Mask of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  And Ace had done what he’d been tasked to do. The drug corridor was shut down. For now. Taz had shot Ace in the shoulder, but he’d managed to escape the worst of the blast. He’d survived the surgery, but he’d need physical therapy to regain full use of his arm.

  Sebastian had one more stop to make before he could close the books on this case.

  HALF LYING ACROSS the side of Ace’s hospital bed, Rory propped the rest of her body in a chair. The mechanical music of Ace’s pulse reassured her. As long as the machine beeped, he was alive. She’d been holding on to his right hand, fingers laced, since they’d allowed her into the room—as if letting go of it would mean giving up hope. The nurses had tried to get her to take a break. She’d accepted their offers of coffee, but refused to budge.

  She heard a slow shuffling noise behind her. Because it didn’t fit the pattern of brisk efficiency she’d grown accustomed to, Rory flexed her head. Bianca stood shyly in the doorway, her hair a dark river against the waxy skin of her face. Sitting up, Rory waved her in. Dressed in a hospital gown and robe, Bianca took tentative steps. Her hands worried the hems of the opposite sleeve and, biting her lower lip, she slowly hiked her gaze to her brother’s supine figure. “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

  Bianca looked like hell—probably because she’d been through it. But she also looked remorseful, as if the mental pain of what she’d done was worse than the physical pain of withdrawal.

  “The doctor said he was going to be just fine once he wakes up.” Rory gave a tentative smile, but the weight of its falsehood soon collapsed it. Even with the dark stubble on his jaw, he looked too pale against the white sheets. Lines of pain creased his forehead. And the bandage swaddling his left shoulder swallowed half of him. She’d give anything to hear him call her sweetheart, to have him tease her, to have him push all her buttons. “The bullet missed all the vital parts.”

  “I’m sorry.” Bianca stuffed a strand of hair in her mouth and chewed it nervously. “I—I never meant for him to get hurt.”

  “You can tell him when he wakes up.”

  The girl nodded, torn, it seemed, between wishing to see Ace awaken and wishing she wouldn’t have to face him with her sins. “I, uh, have to go back,” she said, half-turning toward the door. “Liv is coming to pick me up in a bit. She said I could stay with them until Ace gets out of the hospital.”

  “You’ll like her. She’s a nice lady.”

  Bianca nodded uncertainly. “Thank you.” Her foot drew an invisible arc around her. More protection? “For getting me out of that barn.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I, uh, sold you out.”

  “I know.”

  “For meth.” She winced.

  “You were lucky. Next time you might not be. I hope you’ll use that lesson and what happened to your brother to straighten yourself out.” Rory knew she sounded preachy, but she didn’t care. Bianca had almost caused her brother’s death.

  “I want to.” Her forehead rucked painfully. “But it gets to you, you know.” Her head bowed down to her chest. “Sometimes…it’s stronger than I am.”

  “But you’re a fighter,” Rory said, feeling sorry for the girl, wanting somehow to give her hope. “Like your brother. He’ll help you.”

  Bianca’s gaze traced a triangle from Rory’s bandaged wrists, to her brother’s closed eyes, then back to Rory’s face. “You love him.”

  “Yes.” So much it hurt. So much she didn’t know what to do with the crush of feeling. So much she could hardly bear to see him so still and lifeless.

  Bianca’s dark eyes watered. She scratched at her forearms. “You can have him.”

  Having this girl offer her her most precious possession tore a chunk out of Rory’s heart. “It’s not an ‘either or,’ Bianca. I love him, and I’m going to be in the picture whether you want me to or not.” She wasn’t running away. Not this time. If he would have her, she would stay. “But he loves you. And you’ll always be part of his life, too.”

  Sniffing back tears, Bianca nodded and left as silently as she’d come.

  Bianca didn’t believe her. Not yet. But she would.

  “LOOK WHO I FOUND,” Sebastian said. Rory could not read the set of his face. It was hard and rigid, except for the smile of lines around his beaming eyes.

  He’d woken her from a nightmare in which she searched banks of data for the key to something—she wasn’t sure what. She could not find her way out of the maze of computers. She was alone in this huge, dark room and all she could hear was the ragged sound of her frantic breath and the strident stutter of her shoes on concrete.

  He tugged on a sleeve just out of Rory’s sight. Slowly, Felicia materialized.

  “Rory?” Her sister’s blue eyes were filled with tears.

  “Felicia.” It was a whisper. Emotions drummed through her in a cacophony. Letting go of Ace’s hand, she flew across the room and crushed her sister in her arms. Tears streamed and laughter bubbled out in equal measures.

  Holding on tight, they both started speaking at once. “I knew you were alive,” Rory said, voice kite-high.

  “I knew you’d come.” Solid sureness buoyed on pure emotion.

  Sebastian herded them to the waiting room where Liv bounced Hannah on her knees. A man sat two chairs down, uneasy as an uninvited guest at a family reunion.

  Felicia reached for her daughter and sat next to the man. Liv rose and took Sebastian’s hand. “We’ll be down with Bianca.”

  Rory took Liv’s seat and could not let go of her sister’s solid reality. Questions poured out of her, “What happened? Where were you? Are you all right?”

  “It’s a long story.” Babbling, Hannah poked at her mother’s lips and Felicia kissed the tiny fingers.

  “I have to know.”

  Felicia reached for the purple bear sticking out of the diaper bag and handed it to Hannah. “Mike wanted me dead because he was sure the drug case against him would vanish if I wasn’t around to testify. Mike’s brother, Curtis, helped him.”

  “I know. But what happened? Why was Karla in the trunk of your car?”

  “I had to leave Hannah.” Felicia kissed the top of her daughter’s head and squeezed the squirming body as if she would never again let Hannah go. “It was the only way to keep her safe. But it ripped me, you know. Leaving her’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So I stopped by Karla’s for courage—” Guilt brought fresh tears. “If I hadn’t, she’d still be alive.”

  “You had no way of knowing.”

  Felicia shook her head, waving away the easy pardon. “Curtis was there, at Karla’s, waiting. He made both of us get into the car.” She scrunched her shoulders up in apology. “He had a gun.”

  Rory squeezed her sister’s knee. “You did what you had to do.”

  Felicia’s gaze went fuzzy—as if she’d traveled back in time. Her voice became flat. “He drove us back to the cabin. Mike was inside. He cracked a tire iron against Karla’s head and she went down. I tried to help her, but he came at me. I managed to grab the tire iron, but when I was wrestling for control, I fell down the cellar steps. Mike told Curtis to finish me off, then they’d get rid of the car.”

  The man stirred in his seat and leaned in close to Felicia.

  “Curtis refused, saying he wasn’t a killer. I got scared. I didn’t know what to do. I was in no shape to fight either of them. So I played dead.”

  “Smart move.”

  “All I kept thinking was of Hannah.” The pure love on her sister’s face pierced Rory’s heart. Having this baby had changed her—in the best of ways. “I couldn’t let him hurt her. I knew you’d come. I knew you’d take care of her.”

  They held on to each other, letting solid flesh soothe the wounds fear had carved over the past few weeks.

  Curtis had wrapped Karla up in the rug and thrown her in the trunk. Mike had carried Felicia and stuffed her in the driver’s seat. Then they’d dumped the car in the river.

  “I tried to stay
calm and not panic. I couldn’t swim out right away because Mike was there, waiting for the car to sink. The car was filling with water. And it started turning upside down. I was so scared.” Felicia shivered. Rory comforted her. “The water was so cold. When it got to my head, I took a deep breath and held it. I was able to swim away from the car and to the shore.”

  “Felicia barely made it out,” a soft voice beside her said. Rory looked up and for the first time realized who the man was. Simon Bales. The vet. Concern shone in his eyes. “She passed out on the shore. I found her there when I went fishing after a hard day of calving.” He looked at Felicia as if she were the center of his universe. She reached for his hand and held it against her heart. “I wanted her to call the police, but she talked me into hiding her and saying nothing.”

  Hannah squealed for attention, and Felicia rearranged the baby in her lap, bringing her closer to Simon. Hannah shared Felicia’s features and Simon’s coloring. The whole created an utterly perfect family portrait.

  “That day in the supermarket,” Simon said, “Felicia sent me to check on you. Make sure you and Hannah were okay. I followed you to the swap meet, then when you stopped at the market, I thought I’d get dinner and get a closer look at Hannah. I wanted to tell Felicia her baby was happy and healthy.”

  “That filly remark…” Rory said.

  He looked sheepish. It was nice to know a man as big as he was could blush. “You looked so heartbroken—just like Felicia. I wanted to tell you. But I’d promised.”

  And in keeping his promise, he’d saved her life. He stroked Felicia’s hair the way a lover would, and Rory knew she no longer had to worry about her sister.

  PAIN DIDN’T SLAM into Ace quite as hard the second time he woke up. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a froth of red frizz tickling his arm. The softness of it cut across the pain. The cinnamon scent of it edged out the clinical stink of the hospital room. There was such comfort in the weight of Rory’s warmth against him that for a moment he lost himself in the simple contentment.

  He wanted more of this. He wanted to wake up next to her every morning. He wanted the fire-gold eyes, the flame-red hair, the pure dynamite temper. Unstable maybe. But he was used to thinking on his feet. And now that he was leaning toward becoming a nine-to-five, white-picket-fence type of guy, he’d need that uncertainty to keep life interesting.

  “Marry me,” he said as he tangled his fingers into her hair.

  Her head jerked up. Joy beamed from her face. “Ace! You’re awake.”

  “Marry me.”

  Her eyes darkened to a molten gold as hot as embers—and he couldn’t wait to stoke them to red-hot passion.

  “Wow, must be some powerful drugs they have you on.”

  With his good hand, he reached for her chin and drew her down to him. Her loose hair curtained off the rest of the room, and in that little cocoon, it was just him and her. He kissed her and she softened at his touch. Warm, electric, his. He needed that more than he needed painkillers or physical therapy. “Are you going to make me beg?”

  “I’m not going to tie you down to a proposal made under the influence.” But she was smiling, a bright sunshine smile that dazzled him and made him forget he’d almost gotten himself blown to bits.

  “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.” He tried to laugh, but the movement quaked pain up and down his body. “I saw my life flash before my eyes.”

  “That was just the lab blowing up.” The worry in her eyes canceled out the levity of her words.

  “I’d decided even before then. I’ll go down to D.C. with you.”

  “I quit my job.”

  “You did?” But the surprise slowed him down for only a beat. “So, is there some place you’ve always wanted to go?”

  Her gaze moved away, thoughtful for a second. “West.”

  “That covers a lot of territory.”

  She cocked her head, a challenge. “We have a lifetime, don’t we?”

  “Does that mean yes?”

  Her fingers traced the edge of the bandage covering his shoulder. “You should know that my nursing instincts are about on par with my mothering instincts.”

  He slanted her the most wicked grin he could muster. “No need to look anything up, sweetheart. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, I could use a little TLC right now.”

  She frowned. “Your arm—”

  “My lips aren’t broke.”

  With a finger, she sketched the outline of his mouth. The gold in her eyes fired sparks. “They look just fine.”

  “So kiss them.”

  She brushed her lips against his tenderly, lovingly, caringly. Then she deepened the kiss and set a slow blaze smoldering inside him.

  “Like that?” she asked, wearing an impish grin.

  “Oh, yeah.” He kissed her back, feeling his chest expand, his heart flutter. “I’m definitely going to need more of that medicine.”

  She pulled away and looked deep into his eyes. The curtain that so often shuttered her gaze dropped. Like a lens opening wide, her pupils dilated, allowing him to see down to her soul. He loved her. More than he’d ever imagined.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes, what?” He needed to hear the words.

  “I love you. I’ll marry you.”

  She stretched herself alongside him, and he sighed, holding her as close as he could manage. “Bianca’s not out of the woods. She’s not going to make the next couple of years a picnic.”

  “That’s why you need me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sure.” She teased his earlobe with her teeth. “Two adults to one teenager. It evens out the odds.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “She has Hannah and Simon—remember the vet? He hid her and kept her safe. She doesn’t need me.” She gazed up at him. “I don’t think we’ll ever take each other for granted again. Even if we don’t live in the same town, we’ll find a way to stay part of each other’s lives.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I have something for you.” Without leaving his side, she stretched her arm down beside the bed and came up with a newspaper and a bakery bag. The devil played all over her face as she unfolded the paper and shook out the Sunday funnies. She reached into the bakery bag and brought out a fat cinnamon roll, dripping with icing. “Did I get it right?”

  Chuckling, he took a bite from the roll and snuggled her close. Sundays and cinnamon. She’d got it more than right. “Perfect.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-3765-0

  MASK OF A HUNTER

  Copyright © 2004 by Sylvie Kurtz

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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  * Flesh and Blood

  † The Seekers

 

 

 
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