by R. T. Wolfe
She didn't care about her shit. Her yet-to-be-touched cello was in the foyer still in its stand. As the two men ducked out the front door, she opened the case and gently placed the beauty in it. She finished snapping the latches as another window shattered at the side of the house. Protecting the case like it was a child, she ran to the open door.
They'd left the passenger door ajar for her. If anyone shot her cello, they were gonna die a slow and painful death. She dove in, slamming the door behind her as a single bullet sank in the metal.
Eddy spun the tires on the police-issued unmarked. "Pretty boy's cello? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"It's a Stradivarius."
Two more bullets, one right after the other, hit the headlight and the passenger window. Glass flew at the back of her head.
The car fishtailed, and Eddy yelled, "There's only one way out."
"I know."
"The drive is almost a mile long."
"I know."
"There are frigging trees everywhere." Chips of glass blew into the backseat. Parker slouched with one arm covering his head and the other holding his FBI-issued T-shirt to his bloody nose.
Then, there was nothing. Only the wind blowing through the gaping space left from the back window.
Eddy didn't let up off the gas. "This can't be good," he said.
As they flew down the drive, she scanned the trees and the road in front and back. The trees blocked out the last bits of setting sun and the beams of light made the shadows move and seem as if things ran all around them. Her phone vibrated, and then rang. It was Duncan's ringtone. Oh no. It was Duncan telling her he was here.
"Duncan, it's me," she said as she answered while hanging on to the bouncing dash. "Stay away, please."
"And a hello to you, my lovely wife."
"I mean it, Duncan. We've been made. We're on the run."
"Where are you? Ah, I see you."
He saw her? That was when she heard it. A helicopter. "Eddy, pull over."
He didn't stop.
"Stop here now!" she yelled.
Eddy slowed but didn't stop fast enough for her liking.
"That's Duncan. Pull over!"
"Oh, hell," Eddy said and stopped the car. He craned over the steering wheel and looked out the space where the windshield had been. "Frigging knight in shining armor."
Ignoring him, she checked the surroundings. Road, trees, bleeding witness in the backseat. Her heart beat out of her chest. It might have been from the thought of Duncan coming to get them out of this mess, but she would never admit it.
He landed in the road ahead of them. She glanced at the cello case, then back to Parker, then to Eddy.
He threw up his arms and said, "I'll get the scum in the back."
She ran in low, cradling the case, with Eddy and Parker on her heels. The wind from the helicopter blades blew the trees, making their whereabouts visible for miles.
She recognized the pilot. Andrew flew helicopters as well as small jet planes?
"Incoming at nine o'clock and six o'clock," Duncan said. "Off-road vehicles." He paused and stared at the only thing in any of their arms. He grinned as he guided her into the copter. "You brought the cello?" he asked with brows lifted high.
"It's a Stradivarius," she argued. "Thanks, by the way."
He held out a hand to Parker, then to Eddy.
Eddy held his arms up and said, "Touch me, and I kick your ass."
The first shot struck the tail and was followed by a sea of bullets. "Move it, move it, move it," Nickie ordered. They lifted off before Eddy's butt was in a seat.
Duncan lifted a weapon from between the seats and started shooting out a side door. It was a machine gun. AR-15. Andrew spun the copter as he lifted off, allowing Duncan to spray the perimeter of the area.
"Holy what the fuck," Eddy screamed like a girl as he covered Parker's body with his own.
"I have grenades in the box," Duncan yelled over the sound of the wind, the helicopter and gunfire.
She dug in and grabbed two. Pulling the pins, she hauled one and the other out the door on the opposite side of the copter. Vehicles appeared out of the trees and skidded on the road next to the deserted police-issued unmarked.
"Black SUVs," she said. "I'm really tired of black SUVs." Long, lanky fingers wrapped around hers. Oh no, Duncan. He was taking fire from inside a helicopter. Her glance darted to his face. She scanned every inch of it, judging his mental and emotional state of mind. This was how his platoon died in front of him. The reason for his PTSD.
She read calm and collected. She also spotted a large goose egg bump on the side of his head. He didn't smile with his mouth, but he did with his eyes. She had a thousand questions but decided to take the moment to be thankful. Thankful they escaped. Thankful Parker wasn't floating in a pool with a bullet in his head. Thankful they had a plan for taking down Fu Haizi and that the new cello her husband bought her rested safely next to the AR-15.
* * *
Duncan had much to share, to plan. The clock was ticking, and he found himself in unfamiliar territory, that of impatience. His Nickie was alive and unharmed. She sat next to him with the wind blowing the scent of her freshly washed hair over him. She was busy reviewing the events of the past twenty-four hours with the disgraced Officer Dale Parker. Although he heard every word, as she spoke, she mindlessly tugged at the inseam of his pants, making his mind travel to places it shouldn't in such a scenario.
He hadn't seen his Nickie naked in nearly forty-eight hours. The time frame may be brief in regards to the direction of his thoughts, but a lifetime of events had happened in that forty-eight hours. Some events sent them forward in their quest. Some pulled them backward, which only served to send his mind into thoughts of pulling forward and backward.
He opened his eyes wide and shook his head three times, which caused her to stop talking and turn to him. She must have read the inappropriate expression on his face because she said, "Oh." Thankfully, no one else seemed to interpret the situation.
Pulling her hand away and to her lap, she continued, "Parker found a transmitter device in the pocket of his FBI-issued pants."
"What kind of a transmitter?"
"I'm not sure," she said.
Duncan extended both arms, one behind Nickie and the other on his knee. He looked to Dale whose nose swelled as they spoke.
"It was in the watch pocket," Dale said around the crusted blood.
"The what?" Eddy asked as Nickie moved her legs so her thigh brushed against Duncan's.
"The watch pocket," Duncan answered. "The small pocket inside the right side pocket of jeans. Take off your shoes." They could hide a transmitter as well.
Eddy huffed. "I'm not taking off my shoes."
"Not you, Eddy. Dale. Take off your shoes, Dale."
"Me?"
Duncan ignored the question. "And the jeans." They had a button fly. "The T-shirt can stay."
Dale opened his mouth as if he might try to protest as well, but Nickie and Eddy both lifted from their seats, chests out and arms wide, so he quickly toed off the shoes and slid off the pants.
"Whitey tighties?" Nickie snorted as she sat back down close enough that her hip pressed into Duncan's. An electric current connected the fabrics.
Dale nodded. "FBI issued."
"I liked him better in the hospital gown," Eddy said and sneered.
Duncan lifted the shoes and jeans and tossed them out the open side door. "I have a pair of pajama pants you can wear in the storage compartment. I'll get them to you when we arrive."
"Where are we going?" Nickie asked.
"My brother's home."
"Oh great," she said. "He's never going to let us live this down."
Duncan lifted the corner of his mouth.
"There's gonna be a lot of I-told-you-so goin' on."
Glancing to the cello case that rested on the floor beneath his seat, Duncan said, "You are worried about jeers from my brother regarding the use of his home and not the
fact that you risked your life to bring an instrument in an escape vehicle?"
Her beautiful chin dropped for several seconds before she smiled and shook her arms in the air. "It's a Stradivarius!"
"Does it play well?"
The smile faded. "I maybe haven't played it yet."
He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers.
Her lids closed, and her chest expanded.
"You two are making me wanna puke," Eddy said.
* * *
The sound of heavy boots came from the mudroom between the garage and the kitchen. Nickie slid her hand from the top of the kitchen table and placed it on her gun.
"Shoes off," Rose said, holding Andy Jr. on her hip at the kitchen sink.
It was Andy. Nickie placed her hand back on the table. The kid squirmed at the sight of his dad and wiggled from his mother's arms. It was like his legs were the only thing that moved as he ran to Andy, who was back in the mudroom.
He came back wearing house slippers with A.J. bouncing on his shoulder. Xena padded through the kitchen and ran to Nickie as if she hadn't just seen her a half hour ago. Her tail wagged furiously as she did her half whine, half cry thing and wiggled in a figure eight.
Andy spoke as if a kid wasn't squealing at the top of his lungs on his shoulder. "Perimeter is secure. Abigail or Xena would have sensed if something was out there."
A horse and a dog. Both loyal and with senses that beat any electrical security system.
"Okay," Rose said and hefted a diaper bag over her shoulder. "Off to Grandma's we go."
The kid couldn't talk yet, but he seemed to know what that meant as the squealing increased, and he started doing figure eights with the dog. It was all a little overwhelming for Nickie, and she stayed put in her seat at the kitchen table.
"Mamaw, mamaw," A.J. said and jumped up and down with both feet. So, maybe he could talk some.
Andy kissed Rose longer than was comfortable for everyone else in the room. Was Nickie the only one who noticed how Rose held her stomach low like she carried a shirt full of berries?
"Is this what I'm wearing?" Parker said as Rose and A.J. left. He had on the sweats Duncan used as pajamas and the bloodstained white T-shirt the FBI had given him. Duncan hovered around six feet tall, but he was no comparison to Parker's height. The pants were too short, and no one had shoes that fit him.
Struggling to keep a straight face, Nickie said, "We'll get you something tomorrow. Be glad you're not full of bullet holes."
"Yet," he mumbled and sauntered away to the adjacent room.
"Don't go out of my sight," Nickie called. Parker waved a hand over his shoulder.
Eddy, Andy, Duncan and she sat around the kitchen table. In that order. The seats were the bench kind and wound around the table like a horseshoe. It was simple and rustic and sat in a bumped out nook that overlooked the back of the Reed Ranch, as they liked to call it. She slid her hand on Duncan's thigh. It was warm and flexed beneath her grasp.
The black out there was endless. Had they missed a tracer somewhere on Parker? Was something slipped onto Nickie or Eddy when they teamed with the FBI? Were there dozens of men in the trees, ready to breach the farm at any moment?
Andy glanced in Parker's direction, then leaned in and said, "What did Special Agent Hurst have to say for himself?"
Nickie sighed. "I haven't told him." She hadn't even told the Lyonses yet, since the news of the breach would go directly to Hurst.
Andy popped the top of his beer and threw back a gulp. "You gonna wait 'til the morning?"
Duncan elaborated. "She may not tell him."
Andy stopped mid-sip. "Nice," he said and nodded. "Stick it to the man."
"Or at least I'm going to wait until I'm on the road. I interrogate my father and Jun Zheng first thing in the morning. I'll call him when I'm well on my way. I'm not saying he leaked the Lyonses' location, but it might be better for everyone involved if he doesn't know where the witness is being held." She really liked her job, but her tendencies to break the rules and direct orders made her wonder how much longer she'd be able to keep it.
Duncan wrapped his hand around the inside of her thigh. Her eyes grew wide and she looked away, brushing a thumb to the side of her nose. "It's late. I'm beat." She'd just slept for hours at the Lyonses' now bullet-filled vacation house.
Eddy rolled his eyes. He was doing that a lot lately. "I'll take first watch."
"Thanks, man," Nickie said and left the three of them at the table. She wasn't used to covert flirting and hoped Duncan took the hint. As she headed for the room Rose had prepared for her, she recognized the contrast between this and Lyonses' place.
The floors were stained wood instead of marble or whitewashed hardwood. The walls were covered in family pictures framed in matching wooden frames of different sizes and shapes. Animals were in the frames as well as family. Ouch. There was one of Nickie at her first family Fourth of July party. She looked like a deer stuck in headlights.
Her room was the one right after a framed photo of Rose holding a bald eagle tethered to her gloved arm. On the edge of the bed, Rose had placed a shower kit and change of clothes and... she would kiss her sister-in-law the next time she saw her... a curling iron.
The sound of familiar steps walking down the hall sent chills from her head to her toes.
Chapter 14
Duncan knew his feet moved at a regular pace, but it felt as if they waded through molasses. His wife waited on the other side of the door in the middle of the hallway. If they'd been alone, he would have picked her up in his arms and took her there on the kitchen table... if they'd been alone and if his rib cage wasn't covered in bruises.
They hadn't been married long enough that he could yet judge her unspoken signals, and the times they'd needed to communicate covertly rarely included sex. His feet paused as he doubted his interpretation of her kitchen table gestures and expressions.
She'd survived the past forty-eight hours on little sleep, a horrific failed rescue operation and narrow escape with a prisoner in witness protection. Yet, the news of a Fu Haizi headquarters and the potential July 2nd international sting operation appeared to give her a sense of hope Duncan had not seen in her before. His feet continued. The door was open. He stepped in, and she was there.
When she brought her face to his, she pulled her shoulders in tight and rested a hand on each side of his jaw. Her hips pressed against him, challenging his patience as man and husband.
He dug the tips of his fingers into her back and set his forehead to hers. He would be here for her as she was for him. A single palm left his face and trailed a line down his chest. His mind crossed over to a place of no return before her hand reached its destination. He used their joined bodies to close the door behind them and dug in.
The air left his lungs, and his head dipped to her shoulder. He slid a hand around from her back and cupped her in his hands, grabbing and kneading.
Her mouth was warm and needy. Lips and tongues joined, fought, meshed, and taunted as he and Nickie worked buttons and zippers and released fabric. Flesh. The heated, needy flesh of his wife.
Her eyes grew large. "Duncan, your ribs."
"It's nothing," he said and, for now, it was the truth.
Her fingers traced the ruby red bruises, then the outline of the tattoo on his left pectoral. A single, silky leg lifted and twined around his backside, pulling heat to heat.
"My Nickie, my wife," he crooned and trailed his tongue down her neck and over her shoulder. His hands couldn't be in enough places at once. The door served as a brace, and he pressed against her, raising her arms above her head.
Drawing his hand down her stomach, he didn't stop until he heard a quick intake of air. He covered her mouth with his to muffle any cries or moans.
"There, there, there. Oh, Duncan." She clung to his shoulders as the muscles in her legs collapsed under her weight. Her body shook. She left his lips and pressed her teeth into his shoulder. Lifting her other leg, he dove
in. His Nickie, his wife. Joined. They rocked and moved. He had to see her face, her eyes. He held her as he craned his neck away to look into the steel gray.
The sight of a tear that dripped from the corner of her eye made him pause, but she moved closer to him, around him. And she smiled. The smile sent him over. It was instant and powerful and more than he could have expected.
Her thighs squeezed around him as she linked the backs of her feet together. They remained joined, and he pressed their cheeks together, supporting her weight with both hands on her butt. As she came down, he felt a sigh that seemed to come from her entire body.
"Thank you," she said. "I feel much better."
He grinned. "I'm happy to be of assistance, but my ribs..."
"Oh," she gasped and slid her legs down, one at a time. "I'm so sorry. That must have hurt."
The smile was more than a grin this time. "I feel much better actually. Thank you."
"I'm in love with you," she said and made everything else in this life obsolete.
Leaning over, she gathered her clothing. "Can we lie together for a few minutes? I've only been up for six hours, but I could use some Duncan time." As she stood, she grinned and bit her bottom lip. "Some of the other kind of Duncan time."
As she shut the adjacent bathroom door, he pondered their sex life and how much it had increased since she quit taking birth control. He slipped on his boxer briefs and pulled down the sheets of his brother's guest bed.
Their moments of discussions regarding a family had become fewer ever since the fire. Or was it because Nickie had discovered her mother was the one who had pulled the strings of Nickie's life since her escape from trafficking captivity? Or was it the plethora of other obstacles that kept barricading forward movement in her life?
She stepped out of the bathroom wearing only the shirt from his back she had removed from him moments before. Lifting his arm, she crawled next to him and shifted her back into him. His arm snaked around and pulled her into him.
"Duncan," she mumbled. "What if they find him? What if Parker's right and they find him and kill him?"
"What if they don't and he testifies?"
