by Mary Wine
Kalin made sure Grace nodded before she reached for the infant. The baby boy fussed when taken from his mother.
“Rourke,” Grace said.
Kalin wasn’t sure if she was talking to her son or telling them what the baby’s name was, but the baby stuck his fist in his mouth and started sucking. Kalin laid him in the warming bed that was waiting. The doctor muttered as he finally had something to do. Grace watched him until he turned and nodded.
“Very healthy.”
“Your duties are finished,” Grace said pointedly. “Leave.”
The doctor didn’t care for being dismissed, but Grace leaned her head back and closed her eyes with relief once he was gone. “He won a coin toss to be the one in here because rumor has it I’m a psychic. Two of his comrades are hiding in the latrine to make sure they don’t have to come near me just in case I’m a witch.”
“In that case, I’m glad you threw him out.”
There were still things to do. Kalin attended to her patient as Grace rested. The baby was sleeping in the warming bed as time slowly passed. Kalin brought the warming bed up to Grace’s bedside so the new mother could touch her baby.
It gave her a moment to savor the feeling of being back in the job she loved. Somehow, she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed it. Being needed. It washed through her, filling her with a joy she realized she’d missed.
“Devon feels the same way when he’s with you.”
Kalin looked up and found Grace watching her. The woman’s emerald eyes really were stunning. Her coal-black hair complimented her eyes to perfection.
“He only recovered because you touched his feelings. Something he hasn’t allowed in a long time. Don’t let him push you away. I was just as stubborn once.”
The door opened and another doctor entered. Grace made a low sound of disgust.
“I’ll ring if we need help,” Kalin informed him.
The doctor had a mask on and gloves. He stopped and nodded. Kalin looked back at Grace with a smile but the warming bed the baby was in had moved.
“What are you doing?” Kalin snapped into county-hospital nurse mode like she’d never missed a day.
“Taking the baby to the nursery.”
He had hold of the warming bed and was pulling it away from the bedside. “The baby isn’t banded—” Kalin came around the delivery bed as she spoke.
Grace sat up, reaching for the warming bed. The doctor reached behind him and pulled out a gun.
“Get down!” Grace yelled.
Kalin threw herself to the floor as the doctor pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. The gun only made a soft sound because of a silencer on it. Kalin rolled, feeling the bite of the bullet through her left arm. There was a hard grunt as Grace hit the floor on the other side of the bed. She started to pull her legs up but her body shook before she slumped into a boneless heap.
Kalin gasped, blood was oozing down her shoulder as the gunman looked at Grace. Kalin rolled over, making sure her wound was visible and forced herself to fix her eyes and stare frozen into the air. She held her breath as the gunman looked back at her, the muzzle of the weapon pointed at her chest.
God damn it. Why had she let Gennaro take the tracking bracelet off her wrist?
She reached out with her thoughts and screamed at Devon.
She was happy.
Devon felt the glow radiating inside Kalin and realized it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever felt.
But he couldn’t give her that feeling.
His world would surround her with nothing but gray.
No, the best thing for them both was to take away the fact they had both recovered.
He walked past the quarters she’d been assigned and headed across the tarmac toward his room.
“Devon!”
He jerked and whipped around to face the medical facility. He was running before he pulled his communication link out of his pocket and pressed the panic buttons.
His heart was pounding as he jerked his gun out of its holster.
He couldn’t be too late again.
“Perfect.” The gunman looked at the slumped form of Grace on the floor, dismissing Kalin. The female Operative had passed out from hitting the floor but she wasn’t completely still, her eyelids fluttering as she fought for consciousness.
The gunman stuck his gun back into the waistband behind his back and reached into the warming bed to pick the baby up with gentle hands.
“Come on, little fellow.” The baby let out a sound, making the man hesitate. “I didn’t hurt ya none.”
Kalin had ended up near the chair where Grace’s clothing had been tossed. Since she was the nurse in the room and Grace hadn’t let the doctor near her, the clothing was still sitting there.
So was the gun she’d been wearing. Kalin reached for it, yanked it out of the holster and pushed the safety off before she pointed it at the gunman and pulled the trigger.
The man jerked, the force of the impact flinging him away from the warming bed. The baby dropped back into it and started whimpering. Crimson began to spread out over the gunman’s shoulder. He snarled and reached back for his gun.
Kalin fired again, this time hitting him in the chest. Blood splattered across the wall behind him. He looked down in shock before collapsing against the wall and sliding down to land on his butt.
“Good shot,” Grace grunted, watching her from beneath the delivery bed. She was blinking rapidly, fighting to hold on to consciousness. Her eyes were glassy with pain but she flattened her hands on the floor and pushed herself up anyway, grinding her teeth as she moved.
The gun was suddenly too heavy. Kalin let it drop to the floor as she felt Devon reaching out for her.
He was yelling, the force of the connection almost unbearable. She flattened her hand against her forehead as the doors burst in.
“Kalin!”
The scent of blood was strong. Devon almost puked but slid to his knees beside Kalin. Her scrub top was wet and glistening with blood. He shook as he reached for her and pulled her into his embrace. She was as limp as a rag doll.
“I can’t lose you.” He pulled her closer, trying to squeeze life back into her. “Don’t leave me.” He was begging and he didn’t give a shit.
“I love you.”
“You knocked her out, Ross.”
Devon lifted his head, looking across the room to where Grace was sitting on her knees. She was cradling her baby as Jacobs hovered.
“You made me see stars,” she bit out before baring her teeth at a doctor who made the mistake of trying to touch the baby.
“She’s breathing. Devon, you need to let her go.” Garrick was there, cupping his shoulder and pushing him back so that another doctor could reach in to touch Kalin. Devon wasn’t willing to let her go. He stood up, cradling her and carrying her into the hallway.
He was never going to let her go again.
She wasn’t sure what hurt more, her head or her shoulder. Kalin opened her eyes but everything was blurry.
“She’s coming around.”
Her sight cleared and so did her brain.
“Devon…”
It was just a statement because she knew he was there. His thoughts merged with hers as firmly as the hold he had on her hand.
“Kalin, can you tell me where you are?”
The doctor was following a routine she knew by heart, but all she was interested in was enjoying the way Devon was holding her, no walls between them.
“Ms. Smith? I’m Dr. Goodwyn. Can you tell me what happened?”
The doctor was pressing on her shoulder wound and pain knifed through her. She groaned, losing contact with Devon.
“Give her some morphine,” Devon snapped.
“No.” Kalin pulled him closer. “I get really…weird on morphine. You don’t want to se
e it.”
His lips twitched, curving up as his eyes filled with pleasure. “I want to see everything, Kalin. Everything.”
“But—”
He pressed his finger against her lips. But it wasn’t the end of their conversation. He was flooding her with things she’d only had hints of from him before. Those stolen moments in the dark, when he’d reached for her and she’d clung to him because of the sheer perfection she felt in his embrace.
“I love you.”
Did she think it or did he? There was no way to be sure, only that it was there and he wasn’t sliding a wall between them.
Dresner picked up his phone. “Yes?”
“Sir, we have a trace-back hit coming through on a mole line. Someone is searching for the source.” One of his tech engineers advised, “We need to kill it before they complete the trace.”
His computer screen lit up with the information. For a moment, he hesitated, not wanting to see what the computer was showing him.
“Sir? Two minutes.”
“Kill it.”
Dresner found himself battling the rise of an emotion. He set his phone down, stood up and walked across his office to dispel the sensation.
Emotions had no place in his world. Even something as important as a mole in such a critical position being lost was no cause for emotional responses.
Still, it was a huge loss. One that he might never be able to replace. He tapped one of the oversized touch screens mounted on the far side of his office and pulled up the pictures of Grace Campbell, Devon Ross and Kalin Smith. There were other pictures, of Operatives he had little information about.
So rare. So coveted.
He uttered a single profane word before closing out the file and moving on to another project.
The time would come.
Failure wasn’t in his vocabulary.
General Slynn studied the body. He looked up, noting the fresh blood splatters on the wall.
“We have a serious problem, gentlemen.”
Jacobs, Gennaro, Lorance and Polke all nodded, but it was Major Jason Jacobs who spoke up first.
“The MPs refused to let me post my own men in here. I need full power of authority when it comes to my Operative.”
“Agreed,” the general answered. “You’ll all be receiving new operating rules. This proves Turvel wasn’t acting alone in his attempt to secure your Operative. Makes me sorry I had him shot before I found out who he was working with. That was an oversight that can’t be allowed to happen again.”
Jason Jacobs was still fighting to hold his tongue. But that only made the general more certain of his value.
“Your teams will be increasing to four birds. Pull the men you need. Colonel Jacobs, you will expand to eight birds since you have three Operatives. New rank effective immediately.” He snapped them a salute before leaving.
Jason Jacobs was close on his heels, but he turned down a different hallway and headed for a door being guarded by his men. Grace looked up when he pushed in the door of her room after a single rap.
“How is Kalin?”
Jacobs didn’t stop until he was next to her bedside. “She’ll make a full recovery. I’m not so sure the MPs who kicked my men out when you went into delivery will if I ever set eyes on them.”
“I never suspected it went deeper than Turvel and Fredricks.” She was sitting cross legged on the bed, her newest son lying in front of her. “Am I losing my home?”
“No.” Jason reached out and let the baby grasp his finger. “Slynn promoted me and doubled the size of the unit.” The communications tablet in his shirt pocket chirped. He pulled it out and unlocked it.
“Brice is here.”
Grace smiled. Jacobs watched her for a few more minutes before there was a knock on the door and Brice Campbell entered. Jacobs moved back, letting Grace introduce her son to his father. He retreated from the room and found Garrick in the hallway, because Devon was in the room across from Grace.
Garrick glanced through the door while it was open, gaining a glimpse of Grace as her husband slid an arm around her.
“A lot of us wondered why you didn’t hook up with her.”
Jacobs shook his head. “I’m too much a part of the machine that surrounds her. It takes someone from the outside to crack the shell our Operatives build to protect themselves from the realities of their lives. You and I chose this career. They are caught in it.”
“I see your point.”
The door opened to the room Devon was in. Kalin was the patient but Devon was planted next to her side and Garrick was pretty sure it would take half his unit to drag him away.
“That little civilian in there is more unique than anyone realizes,” Jacobs observed. “I’m indebted to her now myself.”
“So am I,” Garrick answered. “I think she might have saved Devon’s life.”
“She did,” Jacobs confirmed. “By forcing him to see that everyone needs more than just missions. Beneath it all, we’re all human. Including you, Gennaro.”
Jason Jacobs gave him a pointed look before he cut him a salute and walked down the hallway. Garrick Gennaro watched Devon for a few more minutes.
“He looks good.”
Gennaro snapped a salute out as Slynn came around the corner.
“Yes, sir, he does.”
“This one is going to do better in his life,” the general said. “She’s got the guts to be his partner instead of his pet.”
Garrick nodded. “I think you’re right, sir.”
And it certainly felt right. Something Garrick realized he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Chapter Eight
If there was a spot on her body that didn’t hurt the next morning, Kalin couldn’t find it.
“Sure you don’t want the morphine?”
She sat up and glanced across the room to find Devon watching her. But her surroundings didn’t look familiar. The bed was huge and set back behind a half wall. She had a dim memory of stumbling along with him the night before, being more carried than walking if she were honest, but details were in short supply.
“I don’t like wondering if someone is in my quarters,” he offered from the office that was set across the way from the bed. “So no full walls. I had it modified.”
“This is your—”
“Place,” he supplied. “I’ve never called it a home.”
There was a kitchen but a real lack of personal items. Yet there was a sense of intimacy in knowing that he’d brought her to his bed that touched her deeply.
“How long has it been since you had a home?” she asked.
He came across the large expanse of the main room, entering the bedroom through what had once been a double doorway but was now just a wide entrance. He climbed right up onto the bed and cupped her cheek.
“You need love to make a home.”
His touch was divine, filling her with happiness. “You do, Devon.”
“I can’t promise you a place like Grace’s. She might be losing that this week.”
She felt him pulling back and reached out to grab a fistful of his shirt. “I love you, Devon, and if you start making excuses for why you need to walk away—”
“I can’t.” He closed his eyes and she felt something wash through him that sent tears into her eyes. “Seeing you there…bleeding…I can’t let you go.”
She slowly smiled and flattened her hand against his chest, absorbing the feeling of his heart beating. “Best words I’ve ever heard from you, Devon Ross.”
He pulled her into his embrace, crushing her against him until she yelped from the pressure on her shoulder. He laughed and let her loose.
“According to Grace, you could use a little target practice.” He flashed her a grin as he went about finishing dressing. She felt privileged to be included in something as mu
ndane as a morning conversation. The reason was simple. She was part of his world.
“Gee…thanks,” she answered as she climbed out of the bed. “I hit the guy, didn’t I?”
“Killed him, but with two rounds.” He held up two fingers and wore an expression that said her shots had been okay but nothing worth bragging about.
“So sue me.”
“Got something else in mind for you, Kalin Smith.”
Devon crossed his arms over his chest and his lips split into a wide, arrogant smile.
“What is that cocky grin for?” she asked, pausing in the bathroom doorway. “Basking in your victory of stealing my heart?”
“I’m thinking you’re going to marry me today.”
She propped one hand on her hip. “Is that a fact?”
He nodded. “You love me.”
“And you can’t let me go,” she countered. “But that’s not telling me you love me.”
“Yes, it is.” His expression became serious. “I can’t live without you. It’s deeper than love. It’s complete dependency. Love, a man might go to the ends of the earth for. But addiction? That’s something I’d kill for.”
“You sweet talker.”
He shrugged, but his eyes were glittering with something she hadn’t seen before.
True happiness.
Her own grew glassy with tears.
“What does your lab-coat team think about you getting married?”
He grinned again. “I didn’t ask them. Took that little bit of advice from Grace. She told Slynn she was getting married. I did the same. He’s brushing off his dress uniform.”
“I love you even more.” She moved back toward him and rose onto her toes to kiss him.
Something flickered in his eyes, something he was shielding her from feeling. He finally broke, his lips rising back into that cocky smile.
“According to the blood tests, you’re pregnant.”
Her belly did a little flip as her mouth went dry. Devon smoothed his hands over her lower back, waiting to see her response. The tears escaped from her eyes but her lips rose in a smile that was pure joy.
Devon Ross, the man, smiled just as brightly back.
It was more than a shotgun wedding. It was one with multiple automatic rifles.
