing he could simply wrap himself around her and drift off to sleep.

“Get in the bed,” she repeated. “You look like you might pass out at any moment.”

Grateful, he crawled for the pillow, barely registering her touch as she tugged the blanket over him.

Outside, the rain beat steady and heavy, drowning out the noise of the traffic and the city. Sean’s last thought as he drifted off to sleep was how he’d give anything to wake up with Natalie warm and willing in his arms.